The Ultimate Evolution

Facing this situation, the clone hesitated a little, but apparently his chaotic mind had begun to wake up. Even though the power of the neuralyzer was very formidable, it had been quite a while so it was about time for its effect to come to an end.

The remnant of his combat awareness slowly emerged. He no longer instinctively and single-mindedly lock on to Sheyan as the main attacking target. He started to calculate whether attacking Sheyan was worth it. The illusion of the clone and his dark gold leech could only cause 1 damage to Sheyan due to "Stronghold", while the clone could attack Sheyan once every 1.5 seconds to cause 20-30 damage points without weapons. The damage per second was approximately 15+1+1 = 17 points.

Sheyan"s maximum HP was close to 3,500. It would only take around 220 seconds to empty his HP!

(TN note: Author can"t math)

The calculation showed that attacking the non-retaliating Sheyan was more cost-effective than attacking his dark gold leech.

Therefore, the clone focused fire on Sheyan without hesitation. Using the life of his summoned creature in exchange for putting the target in a critical state – he would win in this trade no matter what!

However, the clone forgot something.

He forgot a cruel fact.

Sheyan did one thing before this, and that was to bury his wife in the ground – no, to bury four bottles of genetical-extract mixes in the ground. It"s about time for harvest.

At the place where the mixes were buried, a large amount of soil suddenly rose. It was originally the size of a small mound, but it continued to rise rapidly into a 7-8 square meter grave. The gra.s.s that originally grew lush on top of the mound withered and turned into black ashes, scattering onto the soil.

The black ashes did not disappear, but slowly gathered together to form some mysterious, twisted black words. They stuck to the soil like insects. It was very mysterious, and very strange.

Then, cracks began to appear on the huge grave, and the black mysterious words flashed and floated in the air.

Next, a hand with bulging bones and green veins as thick as small snakes stretched out of the ground. There was a thick layer of snake scales on its surface. The hand pushed the ground hard and a large amount of dirt flew as a burly figure jumped out of the grave.

Based on his build, he was definitely an Uruk-hai, but his skin had a layer of thin scales that glowed with light. His mouth protruded and had a strange cleft palate, revealing a thin, split tongue red in colour. He looked a bit like a snakeman.

The creature held a snake-like magic staff in his left hand. The top of the staff was engraved with what seemed to be two gemstones, but they would blink once in a while! They seemed to be living things!

The black glowing words floating in the air flew towards the staff. This creature was a very special existence. It was grown from the extract of a kind of sea snakes that lived in the cold climate of high lat.i.tudes zones. Sheyan got a few of them from the London Zoo.

The name of the grown creature was “Snakeoid Uruk-hai (Elite)”. His attack leaned towards ice damage with an accompanying speed reduction property. He was the secret weapon carefully selected by Sheyan for this battle.

The Snakeoid Uruk-hai roared furiously towards the sky. Sheyan took one look at him and laid down his orders. The Uruk-hai lifted his staff, and the staff proceeded to glow with a black light. After about three seconds of chanting, an piece of ice that emitted white smoke shot out from the staff towards the dark gold leech summoned by the clone!

The force of this attack was quite astonis.h.i.+ng.

It should be noted that the basic blueprint of Sheyan"s grown creature was an elite Uruk-hai, whose attack power and HP were quite considerable.

In terms of combat strength, an Uruk-hai could single-handedly kill at least ten half orcs, while an elite Uruk-hai could kill around 3 Uruk-hais. The elite Uruk-hai"s combat strength was at least equal to a normal, fully-armed Growth Hunter. And that was not counting the special ability given to it by Sheyan"s mix.

The ice hit the 0 defense dark gold leech and caused a staggering damage of 744!

That number looked abnormally high, but if you think about it, the attack was a spell that needed a three-second cast time. It carried a risk of being interrupted. Therefore, the high damage was quite reasonable.

A thin layer of frost emerged on the body surface of the dark gold leech. When the leech moved, it would make a creaking sound like a warrior wearing full body heavy armour. Its movement speed got even slower.

The addition of the Snakeoid Uruk-hai and the high frequency at which "Saruman"s Gaze" was triggered caused the DPS of Sheyan"s side to rise to about 250! The time it would take to get rid of the dark gold leech had suddenly shortened!

The clone obviously felt a sense of crisis. Once his dark gold leech was killed, he would be at an absolute disadvantage in speed! He would fall into a very awkward situation! ! !

Therefore, the clone immediately changed his offensive target. He gave up on Sheyan who only had half his HP left, and started to attack the dark gold leech summoned by Sheyan instead.

The theoretical weaponless attack power of the clone was 120-150 points, but he had a 1.5-second attack interval. The attack power of his illusion was 36-45 points, and the attack power of his summoned dark gold leech was 60-75 points. Therefore, the total damage caused by the clone"s side was slightly higher than Sheyan"s side. However, they did not have "Saruman"s Gaze", and their attributes were reduced in the gene-curse cloud. Therefore, in actual combat, their damage output was merely equal to Sheyan"s side.

However, when they started to focus fire on Sheyan"s dark gold leech, Sheyan instructed the leech to employ the guerilla tactic of continuously hitting and running. He also instructed his illusion to stop attacking and to concentrate on blocking and parrying the clone"s attacks. He could also act as a human s.h.i.+eld and block attacks with his body if necessary. The Snakeoid Uruk-hai would keep attacking the opponent"s dark gold leech with spells.

Sheyan"s side was only slowed down by 50% by the opponent"s dark gold leech, while the other party were slowed down by an additional 40% in the gene-curse cloud. Add to that the slowing effect from the Snakeoid Uruk-hai"s attacks, the opponents found it difficult to even move.

The clone"s side also had their attacks on the dark gold leech hindered by the interference of Sheyan"s illusion, while the dark gold leech kept trying to sneakily run away even with the 50% reduction in speed. This made the clone side"s attacking frequency pathetically low.

After nearly two minutes, the dark gold leech summoned by the clone swelled up like a balloon. It kept getting bigger and bigger until it burst into a rain of blood. It was finally killed!

Sheyan"s pupil shrank. That"s because at the moment, his own dark gold leech still had more than 16,000 HP left! This situation had actually exceeded the best-case scenario he expected, mainly because he got lucky with the Snakeoid Uruk-hai. It was actually born with a special ability: "HP to MP conversion".

"HP to MP conversion", like its name implied, was the ability to convert HP into MP. The Uruk-hais had an incredible amount of HP to begin with; even a mage had a HP of nearly 5,000 points. Sheyan could also specify one base attribute of the Uruk-hai to gain a bonus of 50% of his own attribute! It meant that the Uruk-hai received an additional 1700 HP from Sheyan! (TN note: refer to Chapter 873 Perfect reward)

No wonder the guy kept throwing spells like it was free!

Now, Sheyan ordered the Snakeoid Uruk-hai to target the clone. In this way, even if the dark gold leech did not attack, the clone would be slowed down by both the ice spells and the gene-curse cloud. In this state, he would never catch up to the dark gold leech.

Only the illusion of the clone could attack the dark gold leech now, but he only had 30% of the clone"s attack power. To finish the dark gold leech"s 16,000 HP under the interference of Sheyan"s illusion was indeed a very difficult task.

It was then that the clone"s most insane, most terrifying aspect showed itself.

He was a monster with over 30,000 HP!

Before this, Sheyan gave it a lot of thought, and finally decided to take off his Zergling Armour and leave it with Jinkuang. The reason was that although the armour could provide the mage-type Grown Creature with considerable MP regen, it also came with the mighty "Zergling Rush" attack. Sheyan had to do everything possible to reduce the attack power of the clone, so naturally, he couldn"t make such a mistake.

The Snakeoid Uruk-hai"s HP had finally bottomed out. His MP was also completely exhausted.

Sheyan mercilessly ordered him to attack the clone physically. After he died, the other two genetical-extract mixes planted by Sheyan had also hatched.

This time, Sheyan did not intend to hatch an elite Uruk-hai. The two genetical-extract mixes contained the genes of cuttlefish. The two ordinary Uruk-hais grown from them somewhat resembled Davy Jones.

The hatched cuttlefish Uruk-hais were not elites, but their normal attacks were very distinctive. They turned their left arms into long tentacles to whip the enemies. The attack could reach five to six meters. The mucus and suction cups on the tentacles could slow the enemies down by 15%. They could also spray ink to damage the opponents" vision and greatly reduce their accuracy.

Moreover, the cuttlefish Uruk-hais had an advantage in terms of quant.i.ty. The clone was currently being pincered by the two of them of different sides. The cuttlefish Uruk-hais had close to 3000 HP after receiving the bonus from Sheyan"s, so it was very difficult to kill them quickly.

The HP of the clone steadily declined over time. He roared and screamed as he kept trying to overcome the slowdown effect from the dark gold leech, the gene-curse cloud, and the two cuttlefish Uruk-hais to chase after Sheyan. Unfortunately, he struggled to move under those attacks.

Sheyan stood in the distance, watching the other “him” charging left and right like a fierce great shark struggling in a strong net. But ultimately, the shark could not escape the binding.

Although he was still alive and kicking, if the situation remained unchanged, this trapped beast would only meet with failure.

Seeing this, Sheyan almost felt that the dust had settled. If there was no accident, then him breaking through the dual-attribute boundary should not be a problem. However, Sheyan still stood far away because he had always been a cautious person. The difficulty of the dual-attribute boundary breakthrough was no joke. It was hard to say if there would be any more changes in the situation.

20,000….15,000….9,000….

These numbers that indicated the clone"s HP were like one heavy weighing stone after another, increasing the trepidation in his heart. This ambush planned by Sheyan was like cutting meat with a blunt knife, ruthlessness shaving off the opponent"s vitality and hope bit by bit.

Sheyan had actually made another preparation. His MP was reduced by 33% every time he used the "Grow" ability, so he brought some potions and food that restored MP, which he didn"t usually bring. On the other hand, he did not bring any HP-restoring items such as honorary dosages. The party skill "Gloryheal" was also still in cooldown.

Sheyan could only recover 3,000+ HP with an honorary dosage, while the clone could recover more than 30,000 HP. For this battle with a time limit, it would be very unwise to carry HP-recovery items.

Sheyan"s MP had recovered to 50% at this time. He estimated that he could still use "Grow" at least twice more! If he had sufficient time, the clone would still be killed even if he had twice as much HP.

Finally, the HP of the clone fell below 5000 points. He could feel death approaching. He screamed defiantly; even the corners of his eyes and nostrils split open from anger.

“Why! Why! This should not happen!!”

As if he had a final epiphany before his death, he actually turned his back to Sheyan and forced himself to start mixing. Although his memory had been deleted, but after a while, he could perform a lot of instinctive actions. It was akin to how an amnesiac swimmer"s mind may be blank, but if he was thrown into water he would definitely not drown!

Sheyan ignored him. It was too late to try last-minute experiments. Mixing was definitely not as easy as he imagined.

Forcing himself to start mixing the way he did not only meant that he completely gave up on defending, the failure rate was also astonis.h.i.+ngly high. Even one as skillful as Sheyan still failed once when he tried mixing while he was sliding down. He wasn"t even being attacked back then.

However, there are often low probability events occuring in the world. After mixing for nearly 20 seconds, the clone actually succeeded in making a curse-mix! He immediately slammed the bottle on the ground with a loud roar!

The shockwave from the curse-mix instantly spread, and the dark gene-curse cloud also shrouded the battlefield. Not only that, the three-second stun effect also gave the clone a chance to breathe. He immediately rushed outwards.

For some reason, the clone had actually got faster. Seeing this, Sheyan"s pupils shrunk. He hated sudden changes when he was about to win.

Three seconds pa.s.sed by quickly. One of the grown Uruk-hai stepped forward and lashed his tentacle towards the clone. The tentacle whistled through the air and was about to entangle the clone.

But suddenly, the clone reached out and managed to grab the tentacle. The eyes of the clone began to quickly redden. Upon closer inspection, one would find the blood vessels in his eyes bursting wildly, soaking the eyes in a b.l.o.o.d.y colour!

Tendrils visibly grew from the clone"s fingertips. The tendrils were a flesh-red colour, and they looked mysterious and powerful. The tendrils were no stranger to Sheyan. These were the tendrils of the "Stairway of the Sun"!

The grown Uruk-hai started to roar in horror. He instinctively tried to move away but he found that he could not break away from the grip, so he broke off his tentacle arm and quickly stepped back!

Although he had reacted very quickly, the five long tendrils had already rushed over. The tendrils danced in the air like snakes and shot out for five to six meters to entangle the Uruk-hai"s body!

The grown Uruk-hai was petrified in place, then quickly dissolved in a strange way. He completely melted away into the ground in less than 20 seconds like wax being heated.

When Sheyan saw this scene, he knew what was going on – when the "Stairway of the Sun" sensed that its host was about to die, it would instinctively take over the host"s body in order to survive!

But this wasn"t the only thing Sheyan was worried about because he suddenly thought of something:

When the realm was cloning, it discovered a special ability, the "Beast of Corrosion", that it couldn"t clone. But the realm must have used a lot of energy to try to clone the "Poison Monarch"; it just failed to do so.

But it was like creating a divine weapon. Even if the creation of the divine weapon failed, the materials used wouldn"t just disappear into thin air… That led us to the main question: After the failure of the realm to clone the "Poison Monarch", what power had it created?

When Sheyan thought of this, he felt that he could delay no longer, or he might just fall at the last hurdle!

He silently clenched his fist.

The cloned screamed wildly. The the blood vessels on the surface of his body, his neck, and his forehead swelled to the limit like they had undergone strenuous exercise. They looked like they were going to burst if a tiny bit more pressure was added.

Some things were visibly creeping in his blood vessels. They should be the tendrils of the "Stairway of the Sun". It seemed like the "Stairway of the Sun" intended to completely take over the body so that it could battle with the most suitable body for itself!

Sheyan had charged to the front of the clone with his body bent down. He launched a punch to the clone"s chest. The clone immediately responded strongly by raising his palm to hold the punch!

Sheyan was undoubtedly inferior in terms of base attributes, so he was at a disadvantage. He groaned and tried to retreat. The clone smiled sinisterly. The five red tendrils extended from his fingers that were grabbing Sheyan and penetrated into Sheyan"s body.

However, Sheyan also had a "Stairway of the Sun" in his body!

Furthermore, his "Stairway of the Sun" was a unique existence that even the realm couldn"t clone!

When it sensed that its territory was invaded, it squirmed and immediately extended its own tendrils to entangle with the flesh-red tendrils that penetrated into Sheyan.

Although Sheyan"s base attributes were far inferior to the clone, but in terms of the strength of the "Stairway of the Sun"s in their respective bodies, Sheyan"s was more dominant!

The tendrils of the two "Stairway of the Sun"s intertwined together and immediately launched an intense battle. The battle obviously affected the bodies as well! Sheyan couldn"t help but scream in pain. The clone also trembled like he was being shocked by electric.

Sheyan suddenly took a deep breath. An abnormal trace of red pa.s.sed through his face and his black eyebrows intertwined together. His other arm that was free clenched tightly, swelled up, turned a strange dark-green colour, and became as hard as iron. The swollen blood vessels ferociously consumed blood and nutrients. The energy of Sheyan"s entire body was gathered in one place!

The strong energy made Sheyan"s "Stairway of the Sun" tremble. A main tendril grew wildly and split itself at an incredible speed. It instantly hovered over the nerves in Sheyan"s left hand and took over control of the arm.

Driven by the "Stairway of the Sun", Sheyan broke out with great power. His left hand struck the clone"s chest at a fierce speed.

The chest was also the place where the "Stairway of the Sun" resided!

In an instant which might have lasted for a second or for a year, the blackish-green colour on the surface of Sheyan"s left arm changed rapidly. It grouped together as if it was alive, turning into a ferocious beast. The beast released a hoa.r.s.e roar and pounced into the clone"s chest.

At the same time, the "Stairway of the Sun" in Sheyan"s body flipped and slithered like snakes as if it was injected with a stimulant. It forcefully severed the tendrils from the other "Stairway of the Sun"!! Sheyan could even hear a sharp scream from the inside the body of the clone. The enlarged blood vessels on the clone"s forehead and arms ruptured. The blood-red tendrils of the "Stairway of the Sun" spasmed and straightened, tremoring desperately towards the sky!

"Beast of Corrosion"!!!

Sheyan"s most powerful attack finally showed itself in this desperate moment!

The "Beast of Corrosion" had two parts to its attack. The first part had a fixed attack power of 300, but the attack power of the second part was 10% of the target maximum HP!! The HP of the clone was as high as 30,000+, so the total attack power of this "Beast of Corrosion" was at least 3,500!

The clone had only mutated when he had about 5,000 HP left. In addition, when he was mixing, he was in a state of no defense, and took a lot of damage. The "Beast of Corrosion" was like the straw that broke the camel"s back, giving him a tragic ending!

After the hit connected, Sheyan hastily retreated to avoid being hit by the counterattack before the enemy"s death.

The clone released a miserable cry. His flesh and blood quickly dried up, turning him into a dry, shrivelled corpse. From the corpse, the completely out-of-control "Stairway of the Sun" broke out and grew to about four meters in height, flinging bones and bodily fluids everywhere!

Sheyan couldn"t help but grieve at the death of the clone. Even the "Stairway of the Sun" in him was restless.

The body of the clone was soon completely absorbed. The out-of-control "Stairway of the Sun", being a parasite, naturally could not survive without its host. Its seven or so tendril-like branches pointed straight at the sky, convulsing painfully. Then, it fell to the ground weakly, occasionally twitching.

The "Stairway of the Sun" in Sheyan"s body suddenly stirred excitedly. Sheyan felt the blood vessel on his wrist slightly tighten, and the two main tendrils of the "Stairway of the Sun" reached out. It flew straight towards its dying counterpart and grabbed it tightly. From the tendrils grew numerous suction cups with sharp teeth that would go on to violently devour the dying "Stairway of the Sun".

This was the cruel nature of the "Stairway of the Sun". As the saying goes, two tigers could not coexist on the same mountain. This concept was perfectly demonstrated by them. Not only did they kill among their own kind, even siblings had to start devouring each other the moment they were born. The most shocking thing was that, unless there was a suitable environment, the mother would also swallow the children!

Driven by such instinct, the cannibalistic action of the "Stairway of the Sun" right now was understandable. More importantly, if it wasn"t for this breakthrough challenge, it would be hard pressed to find another of its kind already residing in a contestant"s body. This was a major reward outside the expectation of Sheyan and the realm.

After the "Stairway of the Sun" finished its meal, Sheyan stood quietly on the spot. It did not take long for the nightmare imprint on his chest to start heating up. It formed into an image of a s.h.i.+eld. On the s.h.i.+eld was a strong-looking, tightly-clenched fist!

Sheyan took a deep breath. Obviously, the s.h.i.+eld symbolized his Physique specialty, while the fist symbolized his Strength specialty. Next came the notifications:

[Contestant No. 1018, congratulations on pa.s.sing the dual-attribute boundary breakthrough trial.]

Sheyan could feel a huge burden being lifted off his shoulders upon reading this sentence. He felt like he was dreaming. He couldn"t believe that the problem was resolved!

Honestly, Sheyan didn"t believe Reef was any weaker than himself, and yet he was stuck at this stage for a really long time. It even cost him the lives of his entire party. It was therefore understandable for Sheyan to feel this way.

[You obtain the general Growth-Hunter reward: "Foundation".]

[You have skillfully applied your talent and wisdom to successfully challenge yourself. Only now do you possess the rough outline of a good warrior. You have also determined the direction of your growth. Therefore, you shall receive a generous reward that will make you an even better warrior.]

[Reward!!!! All your pure attributes (without equipments) x2 !]

With the triggering of this reward, a heat spread through Sheyan"s body. He felt as if every tendon in his body was growing, every muscle fiber was splitting, every bone was burning. He could feel it with every strand of his nerve.

“AAAAARRRGGHHH!” Sheyan couldn"t help but scream. The feeling was really hard to describe. Pain, fatigue, comfort, and other sensations all blended into one. It felt good but it also felt bad at the same time. He fell down on his knees, while his sweat gathered into a pool on the ground.

"Just as I thought," Sheyan gasped and muttered to himself when the strange feeling in his body subsided:

"Those guys kept emphasizing on the importance of foundations! When I fought against some Growth-Hunters, I felt like their HP was higher than expected. It seems that their fundamentals were quite solid, so they got pretty generous rewards."

The nightmare imprint probably knew that he would be lost in his own excitement after receiving the Foundation reward, so it only continued after a while:

[In view of the huge difference in power between Rank I contestants who were new to the realm and the Growth-Hunters, when Growth-Hunters or higher cla.s.s warriors attack Rank I contestants, the attack will be weakened to a certain degree. The extent of the weakening will be decided by military rank, personal strength (pure attributes), the number worlds experienced, and various other factors.]

Sheyan recalled that when he was attacked as a Rank I contestant, the enemy"s attacks did undergo some surprising weakening. It should be related to this rule.

[Next is the special reward. You have pa.s.sed the dual-attribute boundary breakthrough trial. You obtain an additional 15 free attribute points. Please invest them in your base attributes within 10 seconds. The free attribute points will disappear after 10 seconds.]

The first thing that came to Sheyan"s mind after getting 15 free attribute points was the d.a.m.n basketball teen, Hakeem. His current Perceptive Sense had reached an astonis.h.i.+ng 46 points, so Sheyan invested 5 points to make it reach 51! It also broke through the boundary of 50 points in pure attribute, but Sheyan"s ident.i.ty at the moment was a reserve-duty Growth-Hunter, so there was no amazing reward for 50-point boundary breakthrough like when he was a Rank I contestant.

Three choices appeared in the reward section of the 50-point pure attribute breakthrough.

[A. You can sense the emotions and moods of living creatures, thus further understanding their thoughts.]

[B. You can perceive the enemy"s weakness, thus greatly increasing your explosive hit rate.]

[C. Your willpower becomes stronger and more tenacious. You will not be easily confused by illusions. You will also easily find the flaws in your enemy"s attacks, thus achieving a successful dodge.]

Among the three options, A was obviously for summoners and B was for snipers to help them go for sure kills. Only C was suitable for MTs. Sheyan"s team had already begun to take shape and had pa.s.sed the point where he had to do everything on his own, so he chose C. For future endeavors, and also for dealing with the potential ambush of Hakeem who may still be waiting.

As for the remaining 10 points, Sheyan added them all to Agility after giving it some thought. Sheyan"s pure Agility was 17 points, but it reached 34 points after being doubled. Taking into account the 10 free attribute points and the buff from the gene-mix, he could easily reach above 50 points. Although he couldn"t get the 50-point pure attribute reward this way, it should be difficult for Sheyan to encounter cases where he couldn"t even fight back in terms of speed now.

Reaching 20 points of Agility should also come with a reward. However, Sheyan had reached that before and lowered the attribute again, but the reward had remained. So this time, when his Agility reached 20 points again, he did not get a reward.

Next, the nightmare imprint announced that Sheyan had successfully pa.s.sed the dual-attribute boundary breakthrough trial. His designated main attributes were Physique and Strength. Sheyan"s breakthrough reward had already been issued together with his 50-point pure Physique reward, so this time only a series of rewards for breaking through the Strength boundary was announced.

First was the reward for reaching 50 points of Strength. Most contestants would have obtained this reward when they became reserve-duty Growth Hunters, but Sheyan broke through Physique back then, so it was delayed.

[Your rewards for breaking through the 50-point Strength boundary are as follows. Please choose two of the following three options as your reward.]

Following the words of the nightmare imprint, a series of choices instantly appeared in front of Sheyan.

[A. Strength of Protection: Reduce the enemy"s explosive hit rate by 30% (this property has precedence), and reduce explosive hit damage sustained by 30% (this property has domain precedence).]

(Note: Ability precedences: No precedence < normal="" precedence="">< authoritative="" (crus.h.i.+ng="" damages="" belong="" here)="">< domain="" precedence="">< domain="">

[B. Strength of Truth: Increase Strength by 15 points.]

