The Ultimate Evolution

As the fierce red tint of the Blood Sensing slowly disappeared from Sheyan"s field of vision, he heaved a long breath. He held four b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters at the moment, making him the ultimate Boss of this b.l.o.o.d.y World. He stood out so much during the Blood Sensing that it was impossible for the rest of the partic.i.p.ants to not see him even if they wanted to.

But, he kept the Galaxy in his hands and refused to complete the transaction, thus forcing the MIB to mobilise a large army to defend the place. To be honest, although the partic.i.p.ants were strong, they had yet to reach the point where they could simply ignore the official army. In addition, Sheyan and Aziz were also hiding inside, ready to attack any moment. The combination of these two forces were not something to be taken lightly. It wasn"t surprising that no one had dared to challenge them.

Sheyan and Aziz both heaved a sigh of relief after the Blood Sensing ended. Their tense muscles instantly relaxed as they fell down on a sofa.

Although a battle didn"t occur, they were constantly on edge the whole time. Their nerves were strung tight like a fully drawn bow. It was fine if the bow was released immediately after being drawn, but when it was kept drawn the whole time, it was very draining.

The two men persisted until the end of the long Blood Sensing and instantly felt an feeling of fatigue wash over them. It was not a physical fatigue but rather a mental one. Sheyan picked up the coffee that had turned cold and took a greedy sip, letting the bitter taste spread through his body. He then closed his eyes and rested for a while before exclaiming:

“It"s finally over.”

Although Aziz was still sitting straight, he couldn"t help but take a sip of the water and said with a low voice:

“We should return right away after a short rest! The sooner we return, the better! I don"t know why, but in this b.l.o.o.d.y World, I keep having an ominous feeling, like there"s a knife on my back!”

Sheyan narrowed his eyes. He did not speak, but the strange figure of the Cardinal appeared in his mind. It was the first time he saw a person who grew their own flesh into a coat. It felt so unreal.

Aziz took out some bullets and started to engrave something on them. Sheyan could feel mana fluctuating on the bullets. This seemed to be Aziz"s secret strengthening spell. The two rested in the room for a while to restore themselves to their optimum state.

Sheyan looked at Aziz and said:

“Let"s go.”

Aziz nodded and pointed at the map:

“There are two return points remaining – No.17 subway station in Brooklyn and the 11th floor of the Morgan Financial Center on 37th street in Manhattan. The rest of the return points have been faded. Which one should we choose?”

Sheyan smiled bitterly:

“I think I should go to the 11th floor of the Morgan Financial Center on 37th street in Manhattan.”

Aziz frowned and asked:

“Why?”

Sheyan kept his bitter smile and said:

“Because in my notification, the No.17 subway station in Brooklyn was faded too, so I have no choice! And did you notice that the return conditions have changed?”

Aziz wondered:

“What"s the change?”

Sheyan narrowed his eyes as he said:

“The original rule was: the process to transfer back to the nightmare realm will take five minutes, and the person being transmitted cannot perform any action during that time. If the person is interrupted, the person will have to wait for an hour before they can start the transfer process again. Your rule should be the same as mine, right?

Aziz nodded:

“Yes.”

Sheyan"s expression was calm, but an intense fear had gripped his heart:

“But my current rule is: I can return to the realm immediately after reaching the return point!”

Aziz"s expression turned solemn!

Their reactions may seem rather odd. The difficulty of returning to the realm appeared to have greatly reduced, so why were they unhappy? That"s because they both knew that even though the difficulty of returning to the realm was reduced, it did not mean that the difficulty of the Golden Side Mission was reduced!

The fact that the realm had suddenly reduced the difficulty of returning to such a low level could only mean that they would face obstacles beyond their imagination along the way! In order to balance the difficulty rating of the entire mission, the realm could only reduce the difficulty in returning.

“Maybe we can act separately?” Sheyan suddenly said, “You head to No.17 subway station in Brooklyn, while I go to 37th Street in Manhattan? If we do this, maybe we can divide the enemy"s forces?”

However, Aziz did not approve of this plan because he was someone who liked to hold success or failure in his own hands. If they went their separate ways and Sheyan happened to fail, Aziz would fail too through no fault of his own. It was something he could not tolerate.

After thinking for a long time, they felt that they should scout the situation out first. With the help of the MIB, they slipped out of the headquarters and mixed into the bustling New York crowd. They were surprised to find nothing out of the ordinary after two hours on the streets.

A bizarre feeling surged inside them. All this while, the two of them once again had their nerves strung high like a tight bowstring. Sheyan couldn"t help but gnash his teeth as he said:

“So they"re waiting for us to go to them! The opponents know that I can only return to the realm through the Morgan Financial Center on the 37th Street in Manhattan, so they have no intention of wasting their energy to look for us. There"s no way around it; we can only give it our best shot!”

Aziz nodded gloomily. He saw a BMW Z4 convertible beside him so he jumped in and made the car start without much effort. He seemed to be very familiar with this kind of work.

Under Aziz"s control, the BMW Z4 travelled at an alarming speed through the long traffic of New York thanks to its outstanding horsepower. The red lights along the way were completely ignored. They had some close shaves where they brushed past other vehicles with merely inches between them; there was an elegance in the craziness.

The other vehicles avoided them like the plague. A few police cars chased after the BMW in anger, but the performance of their vehicles and driving skills were far inferior, and they were soon left in the dust.

Aziz quickly drove them two kilometers within the vicinity of their destination, from where the twin buildings of the Morgan Financial Center could be seen. By the time Aziz stopped the car, the tires were spewing smoke and there was a smell of burnt rubber coming from them.

Aziz took a deep breath and said:

“Let"s go.”

They continued to stride forward, but when they were within a kilometer from the Morgan Financial Center, their bodies shook at the same time! They found that their spirits were contaminated by something, like an insect that flew into an invisible cobweb! The cobweb was soft and sticky, but full of hidden murderous intent!

The next second, a warm feeling akin to the suns.h.i.+ne in spring washed over them like a wave. It made one them extremely lazy and content, to the point where they didn"t feel like lifting a finger. This instantly put them on high alert.

“They"re coming!”

This may sound a bit strange, but although they were attacked, because they were mentally prepared for it, it was actually a relief.

Suddenly, both Sheyan and Aziz felt a burning sensation from the left side of their body like the feeling of sunburn from a scorching summer sun.

They turned around simultaneously and saw a tall man slowly walking over from a sidewalk hundreds of meters away. He wore a suit, a tie, a pair of sungla.s.ses, a pair of brown Berluti leather shoes, diamond earrings, and had cropped-cut hair. His exquisite sense of fas.h.i.+on was apparent in its elegance.

This person"s face and eyes felt very familiar to Sheyan! He turned out to be the strange creature born from the huge underground reproductive system – the Cardinal! Sheyan did not expect him to make an appearance with this kind of image!

“You"re finally here, heretics!” Besides the usual ruthlessness in the Cardinal"s eyes, there was actually a trace of cruelty and excitement! Perhaps he regarded being forced to flee in such a pathetic manner thanks to Sheyan and Aziz as the humiliation of his life.

“G.o.d"s guidance was right. We finally meet again!”

Sheyan and Aziz had long prepared themselves for battle. When Sheyan saw that the opponent was the Cardinal, he was secretly relieved. This was understandable because anyone who faced an enemy that they had defeated before would feel a bit of psychological superiority.

Aziz had already disappeared silently; no one knew where he"d gone. On the other hand, Sheyan took large steps towards the Cardinal! The Cardinal merely stood there waiting for him with a sneer on his face. Then, he suddenly raised his hands in wors.h.i.+p!

“O lowly sinners, tremble under the glory of G.o.d! G.o.d is omnipresent; G.o.d is omniscient. Confess to the sins you have committed throughout your life!”

When the Cardinal finished his chant, Sheyan and Aziz felt as if time itself had stopped. They could clearly see dust particles floating around in the air. The surrounding turned murky and unclear like ripples on a water surface.

They wished they could do something to respond to this change but they found it impossible to move, as if they had fallen into a very deep nightmare!

"This is …. attributes suppression!" This thought immediately flashed in Sheyan"s mind. "It"s another freaking illusion!"

Immediately afterwards, scenes after scenes of illusionary images started appearing behind the both of them. All the scenes were replays of events in their lives!

The illusionary image behind Aziz froze at multiple scenes. When Sheyan looked at them carefully, he saw that they were all scenes depicting Aziz"s s.e.xual encounters with women.

Aziz seemed to be a pretty energetic guy. All the women in the images behind him had amazing figures and consisted of almost every type of skin colour imaginable. There were even scenes of threesomes and such. At a glance, Sheyan estimated there to be over 50 different women!

“Lowly sinner!!” A majestic, sacred, and magnificent voice drifted down from the sky! The Cardinal calmly said, “You have fallen into the sin of l.u.s.t. Cleanse your sins with pain and blood!”

“The sin of l.u.s.t?” Sheyan immediately recalled that one of the sins from the seven deadly sins in Catholicism was the sin of l.u.s.t. Only now did Sheyan realise that, before this, the Cardinal had faced them with his weakest aspect!

When the Cardinal"s words ended, a huge milky-white cross appeared behind Aziz!

The Hebrew word for “l.u.s.t” (תְשׁוּקָה) was engraved on the cross. The word brimmed with age, solemnity and desire!

Aziz soon left the illusion. Suddenly, a surge of magma and flame appeared around him, enveloping him in a pungent smell of sulphur! Aziz, who had regained his mobility, quickly moved out of the area covered by magma and flame, but magma and flame gathered into a few gigantic humanoid fire figures and rushed furiously towards Aziz.

The battlefield was right in the middle of the bustling New York City! The flame giants left burning footprints as they strode forward. The only thing that could be seen in their cruel eyes was the determination to complete the task given to them!

Next, the Cardinal turned towards Sheyan. Sheyan tried to avoid the Cardinal"s eyes, but in the end, the illusionary images behind Sheyan began to slowly freeze too. He looked at them and saw that they depicted the scenes of him gulping down a variety of food including oysters, meat, shaved ice, lobster, chicken…..

“The spreader of plague.” The Cardinal"s tone was particularly angry because Sheyan had severed his arm before this. He never forgot about this act of blasphemy! “I judge you guilty of the sin of gluttony!”

As the Cardinal handed down his judgement, another huge milky white cross appeared behind Sheyan. The Hebrew word for “gluttony” (גַרגְרָנוּת) was engraved on the cross!

The next instant, the cross turned into a giant palm which caught the neck of Sheyan. After that, several disgusting rats, toads and snakes appeared of thin air and tried to burrow their way into Sheyan"s mouth.

The appearance of the hairy rats and slimy toads caused Sheyan to struggle desperately. No normal person would willingly swallow these creatures! Sheyan could confirm by now that the Cardinal"s power was indeed derived from the seven deadly sins because gluttony was also one of the seven sins!

Although Sheyan struggled furiously, he could not escape from the tight grip of the giant palm. His head started hurting and he began to see stars, as if he was knocked hard on the head. He felt like his limbs were being mercilessly shackled by a huge force, making him lose control over his body!

When he finally regained a bit of control over his body, another giant palm had emerged and ruthlessly pinched open Sheyan"s mouth, trying to force feed Sheyan. Sheyan had no doubt that if he really did swallow those things, there would be some really serious repercussions.

“AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!”

Sheyan screamed wildly as muscles bulged all over his body. His tendons went taut and became as hard as iron, while the green veins on his muscles looked like they were about to pop out. A blinding light flashed from his nightmare imprint and the picture of a clenched fist on a s.h.i.+eld appeared!

His eyes were bulging and bloodshot like the eyes of a fish due to the lack of oxygen. His whole body twitched violently. His feet left a deep pit in the ground in his struggle.

Suddenly, the illusionary image of the "Stairway of the Sun" emerged behind Sheyan. Its black tendrils frantically whipped at the illusionary giant hands gripping Sheyan! All the powers inside Sheyan felt the threat of death in this moment, causing them to break out together in full force!!

Finally, crack marks started appearing on the surface of the giant palms. The stronger Sheyan struggled, the more force the palms used to restrain him. The cracks kept getting wider and wider until finally, the palms shattered into pieces which disappeared with the wind.

By then, Sheyan"s lips were already in contact with the skin of a toad that was delivered to his mouth. The toad"s skin was cold, b.u.mpy, and had a pungent smell. Sheyan slapped the toad away.

When his feet landed on the ground, the surrounding scene turned back into reality. He was once again in bustling Manhattan.

But the toads, the grey rats, and the coiling snakes suddenly attacked each other in a frenzy. In the end, it was the toad that won. It quickly grew into a large monster and pounced towards Sheyan!

“This is the materialisation of illusion! The d.a.m.n guy has even learned this ability! ” grumbled Sheyan through clenched teeth.

The essence of the terrible power of the Seven Deadly Sins was still the power of illusion, but the Cardinal had advanced the power of illusion to the degree where truth and falsehood were intertwined together! It could be considered the combination of the power of faith, his own strength, and the power of the realm. The resulting power was terrifying.

The so-called materialisation of illusion may sound somewhat mysterious, but it was not difficult to understand. For example, in many Chinese mythologies and legends, there were a lot of demon hunters who would use spells to create heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals with their imagination to suppress demons and evil spirits.

Those were also illusions that they materialised with the power of faith and their own abilities. The ones with really high cultivation were said to be able to invite real heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals to descend! This was actually the materialisation of the illusions of heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals. With their own abilities and strong beliefs, they could transform the illusions into real creatures of flesh and blood for a short period of time! This was the real terror of materialisation!

Aziz was being chased by several lava monsters while Sheyan had to deal with a vicious and evil toad monster! Not only were they in a precarious situation, the poor innocent citizens had it even worse.

These materialised monsters were all extremely ferocious. Although their main targets were Sheyan and Aziz, they didn"t mind taking down the pa.s.sers-by along the way. The citizens thus suffered heavy casualties. Their bodies were even consumed by the monsters!

When Aziz discovered this, he ruthlessly led the monsters into the crowd on purpose. He naturally had a very shameless purpose for doing this – the more people who died, the more serious the situation would become, and the faster the government agencies would intervene in this matter. As for the possibility of attracting the attention of other partic.i.p.ants as a result of doing so, he could not longer care about that.

The toad that attacked Sheyan, the embodiment of the punishment for gluttony, may have looked fat and bulky with its frame that was as tall as a two-storey building, but it actually moved with great agility. This was especially so for its lightning-fast tongue that could shoot out and retract back in no more than 0.1 seconds.

Sheyan had already been hit by the tongue three times in a row. Of course he wanted to avoid the tongue, but he couldn"t!

The penetrating force of the tongue was unbelievably strong. Every time Sheyan was. .h.i.t by it, he felt like the tongue would puncture a hole in his chest. Not only that, the mucus sticking to the tongue was also poisonous. When it came into contact with the skin, it would turn that part of the skin green and the skin would start to rot away. Fortunately, Sheyan was immune to poison. Unfortunately, he wasn"t immune to the force of the tongue. The impact from the attacks made him cough up blood. One time, the tongue even coiled around him and he was almost swallowed whole by the toad. He only managed to stop that from happening by throwing a timely "Beast of Corrosion" on to the tongue.

Sheyan was glad to finally get out of range after retreating for a few dozen meters while he fought, but the giant toad sudden gathered force in its back legs and made a leap. This action caused a ten-storey building behind it to shake violently for a few times, then collapse to the ground. The toad"s plump body was now high in the air, aiming straight for Sheyan. Sheyan felt as if a whole mountain was about to crash down on him!

He instantly rolled and scurried away. The toad crashed onto a nearby Ford Raptor, squas.h.i.+ng the car flat under its horrible weight! Fortunately, the car did not explode, or Sheyan was bound to get seriously hurt too!

An unfortunate young man who was practicing parkour on the street also fell victim to the toad. He was flattened to a thickness of three centimeters. The smell of blood instantly permeated through the air. The young man was picked up by the toad with its tongue and became its food.

When the huge toad smelled the blood on the corpse, it immediately uttered two greedy cries. Its tongue popped out like a lightning bolt and stuck to the corpse, then easily brought the corpse into the toad"s mouth. The white throat of the toad wriggled and the corpse was gulped down into its stomach. From the toad"s satisfied expression, one could see that the corpse was extremely tasty.

The ordinary humans in the vicinity immediately screamed and fled upon witnessing such a frightening scene. The giant toad instead looked towards the fleeing Sheyan. It suddenly bent down, exposing the glands on its back. The venom glands wriggled violently and, like high-pressure water guns, shot out two streams of milky-white poisonous liquid, one of which hit Sheyan with great accuracy.

The hapless Sheyan stumbled and fell down, but he immediately rolled back up and continued his run. He now looked like he was drenched in milk. This was the advantage of having the "Stairway of the Sun". The only threat that vemons might pose to him was that they could drown him if there was enough of them…..

The toad was visibly shocked that its venom turned out to be ineffective, so it could not help but try two more shots. This time, both shots missed their target. When the milky white venom fell on the concrete floor, the floor hissed and emitted a stinging smell. The innocent pa.s.sers-by who were sprayed by the venom couldn"t even utter a scream before they dissolved like ice cream in a microwave.

The short delay gave Sheyan the opportunity to slip into a nearby subway station and disappear from view.

When the giant toad realised that its target had disappeared from its sight, it immediately croaked angrily, then jumped towards the subway station. The airflow generated when it landed toppled over several cars on the side.

The entrance of the subway station was a staircase that extended downwards. The toad crawled down, its tongue continuously shooting out along the way, greedily hunting the pa.s.sers-by. Right when it stepped onto the next floor, Sheyan quietly dropped down from the upper floor and clung to the back of the toad"s head like a bat. A fierce gleam flashed in his eyes as the "+7 West" in his right hand stabbed silently into the toad"s right eye!

It was a blow of unimaginable ferocity and cruelty!

The fatal blow left the giant toad croaking madly. It kicked out with its two st.u.r.dy thighs and instinctively tried to jump away. Unfortunately for Sheyan, they were in the subway station! Sheyan suddenly saw his vision turn black – the toad"s back had crashed towards the concrete ceiling, crus.h.i.+ng the light tubes that had been lighting the place up with their warm white glow. The heavy impact also caused Sheyan to throw up a mouthful of blood. He was lucky that he had a strong body; if he were an ordinary human, he would have been squashed to death.

But Sheyan was a fierce and determined person. While enduring the pain from the collision, he forcefully pulled "+7 West" out. A red liquid instantly gushed out from the hole in the basin-sized eye.

The liquid happened to spray onto a pair of frightened couple next to them. The couple immediately uttered a wail that was sharper than a dolphin"s cry, but after a few seconds, they realised that nothing had happened to them. Although the venom produced by the toad was very strong, the toad"s body fluids were not toxic.

At that moment, the skin on the back of the Toad broke abruptly and a strange snake"s head popped out. It was the snake that had been swallowed by the toad before this. The snake leapt towards Sheyan.

Sheyan did not dodge the snake, and instead chose to give in to his barbaric side. A brutal fire burned in his eyes as he raised his right hand and thrust it deep into the toad"s injured right eye, right up to his shoulder!

His whole arm could feel a disgusting, slippery, squirming sensation around it.

A vicious current flashed across his face and the force of the "Beast of Corrosion" burst forth from his hand, crus.h.i.+ng half of the head of the toad. A shower of blood rained down on the area while pieces of bones and skin were blown away.

But Sheyan was also bitten by the snake on the shoulder, causing half his body to go numb. With a flick of its neck, the snake sent Sheyan flying towards a wall at the side. Sheyan slammed heavily into the wall. Fortunately, the damage done to the toad was simply too severe. It persevered for a few more steps before falling to the ground. Then, it gradually turned transparent and vanished.

Sheyan shook himself and rolled over so that he faced upwards, then took a few greedy breaths. Right now, he was still seeing doubles. He stood up and stumbled a few steps towards a bathroom, where he poured some water on his face. He gulped down a whole bottle of mineral water before he felt better.

A few minutes after that, he started sweating all over. The strange thing was that the sweat was slightly black and smelled very foul. Only after that did the numbness in his hands and feet go away.

“What a terrifying snake venom.”

But at that moment, Sheyan suddenly felt an extremely powerful threat approaching quickly from a distance. His pupils contracted because he immediately realised that what he feared most had happened.

Sheyan kicked the part.i.tion beside him without the slightest bit of hesitation, then rammed it with his shoulder. A large piece of three-ply wood flew straight out. Sheyan strode into the women"s toilet next door, ignoring the screams, then smashed through the window and ran towards the train that was just pulling into the station….. But as he was about to enter the train, time and the surroundings froze again. Sheyan was once again drawn into an illusion by the Cardinal who had rushed over!

After Sheyan"s memory was read, the memory fragments behind him slowly settled down. Surprisingly, the images this time depicted the scenes of him killing Xide, Yi Wufu, Huashan Fei and other ordinary people outside the nightmare realm.

This time, the Cardinal judged Sheyan"s sin as the sin of “wrath” among the seven deadly sins.

Sheyan surprisingly regained control of his body right after being handed the verdict, unlike the previous time when he had to go through a struggle first. Sheyan was still in a state of astonishment when he suddenly felt the air move behind his head. He instinctively jumped forward and raised his left hand to block.

A severe pain instantly transmitted over from his blocking hand! Sheyan was sent flying for over 7 meters. He looked back and saw a transparent saber about 5 meters in length floating in the air!

The saber had a distinct medieval style. It looked simple and st.u.r.dy while exuding a feeling of blood.

Sheyan next looked down at his left arm. There was a wound deep enough to show the bone inside, but no blood dripped out from the wound. The pale white muscles on both sides of the wound rolled up like a fish"s lips with no intention of healing. It was a chilling sight.

The transparent saber mysteriously swung upwards a little, then thrust itself at Sheyan. This time, Sheyan was ready for it. He grabbed a nearby steel locker and, with a roar, threw it at the transparent saber.

The transparent saber showed no intention of dodging. Instead, it increased its speed and pierced deep into the metal locker, then flicked hard!

A loud crash resounded as luggages and papers flew everywhere. The transparent blade looked absolutely unstoppable as it carved the metal locker up into pieces. After that, the saber vibrated and an orange flame rose on the surface of the blade. With a horizontal slash, the saber sent burning wooden and metallic pieces towards Sheyan!

By the time Sheyan turned a corner, he had enquired and obtained the information that according to the teachings of the seven deadly sins, the punishment for l.u.s.t was burning in fire and brimstone, the punishment for gluttony was being force fed with rats, toads and snakes, while the punishment for wrath was live dismemberment! Sheyan gritted his teeth and muttered a very vicious swear word under his breath when he read this information.

He cut a sorry figure as he kept dodging the saber"s attack by rolling and crawling until he managed to get into the waiting room next door. By this time, he had completely dismissed any thought of fighting back.

Even if he managed to launch a successful counterattack amidst the non-stop attacks of the saber, all he would eliminate was a materialised illusion. Furthermore, Sheyan realised that the transparent giant saber did not move very fast, so he decided on the strategy of wasting time. After all, the Cardinal had to divide his attention between Aziz and Sheyan, which was by no means an easy feat.

What"s more, according to history, if a sinner survived all seven punishments for the seven deadly sins, the Inquisitor would then impose the ultimate punishment. Sheyan didn"t know what the punishment was, but he was sure it was nothing pleasant. His objective wasn"t to kill the Cardinal, but to return after all.

Five minutes later, the saber once again hit Sheyan and slashed open a wound on Sheyan"s back. All the blood that flowed out from the wound was absorbed by the blade! Sheyan staggered and rolled, causing the next strike from the transparent saber to miss him and cut into a pillar instead. At that moment, there was an uproar near the entrance; a group of police, with some MIB agents mixed inside, had finally arrived.

Sheyan almost cried tears of joy. He immediately ran towards the group, screaming and wailing like a poor victim, all the while raising the medal the MIB gave him high above his head. The transparent saber followed close behind him. The MIB agents and police officers naturally shot at the saber. Normal guns may not be that powerful in the face of the transparent saber, but the shots from the pulsed weapons were enough to send it flying.

Presented with such a great opportunity, Sheyan took a deep breath, suppressed his dizziness, jumped on a pa.s.sing bus and left the area.

It was a double-decker bus. There weren"t too many people on it, and Sheyan"s act of scrambling to get on the bus did not attract too much attention.

In densely populated places, there were all kinds of people. In bustling New York, thieves, robbers, drug addicts and the likes existed in droves. There were also a lot of performance artists who would deliberately perform strange acts in public. Sheyan did not appear too conspicuous. He quickly took a seat.

Soon after, Sheyan started feeling an increasingly painful sensation spreading from his feet. The pain gradually converged on his thighs!

Suddenly, a wave of unbearable pain transmitted over from Sheyan"s legs. It was the same sensation as having a red-hot branding iron pressing down on them, except there was no scorching smell and no feeling of intense pressure.

Sheyan was very tough mentally, but in the face of such severe pain, he couldn"t help but drip with cold sweat. His teeth were grit so tightly that they made creaking sounds! The muscles on his whole body spasmed. A pool of sweat quickly acc.u.mulated underneath his seat.

A couple and a young girl originally sat next to Sheyan. They exchanged glances when they saw him acting that way, thinking that he may be a drug addict or maybe he was having a seizure. It scared them into changing their seats to get away from Sheyan.

Sheyan raised his head, opened his mouth and gasped greedily for breath like a fish out of water. He finally felt better after a while. He relaxed, knowing that the spiritual connection between himself and the Cardinal had been severed. He wiped away the cold sweat on his face and the saliva on the corners of his mouth that he hadn"t even noticed was there before. He found that the bus had left Manhattan.

Sheyan pondered for a moment, then ripped open his trousers to find two strange and mysterious symbols burnt onto his legs, engraved deep into the skin! They were the Hebrew words for gluttony and wrath! Looking at these two symbols, Sheyan had a strange premonition in his heart. He knew that the matter would probably not end so easily. Not only were the two symbols branded on his body, he felt like they were imprinted on his soul too!

"I wonder how Aziz is doing," the thought flashed across Sheyan"s mind, but he quickly snapped back to reality because the door had opened and admitted two men inside. One of them was rather burly while the other was crooked and looked a bit shady.

The burly man was all smiles and even helped an old man off the bus. Without saying a word, one of them sat in front of Sheyan and the other behind him, keeping Sheyan in the middle.

The two men were Shali and Stend who had tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate Sheyan in the MIB headquarters. Even when the two had him surrounded, Sheyan appeared relaxed. He asked:

“How come you guys are here?”

Shali, who sat behind Sheyan, answered in a low m.u.f.fled tone:

“Do you think you can still escape?”

