The thread ends here.

Just these few short lines, you can’t see any real substance in them, but the popularity is through the roof, completely baffling.

Fang Yu kept scrolling down to read the other replies...

"What?! We even have a dynasty??"

"Huh? We actually have a country?"

"Come on, bro, you two upstairs are real newbies, huh? What did you think all those Foolish Underworld branches in every town and village were? Some kind of folk-run franchise chain?? Try using your brain a little, will you!"

"Stop bragging, stop bragging, what Foolish Underworld, my Xiang Family has stomped it into the mud under our feet, they’re just my family’s lackey servants, what the hell are they even yapping about!"

The next reply didn’t say anything, it was just a doodle: a woman facing the camera, pointing to the right, with an expression like she’s watching an idiot talk and can’t help laughing out loud.

"Dude, seriously! Some hick backwater Foolish Underworld and you think it’s worth showing off? If you’ve got the guts, come bump into the Foolish Underworld in Zuoxing City, I’ll let you know what ’commoners don’t fight the government’ really means!"

Hostility.

Fang Yu could clearly feel the gunpowder in the air between Player and Player.

The forum atmosphere seemed to have shifted from the initial harmony and friendly game discussion to all kinds of weird vibes: one‑upmanship, mockery, putting others down, and so on.

Fang Yu frowned slightly, but didn’t think too much about it, because just these replies alone were nowhere near enough to push this thread to the top of the hot list.

It’s not like a couple of whales are arguing in the thread, throwing money to hire shills to flame each other, using their left foot to step on their right foot to bump the thread up to number one.

Scrolling further down, sure enough, Fang Yu immediately spotted a reply that looked quite valuable.

"Reporting! What the OP said is true, I saw that army while I was on duty on the city walls of Clockwork City! Such a huge formation! They were carrying the banners of Great Xia! The whole column was sweeping past in grand style, forget about me, even demons would have to shy away from that sight! But the OP exaggerated, there weren’t a million! Definitely nowhere near a million!"

Someone replied underneath.

"That’s what happens when you don’t read enough. Do you even understand what ’a million strong’ means? When all the students of a primary and middle school gather on the playground, that’s just over a thousand people, and the scene’s already huge, right? Feels like a sea of people, doesn’t it? And you’re talking about a ’million‑strong army’... use your head and think what kind of scale a million‑strong army would be. That’s basically a human ocean stretching beyond the horizon, steamrolling everything in its path!"

"Reporting! I saw that army too, heading all the way south, no idea where they’re going."

"Holy crap! Is this real or fake? The Capital is sending troops to crusade against a Great Demon?? Or sending troops to wage war on the surrounding nations??"

"What war? Our Da Xia Dynasty is the strongest, everything around us is just trash fish about to be wiped out by demons, their pleas for aid have piled up to the point our Da Xia Dynasty can’t even be bothered to respond... I can’t be bothered explaining to you ignorant country bumpkins either. Come to the Capital someday, land yourself some minor post, then you can come give your ’brilliant’ opinions!"

"Wow, wow, wow, look at this guy upstairs, definitely one of the ’chosen people’, huh? What now, you’ve become a cyber Celestial Dragon? Licking boots in the Capital as some mutt‑servant and you think you’ve ascended to heaven!"

Well, well, well, the gunpowder’s really thick, huh.

No wonder the thread’s so hot.

Just the flame wars between people replying are enough to keep bumping the thread, not to mention the core topic: where exactly the Capital’s army is heading and what they’re planning to do.

Heading all the way south...

Fang Yu actually did know a bit: this border area they were in was down south, though slightly off to the southeast.

Fang Yu had originally thought this thread would have some real value, like important intel or something; he didn’t expect it to just be news about the Capital mobilizing troops.

The sky is high and the emperor’s far away—if the Capital sends troops, then they send troops; it doesn’t have much to do with him out here.

Better to look for intel related to Thunder City, and see if there’s any news of Lian Xiaoya.

That said, Fang Yu still couldn’t help scrolling a few more pages of replies in this thread.

Mostly because he was a bit curious: with such a massive mobilization from the Capital, who were they actually targeting?

But the later replies were basically just like reporting place names; every now and then someone would claim they’d spotted the army.

However, since there were no in‑game screenshots, it was just talk with no proof; no way to tell if it was real.

"Is it really such a coincidence that everyone just happens to see the army passing by? Looking at the reply timestamps, the gaps aren’t big either—within a day or two they supposedly marched from one city across to another big city, can an army really move that fast???"

Fang Yu felt puzzled.

And just as he was confused, other people were too; in later replies, some had already started questioning whether the first few posters were fabricating fake intel to show off.

Even more extreme, supposedly some local Players pointed out that two of the earlier cities were in completely opposite directions, but the posters claimed to have spotted the army within almost no time of each other—about as fake as it gets.

For a while, with everyone arguing over whether the intel was real or fake, the thread was full of drama.

Seeing that no one could figure out the army’s final destination, Fang Yu lost patience and exited this hot thread.

In any case, the Capital deploying troops was big entertainment, and all the Players were treating it as some new official event, a version update or something, discussing it with great enthusiasm and never getting tired.

Nothing to be done about it: most Players, at their current level, can hardly leave their starting town, some might not even have the strength to go outside the city walls, so if they want news about other places, the forum is their only source.