[C. Strength of Barbarism: When a crus.h.i.+ng damage check is performed on your attack, there will be an additional +25 correction value (that is, if Sheyan attacks with 50 points of Strength, the check to determine whether it would be a crus.h.i.+ng damage would be calculated according to 75 points of Strength). In addition, the explosive hit rate of crus.h.i.+ng damages increases by 33%.]

Sheyan gave careful thought to these three options. Obviously, if the choice became too hard, one could never go wrong with option B. 15 points of Strength were a lot. Meanwhile, option A focused on defense, and option C focused on offense.

Sheyan took into account that his own team was now beginning to take shape. The MT, Reef, was here to stay. Someone with a s.h.i.+eld like him was suited to deal with Boss-level creatures with high single-attack damages. His performance so far had been impeccable.

Sheyan"s position on the team was someone who was more suited to deal with a large swarm of enemies, the kind that dealt lower damage but had a high attacking frequency such as a beast wave. It was already difficult for these ordinary creatures to deal explosive hits to him, so choosing option A would be a waste.

More importantly, Sheyan had once seen a Damage Reflection Scroll in the nightmare realm…. Unfortunately, the seller was only putting it on display to show off. The price he set showed that he had no intention of selling it at all.

Although Sheyan did not get his hands on the scroll, it gave him a rough goal for evolution. With damage reflection, the harder the enemy hit, the more they will hurt themselves. Sheyan may sometimes even wish for the enemy to deal explosive hits.

Therefore, after some careful consideration, Sheyan chose Options B and C. By this time, the damage of "+7 West" had gradually fallen behind. After Sheyan return to the realm, he would make finding a weapon his top priority.

His current Strength was 72. After selecting options B and C, he would have 112 points of Strength in crus.h.i.+ng damage checks! Even Growth Hunters would suffer crus.h.i.+ng damages from his attacks if they had less than 55 points of Strength!

Although all Growth Hunters had received the reward of pure attributes x2, there shouldn"t be many outside the Strength-types and some Agility-types who could reach 27 points of Strength when they broke through the boundary. Not to mention that Sheyan also had curse-mixes to reduce their attributes!

After selecting the reward for breaking through the 50-point Strength boundary, Sheyan"s pure Strength without equipment reached 67 points. So, he had one more reward – the reward for breaking through the 50-point pure Strength boundary. The options were as follows.

[A: Base attribute ability reward II – Strength of Thorns: Your attack will get an additional damage of 1/3 of the total damage done to you by the target in the last 5 seconds. "The Power of Thorns" has a cooldown of 5 seconds, and the amount of additional damage will not exceed 600/1200 points (corresponding to contestants/storyline characters respectively)]

[B. Base attribute ability reward III – Strength of the Fanatic: Whenever your HP drops by 10%, your attack power will increase by 3% and your attack speed will increase by 5%. Even when you are not injured, you will have a bonus of 5% attack power and 10% attack speed.]

[C. Base attribute ability reward III – 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.]

[D. Base attribute ability reward III – Strength of the Earth: Whenever a Strength check is performed (including, but not limited to, attribute checks, equipment requirement checks, and skill checks), the Strength requirement is reduced by 25%. This effect has domain precedence.]

For these four choices, Sheyan still considered the problem from the perspective of the team. With the new addition of Zi and the successful promotion of Brother Black to Growth Hunter, the team"s damage output, which used to be their weakness, had received a significant boost.

Furthermore, Party Ace would have no problem recruiting strong damage dealers if they wanted to. Maybe they couldn"t attract natural monsters like Aziz, but those a tier below would line up for the opportunity to join them.

Therefore, Sheyan chose the unpopular ability, "Strength of the Sky". This was a very malicious ability that could null the opponent"s buff. Imagine if Skull"s metal armour enhancement on his subordinates suddenly disappeared after receiving Sheyan"s attack, or if the Glory Party suddenly lost Zeus" gravitational field, or if the magic s.h.i.+eld on mage contestants were suddenly gone. The effect even lasts for 30 seconds. Such a despicable ability!

For his secondary attribute (tertiary really), Sheyan unhesitatingly chose Perceptive Sense, and very simply chose the option to increase his Perceptive Sense by 15 points.

Sheyan realised that his Charm, Intelligence, and Spirit attributes had ​​all reached 20 points, but there was no prompt to draw a reward. After an enquiry, he found out that the 20-point pure attribute reward was limited to normal contestants and reserve-duty Growth Hunters.

Once he became a Growth Hunter, the setting would become obsolete. This was akin to how an elementary student who could solve college problems was a genius, a child prodigy; but a college student who could solve college problems was something to be expected.

Sheyan felt that the explanation was quite reasonable. He thought back to his previous experience and couldn"t help but lament, "If only I knew….sigh."

Sheyan"s reaction implied that he did have a bit of regret. Although he had guessed this, and had recognised the importance of laying down a good foundation, but, after all, speculation was speculation. Before he saw it with his own eyes, he couldn"t be totally sure of his guesses.

If Sheyan could confirm beforehand the fact that all his base attributes would double, he estimated that he could hang on for at least three more worlds. By doing so, he should be able to reach the pure 50-point boundary in 2 attributes as a normal contestant.

Alas, the world had no cure for regret.

It also explained why Reef was so strong after his breakthrough, after staying for a long time as a reserve-duty Growth Hunter.

Sheyan stayed rooted to the spot. His past experienced slowly flowed through his mind like a river. After a long time, he sighed deeply.

Suddenly, Sheyan felt a quake under his feet. He looked towards the distance and saw that the barrier at the edge of the area had disappeared. A powerful force hid behind the dark, turbulent clouds. A large amount of blood-red lightning struck down to erode the edge of the s.p.a.ce. A blood-red lightning flashed, illuminating the darkness in a corner!

In the bright light, Sheyan saw numerous pipelines in the void that intertwined with each other like human blood vessels. The pipeline looked metallic, but they also had the flexibility of soft tissues. Sheyan could feel a large amount of electric current surging in them.

The life of this trial ground….was coming to an end.

Sheyan instantly put forth the request to leave the trial ground, but his request was not immediately implemented. Instead, he received a notification:

[Reserve-duty Growth Hunter No. 1018, due to your military rank, you received a reminder: you still have three unallocated free attribute points. If there are no special circ.u.mstances, you are advised to allocate them before leaving the trial ground.]

Sheyan stared blankly at the notification. The first thing he noticed was that the realm still addressed him as a reserve-duty Growth Hunter. Secondly, he realised that this was information that required a certain military rank to receive, so he immediately a.s.signed the three free attribute points to his Physique.

The collapse of the trial ground was in full force by now. The blood-red lightnings and black clouds greedily teared at the unresisting land. Sheyan once again issued a request for return. He disappeared instantly, to return back to the abandoned alien base below the Statue of Liberty.

After his return, Sheyan immediately realised the nightmare imprint on his chest was glowing brightly. It was also stinging hot. Notifications from the nightmare imprint appeared again:

[Contestant No. 1018, congratulations on officially pa.s.sing the boundary breakthrough trial to become a powerful Growth Hunter. Next, you have to further refine your path for growth! The t.i.tle of Growth Hunter only shows that you have successfully changed from a civilian to a beginner warrior!]

[Hint: From the moment you became a Growth Hunter, your main attributes are Strength and Physique. You need to spend 3 free attribute points to increase these attributes by 1.]

[Hint: From the moment you became a Growth Hunter, your secondary attribute is Perceptive Sense. You need to spend 5 free attribute points to increase this attribute by 1.]

[Hint: From the moment you became a Growth Hunter, you need to spend 7 free attribute points to increase all other base attributes by 1.]

(Author"s note: At the beginning of the previous LOTR arc, a lot of people questioned how the mage contestant, Yerna, could stay alive despite being ganged up on like that. Well, now you know.)

“So there are these kind of limitations!” Sheyan sucked in a cold breath! His mind spun fast, and found a lot of deeper meaning behind them.

From what he could see, the way the nightmare realm shaped a person was a thorough and complete process, similar to the process of painting a masterpiece.

The contestants who were new to the realm were like worthless tree barks and bamboos. The realm did not impose any roles on them. Instead, the realm let them fight in various worlds while setting up some rules that were beneficial to them. Its growth. Of course, if they were eliminated in this process, then they were indeed worthless.

This period was akin to the process of pulping, modulation, and processing in papermaking.

The greatest change to a contestant came when they awakened into a Growth Hunter. The contrast before and after they awakened was huge. If they were tree barks and bamboos before, they were now smooth and fragrant high-quality paper. They had turned from worthless materials into famous products.

The Awakener trial, etc. which came afterwards would be akin to additional processes on the papers to make them for suitable for various applications. For example, Xuan papers which were suitable for traditional Chinese painting, canvas for oil painting, or sketching papers for pencil drawing.

The various experiences and tests were akin to brushes that paint on the papers.

In the end, the contestants honed by the realm would be like famous paintings of different styles! They would be like masterpieces that were only made possible after undergoing various processes!

Of course, the amount of people eliminated in the process were definitely no fewer than the amount of paper wasted in the painting of a masterpiece!

Of all the processes, Sheyan believed that the greatest change should be when a contestant turned into a Growth Hunter. The tests afterwards may be harder than the Growth Hunter test, but contestants should no longer be forced into situations so tight that they couldn"t even breathe. Growth Hunters had become useful materials so the subsequent processes should be to shape them. They would no longer be dealt with so roughly.

Sheyan might appear full of confidence in the whole process of breaking through the boundary limit, but one need only look at Reef and the way he was forced into a corner before he met Sheyan to know how much pressure there was in this test.

Sheyan checked his current attributes carefully and quickly came to a conclusion:

"It seemed that it is absolutely impossible to quickly increase base attributes after becoming a Growth Hunter. More importantly, because of the restrictions in allocating free attribute points, Growth Hunters will definitely invest most of their free attribute points in their main attribute. All Growth Hunters will evolve towards a more specialised direction. This is an irreversible trend."

"But what about the attributes they are weak in? For example, if I have 21 free attribute points, I can improve Strength or Physique by 7 points. But if I invest in Charm, I only get 3 points; only idiots would do that. So what do I do if I suddenly find myself in need of Charm?"

"Equipments!! The only way is to make up for this shortcoming through equipments! The attributes added by equipments are fixed. It"s foreseeable that one"s dependence on equipments will increase after becoming a Growth Hunter. Ah, as a team leader, I will have to pay more attention to this aspect."

Suddenly, Sheyan felt a rustling on the top of his head. Some sand fell down off the smooth steel wall. The nightmare imprint transmitted some notifications:

[Growth Hunter No. 1018, your trial has been completed. Due to your military rank privilege, you can use the beginner auction system – that is normally only available to Awakeners – in advance. This function will be activated after you return to the nightmare realm.]

[Growth Hunter No. 1018, your trial has been completed. This trial site will be abandoned. The energy restriction will be withdrawn after ten minutes. Anyone can enter this place afterwards.]

“Then I really have to hurry up.” Sheyan loosened his neck and heard his joints cracked. He had not returned to his optimum state after coming out from the trial ground. So, the first thing he did was naturally to take various kinds of recovery food from Jinkuang and gorged on them. After all, the basketball teenager Hakeem was likely waiting for him outside. The information that Hakeem"s military rank could acquire, Sheyan could acquire too, and for free at that!

Fortunately for Sheyan, the food that Zi prepared for him was top grade. Sheyan also had an unused honorary dosage. 10 minutes of recovery time in a non-combat state was more than enough.

Sheyan stood up and re-entered the elevator five minutes later. Sheyan"s aura appeared more hidden and he did not look like he had made a big leap in strength at all. On the contrary, he looked weak and dispirited.

Sheyan stepped out of the elevator the moment it stopped rising. He instantly had a feeling of thorns on his back. He kept quiet and deliberately acted like he was sneaking out of the place. He only turned his head back after a few steps and immediately saw Hakeem sitting on the torch of the Statue of Liberty. His basketball had disappeared.

The moon in the sky was very round, but it had a demonic-red colour, as if it had been soaked in blood. On the sky behind Hakeem hovered several strange creatures. Upon closer scrutiny, Sheyan found them to be half-rotten vultures. Their eye sockets were hollow with faint ghostly fires inside. On their heads was a large blood-red lump of flesh. Their beaks looked very sharp – they seemed to have no problem ripping through tough armours to drag out the internal organs inside.

“Not running away any more?” sneered Hakeem. The voice that reached Sheyan"s ears was quite strange, as if there were microphones all around him.

Following Hakeem"s words, a half-rotten vulture swooped down on Sheyan. The feeling it gave Sheyan when it spread its wings and dived down was that of an all-encompa.s.sing gale.

What was even more bizarre was the sharp tip of a dagger that suddenly appeared from the void thirty centimeters behind Sheyan!

The tip of the dagger glowed with a mysterious blue light, mixed with a bit of dark golden hue!

If Sheyan retreated to avoids the vultures, he would undoubtedly hit the tip of the dagger. Hakeem intended to toy with Sheyan in the illusion until Sheyan fell dead! He wanted every move that Sheyan made to be filled with fear. He wanted Sheyan to not even know how he should react!

However, Sheyan reacted to the dive of the giant vulture in an unexpected way – he pounced towards the giant vulture as if he was launching a suicidal attack. This vulture was actually just an illusion created by Hakeem, so of course it didn"t dare to engage Sheyan. It could only pretend to fly away in panic.

Sheyan missed his target and fell down to the ground in a pathetic way. He only climbed back up after a while, all the while cursing furiously. He turned around and saw that dagger tip had disappeared. Sheyan coughed and spat some thick phlegm on a stone next to him.

Hakeem could feel the blood in his body rush to his head in fury! That"s because the stone that Sheyan spat on was Hakeem"s disguised face! He was so angry that he was ready to brandish his dagger and cut Sheyan into pieces, but at that moment, Sheyan appeared to lose control. He pointed at the Hakeem on the Statue of Liberty, and shouted angrily:

“Hey r.e.t.a.r.d! Is hiding the only thing you know? If you"re a man, come down and fight with me!”

When Hakeem heard this, he suppressed his anger. However, in order to avoid giving himself away, he couldn"t wipe off the thick spit on his face…. Seeing Sheyan run towards the stairs below the Statue of Liberty while roaring furiously, Hakeem could only quietly follow. This time, Hakeem directly followed in stealth.

However, right after Sheyan walked up the stairs to the first floor, he suddenly stopped to prepare something with his back to Hakeem. Hakeem"s was already lacking in patience, so he intended to go up and give Sheyan a throat slit for starters. He didn"t expect that after climbing three steps of stairs, Sheyan would suddenly turn around.

Hakeem, who up to the moment still thought that his stealth was flawless with the help from his illusion, immediately stopped. He still didn"t think that Sheyan was powerful enough to see through his illusion. However, what happened next made Hakeem"s mind go blank.

The buckle of Sheyan"s belt was undone. He had a sly smirk on his face. The tool on Sheyan"s crotch saw the light, aimed straight at Hakeem, and shot him right on the face!

If the previous spitting incident was accidental, being peed on definitely wasn"t. Hakeem was quite strong, so of course he had a lot of pride. It was already a major humiliation when his face was spat on but he couldn"t wipe it away, and now he was peed on?! It"s a lifelong shame! A debt that could only be paid by blood!

By now, of course Hakeem had realised that his illusionary environment had been thoroughly seen through by Sheyan. He screamed at Sheyan and charged! His dark gold dagger flashed with a sharp glint of light.

The dagger was thin, sharp, narrow, and slightly curved. If one were to carefully look at it under the light, there may even be some visual dislocations. This showed that the dagger was vibrating at high speed in the air. When it came into contact with the enemy"s body, it would not just cut, but also saw. Even steel couldn"t withstand this kind of attack, let alone humans!

If Hakeem actually gave more thoughts to Sheyan"s actions, he would have realised that the meaning contained therein was enough to make him shudder.

Sheyan originally couldn"t see through Hakeem"s illusion, but this time, when he reappeared, Hakeem"s illusion could no longer confuse him. However, Sheyan chose to play the fool instead of taking the opportunity to escape or to make an unexpected attack. And what did he go through painstaking effort to do?

First he spat on Hakeem"s face, then he p.i.s.sed on Hakeem"s head!

Sheyan had taken a lot of risk to do these two things. At least when he was urinating, he had to be careful of Hakeem cutting off his package with the dagger! But, he had achieved his purpose. By now, Hakeem was furious, and his brain was filled only with thoughts of humiliation and revenge. At least, before he suffered a major setback, he wouldn"t spare a thought for other things.

Although Hakeem"s Agility was still far above Sheyan"s, it was no longer an absolute suppression, at least not like it was before. Before this, once Sheyan was within Hakeem"s attack range, Hakeem could do anything he wanted to Sheyan, be it cutting his throat, stabbing him or kicking his groin. Sheyan couldn"t even parry his attacks, let alone dodge them.

At this moment, Hakeem"s dagger slashed horizontally. His black cloak fluttered in the air, revealing a set of silver-coloured tight-fitting leather armour. One could immediately tell that the armour set was definitely not a common product. Most of his dagger was hidden in his sleeve, only showing a little dark gold tip.

One would even feel like Hakeem"s blood vessels had grown into this dark gold dagger, making the dagger a part of his body. If an ordinary person looked at it for a long time and traced the pattern on the blade upwards, they would feel a pain tearing their eyes, and the helpless feeling of having their throat slit!

Although Hakeem was striking upwards from the lower end of the stairs, his movements were still amazingly fast. Sheyan barely managed to block the front of his throat with "+7 West", but Hakeem"s dagger suddenly changed direction midway to cut open a smooth wound on the right side of Sheyan"s chest.

Sheyan"s defence had improved, but he had also lost the protection afforded by the realm towards normal contestants and reserve duty Growth Hunters! Therefore, this injury actually caused considerable damage to Sheyan.

Sheyan"s reaction to this made Hakeem so angry he almost grounded his teeth into pieces – Sheyan knit his brows and looked condescendingly at Hakeem. Not only did Sheyan not counterattack, he even pinched his nose, turned, and ran, as if Hakeem stank so much that Sheyan didn"t feel like playing with him!

Hakeem continued to rush forward like a mad cow, the dark gold dagger produced one ray after another as it waved in the air. Even the steel railings beside them were cut through by the dagger. It truly was an unstoppable force.

Suddenly, Sheyan stopped running away, pulled out "Ambition", aimed down towards Hakeem and pulled the trigger. Hakeem completely ignored the lead bullet flying towards him. He continued striding forward, but there was a trace of delay between his steps. It was like the pause in between songs in a continuous playlist. If one didn"t pay careful attention, one would not notice it.

It was due to this slight hesitation that the sure-fire lead bullet swept over Hakeem"s nose and missed its mark. Meanwhile, Hakeem"s speed of advancement was not affected at all. He continued to charge towards Sheyan with a cold expression. His black cloak fluttered behind his back amidst the sea breeze. Together with his dark, deep eyes, the feeling the teenager gave off was terrible indeed.

Sheyan continued to escape up the stairs while Hakeem steadily push forward. Hakeem was angry, but he was also enjoying this kind of cat and mouse hunt. Sheyan suddenly stopped after turning a corner, then raised his long blade with a scream and slashed down quickly. The blade sped towards Hakeem"s head.

But Hakeem"s hesitation footwork made its appearance once again. He nonchalantly parried the blade away to the side. The blade smashed into a wall, leaving a deep crack in the wall and causing debris to fly.

Sheyan retrieved the blade and smashed down again. Hakeem turned around and hid his whole body in the black cloak. Sheyan"s blade landed squarely on the cloak this time, but it collided with a huge impact and was blown away! Sheyan felt as if he chopped down on something hard. Meanwhile, Hakeem"s dagger slithered into Sheyan"s abdomen like a venomous snake!

Sheyan groaned painfully. Then, he immediately turned and ran. This was what Hakeem hated the most about Sheyan. This b.a.s.t.a.r.d had surprisingly high HP, immunity to poison, decent speed, and decent Perceptive Sense. If he focused on defending and running away, he would become really troublesome to deal with.

While Sheyan was running, he removed the handrail next to him by force and threw it down. The sound was so loud that he sounded like he was dismantling a house.

The smell of the pee on Hakeem"s face, who was chasing a few steps below Sheyan on the stairs, made him feel angry and humiliated, but he had to stop to block Sheyan"s shameless attacks. It was in this way that Sheyan resisted Hakeem"s pursuit until he finally reached the top of the Statue of Liberty.

Sheyan looked around in panic and stepped backwards until his waist hit the railing, but Hakeem"s sinister face had already appeared at the entrance. He approached step by step, and said while gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth:

“Go on, keep running. Why did you stop?”

Sheyan didn"t reply. His eyes were fl.u.s.tered as he clenched his blade tight. Hakeem"s body suddenly sparkled with a layer of clear water. This was his explosive ability that could increase his Agility by 20% for ten seconds! Hakeem obviously had Agility as his primary attribute and Perceptive Sense as his secondary attribute. With the 20% increase, there was no doubt that his Agility would reach a terrifying level.

The next second, Hakeem swept his dagger across his own chest, letting his blood soak the edge of the dagger. Then, he charged towards Sheyan, leaving a long trail of afterimages behind him!

If the Growth Hunter stage was mainly a stage for collecting equipment suitable for oneself and to lay down a more solid foundation, then the Awakener stage indicated that the contestant"s unique combat instinct and combat habits have begun to awaken. Using painting to describe it, an Awakener was like a piece of paper that already had the first stroke painted on it. It was already determined whether the paper would become a traditional Chinese painting, an oil painting, or a watercolor painting. From the moment a contestant became an Awakener, the direction of evolution would be engraved in the depths of their soul. It could no longer be changed.

When Hakeem pounced on him, Sheyan felt like he was being locked-on. He felt as if he would not escape from the strike no matter how he dodged or ran away; as if it was fate!

As soon as Hakeem got close to Sheyan, his dark gold dagger drew countless blinding golden lines in the air. Some of the lines were straight and some were curved. The next instant, blood splashed from Sheyan"s body. Sheyan was completely unable to resist the attacks and took seven or eight hits. After that, Hakeem slammed his knee into Sheyan and knocked him about four meters high, then threw the golden dagger upwards. The dagger pierced into Sheyan. Hakeem then devoutly clasped his hands together and mumbled to himself!

Sheyan had just climbed back up in pain when he felt a violent shock from the dark gold dagger on his chest. He looked up and saw the bright afternoon sun dazzling his vision. But upon closer inspection, he realised that the sun was actually Hakeem"s basketball that came flying like a comet with a high-speed rotation, while carrying a blazing flame. The dark gold dagger jammed in his chest was apparently guiding the flaming basketball towards him.

It was too late to dodge. All Sheyan could do was to protect his head….

From the distance, it looked as a fierce explosion occurred on top of the Statue of Liberty. The flames rushed high into the sky. Even the torch of the Statue of Liberty was blown in half and fell helplessly into the sea. The ripples that it stirred up reached a height of eight meters!

“Let"s see if you can survive that,” Hakeem said while he fiercely gasped for breath. His eyes showed the joy of one getting his revenge. He reached out towards the air, and his dark gold dagger slithered out of the void like a snake to return to his hand.

His pupils shrank all of a sudden. He immediately ran to the side of the Statue of Liberty, and saw a hateful figure in between the waves, tenaciously and desperately swimming. The figure climbed onto a motorboat and started the engine.

Right then, the d.a.m.n figure turned around and smugly waved at him.

Sheyan even gave Hakeem a few shrugs from on top the motorboat. Hakeem"s face turned expressionless. Only those familiar with him would know that this was a sign of his anger reaching its limit!

“I will kill you. You will never escape from me!” Hakeem forced out each word from between his gnashed teeth.

He took out another item. The item looked like a tangled string of ropes with a weird soft glow. Hakeem tied it to the Statue of Liberty, then strode to the side of the railing and threw it hard towards Sheyan. The thin rope shot out like an arrow and stuck itself to Sheyan"s body!