Sheyan nonchalantly said:

“Maybe I can"t kill the two of you by myself, but you two won"t be able to kill me either! I"m afraid Fate will make an appearance if he wants me dead too.”

When Shali heard the name “Fate”, his hands gripped hard on the bus seat handle. The handle, together with the steel bar inside, was bent out of shape. He looked around and said through gnashed teeth:

“Do you think using the name of Fate will scare me?!”

Sheyan rested his hands behind his head and, without missing a beat, said:

“Fate! What do you say if we forget about everything that happened today? As a gift, I"ll leave these two guys for you to kill. You probably hadn"t noticed yet, but when I escaped from that monster"s territory just now, there were already 5 intruders tailing me. If you try to kill me and I get desperate, both of us will be injured. We"ll only benefit the people lurking in the dark.”

Shali and Stend got more nervous with every word that came out of Sheyan"s mouth.

Shali gulped, his eyes glued to Sheyan"s face. The muscles on his jaws and temple were bulging from tension. The air in his mouth cracked when he chewed on it, as if it was not air that he was chewing on, but large chunks of gla.s.s!

As he chewed on the air, his muscles began to swell up and his skin started to s.h.i.+ne. Meanwhile, Stend was rubbing his nails together, making metallic sounds.

But apparently Sheyan"s words had its effect. He could sense that both Shali and Stend were obviously distracted. Although they were facing him, most of their focus was on the surroundings – just like students in the afternoon who would appear to have their eyes glued to the blackboard, but their mind had actually drifted away to what they would have for lunch…..

Nevertheless, they were still b.l.o.o.d.y World partic.i.p.ants carefully chosen by their respective realms! Both of them were recognised as the strongest fighter in their own party, so of course they wouldn"t lose their will to fight over a few words! They came here looking for a fight, so that"s what they would do!

With a flick of Shali"s wrist, he uprooted the entire seat in front of him and bashed it at Sheyan. It was the chair above the bus. The two main materials that made up the seats of public buses were hard plastic and reinforcing steel bars. They were held down with large bolts the size of wine gla.s.ses. Shali could simply reach out and grab one as his weapon, so it was apparent how strong he was.

But Sheyan still sat in his seat with a smile on his face, without the slightest intention of dodging. The broken chair flung by Shali would not be recognised as an equipment so the damage bonus it provided was very limited. Sheyan had dealt with Shali before so he had a thorough understanding of Shali"s strength.

Bang

An ordinary human was sure to have their skull broken from Shali"s. .h.i.t, but when the chair hit Sheyan, it might as well have hit a cement pillar. Plastic debris and steel parts scattered everywhere. Sheyan remained perfectly fine.

Stend crossed his left and right forefinger"s nails and shot a trail of flame which looked like a snake crawling in the air towards Sheyan. Sheyan nonchalantly put his right hand up to block it. After the flame wound around Sheyan"s arm several times, the smell of skin and flesh burning permeated through the air, but that was the worst the flame could do. It completely disappeared after a few seconds.

Upon seeing such a spectacular movie-like scene, the people inside bus screamed in hysteria. They proceeded to jump out the windows when the bus stopped at a traffic light. Shali"s body had grown even bigger after he inhaled. When he stood up, his head crashed into the roof of the bus. Although he was not hurt, it was unexpected. Shali"s action was naturally delayed for a moment.

Taking this opportunity, Sheyan grabbed the smaller Stend.

Stend revealed a bloodthirsty smile. He flicked his fingers and a very sharp sound penetrated into Sheyan"s ears, causing Sheyan to pause momentarily. With a swing of Stend"s hand, the seat next to Sheyan was sliced in half. The finger continued towards Sheyan"s neck.

“Interesting,” said Sheyan indifferently. He raised his left fist to block, and the strong wind force generated by Stend"s finger instantly left a trail of sparks on his boxing glove. By this time, Shali had freed himself and had smashed at Sheyan"s head. Stend was sure that Sheyan had to dodge, so he paused, ready to cooperate with Shali"s attack. However, Sheyan simply ignored Shali"s attack and caught Stend"s throat, then followed up with a vicous headb.u.t.t on Stend"s nose!

Sheyan then broke out in a frenzy and beat Stend up. Although he had to receive Shali"s fierce attacks at the same time, Shali"s attacks seemed to mean nothing to him!

In the end, Stend was grabbed by Sheyan and was smashed through the winds.h.i.+eld of the bus with a fierce "Tactical Throw". He was. .h.i.t head-on by a fast-moving Audi TT sports car closing in from the opposite direction.

He was immediately rammed over ten meters away and fell heavily to the ground, dragging a long trail of blood on the clean road. An ordinary human would have died a terrible death with their body in pieces. Although he was a contestant, Stend was still left severely injured.

Stend climbed up in a daze. With an angry roar, a dull golden glow appeared on his left hand – he was ready to use an ultimate skill in his next strike.

Right after Sheyan sent Stend flying, he had turned around to deal with Shali. He completely gave up on defence and opted to exchange blows with Shali instead.

Although Shali was wary of possible hidden enemies and did not display his full power, he was still secretly shocked by Sheyan"s unimaginable formidability – Defence comparable to an MT, shocking HP and powerful Strength!

When Shali saw that Stend was about to launch his attack, he instantly made a decision. His neck suddenly became huge and thick, the green veins on it protruding like a toad that had drawn in air. The next instant, he opened his mouth and launched from the depth of his throat a violent and explosive gush of air right towards Sheyan"s face.

This was Shali"s ultimate skill: "Air Cannon"!

If Sheyan had not fought with Shali before, there was no doubt that he would have fallen victim to the "Air Cannon", but because he was prepared, Sheyan could see the abnormality in Shali"s actions. Although it was impossible for him to dodge agilely like Agility-type contestants, he could immediately put up a guard by crossing his hands in front of him.

The next instant, Sheyan felt a terrible force pressing on his arms. For Sheyan, the force was not so strong that it was impossible to resist. However, Sheyan suddenly had an idea. He did not resist the force but instead allowed it to blow him away.

The force knocked Sheyan off the ground and sent him cras.h.i.+ng into the winds.h.i.+eld. The gla.s.s broke and Sheyan tumbled out. But after several rolls on the ground, Sheyan immediately bounced up. He jumped, then with one hand grabbed onto a pa.s.sing box truck which happened to make a turn at the traffic light at that moment. The truck quickly drove away, carrying Sheyan with it.

Of course Shali and Stend could not allow Sheyan to escape. They immediately pursued after Sheyan. Although they were both mainly melee-type contestants, they also had several long-range attacks in their a.r.s.enals.

They had chased Sheyan for ten or so meters and had managed to shorten the distance to the truck when a crystal bottle was suddenly thrown towards them, leaving a trail of green smoke in its wake. It crashed to the ground and a large cloud of dark green smoke immediately burst forth from it. The shockwave produced by the broken bottle hit both of them at the same time like a strong wind, stunning them and making them dizzy. All the while, the dark green smoke cloud continued to spread, wrapping them inside it.

Sheyan was about to successfully escape when suddenly, he was overcome by a strange feeling. He felt like a pair of vicious eyes were staring at him, but when he looked around, he couldn"t find anything out of the ordinary. However, the feeling of being stared at only became more intense.

There was a pedestrian overpa.s.s ahead of the truck he was clinging to. It was a busy time, so there were a lot of people on the overpa.s.s. There was a teenager on a skateboard on the left side of the overpa.s.s. This was a pretty common sight on the streets of New York; it was nothing to be surprised about.

But when the skateboarder was trying to avoid a person in his path, he accidentally slipped and fell. His skateboard flew up and shot towards a young man in front of him. The young man was pretty agile so he managed to avoid the skateboard by leaning back slightly.

The skateboard finally stopped when it hit the back of the head of a middle-aged man in suit. It naturally caused a lot of pain. The middle-aged man in a suit instinctively grimaced in agony and reached for the back of his head, but when he raised his hand, he accidentally hit the hand of a child next to him.

The little kid had just come out from a McDonald"s, where his mom had bought him a strawberry-flavoured McFlurry…. The child of course felt painful when he was. .h.i.t. He was initially licking the McFlurry in bliss, but the hit caused the McFlurry to slip away from his arm. The McFlurry fell off the gap between the steel frames of the overpa.s.s and rather coincidentally landed on the winds.h.i.+eld of the box truck that Sheyan was. .h.i.tching a ride on.

The McFlurry immediately splashed over the winds.h.i.+eld, triggering the automatic winds.h.i.+eld wipers. The result was that the driver"s sight was completely blocked. Therefore, he had no choice but to stop his car at the side of the road, turn on the warning light, and jump out of the driver"s seat cursing.

Sheyan narrowed his eyes and focused his gaze, but he had no idea where he should look at. He was merely bluffing when he spoke to Shali and Stend just now. He didn"t expect the guy called Fate to actually be here!

Sheyan"s feet did not remain idle as these thoughts flashed across his mind. He had skillfully jumped onto the sidewalk as soon as the truck stopped. When you"re not as fast as the opponent, there were two practical ways to overcome that. You could either find ways to make yourself as fast as the opponent, or make the opponent as slow as you.

Therefore, Sheyan did not hesitate to move into a large commercial square nearby which had a Wal-Mart and a Carrefour, as well as a few cinemas, entertainment centers and five steak houses. It was literally overflowing with people. Since Blood Sensing was not active at the moment, Sheyan was like a fish in water in the crowd with his rather decent Perceptive Sense.

Shali and Stend, too, rushed into this large commercial square ten seconds later. But Sheyan was like a needle in a haystack right now. How could they find him?

But at that moment, something that had very little chance of happening normally, inexplicably occured. An elevator in the distance suddenly broke down and was stuck between the third and fourth floor. It caused an uproar among the tourists on the elevator. That place immediately became the focus of everyone in the commercial square.

There were about twenty to thirty people on the elevator. Shali and Stend glanced over and saw Sheyan mingling with the crowd. If the elevator didn"t break down, it would only take another two or three seconds for Sheyan to completely disappear around the corner.

The two of them were overjoyed. Shali instantly dashed straight towards Sheyan. He was a giant of a man; the people he ran over were all left bleeding or injured. Stend jumped and clung to a wall. His nails enabled him to scale the wall like a spider as he quickly moved in Sheyan"s direction.

Sheyan was not alarmed when his whereabouts were exposed. He squeezed out of the broken elevator with little effort, then took a turn and went into the next elevator. By the time Stend and Shali arrived, the elevator that Sheyan was in had gone up three storeys. However, Stend"s vision was unbelievable. From the mirror inside the elevator, he could see that Sheyan had pressed the b.u.t.ton for the eleventh floor. They immediately took another elevator in pursuit!

When Stend and Shali stepped out of their elevator, they found Sheyan standing on the window at the end of the eleventh floor corridor, smiling at them. He then took out a s.h.i.+ning golden pearl in his hand, and actually crashed through the window to jump straight down from the eleventh floor!

Stend and Shali held their breath. The surest way to stay in pursuit was, of course, to jump down following after Sheyan.

But neither Shali nor Stend had the confidence to escape unscathed, or even to escape with their lives, jumping down from the eleventh floor! Don"t forget, Sheyan might be waiting for them below!

This is the most shameless aspect of Sheyan plan. He had already used the "Gloryheal" ability while he was in the elevator to fully recover his HP in preparation for jumping from the building. He was blatantly mocking Shali and Stend for their low Defence and HP. What could they do about it? Jump from the building?

When Sheyan reached the bottom, he landed on a BMW X6 and made a huge dent on the roof of the car. He jumped down casually and looked up to see Shali and Stend staring at him. He laughed out loud, pointed at them and shook his index finger. He then walked leisurely to a motorcycle ten meters away, pulled the man on it down, got on the motorcycle, and started the engine.

Sheyan"s expression at the moment seemed quite relaxed, but there was a sharpness hidden in his eyes, waiting to be unleashed!

"If you"ve been observing me all this time, Fate, you should know that when this bike starts moving, Shali and Stend won"t be able to catch up to me any longer."

"Your goal is simple – to force me and the two of them to fight each other to the death, and when all of us are gravely injured, you will swoop in and reap the greatest benefit. That"s why there is a very high chance of you activating your ability the moment I got on the motorcycle so that I can"t run away from Shali and Stend. C"mon then! I"ve boosted my Perceptive Sense to the limit with the "Goldpearl of the Caribbean Sea", and I"m fully focused on sensing your skill right now. I"ll definitely find you!"

"Yes, this is it! This is the feeling! The feeling of forcefully changing the flow of the world, like the s.h.i.+ver when a finger stopped the ticking of a clock! You fool, you"re three hundred meters to the West!! "

"The fact that you can keep up with the change in our battle location means that you should be on a vehicle. I"ve found you, Fate! So you"re disguised as an NYPD officer so that you can ignore the traffic lights when you chase after us and monitor our movements. Well then, enjoy my disease!"

Sheyan abandoned the motorcycle when the engine started to smoke, and ran away!

For Sheyan, getting rid of Shali and Stend in this busy urban area was really not that hard. It was the ability of Fate that he was concerned about. Fate"s ability was simply too mysterious. Sheyan would not have been able to locate him if his own Perceptive Sense wasn"t so high.

Right now, Fate did not know that Sheyan already had his eyes on him. When he saw Sheyan fleeing, he immediately started his own motorcycle and gave chase. He seemed to have some miraculous way to perceive Sheyan"s position, so he was not very worried about losing Sheyan. However, Sheyan had chosen a very clever escape route, forcing Fate to get as close to him as possible.

Time pa.s.sed by in the blink of an eye. Sheyan ran with all his might, while Fate very calmly tailed him from behind. Fate was like a spider steadily moving on a cobweb, leisurely observing the actions of the prey that had fallen into its net.

But fate did not know that Sheyan was counting down in his mind.

"10, 9, 8, … … 2, 1! "

"120 seconds is up!"

Sheyan suddenly turned around and dashed in Fate"s direction!

Sheyan had turned back when the distance between him and Fate was the shortest at less than 150 meters. Like a 100-meter hurdles sprinter, Sheyan jumped up with his hands in front of his face, cras.h.i.+ng hard into a window in front of him.

The gla.s.s shattered and collapsed. A shocked saleswoman stood in front of Sheyan; Sheyan gently pushed her away. Then, after a tumble, he rushed out the door and finally saw Fate, who was riding a motorcycle in the distance on the long street!

Fate, of course, realised that he had been exposed. He turned around in an instant and pounded on the throttle, attempting to flee in the opposite direction.

Honestly, speed wasn"t Sheyan"s specialty. To catch up with the motorcycle with his legs was unrealistic. But Sheyan remained silent and continued to chase after Fate, refusing to give up.

Right at the moment Fate"s motorcycle had accelerated to top speed, Sheyan unleashed his new ability: the "Power of Corrosion"!

This ability could only be used after an enemy had been affected by his disease for 120 seconds, and could only target a single enemy.

(TL note: From ch. 907: "By activating the "Power of Corrosion", Sheyan could, in the next five seconds, actively trigger the next appearance of the disease symptom instead of waiting for it to randomly appear like before. The enemy would not experience any of the remaining symptoms in the next 30 seconds to two minutes." )

After activating the "Power of Corrosion", Sheyan could, in the next five seconds, actively trigger the next appearance of the symptom. He could also choose the symptom instead of waiting for one to randomly appear like before!

Sheyan coldly watched Fate put on a show of motorcycle skills as he navigated through the busy street hundreds of meters away. His lips curled into a sinister smile.

“You"ve had me dancing in the palm of your hand for too long! Now…. Hmmph! I"ll let you have a taste of your own medicine! Pneumonia symptom: activate!! Activate symptom: severe cough! (The enemy will be a.s.saulted by a fit of coughing, during which they will be rendered unable to move, attack or cast.)”

Fate was currently traveling between a bus and a Ford Raptor, and he looked so skilled that he could achieve a speed of nearly 100 kmh even in traffic (about 62 mph). A slight gap between vehicles was enough for him to sneak through.

But as Fate revved on the throttle to overtake the Ford Raptor ahead, an inconceivable itch spread through his throat. He immediately stiffened and had to cough to relief the uncomfortable sensation.

"d.a.m.n, I was attacked by the enemy!" Fate reacted extremely fast. There was instantly a flash of light on his body, indicating the use of medicine to dispel abnormal states.

But it didn"t work!

A light flashed on Fate"s body again. Besides the medicine, he also had a skill to lift abnormal states!

But it didn"t work too!

Fate actually managed to remain calm and collected under such circ.u.mstances. The final move he pulled was to summon a dinosaur with a scroll! The dinosaur could cause confusion and could also delay the enemy. Every second was precious.

His thought process was as calm and as meticulous as a robot. He would not be affected by any external factors. If he must get hurt, he would make sure to keep the damage to a minimum.

A relentless urge to cough finally overcame him. Fate coughed fiercely for three seconds. While he coughed, he was unable to move, attack, and cast, so the direction of the police motorcycle, which had reached 100 kmh, remained askew.

The bus in front and the Ford Raptor in the back were traveling at a speed of at least 50 kmh. Under such circ.u.mstances, the motorcycle"s skewed handlebar eventually led to very serious consequences. Everything happened like a movie – the collision, the fall, the rear-end!

The police motorcycle, caught in the middle, was slammed into the bottom of the Ford Raptor. The bus kept pus.h.i.+ng hard from the back. The police motorcycle finally could bear the excessive pressure no longer, and exploded.

It was only then that Fate recovered from his violent coughing. He had the honour to be the piece of meat in the steel sandwich. He struggled to climb out of the wreck with blood in his mouth. If it wasn"t for the summoned dinosaur cus.h.i.+oning the blow, he would have suffered even more serious injuries. Fire started spreading over his body, but Fate had no time to put them out. Instead, he kicked the wreckage of the motorcycle that pinned him down, and staggered away in a hurry.

That"s because he could feel a great threat approaching behind him. The opponent had suppressed his fury for so long and had painstakingly laid down the trap, so the chance left for him to escape was slim to begin with!

Fate was a mage-type contestant, after all. His Physique and Agility could never compare to Sheyan"s. His strength was that, by changing some small events, he could create a chain reaction which could produce extremely serious consequences. It was not dissimilar to the disaster that befell the U.S. s.p.a.ce shuttle Challenger – 1.2 billion USD$ worth of scientific research and technology, as well as seven human lives, lost to a $3.70 O-ring.

His ability was called "Foresight", and in the real world he was a famous detective comparable to Sherlock Holmes. His talent matched perfectly with his "Foresight" ability.

More importantly, Fate"s attacks were rarely directed at the target themselves. Rather, he would create a deadly attack by utilising the surrounding environment. This at least cut down the risk of him being found by 50%. A lot of his victims didn"t even know the real reason they died. His attack method was more bizarre and unpredictable than a powerful sniper.

Nevertheless, that Fate who had always been unstoppable, found himself falling prey to Sheyan today! While he plotted against Sheyan, he had also inadvertently stepped into Sheyan"s vicious trap. He was now disease-ridden and must fight to the death!

Sheyan had taken the opportunity to close down to within 50 meters of Fate. Fate staggered to stand up while holding his forehead with his hands. He glared at Sheyan through the blood flowing down his face. Sheyan instantly had a strange feeling. Suddenly, both of them went totally still. The surrounding scenery completely disappeared, replaced by a darkness akin to the starry sky. Then, Fate pointed to himself with his index finger.

When Fate did that, Sheyan suddenly heard a soft snap in his ear. He felt as if a thread that was very important to him was snapped. He look around at the surrounding. Although he could once again see the bustling concrete jungle, he felt completely out of place for some reason.

At the same time, the nightmare imprint transmitted some notifications to him:

[Warning: Your connection with the current world is temporarily cut off for ten minutes.]

[Warning: During this period, you will be rejected by this world. Misfortune will follow you and your luck will fall to its lowest point.]

[Warning: It will be a good idea to hole yourself up in a a park, a stadium or other open s.p.a.ces immediately.]

“…..%&￥￥#%$#&” Sheyan was already less than 50 meters away from Fate. 20 meters more and Fate would be in his attack range, not to mention that Fate was still carrying a disease. How could he bear to give up?

Sheyan decided to risk it. He kept up the chase and soon reached the site of the accident. Fate was limping along the sidewalk across the street; his leg seemed to have been injured. However, he looked a lot calmer. He threw aside his burning coat and grabbed a bottle of water from a roadside stall, dumping the contents onto his face. The distance between the two continued to shorten.

A car that seemed to be in a hurry rushed over from a distance. The car had to drive to the side of the road due to the accident, but at that moment, someone happened to jump out from the bus involved in the accident. In order to avoid the person who jumped out, the car driver immediately slammed on the brake and turned the steering wheel wildly. The car, as a result, went out of control and rushed towards Sheyan with astonis.h.i.+ng momentum.

If Sheyan kept running towards Fate, he would be hit by this car!

Sheyan"s blood was boiling by now. He decided to trust in his toughness and chose to pounce forward! In his plan, even if he was. .h.i.t by the car, he could adjust his body so that the force from the collision would propel him forward, thus taking advantage of the momentum to get closer to Fate.

With a loud bang, Sheyan was. .h.i.t by the car as he wished. For him, this kind of collision was absolutely acceptable. He borrowed the momentum from the collision to fly out like a baseball on a home run!

Wind whistled past Sheyan"s ears. He looked at Fate coldly from the air, but Fate merely showed him a mocking smile and kept moving forward. He seemed certain that Sheyan would never catch up to him!

Fate was actually a gentle-looking man. He had soft eyes hidden behind a pair of gold rimmed gla.s.ses, as well as a calm demeanor. He looked somewhat similar to Steve Jobs in his forties. At this moment, he turned around to face Sheyan and solemnly exclaimed:

“No one can fight against fate. No one!”

With the help of the collision"s impact, Sheyan had flown to within 30 meters of Fate. As soon as he landed, he could immediately activate "Hornrage" to catch up to Fate, and then destroy him with punches and kicks!

Contestants might not be instkilled by Sheyan as soon as he got close to them, but they would find it extremely difficult to shake him off! Don"t forget that Sheyan was a dual attribute Growth Hunter in Strength and Physique.

The force from the impact began to weaken. Although Sheyan could not keep his balance in the air, his body had responded instinctively. He would put his hand on the ground to flip himself upright before he landed, then activate "Hornrage" right away. The whole series of actions would be executed smoothly without any delay in between.

If it was an ordinary person performing those actions, the only outcome would be a broken arm. But for Sheyan, they would present no difficulty.

Sheyan folded his belly in the air, stooped, reached out, and pressed his hand on the sidewalk ahead. Everything was going according to his script. But the moment Sheyan touched the sidewalk, he immediately felt something was wrong.

Because the seemingly solid sidewalk did not feel solid at all.

As soon as Sheyan pressed down on it, a crack appeared on the surface, and as Sheyan exerted more strength, several square meters of area around the spot simply collapsed with a rumble!

“F*cking h.e.l.l, this power of misfortune is way too strong!” Sheyan couldn"t help swearing as he fell. “A sinkhole in the city? Are you kidding me?”

One could occasionally read reports of sinkholes on the Internet, sometimes even involving cars falling into them, but those events were very rare after all. Sheyan never thought he would b.u.mp into such a bizarre thing.

Even a mighty Growth Hunter could not go against the law of physics. Sheyan could not just grab his own hair and fling himself up like in an anime. Hence, Sheyan fell to the bottom of the sinkhole. Although the sinkhole was not that wide, it was at least 5 meters deep. There was some murky water at the bottom. Sheyan fell straight into the soft mud and struggled to s.h.i.+ft himself upright.

By the time Sheyan climbed out of the sinkhole with much difficulty, Fate was already over 100 meters away from him. More importantly, the man had found another motorcycle and, to Sheyan"s surprise, he seemed to be wearing a thick grey scarf because he realised that he"d caught a cold. He started the motorcycle and accelerated away.

Sheyan stared at Fate"s back, but there was no frustration in his eyes. Instead, he said coldly:

“You might have temporarily changed my fate, but you can"t change the fate of other people, and you definitely can"t change…..your own destiny! ”

Right when Sheyan"s speech ended, the motorcycle Fate was riding on suddenly exploded and caught on fire!

The situation on the battlefield had gone completely out of control.

Sheyan"s previous judgment was quite accurate. The strongest person around here was probably the Cardinal. He would probably attack anyone indiscriminately once they entered his range of control. Aziz and Sheyan may be able to sneak up to the Cardinal, but once they were attacked by the Cardinal, they were surely exposed to the rest of the b.l.o.o.d.y World partic.i.p.ants!

After such a long and fierce battle, those partic.i.p.ants that intruded into this world must have definitely sensed something. Otherwise, they would not have been qualified to enter the b.l.o.o.d.y World.

Fate was unimaginably powerful, yes, but the biggest mistake he made was to underestimate Sheyan, causing him to fall into Sheyan"s trap. But even so, he was able to turn the tables and get rid of Sheyan"s pursuit.

His strength was evident.

Unfortunately, the mysterious and powerful monster had a fragile body. Those lurking in the dark easily made their decision!

Sheyan was 70% sure that there were intruders observing him, and they should be very clear that he was as hard as nails with a plethora of debuffs in his a.r.s.enal. If he fought while running away, keeping himself alive for as long as half an hour would be a piece of cake.

On the other hand, Fate was a mage-type contestant – and he was already in a rather sorry state.

Even an idiot would choose to finish the mage-type contestant first before turning back to deal with Sheyan.

If they dared to deal with Sheyan first, who could guarantee that Fate wouldn"t turn back later and pick them off? They wouldn"t even know what hit them!

The enemies" attacks were swift and endless. After Fate"s motorcycle exploded, seven or eight missiles were launched from a distance. They indiscriminately bombarded Fate"s landing spot from all directions. Hundreds of square meters of area were completely shrouded in flames after the series of bombardments.

This kind of large area of effect attack was not that great a threat for Sheyan because since the attack was dispersed over a large area, the attack intensity would not be that great. With his HP of over 4,000, it was not a big deal.

Seeing the explosion, the pa.s.sers-by naturally screamed and ran away. A lot of people in the buildings nearby also looked out the windows to check what happened. Sheyan was just about to move forward, but a man suddenly ran over and was about to b.u.mp into him; Sheyan could smell the strong smell of alcohol on him before Sheyan even saw him. Sheyan of course couldn"t let anyone get close to him right now, so he kicked at the man. He did not expect the drunkard to be just an ordinary person. The man was instantly sent flying. His crashed head first into a wall and bleed profusely.

This kind of occurrence immediately drew the attention of a police officer. He pointed his gun at Sheyan and requested Sheyan to return with him to the police station. Sheyan was not afraid of his gun, but at this time of misfortune, he was fed up with being entangled in all kinds of unlucky things. He felt like he had fallen into a swamp with his hands bound, struggling to free himself!