This rope provided a gliding path between Sheyan and the Statue of Liberty. Even if the motorboat was driving away fast, the rope that s.h.i.+ned with a silver glow was also extending rapidly with no signs of breaking.

Hakeem"s mouth curled into a sneer. He grabbed the rope with one hand and glided towards Sheyan at a high-speed!

This was Hakeem"s must-have tool for killing and plundering – the "Magical High-Speed La.s.so"! If this object was used well, becoming Tarzan or Spiderman under certain circ.u.mstances would no longer be a dream.

“You d.a.m.n lowly ant! You think that you can escape from me just because you got a bit stronger? Well you thought wrong! No matter how powerful you get, ants are still ants, you will never escape the fate of the weak!”

Sheyan appeared to be struggling in panic. He kept trying to cut off the rope with his weapon. However, even though the weapon could easily cut through the rope, the rope would s.h.i.+ne with a dazzling light and would show no sign of being cut as if it existed in another dimension.

Hakeem charged down with the force of a storm along the rope like a powerful knight in the Middle Ages charging to his highest speed with a long spear. Both his momentum and force had acc.u.mulated to a terrifying degree. His target may be shattered into pieces when he hit.

Meanwhile, Sheyan was limited to a small s.p.a.ce on the motorboat, so getting hit was inevitable unless he jumped into the sea. It looked like the only choice he had was to take the hit.

But at that moment, Sheyan pulled out "Ambition" once again and launched the "Rum and Songs"!

Logically speaking, the hit rate of an ability like "Rum and Songs", which came with a sure-hit feature, should be quite reliable, but apparently Hakeem"s dodge had a higher precedence than the "Rum and Songs". This time, Hakeem was in the air with nowhere to dodge, but a very strange translucent illusionary image appeared from the surface of his body. The lead bullet safely pa.s.sed through his body. He once again dodged the bullet.

Sheyan would not give up! Since he was promoted to a Growth Hunter, his base attributes had soared. There was no way Hakeem could maintain the terrifying dodge rate as before! He crushed a bottle of curse-mix in his hand. Green mist rose from the gap in his fingers and spread instantly in all directions. So did the shockwave formed from the crus.h.i.+ng of the bottle, causing huge ripples in the water around him. Don"t forget, the damage and stunning effect of the shockwave also had precedence!

This time, Hakeem"s absolute dodge ability did not work!

After Sheyan had officially become a Growth Hunter, he had completely narrowed the gap between them all-around, which had also made Hakeem"s dodge rate drop rapidly.

This stunning effect was quite unfavorable for Hakeem. His airborne momentum was extremely powerful, and coupled with his high Agility, he was a combination of might, flexibility and dexterity.

But once he was stunned, he was like a Swan Lake ballet dancer who fell rigidly to the ground after being hit by a stroke midway through the most difficult routine. The essence and the soul of this move were completely lost.

The dive inevitably resulted in a sad ending. Hakeem fell straight down deep into the ocean, forming a large group of white bubbles, while Sheyan literally laughed out loud. He was bursting with mockery like a minion who got away with an evil scheme. He drove the motorboat and gleefully sped away.

But the three-second stun duration after Hakeem fell into the water soon pa.s.sed. During this time, the motorboat had only driven less than ten meters away. As soon as Hakeem regained control, a ring on his finger shone with a glare of light. His whole body was launched up in an instant, tracing a parabolic path to fall towards the motorboat Sheyan was on!

Sheyan had an impression of this ring; he remembered seeing it in the auction house. It was a dark gold ring called the "Entanglement of Victory". Its main property was all attributes +4, and it had a very practical ability called "Mind Transmission" which was able to instantaneously transport the owner"s body to a specified destination.

The dark gold ring originated from the world of Harry Potter.

Each member of the team who won the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup will receive honour and also this prize. They were personally crafted by Dumbledore.

This was the most easily-accessible dark gold ring, and also the most widely-known.

This ring also had a nickname called the Cursed Ring of Death.

Because the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup was held every year, there were many storyline characters who held this ring. Unfortunately, they all regarded the ring as a priceless treasure. That was to say, whoever wanted the ring would have to kill them.

99% of contestants did not care about their lives, but all contestants were very concerned about a dark gold ring – even one as strong as Sheyan who had the aura of a protagonist was not qualified to own a dark gold ring. It could be inferred from this how rare these things were, so it was no wonder that the contestants got greedy.

Of course Sheyan had also toyed with the idea of getting such an easily-accessible dark gold ring for himself, but after careful considerations, he ended up giving up on the thought.

The ring was personally crafted by Dumbledore so it contained a mysterious sensing ability. Once it sensed that the original owner did not voluntarily give up on the ring, a revenge plan would be activated and Dumbledore would be notified. He would dispatch 5 groups of magical servants over three days to take the ring back.

If you could withstand those 5 waves of attacks, then great, the ring is yours. If you couldn"t, you pay with your life.

In addition, you would be transferred to an alternate dimension for every wave of attack. You would not be able to receive any outside help (This aspect was a little similar to the boundary breakthrough trial).

After a batch of magic servants was defeated, the next batch of magic servants would be generated based on your weaknesses, so it was difficult to overcome the challenge of these five waves of attacks. For a contestant, acquiring the ring was like acquiring the curse of death, hence the nickname.

The fact that Hakeem had such a ring proved that he was either very powerful or very lucky. And the fact that he would use the effect of the ring showed how eager he was to get his hands on Sheyan. His hatred for Sheyan was already out of control!

Sheyan"s laughter abruptly stopped when he saw that Hakeem was going to fall onto the motorboat. He appeared to be shocked at Hakeem"s killer move, but he managed to kick the engine control lever in desperation!

Sheyan"s control of boats had always been skillful. The motorboat immediately drifted like a sports car, barely giving up half a meter in distance.

This time, it was Hakeem who was stunned. However, he reacted extremely quickly. Although he was about to fall into the sea, he immediately reached out and grabbed the side of the motorboat.

The motorboat was driven at a very fast speed. After Hakeem grabbed the edge of the boat, his entire body dangled like a kite. Sheyan immediately strode forward, raised his foot and stepped on Hakeem"s fingers.

Attacks on the fingers are extremely painful. Hakeem"s face instantly paled due to the severe pain while Sheyan"s kept stepping on Hakeem"s fingers mercilessly. Suddenly, Hakeem found an opportunity. He jumped onto the boat with a shout. The dark gold dagger slashed across to force Sheyan back. Hakeem finally succeeded in gaining a foothold on the motorboat.

Hakeem could faintly feel that something wasn"t right by now, but at that moment, Sheyan wrinkled his nose again and took two steps back with a stank face, obviously in contempt of the foul smell of p.i.s.s on Hakeem. Sheyan"s action once again sent Hakeem into a rage. His eyes turned cold and he squeezed out a sentence through the seams of his teeth:

“I will carve out your flesh one piece at a time and feed it to the sharks!”

Then, he rushed towards Sheyan ferociously. His dagger traced a thread of sharp golden light in the air, cutting towards Sheyan.

Sheyan, who had no path for retreat, also rushed forward without a word!

The two men collided!

Blood instantly splattered. They only fought for a short twenty seconds within a small area, but the ferociousness of the battle was hard to imagine. Sheyan"s blade made a deep wound on Hakeem"s face, cutting off blood and flesh and revealed the skull beneath. Hakeem roared furiously. His dark gold dagger slashed upwards to draw a half-moon golden arc in the air as he rushed forward for about four meters to reach the bow of the boat from the stern in the blink of an eye!

Meanwhile, Sheyan emitted a loud scream as he was thrown into the air by the half-moon golden arc. He even had a feeling of being held in the air. Blood splattered from all over his body to form a large cloud of blood mist as if there were seven or eight invisible knives dancing around him. A seemingly nonchalant slash from Hakeem contained such unimaginable power!

The attack was a double-edged sword; Hakeem had to pay a price for it. He fell into a weakened state and his wounds flared with a searing pain, so he had to take a breather. Taking advantage of Hakeem"s lapse in concentration, Sheyan rolled forward to break his fall on the deck and leapt into the water!

When Sheyan unexpectedly leapt into the water, Hakeem instinctively wanted to go into the water to pursue him! At that moment, he realised that the motorboat was gradually slowing down. Suddenly, a chilling thought sent s.h.i.+vers all over him as if he was splashed with a bucket of cold water. He instantly rushed to the engine of the motorboat to drive the boat away.

However, Hakeem found a cruel truth. The engine of the motorboat was already smashed into pieces. The mechanical parts laid around in a mess. There was no way he could fix it!

Finally, the inertia of the motorboat, that was driving it forward, was spent. It laid quietly on the surface of the sea like a dead fish, shaking with the waves. Although it was night time, the coast and islands in the distance were clearly visible. The feet of the Statue of Liberty about 3 kilometers away seemed close enough to touch. The brilliant lights of the entire Big Apple could be clearly seen….

But when Hakeem looked at the dark sea, an inexplicable fear crept into his heart!

The d.a.m.n guy had been in the water for at least a few minutes now, but he showed no movement at all, not even signs of breathing. It was obvious that he came prepared!

For a powerful Awakener, swimming two to three kilometers in this calm sea would only take two to three minutes.

But under such circ.u.mstances, swimming for two to three minutes was enough for him to be killed ten times over.

He knew that he had fallen into a trap.

A huge trap. A malicious trap!!!

The agile melee specialist who was most proficient in ambushes, a.s.sa.s.sinations and illusion, foolishly chased after a target like a Berserker! His character should be one who hid within darkness and illusion, an a.s.sa.s.sin who could slit the enemy"s throat before his enemy could even see his face and his blade.

"I was clearly beating him like a dog before this. How did he suddenly get so much stronger after less than 20 minutes in there? It was as if he was reborn anew." Hakeem, in his anxiety and bewilderment, was really puzzled by this question.

"How could there be such a powerful trial…. Was it all a trap from the beginning? But my judgement was definitely not wrong. In the initial chase, I had a few chances to kill him! If it was all a trap, he was taking far too great a risk!"

It"s not that Hakeem was stupid, it"s just that Sheyan"s experience was too strange to be figured out by common sense! Hakeem had originally hunted Sheyan down until Sheyan had to hide in the trial ground, but less than 20 minutes afterwards, Sheyan had actually pa.s.sed the Growth Hunter trial, and it was a dual-attribute breakthrough trial at that! In addition, he only broke through after acc.u.mulating strength for a long time!

Who would have thought of that??

This is the b.l.o.o.d.y World! The holders of the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters were all either powerful party leaders or top cla.s.s. .h.i.tmen! Would any of them still be a freaking normal contestant by this point? Who would be stupid enough to come here to break through the boundary?

Therefore, Hakeem could never have imagined that the one he was chasing – a holder of the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter – was a freaking normal contestant, and that normal contestant had just broke through the boundary. Furthermore, the spitting and peeing were simply too insulting, which pulled him deeper into the trap.

Hakeem repeatedly thought about it, but he only got more confused. The ominous premonition in his heart became more intense. He immediately took a deep breath to calm himself. It was too difficult to unravel the truth right now. The key to the problem was not to understand what happened, but to escape from this d.a.m.n dilemma.

So, Hakeem slowly sat down on the deck . He let down his hair and sorted his appearance. His whole body was wrapped up in a dense mist. When he looked up again, “he” had turned into a female!

A teenage girl!

A really beautiful girl!

Blonde hair, with blue eyes that looked like they could speak.

She wasn"t the s.e.xy type. She was the type that would arouse other"s protective instinct.

Under normal circ.u.mstances, a change to one"s appearance must be carried out in the realm, which meant that Hakeem"s sudden change in appearance this time was not a disguise, but a removal of the basketball boy disguise she wore.

This showed that once her mind calmed down, she was an extremely meticulous person. In the current environment, if Hakeem wanted to flee back to the land, a battle in water would be inevitable. She had returned to her current beautiful appearance for a purpose – when fighting in water, the seductive curve of her wet body would be revealed. If the enemy showed a hint of hesitation or even s.e.xual desire, her chance of survival would increase!

The teenage girl Hakeem did not rush into the fight, apparently playing for time. She even took out her makeup tools to touch up on her makeup. Sheyan"s decision to dive into the water was seen by Hakeem as the indication that he did not dare to fight her in a direct confrontation, which was why she could remain so calm.

In fact, for the weaker side, the longer the fight dragged on, the more variables that could occur, and the higher the chance of winning. There was a saying in Chinese – long night, numerous dreams.

However, Sheyan did not intend to give her the chance to prolong the fight!

An invisible force shrouded the surrounding area. Hakeem, who was resting with her eyes closed, suddenly sneezed! That"s right, Sheyan had activated his best invisible offensive technique – disease! Pervasive disease that infiltrated every orifice!

The reason Sheyan had waited for so long was not because he had hesitated on hurting a beautiful girl, but because the biggest ace up his sleeves, the "Stairway of the Sun", had mutated again. After swallowing the out-of-control "Stairway of the Sun" in the trial ground, it once again fell into a state of slumber. Naturally, neither the "Pestilence Monarch" nor the Poison Monarch" could be used until it woke up again a few minutes ago.

When the new "Stairway of the Sun" awakened, Sheyan"s "Pestilence Monarch" and "Poison Monarch" were once again greatly enhanced.

First off, the "Pestilence Monarch" obtained a new ability: "Power of Corrosion".

(TN note: not to be confused with the Beast of Corrosion of the Poison Monarch)

This ability could only be used within 120 seconds after the enemy was infected by a disease, and could only target one enemy.

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! Of course, it came at a cost. The enemy would not experience any of the remaining symptoms in the next 30 seconds to two minutes.

This turned the uncontrollable "Pestilence Monarch" into a controllable ability.

Secondly, the evolution of the "Stairway of the Sun" cut the time required for Sheyan to be infected with a disease in the real world by a third. The replication efficiency of the virus had improved.

Finally, following the evolution of the "Stairway of the Sun", the negative effects of the "Beast of Corrosion" on himself had been reduced by 20%. More importantly, a part of the damage done by the "Beast of Corrosion" would be absorbed and fed back to him – that was to say, the "Beast of Corrosion" had gained a life steal effect!

Sheyan immediately enquired about the specific value of the HP that the "Beast of Corrosion" could feed back. He didn"t expect this information to actually require payment. It seemed like the "Stairway of the Sun" had become more mysterious and more powerful. Sheyan gritted his teeth and paid the fee. The number he got was 100-200 points, but this number should continue to grow with the "Stairway of the Sun".

As soon as the "Pestilence Monarch" recovered, Sheyan covertly wrapped the claws of disease around Hakeem! He had worked hard and spent a great deal of effort to trap Hakeem on the sea. How could he let her escape now? The whole operation had progressed so smoothly that Sheyan could hardly believe it. It was only when Hakeem had revealed her true appearance did Sheyan understand why.

A girl favoured by the heavens like her must have had a smooth-sailing life in the real world and in the nightmare realm. Being p.i.s.sed on by a barbaric man must have scarred her mentally more than he imagined.

Hakeem naturally knew that the sudden appearance of the disease must be the work of Sheyan, but she had no way to deal with this annoying disease! Hakeem must be feeling the same as Sheyan and Reef did in the Great Swamp of Ndipaya when their bodies were chucked full of diseases but they couldn"t do anything!

The sea breeze brought another fit of severe coughing to Hakeem. Her cheeks were flushed red from sickness. She straightened up, bundled her long hair behind her head, and her eyes regained focus. Apparently, she was determined to fight to the death.

Sheyan made the first move from under the water! He slashed out to cut a half-meter long hole on the bottom of the motorboat. His plan was obvious – to fight the powerful and beautiful girl in the ocean!

Ruthless seawater gradually swallowed the bottom of the motorboat and dragged it into the sea together with Hakeem. She could only helplessly let herself be swallowed by the seawater. As soon as she was submerged, she saw Sheyan who was effortlessly stretching his limbs and keeping himself afloat not far away. The long blade in his hand flashed a blue light which reflected off his cold eyes.

(TL: All the newer chapters have ads now and there"s nothing I can do about it. I"m really sorry for this.)

“You"ve lost,” Sheyan very calmly told Hakeem. The water only reached his waist.

“In your frustration, you played all your cards to try and kill me. You ignored your own advantages in your attempt to take me down by force! You used where you were weak to attack where I am strong. This is the first reason for your failure.”

“The art of illusion you are proficient in can no longer confuse me. The speed you are most proficient in is restrained by me in the water. This is the second reason for your failure.”

“You know too little about me. You don"t know anything about my specialty or my skills. And now, you are even in my trap. This is the third reason for your failure!”

“In the b.l.o.o.d.y World, all instantaneous return items cannot be used. You already have no path for retreat. In desperate situations, there will often be mental turmoil. This is the fourth reason for your failure!”

Hakeem was currently dressed in a bright yellow cropped top and a short skirt, revealing her slim waist in the middle section. One couldn"t help but imagine the terrifying power that this ultrflexible waist will break out with when she started moving. Her blonde ponytail had been moved to the front and was being held between her sparkling white teeth. She was an image of determination.

She completely ignored Sheyan"s words. Her two long, fit legs slammed hard in the water to launch herself towards Sheyan at full speed. She looked determined to fight to the death.

The dark gold dagger in her right hand was hidden behind her back, completely obscuring the menacing edge from Sheyan"s sight so that Sheyan couldn"t tell where she was going to attack next. It was a testament to the wealth of her fighting experience.

It was a pity that all these tactics of Hakeem were in vain.

Why did Sheyan go through so much effort to trick Hakeem into the sea? It was because he was wary of her elusive speed. Even the Sheyan now had absolutely no confidence that he could defeat Hakeem in a direct confrontation on the ground.

That"s because Hakeem"s attack power was too strong and her movement speed was insane. She would attack Sheyan once and immediately retreat, drifting in and out like a ghost. Even when Sheyan seized the opportunity to strike back, more often he would only hit her shadow! Plus, she had the "Absolute Dodge" that gave her almost 40% dodge rate. It took almost six to seven hits from Hakeem for Sheyan to successfully counterattack once.

There was no chance of winning!

Therefore, Sheyan trapped Hakeem in the sea. He was not afraid of Hakeem attacking him. He only wanted to be able to hit back whenever Hakeem hit him! In simple terms, he wanted to trade blows with Hakeem!

Therefore, although Hakeem"s move of completely hiding her dagger was beautifully done and could probably give other opponents a lot of pressure, it was no use at all against Sheyan. Sheyan hadn"t been planning to dodge or defend from the beginning; he only wanted to hurt Hakeem back whenever he was hurt!

The ensuing battle was violent but boring at the same time! The two of them fought face to face. From time to time, a red, b.l.o.o.d.y mist would arise, then disperse into the sea. Although Hakeem"s attack power was higher than Sheyan"s, although her "Absolute Dodge" was still incredible, although in every two of Sheyan"s attacks, one would miss, although Hakeem"s attack speed was more than twice that of Sheyan"s….

….Hakeem still found the situation gradually moving towards an unfavourable direction for her due to the ruthless attack of the disease and Sheyan"s insane HP value! This person in front of her was a total monster, a monster that would not fall no matter how hard she attacked! He did not even bat an eyelid at the damage she did using her full strength!

Meanwhile, his attacks were strangely painful. The base damage of the dark blue long blade was not that high, but the multiple additional damages attached to it would acc.u.mulate to a terrifying number. Even more strange were the coughing and chest pain that she would experience from time to time. They would often interrupt her attacking rhythm!

The longer the battle progressed, the more mentally and physically exhausted the stunning girl from Europe named Hakeem became. She suddenly let out a scream. A chill which penetrated deep into the bone instantly a.s.saulted Sheyan, almost making him tremble all over!

The orange-red basketball slowly appeared behind Hakeem. The water surrounding it froze into an ice layer, turning it into a huge ice ball. It launched itself at Sheyan, hitting him squarely. Sheyan immediately froze into a transparent ice sculpture!

But for Sheyan, this level of attack could only temporarily restrict his movement for a few seconds. After a short moment, Sheyan exerted force! A series of cracks appeared on the ice layer on the surface of his body, and it burst into pieces!

However, Hakeem obviously only needed to freeze Sheyan for a few seconds. She seized the opportunity to clasp her hands together in front of her chest, then lowered her eye and silently recited a spell. Following the spell, a black hole that looked like it connected to a different dimension appeared behind her! A gigantic black palm with bulging joints suddenly reached out from it, grabbed the edge of the black hole and tore at it hard!

The whole dimension seemed to tremble at this moment, showing signs of instability. The thumb of the giant palm suddenly bent to touch the first joint of the middle finger. The middle finger also curled down while the remaining three fingers remained straight! It formed a mysterious looking hand gesture, which looked a little sacred. It then hit Hakeem.

"This….seems to be an ability of the Vajrayana?" thought Sheyan.

(TN note: 

After Hakeem was. .h.i.t, her pupils transformed rapidly into a pair of black-coloured cherry blossoms. Her body was covered in a dense black gas. When she slashed with her dagger, not only was the speed much faster, the sea water also made a hissing noise!

Hakeem"s speed was limited in the water, but so was Sheyan"s, since he was much slower than her. Therefore, Sheyan had no chance of dodging this strike from Hakeem.

After being hit, Sheyan could feel a wild tearing force from Hakeem"s dagger. The wound caused by the dagger actually emitted the sound of fabric being torn, causing the wound to grow bigger and the flesh to roll up. If the fight continued like this, it"s hard to say who would win in the end.

"She summoned the power of the Vajrayana"s Mahakala to buff herself?"

(TN note: 

Sheyan"s mouth suddenly curled into a strange smile, "Seems like my choice was not wrong after all."

Hakeem had gone berserk. She bit her lower lip tightly while her poisonous eyes were nailed on Sheyan"s body. She waved the dark gold dagger like she was dancing, causing damage to Sheyan at an alarming speed.

However, after Hakeem had just attacked for two or three times, the deadly disease symptom a.s.saulted her again. The severe pain in her chest made her suddenly hold her chest. Sheyan did not fail to seize this opportunity. He inhaled deeply. Large groups of red blood mist swelled up from the wounds on his chest. An azure blue glow akin to the sky on a clear day enveloped his weapon and both his hands!

Sheyan had activated the newly acquired powerful ability: "Strength of the Sky"! His "Zergling Rush" 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.]

Sheyan unleashed 3 merciless slashes. Hakeem"s body turned illusionary for one of the slashes and it was evaded, but the other two slashes. .h.i.t. When the last slash struck her, the azure blue glow on Sheyan"s body surged into Hakeem like a tsunami. Then, the black light on her body was suppressed to a point where it could not be seen at all!!!!

From an unknown place far away, an indescribable roar broke out, but it was powerless to do anything.

Hakeem screamed helplessly. Her pupils returned to normal and she could clearly feel the power of Mahakala dimming in her. Although it did not disappear completely, it could no longer display any effect.

Sheyan smiled sinisterly. He took advantage of her daze to give her a backhanded slas.h.!.+

However, Hakeem"s will to fight proved to be very tenacious. She gnashed her teeth and continued to trade blows with Sheyan. Although her Perceptive Sense was high, she was unfortunately suppressed by Sheyan"s military rank so she couldn"t see Sheyan"s specific information. If she could see Sheyan"s remaining HP, she would probably lose the courage to continue fighting.

There was no suspense in the remainder of the battle. Even though Hakeem used an honorary dosage to struggle to the bitter end, Sheyan also had a bottle of honorary dosage!

Hakeem finally hung on until the cooldown of the ability on the dark gold ring, The Curse of Death, ended. She distanced herself from Sheyan with "Mind Transmission", but to Hakeem"s horror, she found that Sheyan chose to ambush her in the sea for a reason!

Sheyan"s swimming speed was at least twice that of hers! Catching up to her would be a piece of cake!

Sheyan only took ten seconds to get close to the opponent who was escaping with all her strength. He showed no hesitation in unleas.h.i.+ng a "Beast of Corrosion" at Hakeem without giving her any chance to speak, sending her into a state of near death.

Sheyan swam through the water like a shark, leaving behind a trail of bubbles, closing in on Hakeem from behind!

In this desperate situation, Hakeem finally collapsed mentally. Her body continuously flashed with the blue lights from using returning items, but blood-red traces appeared from all directions to thoroughly suppress the lights from the returning items!

Hakeem could now feel the hot breath of Sheyan behind her neck, and the aggressive force of a beast he emitted. Her eyes were filled with terror. She finally lost control and screamed:

“NO!”

But Sheyan had already sneaked up on Hakeem, sticking to her back.

He was like a huge man-eating shark quietly swimming under the yacht; silent, but brought with it terrifying pressure.

Sheyan stuck to her very closely. Although Hakeem had already entered a state of near death, he still treated Hakeem as the powerful Awakener from before. He was still careful not to give Hakeem any s.p.a.ce to use the dark gold dagger.

The sea water was a little cold, but Sheyan, who stuck close to Hakeem, felt a bit hot.

The stunning girl was wearing a short skirt and clothes that showed her midriff. After soaking in the sea, the sides of her underwear were clearly visible in the fabric on her full hip. Sheyan, who was clinging tight to her, could feel the soft flesh and the sensation spread to his whole body.

At the same time, her seductive body was quivering either from fear or from cold. Such quivering was an essential flavouring for a man"s s.e.xual desire, like the MSG in a soup….

Hakeem was actually a basketball cheerleader in the real world, so she naturally had an amazing body. Sheyan took a deep breath, enjoying the intoxicating sensation. He could not help but b.u.mp his hardened lower body once on her tight a.s.s. His hands also slid up from beneath her armpits, and grabbed!

That feel.

The feeling of the firm, full lumps of soft flesh squeezing out between the cracks in his fingers was really fascinating and compelled him to keep playing with them. The woman"s shocked breath contained an indescribable sensual temptation, lighting a fire in Sheyan"s heart!

“That"s it! Take off my clothes….come and take me!”

But right when Hakeem thought that her honey trap would work….

Sheyan"s merciless hands suddenly rose, gently held her face….and jerked it hard from left to right!!

The cracking sound of the neck bone breaking was heard. Hakeem"s gaze turned empty and her feet flailed wildly, then convulsed. And with that, she died.

In Sheyan"s opinion, some leisure and entertainment were allowed, but he was definitely aware of the situation. He knew what he should and shouldn"t do!

The b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter on Sheyan that could not be traded, thrown, or destroyed shone with a bright light. Under the light, the corpse of the stunning girl, Hakeem, floated into the air. Her b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter floated out and overlapped itself with Sheyan"s letter, then went into Sheyan"s personal s.p.a.ce.

[You have killed a holder of the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter….]

Sheyan received some notifications:

[You have acquired their b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter. During a Blood Sensing, you will be specially marked.]

[You have killed an Awakener from G Realm (number unknown). You receive 10 achievement points!]

[The maximum number of achievement points you can get from killing in the b.l.o.o.d.y World is 100 points. If you exceed this limit, the achievement points awarded will become invalid.]

[The killing reward is being randomly drawn. The killing reward will be randomly generated from the equipments of the contestant you kill, and distributed to you.]

[The drawing process may take a while. The victim"s data is being restored and calculated….. Please wait patiently.]

[Hint!: Contestant No. 1018, you have killed a seeded contestant who had pa.s.sed the test of G Realm! When you venture into nightmare worlds in the future, you may be a.s.signed by the G Realm as the target of side missions. You may be attacked by the contestants and Growth Hunters from this realm.”]

Sheyan was familiar with the subsequent process after killing Hakeem, but when he saw the phrase “seeded contestant who had pa.s.sed the test of G Realm”, he immediately smelled two huge secrets. Sheyan instantly searched the keywords “G Realm” and “seeded contestant” through his military rank, and the result shocked him!

The detailed information on “G Realm” needed to be paid for, and the fee almost made him stop breathing….300,000 utility points, 30 achievement points.

The worst was yet to come. The result of querying for “seeded contestant” were these cold words:

[You"re privilege and status are insufficient. Please check the detailed information after becoming an Awakener.]

“Fine,” after Sheyan sighed, he continued to enquire, “So what"s the deal with me becoming the target of sideline missions?”

Maybe because this matter affected Sheyan"s survival, the answer was quite detailed:

[You are listed as a dangerous person by this realm. Usually, there are several teams from different worlds adventuring in each nightmare world. Teams from G Realm may obtain missions targeting you. However, under the restriction of the rules, the strength level of the contestants who receive such missions cannot exceed your current strength level. You have just been promoted to a Growth Hunter, so those who accept the G Realm missions can only be Growth Hunters. Awakeners will not be able to receive them.]

Sheyan was dumbstruck for a long while. He suddenly roared!

“Hey! But what do I get from being hunted? I"m f*cking risking my life in this b.l.o.o.d.y World for my realm. Now that I"ve offended another realm, you can"t just leave me to die!”

[Of course we won"t.]

It appeared that the nightmare imprint was not willing to discuss more regarding this matter. The topic took a turn with the next notification:

[The killing reward is being distributed. You will randomly draw a piece of equipment from the killed Awakener.]

[Because you killed a seeded contestant of the enemy, you have obtained two additional drawing chances. If you are not satisfied with the result of the first draw, you can refuse to receive the equipment and continue the draw. In the end, you can choose from one of the three draws.]

Sheyan couldn"t help but burst with joy at seeing this method of draw. With this, he could choose the best from the three draws. Sheyan found that there were only less than 20 minutes until the next Blood Sensing, so he started the draws in a rush. The result of the draws were as follows.

[Entanglement of Victory]

[Rarity: Dark Gold]

[Origin: World of Harry Potter]

[Material: 9% Mithril + 3% Abalus Dimensional Metal + Gold]

[Addons: None]

[Equipment position: Finger]

[Type: Ring]

[Weight: 12.7 g]

[Usage requirements: All attributes no lower than 10, or military rank no lower than Private First Cla.s.s]

[Property: All attributes +4]

[Pa.s.sive ability: Metal Breath – Cooldown time of all abilities -10%]

[Active ability: Mind Transmission – At the cost of 10 MP, you will be instantly transmitted to the place you stare at. The maximum distance is 25 meters. The transmission is not locked on, so if the target move during the process of transmission, you will still be transmitted to the previously specified location. Cooldown: 400 seconds.]

[Pa.s.sive ability: Dumbledore"s Wrath! – Although you have escaped Dumbledore"s punishment, he has marked you with his anger. The owner of the ring will become a lifelong enemy of Hogwarts and its allies! This status will remain even if you give up the ring later!]

[Furthermore, Dumbledore will send his elemental servants to a.s.sa.s.sinate you from time to time. (This will not happen in the real world.)]

[Enchantment: Whispers of the Wind – Movement speed +3%. (This property is enchanted by Contestant No. 61782)]

[Description: (Please refer to previous chapters)]

[Moccasins] (Deerskin boots)

[Rarity: Dark Blue]

[Origin: Contestant-produced]

[Material: Deerskin, deer tendons, threads.]

[Addons: None]

[Equipment position: Feet]

[Type: Shoes]

[Weight: 281 g]

[Usage requirement: Agility no lower than 59]

[Property: Movement speed +8]

[Property: Movement speed +11]

[Property: Movement speed +9]

[Description: Quality items will sometimes appear from a.s.sembly lines!]

The third piece of equipment was not the dark gold dagger held by Hakeem, but a mask that looked very mysterious.

[Mask of Darkness]

[Rarity: Silver Storyline]

[Origin: Van Helsing]

[Material: ??? + Cotton + Dark Spells]

[Addons: None]

[Equipment position: Face]

[Type: Mask]

[Weight: 50.11 g]

[Usage requirement: Perceptive Sense above 40]

[Property: Range of illusions created +33%]

[Property: HP -10%]

[Active ability: Dark Mocking – Secretly create a large illusion, causing the enemies to unwittingly fall into your illusion, and increase the chances of success of your illusion.]

[Description: The origin of this mask is quite mysterious. Time has washed away most of its past.]

Faced with the three equipments, Sheyan hesitated…..

Logically speaking, there should not be any difficulty in choosing between those 3. The matter was direct and simple.

Making a choice between dark gold / silver storyline / dark blue equipments, was like going to a brothel and of the three girls to choose from, one looked like Zhang Ziyi, one looked like Liu Xiaoqing, and one looked like Lady Pomegranate. It was a matter that could be decided without even using the brain.

(Zhang Ziyi: 

(Liu Xiaoqing: 

(Lady Pomegranate: 石榴姐&tbm=isch)

The reason Sheyan was hesitating was because he was responsible for the whole party as a party leader. If he chose the "Entanglement of Victory", then it was almost certain that the whole party would have a very difficult time in the Harry Potter world in the future. There were a lot of profits to be gained in the Harry Potter world!

Even disregarding the various mystery around the birthplace of Jinkuang, the t.i.tle which awarded +3 to all attributes was enough to make one"s mouth water. Once the ring became his, there would be lots of problems in the Harry Potter world.

Was a dark gold ring enough to give up on so much interests?

More importantly, the holder must always be on alert to guard against the a.s.sa.s.sination attempts that would randomly occur. Since Dumbledore"s elemental creatures dare to make the a.s.sa.s.sination attempts, they must be confident of having enough strength to kill the ring holder! Hakim had really strong Perceptive Sense, and her party should also be really strong, so they were not afraid of the a.s.sa.s.sinations, but Sheyan was!

Imagine if he was fighting to the death with an enemy – like the fight in the breakthrough trial – and Dumbledore"s elemental a.s.sa.s.sins suddenly appeared! Sheyan would burst out in tears!

Sheyan hesitated for a long time, but still chose the dark gold ring in the end. He felt that although this object was cursed, its properties were really good, especially the "Mind Transmission". It was an ability useful in chasing, escaping, and plundering. Even if they don"t use it themselves, it still had the highest trade value among the three. There would always be someone who was willing to buy it!

After taking the dark gold ring, the dark gold necklace on Sheyan"s neck, Smith Matrix Microchip, actually started to glow, then aimed towards the corpse of Hakim that was floating on the sea!

“No way, that"s the soul of a contestant….” exclaimed Sheyan in surprise.

Under the forced absorption of the dark gold necklace, a girl with a vivid resemblance to Hakim slowly emerged from Hakim"s corpse with tears in her eyes. She then turned into a little lights that were inhaled by the necklace! The necklace only needed the last soul. Its final attributes were about to be unsealed!

After a bit of hesitation, Sheyan fiercely plunged into the water and swam towards the sh.o.r.e. The sea was indeed the home court of Sheyan, but that was only in the case where the opponents were also in the sea. The Blood Sensing was coming soon; if Sheyan was still in the sea by then and a sniper appeared on the sh.o.r.e, Sheyan would become the perfect target.

The Statue of Liberty was currently noisy and crowded. Several police cars had arrived at the scene and a lot of reporters were taking pictures. The main reason was that Hakim"s power was too strong. She even broke the torch of the Statue of Liberty which fell into the sea and stirred up huge waves. This kind of incident was naturally going to cause a sensation. If a part of the Great Wall of China was blown up, it would definitely attract a lot of attention too.

Sheyan was still carrying the crime of killing a Man in Black so he certainly did not dare to go near. He quietly swam under the water to the sh.o.r.e, chose an open area which was easy to escape from, and quietly waited for the arrival of the Blood Sensing.

The Blood Sensing once again had a different feel. This time, it felt like an invisible giant brush dipped full of blood, swiping over the entire city! Sheyan"s vision instantly turned a b.l.o.o.d.y red, and the map of New York City once again appeared in front of him. The first thing he did was to look for his own coordinate, which did not take him long at all.

That"s because the red dot representing Sheyan stood out among the other red dots like a firefly in a dark summer night! Not only was his red dot larger than the others by half, it was also marked with the number II to show that he already held two b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters!

What shocked Sheyan was that there was a big red dot not far from his position! The red dot was also marked with the number II ! The actual distance between them should be about five kilometers.

And next to this big red dot, there was a little red dot. The distance between the two was quite close…..they should already be in battle!

A glint appeared in Sheyan"s eyes. It only took him a moment to guess that the big red dot should be Aziz! That guy had a lot of pride. He had probably been trailing Sheyan all this time in order to find a chance to rescue Sheyan to pay back the favour, then personally kill Sheyan.

But maybe Sheyan"s battle with Hakeem was too intense and it attracted the attention of other partic.i.p.ants. This particular partic.i.p.ant may be someone who looking to take advantage but was stopped by Aziz, or maybe he changed his target to Aziz instead! Anyway, the two were now in a fierce battle.

In addition to Sheyan and Aziz, one other person had obtained an additional b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter. Including the guy who was killed by an alien, out of the 12 partic.i.p.ants, 4 had died.

As soon as the Blood Sensing started, a change visibly occured in the situation on Aziz"s side. Their battle began to move rapidly away from Sheyan"s direction. The other partic.i.p.ant must had felt that something was wrong and had tried to escape quickly.

However, fleeing in front of Aziz was equivalent to exposing his back to him. The partic.i.p.ant would probably pay a very heavy price!

“Wow, look at that speed….” Sheyan took one look at the speed with which the guy fled and knew that he must have used a high-speed vehicle. Otherwise, there was no way a contestant could instantaneously reach that kind of speed and maintain it for over a minute based on the strength level of the contestants at this stage.

Seemed like the guy came prepared. He soon escaped the pursuit of Aziz.

Aziz did not seem to have any intention to meet with Sheyan. After losing the enemy, he quickly left. At this time, taking advantage of the Blood Sensing, two red dots in the distant Brooklyn area rapidly approached each other. They seemed to have broke out in an intense battle. In merely twenty-one seconds, a red dot disappeared and the other red dot was promoted to level II.

It was apparent that both of them belonged to the type that had high burst damage but low HP. Considering the use of an honourary dosage, one of them had their life emptied from a full state in just 10 seconds. The attack power was no joke.

Sheyan quietly stayed at the sh.o.r.e. He was at a flexible location where it was convenient to either attack or retreat. It was the best choice for him. At that moment, two dots who had not yet obtained a b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter approached him at a high speed from the left and right!! Obviously, the two sides had reached an agreement, and they were quickly approaching on vehicles.

Sheyan"s pupils shrank despite himself. Although he had just made a great leap in power, he was not arrogant enough to think that he could 1v2.

Everyone who was qualified to be a partic.i.p.ant here was a force to be reckoned with! Therefore, Sheyan immediately got ready to board a boat. With his insanely strong "Pirate Captain" t.i.tle, he had no problem protecting himself on the sea. If a fool decided to chase after him, Sheyan would be very happy to show the guy his might on the sea.

However, when the two partic.i.p.ants approached within 10 kilometers of Sheyan, the red dot of Aziz, who had clearly left earlier, returned and tailed them from a distance.

Aziz"s tailing definitely made them very uncomfortable. He was on the opposite side of Sheyan, thus placing the two of them in the middle. Just like in chess, when the white castle lay in wait for the black bishop, it turned the whole situation of the black side into a deadlock.

If the two men continued to attack Sheyan, they had to risk Aziz"s shots.

If they turned to Aziz, Sheyan could close down on them from behind. They would be equally uncomfortable!

The four of them were locked in a stalemate for quite a while. The rest of the partic.i.p.ants obviously did not intend to come stir things up, so the two partic.i.p.ants could only helplessly retreat while keeping their vigilance.

After the two men retreated, Aziz actually moved towards Sheyan. However, Sheyan did not care too much. If Aziz wanted to flip the table on Sheyan, he would have done so earlier. Why wait until now?

More importantly, Sheyan was strong now! His HP was high, his speed was not low and he had a rapid movement skill, he had instantaneous burst and he had control skills with his diseases. He would be a bad matchup for people like Aziz who needed some distance to display maximum power! He was not afraid of Aziz!

On the contrary, high-level summoners like Yuan Zhan were starting to become bad matchups for Sheyan. Sheyan lacked long-range attacks, so he was in danger of falling into a sea of summoned beasts with no way to get out!

Aziz slowly walked over from the other side of the road. His cheekbones were a little high and his chin and cheeks were covered in stubble. His body carried the pungent smell of tobacco. His eyes were like fierce bullets that could penetrate into one"s heart.

Sheyan remained calm as Aziz walked over. He sat on a bench by the sea while comfortably placing both hands behind his head, smiling at Aziz.

When Aziz walked past Sheyan, he did not stop. Instead, he remarked coldly without sparing a glance at Sheyan:

“You are my prey, so stay alive. Wait for the moment when my bullet penetrates your skull! I"m not going to babysit you forever.”

Sheyan smiled without saying anything. He knew that, for fanatics like Aziz, the best way to refute him was not with words but with cold, hard facts! But when Aziz had walked 20 meters away, Sheyan suddenly said:

“Hey, Aziz, who do you think is more powerful, Zeus or me?”

Aziz was slightly surprised. He was just about to blurt out that Sheyan couldn"t hope to compare with Zeus, but couldn"t help recalling the situation in the Jura.s.sic Park world. Even though Zi took all the glory, but anyone with a brain could tell after thinking over it carefully, that at that time, Zi had been forced to the brink of collapse due to the betrayals. She only had enough strength to defend herself and could not strike back. But once she met Sheyan"s group, the situation completely changed. It was evident how important a role Sheyan played. Nevertheless, Aziz still replied coldly:

“You are not qualified.”

Sheyan said with a smile:

“You might not know this, but during the battle in the Jura.s.sic Park, I wasn"t even a reserve duty Growth Hunter. I was only a rank 1 contestant.”

Hearing this, Aziz"s pupils shrank, but he asked with a sneer:

“So?”

Sheyan smiled and said:

“Nothing. I just broke through the dual-attribute boundary trial and officially became a dual-specialty Growth Hunter. So next time you see Zeus, I hope you can tell him that I"m interested in a duel with him.”

This time, Aziz finally couldn"t help but turn around and asked in a hoa.r.s.e voice:

“Isn"t Reef your party"s MT? Do you think that an amateur like you who cameoed as an a.s.sistant MT can challenge the position of an MT?”

Sheyan smiled and pointedly remarked:

“Who told you a party can only have one MT?”

Aziz finally turned pale. He turned around and left without saying anything.

Sheyan continued to smile as he sat on the sh.o.r.e, breathing in the fresh and slightly salty Sandy Hook sea breeze. Only after a long while did he stand up and stretched. Then, he said:

“My friend, let"s go.”

Jinkuang appeared from a dark corner beside him. First, he looked around sneakily like a mouse, then he ran over and said:

“Wow, my friend! You did a beautiful job! I can"t believe you destroyed a part of the Statue of Liberty.”

“…..” Sheyan was speechless. He said with difficulty, “That wasn"t me.”

Then, Sheyan stared at Jinkuang who was panting and wet from head to toe, and exclaimed in surprise:

“Did you…did you go collect the broken pieces when you see the torch fall off?”

“My friend, the Statue of Liberty was made entirely of metal! Even if the pieces had turned into sc.r.a.p iron, they can still be sold…..”

After these words left Jinkuang"s mouth, he immediately felt that it was not quite right, so he laughed and said:

“I would never do such a thing.”

Sheyan said seriously:

“I think you are the most likely person in the world to do such a thing. Never mind, let"s not talk about this. I have something else to discuss with you.”

Jinkuang immediately turned wary and asked suspiciously:

“What?”

Sheyan showed him the dark gold ring:

“I got a nice thing, but…. my friend, it"s obvious that its side effects are extremely powerful and it will make it very difficult for me to do anything under the special attention of Mr. Dumbledore. The Harry Potter world is obviously your hometown, so I have to ask for your opinion. If you feel that we must go back there someday, I will not use it. If you don"t care, then I will probably equip it myself.”

Jinkuang squinted his eyes and said disdainfully:

“Will you miss a d.a.m.n prison that imprisoned you for tens of thousands of years? Oh… What am I saying? I am so pa.s.sionate about my hometown, my homeland. I can"t wait to go back to that lovely place…..”

Sheyan rolled his eyes:

“… Fine, fine, I understand.”

Jinkuang was apparently embarra.s.sed, so he immediately changed the topic:

“That was a wonderful opportunity just now. Why didn"t you kill Aziz? Has your s.e.xual orientation changed and you like men now? Or do you really possess that stupid thing called righteousness?”

Sheyan shook his head slightly and said:

“Neither.”

He turned to look at the sea, squinting his eyes:

“The current situation is getting more and more confusing. If the situation keeps developing at the current pace, what do you think will happen after ten days?”

Jinkuang frowned and thought for a long time:

“I don"t know.”

“After ten days, those remaining will already know where their strength level lies among the partic.i.p.ants. In order for the weaker partic.i.p.ants to protect themselves and survive, they will only do one thing, and that is, forming an alliance,” Sheyan"s words carried a trace of regret:

“Only with an alliance will they have any hope for survival. And how will they differentiate between the strong and the weak? The best way, and the easiest way, is to look at the amount of b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters collected! The person with the most b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters at that time will definitely become public enemy No. 1. The strong will want to kill him because the rest of the people have already formed alliances. The weak will want to kill him because it"s convenient, it"s fast, and if they succeeded they would be all set. The reason I"m not fighting Aziz now is really because I"m planning for the future!”

When Jinkuang heard Sheyan"s words, he frowned:

“You obviously don"t want to be targeted by standing out, but there is an advantage in having the lead. If you delay matters until then, you might not be able to kill anyone even if you wanted too. All the remaining people will be insanely hard to deal with.”

Sheyan shook his head slightly and said:

“I actually didn"t even want to kill Hakeem. Unfortunately, she forced me into a corner. In my plan, if I were to kill, I will prefer to kill two people in one fell swoop to possess the three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters required to return to the realm. The partic.i.p.ants at that time should be very wary of a person who has three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters. They will not touch me unless they have absolute confidence because someone who has three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters can return to the realm any time. Those who remained will be very careful in order to avoid scaring the big fish away. I only have two b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters now and I"ve exposed myself. It"s really not worth it.”

Jinkuang thought about it and felt that what Sheyan said sounded reasonable. He scratched his head and said:

“So what will you do next? Will you kill another person as soon as possible to collect three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters? Once you have three, you can take a very active position and choose whether to go on the offensive or defensive.”

Sheyan shook his head:

“I can"t do that yet. There"s still a lot of time remaining. I have a more important thing to do.”

“There"s something more important than getting a b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter?” Jinkuang asked in surprise.

Sheyan smiled and said:

“Of course there is. I"m still being hunted by the Men in Black. For me who plans to stay here for a long time, this is obviously not a very good situation. I must wash my hands off this offense first.”

“How can you wash it off?” asked Jinkuang, “The Men in Black is an official organization representing the entire New York City!”

Sheyan squinted his eyes and looked at the boundless night sky:

“This matter seems difficult, but…..it"s not entirely impossible. However, the duration of Blood Sensing will inevitably keep getting longer, and it will occur more and more frequently. If I were to do this, I must hurry.”

The dark and damp underground tunnel was full of stench and rot. It was hard to imagine that underneath such a bright city, there was a place so dark and filthy!

But that"s normal. Seemingly contradictory things like beautiful and ugly, dirty and clean, could always coexist. A seemingly clean and pure lady would still burp, fart, p.i.s.s and s.h.i.+t….

Sheyan once again walked through the sewers of New York City. This was also the reason he hadn"t been found by the Men in Black, who had eyes everywhere. He was attacked again after walking for less than a kilometer. However, the Sheyan at this time was no longer concerned with these attack.

Facing a homeless man who screamed and rushed towards him, Sheyan lashed out with his blade. A trail of sparks formed on the wall due to the narrowness of the place.

Due to the sharp blade and his terrifying Strength, the feeling of the blade pa.s.sing through solid concrete was like a fish swimming in water. The homeless man in front was split in two. The brutal move did not cause the homeless man to bleed. Instead, some yellowish-green liquid flowed from the cross section on his waist.