The fire had subsided slightly in the distance, and Fate could be seen stumbling out of the flames. He was a mess. At this moment, a javelin with a metal chain attached to it shot out from a building quite a distance away. Fate barely managed to dodge it. The javelin pierced deep into the road until only a small part of it was left on the surface. The chain behind it stretched taut.

A figure slid down the chain from the top of a building. He held the chain in one hand and fired violently with a submachine gun in the other. The tongue of flame at the muzzle was half a meter long. He looked exactly like Rambo in First Blood.

Fate rolled and dodged with all his might in the midst of the storm of machine-gun bullets, but was still hit by more than half of them. The blue glow from administering an honorary dosage lit up on his body, and he returned to full health.

The next second, a blue protective layer appeared from the surface of his body. It looked like the magic barrier that most mage contestants had, but it was actually a little different upon closer scrutiny.

Sheyan could clearly see the interior of the translucent blue barrier. It seemed like a gla.s.s exterior wall with a steel frame structure inside. The barrier was elliptical in shape, but a closer inspection would reveal that it was composed of multiple tough-looking blue squares, giving the barrier a very solid feel.

Less than a third of “Rambo"s” bullets were able to penetrate the barrier. The rest of the bullets bounced off as if they had hit a hard steel surface. A few pa.s.sers-by could not escape in time and were wounded by the stray bullets. The stray bullets even accidentally injured “Rambo” himself.

Sheyan was lost in thought looking at the scene unfolding in the distance. Meanwhile, the policeman was still pointing his gun at Sheyan. He shouted:

“Put up your hands, turn around, and face the wall! This is an order!”

Sheyan naturally did not oblige him. He used just enough force in a slap to knock the policeman out cold without harming his life. But after that slight delay, the situation in the battleground on the other side had changed again.

The reason why the intruder (“Rambo”) dared to initiate the a.s.sault on Fate was because he was confident in his explosiveness and was sure that he could kill Fate in seconds. When the guy saw that he had forced Fate to use his trump card – the honorary dosage, he immediately rushed at Fate at an extraordinary speed and hugged him with both arms.

At that moment, Sheyan saw a portal open up behind them and swallowed them inside!

"Is this the legendary Duel ability? The ability to forcibly drag the enemy into one"s own battlefield?" thought Sheyan. His trip to the b.l.o.o.d.y World was truly eye-opening. He had witnessed a lot of top level combat powers and skills of the nightmare realm at this stage.

Merely 35 seconds later, the dimensional portal opened again, and two figures fell out. Our dear Mr. Rambo appeared to be unhurt, but he looked as if he had seen a ghost. He covered his chest and ran away frantically. He didn"t even have the courage to look back.

On the other hand, Fate was covered in wounds. However, the blue magic barrier around him shone bright, and even had some flames faintly burning on its surface. It was as brilliant as the sun in the sky, forcing others to avert their gazes!

Hi eyes swept around and stopped on Sheyan. Then, he moved over with large strides!

Fate seemed to have the confidence to kill Sheyan now!

“You"re currently plagued by misfortune! During this period, everything will go against you!”

“You"re in an open area, which is totally disadvantageous for someone like you who lacks ranged attacks!”

“Fate, your only backup is currently being pursued by even more people than you are, while my backup is coming. I have the advantage in terms of personnel.”

“You"re at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. You will lose this battle for sure!”

(TL: Sun Tzu"s Art of War: Only launch a battle when the time is right, and the geographical and social conditions are favorable.)

The voice of Fate reverberated directly in Sheyan"s mind. Sheyan smiled in a relaxed manner.

“If victory were decided by words, you would have won for sure. Unfortunately, it"s not the tongue that decides victory, but the fist!”

Fate narrowed his eyes and he suddenly laughed.

“What a stubborn man!”

Before Fate had even finished his words, he had already took a step forward.

As soon as Fate was within two meters of Sheyan, Sheyan immediately found out how Fate could beat Mr. “Rambo” into fleeing.

An unbearable heat transmitted over as Fate got close. However, the heat seemed to be generated from the inside of Sheyan"s body and spread to the outside, so there was no visible abnormality. The heat felt very viscous, as if the surrounding air had melted like magma and stuck to the surface of Sheyan"s body, restricting his movement. Sheyan found that his movement speed had been reduced!

This was the final card up Fate"s sleeve, the "Raging Flame of Magic", which would continuously burn a large amount of his MP to attack the enemy. It was extraordinarily powerful, but it also had two major drawbacks. Firstly, when MP was burned, the upper limit of MP would temporarily reduce too. He must wait until he returned to the realm before he could recover from the effect. Secondly, the range of the attack was only about two to three meters.

For contestants like Sheyan, an attack range of two meters was more than enough, but for a mage-type contestants, it was worse than useless! Their opponents would be really happy to see them get so close! However, Fate had integrated it into his own offensive system to bring out its maximum power.

First, he had the ability to carry out ultra long range attacks and could kill the enemy before they realised what happened.

Even if he was somehow discovered by the enemy, Fate could usually escape by virtue of the distance between them. In this stage, gunmen posed the greatest threat to Fate, so this guy got himself a t.i.tanium mesh magic barrier that was extremely effective against long-range attacks! This would force those who were good at long range attacks to have no choice but to engage in close range fights with him, after which he would give them a taste of his "Raging Flame of Magic"! Such a combination of abilities was guaranteed to be a great success!

The few seconds when Sheyan was being burned by the "Raging Flame of Magic" saw his HP drop like water leaking out of a bucket. In addition, the "Raging Flame of Magic" also carried a speed reduction effect. Running away was no longer a viable option after getting caught in it. Don"t forget that Sheyan was also plagued by misfortune at the moment, so even if he tried to run away, the world would throw hurdles in his way.

Therefore, the only way to survive this predicament was to kill Fate before Fate killed him. This was practically the only choice left to anyone who had fallen into this trap of Fate"s. But Fate knew this as well, so given his shrewdness, how could he not be prepared?

The t.i.tanium mesh barrier on his body underwent a slight change. Initially, the inner t.i.tanium mesh consisted of numerous little squares, but they had now become rhombuses. The barrier had s.h.i.+fted from specialising against long ranged attacks to specialising against close ranged attacks.

With an angry shout, Sheyan pulled out "+ 7 West" and executed a slash, but the result was pretty meagre. It wasn"t because the power of "+7 West" had shrunk, but because the t.i.tanium mesh magic barrier had provided Fate with thousands of points of additional HP. If Sheyan did not break the barrier, he wouldn"t be able to harm Fate.

Fate had appeared right in front of Sheyan by now. His did not have high Strength and Agility but it was evident he had put in a lot of work on his basic footwork and body movement. It was a great pity that “Rambo” managed to run away. Considering that Sheyan was ridden with bad luck and did not specialise in Agility, Fate was confident that Sheyan could never escape from his "Raging Flame of Magic"!

Sheyan clenched his fist. Although the heat made his breath heavy and he felt like his innards were burning, his mind was as cool as ice. Fate could not see Sheyan"s eyes because Sheyan had his head buried low, but at that moment, he saw Sheyan smirk.

An ominous feeling gripped him.

Sheyan took a deep breath, and a sudden ma.s.s of red fog coiled around his body. A layer of light as blue as a clear sky enshrouded his hands and his weapon!

"Strength of the Sky"! That"s right, this was Sheyan"s powerful new-found ability, "Strength of the Sky"! Meanwhile, the "Zergling Rush" effect had long been triggered.

[Strength of the Sky: Perform a Strength check for every successful hit on the enemy. If you pa.s.s the Strength check, there is a 25% chance to interrupt a random beneficial effect on the target (including, but not limited to, attribute buffs, protective layers, and aura effects). Lasts for 30 seconds. This ability can be repeatedly triggered, but there will only be one interrupted effect (unable to stack). This ability has domain precedence.]

The two men were so close that Sheyan only needed to take a step forward to hit Fate with the three-punch combo. The effect of the "Strength of the Sky" was successfully triggered on the first punch. The t.i.tanium mesh magic barrier covering Fate instantly cracked.

When the second blow fell, the sky blue energy landed entirely on Fate"s body. The cracked t.i.tanium mesh magic barrier shattered like broken porcelain into large pieces and disappeared when they touched the ground.

Without the protection of the t.i.tanium mesh magic barrier, no matter how strong his "Raging Flame of Magic" was, there was no way Fate could face off with Sheyan in a direct confrontation with his meagre HP!

Fate, however, still looked unperturbed. As soon as his barrier was broken, a strange buzzing sound came from all over his body. His body lost its solidness, becoming illusionary – even now, he still had tricks to save his life!

Unfortunately for him, Sheyan would always make sure he got the job done. Once the t.i.tanium mesh magic barrier broke, a projection of the "Stairway of the Sun" immediately emerged behind Sheyan with its tendrils flailing about threateningly. It then evaporated like mists and turned into the form of an ordinary-looking black snake.

Those who hadn"t seen this snake before wouldn"t understand its horror.

This was an illusionary image of an Ouroboros.

Sheyan"s "Beast of Corrosion" ability would automatically choose the most effective way to attack according to the current enemy and environment. At this moment, it chose to turn into the strange and mysterious ancient snake of evil. It rushed out and chomped down on Fate"s thigh!

Fate finally screamed in agony despite himself! The pain from the bite of the Ouroboros would multiply when it acted on the pain receptors. The intense pain almost unraveled Fate"s body. His bitten thigh immediately blackened, the muscles on it rotting and emitting a foul smell. Pus appeared everywhere on the thigh. If he could see the bones inside, he would realise that even the bones had turned black!

But Fate"s last resort managed to show its effect. His whole body began to turn into particles and then be teleported to a pre-designated place. Sheyan had seen this before in the Pirates of the Caribbean world. It was called a high-energy short-range teleportation device and could be bought with reputation points.

The difference between the this one and the one Sheyan had seen before was that the latter was a team version which could send a certain number of people in non-combat state to a fixed location within five kilometers. The one Fate used was an individual version which could transmit the user to a fixed location within 500 meters even in a combat state. It"s hard to say which version was better.

“Within five hundred meters?” Sheyan narrowed his eyes.

“I have pursued Fate all the way here, during which time he has not left my sight. That is to say, he has no chance to specially arrange a transmission point, so his transmission location is obviously somewhere on his escape route…. Behind me! Within five hundred meters on the path he took to come here!”

Sheyan abruptly turned around and immediately saw the limping figure of Fate running away. Sheyan naturally couldn"t let Fate escape. He instantly gave chase.

But he forgot that he was still plagued by misfortune. He stepped on a banana skin and almost fell on his b.u.t.t. However, there was no way Sheyan was going to give up because of that. He still gritted his teeth and pursued desperately. He would not give up even if the world decided to go against him.

Sheyan"s movement speed was originally about the same as Fate"s, but Fate had suffered a heavy blow to his thigh and was also plagued by a disease. They symptoms would flare up from time to time, slowing him further. Even with Sheyan being delayed by various misfortunes, he could still keep pace with Fate.

The distance between them was maintained at about 500 meters throughout the chase. Under such circ.u.mstances, there was no doubt that Sheyan was optimistic with his chances. The two of them kept up the run and pursuit relentlessly.

After turning a corner, Sheyan lost sight of Fate, but ten seconds later, he received some notifications from the nightmare imprint:

[The symptom of your disease: chest pain has caused 97 damage.] (the damage of the "Stairway of the Sun" had increased after it grew.)

[You have killed Awakener No. ???? code-named Fate.]

When he saw this series of notifications, Sheyan could not help smirking.

Fate was, if he recalled correctly, the fourth unlucky fellow to die by his disease. It"s funny how none of the people who died by his disease were weak. All of them were either powerful Growth Hunters or powerful Awakeners.

Although Fate had died by chest pain, he somehow counted towards the hidden milestone of "Sanitary Pad Friend", which meant that Sheyan only needed to kill one more person to achieve this hidden milestone. Perhaps the real cause of the chest pain was internal bleeding in the lungs…..

(TL: From chapter 815 – [ Hidden Milestone: Sanitary Pad Friend. Condition: Five contestants must die to your "Bronchitis" breakout and cough blood ])

Strictly speaking, Fate was every bit as strong as Aziz. Once he got close, his explosive burst of damage was not inferior to Aziz"s, plus he also had the capability to launch ultrlong-range attacks while remaining securely hidden.

Sheyan was sure that if Aziz could choose his own partner in a war between contestants, he would definitely choose Fate rather than Sheyan himself.

As soon as Fate died, the air of misfortune enshrouding Sheyan completely disappeared. Fate"s death contributed an astonis.h.i.+ng 11 achievement points to Sheyan, and also a +7 silver storyline equipment. The value of this silver storyline equipment was not inferior to any dark gold equipment!

[+7 Stark"s Energy Spare Part (quality product)]

[Type: Ring]

[Rarity: Silver Storyline]

[Equipment position: Finger on the left or right hand]

[Material: Magnesium Peroxide + Stark Alloy]

[Property: MP +294 (94 additional points from +7 strengthening)]

[Property: All attributes +3 (2 additional points from +7 strengthening)]

[Property: MP consumption +10% (it is well known that one has to pay extra MP to stabilize one"s spells in order to cope with the magic chaos caused by steel) ]

[Property: There will be an additional MP consumption of 38% when your spell deals an explosive hit (12% reduction from +7 strengthening, originally 50%)]

[Property: If you do not possess the "Magic Barrier" ability, you will obtain a Lvl 3 "Magic Barrier".]

[Property: If you do possess the "Magic Barrier" ability, the ability will evolve into the "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier". The t.i.tanium mesh magic barrier is a more efficient and powerful version of the ordinary "Magic Barrier", but the MP consumption also increases accordingly.]

[+4 equipment special bonus: The damage absorption ability of the "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" is increased by 25%.]

[+7 equipment special bonus: This special bonus will only take effect after the "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" is upgraded to Lvl 7. It enables the "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" to switch between targeting long-range and close-range attacks.]

[Warning: When the damage reflection function of the "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" is activated, there will be extra MP consumption.]

[Description: Although this equipment is powerful, it requires you to have an abundance of MP before you can use it freely.]

[Comment: It"s only a little toy that the geniuses in the Stark family made when they were researching the Iron Man suit, but it seems pretty useful for a lot of people. If you had not paid much attention to the very basic "Magic Barrier" ability before, you will probably have to spend a lot of effort and resources on it in the foreseeable future, because this equipment is built almost entirely for the "Magic Barrier".]

Sheyan kept the ring away with a slight feeling of regret. To be honest, Sheyan coveted the power of the "Raging Flame of Magic". He was hoping that it was an equipment ability so that he had a chance to get it, but that was probably wishful thinking.

At that instant, Sheyan heard the sharp whistles of launched missiles transmitting over from various directions. Apparently “Rambo” was unwilling to give up and had returned. He had used his signature skill: "Carpet Bombing".

Sheyan did not dare to stay for the fight. It"s not that he"s afraid of Rambo, but because of another problem. He had been delayed for so long, so why had so few people come after him? That"s because Aziz appeared easier to kill! Therefore, there were a lot more people tailing after Aziz. Aziz"s ability to attract the aggro of contestants was much higher than Sheyan"s.

Regardless of whether Aziz had been killed or had successfully escaped, there should have been a result by now, so those contestants who did not manage to gain a profit would naturally come here to see if they can get lucky.

Sheyan did not think that he could finish any b.l.o.o.d.y World partic.i.p.ant in a short time, so he chose to flee. He rolled several times in succession under the cover of the carpet bombing until he reached a manhole cover. He smashed the cover and hid in the sewer.

He had gathered ample information regarding the city"s underground sewer in the search of Jones before this, so he had no trouble following the sewer network to the George Was.h.i.+ngton Bridge and proceeded to jump into the sea.

At this point, Rambo could only sigh.

The only way Sheyan could be found in the sea was during the Blood Sensing. It should be mentioned that after the intruders invaded this world, the laws of this world had been in a mess. As such, the Blood Sensing had become rather erratic, filling the partic.i.p.ants" hearts with a dread of the unknown.

After about half an hour of floating and sinking in the water, Sheyan saw an ocean-going fis.h.i.+ng boat with a draft of about 3000 tons pa.s.sing by. Sheyan"s experience told him that the boat was returning from a bountiful fis.h.i.+ng trip. He quickly climbed onto the boat.

On ocean-going fis.h.i.+ng boats like this one, the crew were normally stranded on board for a long time. When they come to the bustling city of New York, the foremost things in their minds were the dollars, the cold beers and the strippers. They were all eager to vent.

And basically, the demand for the fishes brought back by the ocean-going fis.h.i.+ng boats far exceeded the supply. The United States were most concerned about the problem of environmental pollution, so as long as one had authentic pollution-free goods, there was no fear of the goods not being able to sell. The fishes wouldn"t go bad in cold storage anyway, so once the boat docked in a harbour, the crew would most likely drag the captain out for some fun while making the buyers wait.

Sure enough, after the boat arrived at the harbour, only two old guards were left on the boat while the others could not wait to go ash.o.r.e fast enough. Of the two old men, as soon as the others left, one immersed himself in a Playboy magazine while the other fetched out a bottle of whiskey and took quite a few generous gulps. It was clear that the captain had put his faith in the wrong men.

It was then that Sheyan brazenly walked to the cabin, twisted the lock off the captain"s cabin, and lay comfortably on the captain"s bed, giving himself a rest.

Sheyan was first ravaged by the Cardinal"s seven deadly sins, then chased by Shali and Stend, then he fought a life-and-death battle with the unbelievably powerful Fate, and finally fled from Rambo"s pursuit. It was a perilous, exhausting journey. If he did not take the time to relax, he would collapse for sure.

"I wonder if Aziz is still alive? By the way, it"s hard to believe that he"s quite the playboy, considering that his face is always like a dead fish," Sheyan could not help thinking of Aziz"s memory that was displayed just now.

"All the girls he had fun with were busty and curvy, especially that Latina beauty with the tan skin. Lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d…..s.h.i.+t, what"s happening?"

Sheyan suddenly felt something moving in his nostrils, and it was a little itchy. He rubbed it with his hand and suddenly found his hand full of blood.

"Am I so s.e.xually frustrated that I"m getting a nosebleed just from thinking about s.e.x?"

Sheyan instantly felt that something was off. He gradually came to feel a strange heat in his body. The feeling was not unfamiliar to him; it was the same feeling of being burned by Fate"s "Raging Flame of Magic". But that Fate was clearly dead…

This was the malicious aspect of the "Raging Flame of Magic". Once inflicted with it, it would be like having a time bomb planted in the body that could go off any time. The effect would only disappear slowly after 24 hours.

Although Sheyan was not worried that the effect would kill him, it was very uncomfortable to have a basin of burning charcoal in his body. He didn"t notice it in the heat of battle, but now that things had quietened down, it was pretty hard to bear.

After another hour or so, Sheyan felt as though all his veins were baked in fire. The anguish and irritation were almost unbearable, and the "Stairway of the Sun" in him was also afraid of fire. So, he made the decision to rush into the s.h.i.+p"s cold storage and, ignoring the strong fishy smell, chomped down on the ice there.

A pleasurable cold spread through his body. Right now, he would like nothing more than to submerge himself in cold water and let the refres.h.i.+ng water wash over his body.

After Sheyan felt a bit better, he went on to lower the temperature of the cold storage to the minimum, then buried himself among the ice and frozen heap of fish. He could resist his exhaustion no longer and fell into a comfortable sleep.

When Sheyan awoke from the cold, he found himself sleeping in a hollow, thin ice pit, surrounded by a circle of ice that had dead fish inside.

Sheyan pondered carefully and immediately understood what happened. The residual heat of the "Raging Flame of Magic" in his body must have dissipated to his surrounding and melted the ice blocks and frozen fishes blanketing him.

However, the amount of residual heat was limited, and when it was exhausted, the cold air in the storage regained the upper hand and froze the fish and water again.

“This fire is really fierce,” mumbled Sheyan to himself. As he did that, he realised that his lips were very stiff. He had been in high lat.i.tude places before so he knew what had happened.

He touched his face and immediately felt some hard, stabbing sensation on his lips and nostrils. His breath had frozen into icicles right after leaving his body. A thick layer of frost had also formed on his hair, turning hard enough to emit a thumping sound when he knock on his head. When he moved his limbs, he could hear the sound of ice cracking.

“Seems like the Blood Sensing isn"t here yet, or else those guys would have pounced here like dogs.”

Sheyan loosened his body a little, then stood up. The first few steps he took were very unsteady but he gradually got better. He stepped over the cold fish and ice blocks on the steel floor towards the control room of the cold storage, and pushed the thick door open.

The sea breeze instantly spread a soft warmth over Sheyan"s exposed skin. The night sky was the colour of black swan velvet, full of stars, sparkling and blinking. Sheyan took in the beautiful scenery for a few seconds. Right when he was about to leave, his foot suddenly kicked something that was frozen stiff. He picked it up to take a look and couldn"t help but exclaim in surprise:

“These guys are so lucky! They even caught something like this.”

The “thing” turned out to be an eel that looked very ordinary, but had more than a dozen hard spikes on its back, giving it the appearance akin to a general in armour. This kind of eel was nicknamed “feral dog eel”. They were very ferocious and domineering, consuming everything they set their sights on. They were the overlords among eels and were very rare.

He had heard that top-cla.s.s grilled eels in j.a.panese cuisine must be prepared with feral dog eels, which were often chosen as an offering in the yearly ritual conducted by the j.a.panese Emperor. A feral dog eel such as the one in Sheyan"s hand could easily sell for seventy to eighty thousand US dollars.

It"s been more than 10 years since Sheyan last had a feral dog eel. He was immensely tempted by it. He searched around the boat and found several first aid kits, then proceeded to get the cotton out. He then took the bottle of whiskey from the drunkard, used the whiskey to start a fire, and started grilling the eel.

The eel lived in sea water so it had a natural salty taste and thus required no additional flavouring. The key lay in the control of heat during the grilling process. The feral dog eel gradually thawed in the heat and turned a golden colour. The eel was soon covered in a layer of oil; it looked extremely appetising. Oil dripped onto the flame below, making it crackle.

Sheyan carefully observed the skin of the eel and watched oil seep out of it as it was heated. The white flesh inside was exposed when the skin began to crack. Just as the skin started to roll up, he immediately put out the fire. If he had just grilled for a few more seconds, the part of the skin that had curled up would be charred. The burnt taste would undoubtedly destroy the flavour. He must stop the grilling at exactly the right time.

Sheyan bit down without paying any heed to how hot the eel was. His teeth felt like they had bit into the most tender jelly in the world, but the sensation on his tongue was of the rich oily taste of the tender white meat. If he gently pushed with the tip of his tongue, he thought he could even feel the delicate meat tremble.

There was no real need to chew. With just a roll of his tongue, the flesh dissolved and separated from the eel. After he swallowed the meat, the desire to have more would a.s.sault his mind without giving him the chance to slowly dwell on the taste…..

The captain only noticed that the most valuable harvest of their trip had disappeared when the crew unloaded the cargo two days later. To be exact, the edible part of it had disappeared with only the bones left….but it wasn"t all bad news. On top of the eel bones was a small bag of diamonds. That was something Sheyan picked up along the way from the jewelry store on the sh.o.r.e. The diamonds were useless to him since they couldn"t be brought of this world, but they were more than enough to compensate for the eel.

Sheyan had began his attempt to go to Manhattan once again.

After confronting the Cardinal, Sheyan had gained some experience and had also found some weaknesses in the Cardinal"s attack.

First of all, the Cardinal"s attack follows the principle of the seven deadly sins, and it was likely that the power of the attack corresponded to the severity of the sin committed. Otherwise, why would the Cardinal need to read the memories of Aziz and himself? The Cardinal probably did that to look for the sins they had committed before, then launched an attack targeting those sins.

A cold, stony fellow like Aziz didn"t seem to be very picky with his food, so the Cardinal did not condemn him for gluttony. Meanwhile, Sheyan wasn"t that active s.e.xually, so he wasn"t burned by fire and brimstone…..

Which was to say, if he had continued fighting with the Cardinal on that day, the degree of the Cardinal"s attack was likely to get weaker and weaker. Because his other sins were light, his punishments for them should be light too!

However, Sheyan"s body still carried the imprints of the sin of gluttony and the sin of wrath.These imprints were called the mark of the sinner and could only be removed once he return to the realm. Sheyan"s military rank did not possess enough authority to check what they did, but there"s no way they"re anything good.

Sheyan guessed that if he was branded with all seven sins, something very, very violent would happen…..

“Whatever. My mission is not to defeat him,” Sheyan shook his head with a sigh and comforted himself. His eyes only dimmed slightly before they regained the usual confidence.

“And since that guy likes to read other people"s memories so much, maybe I"ll have a chance! ”

Just then, the public phone on the street corner which Sheyan happened to walk past, suddenly rang. Sheyan ignored it and kept walking.

But when he pa.s.sed by another public phone, that phone rang instead.

Sheyan"s pupils constricted slightly, but he still chose not to pick it up.

When he pa.s.sed by the third public phone and the phone rang again, Sheyan pondered over it carefully and finally decided to answer the phone. Aziz"s voice transmitted over from the receiver.

“It"s me. I"m contacting you through K"s help. I"m sorry that I have to contact you in this manner.”

Sheyan smiled and said:

“It"s ok. What"s the matter?”

Aziz said in his usual hoa.r.s.e voice:

“My current situation… is quite complicated. When I tried to force my way in, a large number of people appeared and attacked me. I suffered a heavy loss.

Sheyan nodded and said.

“I know, I realised it as soon as I managed to escape to safety. They all went after you so the pressure on my side was relatively small.”

Aziz"s voice sounded forced as he said:

“My current predicament is like a gambler who"s lost most of his chips. The only thing I"ve got that can turn the situation around is the reward from the Golden Side Mission. That"s why I can no longer join you in attacking the Morgan Financial Center in Manhattan.”

Sheyan remained silent for a moment before he said.

“I understand. You"re going to the No.17 subway station in Brooklyn, right? All the best. I"ll definitely return alive myself.”

Aziz said with some difficulty:

“With my current situation, even the No. 17 subway station in Brooklyn is too difficult for me. That"s why I need to know when you will attack the Morgan Financial Center.”

Sheyan grasped the phone so tightly that his knuckles turned white. If Aziz could not attack the Morgan Financial Center with him, the pressure Sheyan had to face would be several times heavier than before! But not only could Aziz not help, he also needed to know Sheyan"s time of operation, which means that he needed Sheyan to attract all the attention of the enemies to cover for him!