(This is the first bonus chapter for October from meeting Patreon goal.)

The upper body of the homeless man whose waist was cut issued a series of incoherent screams and still tried to attack Sheyan. Sheyan stepped on his back and felt the bones being smashed. 70-80 disgusting c.o.c.kroaches crawled out from the homeless man"s mouth. Sheyan crouched down and said towards the back of the homeless man"s head:

“I want to meet with your ruler.”

Unfortunately, the reply Sheyan received was some venom sprayed by a few bugs that crawled out from the ear holes.

He kicked half the body at the wall, then hit the middle of the homeless man"s head with the blunt part of his blade.

The man"s head immediately burst open, not like watermelon, but like a cracked walnut. The content of the skull had been turned into an insect nest. A particularly fat bug desperately tried to crawl away from the head. Sheyan stepped on it, then bent down and repeated:

“I want to meet with your ruler.”

The worm"s answer was very decisive – it fiercely swung its claws at Sheyan, leaving two scratch marks on Sheyan"s leather shoes – so Sheyan also decisively crushed it to death.

Sheyan"s action caused a series of disturbances in the nearby sewers. Mysterious roaring sounds rose one after another as multiple silhouettes swayed and approached like zombies. This d.a.m.n sewer may be a repulsive place for other contestants – the toxic that penetrated into the bone, the disease that could easily be contracted, the dirty and smelly environment, and the large amount of disgusting bugs….

But to Sheyan, the two most disgusting things in this place were not threatening to him. When diseases and toxins meet him, they would be like waves slamming into a reef. No matter how angrily the waves beat at the reef, they could only disperse and retreat in the end.

As for the other two problems, they could be overcome with willpower. And Sheyan had those in abundance.

Amidst the screeching sounds made by the c.o.c.kroaches, Sheyan took the lead and rushed forward to launch the first attack. He slammed into three bugmen in front to push them into the filthy water.

Then he dragged his blade across and slashed two other bugmen from the shoulder to the chest. This injury may be fatal to humans, but the bugmen could totally ignore it. It was only some damage to the car that they rode in.

They continued to pounce forward. The bugs in their body rushed out from the cut and charged at Sheyan like a tide, trying their hardest to infect him with abominable diseases and toxins but to no avail.

Sheyan came prepared. He carried a lot of glow sticks for this trip. Under the strong light of the glow sticks that could persist for five to six minutes, the "Corrosynthesis" ability was activated. A strange layer of gas surrounded Sheyan. Once the numerous but fragile c.o.c.kroaches got close to Sheyan, they would sizzle like they were thrown into a pot of boiling oil, and burst to their death.

(TN note: From Chapter 671: [ Ability: Corrosynthesis – Where the light rays are the strongest, corroding gaseous will discharge from your mouth, nose, and pores; dealing 10 – 50 constant damages to enemies in a 5 meters radius (regardless of any damage reduction influences, minimum lowest damage pegged at 5 true damages) ])

Unfortunately, the bugs were simply too numerous. Right when Sheyan was momentarily stationary after executing a slash, a lanky bugman suddenly pounced at him in a strange way. His twisting movements were like the slithering of worms or snakes. He bit hard on Sheyan"s blade, then his arms and feet entangled Sheyan"s arm.

Sheyan sneered coldly. Holding "+7 West" with both hands, he twisted and pulled!

Yellow-green liquid splattered from the chin and nose of the bugman that bit the blade. A cross section was cut across his face. Sheyan kicked hard at his chest. From the depression where the bones broke, a red worm about the size of a chopstick desperately tried to escape!

Sheyan said coldly:

“I want to meet with your ruler.”

The red worm responded by spraying venom at Sheyan. Sheyan squashed it without any expression.

Sheyan panted heavily while holding his knees with his hands. His hair that was wet with sweat stuck to his forehead. He cut into the wall beside him and broke the water pipe inside the wall. Cool water sprayed out from the pipe.

The cold water splashed onto his bare skin and quickly washed away the blood and various other stains on Sheyan, making him feel refreshed. The water also ate away at his body temperature, making him feel cold.

How many bugmen had he killed? A hundred? Two hundred? And still, there seemed no end to them. Sheyan couldn"t help admiring the powerful reproduction ability of these d.a.m.n alien bugmen. Sheyan was definitely not unscathed himself. Not long ago, a strange bugman whose attack method was self-destruction made its appearance. Because it was the first time Sheyan encountered this kind of bugman, he was inexperienced in dealing with it and its mouthpiece pierced into Sheyan"s abdomen after it exploded.

The attack was quite ferocious. Although it was not fatal, the mouthpiece caused piercing damage to both his abdomen and his back! His internal organs that got in the way were smashed! What"s more, after the object attacked Sheyan"s body, it quickly dissolved in the wound like an ice melting. It caused a lot of subsequent troubles for Sheyan.

Of course, such fierce and arduous battles also brought some harvest for Sheyan. The materials and miscellaneous items he got after killing the bugmen were worth over 70,000 utility points in total. And, he actually got a black grade mask called the "Genuine Leather Mask".

[Genuine Leather Mask]

[Origin: Man In Black World]

[Rarity: Black (cannot be upgraded)]

[Material: Human skin]

[Possible Addons: Forehead gem slot x 1]

[Weight: 12.7 g]

[Usage requirements: 22 Charm, 15 Spirit, 20 Intelligence]

[Durability: 8 points (it can"t be used for too long due to the shoddy production)]

[Property: After wearing this mask, all living creatures in the real world will become more friendly towards you. Friends.h.i.+p Points will increase by 20-30 points, and your chances of recruiting them will increase by 5%.]

[Property: Strength/Agility/Physique +1]

[Property: Reduce movement speed by 8 points (equivalent to the speed provided by 8 Agility points)]

[Property: Due to the screams of the vengeful spirit in the human skin, your defence is reduced by 3 points.]

[Property: After wearing this mask, the Friends.h.i.+p Points of all human beings and humanoid storyline characters within ten meters around you will permanently reduce by 10-40 points.]

[Hint: Under normal circ.u.mstances, 1 point of Charm will produce 1 Friends.h.i.+p Point.]

[Pa.s.sive Ability: Resentment – Whenever you successfully use this equipment to recruit a storyline creature, the vengeful spirit in this mask will become furious. In order to vent its anger, it will furiously attack your soul until you fall into a near death state. ]

[Evaluation: One who dare use this equipment must have a strong heart and a group of strong teammates.]

After rinsing the "Genuine Leather Mask" clean, Sheyan looked at the silhouettes in the tunnel in front of him with a feeling of powerlessness.

“d.a.m.n it. How could so many homeless people go missing without anyone realising it? Are the police so useless?”

Sheyan couldn"t help cursing.

As a matter of fact, it wasn"t entirely the police"s fault. New York was the world"s largest city with various ethnic conflicts in it. Homeless people were everywhere. In a metropolis of 30 million people, no one would be able to notice a few people going missing.

More importantly, in the world of the Men in Black, the police of New York City did not seem to be have a very strong sense of responsibility in their work. One could see from their excessive weight and round beer bellies that they would probably be happy to have less homeless people around to cause social instability.

Sheyan gripped the blade handle tightly, already thinking of how to retreat. Even if he was strong, the seemingly endless attack was too much for him. However, at this moment, a dull footstep suddenly resounded from the distance in the sewer, followed by the sound of metal chains colliding. A silhouette which looked like a huge piece of meat appeared from the distance and stumbled over. After he got close, Sheyan discovered that he was a huge, fat man. Rusty iron chain penetrated through his body to tie him up, as if it was keeping his body from shattering. Every step he took was like a giant hammer that slammed on the ground!

The man"s facial features were distorted like molten wax. He glared at Sheyan and emitted a dull voice from his belly:

“Earthling! You"re worthy of dying by my hands! As a reward for killing my species, I will generously consume you and integrate you into my body so that you can be a part of my eternal power!”

Sheyan flashed him a sinister smile:

“Well I"m sorry, Mr. Big Bug. I have no interest in being consumed by you. By the way, have you heard of the Galaxy before?”

The big guy was stunned. He suddenly shouted:

“The Galaxy!! The Galaxy?!! I need that thing!”

For Earthlings, the Galaxy refers to the stellar system in which the solar system is situated – one of the vast galaxies in the universe.

But for the aliens, the Galaxy had a special meaning. This may be difficult to understand, but take this as an example:

In ancient China, there was a degenerate young man with an education level between the 2nd year of high school and the 2nd year of college. On a certain day on his way back from the brothel, he pa.s.sed by a river and found a carp dying in a mud ditch.

The fish should be thankful that the brothel that the degenerate frequented provided food, so the degenerate was stuffed to the throat and had no interest in turning the fish into food. He even performed a rare good deed – he threw the fish into the river.

Little did he know that the true ident.i.ty of the fish was the CEO of the Dragon Palace. He came back to find the degenerate to repay the favour. He asked his guard to fetch the degenerate to the Dragon Palace with an aquatic motorcycle, telling the degenerate that he would satisfy any wish the degenerate had. The degenerate had never encountered such a grand occasion and was scared stiff. He didn"t dare ask for anything, so he told the carp CEO that he wished for joy.

The “joy” the degenerate referred to was just happiness.

But the carp CEO displayed a reluctant expression. Finally, he sent for a stunning beauty who looked like a mix between Lin Chi-ling and Liu Yifei, telling the degenerate that this is his daughter. Her name is Joy, sigh, take her away…. The degenerate rushed excitedly to the nearest 7-Eleven and told the cas.h.i.+er, brotha, give me the box to the right of the chewing gum on your left, the 20-pack for $37.99, strawberry flavour….

(Lin Chi-ling : 

(Lin Chi-ling : 

I will not write about the follow-up story because it"s too long and you"ll probably think that I"m stuffing the chapter with fillers to make it longer. And, not gonna lie, it is pretty long, and irrelevant to our story to boot.

(TL note: This whole part was just some nonsense shamelessly written by the author to meet the word count.)

(ED:It"s golden nonsense!)

So as soon as the words “Galaxy” left Sheyan"s mouth, the Bug King alien got really excited. He yelled:

“Galaxy!! Mine!”

Sheyan flicked away a few fat worms that sprayed onto him from the mouth of the Bug King with a frown, and said faintly:

“If you want to know the whereabouts of this thing then show me more respect. I fully demonstrated my strength just now, so I better get the treatment that matches my strength.”

The Bug King alien stared at Sheyan for a while with his deformed head skewed to one side. Coldness flashed in his cracked eye. Yellow-green saliva flowed from the gap between his crooked teeth. He issued a roared.

The surrounding bugmen scattered obediently. The Bug King alien limped in front and led the way. From the exaggerated and deformed posture of his gait, it truly seemed like his feet would break with a snap anytime soon.”

Following behind the Bug King, Sheyan came to a room where miscellaneous items were stored in. It was very humid inside. The Bug King alien comfortably sat down on the overflowing sewage like a human would on a sofa with soft pillows. He then said in a dense, blurry voice:

“My name on earth is Jones. Please have a sit.”

Sheyan had no interest in sitting on the ground flowing with waste water, so he grabbed a broken table, turned it over, and said:

“My name is Seaman, Mr. Jones, and my time is precious. So, I will keep the story short. I know the whereabouts of the Galaxy. The question is, how much will you pay for this information.”

Jones the Bug King laughed and said:

“Do you really know what the Galaxy is?”

Sheyan simply replied:

“If I recall correctly, its full name is “Cosmic Subatomic Energy Micro-Reactor”. The energy it provides is about 177.3 times that of nuclear power. It is embedded in a transparent cosmic t.i.tanium crystal frame and was called the Galaxy because it looks exactly like a miniature version of the Milky Way. My dear Mr. Jones, I"m in a hurry today; I must leave in 5 minutes.”

Jones the Bug King stared at Sheyan. His pupils suddenly blinked without his eyelids moving.

“What do you want?”

Sheyan smirked:

“If you want me to offer the price, then Mr. Jones, I"m afraid there will be no more room for negotiations after I"ve named my price. You can only choose to accept or not to accept! Of course, there is another choice – you can try to use force to get what you want. But before you do that, you better think hard on whether you will succeed.”

“Say it,” muttered Jones. He reached to the ground and picked up a thick lump of mud mixed with moss and other things, then ate it like he was eating Haagen-Dazs.

Sheyan told him seriously:

“I want the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p that you took to Earth.”

Jones was taken aback. He burped and shook his head, saying:

“No way. No way.”

Sheyan stood up and patted his b.u.t.t:

“Well then, nice to meet you.”

But when Sheyan walked to the door, a trace of cunning flashed across Jones" decaying gray-blue eyes:

“Fine, it"s a deal.”

In reality, the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p he took to Earth unfortunately crashed into a rock when he landed and it was severely damaged. The reason he stayed in the sewer was to look for other means of going home. Jones felt that buying such valuable information with a transport that was already worthless, was great business.

Unbeknownst to Jones, Sheyan actually did not have much interest in his s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p either. The reason Sheyan made the deal was to leave him with no choice but to find another s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p to go home.

Next, Sheyan went to visit Jones"s s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. The s.p.a.cecraft only looked intact on the outside. Sheyan then handed it over to Jinkuang. Jinkuang would always show a lot of enthusiasm for all sc.r.a.p iron that could be exchanged for cash at the waste collection centre.

Jones then obtained the information he desired from Sheyan:

The secret treasure of the Arquilian Empire, the Galaxy, was held by the Arquilian prince, Rosenberg. Of course, he"s not alone on earth. He had a tall bodyguard who had a natural ability to sense danger, and he was willing to die for the prince. Prince Rosenberg was a very interesting alien. He owned a jewelery store on No. 54, 54th Street in Manhattan. He had twelve pots of pink forget-me-nots outside the shop, and he kept a cat that had yellow-and-white stripes. He loved the cat and treated it like his son.

Jones was convinced by now. The Bugs were engaged in a prolonged war with the Arquilian Empire, so the Bugs knew some of Rosenberg"s habits, and they were very consistent with what Sheyan said – with the exception of the prince"s address on earth.

Jones excitedly poured a cup of coffee for himself, a cup of coffee that ordinary humans would never drink. Jones poured at least half a pound of sugar into the cup, then gulped it down in one go. Sheyan could not wait to leave this d.a.m.n place. His arrangement was successful. Whether he could achieve his goal would depend on luck.

Sheyan once again appeared on the streets of New York under the cover of a curly wig and a pair of coloured contact lenses. He must remain alert to the surrounding environment and prevent any police from approaching within 30 meters of himself. Otherwise, there was a great possibility of him being questioned and exposed.

This was a difficult task which required a high level of skills. Fortunately, New Yorkers always had their attention focused on things like the Super Bowl, Playboy magazines, the NBA Finals and serial killers. Plus, a crazy partic.i.p.ant had killed a large number of Men in Black agents. So the death of a Man in Black agent caused by Sheyan was like a spit in the ocean; it was completely overshadowed and was ignored by the New Yorkers. Otherwise, Sheyan would have to face the public"s wrath and it would be hard for him to do anything.

Sheyan went back to his old place – Mr. Jack"s store. It had been sealed off by the police and there was a sign forbidding entry. Sheyan kneeled down pretending to tie his shoelaces, then talked to the suitcase carried by Jinkuang in front of him:

“Mr. Jack, tell me something. Where is the surveillance camera in your store? Please don"t fool me with those that you"ve modified to mislead people. (Because Jack was selling illegal firearms, he had to modify the official surveillance cameras.) What I need is the real thing that can record everything truthfully!”

Jack"s faint voice drifted out from the suitcase. Apparently, this old alien had experienced a fair bit of suffering in the hands of Jinkuang:

“You can find it on the owl decoration on the right side of the counter. The owl"s eye is the surveillance camera. The pa.s.sword is 31nsa13.”

“Good,” Sheyan snapped his fingers, “If you keep up your level of cooperation, I will consider giving you your freedom when I leave.”

Sheyan then walked over, wrapped his hand on the locked doork.n.o.b and twisted it hard. The door opened. Sheyan took what he desired from the store without much effort. He cut out the part of the recording where he killed the senior agent of the Men In Black, Agent G, and asked the two captured aliens, Jack and Ritz:

“I know you must have a way to transform this part into the scene that I want – the scene where Agent G went crazy and tried to kill me, forcing me to retaliate in self-defense.”

Ritz and Jack remained silent. Sheyan coughed once, and Jinkuang immediately screamed:

“Time is money! My friends, you have been resting for too long, let me find something new for you to do.”

Ritz and Jack instantly turned pale. Jack said in a hurry:

“I have a way to fulfil your request, but I have to warn you, even a kid will notice that it"s fake.”

Sheyan said with a smile:

“It doesn"t matter. Start working, right now.”

While Sheyan was busy making arrangements, our dear king of the bugs, Mr. Jones, who had just obtained some first-hand information, did not remain idle. He compressed himself further and made his body smaller, and finally squeezed into another set of human skin. He could barely pa.s.s as a burly, normal person on the streets of New York City.

Due to the fact that there were a lot of performance artists here, Jones arrived at No. 54, 54th Street without much trouble, even though he looked very abnormal. Of course, his stench, his burly body, and his r.e.t.a.r.ded appearance kept others at bay, and that helped.

But our dear Mr. Jones" trip did not start off well. He heard that Rosenburg was out for morning tea with his cat, so he rushed towards the Hong Kong-style cafe. There, he found his target and gave Rosenburg a fatal blow with his sharp tail, then s.n.a.t.c.hed away the prince"s handbag.

Unfortunately, there was no Galaxy in the handbag. Under the deliberate guidance of Sheyan, the event that unfolded at the moment almost perfectly followed the plot in the Man in Black movie, with two differences:

The first: the protagonist, J was probably still in a Los Angeles police station, enduring the cynicism and boycotting of his peers.

The second: Prince Rosenburg"s lanky bodyguard captain was not killed. The moment he noticed that the person he was supposed to be protecting had died, he immediately notified the Arquilian Empire.

It must be known that the average height of the Arquilians was about 17…..centimeters, while the size of the bugs who were at war with them was pretty impressive. Enlarge a c.o.c.kroach to the size of a horse, and you would have the standard figure of a bugman. In a melee fight between the two sides, well….

The reason the Arquilian Empire could suppress the bugs in the long war was because their core technology of the “Galaxy” – the Cosmic Subatomic Energy – held the absolute advantage. Therefore, the murder of the prince was not just a simple death; if this technology fell into the hands of the bugs, the Arquilians faced the risk of extinction…..

Two hours later, Sheyan arrived at the headquarters of the Men in Black.

From the outside, it looked more like a huge distribution warehouse rather than a special inst.i.tution that had authority higher than organizations such as the FBI. It had a gray exterior, a green wooden door, and no outer wall. The building looked clean, neat and majestic.

Sheyan walked to the door, knocked on it, and then raised his hand in a surrender pose because in just the blink of an eye he could feel at least a dozen weapons with destructive power pointing at him.

Sheyan put his hands behind his head and shouted:

“I"m here to turn myself in. And I have important information about the “Galaxy”.”

This was a free country after all, plus Sheyan"s act of surrendering gave him some brownie points, so after being handcuffed, he was escorted inside by two expressionless men in black clothes.

Behind the door was a neat, old-fas.h.i.+oned corridor. A bald black man was reading a book on a chair.He did not even bat an eyelid at Sheyan.

Rotating exhaust fans lined up on both sides of the wall, each of them more than three meters in diameter. The only thing special about this place were the many pictures on the ground of satellites rotating around a planet. In the eyes of unsuspecting people, they were merely abstract art.

At the end of the corridor was an elevator. This elevator inexplicably had no floor b.u.t.tons, only b.u.t.tons for opening and closing the door. After the elevator came to a halt, Sheyan was directly escorted to a place that seemed to be an interrogation room, where the floor and walls had large oval patterns.

The Man in Black who escorted him in let him sit down on an egg-shaped chair, then left. Soon after, a middle-aged man sporting a Marx-like beard came in. He wore a gray striped suit and had the slightly overweight body of a man in his forties.

Although this was the first time Sheyan met this man, he already knew who he was: Z, the most special one among the Men in Black senior agents. Z may be last in terms of alphabetical order, but he was actually the person in charge of presiding over the work here.

Z sat down opposite Sheyan with a deep frown:

“Tell me all the important information you know.”

Sheyan very cooperatively replied:

“The Arquilian prince was killed. It was done by a powerful Bug. He should have obtained the Galaxy.”

Z stared at Sheyan as if he wanted to pierce through Sheyan"s thoughts:

“What is this Galaxy you speak of? And how did you hear about this?”

Sheyan smiled and said:

“I think we should talk about the misunderstanding between us first. I will need a cup of hot coffee with cocoa and sugar. I like it sweet.”

Z slammed the table in anger:

“I don"t have time to talk about misunderstandings. Did you talk about misunderstandings when you broke G"s neck with your hands?”

Sheyan shrugged and said:

“I was framed. I have first-hand video evidence here to prove that I acted in self-defense…. Please let me finish. Before I came in, I saw a faint rose-coloured flash in the sky. That was probably the warning shot fired from the main cannon of the Arquilian s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. As soon as I saw that, I knew you must need me, so I came here to turn myself in.”

“Why would I need you?” Z coldly asked.

“My dear Mr. Z, you must know that although the individual strength of the Arquilians is far inferior to that of the Bugs, their advantage is that they can reach Earth in two hours in their s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p! More importantly, the power of their main cannon is amazing.”

“The one who killed the Arquilian prince is a powerful Bug warrior. Once he brings the technology of the Galaxy back to his home planet, the Arquilians are in danger of having their empire, or even their entire planet, destroyed. So please do not take lightly their threat to destroy Earth. I"m probably the only one who can help you catch the Bug murderer before he leaves Earth!”

Z looked at Sheyan and continued to persevere:

“You haven"t told me what the Galaxy is.”

“A very advanced Cosmic Subatomic Energy Micro-Reactor. With the Galaxy in hand, one could easily grasp this energy conversion method. Believe me sir, once the Bugs obtain the technology, the only fate awaiting the Arquilians is exile,” added Shengyan.

“I will bring back the Galaxy to appease the Arquilian battle cruiser. It will be much better for me to do everything that is familiar to me. You are much better off letting me, who know the ins-and-outs of the whole matter, deal with this task than let your subordinates run around like headless chickens. I"m guessing the Arquilians must have already given an ultimatum: hand over the Galaxy within a specified time or they will destroy the Earth. Mr. Z, it is unfortunate, but I must inform you that time is tight. I"m still very confident now, but with every pa.s.sing minute, my confidence of completing the task will drop by 5% until it falls to zero.”

Z stared at Sheyan and asked disdainfully:

“Why should I trust you?”

Sheyan laughed and said:

“Even if I"m lying to you, what do you have to lose? I turned myself in! I"m living on Earth too. If the main cannon of the Arquilian battle cruiser shoots at Earth, I will also turn into ashes.”

“Then tell me this. What is your purpose for doing all these?” Agent Z finally asked.

Sheyan shrugged:

“There was a misunderstanding between Agent G and I. He pulled out his weapon at an unfortunate moment, and some of my excessive behavior may have hurt him. My lifelong dream was to settle in the beautiful Big Apple, get married, have a child, and then have my remains buried in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Kings County. but your arrest order completely shattered my dream. So, if I get back the Galaxy, you have to revoke the arrest order on me.”

“Impossible,” Agent Z said with a blank expression.

Sheyan took out the photoshopped video and said sincerely:

“I have sufficient evidence to prove that the incident was indeed a misunderstanding….”

At that moment, a woman suddenly rushed out from the back room. She pointed at Sheyan and shouted:

“Bullsh*t! It was a planned murder!”

Agent Z accepted the photoshopped disc without showing any expression. He stood up and walked back to his office, apparently to watch the content of the disc. He came back five minutes later and said:

“The ultimatum that the Arquilian battle cruiser gave us had one hour and forty-eight minutes remaining. I hope that the next time I see you is when you bring the Galaxy back to me. I"ve revoked your arrest order. It will last indefinitely if you succeed.”