Honestly, this request had far exceeded the relations.h.i.+p level between the two! Even the relations.h.i.+p between Sheyan and Zi currently was not close enough to make a request like this. The only one qualified to make such a request of Sheyan was Reef, who had a "Life-link" with him and had gone through multiple life and death situations with him!

But at the moment, Sheyan"s interests were tied together with Aziz"s. Either of their death would mean the failure of the Golden Side Mission. Sheyan also knew very well that someone as arrogant as Aziz would never make such a request unless he"s really at his wit"s end.

The street lamp beside Sheyan dragged his shadow on the ground long and thin. Sheyan quietly held the receiver for a long time before he broke the silence again. He said in a faint voice:

“You owe me one, Aziz. If I succeed, you will owe me three favours.”

Aziz was silent for a short moment and replied in that chilly, monotonous tone of his:

“If you succeed, I only owe you two favours.”

Sheyan calmly said:

“Deal. I will challenge the Cardinal again in an hour and ten minutes. Got that?”

The dial tone transmitted over from the receiver. Aziz had already hung up. He was still as cold as a stone – a stone retrieved from a cesspit.

Sheyan walked into a nearby convenience store, rubbed his hands and ordered a cup of instant coffee. He stirred up a lot of bubbles in the coffee before he took a sip, then closed his eyes and listened to the sound of countless small bubbles bursting on his tongue. As he did that, he gradually calmed down. After he finished the cup of coffee, he strode back into Manhattan. He was currently wearing a black windbreaker and a thick grey scarf. With his head slightly drooping, he looked no different from an office worker returning from an overtime s.h.i.+ft having just taken a scolding from his boss.

When Sheyan was a kilometer away from the Morgan Financial Center, the suit-clad Cardinal once again appeared in Sheyan"s sight, as if Sheyan had somehow set off an alarm which alerted him. The Cardinal"s eyes were as cold and desolate as the craters on the moon. Only when his eyes fell on Sheyan did a fiery heat gush out from within like an erupting volcano.

“Heathen! Atone for your sins with your screams and your blood!”

Sheyan did not waste his breath on the Cardinal. There was only one thing in his mind at the moment. To be exact, it was a number.

“1744.38 meters.”

The number was not an alt.i.tude or something. It was the distance Sheyan had carefully calculated on Google Maps in advance.

It was the exact distance from his current spot to the eleventh floor of the Morgan Financial Center!

This was the distance between failure and success – the distance between life and death!

The target Sheyan set for himself was to do everything in his power and seize every opportunity to keep reducing this number. When the number reached 0, it would be his win.

In such a difficult situation, only in this way, without any other distraction, was it possible to survive this ordeal! The slightest bit of distracting thought could make him lose the courage and motivation to hang on until the end.

The surrounding air evaporated suddenly and rippled like water. Sheyan took a deep breath as he watched the huge white cross smash into his body.

This time, the Cardinal read his memory of plundering Huashan Fei"s money and drugs in the real world. Therefore, the sin this time was Greed.

Out of thin air appeared a horrible creature. It looked like a water elemental and also like the Genie in Aladdin, but its color was the dark yellow of amber. Gurgling bubbles would flow out from its translucent body from time to time. It hovered in the air only thirty centimeters off the ground, but towered at a height of five meters. It rapidly glided towards Sheyan.

“What the h.e.l.l is that?” wondered Sheyan. While he was still lost in bewilderment, a yawning man walked out of a subway station while moving his body to the rhythm of the rap music he was listening to. The weird liquid creature completely ignored the man"s existence and ran into him from behind, then engulfed him completely with its body!

After the man was swallowed into the translucent liquid creature, he immediately made a painful expression. He seemed to be screaming in agony too but he couldn"t make a sound! To Sheyan"s horror, the man quickly turned red and black, and eventually his whole body turned into a scorched log. His clothes had blackened really quickly too and even his phone had caught fire and exploded.

Presented with such a sight, Sheyan felt a chill creeping down his spine. According to the information available, this thing was an oil elemental that was comprised entirely of boiling oil! The punishment for the sin of greed was to fry the culprit in boiling oil. Well, to put it in a fas.h.i.+onable way, it was the same as what KFC does to chickens….

From the look of it, Sheyan was sure that he couldn"t let himself be “hugged” by the oil elemental, or he would definitely suffer some dire consequences. Even if he was not immediately fried alive, he would suffocate to death. While he tried his best to hide his intention of escaping towards the Morgan Financial Center, multiple thoughts ran through his mind.

“Logically speaking, the heavier the sin, the heavier the punishment will be, but the Cardinal"s oil elemental is so insanely strong that I don"t even have a chance to fight back. It"s not fast, but it"s not that slow either. It"s much stronger than the punishment for gluttony previously. Huh? According to the characteristics of oil, could its weakness be…..?”

Sheyan suddenly had an idea. He instantly grabbed a garbage bin that was next to him.

The garbage bin was really big and it was full of rubbish. The garbage men usually put a hook on the edge of the bin and emptied the garbage with the help of machines. But in Sheyan"s hand, the garbage bin was thrown 20 meters away without much effort. It hit the waist of the giant oil elemental, causing oil to splatter everywhere.

The entire garbage bin went into the oil elemental and ended up being deep fried as well.

Sheyan noticed that the oil that splattered from the impact of the garbage bin gathered into droplets like mercury and did not disperse. The droplets then slowly crawled toward the oil elemental as if they had a life of their own. It seemed that the oil elemental had the ability to heal itself. However, Sheyan also noticed that the movement of the giant boiling oil elemental was markedly slower when it was frying the garbage bin inside it!

“I see.” Sheyan looked as if he had understood something. He slammed his shoulder into the door of a nearby shop. The hinges of the unfortunate door issued a metallic moan in protest before the door was torn open with a loud crash. A dent outlining Sheyan"s shoulder could be seen on it.

Sheyan swooped forward, rolled himself up, lifted the two-liter plastic water container in the water dispenser next to him, and returned to the sidewalk.

Then, Sheyan simply threw the half-full plastic water container at the giant boiling oil elemental.

The plastic container only lasted for about five seconds under the boiling oil before it dissolved. Remember what happens when a drop of water comes into contact with hot oil in a frying pan? Well, right now, over a liter of water came into contact with hot boiling oil inside the giant oil elemental. It produced a terrifying explosion!

As soon as Sheyan threw the plastic water container, he immediately fled towards the Morgan Financial Center as fast as he could.

Not that he didn"t want to flee right away when he saw the giant boiling oil elemental, but the oil elemental moved faster than he did, and he wasn"t sure if the oil elemental had any long-range attack capability. If it did, it was tantamount to selling his back to the enemy. In that case, it would not be an escape, it would be a beating!

When a loud bang was heard behind him, Sheyan was already over 100 meters away, but he could still feel an unbelievable heat a.s.saulting his back, like millions of scorching needles trying to pierce through his skin. The boiling oil had apparently erupted and splashed all over his back.

Sheyan paid it no heed and continued to run vigorously. He believed that after such an explosion, he should be safe from the oil elemental for at least a minute. And he was right. Almost half the body of the giant boiling oil elemental was blown apart. The wounded part of his body kept wriggling like snails and continued to mend itself. However, it also moved considerably slower.

Forget about catching up to Sheyan, just healing itself would take at least ten minutes. Sheyan was still feeling extremely pleased with himself as he reached the door of the Morgan Financial Center when the giant boiling oil elemental suddenly exploded by itself.

The spectacle was spectacular. It looked like a fountain shooting straight into the sky, spraying hot, boiling oil thousands of square meters in the vicinity and caused severe burns to more than 70 innocent and curious New Yorkers.

The explosion of the oil monster made Sheyan stumble. A sudden pain caused him to fall to the ground. Another brand representing the sin of greed was visible on his leg.

“That thing was truly malicious. Once it realised that it was too late to catch up to me, it decisively self-destructed to brand me with the mark of the sinner.”

Sheyan gritted his teeth, climbed up and charged determinedly into the Morgan Financial Center. Although his appearance was a mess, he was only eleven floors away from success! (ED: A rhyme! How nice!) As long as he could perservere, he would reap immesse profit!

But right that moment, the Cardinal mysteriously appeared a hundred meters behind Sheyan. The Cardinal tilted his head slightly and once again pulled Sheyan into an illusion.

This time, the Cardinal"s punishment for Sheyan was the same one experienced by Aziz- l.u.s.t!

It appeared that the Cardinal could only condemn experiences in the real world as sins, and not experiences in the nightmare worlds, so Sheyan only ended up being chased by two magma elemental creatures. Compared to the enormous scale of Aziz"s punishment with lava and smokes everywhere, which seemed almost at the level of forbidden spells, it was a difference of heaven and earth.

Sheyan did not dare to take the elevator after he regained his freedom, but instead ran up the fire escape. The speed of the pair of magma elementals were not high and their attack did not pose too much of a threat to Sheyan, so Sheyan decided to brave their blows and carry on with his climb!

When Sheyan reached the eighth floor, one of the magma elemental tried to grab him in a hug and he immediately kicked at it. The orange flame on the creature"s head instantly spread to Sheyan"s foot, but it was also sent flying. The flame on its body rapidly grew weaker after it landed, exposing the rock body inside. Its rock skull banged hard on the floor and actually shattered into pieces!

“That"s so shameless! Another one that killed itself!” fumed Sheyan in indignation, “I was just trying to kick it away!”

Sheyan was now only three floors away from the eleventh floor, and the Cardinal"s punishment was getting weaker every time. This time, Sheyan was found guilty of the sin of pride. The punishment for this sin was having his body split apart by several giant wheels.

Aziz would probably suffer quite a heavy punishment for the sin of pride, but Sheyan only had to drag the five huge shackles that had abruptly emerged around his body as he continued to stride forward.

Sheyan gasped heavily for breath like a labourer who had been slaving away for a whole day.

His neck, legs, and arms had translucent shackles of light on them. The words that would come to mind when one looked at these shackles were thick, violent and crude. Connected to the shackles were thick chains, all pulled taut, with the other ends of the chains attached to some large holy objects emitting a great amount of holy light. The light was so bright that the real appearance of the objects could not be seen.

As the holy light gradually faded away, the five great holy objects were finally visible. They were a huge Bible, the True Cross, the Ark of the Covenant, the Crown of Thorns, and the Lance of Longinus. These five gigantic holy objects were all flying in different directions at the same time. If Sheyan did not have enough strength to resist, he would inevitably be split apart.

However, Sheyan"s sin of pride was light, so the corresponding punishment was not heavy. Not only was he not torn apart, he could still drag the five holy objects up the stairs with mere strength, albeit with difficulty.

Cras.h.i.+ng noises resounded as the five holy objects kept smas.h.i.+ng into the tempered gla.s.s around the stairs. The shattered gla.s.s reflected the light of the street lamps below while they fell from a great height, looking like the vicious glint on the fangs of bloodthirsty wild animals!

Looking up from the outside, it was as if a terrifying beast was trying to climb up the gla.s.s wall of the building!

The brute force Sheyan had to exert was so great that the veins on his neck and forehead were bulging, and sweat flowed freely all over his body. Every stride he took would destroy half the step of the stairs!

“You think…you can…stop me…with just…this??” Sheyan"s lips curled into a mocking smile. The translucent shackles left some deep marks on Sheyan"s body as they tried to pull Sheyan apart but they could not stop Sheyan from climbing up!

When Sheyan reached the ninth floor, the translucent shackles broke in an instant and completely disappeared! The five holy objects collided with each other in the air and turned to ashes. Sheyan did not even turn his head around to look at that weird spectacle. He took the chance from regaining his freedom to climb half a storey further. Even when he was branded as a sinner, he gritted his teeth and persevered through the pain without stopping.

The tenth floor!

But just then, the Cardinal suddenly appeared in front of Sheyan again. If someone had been looking closely, they could still tell that he actually came from a distance at a high speed, but the time gap between his steps was unnaturally short. They would feel like time had frozen in that instant, and the Cardinal would walk leisurely, then unfreeze time.

The surroundings froze. Sheyan was about to take the first step on the stairs on the tenth floor, but his leg was halted mid-step.

The Cardinal did not attack immediately. Instead, he closed his eyes, seemingly enjoying the pleasure of toying with his prey. He then stared at Sheyan. Sheyan instantly felt an intense sunlight penetrating deep into his soul, making him feel a pleasant warmth at first, but it soon turned into a searing pain!

“Repent, sinner! Then atone for your sins with your flesh and blood! ”

As he spoke, all four marks of the sinner on Sheyan"s body shone with a dazzling light. Sheyan once again felt an unbearable pain in his limbs and bones.

He felt as if there were four bombs of devastating power in his body, greedily absorbing the essence of his flesh and blood. They expanded rapidly and may burst any second like an inflated balloon!

Sheyan immediately applied an honorary dosage on himself to restore himself to full HP!

When he observed carefully, he could tell there were slight differences between the four terrifying forces in his body. The brand left by the sin of gluttony was the fastest at absorbing energy, while the slowest was the brand left by the sin of pride.

The more terrifying fact was that when marks of the sinner surfaced on the skin, they were formed by intertwining blood vessels and flesh like a healing burn scar. The flesh lumps and blood vessels bulged fiercely, appearing extremely sinister and cruel.

“AAARRRGGHH!” Sheyan wailed, either in pain or anger. The mark of gluttony had absorbed enough energy by now, and with a dull explosion, burst a huge hole in Sheyan"s thigh!

Sheyan"s right leg was severed just like that. The detached leg flew out in a semi-circle and smashed through the tempered gla.s.s at the side. It left a brutal trail of blood in its wake as it fell down from the height of the ten floors!

Sheyan"s face turned pale! He gritted his teeth so hard that they made creaking sound. The mark of wrath on his left leg started to swell at a high speed until it formed into a huge tumour, then proceeded to burst into a b.l.o.o.d.y mess! His left leg was also severed! Although the leg was still connected to his body through some tendons and muscles, it had obviously been rendered completely useless!

“YOU…YOU…! ” Sheyan, after suffering two severe injuries in succession, flipped his body over. His face was pale and cold sweat wouldn"t stop running down his body. He tried to point at the Cardinal, but the mark of greed on his right arm had started to swell too. His right arm became as thin as a stick in an instant after the essence of the flesh and blood in the arm was absorbed.

An obvious trace of delight showed in the Cardinal"s originally indifferent eyes, as if seeing the agony and suffering of others was his only enjoyment! Sheyan instantly pressed his right hand under his body, trying to put pressure on his arm with his weight to stop the mark from exploding!

But it proved to be a naive thought. Following a loud bang, Sheyan felt as if a watermelon was crushed beneath his body. A great deal of flesh pulp and blood flowed out underneath him. He was launched over three meters into the air by the tremendous force from the explosion. He b.u.mped his head on stairs and bled profusely.

Sheyan"s right hand was spared the fate of being severed, but most of the muscles inside were gone. The skin clung to the bone like the arm of a dry corpse. The middle part of the arm was in a b.l.o.o.d.y mess with the bones showing through the wound. The bones had a purplish-black tint and there were deep and terrible cracks on them. They looked so fragile that they would crumble under the slightest pressure!

Sheyan was s.h.i.+vering all over and could not utter a word. His hair was completely wet but he did not know whether it was sweat or blood. The mark of pride was still there on his left hand. It began to swell rapidly. It seemed like Sheyan would lose all four of his limbs.

Even when Sheyan had been reduced to such a pathetic state, the Cardinal still decided to trigger the power of the mark of pride. From this, it could be seen that, although the Cardinal was arrogant, he was not the least bit conceited. In fact, he was careful not to give Sheyan any chance to counter-attack. He was like a lion that gave its best effort even against a rabbit!

Sheyan exhausted his last bit of strength to press his left hand under his body like he did with his right hand. An explosion occurred again, and Sheyan was once again blown a few meters away, spraying blood and flesh pieces into the air. His left hand was now in a very bizarre state. The fingers and forearm looked completely normal, but from the elbow to the shoulder, only the bones remained. In any case, it was now useless too.

“Is that all you can take, you heathen who spreads the plague? I was expecting you to hang on until the arrival of the Final Sin,” said the Cardinal with his majestic voice.

Sheyan faced the sky with a helpless expression. Only the faint movement of his chest showed that he was still alive.

The Cardinal gave Sheyan a mocking gaze as he said, “To be honest, although you"re a filthy heathen, you do have some brains. Even in such a desperate situation, you could still think of using the power of my holy marks to make an escape. You were at the bottom part of the stairs leading to the eleventh floor before, but using the impact from the explosion of your left and right arms, you"ve actually moved yourself to the upper part!”

“Do you really think you can reach the eleventh floor this way? Your little actions are nothing in the eyes of G.o.d! Ha ha ha, you"re now only four steps away from the eleventh floor! But you"re doomed to never cross these four steps! How does it feel to see your goal within reach but being powerless to reach it?”

Sheyan"s voice was faint as he said, “You"re just a fool who claims to be G.o.d! Do you dare let me get to the eleventh floor?”

The Cardinal stared at Sheyan like he was an idiot. He said, “Do you seriously think I"ll comply with your request? G.o.d will only bless His believers. The only fitting end for heathens like you is to fall into the deep abyss of despair! Hhha, weep in the abyss of pain and destruction, repent your sins as your soul is tormented in the centuries to follow! You will suffer more for your cleverness!”

Following the words of the Cardinal, a number of cracks suddenly appeared on the stairs beneath Sheyan and a large amount of sand and stone debris fell off. Sheyan was about to fall from a place so close to success to the endless abyss of failure!

“Just four more steps. Just a few dozen centimeters. Is this really the end for me? Is this my destiny?”

Sheyan could feel and hear the stairs supporting his body collapsing under him. He didn"t even need to look to know that the stairs were hanging precariously and would give way any moment now.

He could even estimate that he had at most three seconds before he would fall together with the stairs.

One step further and he would be in heaven; one step back and he would be in h.e.l.l.

Sometimes, a single step was all it took to decide everything!

The Cardinal suddenly noticed something was wrong, for he suddenly saw Sheyan"s eyes.

Those were not the eyes of a despairing man.

No one could have such calm eyes after losing all hope. Eyes that, apart from being deep, were also full of desire!

“So….it"s my destiny to never cross these four steps?”

“Destiny, what is that?”

“I Will Grasp My Own Destiny!”

Sheyan was so tormented by the power of the seven deadly sins that he could hardly speak, but his strong will and his tenacious conviction were perfectly conveyed to the Cardinal through his spirit!

The next second, a glow appeared on his finger, and some faint cheering noises, which did not fit the current atmosphere at all, appeared out of nowhere.

It was the cheering of thousands of people in a tournament!

It was the cheering of Hogwarts students, filled with excitement after winning the Quidditch Cup!

Sheyan had put on the dark gold ring he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from Hakeem! Before this, he was rather reluctant to wear the ring due to the powerful negative effects of the ring which could lead to a lot of difficulties in the Harry Potter world. He couldn"t decide whether he should sell it or wear it.

But after he formed a cooperation with Aziz for the Golden Side Mission, he realised that Golden Side Missions, even one with the lowest difficulty rating, were much harder than he imagined!

So, to Sheyan, even if the dark gold ring was akin to a cup of poison, he had no choice but to drink it! Drinking poisoned wine to quench his thirst may not be advisable, but if he was about to die of thirst, drinking the poisoned wine could at least prolong his life for a few more minutes; it was undoubtedly a wise choice. Only by surviving could he create unlimited possibilities. Once he died, it was all over!

The Cardinal was about to make a move, but with a flash of light, Sheyan"s incomplete body was launched into the air in a projectile trajectory like a rainbow! The landing spot was the eleventh floor!

Manhattan,

37th Street,

Morgan Financial Center,

Eleventh floor!!!

"Mind Transmission"! The powerful but lethal ring displayed its might in this moment. Sheyan finally crossed those four steps to reach the task completion area!

During the course of the transmission, the Cardinal had a feeling that the prey he caught was about to escape from the net. A white holy flame immediately burned in his eyes.

There was suddenly a faint solemn hymn in the air. Anyone who heard the voice would feel the impulse to prostrate themselves in wors.h.i.+p. An extremely dense holy light rapidly emerged above Sheyan.

The holy light split and revealed a black cross stained with blood inside. The cross bore down on Sheyan with overwhelming pressure!

The black cross contained unbelievable ferocity. The trails of blood on it twisted and curved, giving off a feeling as if the sight of the cross would make the whole world weep.

The cross was an imitation of the “crucifix” created from the Cardinal"s divine power – the crucifix on which Jesus was put to death wearing a crown of thorns.

On this cross, even G.o.d fell. It"s terrifying power was evident!

When the black cross appeared, the whole twelfth floor of the building was sent into a mess! It then lodged itself heavily on the eleventh floor.

The Cardinal felt that something was wrong at once. It should be noted that he had launched the “crucifix” with his full power. Forget about a single floor; even the whole Morgan Financial Center should have been destroyed. However, the fact was that it could only make the whole building shake. Let alone the building, even the eleventh floor showed no sign of collapsing.

Although the crucifix had astonis.h.i.+ng power, it also had a major weakness – it was not an instant cast ability, but instead required a 1.5-second chant. In addition, the crucifix would also take a fraction of a second to fall down.

The 2 seconds or so in total may be too little time for the average person to react, but it was difficult for it to hit the abnormally agile contestants.

What use was a strong skill if it couldn"t hit anyone?

That was the reason the Cardinal had not used this move before. In his offensive system, the enemy was usually branded with the seven marks of the sinners before enduring the final judgment, and if they"re not dead, they would be stunned for three seconds. The crucifix could then hit the enemy for sure and would be used as the ultimate skill.

But both of Sheyan"s legs were severed and both his hands were crippled, so he should have no way of escaping. That was why the Cardinal chose to that move.

Sheyan could hear the deafening roar of the cross. Sensing the danger, his crippled hands flailed wildly and managed to move his body a little. The crucifix fell directly onto his abdomen. Blood splashed everywhere but were instantly evaporated while they were still in the air. Sheyan was sent into a state of near death before he could make a sound.

After the invincibility period of the state of near death pa.s.sed, the crucifix once again crushed down with the force of a collapsing mountain. Sheyan"s body from the neck down was crushed into pieces. A holy flame ignited and burned his bodily pieces into ashes! However, the nightmare imprint on his chest was totally fine, as if it did not exist in this dimension.

The only thing Sheyan was left with was his head!!!

The average person would have died ten times over by now. Even for Sheyan, this injury would have been fatal if not for his shocking 140 points of Physique. He could still survive for over 5 more minutes with just his head.

So at that moment, Sheyan could still wink at the Cardinal and give him a flying kiss. He even found the time to mouth some words to the Cardinal. The Cardinal broke out in fury. With a howl, a javelin made of holy light condensed in his hand, which he threw at Sheyan.

The holy light javelin penetrated through the eleventh floor effortlessly, and continued on to pierce through the twelfth floor, the thirteenth floor, and the outer wall of the building, then flew towards the sky like an inverted meteor!

Everything that was touched by the holy light javelin had gone to ashes!

But the Cardinal clearly saw that the head of that d.a.m.ned contestant had disappeared into thin air the moment the holy light javelin left his hand!

The Cardinal then recalled the words mouthed by Sheyan. By that time, Sheyan could no longer utter a sound, but it only took a moment for the Cardinal to comprehend what Sheyan had said before he left:

“I Make My Own Destiny!”

The Cardinal"s face contorted. The words were like a brutal slap in his face!

From the top of a building close to the sea, one could watch the turbulent waves in the distance, reaching so high they almost seemed to be level with the rooftop. It was clear that another storm was brewing at sea.

Sheyan lay lazily on a deck chair on the rooftop, a can of Budweiser, half a bag of peanuts, and a broken plate of crispy shrimps on the stool beside him.

The breeze blew his hair into disorder, but Sheyan couldn"t care less. His gaze slowly retracted from the distance until it reached his left hand. He then reached out to touch his neck and said with some lingering fear, “That d.a.m.n holy flame….it hurts so much when it burns!”

The memory caused Sheyan"s breath to turn heavy. He could not help picking up the beer nearby and taking a few large gulps with no care for the beer bubbles spilling out from the corners of his mouth.

During the battle, Sheyan discarded all other thoughts and struggled with everything he had until the very last moment. In retrospect, it was truly a frightening experience. And even after a successful return to the nightmare realm, the Cardinal"s holy flame still caused Sheyan a lot of trouble! How, you ask?

Sheyan only had less than 60,000 utility points left when he returned to the realm with only his head. Repairing the body alone required more than 80,000 utility points — and that was after the "Stairway of the Sun" had shrunk itself to hide in Sheyan"s mouth when it felt that things were going south.

The price that the realm gave to extinguish the holy flame was 50,000 utility points! Of course Sheyan wouldn"t dare to use that service with his balance already in the red!

He could only let it burn until it was extinguished by itself. The only good news, then, was that in the returning s.p.a.ce, a contestant would have unlimited HP, so no matter how fiercely the flame burned, Sheyan"s life was not in danger.

The holy flame tormented Sheyan for more than half an hour before it resentfully went out.

PS: Sheyan had a pair of "Deformed Thicksh.e.l.l" gloves which he had taken off and kept for aquatic battles.

Although Sheyan did not extinguish the holy flame with the realm"s help, he still did not have enough utility points to repair his body, falling short by more than 20,000 points. The nightmare realm wasn"t unreasonable in this regard. Just like the way there were public hospitals and private hospitals in the real world, there were free treatments in addition to paid treatments.

Paid treatments were, of course, fast and convenient. On the other hand, free treatment required a long waiting time.

If the injury was so severe that the contestant still had not fully recovered under free treatment by the time the contestant had to enter the next world, the realm would simply send the contestant into that world after ensuring that the fatal wounds were healed.

Sheyan patiently waited in the returning s.p.a.ce. He summoned Jinkuang only to find that the guy had fallen asleep again. Although Sheyan"s recovery speed was increased thanks to his military rank, he had still used up almost all the time he was allowed to stay in the realm before he finally regained his body.

The moment he entered his personal room, with no time to take a breather, he was already kicked out by the realm back to the real world.

Back in the real world, Sheyan could not get in touch with Zi, Brother Black or Reef; they obviously still had yet to come out from their nightmare world. Sheyan thus had the time to recall the experience of his battle with the Cardinal. In retrospect, it was a really close call.

Unfortunately, the rewards for the Golden Side Mission were not available to him yet. Despite the fact that the mission was shown as “(completed)”, it was currently greyed out. It seemed that some of the rewards for the Golden Side Mission could not appear in the real world.

This may sound strange, but it"s not impossible. The rewards for a Golden Side Mission were normally extraordinary. There could possibly be some high-end medicines that required a General military rank or above to exchange for, and could not be brought out of the realm. If Sheyan could retrieve the reward now, it would no doubt be too big of an advantage for him.

At this time, Uncle Dasi came up slowly from downstairs. His posture was a little stooped and he had a slight cough. The half-lit cigarette in his hand provided a tiny red spark in the dim ambience of dusk.

When Sheyan saw Uncle Dasi, he immediately got up and offered his seat.

Uncle Dasi sat down and took a few puffs of the cigarette before he said, “You"ve really changed a lot in the last couple of years.”

Sheyan smiled and took a few sips from his drink, “I haven"t changed, Uncle Dasi. I"m still me.”

Uncle Dasi pondered for a long time and shook his head as he said, “That feeling…. Oh, it"s not the same at all. Maybe you"ve grown up. Everyone grows up eventually. Sanzi"s changed too. Lately, he shuts himself in his room all day. I rarely see him talk or smile. He seems to be worried about something.”

Sheyan"s mind had been occupied by all kinds of problems in the nightmare realm before this. Now that he heard Uncle Dasi talk about Sanzi, he immediately said, “Isn"t he in love? It"s normal for young people to have some relations.h.i.+p problems. ”

At that moment, Aunt Di Gu also came upstairs carrying a plate of cut pineapples. When she heard Sheyan"s words, she said, “You"ve been out a lot lately so you haven"t talked to Sanzi much. To me, he doesn"t look like he"s having relations.h.i.+p problems. Young boys at his age are easily influenced by their peers. It"s okay if it"s just some the usual troubles, but what I"m afraid of is drugs.”

Sheyan was surprised. He really had overlooked this matter. Men, especially young men, would easily succ.u.mb to prost.i.tution, gambling and drugs. The most problematic one among those three was undoubtedly drugs.

Young men would only go crazy for women when they were young. After being exposed to women for a while, they would naturally be able to control their l.u.s.t. How many men older than 30 have you seen getting severely depressed from breaking up?

A gambling addiction is also a very dangerous problem, but in the end, it"s only a mental addiction. When there"s no more money for gambling, most people would go look for more work to earn money.

But drug abuse causes addiction both physiologically and psychologically! There are many people who wish to overcome their drug addiction, but it"s very rare to find someone who can give it up once and for all.

Sheyan took a deep breath and asked Aunt Di Gu, “Is Sanzi really taking drugs? Did you see him do it, Aunt Di Gu?”

Aunt Di Gu frowned as she recalled, “I didn"t see him do it, but Sanzi has been behaving very strangely lately. He"s always in a hurry to go out again when he comes back for dinner. I heard he rented his own boat which he parks at the west side of the dock. He"s always on the boat and avoiding us.”

“He rented his own boat?” Where did he find the money?” asked Sheyan in surprise.

Uncle Dasi was the one who was surprised this time. He asked, “He didn"t get it from you? Sanzi said you gave him a large sum of money and said you"re preparing to open an internet cafe or something.”

Sheyan was stunned for a moment. He now truly believed that Sanzi"s probably hiding something from him. But when he saw the worried look on Uncle Dasi"s face, he immediately said, “Oh yeah, I did. He hasn"t finished preparing it yet? Don"t worry, I"ll ask him about it.”

Uncle Dasi nodded and showed a look of relief, “I"m glad you"ll have a talk with him. Sanzi has always looked up to you. He never listens to what I say but he"ll definitely listen to you.”

Sheyan patted his uncle"s arm and a.s.sured him, “Don"t worry, just leave it to me. Aunt Di Gu, I"m going to look for Sanzi now. Do you know where he is?”

Aunt Di Gu replied, “Two hours ago, I saw him going to the dock. He"s probably on that boat he rented. That, or he"s in the internet cafe.”

Sheyan got up and stretched for a bit. The bones of his new body cracked as he moved around. He thought about it and realised that Sanzi had been getting very suspicious lately. His behaviour could no longer be explained by women problems. Since Sheyan finally had some free time today, he was determined to get to the end of it.

The waves slapped the sh.o.r.e vigorously, dropping the foam and sediment in it on the land, then retreated slightly before pouring back in with a surge.

Sheyan put a straw in the coconut in his hand and happily sucked the coconut juice inside while he traveled along the gravel road at the dock. The dock was currently packed with boats of all sizes. Although the storm was still hundreds of kilometers away, no one wanted to risk it.

The dock was bustling with activity. Cigarette-smoking fishmongers were everywhere in sight. Although many boats had returned halfway, it was rare for them to return with nothing. During the calm before the storm, some of the fish would seize the time to find food. A lucky fisherman may find the net he cast stuffed full of fish.

The noisy bargaining, the dirty water mixed with the blood of fish, and the pungent fishy smell surrounded Sheyan. Such a messy environment was supposed to be unpleasant, but it all felt so familiar and comfortable to Sheyan. This was especially the case having just escaped from the cruel power of the Cardinal. The environment made Sheyan feel peaceful and calm. He gradually felt more relaxed. Only now had he truly recovered to his peak state, mentally and physically.

After standing on the dock for a while, Sheyan enquired with several people who all told him that Sanzi should be having fun in the “clubhouse” on the dock. The clubhouse was an old four-storey building, with snooker tables, Internet cafe, women and bars — all the things men would like.

But Sheyan did not find his target there. He pondered for while and decided to check on the boat supposedly rented by Sanzi.

His first impression of the boat was that it was in tatters. Then, he noticed that the boat was actually quite large with its big-bellied hull. It could hold quite a bit of cargo.

Few things related to the sea could escape Sheyan eyes. Sheyan could tell from the signs on the ropes and anchor that the s.h.i.+p had not set sail for at least a few months.

Despite the shaky sea, Sheyan easily jumped onto the bow of the boat. The cabin door was locked, but it could not hinder Sheyan"s determination to move forward. There was no compartment in the 100 square meters or so cabin. It didn"t smell like mold either, which was enough to show that Sanzi was often here.

On the floor, Sheyan was surprised to find fitness equipments such as iron dumbbells, which seemed to be one of the reasons Sanzi was hiding here, but it should not be the main one.

Then, Sheyan detected the smell of blood and decay. He walked forward, bypa.s.sing a heap of moldy sails and rotten wood, and found the bloodstains on the ground. The blood had piled up into a thick layer, which indicated that the spot had not been scrubbed or cleaned at all.

After that, Sheyan found a strange thing in the corner — a broken crib. And the inside of the crib was full of rats!

Big, strong adult rats!

These rats, with their tails at least thirty centimeters long, had eerie blood-red eyes. They quietly and neatly squeezed inside the crib, laying there motionless. They looked strangely meek.

But as soon as Sheyan approached them, all the rats opened their mouths simultaneously and bared their sharp, white fangs. They screeched and glared viciously at Sheyan. Any ordinary person who saw them would no doubt cry out in fear.

Sheyan was a person who dared to face a Zerg Rush head on. A dozen rats wouldn"t faze him.

Ignoring the hostility of the rats, he went to the b.l.o.o.d.y spot and half knelt down to give it a closer inspection. He found some flesh in the dried pool of blood. There were some detached rat tails and broken ears, among others.

He stood up, pondered for a moment, then walked around to the captain"s cabin. There, he saw an old canvas bed that was familiar to him. This should be Sanzi"s bed. It was really very obvious because there was a poster of Sanzi"s favorite actress above the bed.

Sheyan sat down on Sanzi"s bed in silence. A sensation of wetness suddenly transmitted over from his fingertips. He looked down and saw that there were large spots of wet marks on Sanzi"s pillow; numerous spots had overlapped together. It seemed that Sanzi often came here to cry while holding the pillow.

When Sheyan saw this, it tugged at the softest part in his heart. He could vaguely imagine the way Sanzi, a thin and timid teenager, curled up in bed and cried alone. It was an image which caused Sheyan a lot of guilt.

It was because Sheyan knew this non-blood related brother of his really well that he could feel Sanzi"s heartache so vividly.

Next, Sheyan rummaged around and found that there were some books piled up in the room. He quickly skimmed through them and saw that they were books about Shaolin eighteen-style practical combat, United States Navy Seal express training, etc…. He picked up a few DVDs and saw that they were all instructional DVDs for camouflage and a.s.sa.s.sination techniques in the jungle.

Just then, Sheyan suddenly heard a sound from outside. His pupils contracted slightly. At first, he intended to leave, but after thinking about it, still decided to just stand there and wait.

It should be noted that a storm was coming and Sheyan was currently on a boat. The sound of the waves, the howl of the wind, and the squeaking of the s.h.i.+p mixed together noisily. It was really hard to detect any other noises if one did not listen carefully.

Unexpectedly, after a while, the sound from outside seemed to have disappeared. Sheyan revealed a trace of surprise but he still decided to stay on the boat. He deliberately walked a few steps inside the cabin.

At that moment, the door of the cabin suddenly sprang open and a dozen odd large rats rushed madly towards Sheyan. These rats had surprising leaping abilities and could jump as high as a person"s face. They bit down on Sheyan with their sharp teeth. Next, a dark silhouette rushed forward with its body crouched low, tightly grasping a fish-cutting knife with a cloth wrapped around its handle.

An ordinary people would have been distracted by the rats and ended up being stabbed by the fish-cutting knife!

Sheyan flung his left hand and instantly swept the dozen odd rats away. The rats squeked noisily as they slammed into the wooden wall. Some of them died from the impact. At the same time, Sheyan"s right hand quietly slid down and grabbed the knife. Although the blade was sharp, it only hurt his skin.

The silhouette turned out to be Sanzi. The expression he wore on his face was one of madness and determination. He yelled furiously through gritted teeth, “I"ll kill you!…. Oh, wait. Brother?”

Sheyan glared at Sanzi with a smile that did not reach his eyes and said, “You sure were busy behind my back!”

Looking at Sheyan, Sanzi s.h.i.+vered all over. He suddenly lost his strength to stand and collapsed to the ground. Then, he hugged Sheyan"s legs and broke down in tears. He wasn"t crying due to sadness, but just to release his emotion. He was on the brink of collapse due to pressure.

Sheyan could only sigh. He said, “Now that I think about it, it should be my carelessness that dragged you into this mess.”

“When I asked you to buy some mantises for me, I should"ve known that you would be curious. You"re someone who wouldn"t stop until you find out what you want to know. Unfortunately, I was way too busy back then, and I was really tired too. When I returned to the real world, I was too busy relaxing my body and mind. I neglected the fact that you would definitely get curious. Am I right?”

Sanzi nodded.

Sheyan narrowed his eyes and asked, “How did you get dragged into the d.a.m.n nightmare realm?”

Sanzi answered while he cried, “Brother Sheyan, I was just curious. While you were away, I went to the place where you concocted the medicine. For some reason, when I went down the stairs, it felt like there was no end to it and I couldn"t get to the bottom. When I was finally tired of walking, I got into a cave, and I slept in it.”

“Then, when I woke up, I felt hot all over, and the cave had turned into a transparent data cabin without me realising it. It started scanning me. After that, I fainted, and when I woke up again, I was already sent on an adventure in a nightmare world.”

Sheyan listened patiently to Sanzi"s experience. Sanzi wouldn"t lie to him in these things, so he must be telling the truth. Sheyan felt that the way Sanzi entered the realm was quite different.

As far as Sheyan knew, the people selected by the realm often had very strong will to survive, very resolute determination and were very persistent. And when these people were forced to into a really desperate situation, their spirits would be heightened to a certain level. It was then that the nightmare realms would notice them and sign contracts with them.

These kind of situations were not uncommon in legends and myths, which would often depict people who were in desperate pain or anger being tempted by the devil to sell their soul….

According to Sheyan"s speculation, the relations.h.i.+p between the realm and a contestant may be similar to the relations.h.i.+p between a radio and a radio station:

When strong-willed human beings had their spirits heightened in near-death situations, their brain waves would naturally undergo some intriguing alteration, changing from an ordinary wavelength to a wavelength that the nightmare realm could detect. They nightmare realm could then rescue them.

But Sanzi"s experience was very uncommon. However, it was not without precedent either. There were many such examples in stories and legends. We could often hear stories of people getting lost and mysteriously found themselves in a beautiful place, which they would often think as fairyland. The more famous among these stories in Chinese literature were the legend of Ranka (  ) and the Yellow Millet Dream ( ü_Dongbin#Yellow_Millet_Dream ).

Therefore, Sheyan speculated that Sanzi may be someone who was naturally born with a brain wave that had a “wavelength” very close to the “wavelength” of the nightmare realm. Thus, he only needed to experience something ordinary as a triggering point to be noticed by the realm. This should be a kind of natural-born talent.

Sheyan contemplated for a moment before he nodded and said, “The first world is always the most difficult because you have to adapt to the sudden changes from being an ordinary person to becoming a contestant. It"s great that you managed to survive…. ”

But Sanzi did not agree. He said with some grievance, “Brother, how come I don"t feel the same way? The first time I entered a nightmare world, it was a romantic encounter, an exciting adventure.

Sheyan was flabbergasted, “Which world did you experience?”

“t.i.tanic. As soon as I woke up, I was already on board,” Sanzi seemed very impressed with the world. Now that he finally had some he could talk to about the nightmare realm, the words just flowed out of his mouth.

“The s.h.i.+p was such a luxurious and exquisite thing! On the s.h.i.+p, I enjoyed delicious food, beautiful women — things that I"ve never experienced before. Oh, I can still remember the taste of the truffle and foie gras….”

Sheyan frowned when he heard that, “Did none of the other contestants come to you looking for trouble?”

Sanzi shrugged his shoulders, “There were no other contestants. It was a world prepared exclusively for me.”

“….” Sheyan was speechless. He coughed two times and asked,”What was the main mission? ”

Sanzi pondered for a moment before he answered, “Survive the s.h.i.+pwreck. I also saved the female protagonist, so I even earned extra degree of completion.”

Sheyan sighed, “The female protagonist had Jack"s protection so she wouldn"t have died anyway. Why didn"t you save Jack instead? ”

Sanzi felt wronged as he answered, “Bro, do you think I"m stupid? Of course I"ve thought of that. In fact, I couldn"t NOT save him even if I wanted to….”

Hearing Sanzi"s words, an absurd idea that was almost impossible crept into Sheyan"s mind. He enquired in astonishment, “Don"t tell me…..”

Seeing his elder brother"s surprised expression, Sanzi could not help laughing, “Yup, that"s right. When I entered that world, I was a.s.signed to be Jack.”

The setting of a main character! Sheyan had only heard these kind of stories from others before, but he had never encountered someone who had personally experienced it. The realm not only prepared an exclusive world for Sanzi the first time he entered a nightmare world, they even made him the main character?!?!

The so-called MC setting was definitely not as simple as just inheriting the protagonist"s ident.i.ty. It must be known that the protagonist had a lot of bonuses compared to the rest of the characters. A contestant who became the protagonist could also enjoy those bonuses when they were in that world.

Have you seen any protagonist who was shot in the head in the middle of the story, or died from stray bullets? Normally, a protagonist would receive a high bonus in luck! Sheyan looked at Sanzi"s beaming smile and instantly knew that he certainly did not miss the opportunity to spend some happy hours with the female protagonist.

“I see,” Sheyan smiled and said, “The reason you didn"t tell me about the realm right away was because you thought that place was fun, huh? Hmph, you"re afraid that I wouldn"t let you go back if you"d told me.”

In response to Sheyan"s questioning, Sanzi blushed. “No, it"s because I received a notification which said that I can"t tell this secret to ordinary people. If I do, the person I told will be killed. What if you"re only in the process of studying the d.a.m.n realm? If I told you, you might be hurt.

Sheyan smiled meaningfully as he said, “Okay, I believe you; I believe that this is the main reason. But I also believe that you made that decision because you were afraid I would never let you in again. This f.u.c.king realm. If I were to leak the secret, I would be the one punished, but in your case they would only punish the person you told. It seems that the d.a.m.n realm really favours you.”

When it came to the question of realm privileges, Sanzi had a lot to say. “Of course. I"ve managed to find out that the average person who enters the realm is called a contestant. Those that the realm considers to have some potential are called Seeded Contestants. Those with even more potential are called Candidates. Finally, elites like me are called the Chosen. Normal contestants can only request for help from the realm, but for Chosen like us, the realm thinks that our power will be of great help to them after we grow.

Sheyan"s eyes squinted slightly. He suddenly thought of Hakeem, whom he had killed. That woman also held the t.i.tle of a Seeded Contestant. They should be those recognised by a realm as “geniuses” and they were further categorised according to their potential.

These geniuses were definitely very scarce. After he killed Hakeem, a Seeded Contestant who had pa.s.sed the test of the G Realm, it angered the G realm so much that he was instantly made a target by that realm. It was evident how much importance the realms placed on their Seeded Contestants. If that"s the case, Sanzi would probably get even more attention! Sheyan asked again, “Is there an even higher category of talent above yours?”

“There is,” Sanzi nodded. “The most powerful geniuses are called the Apostles.”

“Apostles….”When Sheyan heard the name of the category, the image of the Cardinal emerged in his mind. It was hard to believe that someone as powerful as that was only a duplicate!

Sheyan only took 4 out of the Cardinal"s seven deadly sins and he was already on the verge of death! If the Cardinal he faced was the real thing and not just a duplicate, Sheyan would never have escaped. That guy was probably one of the so called Apostles!

Sheyan asked Sanzi to sit down. He looked around and smiled. “I"ve checked this place out just now. I"m guessing that you"re a summoner adept in summoning living creatures?”

Sanzi scratched his head and laughed as he said, “Well, brother, you know that I"ve liked feeding stray dogs and cats since I was a kid. Sometimes, they would even do what I tell them to.”

Sheyan nodded. He recalled that when Sanzi was still a kid, he could tame a sparrow to become even more obedient than a reared chicken. He could even use the sparrow as a carrier pigeon to send love notes to girls in other cla.s.ses.

Sanzi continued, “When I went through the t.i.tanic world, I got the legendary Heart of the Ocean, and somehow it fused with my innate ability…. so I have some confidence in my summoning skills. It"s a pity that I only had a lucky encounter like that in my first world.”

Sanzi had complete trust in Sheyan so he showed Sheyan his personal innate ability without the slightest hesitation.

[Chosen contestant No. XP"s Outstanding Innate Ability: Heart of the Pack (Pa.s.sive) – When you use your recruitment ability on a creature for the first time, the creature"s affection for you immediately increases by 50 points, and even if the recruitment fails, you won"t anger the creature (limited to the first recruitment attempt in 12 hours).]

[If any of the creatures you recruited die, it can be resurrected after twelve hours. This will apply even to some special creatures that are specified as unable to be resurrected. Of course, the cost of resurrecting such creatures will increase correspondingly.]

[Hint: This innate ability has been fused with the light green upgradeable equipment: Heart of the Ocean Lvl 3 (371/1000), which is evaluated as grade S]

["Heart of the Ocean" current additional bonus: a permanent 10% increase in the owner"s chance of success in recruitment. This effect has domain precedence.]

(TL: No precedence < slight="" precedence="">< authoritative="" (crus.h.i.+ng="" damage="" belongs="" here)="">< domain="" precedence="">< domain="">

["Heart of the Ocean" current additional bonus: a permanent 10-point increase in the owner"s Intelligence, Spirit, Charm, and Perceptive Sense, plus an additional 5-point increase in Charm. (Admittedly, this brilliant gem can make the owner appear more elegant and attract the attention of others)]

["Heart of the Ocean" current additional bonus: Getting this precious gem requires not only Strength, but also Luck. The absolute drop rate of the target attacked by you or the creatures you control increases by 3%.]

[Hint: With the growth of the Heart of the Ocean, the additional bonuses will also increase.]

[Hint: Outstanding Innate Ability can choose a piece of equipment as the carrier of the ability. The enhancement provided by the Heart of the Ocean that has fused with this ability will not be factored into difficulty calculation.]

[Innate Ability Evaluation: A]

Sheyan felt like laughing and crying at the same time. The realm sure did favour the Chosen quite a bit. In order to prevent them from dying early on, they were given so much preferential treatment!

And Sanzi"s innate ability was crazy strong. He wouldn"t be attacked in his first attempt at recruiting a creature even if he failed, which means he had an extra chance to recruit compared to the other summoners.

More crucially, some of the more powerful creatures usually couldn"t be resurrected after they died. Often, when a powerful creature that a summoner worked hard to cultivate was killed, they would lose almost everything. Sanzi could break this limitation.

The latter descriptions further introduced Sheyan to the formidability of the Chosen. For example, Sanzi"s outstanding innate ability which was equivalent to an additional equipment slot compared to the rest of the contestants. Also, it seemed that the realm pretty much handed him an equipment that was compatible with his innate ability as soon as he started his adventure in the nightmare worlds! And it was a unique equipment which had no duplicates too!

Sheyan could already imagine the role the equipment would play during the breakthrough trial in preventing crus.h.i.+ng damages and attributes. The problem that Sheyan needed painstaking effort and preparation to solve would not even be a problem that Sanzi would notice!

Sheyan once again looked at Sanzi"s tear-stained pillow and said quietly, “You should be crying because you finally realised the cruelty of the nightmare realm, right? Although you"re a Chosen who"s heavily favoured by the realm, it"s impossible for your journey to be smooth sailing all the way. After your romantic and lucky encounters on the t.i.tanic, you should have experienced the torment and despair of life and death. Am I right?”

“You"re right, brother.” Sanzi"s face was contorted. He suddenly yelled in indignation, “But! I wasn"t crying because I was afraid of death. I…I really regret joining my current party! At first, I thought that woman truly loves me, but it turns out she was only using me. When I found out that she had another man, she immediately turned against me. What"s worse, she orders me around like a slave afterwards!”

Sheyan"s eyes flashed with a fierce killing intention, but they returned to normal almost instantly. He patted the shoulder of Sanzi while he laughed and said, “So it"s women problems. Sanzi, listen to me. Your problem is really common. It"s nothing. There are people whose experience were a lot more miserable.”

When Sanzi was interrupted by Sheyan, he immediately forgot his sadness. “There are people who had it worse than me?” he exclaimed in surprise.

Sheyan shrugged and said, “You don"t believe me? Do you know that the realm has a function to alter appearances? ”

“I do. So?” asked Sanzi.

Sheyan said mysteriously, “So, sometimes the beautiful women you meet are men who had put on a disguise….and you won"t know it until they strip naked.”

“That would be worse than my case,” Sanzi could not help laughing.

Sheyan saw that he had successfully diverted Sanzi"s attention. In order to not let Sanzi wallow in his grief, he asked, “I guess your party was attracted to your special effect of +3% absolute drop rate?”

Although the increase in absolute drop rate was a meagre 3%, but it"s actually a terrifying effect. For example, if a boss had a 3% probability of dropping dark gold equipment, 10% probability of dropping silver storyline equipment, and 15% probability of dropping black equipment, the 3% increase in probability would apply to all the drop rates. 3% wasn"t much for those with high probability, but when it applied to the drop rate of equipment with very low probability of dropping, it"s an astonis.h.i.+ng increment.

Sheyan was about to say something when his phone suddenly rang. He could tell that it was Zi from the ringtone. He thought about it, then picked up the call.

“h.e.l.lo, this is Sheyan.”

The voice of Zi transmitted over. Although her voice was calm, it carried an ounce of guilt.

“Seaman….we suffered heavy losses in the last world. I"ve let you down. ”

Sheyan"s heart sank. If Zi said they suffered heavy losses, then the loss must be quite considerable! Their last world was the world of Resident Evil and they probably fought around Racc.o.o.n City, so there shouldn"t have been much risk.

Sheyan took a deep breath and asked what he most wanted to know.

“How heavy is the loss?”

Zi answered after a moment"s silence, “Someone died. We failed all our main mission and side missions. Everyone has their base attributes and achievement points deducted. Our utility points are in the red.”

Sheyan closed his eyes and asked with some difficulty, “How did this happen?”

After talking to Sheyan for a while, Zi recovered from her surge of emotion.

“The Stockholm Party did it. They didn"t get into the world on a large scale to interfere with us, but we were set up in a very dangerous situation nonetheless. We were defeated under the combined attack from three parties. One of the parties had originally allied with us but they betrayed us at the most crucial moment! If it weren"t for the various powerful survival abilities of the Ace Party, we would have been decimated.”

Sheyan"s eyes narrowed when he heard that. He then sighed deeply and said,”Stockholm Party. Well done! I"ll remember this!”

Zi did not speak for a long time. Sheyan seemed to need a little time to digest the information he was getting, so for a long time neither of them made a sound, allowing the slight buzz in the phone to fill the thousands of kilometers of void between them. For some reason, Sheyan suddenly find himself missing those delicate and slightly raised lips of hers.

The two of them remained silent for several minutes, but the atmosphere was not awkward. They could clearly understand each other"s thoughts. The silence, at that moment, conveyed more meaning than any words could.

After a while, Zi finally said, “I"m sorry to have brought you such bad news. What about you? I think the fact that you"re able to answer my call is already a good news in itself. According to the statistics I have, the pa.s.sing rate of a b.l.o.o.d.y World does not exceed 50%, and the chance of dying during the first breakthrough challenge is higher than 20%. So your chances of survival in the last world were actually less than 40%.

“Don"t most people who attempt the breakthrough challenge survive?” asked Sheyan.

“There are always exceptions to everything,” replied Zi with a slight sigh.

Sheyan knew that it was a heavy topic, so he smiled and said, “According to your statistics, what is the probability of successfully breaking through to a Growth Hunter and surviving the b.l.o.o.d.y World at the same time?”

Zi was quiet for a moment. Sheyan could feel Zi"s relieve from the other end of the phone.

“This is the only good news I"ve heard in the last 24 hours. Well, according to my calculation, it"s about 7.3%. You should be part of the 7.3%”

Sheyan laughed again.

“Then, according to your calculation, what is the probability of successfully breaking through to a Dual-Specialty Growth Hunter and surviving the b.l.o.o.d.y World at the same time?”

Zi stopped talking completely. Sheyan could even imagine her furrowed brows right now. He knew that she was a very compet.i.tive woman, so the fact that he became a Dual-Specialty Growth Hunter would certainly provoke her. After a while, she asked in a slightly disgruntled voice, “Did you really manage to do that?”

Sheyan said with a nod, “I sure did. The doubling of the attributes was really quite troublesome, and the terrifying 1000% bonus to HP almost made me lose hope. Fortunately, I managed to overcome the challenge. ”

Zi sighed with some melancholy.

“I knew I should have tried a few more times. Which two attributes did you choose? Strength and Physique?”

“Yup, but you haven"t answered my question yet.”

“I don"t have an answer for you, because there"s no one crazy enough to attempt a dual-attribute breakthrough while going through a b.l.o.o.d.y World,” replied Zi with a bitter smile.