A smile crept onto Sheyan"s face. He said:

“The Bug who took the Galaxy and his accomplices will attack me and do everything possible to create trouble for me. My strength alone is very limited.”

Agent Z stood up. A senior Men in Black agent with a serious look on his face walked out from the door at the back. It was the 2nd male lead, K.

“We will send an elite agent with you. Satisfied now?”

Sheyan smiled and said:

“I think that twenty people should be enough to suppress the Bug and his accomplices. They don"t have to be senior agents, but they must be good soldiers.”

“Get moving,” Z looked at his watch and said impatiently. “You will see the personnel you asked for before you reach the car. The will mobilise with you.”

After leaving the Men in Black headquarters, Jinkuang finally exclaimed in marvel:

“It"s unbelievable! Seems like the skills of Jack and Ritz are not as bad as they claim! Even the leader of the Men in Black was fooled!”

Sheyan smiled:

“This has nothing to do with skills, my friend. What he needed was not an authentic video, but an excuse, a flight of stairs to step down from the stage.” (TL note: Chinese idiom meaning an excuse to keep up appearances or save face)

“Oh, stairs to step down from the stage?” Jinkuang stroke his yellowish beard while looking thoughtful. “Sounds amazing.”

A brand-new but old-fas.h.i.+oned Cadillac came to a stop as Sheyan walked out of the entrance. The one in the driver"s seat was K. K was a middle-aged man of about fifty. The wrinkles on his face were very deep, giving him the impression of one who was constantly in deep thought. One glance at him was enough to know that he was not a person who liked to gabble nineteen to the dozen. He would only speak when he was sure of his words.

Sheyan immediately did something when he saw K.

He first put on a pair of contact lenses that could filter light, then put on a pair of sungla.s.ses so big that they covered half his face!

K was obviously someone who was very proficient in using the neuralyzer. Even the main protagonist fell victim to his skillful flashes. Sheyan of course had to guard against it, with double protection.

K was naturally unhappy with Sheyan"s reaction. He actually did receive an order to erase Sheyan"s memory after the job was done. It seemed that executing that command would be harder than he imagined. He opened the door on the pa.s.senger side and faintly said:

“Where should we go now?”

Sheyan turned his head and looked around:

“Where are the people I asked for?”

Sheyan knew that a large-scale plot change like this one will inevitably catch the attention of a large number of partic.i.p.ants! His power had soared and he wasn"t afraid of anyone in a 1v1, but if several people teamed up on him, he would still die a quick death.

Therefore, Sheyan unhesitatingly asked for the protection of the Men in Black organisation. More importantly, don"t forget that there was a b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter in the hands of the Men in Black, possibly in their headquarters. Sheyan had his sight on this b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter.

For him who already had two Invitation Letters, as long as he get another one, he would fulfil the requirement to return to the realm. It would be a brand new world then. The other partic.i.p.ants would not dare to make a move on him if they do not have enough confidence; it would bring them no benefit to force Sheyan into a corner because Sheyan could just return.

It was worth mentioning that the rest of the contestants were no fools. They had of course considered obtaining a b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter through the Bugs plotline like Sheyan. The problem was that their parties were not here to help them in the b.l.o.o.d.y World. Sheyan had the ability to jump into the sewer and kill his way to the Bug King, but the others did not!

The abundance of toxins and diseases alone were enough to give them headaches. They also couldn"t make too much of a ruckus. After all, a few meters above the sewer was the bustling New York City. The police would definitely come if they cause an explosion or something.

Hearing Sheyan"s question, K pointed behind them without showing any expression. Sheyan turned back and suddenly saw four ordinary-looking Fords that had crept up behind them without him noticing. K asked again:

“Now, where should we go?”

Sheyan smiled and said:

“The city morgue.”

K stared at Sheyan and asked:

“Why are we going there?”

Sheyan answered with a shrug:

“I need to look at the corpse of the prince before I can determine what action we should take next. Who knows, maybe the Galaxy is on the prince"s body and the stupid Bug didn"t find it.”

K couldn"t help but sneer:

“As if that"s possible.”

“Just drive,” Sheyan reclined his seat and lay down leisurely with his feet on the dashboard.

K was obviously not pleased with his behaviour. He said coldly:

“Please put on your seat belt.”

Sheyan did not respond, so K immediately stepped on the accelerator!

The car contained partial extraterrestrial technology, so its speed was amazing. K originally wanted to see Sheyan tumble and suffer, but Sheyan had a pretty insane body so he didn"t even flinch. K was quite surprised.

The morgue was built on the outskirts of the city far from the city center, because this building would undoubtedly bring a significant depreciation in the land value of the surrounding plots for a very long time. This would be a big problem for a city like New York where every square inch of land was extremely valuable.

So even with the speed of the Men in Black"s special car, it took them nearly twenty minutes to arrive. When they got out of the car, Sheyan pushed open the door in a hurry and rushed in!

Right now, only he knew that the real Galaxy was currently attached with a chain in the shape of the Orion"s Belt to the prince"s son – a yellow-and-white domestic cat. As long as Sheyan could get his hands on this object, he would no doubt hold the initiative!

There weren"t many people in the morgue. As Sheyan pa.s.sed through the door, a young man in gla.s.ses at the front desk asked lazily:

“What can I do for you, sir?”

Sheyan recalled that this guy did not have a good ending in the movie. He used a fly-swatter to kill a fly and sprayed insecticide in front of Edgar the Bug. Those happened to be the things that the bugs hated the most. The guy was thrown to the ceiling and turned into a coc.o.o.n!

Sheyan simply said:

“You can get out of my face.”

The young man was very responsible in his work. He was about to say something but Sheyan took out "Ambition" and pointed at him, saying:

“Sit down, shut up. Finally, let me give you a piece of advice. Throw away the insecticide under the counter…”

After that, Sheyan strode inside. After going through two sets of large doors, he saw a woman dissecting a body on a test bench. Even the white lab coat she was wearing could not hide her good figure. She was very absorbed in her work; it was obvious that she was very pa.s.sionate about her job.

She raised her head in surprise when she saw Sheyan:

“You can"t come in here without permission, sir. You have to make an appointment, take a number, register, and pay, and I will bring out the person that you"re looking for.”

Sheyan closed his eyes. His Perceptive Sense at this time was already quite strong. He immediately sank his shoulders and slammed into a cabinet at the side. Amidst the harsh sound of friction, a terrified meow could be heard. The cat jumped from the corner of the wall in shock. Sheyan grabbed it by the neck, flicked his finger, and successfully obtained the bell hanging on the cat"s neck. The bell was the Cosmic Subatomic Energy Micro-Reactor!

Only now did K rush in with his gun. He looked at the messy environment and asked:

“What happened?”

Sheyan shrugged and answered:

“I was too careful, sir. I heard a noise next to me but it turned out to be just a cat. You can"t blame me. The d.a.m.n Bug King may arrive at any moment. He"s a monster that won"t hesitate to kill people.”

K stared into Sheyan"s eyes, seemingly trying to detect the lies in his words. Unfortunately, Sheyan"s innocent expression and sincere eyes revealed nothing.

K could only sigh. He repeated the same familiar lie to the beautiful lady, Anna, who loved to dissect corpses:

“We are Dr. Wen and Dr. White from the Ministry of Health. Did anything unusual happen recently?”

Anna looked at Sheyan suspiciously:

“I think it"s more likely that he"s from the WWF! My G.o.d, that cabinet is filled with frozen corpses, it weighed at least a ton! He just slammed into it once and the drawer slid right open.”

K said politely:

“I wouldn"t mind you calling your supervisor to verify the matter.”

Anna immediately called her supervisor on her phone, but apparently the authority of the Men in Black encompa.s.sed this place. She still had some doubt after she laid down the phone, but she was finally willing to answer K:

“There is something unusual. Apart from the murder case, I also found something weird with another body.”

She explained while she walked:

“It"s a corpse without stomach, lungs or liver. The body showed no trace of them being removed either….”

Sheyan knew she was referring to the corpse of the Arquillian prince – the body was in fact just a vehicle of sorts for the alien, so there was nothing to be surprised about. Sheyan was more concerned with another thing.

The Bug King, Jones, seemed even more ferocious than the Bug in the movie. Sheyan hoped to get some relevant information from the body, such as Jones" attack method, how his attack made the “vehicle” invalid, and how his attack affected the pa.s.senger inside.

The body of the Arquilian Prince was soon presented to them. It was the body of a 60-year-old balding male with gray hair. Before Anna could start her never-ending explanation, Sheyan took the initiative to ask:

“What"s the cause of death?”

“I don"t know,” Anna said furiously, “According to the knowledge recorded on any human medical book, this person should have fallen dead long ago.”

Sheyan stepped in front of the body and observed carefully. He pressed his finger on the body, moving his finger a little bit at a time, and finally stopped on the neck:

“Hmmm… This should be the place. Come and feel it. There"s a very obvious hard lump here beneath the skin, but the wound is extremely small. This attack method is similar to bugs such as bees or scorpions.”

Next, Sheyan “accidentally” touched the ear of the corpse. The ear was an opening mechanism. The face of the corpse flipped outwards, revealing the c.o.c.kpit inside.

The moment the head opened, something different from the original plot occurred.

The prince who appeared in front of them was already black all over and exuded a pungent smell, just like the internal organs of poultries that were coated in manure and left to decompose. There was no doubt that he had not a shred of life in him.

The real prince inside the c.o.c.kpit was already dead and was rapidly rotting in the oxygen-rich Earth atmosphere. In the original plot, he at least had the time to say his last words, that the Galaxy lay on Orion"s Belt, before he died…..

This shows that the attack power of Jones the Bug King was far superior to the Bug in the original plot, Edgar the Bug…. This was bad news for Sheyan who held the Galaxy!

Sheyan and K were both a.s.saulted pretty hard by the rotting scent of the prince"s corpse. It"s not that their endurance was poor; the smell was simply too weird. They felt as if they were punched in the stomach. They began to vomiting non-stop.

Dr. Anna probably had a professional resistance to this kind of smell. Although she held her nose, she still shouted in surprise:

“This corpse had such a beautiful structure! Oh my G.o.d, how can there be a creature with such a structure? It seems to have two hearts…..”

Dr. Anna was going to dissect the corpse with her scalpel out of professional habit. Sheyan immediately stopped her attempt at broadening her scientific knowledge:

“Forgive me for my insolence, doctor, but if you do that, you will cause some very serious consequences. It may even lead to a major international conflict.”

Dr. Anna"s angrily attempted to break free:

“Get out of the way, you fool! Do you know what you"re doing? This will be the greatest discovery of the 21st century! I"m heading for the n.o.bel Prize in Medicine, and you"re blocking my way! And the reason you gave was absurd!! Dissecting a corpse can cause an international conflict? It is a very strange corpse, but please, I"m not a child.”

Sheyan smiled and said:

“Oh really? If you go to the Red Square in Moscow and try to dissect the corpse of Lenin, won"t you cause an international conflict?”

Dr. Anna instantly turned silent because Sheyan"s example did convince her. After a while, Dr. Anna said:

“But, but….this little guy can"t be compared to Lenin, right?”

Sheyan shrugged:

“The citizens who love him are waiting two thousand miles outside the Earth"s atmosphere. Their means of transport is a s.p.a.ce battle cruiser. The power of a shot from the cruiser"s main cannon was equivalent to the simultaneous explosion of 173 hydrogen bombs. And, the muzzle of the main cannon is currently pointing at us.”

Dr. Anna put a hand to her forehead and rolled her eyes:

“What are you talking about… Am I crazy, or are you crazy?”

Sheyan was in a great mood because he just got the Galaxy. He took advantage of the situation to grab the b.u.t.t of Dr. Anna whose alluring curves were visible even through the white labcoat. The female doctor immediately turned around and furiously glared at him:

“I will definitely lodge an official complaint about this to Mr. Jay tomorrow! I will sue you!”

K obviously didn"t like Sheyan very much either. He immediately said:

“I agree with you, doctor. Sue him for all his money and make him go broke!”

Sheyan simply smiled and said:

“She won"t do this, K, because you will use the neuralyzer on her soon. She won"t remember a thing tomorrow.”

K"s expression got even uglier, but he had no way to refute Sheyan, because he knew Sheyan"s words were true. By this time, Sheyan had already grabbed a scalpel and cut open the wound on the corpse"s neck to continue his investigation.

“Tsk tsk. Look at how hard this strike was. The prince"s exosuit had a 2cm-thick defensive exoskeleton inside, and it was penetrated in one blow. Wow, I think I"ve found the spot where venom was injected. See here? This is where the venom entered the ventilation system. The poor prince must have died after breathing in a few mouthfuls of toxins. That"s why, K, I want to give you a piece of advice.”

K snapped:

“Just say it.”

“If you are approached within two meters by this Bug, distance yourself as quickly as possible. If you can"t, you better start praying.”

Said Sheyan seriously.

K sneered and said.

“Thanks, but I"ve been with the MIB for more than 30 years. I"ve seen a lot of aliens who are more dangerous than this Bug.”

The current development could be considered perfect from Sheyan"s perspective. The story was progressing according to his script from the beginning like a train staying on its track. He had even obtained the Galaxy a lot earlier than he expected.

Sometimes, however, progressing too smoothly may not necessarily be a good thing. If the sea was calm for too long, it may be the precursor to a storm. Sheyan turned and walked away, but after only taking a few steps, the nightmare imprint suddenly heated up and gave him a warning:

[Growth Hunter No. 1018, your military rank has been suppressed by the rank of unknown target! This suppression will try to impose a significant restriction on your party ability.]

[The military rank of the unknown target is: Major! Suppression failed!]

The moment he receiving the notification, Sheyan"s pupils shrank. He immediately pulled K and flung them both to the ground to take cover. At the same time, Sheyan spread his Pestilence aura!

The opponent actually had a Major rank!!! This was the first time Sheyan had encountered a person who was not inferior to himself in terms of military rank! Presumably, the opponent must be pretty conceited and believed that the suppression would definitely succeed, therefore he made it his first attack. He unexpectedly met his match today!

K"s old body obviously couldn"t handle such vigorous actions. However, he was a very experienced fighter. After he fell to the ground, he immediately covered his head with his hands.

Five seconds pa.s.sed. Ten seconds pa.s.sed. Nothing happened. Dr. Anna stood there and looked at them like they were r.e.t.a.r.ded.

K"s expression turned red with anger. He tried to stand up but Sheyan immediately said:

“Don"t forget that I brought 20 other general MIB agents here. Why didn"t they come in? Are they all dead outside?”

K was stunned. He was about to say something when a grenade-like object suddenly slammed through the window next to him. A streamlined-shape glow surrounded the object.

“This….” Sheyan"s pupils shrank.This indirect killing grenade called the “little girl” was mentioned in the information collected by Jinkuang from the realm marketplace. The main purpose of this grenade was to make the opponents lose their ability to fight back; it"s damage was only secondary! When the grenade exploded, it would produce a shockwave that would cause dizziness and vomiting. It would also release a tear gas and emit a strong light that would cause temporary blindness.

A three-p.r.o.nged a.s.sault on the eyes, nose and ears!

However, these effects were all under the category of abnormal statuses. Sheyan"s defense was enough to reduce the duration of abnormal statuses by 50%, and the duration would be further reduced by his "Stronghold" innate ability. The one he was worried about was K. With a gun in hand, he posed a huge threat to any storyline character or contestant. If he was neutralised, Sheyan would be put under a lot of pressure.

The substantial increase in attributes after Sheyan became a Growth Hunter was evident now. He rolled a few times on the ground and reached the spot where the grenade would fall. With an overhead kick, he sent the grenade back out the window! A thunderous flash immediately followed! The window gla.s.s completely shattered, and a white smoke crept in. The female doctor was staring out of the window in curiosity so her vision turned completely white from the flas.h.!.+ At the same time, the impact from the infrasonic wave turned her dizzy.

Sheyan could immediately tell that this was just a probing attack. He kicked the corpse cabinet next to him and a drawer with a corpse inside slid out. Sheyan threw the corpse to the ground, then pulled K up and tried to make him lie down in the drawer.

K resolutely rejected Sheyan"s request. At that moment, seven “little girls” were simultaneously thrown in from three different windows. Even if Sheyan was possessed by Inzaghi, Maradona, Klinsmann, Messi, Ronaldo Nazario and Cristiano Ronaldo at the same time, he still wouldn"t be able to send all the grenades back!

Sheyan violently shoved K into the corpse drawer, then stuffed it back into the cabinet. After that, seven “little girls” blew up simultaneously…

Unfortunately, Sheyan had already held his breath in antic.i.p.ation, so the tear gas could not affect him. He was also wearing double sungla.s.ses to guard against K. If he closed his eyes in addition to that, the flash bomb effect would also be rendered obsolete. The only effective a.s.sault was the shockwave. The negative status it caused may be useful against gunners and the likes, but against someone with insane HP like Sheyan, it could only be described as a drizzle.

Five seconds after the explosion, a series of cracking sounds resounded from the door. They should be the sound of steel toe riding boots stepping on shattered gla.s.s.

"So daring of you. You"re that confident the grenades would be effective on me?" Sheyan could not help but sneer when he heard the footsteps. "You"re underestimating me way too much."

He grabbed the chair next to him and threw it, then waited for a moment before he charged!

Sheyan was very clear on his current position and role. With him restraining the opponent on the frontline, the extremely frail but extremely hard-hitting K could display his full strength!

After Sheyan charged for about two to three meters, he finally saw two black shadows preparing to launch an attack amidst the white tear gas near the door! On their bodies were a faint black glow which was a sign that they were infected by his "Pestilence Monarch", but those two were still oblivious to it.

“Power of Corrosion”, activate! Target: the guy in the front who holds the shotgun. Symptom: chest pain!”

A black illusionary image of the "Stairway of the Sun" emerged from body of Sheyan.It grew wildly with its branches waving, looking as if it would penetrate through heaven and earth.

Then, from Sheyan"s body, a strange illusionary black line emerged and connected to the person who held the shotgun. The branches of the black illusionary image of the Stairway of the Sun behind Sheyan moved nimbly like human fingers and gently grabbed the string, then strummed it like a harp!

The partic.i.p.ant s.h.i.+vered all over and instantly grabbed his chest with his left hand! However, his right hand was still firmly on his shotgun.

Sheyan immediately activated "Hornrage". He bore a tunnel through the tear gas and crashed into the partic.i.p.ant at a very high speed!

The sound of his blade cutting deep into skin and bones was always so beautiful to his ears. The blood that splattered somehow gave rise to a feeling of pa.s.sionate thirst in Sheyan"s throat. He continued to attack fiercely.

The other partic.i.p.ant was closing in on him with a short sabre that was glowing dark gold. The edge of the short sabre was like a shark"s teeth, tearing flesh from Sheyan"s body, but Sheyan still persevered with his attacks on the partic.i.p.ant with the shotgun. He was violent, crazy, determined; like a battle-crazed grizzly bear who saw blood.

AAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!

Sheyan took 7 cuts from the other partic.i.p.ant. Each cut carved out a piece of flesh from his body. At the same time, Sheyan himself made 3 slashes on the shotgun-wielder!

The first slash cut straight into his body. The second slash cut deep through his ribs. The third slash pierced into his heart! The beating heart twitched. Blood gust out like a fountain, causing a fatal damage.

Suppression! Explosive hit! Ignore defence! Extra damage from muscle explosion!

Terrifying damage values popped up one after another!

Only now did the shotgun-wielder man cried out loud. He shot at Sheyan, trying to stop the powerful opponent with steel bullets and smoke. However, Sheyan merely smirked and raised his empty left hand!

5 strange tendrils grew out of his left hand fingertips. A lump of darkness congregated on the palm, then lashed out in a flash. The darkness slithered like a snake in the air as if it had a life of its own. It gave off the feeling that anyone who crossed eyes with it would have their very soul restrained!

The shotgun-wielder screamed loudly. He knew that he definitely couldn"t let this thing touch him. However, Sheyan"s "Beast of Corrosion" had locked-on to his soul in an instant. Although the shotgun-wielder struggled and ran away in a frenzy, the "Beast of Corrosion" still caught up to him after about eight meters. It bore fiercely into his body!

Originally, the "Beast of Corrosion" was a tactical weapon which must be used cautiously like nuclear weapons. That"s because it must be fed with Sheyan"s own flesh and blood! It took 80-800 points of his HP, plus it could only be used under the "Poison Monarch" state. Switching from "Pestilence Monarch" to "Poison Monarch" would consume a further 30% of his HP. If he struck the jackpot of 800 HP, he would be half dead before he even attacked!

Now, after the "Stairway of the Sun" had swallowed the clone"s "Stairway of the Sun", Sheyan obtained the special effect of having the negative effects halved. The use of "Beast of Corrosion" would only take 40-400 points of his HP, and the HP consumption when switching was also reduced to 15%.

For the current Sheyan whose HP had now soared to over 4,000 points with extra defence, the "Beast of Corrosion" had become an acceptable common-use weapon. After all, Sheyan also had the "Gloryheal" ability supporting him, which was his advantage compared to other partic.i.p.ants.

The expression of the shotgun-wielder instantly paled after he was. .h.i.t by "Beast of Corrosion". His body flashed with the use of an honorary dosage! There was extreme fear in his eyes when he looked at Sheyan. He knew that if Sheyan"s next attack was an explosive hit, he would fall into near-death!

Contestants can gamble with anything, but they would never gamble with their life unless they were in a hopeless situation!

At that moment, Sheyan felt the sensation of cold steel on his back, followed by a warm, searing pain; a sabre had cut into his flesh. Next, he felt a strong force binding his legs and made him stumble. It was probably the short sabre-wielder using his ability in his anger.

What followed was a deafening explosion and a blazing fire. Sheyan"s HP fell madly. But even so, he still had close to 3000 HP remaining!

After Sheyan became a Growth Hunter, he had turned into a monster. The loss of HP from using the "Beast of Corrosion" and switching to "Poison Monarch" amounted to around 800 points. The sabre-wielder had a total of 14 seconds to attack Sheyan. Under the protection of the 40% rule, he was still able to shave off almost 500 points of Sheyan"s HP in such a short period. His attack power could already be considered very strong.

The doubling of all pure attributes after becoming a Growth Hunter was truly life-changing!

Sheyan rolled on the ground a few times to put out the flame on his body. When he raised his head, he found that K had climbed out from the corpse freezer cabinet, violently coughing.

On his fingers was a silver weapon that was so tiny that it looked like a toy. But when he took a shot, the power of the blow was strong enough to make Sheyan feel the threat of death!

The partic.i.p.ant who had been attacking Sheyan was sent flying for over 30 meters, cras.h.i.+ng into the wall and leaving in it a huge human-shaped hole! He had a small round dark gold s.h.i.+eld in his hand. The brilliance on the s.h.i.+eld had dimmed. Cracks had formed all over the s.h.i.+eld starting from a dent in the centre!

It was obvious that the dark gold s.h.i.+eld had blocked most of the impact from K"s shot! The power of the MIB"s weapons were strong, more than what most Growth Hunters, and even Awakeners, could handle. After all, even powerful aliens would be shot into pieces taking attacks from the MIB"s weapons head on!

"Someone who uses a small dark gold s.h.i.+eld….and a short dark gold sabre with a sawtooth edge," Sheyan coughed a few times, and suddenly came to a realisation:

"He"s not an Agility-type a.s.sa.s.sin. Agility-type contestants can"t master s.h.i.+eld Proficiency. He"s a Strength-type berserker! He"s obviously hiding his strength. It"s impossible for a berserker to not master Dual-wield Proficiency. He"s only using the sabre-s.h.i.+eld combination because he"s temporarily cooperating with another person!"

Sheyan frowned when he saw the guy trying to run away. He was about to give chase when he suddenly heard a strange noise coming from the side. A videotape flas.h.i.+ng a red-hot glow flew in from the window and turned into a fierce robot dog made of steel alloy. It pounced towards Sheyan and bit ferociously, intercepting his path.