“Well, this crazy man was also forced to complete a Golden Side Mission along the way – I"m sure you think I"m just bragging and won"t believe me.”

Zi finally became like a crazed wild kitten as she said scathingly, “You"re a total madman!”

Then, she hung up. Only after that did Sheyan say quietly into the phone, “I think you haven"t slept well for a couple of days, have you? Now, have a good rest and relax. I know you must be feeling really bad. You"ve done your best. Leave the rest to me.

The one who died in battle was Franklin, who had just joined the team not too long ago.

At the most critical moment, the allied party that had been fighting by their side suddenly turned hostile. They already knew how strong Zi was, and also knew that Reef was an MT, so they concentrated fire on Brother Black and Franklin with the idea that it was better to break one finger than to hurt all ten.

Faced with this situation, Reef could only rescue one of the two. Reef had always been a sentimental person. The most profound piece of memory he had was when Sheyan and Brother Black rescued him from the Zerg wave numbering hundreds of thousands.

Therefore, although Franklin showed a very strong will to survive, and Zi also tried her hardest to rescue him, but in the end, the role of an MT was irreplaceable. In addition, the external pressure was simply too strong with the three teams attacking them together, one of them even stabbing the Ace Party in the back! If Reef had promoted to an Awakener MT, it might be possible to save Franklin too. Unfortunately, that was not the case….

At the last minute, the mage contestants of two parties joined forces to suppress Zi. The mage contestant of the last party specialised in dimensional ability, so he was able to first cut off Franklin"s attempt to connect to the "Amniotank", and then cut off Franklin"s teleport formation, eventually leading to Franklin"s demise.

Under the enemies" persistent pursuit, the Ace Party could only flee pathetically. They did not even have the time to complete the main mission, let alone the side missions. In the end, they could do naught but swallow the bitter pill, quietly accepting the biggest loss the party had suffered since its establishment.

At that point, they truly missed Sheyan"s large-scale disease. If they had the help of the disease, they wouldn"t have fallen into such an embarra.s.sing predicament, where they were struggling just to run away. What"s more, Zi had a faint feeling that there was someone coordinating the joint attack of the three parties from behind the scenes!

Zi was, without a doubt, a capable party leader who can handle most situations very well. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could have done better in this difficult situation. Perhaps she lacked Sheyan"s sharp intuitive ability to see through things.

Uncle Dasi had become suspicious of them lately, so Sheyan and Sanzi dare not leave home for a prolonged period of time. It"s not good to make old people worried, but it"s not like Sheyan and Sanzi could tell Uncle Dasi about the hards.h.i.+ps they faced. So, if Ace Party were to have a meeting in the real world, the others would have to fly to Taipei.

The luxurious Gulfstream business plane slowly landed in Taipei Airport amidst the drizzle. The roar of the plane and the wind from it swamped Sheyan and Sanzi, who were waiting patiently on the wet ground. Three dejected figures then slowly walked down from the plane.

Sheyan walked up to them, hugged them in turn, and slapped them on the shoulders. He used this body language to eliminate the negative emotions in their hearts. However, Sanzi noticed that Sheyan hugged the cold beauty with nice legs for at least fifteen seconds and his hands behind her were not that honest, prompting the beautiful lady to stomp on his feet a few times with her high heels.

To be honest, when the others saw Sanzi there, they were rather surprised. To bring another person to join their circle would mean a few things. It showed that this person was a contestant, and he had gained Sheyan"s complete trust.

Contestants were relatively common, but to earn Sheyan"s approval and trust was not an easy feat, so they could not help but pay attention to Sanzi closely. They were all quite sharp, especially Zi, who had always been an excellent judge of people. They could see that Sanzi, who often hid a few steps behind Sheyan, was naturally timid, which perplexed them.

Sheyan smiled and said, “Allow me to introduce my younger brother, Sanzi.”

Hearing the words “younger brother”, both Reef and Zi frowned slightly. They were frankly reluctant to let things like family relations.h.i.+p mix into the affair of the party. It would affect objectivity in decision-making. More importantly, it was not uncommon for a party to collapse from having personal feeling interfere with member selection.

Sheyan apparently noticed their uneasiness, but he waited until they entered the airport lounge before he laughed and said, “Allow me to make another introduction. You can call him…Sanzi, the Chosen. I think he has great potential and should be able to fill the gap in the team.

“A CHOSEN?!” Reef spit out the coffee he happened to be drinking at that moment. “I"ve only ever heard of Seeded contestants! Do the Chosen really exist?”

Sheyan signaled Sanzi to display to the party his innate ability. Sanzi did as he was asked, but he did utter some dissatisfaction.

“Bro, I hope the next time you introduce me, you should introduce me as the powerful summoner Sanzi, and not Sheyan"s brother Sanzi.”

Sheyan narrowed his eyes and smiled as he replied, “Sure, but only if you can beat me.”

After seeing Sanzi"s innate ability, they expressed no objection to Sanzi joining. Although all of them appeared calm on the surface, they were all silently cursing the brothers as crazy in their hearts. Sheyan was crazy in plotting and scheming, while Sanzi simply had crazy good luck.

Sanzi had no objection to Sheyan"s proposal. He suddenly remembered something.

“Bro, this ain"t right. I"ve told you all my information, yet you didn"t tell me anything about yourself! The only thing I know about your ability is that you can use animals to make mixes.

Zi chimed in.

“Sanzi, you may be strong, but there"s no way you can beat Seaman anytime soon.”

Sheyan looked at Sanzi and smiled as he said, “You want to know my abilities? Sure, just fight me and force me into a corner. You"ll naturally get a thorough feel of the full extent of my ability then. But let me warn you – a few mutated rats are nowhere near enough.”

Sanzi had recovered from his initial awkwardness. He was timid and introverted only when dealing with unfamiliar people, but with Sheyan he was very relaxed. He"s just slow to warm up to people.

The people who got off the plane each had their own unique characteristics. Zi was cold and beautiful; she carried an air of a strong independent woman amidst her elegance. Reef was steady and unshakable, while Brother Black who grew up amidst the smoke of gunpowder had a ferociousness that no bandits could match. Sanzi was, of course, slightly intimidated by their imposing manner. But when Sanzi saw them talking and laughing in a relaxed manner with his brother, and the slight hint of respect they showed him, his nervousness subsided.

“I have more than just a few mutated rats. I just can"t summon more powerful creatures here,” Sanzi retorted at once.

Sheyan had always known that although Sanzi"s deduction skills were lacking, he was very good at executing orders. He may be at a loss in the face of a chaotic situation, but if he was pointed in the right direction and given orders that he had to carry out right away, he would always complete the order with flying colours. So Sheyan immediately laughed and said, “Fine. I"ll give you the chance to have a duel with me back in the realm.”

Next, Sheyan glanced at the others and casually said, “I know we"ve suffered some losses in the last world, but as long as our main forces are still here, we"ll always have a chance to come back stronger than ever! I"ve also taken a huge risk in my last world. Although I worked with Aziz, the situation was so dangerous that I was only left with my head when I returned….”

The curiosity of Reef and the others were piqued as soon as they heard that. The b.l.o.o.d.y World and the dual-attribute breakthrough were already very interesting, and add to that the cooperation with Aziz and the fact that he returned with only his head left, they were dying to hear the whole story!

So everyone patiently waited for Sheyan to start from the beginning, filling them in on all the details – of course, when he came to the part about the breakthrough trial, little Sanzi had to go to the room next door for a while.

“…and that was it.” Sheyan ended his story with such a sentence.

Both Zi and Reef found his story hard to believe, but Mogensha happened to know both Shali and Stend. Mogensha could still vividly remember how the "Air Cannon" fired by Shali from the air he swallowed had deflected all 3 of his burst shots away. It left a deep impression on him.

“A duplicate of the Cardinal was that powerful?” Zi could not help exclaiming,”You and Aziz couldn"t even fight back?”

“It"s true, but it"s not surprising that he was so powerful since he was supposed to be there as the final boss of the Golden Side Mission,” said Sheyan with a bitter smile.

“The Cardinal"s strength may not be an exact copy of the original. I suspect that the duplicate was a strengthened version of the original. Otherwise, no matter how strong the power of the Seven Deadly Sins, it was impossible that you two couldn"t even fight back,” Zi speculated with a frown.

Sheyan took a deep breath before he said, “That"s not the case. The Golden Side Mission had actually given us a chance to kill the Cardinal. When the Cardinal had just “hatched”, he was actually completely suppressed by my ability.”

“In retrospect, the bone words incidents throughout New York were probably a method for the Cardinal to retrieve his weapons. If we had destroyed those sites ahead of time, making it impossible for him to collect all seven sins, we absolutely had a chance to kill him. Unfortunately, our intelligence resources were severely limited and were constantly being suppressed, so we allowed him to grow into his final form. I estimate that the actual difficulty rating of the Golden Side Mission had become at least C towards the end.

Sanzi was struck with horror as he listened to the story. Although he did not see it, just listening to Sheyan trying his best to escape and finally returning to the realm with only his head was enough to cover Sanzi with cold sweat.

Right then, Sheyan coughed to grab their attention and said, “But I also got some good stuff from my last world. I"ve made a list of what we have left, which is as follows.”

Goldpearl of the Caribbean Sea

+7 West (IV Test Edition)

Chris Redfield"s Lucky Bracelet

Valuable item: High energy crystal x1

Rotten Eyeball (Condition: Bad) x1

Soul Crystals x2

Ndipaya Evolved Leech (Special)

Aberration Horcrux (Rare)

Voldemort"s Allure (Dark)

Pandora"s Egg

+7 Chieftain"s Hobby

Mission item: Metal Nut

Evergreen Leaf of the Sacred Oak

Genuine Leather Mask

Mwak"s Eye

+7 Stark"s Energy Spare Part (quality product)

Alien pulse gun component blueprint (disappear after use)

Unknown mysterious item: Rare precious metal x6 (worth 13 achievement points)

Sheyan a.s.signed "Mwak"s Eye" (increase magic damage by 50 points) to Zi. If Franklin was here, he would have priority over it, but…. Now, it naturally belonged to Zi.

Zi did not show any hesitation in receiving an equipment from Sheyan. When an arrogant woman like her was willing to take Sheyan"s equipment so easily, it could only mean that she now saw herself as a member of Ace Party. This was a good thing. It"s like when you"re chasing a girl, the girl would probably turn down gifts that were too expensive, but when she became your wife, she would receive any present you give her with open arms….

Next was the "+7 Stark"s Energy Spare Part (quality product)" dropped by Fate. After some debate, it was also given to Zi because her magic barrier had been upgraded to lvl 5. Sanzi, being a summoner, had a huge MP expenditure. When a magic barrier was attacked, the caster"s MP would be reduced, so he didn"t even have a lvl 1 magic barrier.

The effect of Zi"s Ndipaya set was pretty terrifying, with a surprisingly high defense. Sheyan had long pa.s.sed the key to unlock the hidden world – the Journal Log of Bernard Fokke – to Zi. When she was by herself, she had entered the hidden world of Resident Evil. It was a brand new world for her.

After a lot of painstaking effort hunting masked Ndipaya barbarians in the outskirt, she finally obtained the other piece of the Ndipaya set. The final special effect of the set was “ignore the decrease in movement speed caused by the mask, and increase movement speed by 33% in a marsh environment.” Don"t forget, with the set now completed, Zi had the ability to temporarily transform her surroundings to the annoying Ndipaya Marshland!

Now that she also had the "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" from the "+7 Stark"s Energy Spare Part", her durability had soared to an astonis.h.i.+ng height. Sheyan estimated that when the "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" was activated, her defence and survivability were not inferior to Reef at all!

Sheyan then threw the blueprint of the alien pulse gun component to Brother Black. The blueprint will disappear after all the required materials were collected and placed on the blueprint. It would allow Mogensha to occasionally fire powerful shots that were similar to the shots of the MIB pulse guns. Mogensha was not shy in requesting for the grade crafting material "Shadowdrill Claw", which was naturally approved.

After distributing all these, Sheyan then announced, “Sanzi"s potential is obvious. As the party leader, I propose to let him join our party as an official member. If anyone has any objection, please raise it now.”

The proposal was pa.s.sed without any ha.s.sle. There was nothing to hesitate about. First, they do lack a summoner in the party. During critical moments when they had to storm a fortification or stop the pursuit of the enemies, summoned creatures could be sacrificed in place of party members. This alone ensured that summoners usually enjoyed a pretty high status in a party. A powerful summoner had the ability to turn a dire situation around.

This fact was evident in Zi"s previous action of expending all her party"s resources on Yuan Zhan when they were in a desperate situation.

Since Sanzi had joined the team, he naturally became the recipient of a few top quality summoner"s equipments that they had collected but had not sold yet. The items were:

Genuine Leather Mask

Voldemort"s Allure (Dark)

+7 Chieftain"s Hobby

Sanzi would be reborn as a formidable summoner as soon as he equipped these three powerful equipments. Sheyan"s handling of this matter showed his careful attention to detail. Sheyan no doubt had enough authority to just announce Sanzi"s enrollment to the party and give him the three equipments without asking for the other members" opinions, but they might harbour some dissatisfaction in their hearts even if they might not voice them.

That"s because the value of those three equipments were indeed quite high and they would all gain significant profit if they split the money. After all, even though they respected Sheyan, but it didn"t mean they respected Sanzi enough to just give him the equipments they obtained with their sweat and blood.

Therefore, Sheyan first communicated with them and showed them Sanzi"s strengthened personal ability, then shared the loot with everyone, and finally discussed the issue of Sanzi joining the party. This way, things would happen naturally and there wouldn"t be any conflict in the party.

The truth is, even the most harmonious team contains dissenting opinions, and even the most loving couple sometimes quarrels. This is very normal; it would be weird if there was absolutely no conflict among a group of people. It was not a big deal if the conflicts were resolved in time before they could intensify.

Sheyan had always attached great importance to these kind of issues, so he was very cautious in the selection of party members. He also paid great attention to the relations.h.i.+p between the members, so as to maintain a harmonious atmosphere in the team.

“The strongest fortresses often crumble from within.” Sheyan had heard this saying many times and he deeply agreed with it.

It must be noted that Reef was the only person who did not get any benefit from the distribution of spoils this time. However, Sheyan was not that worried. He hadn"t retrieved his rewards for completing the b.l.o.o.d.y World main mission and the Golden Side Mission yet because he had recuperated in the return realm for too long. There should be something that was suitable for Reef in those rewards. If not, he could always give Reef the "Unknown mysterious item: Rare precious metal" x6 worth 13 achievement points.

All these a.n.a.lyses were purely from an objective standpoint.

In actual fact, Reef and Sheyan were comrade-in-arms that could leave their lives in each other"s hands. Reef also felt heavily indebted to Sheyan and was full of admiration for Sheyan"s ability. Besides, the item Reef used when he awakened was provided by Sheyan. More importantly, there was a "Life-Link" between the two! This kind of ultimate skill was the most reliable symbol of friends.h.i.+p. Sheyan could be more casual with Reef without caring too much for how he felt.

Sanzi"s jaw dropped to the floor when he saw the equipment. Although they were currently in the real world so he could only see the hologram transmitted through the nightmare imprint, it was enough to shock him speechless.

So far, apart from the "Heart of the Ocean", the only equipment Sanzi had ever seen was a black equipment, and the blood of at least five people had been spilled for it! That incident gave Sanzi a clear idea of how valuable equipments were.

Now, not only were there black equipments in front of him, there was also a dark gold equipment, something which he had never even heard of. And it was a + 7 dark gold equipment to boot. The equipments dazzled his eyes and made him wonder if he was dreaming.

"Are all these….mine?"

The distribution of spoils left everyone in a good mood. Unfortunately, they had to immediately face a very harsh reality.

They were short on utility points.

They were critically short on utility points!

Zi of course was eager to increase the level of her "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" because she knew that Reef"s primary target of protection would no doubt be Sanzi from now on – not because Sanzi was Sheyan"s brother, but because summoners were high-priority protection targets in a party by default.

Therefore, Zi felt a certain sense of crisis. Her "Magic Barrier" was currently lvl 5, so she would need tens of thousands of utility points to enhance it to lvl 7.

Meanwhile, Brother Black feared that his status within the party was threatened after he heard about Sheyan"s partners.h.i.+p with Aziz. He also felt that his instantaneous damage was too low, and it was a weakness that he had to address.

So he was obviously very excited when Sheyan presented him with the "Alien pulse gun component blueprint". He was so excited that he kissed the blueprint pa.s.sionately more than 10 times.

Even in the face of the most beautiful girl in the world, Brother Black had never shown so much pa.s.sion!

One could imagine how keen Brother Black was to turn the blueprint into a real object. Looking at his sad, pleading eyes, Sheyan did not have the heart to tell him to put it off for the moment.

So, Mogensha need at least 100,000 utility points.

Next, Reef told it to them straight, “My servant is awake. I need to pay about 60,000 utility points to repair his body.”

Reef"s servant was brought out from the Resident Evil hidden world. He was originally a formidable warrior second only to Mbenga, but was bitten by the ferocious mutant spider crab. Fortunately, he managed to survive and had spun a coc.o.o.n in the nightmare realm. He should be very powerful after he recovered, but the investment on him was a bottomless pit. He constantly required utility points….

Sheyan smiled helplessly. He turned towards Sanzi and said, “If you have any demand, just say it now.”

Sanzi did not ask for anything. He simply traded over 600 utility points to Sheyan, then showed them his balance of a bit more than 50 utility points. He seemed embarra.s.sed as he told them, “This is all I have left….”

Sheyan didn"t know whether to laugh or cry. But on second thought, when he was as new as Sanzi, he probably had even less. Without any other choice, he could only grit his teeth and sell some things that they didn"t need. After going over their inventory, the things that they could sell were as follows:

Valuable item: High energy crystal x1

Rotten Eyeball (Condition: Bad) x1

Soul Crystals x2

Aberration Horcrux (Rare)

Pandora"s Egg

As for the "Unknown mysterious item: Rare precious metal" x6 worth 13 achievement points, he could only wait and see. He desperately hoped that the mission rewards he had yet to retrieve would give him something good. If not, he could only reluctantly sell the rare precious metals. After all, Reef"s matter could not be delayed, or they would risk his servant dying.

Among these goods, the Aberration Horcrux (Rare) should be the most popular. Sheyan estimated that the it would net them at least 100,000 utility points. If worse come to worst, he could only ask Brother Black to delay his plan. After all, the blueprint required a lot of materials and was the most costly.

After the discussion, Zi and Reef exchanged glances. Reef could not help smiling as he said, “Boss, I have to say you"ve given us a lot of surprises. But rest a.s.sured, not everything"s bad news on our end either.”

“Oh? What good news do you have for me?” asked Sheyan as his eyes lit up.

Zi"s slender fingers toyed with a lighter on the coffee table. The skin on the back of her hand was as smooth and delicate as porcelain. When she spoke, there was a slight fragrance and warmth in the air which gave Sheyan the urge to indulge in them.

Her eyes, however, contained a sharp glint. They were like the thorns on a rose, warning others to keep their distance.

“When we were attacked, we naturally didn"t just take it lying down. After several successive attempts to fight back, we finally managed to catch a living captive. From him, we found out why the Stockholm Party were so adamant at eliminating us.

Sheyan also felt quite strange about this. Although the enmity between him and the Stockholm Party was not shallow by any means, but he had let Drubal go. Why would they want a fight to the death between the two parties like this? There must be something he had overlooked.

Brother Black took out a cigar and took a big puff, then revealed a cruel smile as he said, “That guy made up several lies at first, but I saw through them all. You"d never guess why they attacked us, boss.”

“Could it be….the metal nut? ” asked Sheyan.

Reef nodded and said, “Correct, it"s because of the nut! Do you know the nickname of that nut?”

“I don"t,” answered Sheyan with a hint of surprise.

Brother Black snuffed out the cigar and said in a solemn tone, “They called it the seed of a divine artifact! This means that if we can achieve maximum completion rate in the mission triggered with the nut, the ultimate reward is a divine artifact! Of course, the chances of that happening aren"t very high, but the probability exists.”

“So they attacked us for the purpose of retrieving the nut that had fallen into my hands?” asked Sheyan.

Reef came up with this humorous reply. “The margin of error of your answer is probably less than 0.3%.”

Sheyan finally smiled.

“That"s good news indeed.”

Zi sneered and said, “Well aren"t you easy to please. The next piece of information will surprise you even more.”

“Zi, that"s a really bad habit. Can you please tell me everything in one go? Next time, I"ll tell my story halfway too.”

Zi smiled. “We launched another ambush according to the information he gave us, and caught another guy. From this guy, we managed to find out the way to use the nut.”

“Really? How do we use it?” asked Sheyan.

“The alternate way of using the nut in your hand requires at least a Reserve-duty General rank. When you"re ready to enter the next world, bring the nut with you and apply to go to the Terminator world – of course, the service isn"t free. And it"s definitely not cheap,” said Zi.

“d.a.m.n it! More utility points! Why am I so unlucky? All kinds of trouble find their way to me!” Sheyan gripped his hair with anguish. He added, “Now, I can only hope that the rewards for the b.l.o.o.d.y World and for the Golden Side Mission can help.”

Mogensha"s eyes suddenly lit up. “Boss, if it doesn"t work, you can always sell your mixes! People will trip over themselves to buy your mixes even if you price them at 10,000 utility points a bottle!”

“A limit has been imposed by the realm on my mixes. I can no longer profit off them and can only trade them away for free. The ability has probably gotten so strong that if I use them for profit, I"ll break the balance of the realm….” Sheyan smiled bitterly.

Despite the fact that his idea of selling mixes had been denied by the realm, Mogensha still smiled so brightly that his white teeth were fully exposed, but with a hint of slyness in it.

“Boss, Sanzi"s pa.s.sive ability to increase the drop rate is really crazy. I think any team will be reluctant to let him go. So, if we plan carefully, we might profit off this.”

Reef"s eyes suddenly lit up. “You mean, a betting match?”

Brother Black nodded. “It seems like Sanzi did not have a happy time in his old party. We can also help him get his revenge with this. Although they won"t really die in the betting match, but it"ll be good to see them lose everything, including their underwear.”

When Sanzi heard about the betting match, his eyes lit up too. Young people were always looking for excitement. The three gathered together and began to pool all their twisted ideas to scheme ways to maximise their profits. Their discussions included the way Sanzi would show his weakness, the way Mogensha would provoke them, deciding the order of appearance, and so on and so forth…..

Zi sat down beside Sheyan with a gla.s.s of red wine. If one were to look closely, one would find a hint of emerald green in her black pupils, giving her a slight air of elegance.

She was tall and graceful, and her s.e.xy black stockings were on full display as she sat cross-legged next to Sheyan. The pale, delicate skin of her legs peeked through the stockings, adding to her s.e.xiness.

Sheyan could clearly see the Zi"s profile from this angle, so her shapely b.r.e.a.s.t.s were accurately outlined in his eyes. They were not that large, but not that small either; just the right size to fit in one of his hands…. Zi"s body carried a faint, elegant smell, which might be perfume, but he could not be sure. The smell, mixed with the flavour of a woman, made Sheyan slightly restless.

Zi did not notice that Sheyan was molesting her all over with his eyes. She gracefully picked up the gla.s.s of red wine and took a careful sip.

“Now that you"ve broken through into a dual-attribute Growth Hunter having acc.u.mulated strength for a long time, your base attributes are probably not inferior to some Awakeners, minus some details.”

Sheyan smiled, but did not speak. He was not a modest man, so he would not deny it, but he also felt that an admission might cause Zi to be unhappy, because Zi seemed to have failed a dual-attribute breakthrough attempt before.

Zi slowly swayed the gla.s.s of wine while she said quietly, “Then I think you should be able to take a look at the string of beads I gave you.”

“Beads?” Sheyan had forgotten all about the beads and only remembered after Zi reminded him.

Before Zi joined Party Ace, Sheyan had heard that one of the reasons Zeus pursued her to no end was because Zi possessed a powerful secret related to MTs. Then, in order to return the favour of saving her, she gave Sheyan a string of beads.(TL: Refer to chapter 778)

Sheyan still remembered that she had taken the string of beads from the neck of a fierce-looking Tibetan Mastiff dog. Apart from being particularly heavy, the string of beads could not be stored in his personal storage and he could not retrieve any information about them. The realm also informed him back then that he possessed insufficient strength and asked him to promote to a Growth-Hunter to satisfy the basic requirement of appraising the object.

The beads were truly wrapped in a veil of mystery.

Because he had so many things to take care of, Sheyan had long put the beads in the back of his mind. He did not carry the beads with him, but it was a simple matter of retrieving them. When the beads were in his hands, he could feel them gradually getting hotter.

Sheyan had a very strong will; he let the beads heat up in his hand without making a sound. Only when the temperature became so high that some smoke and a burning smell came out of his hand did he finally listen to Zi and put the beads down.

A clear burn mark was visible on Sheyan"s palm as if it was burned by a red-hot iron. Some vivid patterns could be seen in the burn mark. There were circles, triangles and squares.

“Could the beads be Tibetan Dzi beads?”

(TL:  )

Sheyan had a strong memory and he had collected a large amount of information after entering the nightmare realm, storing it in his head. Of all the jewellery in the world, only the Tibetan Dzi beads upholded the concept of Tibetan secrets and had the symbols of earth, water and fire, which represented Creation, on them.

"○" – The circle, the cycle of the universe, the source of cosmic power. The colour of the vast openness was white. It symbolised the infinite light emitted by the sun, the moon and the stars.

"△" – The triangle, the human body"s blood circulation system, the foundation of human energy. The colour of human was crimson (the colour of the blood of all animals on land. Also refers to the triangular relations.h.i.+p between red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets). It symbolised the subtle life formed by the spirit, the body and the mind.

"□" – The square, the energy (magnetic field) produced by all matters in nature, the ability to gather and strengthen. The colour of the earth was yellow. It symbolised the opportunities formed by water, fire and wind.

Now that the beads were out of Sheyan"s hand, their surface was black and smooth, appearing no different from ordinary plastic beads besides their weight. The patterns were no longer visible. If it wasn"t for the burn mark on Sheyan"s palm, he would have thought that it was all an illusion.

When Sheyan asked Zi about it, she shook her head slightly and said, “I don"t know what this thing is either. But although you can"t fully understand the mystery behind it, at least you triggered some reaction from it. Keep it safe for now until the day you can fully activate it.”

Sheyan wanted to ask Zi for more information, but Zi kept skirting around the topic and in the end, stopped talking altogether.

Time pa.s.sed quickly. With the support of the party, Sanzi no longer had to train with rats to familiarise himself with the command of summoned creatures. Instead, he trained with police dogs and the likes, and had retired ex-professional special force members as training partners for his summoned creatures.

In addition, as a contestant who had not joined the nightmare realm for long, Sanzi could still increase his base attributes through vigorous training, so he could not slack off. It caused Sanzi a lot of suffering.

Finally, it"s the time to enter the realm again. According to what they had discussed, the first thing Sheyan did after entering the realm was not to retrieve the mission rewards, but to upgrade his military rank! In a company, people in higher positions would get better benefits and bonuses. With this thought in mind, they all agreed that there were only pros to upgrading his military rank first.

Sheyan originally had 183 achievement points. After eliminating five giant mutated ovums with Aziz, his achievement points now had reached Major (198/175). Even without the 13 achievement points from the "Unknown mysterious item: Rare precious metal", he had more than enough to raise his rank.

Right after stepping into the realm, Sheyan"s nightmare imprint sent a continuous stream of notifications to him to remind him to retrieve his rewards. Sheyan simply muted these reminders and went straight to the honour area, before sitting down in his usual spot to deal with his business.

He actually had to wait for nearly five minutes before a voice came from the other side. It was neither the hoa.r.s.e voice that had made contact with him before, nor the usual synthesised electronic voice. Instead, it was the sharp, emotionless voice of a woman.

He could not help but form an image of a bitter, meticulous old hag in her fifties in his mind when he heard the woman"s voice. He believed that the voice had the ability to turn the hardest morning wood into the limpest earthworm.

“Growth Hunter No. 1018, please submit the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters you"ve collected to confirm the completion of your mission. ”

Sheyan was stunned. He then said firmly, “I"m sorry, Ma"am, but I"m here to raise my rank.”

The chilly voice said after a moment of hesitation, “Don"t you have the b.l.o.o.d.y World mission on you? Please submit them together.”

"You must be joking. If I submit the invitation letters now, what would happen to my Golden Side Mission?" thought Sheyan.

Sheyan thus said in a firm tone, “Ma"am, let me repeat that again. I"m here to raise my rank. It"s my prerogative when I would like to submit the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters. I don"t wish to repeat myself for the third time. ”

There was no sound coming from the other side. It seemed that the contact had been interrupted. While Sheyan was feeling puzzled, the cold voice appeared again. “If you submit the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters now, you will get some bonus rewards.”

“What are the bonus rewards?” asked Sheyan nonchalantly.

“Honour, pride, dignity! And the highest praise from the Empire!” answered the cold voice.

Sheyan sighed and said, “Not interested. The promotion of my military rank is a little more important to me right now.”

At this point, he had become really reluctant to have any further discussion with the old hag, so he simply abandoned the current window and went to queue up at the next window. This time, he successfully promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel without any fuss.

The most direct benefit of being a Lieutenant Colonel was that, on the premise that Sheyan was the leader of a small party, every member of the party could get a free honorary dosage in each world.

In addition to some other commonly-known benefits, there were several privileges that he could choose from. All the options Sheyan chose were those that were beneficial to the party, such as a 5% reduction in skill cooldown time for all party members, a 5% increase in attack damage for all party members, and so on.

After all that, Sheyan finally returned to his private room and, together with his visibly impatient party members, began to check out the rewards for the Golden Side Mission.

Currently, in front of Sheyan, a total of six b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters floated out, issuing a scarlet light that painted the faces of the people around in a brutal red.

The real appearance of the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters actually could not be seen in the b.l.o.o.d.y World. They looked like pieces of papers soaked in thick blood. One could not see what was on them. But now, in the nightmare realm, they could be seen more clearly. They looked like palm-sized maple leaves immersed in boiling blood, with their surface emitting a dense red hot air.

The source of Sheyan"s six b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters were as follows:

He had one himself.

He got one after killing Hakeem.

He got one from the MIB.

He got one after killing Togo in the giant underground reproductive system.

And he got two after killing Fate.

Although Fate was a formidable guy, he actually needed a team around him to display his full power. The reason was that Fate was a fragile mage-type contestant, but his explosive power could only be displayed in close quarters. So it was not unusual for him to have only one extra b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter on him.

Zi suddenly said in a serious tone while she was carefully observing the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters, “Why do I get the feeling that the contents of these b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters are like torn pictures? I feel as if the pictures are hiding some sort of secret about the universe, and if you put them all together, you would get a complete map.”

When the others heard this, they gathered around the invitation letters to study them carefully, and found that Zi"s words were true. It was fortunate that Sheyan was able to come up with six b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters at the same time, so they could do a lot of cross comparisons to come to this conclusion.

This was akin to the study of oracle bone inscriptions from ancient times ( TL:  ). If there were only a few oracle-bone inscriptions on a piece of cow shoulder blade, even the best linguist would find it hard-pressed to interpret the meaning of each oracle-bone inscription. But if there were more than ten bone fragments with hundreds of oracle bone inscriptions on them, a.n.a.lysing and studying the meaning of the words would become possible.

After taking out the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters, Sheyan then selected the F-level Golden Side Mission he had — “Collect”.

The group was currently in Sheyan"s private room. Suddenly, there was a very unusual situation!

The soft light from the surrounding wall disappeared, enveloping them in darkness. Only the six b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters still had a faint glow of blood on them.

[Golden Side Mission: “Collect” successfully completed.]

[You have successfully collected six b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters for your Noah Realm.]

[Mission completion evaluation in progress….Please wait patiently.]

After waiting for less than 30 seconds, the nightmare imprint on Sheyan"s chest suddenly fluctuated gently. Sheyan knew that the Noah Realm C he belonged to was trying to communicate directly with him.

[Growth Hunter No. 1018, your potential and growth far exceeded my expectations.]

[Therefore, I will now give you 3 options to choose from.]

[The first option: You can complete the mission in the normal way. Certify 4 b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters, and you will get the normal reward.]

[The second option: Certify all the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters you have. You will get an additional reward.”]

[The third option: Submit all the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters you have to the realm. Your reward will be upgraded by 2 ranks. However, doing so will clear you of all the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters you have, and you will fail your b.l.o.o.d.y World main mission.]

Sheyan mind was immediately thrown into disarray after seeing the third option. He instantly made use of his Lieutenant Colonel military rank to ask:

“What do you mean when you said my reward will be upgraded by 2 ranks?”

The realm gave a short and concise answer:

[Your Golden Side Mission: “Collect” was judged to be F-level difficulty, so the reward was only an F-level Golden Side Mission reward. Upgrading your reward by 2 ranks means your reward will be upgraded to a D-level Golden Side Mission reward.]

Because Sheyan had chosen to share the notifications within his party, Zi and the others could see them as well. Sanzi exclaimed, “Oh, I see! Our Noah Realm C is trying to steal a tile!”

Both Zi and Reef could speak Chinese, but they were quite confused about the high-end Chinese phrase “steal a tile” (TL: It"s a move in mahjong). Sanzi thought about it and explained, “Put it this way. We"re like soldiers, and the Noah Realm C we belong to should be like the company commander, while the one issuing the main mission of the b.l.o.o.d.y World….. Well, it should be someone of a higher authority, similar to a regiment commander.”

“In the presence of a regiment commander, the spoils we get should be turned over to the regiment commander, but if the company commander, who only has the right to make an inventory of the spoils and not to take them, also wants the spoils, he will not be able to fight the regiment commander head on. He would have to take a more roundabout approach, such as persuading us to hand the spoils over to him.”

Reef and the others were quite calm when they heard what Sanzi had to say because to them, Seaman"s younger brother would of course be quite smart as well, so it was nothing surprising. On the other hand, Sheyan was really surprised with Sanzi, although he did not show any reaction on the surface. He silently sighed that the life and death situations in the nightmare realm could truly temper someone. Sanzi was maturing at a speed beyond his imagination.

With her chin on her hand, Zi said, “Obviously, if we"re not careful with our choice, we"ll easily offend someone. We might offend the Noah Realm C we belong to, or we might offend the higher-level authority who could issue a b.l.o.o.d.y World main mission. My advice is to choose the second option. That way, neither side would be embarra.s.sed.”

Sheyan suddenly remembered the cold voice of the old hag when had gone to upgrade his military rank and her “highest praise from the Empire”. Sheyan instantly made his decision.

“I"ve decided. I choose the third option!”

As soon as Sheyan made the choice, the six b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters in front flew into the wall beside him, followed by a string of notifications:

[The evaluation of your Golden Side Mission is completed.]

[Mission completion evaluation: Excellent (You have performed very well. Hopefully, you can perform even better next time.)]

[Mission explanation: This is the first time Noah Realm C has obtained a total of nine b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters, and it"s hard to tell whether it"s good news or bad news for you.]

(TL note: Aziz has three.)

[Note: Your party level is high enough, so as the leader of a silver party, there will be a bonus to some of the reward options.]

[Your achievement points are increased by 30 + 10 (extra difficulty) + 2 (silver high-level party leader) + 1 (legend level) ]

[You receive 200,000 utility points.]

[You receive 30 potential points.]

[You successfully completed the Golden Side Mission! Party experience raised by 33% of current level!]

When they saw “200,000 utility points” and “30 potential points”, all of them heaved a sigh of relief. They felt that the economic crisis that was hanging over them had been effectively alleviated, but…there are problems when one lacks money, and there are also problems when one has money. Sheyan felt the fervent gazes around him and had a strange feeling that the economic crisis hanging over his head had not disappeared at all, but had become more powerful instead.

[Because your mission completion evaluation is excellent, in your selection menu, there will be four random Golden Side Mission unique reward items/equipments for you to choose from!]

[Because the the Golden Side Mission you completed had a difficulty rating of D (after the upgrade), you can only choose two of the following rewards as your final rewards.]

(ED: Quick reminder for clarity- Sheyan chose the option to upgrade reward from F to D, so the difficulty rank is also D)

[Reward A: An increase of {10 + 1} points (+1 from legend level) to a random base attribute]

[Description: After selecting this option, a random attribute of yours will increase by 11 points. The reward will be applied directly to the base attribute and will not be bound by the rules of a.s.signing attribute points.]

(e.g. if Physique was randomly selected, Sheyan"s Physique will directly increase by 10. Normally, if a Growth Hunter wanted to increase a base attribute by 10, they would have to use 30 free attribute points for a main attribute, 50 free attribute points for a secondary attribute, and 70 free attribute points for other attributes!)

[Reward B: s.p.a.ce Stabiliser]

[Description: After using this item, a violent turbulence will flood the area. Dimensional spells cannot be used within 100 kilometers around the spot for an hour. This item will take 24 hours to recharge.]

[Reward C: Amnesty Order]

[Description: After using this item, you can choose a current mission that you have, and the mission will be deemed successfully completed. You will receive the reward corresponding to a mission completion evaluation of "Excellent". The mission cannot be a mission of the golden series or those of equivalent rank.]

[Reward D: Plastic bacteria rebuilding solvents]

[Description: This is the latest discovery by researchers targeting the severe dismemberment problem that often occurs on the battlefield. The solvent will automatically collect the data in your body and try to regenerate your limbs within a short period. In addition, this rapid growth effect will last for 48 hours. Of course, it is ineffective for the dead, and not that effective for brain repair either.]

[Reward E: Elite metal dissolution concocting liquid]

[Description: This is a rare silver storyline grade item. You can apply the liquid on an equipment or item you would like to reinforce for a 100% chance to strengthen it to lvl 3, a 50% chance to strengthen it to lvl 5, and a 10% chance to strengthen it to lvl 7.]

[Description: This liquid will only work on a silver storyline grade or dark gold grade equipment/item.]

[Description: This is a rare material extracted from the core of a planet, which can greatly increase the ductility and toughness of a material. It is something quite valuable even in the entire nightmare realm.]

Following that were the four unique rewards of the Golden Side Mission, which were displayed in a sparkling golden font!

There was no doubt that the focus of everyone there was drawn to the four unique rewards for the Golden Side Mission. Barring any unforeseen circ.u.mstances, Sheyan would probably choose two out of these four options.

[Golden Side Mission unique reward A: Compound high-energy injection of Aldanzo-KelukLulizi (Alkelu)]

[Description: The Alkelu high-energy injection is an extremely valuable medicinal dosage. Even a contestant whose internal potential is already exhausted can use it to improve by leaps and bounds once again; breaking through the boundary of humans! It allows a contestant to instantly become an official Growth Hunter without going through any tests.]

[Golden Side Mission unique reward B: Ukiyo-e]

(TL: Ukiyo-e is a type of j.a.panese painting –  )

[Description: Use your mind to paint a concrete image on this blank canvas. The creature being portrayed and locked on will be instantly summoned to you. If the creature is friendly, you will be charged 1,000 utility points/hour. If the creature is hostile, 10-50 achievement points and 50,000-200,000 utility points will be deducted from you at the moment of summoning, based on the creature"s strength. The summoning will last for 8-25 minutes. The stronger the creature, the shorter the duration of its stay.]

[Description: Ukiyo-e will not work on dead creatures. You will not be able to summon a creature in an environment harmful to it (for example, you can"t summon a Balrog in the ocean, or summon an aquatic creature on a volcanic crater, or summon a creature while high up in the air so that it would fall to its death, and so on).]

[Description: If you kill a creature using the Ukiyo-e, the consequences will be the same as publicly killing the creature in its native world.]

[Description: The Ukiyo-e can be used for a maximum of 3 times.]

[Golden Side Mission unique reward C: Tearstone Solution – Plating]

[Description: Tearstones originated from the depths of black holes and can only be collected using unmanned miniature mining s.p.a.cecrafts. Each bottle required almost 200 unmanned miniature mining s.p.a.cecrafts to collect, hence its staggering value.]

[Description: Apply it to an equipment. There will be a 100% chance to upgrade a silver storyline equipment to dark gold grade, and a 20% chance to upgrade a dark gold equipment to gold storyline grade.]

(TL note: Equipment grade order: white < light="" blue="">< dark="" blue="">< black="">< silver="" storyline="">< dark="" green="" (set="" equipment)="" dark="" gold="" (a="" complete="" set="" of="" dark="" green="" equipment="" is="" comparable="" to="" dark="" gold)="">< light="" green="" (upgradable="" equipment)="">< gold="" storyline.="" there="" are="" other="" grades="" above="" gold="" storyline="" but="" they="" have="" yet="" to="">

[Description: Even if the upgrading fails, it will not cause any harm to your equipment. Furthermore, it will enhance your equipment by +1 ]

[Golden Side Mission unique reward D: Puppet of Photography]

[Rarity: Dark Gold]

[Origin: The worlds of horror films such as The Ring]

[Material: plastic / metal / resentment / ghost]

[Addons: powerful high-energy source]

[Equipment position: Arm]

[Type: Item]

[Weight: 79.6 g]

[Usage requirements: All base attributes no lower than 30]

[Property: Perceptive Sense / Agility / Intelligence +5]

[Property: Explosive hit rate / Hit rate +3%]

[Active ability: Photograph – Consume 50 + 15% of current MP to take an instantaneous photograph of the enemy, cooldown time 1 minute. There are three possible situations after the taking the photograph.]

[Situation 1: Failure to photograph. If the enemy is a storyline character, they will be thoroughly provoked and will fervently attack you.]

[Situation 2: This will be the most common case. The photography process is successful and you get a clear photo. If you attack the photo, the enemy will also be subjected to a violent attack. The photo has zero defence by default and can only sustain a certain amount of damage before turning into ashes. This damage amount will not exceed 25% of the victim"s HP (for contestants), or 30,000 HP (for storyline characters).]

[Situation 3: The photography process is very successful and you get a perfect photo. A perfect photograph can sustain double the amount of damage. In addition, when the person in the photograph was inflicted with a negative condition, the real person may be affected too (for example, if the victim"s leg is torn off in the photograph, the real person"s leg may be disabled or suffer other negative conditions too.)]

[Description: The Puppet of Photography can only possess two photos at the same time.]

[Description: This is a camera with a powerful curse and terrible grievances lingering on it. Choking its throat was equivalent to pressing the shutter, and when its sinister eyes flash, the puppet can cut off part of the enemy"s soul and seal it in a film, causing great damage to the enemy.]

Besides the Alkelu high-energy injection which could transform a contestant into a Growth Hunter right away, Sheyan had never seen the other 3 Golden Side Mission unique rewards.

Sheyan did not hesitate to use one of his valuable choices on the Ukiyo-e.

Most people would use the Ukiyo-e to summon a particular Boss cla.s.s character such as Dumbledore or Gandalf – those powerful legendary magicians who had a lot minions and had crazy high DPS but were weak in melee battles!

It"s not impossible to slay a G.o.dly character if the proper arrangements were made. It"s at least a hundred times easier than rus.h.i.+ng into Hogwarts to get Dumbledore out. Under normal circ.u.mstances, killing one"s way to Dumbledore was an insurmountable task.

However, for Sheyan, he would definitely use the Ukiyo-e to summon Melody. If he could summon Melody over and have her pin the relevant coordinates for dimensional teleportation, the time required to activate the inter-dimensional teleport formation could be reduced by at least 50%! It could at least be done in the foreseeable future!

Zi and Sanzi were puzzled by Sheyan"s decisiveness in selecting the Ukiyo-e. Mogensha and Reef knew why, but of course they chose to keep quiet.

Sanzi frowned and said, “Since you"ve chosen the Ukiyo-e, your next choice has to be option C: Amnesty. You can use this to complete the main mission of the b.l.o.o.d.y World.”

But Sheyan shook his head. “The rewards for the b.l.o.o.d.y World main mission are probably base attribute points, achievement points, utility points, or a combination of them. It may not be as good as the choices here.”

“But if you can"t complete the main mission of the b.l.o.o.d.y World, you might be killed,” said Sanzi with his brows furrowed.

“I won"t. I"ve already considered the possibility. The only penalty for the b.l.o.o.d.y World is the death penalty, which will only apply if a partic.i.p.ant didn"t possess at least three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters within 30 days. I"ve already fulfilled that condition on my third day in the b.l.o.o.d.y World. That"s why, I might not even be punished for failing the main mission.”

“Are you sure?” asked Zi with a frown.

Sheyan smiled in response. “I"m positive. I"ve just looked into this matter using my rank of a Lieutenant Colonel.”

The remaining choice was very hard to make because every option seemed so powerful that missing out on them would cause lifelong regret. Fortunately, Reef came up with a good idea. “I heard that a Lieutenant Colonel can use the auction house function. Why don"t you go have a look and check out the market prices for these things?”

The auction house could only be used by people who had reached a certain status. An additional fee had to be paid after a successful transaction using the official auction house, but it also made transactions much faster and more convenient. Sheyan carefully inspected the items one by one and found that in the auction house, the one with the highest price was actually the "Compound High-Energy Injection of Aldanzo-KelukLulizi"!

This item could allow one to directly break through the barrier between a contestant and a Growth Hunter, and it was the most popular one. Numerous heroes would bend over backwards to get their hands on one.

The second most expensive one among the rewards was actually the unique reward C: Tearstone Solution – Plating! It seemed that anything remotely related to gold storyline equipment was valuable.

Sheyan struggled with the choices for a long time, and finally asked the realm if they could give him a bit more time. The realm actually said that it would be fine as long as he chose the reward before entering the next world. Sheyan decided to put the matter aside for now, because this was something which required high-intensity mental work. He would take a good, long sleep and collect all the information he needed to help him make the best judgement.

The main mission of the b.l.o.o.d.y World had also disappeared by itself. It seemed like Sheyan had escaped from that problem unscathed.

At that moment, Sanzi"s facial muscles suddenly twitched. “Bro, they"re looking for me.”

Sheyan"s pupil contracted. “Oh, that fast? Seems like those people value you very much. They actually responded so quickly after receiving news of your resignation.”

Reef and Mogensha were suddenly full of energy. They looked like bandits who couldn"t wait to reap some profit and divide the spoils. They were truly rotten to the core, thought Sheyan. Sheyan coughed twice, prompting the two to reign in the greedy expressions on their faces, but they still kept whispering in secret. The party was led by Sanzi to the square, where a large fellow wearing a yellow bee headgear strode up to them. The man stopped in front of the group and, folding his hands in front of his chest, said arrogantly, “How dare you steal our member!”

“Who are you?” asked Mogensha in a very annoying tone.

Headgear man, of course, heard the mocking tone in Mogensha"s voice. But he ignored Mogensha and instead went towards Sanzi. He tried to grab Sanzi while yelling at him furiously. “You fool! If big sis finds out about this, you"ll get beaten up for sure! Even if it"s not your fault!”

But Sheyan had already stepped forward to block headgear man"s path. Seeing this, headgear man laughed out loud, although the laugh was filled with a chilly intent.

“Well, well. Someone actually wanted to challenge me!”

Before headgear man had even finished his sentence, a rumbling drum had already sounded in the air. A black flag appeared before them and planted itself heavily on the ground. On the flag was a picture depicting two sharp blades crossing each other, seemingly formed by blood that had dried! It exuded a sense of repression and terror.

“KILL, KILL, KILL!!!”

The headgear man looked like a WWE wrestler. The most impressive thing about him were his bulging muscles, which s.h.i.+ned as if they had been smeared with olive oil. The b.u.mblebee pattern on his headgear looked very life-like.

The black flag he planted was called the duel flag, the kind that needed a rather high level of authority to exchange for – at least a rank of Reserve-duty Major General. The guy was not that simple-minded after all. Besides threatening them with force, he also displayed his strength so as to avoid unnecessary fighting.

(TL: Major < lieutenant="" colonel="">< colonel="">< colonel="" commandant="">< major="" general="">< lieutenant="" general="">< general="">

But Brother Black was totally unperturbed. He very arrogantly strode over to headgear man with a cigar in his mouth and jabbed the muzzle of his gun on headgear man"s head as he said, “h.e.l.lo, anyone there? Do you have muscles for a brain? Are you r.e.t.a.r.ded? Sanzi is already our man. Why are you betting with us with our man as the bargaining chip?”

After jabbing headgear man"s head with his gun muzzle, the next step was probably to jab his cigar on the guy"s forehead. It was obvious that Mogensha wanted to humiliate headgear man.

Everyone"s patience had a limit. In the party called Poison Stinger which headgear man belonged to, all the core members knew that Sanzi was a member which they could never let go of. While it was necessary to exercise appropriate caution, too withdrawn an approach would simply be labelled as cowardice.

Headgear man roared furiously. He looked so angry his eyes almost popped out of the sockets. He got in Mogensha"s face and spat out these words: “Do you have a death wish? Then pull up the flag. I"ll beat you up so good you won"t be able to eat s.h.i.+t afterwards even if you want to.”

Mogensha simply puffed some cigar smoke on headgear man"s face, and with a flick of ash, said with scorn, “And what"s in it for me? If you want to fight, no problem, but only if we bet 20,000 per round. Do you dare?

At this time, headgear man naturally wouldn"t back off. He flashed a sinister grin at Mogensha and said, “Deal. Since you insist on giving me money, of course I"ll take it.”

Mogensha immediately signed a realm contract with him so that he would not be able to go back on his words. After the bets were placed, Mogensha grabbed the flag. The sound of rumbling drums could instantly be heard within the realm. A smoke-like darkness spread from the flag and wrapped them inside it, before they disappeared in place.

The settings of betting matches were a bit unique. It was clear that the realm did not wish others to view the battle process. That"s because every person"s abilities were the secrets which they relied on to survive. Of course they could not be displayed so easily.

Time was probably sped up in the duel arena, because not long after the battle began, the two men came back out. Headgear man"s face was livid with rage. He instantly threw out another 20,000 utility points and said through gritted teeth, “Do you have the b.a.l.l.s for a rematch? You won"t be so lucky this time!”

Mogensha laughed and shamelessly said, “Once is enough to teach idiots like you a lesson. If I teach you more, won"t I just help you get smarter?”

Headgear man"s eyes bulged so hard they looked like they would burst. He rushed forward and blocked Mogensha"s path to stop Mogensha from walking away. Mogensha"s response was to raise the bet. 40,000 per round, no bargaining! If headgear man was short on utility points, he could use his equipments as collateral. Sheyan, who was watching the battle from the side, could see Mogensha"s careful planning in setting up the trap. As long as headgear man put one foot into the trap, he would sink deeper and deeper!

After the second battle concluded, headgear man came out with a twisted look on his face. By now, he had been cheated of 60,000 utility points by Mogensha! Even for the backbone member of an ordinary party, this was a huge sum. As a result, headgear man didn"t dare to let Mogensha go, or he wouldn"t be able to explain himself to his party!

The party called Poison Stinger had received the news and had rushed over to the scene. When they saw Sanzi there, they immediately understood the situation. It was clear that Sanzi had found a stronger team and was here to exact revenge.

But the Poison Stinger party also realised that Sheyan"s side had only five people including Sanzi. They were thus extremely unwilling to give up on 60,000 utility points and Sanzi without even putting up a fight!

Since Mogensha held the initiative, he set the high price of 30,000 utility points per battle. He also clearly stated that as long as the other side could win three battles in a row, they would get Sanzi together with 200,000 utility points!

Under the temptation of such enormous profit, Poison Stinger members lined up to take on Mogensha. They finally formed a thorough understanding of Mogensha"s ability after three battles and defeated him in the fourth.

And then….

And then, it was Zi"s turn….

And that was the end for them.

Zi had mastered the "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" by now. Coupled with the insane properties of the Ndipaya set, her frontal defence was even higher than Reef with a s.h.i.+eld! Zi did not need any strategy at all. She just stood there and exchanged blows with her opponent. The opposing side simply gave up after two tries.

The reason was simple. Zi, who was obviously a mage contestant, was even hardier than Poison Stinger"s MT! The two people who challenged her were the ones with the strongest attack in the party. When they came back out after their defeat, they likened the experience to biting hard on a steel plate and had the force rebounded back on them. Not only were they stunned, their teeth fell off too!

The reason for this was simple: the equipment gap between the two sides was simply too wide.

Under such an unfair condition, it was a basic requirement to be one rank higher than Zi in order to stand a chance against her (for example, an Awakener is one rank higher than a Growth Hunter). To defeat her, her opponent probably needed to be two ranks higher. Would the Poison Stinger party have anyone that"s 2 ranks higher than Zi? One could not entirely eliminate the possibility, but the chances were so low that they were negligible.

At this point, the party leader of the Poison Stinger party stepped out. She was called Queen Bee, a pretty unique name. True to her name, she had a queen bee"s plump hips and a queen-like demeanor. The woman stared at Zi for a while, then turned towards Sanzi.

“If I promise to treat you well from now on, will you give me another chance?”

Sanzi heart was slightly moved looking at the woman whom he used to be very infatuated with. But before any idea could form in his mind, Sanzi immediately saw Sheyan from the corner of his eyes.