The robot dog was honestly a very troublesome opponent. Its exterior was made of steel. Sheyan"s attack would be more effective if his blade could somehow turn into a hammer. In addition, the dog was very agile. It was very good at b.u.t.ting the enemy with its head to make the enemy fall down. It could also eject two blades from its waist, so even when Sheyan dodged its strike, he was still easily hurt by the blades. They produced two long wounds on Sheyan back that bled profusely.

The opponent apparently did not intend to kill Sheyan by relying on the robot dog. It"s purpose was only to keep Sheyan"s hands full. A trace of cold flashed across Sheyan"s eyes. He suddenly rolled forward a few times and launched a series of provocative attacks on the robot dog. The angered robot dog pounced and the sharp blades once again protruded out from its waist like a pair of wings. But Sheyan suddenly sat down on the ground!

The robot dog obviously won"t miss this opportunity. It opened its mouth and bit onto the arm Sheyan stretched out to block. However, this action, which was the best course of action it could take under the circ.u.mstances, led to a painful scream!

The blades that were ejected from the waist of the robot dog unintentionally killed Dr. Anna, the important storyline character who could be considered the female lead in Men in Black 1 !!

(TL: The female protagonist in the MIB movie is actually called Dr. Laurel Weaver. But since the author wrote Anna, we"re gonna roll with Anna.)

Sheyan already knew by now that there was not much benefit to be gained from killing fragile but extremely important storyline characters like Anna. The realm did not encourage this kind of behaviour.

There were many disadvantages in doing this. The b.u.t.terfly effect caused by Anna"s death would definitely lead to the appearance of the protagonist.

Sheyan could already guess that, with the death of this stunning beauty, the main protagonist, J may very well become involved in the investigation as an officer of the NYPD!

Being an enemy of the protagonist in the b.l.o.o.d.y World – a protagonist that was with an official government agency at that – was definitely not a good thing. This could be considered Sheyan"s revenge on those who attacked him!

Sheyan slowly climbed up from the ground and loosened his muscles a little. Blood began to trickle onto the floor from the various wounds on his body. Soon, it formed a dark red pool of blood on the ground. This kind of injury may be serious for ordinary people, but for him, they were just superficial wounds.

Sheyan stood still and nonchalantly wiped the blood on him, cutting a formidable figure with the various cuts and openings on his body. He looked as if he would never fall down as long as the earth remain standing!

K was stunned for a while. He then got up from the ground, aimed his toy-like tiny gun at Sheyan, and asked:

“Which galaxy did you come from?”

Apparently, K no longer regarded Sheyan as an Earthling.

Sheyan turned and looked at him coldly:

“That"s not important, Agent K. Is this how you treat someone who just saved your life? I knew I shouldn"t have saved you. I should"ve let you be cut in two like Anna and scream in agony for five minutes before you die.”

K ignored Sheyan"s words. He still held the gun calmly with both hands, and said:

“Tell me your name, your birthplace, and your alien pa.s.s number.”

“What the h.e.l.l!” cried Sheyan furiously:

“Was my action just now not enough to show you which side I"m on? Fine then, shoot me. Agent K, if you"re a qualified agent, you should remember that there"s only one hour and twenty minutes before your home is blown up, and you"re aiming your gun at the only person who can find the d.a.m.n Galaxy! Go on, shoot me!”

Even the experienced K could do nothing facing Sheyan"s blatant shamelessness. This was also the saddest part about asking someone for help. K finally put down his gun, slowly. He stared at Sheyan and said:

“Where should we go now?”

Sheyan thought about it and answered seriously:

“First of all, you should contact headquarters and let them send the prince"s body back. Hopefully that will buy us some extra time from the d.a.m.n Arquillians. Secondly, ask your technicians to send me a copy of the information on your current energy weapons.”

K contacted the headquarters without saying anything after hearing Sheyan"s first request, but when he heard the second request, he was visibly shocked. He seemed to have understood something:

“Impossible! We"ve signed a non-disclosure agreement; we"re unable to disclose these information to third parties – and what do you want the technology for?”

“That"s for me to worry about,” Sheyan smiled and said, “I now find that the difficulty of this MIB case I accepted is beyond my expectation. I have the right to ask for more.”

K"s eyes turned cold:

“Impossible.”

Sheyan sighed:

“Fine, the deal"s over. You can continue to hunt me down.”

When Sheyan was about to walk away, K"s reply was quite straightforward:

“If you take one step, I swear to G.o.d, I will bust your head open!”

Sheyan just shrugged:

“Then you can say goodbye to the Galaxy. Okay, okay, we"ll continue our deadlock here, the Earth will be destroyed in a few dozen minutes anyway.”

“Before that happens, I will bust your head open!” said K firmly.

Sheyan said in a serious tone:

“To tell you the truth, K, you can"t do that! Fine, I can give up on the weapon designs. You guys killed someone not long ago who had a blood-red sheepskin scroll on him, right? I request that you give me this scroll as an extra reward.”

K considered this for a long time. He gave a call to his superior, and finally nodded.

Sheyan was clearly retreating in order to advance! What use was the information on the energy weapons of the MIB to him? No use at all! Not to mention that it was something the MIB would never trade away.

Therefore, K could only refuse. But when Sheyan was rejected, he made another new request. So it made sense that K would weigh the importance between the energy weapons technology and the blood-red sheepskin scroll. The scroll would seem useless in comparison. Multiple experts had spent a lot of time and energy in appraising the scroll but had found nothing useful. He had already subconsciously approved Sheyan request before he even made the call.

This is a negotiation tactic. If Sheyan asked for the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter straightaway, things wouldn"t have progressed so smoothly.

Three kilometers away, the shotgun-wielder and berserker were fleeing in a car.

The berserker was driving while the shotgun-wielder was lost in thought in the back row. He suddenly gnashed his teeth:

“That b.a.s.t.a.r.d is way too strong. His HP and defence are almost on par with MTs. What"s even more frightening is that at least 70% of this guy"s attack power was exempt from the protection rule and directly applied on me without undergoing the 40% weakening! Fcking h.e.l.l! Fcking h.e.l.l!”

“Shut up, Murdoch. I don"t remember you being someone who lost the will to fight so easily.” The berserker kept his dark gold short sabre back on his waist. There was a sharp turn in front so he stepped on the brake to try to slow down.

“Easy for you to say, Lion. Wait, I just realised something. While I was risking my life in front, you were f*cking attacking him with a sabre and a s.h.i.+eld? Do you think this is funny? That"s how you treat the opportunity that I risked my life to create?” questioned Murdoch angrily.

Lion waited for a while before he faintly said:

“If I didn"t have my s.h.i.+eld, I would have been killed by K"s shot. Plus, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s HP probably exceeded three thousand, and he has a Major rank. I suspect that he"s the core MT of a large party! When this kind of person is armed to the teeth, they have abnormally high defence. It doesn"t matter if I wield two or even three sabres, it"s absolutely impossible to take him down in a short time.”

The shotgun-wielder, Murdoch shouted:

“There"s no way he"s an MT! The highest single damage he caused on me was over 600 points (explosive hit). Even a full-power hit from the chief warlock in our party can"t achieve such terrifying single-attack damage! If an MT"s attack power is that strong, how can we survive?”

Lion was obviously frustrated too. He said with a frown:

“I can"t believe we met this kind of monster. But it seems that Agility isn"t his strong point, or he would"ve chased us!”

“That"s not all!” Murdoch continued to shout. “When I was fighting with him, I got a chest pain and my lungs felt like they were rotting. My lungs, that are normally as powerful as two hippos! The symptoms stopped when I got away from him. I could hear you cough too.”

Lion frowned and said thoughtfully:

“It really was as you said. d.a.m.n it! We should"ve gathered more information on him before we made a move.”

At this time, a car pulled up from the side so that the two cars moved in parallel. The other driver took off his sungla.s.ses to reveal a face Sheyan was slightly familiar with. That"s right, this guy was the poor man"s version of Soundwave (from Transformers), the one with the Transformer tapes and was proficient in both summoning and sniping. He once forced Aziz into a corner, unable to retaliate, and only retreated when he was forced by Sheyan"s disease.

“Hey, Gusten. You were the last to leave. What was the situation in the end? Since your robot dog and your Laserbeak can resurrect indefinitely, you should have caused them some trouble, right?”

These three had obviously formed an alliance, so they did not attack each other when they met. Gusten"s face was pale and his lips were trembling. He seemed to be in great shock.

“Hey, what"s wrong with you?” the other two asked him.

Gusten heaved a long sigh and gnashed his teeth:

“I fell into the idiot"s trap. He had planned for it from the start. He took advantage of the flexibility of the robot dog to make me kill the woman, Anna by mistake! Great! I immediately became wanted by every law enforcement in New York. They set up a department to coordinate the operation, and the one in charge of the operation is J!”

Lion and Murdoch exchanged glances. They were quite sympathetic with Gusten. They knew that being entangled in such an unfortunate incident was very unfavorable for his subsequent time in the b.l.o.o.d.y World.

Lion then had a careful discussion with Murdoch. They felt that Sheyan"s strength should be above theirs, but they could still get rid of him if they fight him 2v1. However, it would result in one of them dying! Obviously, no one wanted to be the one sacrificing himself. Just as they were going to give up, Gusten told them while gritting his teeth:

“Let"s wait for a while longer. If I"m not wrong, they should be facing a bigger crisis now!”

(TL: This is bonus chapter #2 for October. Enjoy! And thanks for the patreon support!)

“Crisis?” After hearing Gusten"s words , Lion and Murdoch asked, “What kind of crisis?”

Gusten replied with a pale face:

“You don"t have a holographic 3D perception rendering ability like me, so it"s understandable that you don"t know about this.”

Gusten stopped the car, then extended his hands in front of him. A topographic map of the nearby area like the one in the base in Avatar gradually appeared. It displayed the area dozens of kilometers around them in 3D.

Gusten had a dual-proficiency in summoning and sniper. Add to that his ability to draw maps, and he becomes someone very useful in both solo and team battles. No wonder he was selected to become a partic.i.p.ant.

“Look at this,”said Gusten coldly. “This is the the New York city morgue. There are three routes leading there. Pay attention to this parking lot. Do you see anything strange?”

Lion nodded and said:

“These three cars were all the same model. It seems a bit strange.”

Gusten coldly stated:

“It"s not that strange. The back of all three cars have an "M" logo, and the acronym of the Men in Black is MIB. Although the models of these three cars are old, their internal structure is pretty amazing. Each car can hold up to eight people, and they all have the same standard. What does that remind you of?”

“The three cars contain….reinforcements that K and the guy called Seaman brought?” wondered Lion, “But when we were fighting, those guys didn"t show up. Did they run away?”

“That"s impossible. All MIB agents are elites that have been brain-washed. Even death won"t make them back down!” said Gusten faintly. “The reason they left K without saying a word was because they saw something that caught their full attention…..and then, they were completely annihilated!”

“What could it be?” Lion wondered.

Gusten pointed at a spot on the map. The three of them sucked in a cold breath at the same time.

“If that"s the case, it"s definitely worth the wait.”

“Okay. The b.l.o.o.d.y sheepskin scroll? Yes, yes…..That"s it.”

Sheyan watched as K finished his conversation on the phone. His face was very solemn, but in his heart he was very excited. He felt that his objective was finally achieved.

K stared at Sheyan after the phone call. His face was very solemn, but in his heart he was very relieved. He felt that he had negotiated the greatest return at the smallest cost.

The two men stood there, each to their own thoughts. Sheyan had succeeded so it"s time to show his usefulness. He took the initiative to approach K and said:

“The current situation is obvious. There are only 2 possible outcomes regarding Jones the Bug King. One, he gets the Galaxy. Two, he doesn"t get the Galaxy.”

K nodded:

“Right.”

Sheyan smiled and said:

“According to the information I have, Mr. Jones"s s.p.a.cecraft was heavily damaged when he landed. Even if he gets the Galaxy, he must first find a way to return to his country — wait, no, it should be to his planet.”

Upon hearing this piece of news, K"s eyes lit up. He immediately grabbed Sheyan and asked:

“Is this for real?”

Sheyan laughed:

“I never lie.”

K started to mumble to himself:

“The focus of our plan should be the prince"s home, his shop, and the morgue. Besides that, we must strictly monitor all places with known functional s.p.a.cecrafts.”

Sheyan nodded and said:

“Remember to destroy the flying saucers on the World"s Fair too. Also, I can provide Mr. Jones"s s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p fragments to prove that he can"t flee in the short term. I believe that can buy us some more time from the Arquillians.”

(TN note: 

K looked up and stared at Sheyan:

“How do you know that the flying saucers on the World"s Fair are real?”

Sheyan smiled and said nothing. K said while looking thoughtful:

“Are you targeting that group of aliens who fled to Earth to escape political persecution? Please, they"ve completely lost their value! Don"t you show me that innocent face…..”

Sheyan abruptly interrupted K"s accusation:

“Let"s not waste time. Punctuality is very important to the Arquillians. We must hurry so that they can give us a bit more time, otherwise…. What is that?”

A man who walked with an unsteady gait had suddenly appeared at the door. There is an obvious weirdness in the way he moved his limbs. K squinted his eyes:

“That"s Bardrov of team A ….. at least, he used to be!”

K instinctively fired his gun and the guy was immediately smashed into smithereens. However, a large number of bugs crawled out from the remains of his body and moved towards the both of them. Sheyan tore down the curtain beside him to let sunlight s.h.i.+ne onto his body. "Corrosynthesis" successfully blasted the bugs into pieces.

But right afterwards, two controlled Bugmen appeared at the door. K was starting to regret the fact that he did not bring a rapid-fire gun with him. The gun in his hand now was powerful but the interval between shots was quite long. Under normal circ.u.mstances, the energy box would be depleted after 4 shots within a minute.

Sheyan suddenly shouted:

“K, I heard that your driving skills are excellent.”

K immediately understood what Sheyan meant. He turned around and jumped out of a window to get to a car, but right after he broke through the window, two antennae hit him on his chest and sent him back. As K struggled to climb up from the ground, his hand furiously wiped at his s.h.i.+rt that was full of sticky mucus.

The next instant, a huge bug broke the wall and walked in. It looked like a c.o.c.kroach that was dipped in a spoonful of strawberry jam, magnified by a thousand times. There were sharp barbs on its feet. This was the final form of Jones the Bug King. It bellowed from its fat belly.

“Hand over the Galaxy, Earthlings!”

Then, Jones looked at Sheyan:

“Why are you here? Did you come for the Galaxy too?”

Instead of answering, K aimed his gun at Jones the Bug King. However, the reaction of Jones was fast. An antenna suddenly shot out from his mouth to wrap around K"s wrist and took the gun away. Jones then swallowed the gun! It even licked its lips in satisfaction. It looked as disgusting as a lizard hunting with its sticky tongue.

“Without a weapon, your threat is reduced to an insignificant level,” lamented Sheyan, “But I guess you should have a spare weapon in the car. I"ll give you 30 seconds to retrieve the weapon. Then can you come back and save me?”

K looked deep into Sheyan"s eyes:

“You"re placing too much confidence in this old frame of mine.”

Despite saying that, K was already running towards the door. Jones the Bug King roared angrily and instantly chased after K, but Sheyan blocked its path.

Jones stretched out a front leg. A rapid pumping of fluid akin to a hydraulic pump was visible underneath the translucent carapace. It suddenly shot out with a high-speed spin like a giant drill bit, accompanied by a harsh scream. The attacking method of this strange alien was truly unpredictable.

Sheyan blocked with his right arm and took the attack head on. The impact caused him to black out for a moment and spat out a huge amount of blood. His internal organs had also received severe damage. He was flung back by almost five meters. Although Sheyan thought highly of himself, he had to admit that he had lost that round! The power of Jones" attack was far beyond his imagination! Not only that, his right arm was also hanging at a weird angle. It seemed that his forearm was broken.

Sheyan wasn"t one who would take things lying down. When he was kicked, he had also thrusted out his sabre to counterattack. The result of the counterattack surprised him. His blade directly pierced into the body of the Bug King without feeling any resistance!

Jones issued a series of painful screams!

“So that"s how it is….” Sheyan came to a realisation, “Jones is of the high attack, low defence archetype.”

Now that he knew Jones" weakness, Sheyan immediately summoned the dark gold leech to block Jones, then slashed the front left leg of the giant bug. A pale yellow liquid splashed onto "+7 West", producing some foul-smelling smoke. Apparently, Jones" body fluid was highly acidic. The grade of Sheyan"s weapon was too low to resist such strong erosion. It"s durability continued to drop.

Although Sheyan had kept Jones busy, K still had a very hard time escaping.

That"s because Jones had suddenly raised his fat b.u.t.t like an angry mantis. At the end of its b.u.t.t were over a dozen transparent threads. The threads seemed to exist in another dimension. They could ignore all the obstacles in the current dimension and connect directly to the Bugmen Jones controlled!

These Bugmen servants were the MIB agents brought by Sheyan. About five of them flocked to K. Their movements were no longer as sluggish as ordinary Bugmen – they were strangely agile. They would occasionally show their red, slender forked tongue. Sheyan was held up by Jones and couldn"t go over to help.

At this time of crisis, the sound of gunshots rang in the air!

Dull, precise, monotonous gunshots!

As the emotionless gunshots sounded, the five or so Bugmen who had already reached a few meters behind K stopped at the same time. They stood still for a few seconds, then their heads burst, forming a vast b.l.o.o.d.y mist.

There was no doubt that their heads had burst open due to gunshots, but the bullets moved like ghosts with no visible trajectory at all. It was as if the bullets disappeared right after being shot, then appeared directly in the head!

This kind of shooting technique!

A lot of small bugs could be seen dancing inside the b.l.o.o.d.y fog spreading from the broken heads, seemingly trying to spread toxins and diseases to the surrounding. The headless bodies were still standing in place while a large number of bugs swarmed out from their neck sections, looking as if they would cover the whole place.

However, another bullet was shot from faraway which exploded in the air. A fierce flame engulfed the bugs and burned them down from the air.

“Wow, that guy would actually lend a hand?” Sheyan knew that Aziz was most likely spying on his actions from afar, but he still felt a little puzzled that Aziz would rescue K.

But he soon realised that Aziz also held two b.l.o.o.d.y invitations letters like him. Obviously, he was also targeted by those who had not obtained any invitations letters.

Aziz might display an image of being powerful, proud and aloof, but he was definitely not inflexible! If he was, he would never had survived until now in the cruel nightmare realm!

Aziz had no other help at the moment. He needed all the potential “help” he could get. In Aziz"s opinion, the MIB organisation was much more reliable than Sheyan. It was not difficult for him to put in a few shots at this moment, and he could use this chance to get on the good side of the MIB. So, why not?

K successfully ran to the car with the support from Sheyan and Aziz. With a single push of the key, the old Cadillac instantly extended four mechanical legs from the side and raised its entire body by one meter. Then, it ejected a drawer-like platform from the bottom. Five futuristic silver firearms were placed neatly on the platform.

Jones the Bug King was still looking to counterattack. Its fat b.u.t.t shook again and shot out a crystal thread which attached itself on K"s right leg. It appeared to be a trap that he had long set up. The crystal thread looked strong and sticky. It pulled K up and hung him upside down in the air. It was impossible for K to aim a shot in this position.

At this time, Aziz struck again! With a simple shot, he easily broke the crystal thread!!!!

The shot may look simple, but Sheyan knew that Aziz must have paid a huge price for that shot. That"s because Sheyan could see the clouds on the sky mysteriously forming into a huge, terrible whirlpool, and right below the vortex was the spot where Aziz was located! This shot had ignited the energy of heaven and earth, and had affected even the elements in the environment.

Not only that, but a few seconds after the shot broke the crystal thread, Sheyan felt a huge pressure a.s.saulting his eardrums, causing him extreme pain. The air seemed to have been fiercely compressed, and had only burst out with power now. Sheyan felt the shock down to his core.

Even the noise and airflow caused by the gunshot was so terrifying. From this, one could see the majestic force behind Aziz"s ordinary shot! Sheyan couldn"t help but think of Mogensha. Although Brother Black was very strong, he was still quite some distance behind Aziz.

After the shot broke the crystal thread, Jones issued a painful moan. A large amount of fluid that may be either blood or body fluid gushed out from the section of the crystal thread that stuck to K"s foot, as if it was a severed umbilical cord. Next, the Bug turned around, smashed the pillar next to it, and ran away.

The morgue had previously been hit hard, and now the only pillar standing was smashed. The whole building started collapsing! Dust filled the air. K could only put down the weapon he was ready to fire. After all, he wasn"t sure if there were any survivors in the morgue. The power of the alien energy weapon was simply too strong, so K wouldn"t dare open fire if he couldn"t see the target.

“Sigh, who knows when we"ll get the chance to kill him again if we let him run away this time!” lamented K. He looked at the bodies that were infiltrated by the Bugs with a sad and helpless look in his eyes. These dead people were all elites of the MIB.

Jones the Bug King cleverly used itself as bait to lure these inexperienced boys to go out and surround him. Unbeknownst to them, Jones had already secreted his threads on the ground. The agents were restricted by the crystal threads and none of them survived. They were all transformed into Bugmen!

At this moment, a cold voice suddenly appeared not far away:

“I told n.o.bo before that you Earthlings are too reliant on weapons to fight. Earthlings with weapons could be cla.s.sified as Cla.s.s G dangerous creatures, but without weapons, you can"t even handle Cla.s.s A dangerous creatures. Seems like n.o.bo hadn"t listened to me.”

Sheyan could instantly tell it was the voice of Aziz. The powerful and arrogant man walked in and extended his hand to K:

“I"m Aziz, a friend of n.o.bo"s who came to Earth 21 years ago. If I"m not mistaken, the one who ran away should be a Bug, right? How is n.o.bo? Although humans have a short lifespan, twenty years should not be a long time.”

K hesitated a little, but still extended his hand in return:

“I am K. Mr. n.o.bo that you mentioned is doing very well, but I don"t think he"ll remember you now.”

Aziz pulled out a badge-like object with the letter A on it:

“This is a gift that n.o.bo gave me before he left. I know that people from the MIB are very suspicious, so let me take the initiative to prove my ident.i.ty.”

After seeing the badge, K finally showed a look of trust. He smiled and said:

“Yes, this is indeed a friend medal which A gave away. Mr. Aziz, I regret to inform you that I was telling you the truth. n.o.bo retired seven years ago. In our business, we will erase all the experiences related to our work before we retire.”

“He was fascinated with a beauty with black hair and black eyes, so he gave up on the job to pursue his own happiness. A now has a family with an annual income of 700,000 euros, two kids and 20 days of paid leave per year. He is living a very happy life. If you don"t mind, allow me to show you around after I solve the problem of the destruction of the Earth, as a friend of n.o.bo.”

“The Earth is about to be destroyed?” Aziz pretended to be surprised.

K shrugged:

“We don"t have much time. I"ll tell you the details while I drive. Oh right, this is the mysterious Seaman, he"s a.s.sisting me right now.”

Aziz stared at Sheyan coldly and stated:

“I"m sorry, I don"t like him at all.”

K laughed and said:

“I am of the same opinion.”

Sheyan: “…”

The three of them soon returned to the MIB"s headquarters. The combination of Aziz and Sheyan, plus the X-factor K, deterred Lion, Murdoch and Gusten who were waiting eagerly to pounce on their way back! In the event of a conflict, the three of them were only slightly stronger than Sheyan"s group. They were also suspicious of each other still, so how could they display their full power?

After returning to the headquarters, K instantly contacted the Arquillian battle cruiser. He submitted an application for the transfer of the prince"s corpse. The request was granted. Then, K asked for the fragment of Jones" s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p from Sheyan to prove that Jones had lost his s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and would have difficulty escaping Earth in the near future.

Sheyan took out the engine fragment – the most important part of the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p – but he held it in his hand and refused to hand it over. K was very annoyed and reached out to s.n.a.t.c.h it, but he couldn"t overcome Sheyan"s strength. Sheyan leisurely said:

“I"ve already shown you what you want, but I haven"t seen what I want.”