Sheyan, who was smiling peacefully.

In the face of more than ten years of interdependent brotherhood, Queen Bee"s charm was nothing!

So Sanzi gave her a resounding “NO.”

Queen Bee was very decisive. Although her party had lost almost everything and was on the verge of bankruptcy, she chose to leave without a word. She knew that if they kept going, the party she had put so much effort into building may very well disintegrate!

Queen Bee had a special ability. She saw with her own eyes, a dark golden glow on Sanzi"s body. A party that could easily fork out a piece of dark gold equipment to bribe people was definitely not someone her Poison Stinger party could go up against at the moment.

With the extra 150,000 utility points scooped from the Poison Stinger party, Party Ace finally had some room to breathe. After enough preparation, Sheyan tried to complete the main mission of the b.l.o.o.d.y World.

Because he did leave the b.l.o.o.d.y World with enough invitation letters, the mission was judged to have been completed, while at the same time, he had to submit the invitation letters to complete the mission, but Sheyan could not do so. This led to a so-called BUG, but, of course, it was not enough to cause a blue screen crash restart. However, Sheyan was still directly affected by the BUG, in the way that the system also gave him a BUG-like response.

Sheyan was judged to have completed the relevant main mission, but he would not receive any reward. It was a better result than previously expected.

A quick calculation showed that Party Ace possessed 350,000 utility points and 30 potential points. As always, money comes and goes quickly.

Brother Black wished to complete his blueprint, which cost the most among the various projects, so he was allocated 150,000 utility points.

The upgrade of Zi"s "Magic Barrier" to lvl 7 had consumed 10,000 utility points and 25 potential points.

And Reef was a servant to his servant. He needed at least 80,000 utility points. Since Sheyan had ample funds on hand, he couldn"t deny Reef"s request. So that"s another 100,000 utility points gone.

In the end, Sheyan was left with less than 100,000 utility points. Fortunately, Sanzi was used to living in poverty. 1,000 utility points would have made him happy. So, Sheyan didn"t need to consider Sanzi"s needs for the time being.

Are 90,000 utility points a large sum? A single recharge of his gloves would already consume almost half of his remaining fund. In addition, he needed to set aside utility points for the Ukiyo-e to summon Melody, and also for the cost of using the "metal nut" mission item to enter the Terminator"s world. Therefore, Sheyan could be regarded to be in a state of poverty.

Battle power was piled up with money. This sentence rang true.

They split up to perform their own tasks. Sheyan once again went to the Hall of Merit in the upper level. After becoming a Lieutenant Colonel, he had a personal office of sorts there, so he never had to queue up again. He sat down in his designated place, turned his wrist, and in the palm of his hand sat an extremely ordinary metal nut.

What Sheyan had brought out was the ordinary-looking metal nut which hid a huge secret.

Sheyan placed the metal nut in the aluminum alloy drawer beside him and applied for a.n.a.lysis and appraisal with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. A buzzing sound arose in the room, like the sound made by a microwave oven. Sheyan closed his eyes and waited patiently for the result.

About five minutes after the buzz, the sound slowly subsided, and a series of reports immediately appeared on the holographic projection in front of Sheyan.

[a.n.a.lysis and appraisal fees: 2,000 utility points.]

[The results of a.n.a.lysis and appraisal are as follows:-]

[Composition: Carbon ferroalloy containing 0.9% carbon. Nothing out of the ordinary detected.]

[Design concept: very common.]

[Application: very common]

[Processing technology: very common.]

[Special feature(s): not found.]

Sheyan was naturally shocked when he saw the report. There"s no way he would believe that the metal nut was so ordinary. This should not be the result!

“Something must have gone wrong somewhere.”

Sheyan pondered for a while and applied for further appraisal, but this time the cost of appraisal rose to 4,000 utility points. He accepted. The results were the same. Sheyan wouldn"t give up and stubbornly continued to apply for appraisals. After the appraisal fee rose to 12,000 utility points, Sheyan finally received this notification:

[Suspicious point: After a 1000x magnification, the letters “S.O.S” could be seen inscribed on the seventh thread of the nut. Who would have sent out such a hasty distress signal in such a way?]

Sheyan almost cursed out loud when he read the notification. Who could have imagined that the nut was just acting as a way of transmitting information like a piece of paper? Who could have thought that it must be magnified by a thousand times before such a bizzare clue could be found?

Sheyan was utterly confused by the mystery surrounding the nut. Even though he was good at deduction, it was impossible to infer any useful information from an ordinary nut and a very common SOS message that could only be seen after the nut was magnified a thousand times. The only clue he had was that the nut was from the the Terminator world. It was an impossible task!

Fortunately, Sheyan received another notification:

[It has been confirmed that this nut was originally made in the Terminator world, and that it contains a strong power of destiny, so you will be able to pay a certain amount of fee to enter the Terminator world to explore its mysteries. You can apply for it when you are able to enter the next world.]

Sheyan keyed-in his query: “I wish to enter the world with my party. I would also like to know of any consequences from changing the world I enter, or any relevant information.”

The reply was:

[Individual intrusion will cost 5,000 utility points. We have identified your party to be a small high-level Silver party, so a party intrusion will cost 15,000 utility points and 3 achievement points. After you get into the Terminator world, you will explore it the same way you would in a normal entry. However, you will not randomly draw the Terminator world in the next three adventures after this one, nor can you enter the Terminator world via an intrusion in the meantime. There is a certain cooldown period between two intrusion attempts.]

Next, Sheyan learned that the next world he would enter was the world of Harry Potter…. To be honest, that was the world he was most reluctant to touch right now due to the ring on his hand. Therefore, he chose the Terminator world without hesitation.

After much discussion with his teammates, Sheyan was ready to choose his final Golden Side Mission reward. He ruled out the medicine that could directly upgrade a contestant to a Growth Hunter, and the low 20% chance eventually led Sheyan to give up on the Tearstone Solution, which was the most valuable item in the auction house. He was never one to place his faith on luck.

In the end, Sheyan chose the "Puppet of Photography" because he was someone who lacked effective attacking methods. The item would enrich the tactics he could use on offence. The main negative aspect of the device was the aggro drawn after a failure in taking a photo, but Party Ace with their dual-MT configuration could turn this disadvantage into an advantage.

As the saying goes, it may be difficult to do a good job, but it is quite simple to mess something up. For example, if they were fighting a powerful storyline BOSS and Reef was having difficulty hanging on, Sheyan could take a failure of a photo on purpose and get the boss to attack him instead, so that Reef could take a breather. In addition, Sheyan had a lot of pa.s.sive abilities such as his diseases and "Corrosynthesis" that could cause continuous damage to a successful photograph…..

Not much happened after that. The others felt time pa.s.s by in the blink of an eye. Only Sheyan had a strange feeling in his heart.

As the first world he entered, the Terminator world held a special significance in Sheyan"s heart. He thought back to the last time he entered that world, to his wariness and his panic. Now, he was leading a whole party of unbelievably powerful people into that same world. The strong contrast between the past and the present filled him with melancholy.

[Starting the process of entering a nightmare world…]

[Data matching initiated…]

[Pairing process initiated…]

[World selected…]

[a.s.similating characters with the world…]

[Entering the world…]

[Judgment day is approaching the peaceful earth. The peaceful lives of humans will soon be destroyed.]

[Is it too late to change the destiny of mankind?]

[The war between machines and flesh, between survival and death!]

[Killing and protection, risk and wealth!]

[How many secrets are hidden behind the darkness?]

[Do not let your eyes be blinded by profit!]

[Set out for the sake of mankind!]

This time, after entering the light portal leading to the world, Sheyan did not lose consciousness. He was only temporarily blinded, then found himself sitting in an old Ford sedan.

Because the car was parked in a parking lot on a building, he could see the view of the city in the distance. A few strands of black smoke had risen on the west side of Los Angeles. Numerous helicopters were hovering aimlessly in the air like lost houseflies. Seeing such a scene, Sheyan immediately thought that maybe a fierce battle was currently taking place in Los Angeles!

But at that moment, Sheyan suddenly felt a slight numbness from the nightmare imprint, followed by a series of notifications in his ears:

[Sarah Connor has returned from her vacation and has landed at the Los Angeles International Airport.]

[The T-800 Terminator will enter this world through the time displacement sphere in ten minutes.]

[Warning: So far, seven contestants have triggered a Level II Regional Mission, causing Skynet to send multiple T-750 Terminators into the world ahead of schedule. The dispatched T-800 Terminator will also be in its complete form.]

[Warning: The destruction of four T-750 Terminators has raised the alarm of Skynet, so from this point on, Skynet will send Sarah Connor"s exact location to the T-800 every half an hour.]

[Warning: The LAPD are heavily understaffed currently because of heavy losses sustained in previous fights. Before reinforcements arrive, they will shrink their protection perimeter and will concentrate on protecting a few key areas. In the meantime, the LAPD will be much less likely to send out police officers, and responses to emergency situations will become unusually slow. This will last for 12 hours.]

[Please decide whether to save Sarah Connor or kill her. Your choice will affect the direction of the main storyline mission.]

Seeing the notifications, Sheyan could not help feeling a bit emotional.

“d.a.m.n it! How could you give me a choice like this at this kind of time? ” Sheyan frowned. “And the rest of the contestants were obviously here ahead of us. Could it be….”

On the other side of the city while Sheyan was s.p.a.cing out….

Ougens was breathing heavily.

His beard was stained with blood and saliva, and he leaned hard against the pillar in the parking lot, feeling the hardness and coldness behind him. His lungs seemed to squeeze out the last breath they had. His strength was waning together with the blood spilling out from the three wounds he sustained.

The most serious injury was the one from a punch on his chest. At least five radial cracks appeared on his sternum. Two ribs were broken and had pierced into his lungs, causing pain with each breath he took. A feeling of suffocation slowly a.s.saulted him.

The sound of gunfire in the distance had never stopped, occasionally accompanied by the sound of explosion. The emotionless T-800 Terminator (Arnold) was launching his a.s.sault without saying a word. It was worth mentioning that the injury on Ougens" chest was caused by a casual punch from the T-800. At that time, he was diligently blocking bullets for the Terminator.

Cold and heartless. These traits of the T-800 were on full display.

Ougens regretted taking part in this mess. It"s true, the T-800"s strength was overwhelmingly superior to the male and female protagonists, and it was now even more powerful than it was in the original plot. But in contrast, the contestants who chose to guard the male and female protagonists also had an overwhelming advantage in both quant.i.ty and quality compared with the contestants who chose to protect the T-800.

8 to 3.

That was Ougens" estimate. 8 enemies, 3 allies. He couldn"t even confirm whether this was the final number, because there were still the possibilities of hidden enemies. When he thought about this, he could not help thinking of that person.

The person Ougens thought of was the one manipulating everything from behind the scenes.

However the contestants struggled and fought, whatever they did, it all seemed to be within his expectation. Ougens felt like from the moment he entered this world, a giant web had entrapped him without him knowing it, and all his struggles and resistance did naught but help increase the strength of the web!

When Ougens stepped foot in this world, he received a main mission which had two branches he could choose from.

Branch A was to protect Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor.

Branch B was to join the Terminator"s side and help the Terminator complete the a.s.sa.s.sination. However, the Terminator would attack all humans indiscriminately.

Like most people, Ougens was going to follow the normal plot progression and protect the hero and heroine. He would just follow the script and play it safe.

But he could never had imagined that when he was shooting at a mafia member for a side mission, a bar girl would suddenly drop a beer on the mafia member"s groin by accident.

That guy was watching the strippers at the moment and had a raging b.o.n.e.r going, so when the frozen beer spilled on his groin, it made him bend down by reflex. As a result, the sure-hit bullet flew past him and burst the head of a hippie with a mohawk haircut behind him.

The hippie turned out to be the nephew of the mayor of Los Angeles, and the second-in-line to inherit the oligarch Rockefeller consortium. The first-in-line was already confirmed to have leukemia….

If a normal person found themselves in Ougens" situation, they should probably just hang themselves to avoid the suffering they would surely receive from the backlash. However, it was not a big deal for a contestant. It just means that Ougens had almost no chance of joining the side which protected the hero and heroine now. A murderer pursued by the government would just bring disaster to that side.

Therefore, Organs had no choice but to choose Branch B. At that time, Ougens had not suspected anything. He just wanted to complete the task properly. But he soon felt like he was being manipulated because there were simply too many coincidences happening around him.

For some reason, the number of contestants who chose Branch B was shockingly high. But every time they were about to kill the hero and heroine, something strange would always happen. A car alarm would suddenly go off, or a dog would suddenly bark for no reason, or their weapons would suddenly malfunction.

And the preys would escape.

It was at that point that Ougens started to feel like he had fallen into a giant, sticky web. It was as if all his actions, including his successes and failures, were being controlled.

What"s more, Ougens found that more than half of the contestants who gathered on the Terminator"s side did not join voluntarily. There were always some random accidents which prevented them from choosing Branch A.

There was definitely a mastermind controlling all these from the background.

What was his purpose for setting things up like this?

Sheyan folded his hands to his chest and let the wind caress his hair as he looked down at the vast city of Los Angeles. For some reason, from the moment he entered the world, he had a strange feeling, as if an invisible eye was watching him.

Brother Black stretched a little and looked excitedly at the black smokes around Los Angeles shooting straight into the sky like pillars. He could not help but exclaim, “Oh my G.o.d, are the Taliban performing a full-scale invasion of Los Angeles? The familiar smell of smoke and gunpowder sure makes me excited.

Meanwhile, Sanzi turned towards Sheyan timidly and said, “Brother, I want to try capturing a Terminator to see if I can control it.”

“Huh??” At that instant, Zi abruptly turned towards the direction of a storeroom more than 20 meters away. There was a sudden dazzling flash of blue electrical current there, making a buzzing noise.

The blue electrical current, thick as a bucket, twisted together in the air like a python. It looked horrible and extremely weird. Sheyan was not unfamiliar with this situation. It was the opening of a time displacement sphere, signifying the imminent arrival of a Terminator.

Zi suddenly stretched out her hand towards a car not far away. The car immediately compressed like a twisted towel as if it was crushed by a giant invisible hand. Screws, steel plates and other pieces burst out from the car and flew everywhere.

Zi stretched out her other hand with the flattened palm facing outwards. The "Force Wall" collided with the car, sending the newly-formed pile of metal garbage cras.h.i.+ng into the time displacement sphere.

Several strands of thick blue electrical currents had merged into a blue curtain of light in the air, giving off a dazzling glare that made it hard for them to look at it. When the wrecked car hit the curtain of light, large strands of blue currents splashed out as if the curtain of light was a pool of water. The steel car was then completely devoured by the corrosive power of s.p.a.ce and time!

Then, several large hands made of steel grabbed the edge of the unstable time displacement sphere and a few figures jumped out, looking as nimble as gymnasts.

The infrared scanner in their eyes gave them a crimson gaze. Each step they took exerted astonis.h.i.+ng weight on the ground. Clear cracks would form beneath their feet as they walked, as if the ground had been hit hard by a sledgehammer.

From the looks of it, these Terminators should be T-750 models. In addition to the dull, indifferent plastic expressions on their faces, their bodies exuded an air of strength and agility. Their processors seemingly had no “walking” module in them; they were either stationary or das.h.i.+ng at an astonis.h.i.+ng speed. The whole building seemed to tremble with each step they took.

Zi released another "Force Wall" without panic. The two foremost Terminators staggered back a few steps as if they had hit a hard wall. Some electrical currents could be seen flowing in a few cracks in their heads. The others Terminators in the back were not perturbed in the slightest and continued to dash forward single-mindedly. Harsh alarm noises reverberated through the parking lot as they easily rammed away several cars in their paths.

Sheyan frowned and sighed. “This…doesn"t seem to be the Terminator world in my memory at all.

If the T-750 Sheyan met in his first world was as ferocious as those in front of him, Sheyan would definitely have died a very horrible death.

At this time, Sanzi summoned out a giant snake that was at least 10 meters long. It looked like an Anaconda from the Amazon. As soon as it appeared, it rearranged its body to protect Mogensha, Zi and Sheyan in the middle.

As for Reef, he was carrying a special-looking s.h.i.+eld which was evidently very expensive as well. He was obviously an MT, so he needed no protection.

Sheyan looked at Sanzi and smiled. “I can"t believe the little boy who used to run to me crying whenever he"s bullied has grown up so much he could protect me now. But seriously, I don"t actually need your protection.”

After saying that, Sheyan stepped out of the circle formed by the snake. Without Sheyan inside, the snake barrier could be formed thicker and tighter for more protection.

Sanzi was stunned. “But these robots look really strong! Each of them by themselves is almost as strong as the Boss I met in the previous world!”

Mogensha puffed on his cigar and smiled. He propped up his gun and took aim as he said, “These small fry can"t do anything to Sheyan. You have nothing to worry about.”

At this time, Sheyan had walked to the side of Reef and stood next to him. They had not stood together side-by-side like this for a long time. Seeing the enemies rus.h.i.+ng towards them, they could not help but feel a strong excitement in their hearts.

Two Terminators reached them with fierce momentum. Reef took the lead in rus.h.i.+ng out with s.h.i.+eld and sent one of them flying. Sheyan reached out with his hands and blocked a punch from the other Terminator with his palm. The force from the punch pushed him back half a step, but in the process, he managed to grab the Terminator"s arms.

He yanked hard on the arms. Electric currents instantly burst out of the Terminator"s shoulder joints, a testament to the severity of the injuries. Sheyan increased the force he used and twisted the arms at a 90 degrees angle. The arms instantly broke off. Deadly pale artificial muscles and s.h.i.+ny internal parts could be seen in the cross-sections. It seemed that the Terminator was fresh out of factory.

When the Terminators behind saw their companions being damaged, they hastened their steps, but a casual "Force Wall" from Zi was enough to push them back.

The steel parts on Sheyan"s gloves started rotating at high speed. The power indicator lights were fully turned on. The Terminator was lifted up and thrown into the air.

"Tactical Throw"!

But with the target location high up in the air!

Anyone who was thrown into the air would not be able to apply force to their surroundings and thus, would not be able to dodge attacks. It was the worst time to be attacked. That"s why, in combat martial arts, rarely do we see moves where the pract.i.tioner"s feet leave the ground, except in movies – but those moves in the movies were often performed for aesthetic purposes and should not be taken seriously.

The Terminator was helplessly thrown into the air and was instantly turned into their punching bag!

Brother Black puffed on his cigar while he shot with one hand. He actions seemed careless, but Sanzi clearly saw all the bullets from the golden AK hit the same spot without fail. The spot that was. .h.i.t emitted a blueish-white electrical current, seemingly trying to push the bullets out. A large amount of shattered wires and mechanical parts fell out from the hole.

At the same time, Zi sent a torrent of invisible shockwaves to the Terminator through the air using her crescent-shaped dagger. By the time the Terminator fell back down, it was already covered in wounds. Occasionally, a bluish-white electrical current more than a foot long would be emitted from its neck. When it moved, it did so with a noticeable limp and made a strange noise that was similar to the sound metal makes when it has been stretched to the limit and is about to break.

Sanzi seemed worried about Sheyan"s safety and was about to summon more creatures, but Zi stopped him with a look. “There"s no need.”

While Zi was saying this, she raised her slender and beautiful forefinger and rapidly sketched a mysterious symbol in the air. Anyone who saw that symbol would instinctively a.s.sociate it with the microscopic world, as well as nuclear fission chain reactions!

Next, the symbol quickly reformed into a huge warhammer, which swept across the air and slammed into the steel body of the Terminator. Under the collective fire of Zi and Mogensha, the Terminator burst into a loud explosion!

The air was soon full of choking smoke and violent flames. Scattered parts clanked as they fell to the ground. The Terminator"s head, with the steel skull inside showing after its synthetic skin was torn, rolled towards them but was instantly kicked away by Reef. It exploded again when it hit the wall. That surprised Sheyan. He only knew the body of the T-800 had self-destructing capabilities. He didn"t expect that the T-750 model had already been incorporated with this technology.

The Terminators did not pose much trouble. However, the defensive qualities shown by Sanzi"s summoned snake were surprisingly high. During the fight, two Terminators managed to break through to the back, but with a flick of its tail, the Anaconda sent one of them flying. The other Terminator leaped and tried to kick Mogensha, but he ended up being bitten by the Anaconda and was thrown over 10 meters away.

These T-750 Terminators were no longer a threat to Sheyan and his party. All they managed to do was adding more smoke to the already smoky city of Los Angeles. Reef pushed a T-750 away with his s.h.i.+eld and followed up with a claw while it was in the air. The claw tore off one of its thighs. Even so, the Terminator remained as ferocious as a trapped feral beast after it landed, continuing to attack even if it had to crawl to do so.

Mogensha whistled a tune as he walked over. Raising his gun calmly in one hand, he continuously pulled the trigger until the Terminator completely stopped fighting. Then, he casually kicked the broken body off the rooftop. The Terminator exploded during the fall.

Sanzi"s wish to control a T-750 could not be fulfilled because the bomb in their bodies were simply too dangerous.

The battlefield on the rooftop parking lot was filled with unquenched fire, as well as the black smoke from oil and plastic combustion. These black smoke interspersed in the air but did not dissipate. After the end of the battle, the black smoke transformed into lines of tiny words.

[ You chose to destroy the Terminators, which means that you have tacitly chosen to side with the faction of Sarah Connor. ]

[ Silver party: Ace, welcome to the nightmare world. ]

[ You have obtained the main mission: Save. ]

[ Main mission: Save ]

[ Mission briefing: Sarah Connor and her boyfriend are being pursued relentlessly. If they die here, the whole Terminator story will change dramatically! Skynet will have achieved its goal, and the future rebel leader, John Connor, will not come into existence. ]

[ Mission hint: Do you really need me to teach you what to do? Your task is to make sure that history is not substantially rewritten. ]

[ Mission penalty: All base attributes permanently reduced by 20%! ]

[ Mission hint: Dear Lieutenant Colonel, you can track the real-time location of Sarah Connor for an hour by paying a certain fee. Besides that, there are other contestants on the same a.s.signment as yours next to Sarah Connor, so don"t worry too much about their safety – but of course, you should take prompt actions because anything can happen in a nightmare world! ]

At the same time, a series of notifications resounded in everyone"s ears.

[ Time: 4 p.m., August 12, 1984 ]

[ Location: California, Los Angeles (42° 19′ N, 83° 2′ W) ]

[ Setting: Terminator ]

[ Difficulty: B ]

[ Pain limitation: 0% ]

[ Individual capability bonus: 0% ]

[ Present setting exploration rate: 12.31% ]

[ Additional details: This world has a PVP setting where you will be able to kill contestants belonging to other realms. The realm suggest restraint if you come into conflict with them, but if a fight breaks out, we hope you can win. ]

[ You automatically grasp the relevant language. You are able to interact freely with the characters in this world. The ability will be erased upon leaving this world ]

[ Mission count: 1 ]

[ Your appearance/ident.i.ty have been processed; they will be restored upon returning to the real world. You can also commence modifications within the nightmare realm. For any questions, voice the relevant queries to the nightmare imprint; if your authority is sufficient, you will receive an answer. ]

[ This is the second time Growth Hunter No. 1018 is entering this world. He will retain interpersonal relations.h.i.+ps with certain characters, as well as any reputation or statuses from before. Please accept the items previously deposited in this world. ]

[ Details: You received 211 US Dollars. ]

[ Details: Since you are entering this world as intruders, the princ.i.p.al mode of the world will be determined by the other contestants. This will lead to some changes in your past experiences and perceptions.]

[ Details: You received the clothes you wore before you previously left this world. You can also choose to alter your appearance, but please keep in mind that this is a paid service, and there is the possibility of your altered appearance being seen through.]

[ Details: These are the relations.h.i.+ps you have with crucial storyline characters in this world: Skynet (arch-enemies), LAPD (kept on record) ]

After receiving the mission, Sheyan stood silently for a moment, frowning.

“I"ve already paid to get the position of Sarah Connor. She"s not far from where we are, only about five kilometers in a straight line. But for some reason, I keep having a bad feeling.”

Zi walked to Sheyan"s side. “Maybe you"re just being overcautious?”

“No, I"m not. First of all, the Stockholm party should"ve been able to deduce that I"m going to enter the Terminator world sometime in the near future, and they know I would enter as an intruder.”

“Secondly, the world is built entirely on the experience of the rest of the contestants, so the others held an absolute geographical and social advantage!”

“More importantly, our entry into this world seems to have been delayed for a long time due to our strength, which means that if our enemies are here, they have plenty of time to lay down a trap!”

Hearing what Sheyan had to say, the others instantly became uneasy. Sheyan was about to move forward, but his expression – or, more precisely, the expression of every Ace Party member – turned dark! That"s because a warning had sprung up in blood-red fonts!

[ Warning! Warning! Important storyline character Kyle Reese, one of the targets you need to protect, the warrior from the future, the father of John Connor the Saviour, is gravely injured! ]

[ Warning! Warning! The death of this character will greatly affect the evaluation of your mission! ]

[ Warning! Warning! Kyle Reese is dead! ]

“FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!” Sheyan cursed out loud. “This whole thing is a trap!”

Senyan immediately rushed downstairs while flinging curses, but he was still calm enough to issue an order.

“Mogensha and I will go first! Reef, protect Sanzi and follow us. Zi, do as you will. I trust in your judgement.”

Sen-yan quickly descended down the building"s fire exit. When he reached the 8th floor, he simply broke through the gla.s.s wall and jumped down, landing heavily amidst a rain of shattered gla.s.s. He broke his fall with a roll and got on a Harley motorcycle. The wind whipped Sheyan"s hair back as he sped away, but all he could feel were the chills running down his spine!

Mogensha quickly followed behind him. He hesitated for a moment but finally broke his silence in the party communication channel.

“Boss… The feeling I have now is very similar to the feeling in our previous world where we would find obstacles wherever we go. It felt as if there was a mastermind manipulating everything behind the scenes.”

“Okay, I know.” Sheyan"s words seemed to be squeezed out of the cracks in his teeth. He could feel a great pressure bearing down on him.

The pressure of an invisible hand grabbing him by the throat!

A suffocating pressure!

One that rendered them unable to fight back or even resist!

They quickly sped towards the hotel Sarah Connor was staying in. In no time at all, they were already less than a hundred metres away! But at this time, a cruel and merciless notification sounded.

[ Warning! Warning! Important storyline character Sarah Connor, one of the targets you need to protect, the mother of John Connor the Saviour, is gravely injured! ]

[ Warning! Warning! The death of this character will greatly affect the evaluation of your mission! ]

[ Warning! Warning! Sarah Connor is dead! ]