K glared at Sheyan. If eyes could kill, Sheyan would be dead ten times over. He probably would have pointed his gun at Sheyan if he could. But in the end, he snorted and said:

“Fine!”

K made a call and a man came in holding a tray like a waiter. Both Aziz"s and Sheyan"s eyes were glued to the tray.

That"s right, on the tray was an invitation letter that emitted a b.l.o.o.d.y glow! That texture, that appearance, it was exactly the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter that Sheyan and Aziz both yearned for!

Sheyan looked triumphantly in Aziz"s direction and extended his hand. The wretched and shameless look on his face was beyond words. But K had finally found a chance to display his authority. He slapped the back of the Sheyan"s hand with his gun and said in satisfaction:

“The engine fragment?”

Sheyan reluctantly retracted his hand and summoned Jinkuang to take a piece of engine fragment from him. K waited until the technical department had finished their appraisal before he gave Sheyan the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter. Aziz looked terrible. He could only watch helplessly as the object of his desire was taken by others. It was really frustrating.

Sheyan"s greedily s.n.a.t.c.hed the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter. A feeling of relief washed over him. With this b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter, he had collected all 3 that he required. He was now as free as a bird in the sky, as free as a fish in water! He could advance and retreat at will!

After Sheyan had collected three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters, his body glowed blood red. The three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters stacked together neatly in his personal s.p.a.ce. The light they emitted became stronger and more mysterious, while a sharp smell of blood permeated through the air. The ordinary receptionist next to Sheyan sneezed and dry-coughed a few times before he hastily excused himself. When he came back, his face was so pale that he looked as if he had just recovered from a serious illness.

Sheyan received a series of notifications:

[Contestant No. 1018, congratulations on collecting three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters. You can now choose to go to the designated location to return to the realm, or stay to explore the b.l.o.o.d.y World and try to get more b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters.”]

[Warning: Unknown variables may occur if you obtain more b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters.]

[Signal disturbance, signal disturbance….Please wait!]

It was the first time Sheyan encountered this problem. He could only wait patiently. Fortunately, the disturbance did not last long. He soon received further emotionless notifications:

[Contestant No. 1018, the one conversing with you right now is Noah Realm C that you belong to. You can use your nightmare imprint to authenticate my ident.i.ty. The nightmare imprint of every contestant is split from the soul of the Noah Realm they belong too. The imprint and the realm were originally one, so there is a special bond between them.]

Sheyan immediately did so. He found that his nightmare imprint was pulsating weirdly. More importantly, the power he was conversing with felt very familiar to him. It was the power protecting the alien chamber below the Statue of Liberty when he was having his breakthrough trial, which stopped Hakeem from hurting him.

After Sheyan verified its ident.i.ty, Noah Realm C issued a notification:

[You and Aziz have achieved an impressive accomplishment in the b.l.o.o.d.y World. The two of you have obtained a total of five b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters. This is a glorious, unprecedented achievement. Therefore, I broke through the restriction of the rules here with no heed to the energy it cost me to issue a special mission for you two. If you complete the mission, you will receive a generous reward.]

[You will obtain the F-level Golden Side Mission: “Collect”]

[Mission Description: Every b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letter is extremely valuable to any Noah Realm. The Noah Realm both of you belong to is currently in urgent need of 7 b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters.]

[Mission Objective: Get seven b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters for Noah Realm C before this world ends.]

[Mission Time Limit: The same as the time limit for the b.l.o.o.d.y World mission.]

[Mission Reward: Guaranteed reward (30 achievement points) + random draws]

[Mission Failure Punishment: You will be deprived of the reward you should receive for this world.]

[Do you want to accept the mission?]

This was the first time Sheyan saw something like this so he sneakily turned his head to observe Aziz. He was sure that Aziz had also received this mission, so he was hoping to get some hints from Aziz"s reaction. Unfortunately, Sheyan was left disappointed. All Sheyan saw was Aziz"s poker face and his cold eyes as he turned around to look back at Sheyan. It was obvious that Aziz had the same idea.

The two people looked at each other coldly. Obviously, this was a mission that required the both of them to cooperate. If either of them decided not to work together, it would spell disaster! The mission notification was also very sly. It merely asked for seven b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters for Noah Realm C.

It meant that the mission would be completed regardless of whether Sheyan brought back 4 while Aziz brought back 3, or Sheyan brought back 6 while Aziz brought back 1. The mission would be completed even if Sheyan alone brought back 7!

Sheyan had completed a Golden Side Mission before; it was even a Golden Side Mission that had a C-difficulty, which was higher than this one. Of course, he completely relied on the Blackthorn to complete that mission, otherwise any legendary beast could have killed him.

Sheyan"s strength had improved by leaps and bounds since then. With Aziz"s help, it wasn"t impossible to complete this F-difficulty Golden Side Mission.

The crucial problem was how to ensure Aziz"s cooperation, and make sure that Aziz would not give him a shot from the back at the most critical moment…..

Obviously, Aziz was also considering the same problem. What if Sheyan betrayed him at a critical moment?

Rewards are nice, but staying alive was more important!

Aziz finally could no longer hold himself back. He started to communicate with Sheyan with his hoa.r.s.e voice through the nightmare imprint:

“30 achievement points are very important to me. Although it"s the lowest difficulty Golden Side Mission, the unique reward from a Golden Side Mission will definitely fetch a good price.”

Sheyan smiled and simply said:

“Yup, I know, because I"ve already completed a C-level Golden Side Mission – albeit with the lowest degree of completion. But I understand what you"re saying.”

“…You"re insane. Fine. State your terms.”

Aziz was intrigued. Think of how insanely difficult it was for Sheyan to trigger the Golden Side Mission back in the Avatar world. Most of the people did not even meet the prerequisite requirement to trigger the Golden Side Mission before they returned to the realm, or died. The difficulty of obtaining such missions was apparent.

This time, the Golden Side Mission was issued to just two people, which lowered its difficulty. More people didn"t necessarily mean an easier time. When there were more people partic.i.p.ating, there would be a higher chance of something going wrong. Just ask any World of Warcraft player whether a 5-player dungeon or a 40-player dungeon was easier…..

Secondly, Aziz also realised that this is a low-difficulty F-level Golden Side Mission – probably the lowest difficulty among Golden Side Missions. This was a great chance that was akin to winning the lottery, although this lottery could kill.

Therefore, Aziz very reluctantly spoke first even though he understood that the one who spoke first would not hold the advantage in the negotiation.

Sheyan contemplated for a moment before proclaiming very seriously:

“Mr. Aziz, the lowest difficulty Golden Side Mission is still a Golden Side Mission, just like how the weakest tiger is still a tiger! You must understand that realm return items can"t be used in this world which greatly increases the risk of death. We must first establish mutual trust if we are to accept this mission. If we keep being suspicious of each other, we will die for sure!”

“I know,” Aziz said with a gloomy face. “So what do you suggest?”

Sheyan smiled and said:

“Trust cannot be built with just words, but must be built step by step. If we accept this mission, we must pay attention to this. Fortunately, the punishment for failure is not too severe, so we can afford to spend some time to get familiar with each other. If we really can"t do it then we can only give up.”

Aziz snorted. Sheyan took that as an affirmative. It is wise to take some time to observe the performance of the other party first. The two finally accepted this mission. Driven by ma.s.sive interests, two people who would stop at nothing to kill each other 2 worlds ago were now comrade-in-arms. Fate is such a wonderful thing!

At that moment, K walked back to them with a happy expression and said:

“Good news! The Arquillians agreed to our request. They unanimously agreed to give us another 48 hours to resolve the problem and promised to pay full attention to any alien s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p that flew from Earth. ”

“But they also gave us a reminder. Jones the Bug King is a very dangerous creature. If he wants to, he can expand his strength several times over in a short amount of time by creating a large number of Bugmen puppets. Therefore, we must eradicate it as soon as possible before things get worse, regardless of whether he has the Galaxy.”

Ahem Sheyan coughed to draw attention to himself and slowly said: “Mr. K, our agreement was to find the Galaxy. I"m not obligated to help you kill such a dangerous creature.”

Aziz simply said:

“I"m willing to help for n.o.bo"s sake.”

The att.i.tudes displayed by the two were in stark contrast of one another.

K"s gaze towards Aziz turned friendlier while his gaze towards Sheyan turned even sharper. There"s nothing Sheyan could do about it. His Charm value was low so he could only be as stingy as possible to maximise his profit. He could not contend with Aziz who had decent Charm and had laid a good relations.h.i.+p foundation.

After some bargaining, the two sides finally reached an agreement. K said coldly:

“The MIB have obtained the highest level of authorisation to conduct a nationwide search for Jones for the next twenty-four hours. Once he is found, we will be the one handling him. The Galaxy is most probably on him so we must handle this seriously. Your job is to come when you"re summoned and fight for glory, money and women. Of course, you may die!”

When the two of them were enjoying their 5th cup of free coffee in the MIB, K rushed in and shouted:

“Boys, we have a situation. I want to see you two in the Cadillac with your seatbelts on in two minutes! We"re less than twenty kilometers away from the crime scene, so we must hurry!”

To be honest, both Sheyan and Aziz would rather rest in the MIB headquarters.

According to their calculation, the next Blood Sensing was arriving soon and would last for up to two hours! No one knew what the rest of the partic.i.p.ants would do, so there was no doubt that staying in the MIB headquarters was the best choice. After all, to launch an attack here was equivalent to provoking the United States of America. That"s not something to be taken lightly even for the partic.i.p.ants.

After Sheyan had collected three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters, he could see six clearly marked locations throughout New York City. As long as Sheyan brought three Invitation Letters there, he could return to the realm. He figured that as long as he stayed there, no partic.i.p.ants would dare to exert pressure on him.

Of course, everyone who was qualified to partic.i.p.ate in the b.l.o.o.d.y World was smart. Since Sheyan and Aziz could team up, so could the other partic.i.p.ants. In fact, they had no choice but to do so because the teaming up of Aziz and Sheyan was an external factor that was extremely terrifying – they felt that they would die for sure if they did not team up. Under such pressure, they knew what they had to do.

Will this transform the b.l.o.o.d.y World into a large-scale team battle?

Of course not. The foundation of team battle was the team. However, these partic.i.p.ants were all extremely arrogant people. Even if they had teamed up, they were not sincerely cooperating. While they had become closer to each other after becoming temporary companions, they had also undoubtedly shortened the distance to attack other partic.i.p.ants!

Even Sheyan and Aziz who were forcefully brought together by their realm under the promise of huge interests were still extremely wary of one another. Imagine how fragile the alliances between the other contestants were.

When K saw the reluctance of Sheyan and Aziz to mobilise, his expression gradually turned dark. Sheyan"s image in K"s eyes was already terrible so Sheyan didn"t care if it got worse. On the other hand, Aziz had to hide his bitterness. In order to maintain his image in K"s heart, he could only say:

“Okay, I"m coming right away.”

After the two of them jumped into the Cadillac, K finally showed them a powerful alien technology in order to save some time. The car completely overturned the Earth"s gravity. It first travelled a few kilometers on the side wall of the tunnel, then travelled another few kilometers on the ceiling of the tunnel!

When they arrived at the crime scene, they could already smell a strong smell of blood from the street! Many of the pa.s.sers-by who stopped to see what happened were fiercely vomiting. K"s expression turned even uglier. Sheyan and Aziz immediately realised that this was not the work of Jones. Warm blood and fresh bodies were the best nutrients to cultivate more Bugs, so he would never waste these things.

Sheyan was constantly thinking of how they could quickly return to the MIB headquarters, so when he saw this situation, he was immediately energised:

“This definitely was not done by Jones, so it"s none of my business. We should immediately go back to the headquarters and wait for news. Don"t get side-tracked by less important things. We"ll regret it if the headquarters receive actual news of Jones but we miss it!”

Aziz actually agreed with Sheyan and nodded lightly. However, K walked in with a solemn face.

The place seemed to be a nightclub which had everything a nightclub could offer and even those that they should not have legally offered! That"s why, the business was good.

But at the moment, the nightclub had turned into h.e.l.l. It was completely covered in blood.

Sheyan and Aziz had both seen some crazy stuff before, but they were still shocked by the scene. This nightclub was converted from an underground parking lot, so the the stairs at the entrance was tilted down. A lot of broken corpses were messily piled up there. The edges of the corpse pieces seemed to have been cut by sharp saws – the cuts were shockingly smooth.

When an incident occured, the people would naturally flocked to the exit, so the ma.s.sacre here was also the most intense. The decorations on the walls further into the nightclub were also hung full of internal organs. The place looked like h.e.l.l.

There was inexplicably no blood nor flesh on the dance floor. However, it wasn"t clean either. It was full of bones – not the kind of rotten bones that would break when they were touched, but fresh, flexible bones with tendons and ligaments still on them!

The bones were piled up into a tall, mysterious, three-dimensional symbol. It looked like a sculpture but also a word at the same time. Logically speaking, it should have looked evil, but somehow it looked mysteriously sacred to them!

— as if it exuded an unspeakable feeling of benevolence, making people wors.h.i.+p it!

K stood still for a while. Besides the obvious look of anger in his eyes, he also looked confused. Suddenly, Sheyan felt a very unusual surge of energy. The words formed from piled up bones shone bright and the sounds of wailing could be heard. The energy circled and twisted, then shot straight towards the sky! A huge vortex formed in the clouds on the sky. The center of the vortex could almost reveal the vast universe.

A violent wind rose in the nightclub that was remodeled from an underground parking lot, forcing everyone there to close their eyes and step back. The strong wind lasted for nearly six minutes before it gradually subsided. They discovered that the bone sculpture in the middle of the floor had collapsed into rotten debris.

Sheyan grabbed a handful of what was left of the bones to inspect, but it immediately turned into a very fine powder that slipped away from the cracks between his fingers. The bones had completely lost their previous freshness and had turned into bones that had decayed for thousands of years.

“What the h.e.l.l was that?” mumbled K.

He couldn"t help but be a bit scared even with the things that he had experienced. After all, the scene he just saw was so sinister, yet felt so inexplicably sacred and majestic.

As for the question of who cut up the corpses, the one he could think of were the aliens from Gwei planet. The forelimbs of these aliens were curved like praying mantises and could strike a fatal blow at any time.

The problem was that most of the time, the Gwei aliens on Earth only used their claws to cut rocks. To them, the core part of a rock was as delicious as a walnut that had its hard outer sh.e.l.l peeled. Their digestive system could not handle organic matters.

K had never met a Gwei alien who violated interstellar regulations in his 40 years in the business, let alone a large scale ma.s.sacre of humans.

The reserve agents poured in because they were worried that K might have met with an accident inside. When they laid eyes on the horrible sight, all of them started to vomit. These young people were obviously not as mentally tough as K was.

After they had gotten used slightly to the situation in front of them, one of the agents wiped away the gastric juice flowing down his mouth and gave a phone to K, saying:

“Agent K, it"s for you.”

After K took the call, his face became even more solemn. He told Sheyan and Aziz:

“Six other similar ma.s.sacre scenes were found throughout New York City. The only difference is that the bone words aren"t similar!”

As he said that, K showed them the bone words from the other places. Although Sheyan and Aziz only saw the photos, they could still feel the mixed feeling of sacredness, mystery and evil!

K took the initiative and told them:

“Let"s go.”

Aziz asked in confusion:

“Where to?”

K stared at Aziz. Obviously, if it was Sheyan who asked, he most likely wouldn"t even get a response.

“The MIB database integrates information from various extraterrestrial sources. It should be easy to identify the meaning of these seven bone words. We must first understand the meaning of these words before we can plan the next move.”

Sheyan suddenly said:

“What if this matter isn"t related to Jones? Then congratulations, Mr. K, because you will be taking a huge step on the path to the destruction of the Earth.”

K glared at Sheyan and asked:

“Do you have any information about Jones right now?”

Sheyan was instantly silenced. Aziz coldly glared at Sheyan and said:

“We don"t have time to argue! Let"s get back to the MIB headquarters first! It"s meaningless to argue here!”

Sheyan immediately recalled that the Blood Sensing was coming. He instantly shut his mouth and hastily returned to K"s car – the Cadillac that appeared outdated but was filled with highly-advanced technology – and obediently put on his seatbelt.

As the Cadillac"s engine roared powerfully along the road, Sheyan and Aziz received notifications from their nightmare imprints:

[Warning, warning: The Blood Sensing is about to trigger. The Blood Sensing this time will last longer.]

[Contestant No. 1018, the base duration of the Blood Sensing this time is 100 minutes. Your army rank is Major, but you already have 3 b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters, so your army rank privilege is rendered obsolete. The duration of you sensing the location of other contestants is reduced by 60%, while the duration of others sensing your position is extended by 30%.]

[Blood Sensing will be initiated in 120 seconds. Good luck.]

“What the h.e.l.l!” Sheyan cursed out loud. Aziz"s Blood Sensing may not have been weakened as much, but Sheyan still heard him swear under his breath.

The only good news was that K had revved up the Cadillac so it would take them about ten minutes to reach the MIB headquarters. Sheyan was sure that even if the other partic.i.p.ants received news about Sheyan and Aziz within these 10 minutes, they wouldn"t dare to act alone. They would need time to gather their forces, and by then Sheyan and Aziz would be drinking coffee comfortably in the most guarded area of the MIB headquarters.

However, Sheyan had made 2 miscalculations: he underestimated the severity of the traffic jams in New York, and he did not take into account K"s mentality.

The b.l.o.o.d.y storm swept over them in the blink of an eye. Sheyan"s vision turned into an ocean of blood as if a large number of blood vessels had exploded. It caused indescribable fear in his heart.

Sheyan once again swore, because he really couldn"t find more appropriate words to describe his current mood.

If the red dot representing Sheyan was as attention-catching as firefly in a summer night after he got two b.l.o.o.d.y Invitations Letters, then his red dot right now was like the moon. Aziz"s red dot couldn"t hold a candle to his, let alone the dots of other partic.i.p.ants.

Even more vicious was the fact that is that the few escape points evenly distributed throughout New York City were clearly marked! They weren"t exactly discriminating against Sheyan, but, but! Right now, Sheyan was the only one who had collected 3 b.l.o.o.d.y Invitations Letters! The partic.i.p.ants were no fool. When they saw the escape points, they naturally knew what it meant!

The next instant, almost all the partic.i.p.ants madly dashed towards Sheyan"s direction! They could get three b.l.o.o.d.y Invitations Letters just from killing Sheyan alone. Plus the one they own themselves, they would have four! They would complete the mission with one above the quota. The risk was worth taking.

Sheyan instantly found himself in the eye of the vortex, as if mysterious gravitational force was pulling all the partic.i.p.ants towards him. Although Sheyan"s strength had increased greatly, he was not arrogant enough to think that he could take on the world.

But K inexplicably became another problem! He drove his beloved Cadillac as slowly as he could, seemingly enjoying the scenery outside the window. He even occasionally stared at the pa.s.sing women. At this speed, let alone ten minutes, they wouldn"t reach in a hundred minutes.

“Hey, K! This is no time to be enjoying the scenery,” Sheyan gnashed his teeth and said.

K simply ignored him.

Sheyan looked at Aziz and spoke to him through the nightmare imprint:

“Hey, don"t think that this doesn"t concern you! When those idiots come here, do you think they"ll just let you go?”

Aziz was silent for a while. K would listen to his opinion. So, he told K:

“I think we should return to the MIB headquarters as soon as possible, Agent K. I kept having an ominous premonition after seeing the weird bone words, as if something important was about to happen. The sooner we unlock the secret, the better.”

Aziz"s words held some weight with K. K nodded and said:

“Okay, we"ll go back after I buy an apple pie.”

Sheyan groaned helplessly. He lifted his head and finally gritted his teeth and said:

“K, listen to me. You"re being targeted. If you don"t activate the alien technology in this car right now, I promise you we will all die a terrible death!”

K turned his head and gave Sheyan a very distrustful stare:

“You sure? How come our powerful early warning system didn"t get any information about this? Besides, do you know how much it cost the MIB"s budget every time we activate the particle spraying system? Do you know how hard Z fought for our energy quota in Congress? The resources and funds allocated by the states should be used wisely, not wasted in taking a stroll.”

Sheyan took a deep breath and said:

“Of course I"m sure! And I"m also certain of one thing. If you don"t use these precious resources now, you won"t have the chance to use them in the future.”

K was stunned:

“What do you mean?”

Sheyan said solemnly:

“All the energy quotas in the world will be useless to a pile of sc.r.a.p iron. Wait, what"s that? He looks like Jones!”

The word “Jones” fully caught K"s attention. Sheyan, who was sitting on the pa.s.senger seat, took advantage of when K turned his head to grabbed the gear stick and pulled hard. The end of the gear stick immediately opened like a blooming flower, revealing a red b.u.t.ton inside. Sheyan pressed down on it!

The whole Cadillac instantly started to deform. The waist became more slender and more aerodynamic, while two jet-type exhaust pipes appeared from the rear of the car to spray a blue flame that extended for at least half a meter. Sheyan and Aziz simultaneously groaned as the unbelievably strong inertia plastered them flat against their seats.

K screamed:

“You idiot! At least let me fasten my seatbelt before you do that!”

Fortunately, this car was equipped with automatic life detection devices and stress protection devices. Once the AI detected an unexpected occurrence, it would automatically take over to avoid an accident. K managed to take back control of the car after stabilising himself. However, because of K"s previous delay, a red dot representing a partic.i.p.ant had appeared ahead of them to intercept their path!

Even at the speed they were travelling in, both Sheyan and Aziz recognised the person at first glance.

The courage he displayed by blocking their path by himself deserved praise.

The man stood quietly on the pedestrian bridge, staring into the distance.

Under the setting sun, a Cadillac rushed forward at the speed of 200 kmh kept like a fierce horse. The momentum of the car was wild and domineering!

An aggressiveness that would smash through everything!

And that person, was in the Cadillac"s path.

The guy looked ordinary. He had on a cheap gray jacket, a lit cigarette with only half of it remaining, a decadent temperament, and a very ordinary face. He looked as if he would disappear as soon as he got out of sight, like a mud fish disappearing into a dirty river.

The man emitted a long sigh. His voice was still lingering in the air when he vanished completely into thin air. The strange thing was, for some reason, the office workers who pa.s.sed by him, the beggars next to him, the performance artists, the singer with the old guitar, could all clearly remember that there was a human standing there just now who flicked ashes from his cigarette, sighing.

These people did not know why they were forced to remember this scene. It was as if the scene was imprinted into their lives.

Human memory is a strange thing. For example, if you asked people to recall things before they were three years old, 99% of them would have forgotten those memories, as if there was a fog covering a large amount of memories that they know were there.

However, 99% of humans would remember a few clear memories before the age of three. The memory would be so vivid that many adults who were present at the time would not have remembered as well as they did.

That"s fate.

These people could remember the action of the man flicking his cigarette ashes because at that moment, the man had brushed shoulders with fate, even cras.h.i.+ng into it slightly!

The gray ashes flicked by the man unspectacularly dropped down under the effect of gravity and scattered in the wind.

He was standing on a pedestrian bridge. Below him was the traffic that seemingly had no end.

The cigarette ashes that dropped down naturally drifted away. Some of them were swept up by a pa.s.sing car. The ashes mysteriously drifted into the eye of a person driving a Chevrolet Cruze.

The uncomfortable feeling prompted him to wipe his eye with his hand.

Due to that, he turned his steering wheel slightly. Coincidentally, a driver who was in a hurry happened to attempt to overtake him at that precise moment. Both of them were shocked when they realised what happened. They steered wildly and slammed hard on the brakes but it was too late. Amidst the shrill screeches of the tires, a serious accident occurred! A chain of collisions and violent explosions followed.

That was the challenge awaiting the Cadillac K was driving! But right at the instant when the collision was about to happen, K dexterously accelerated to avoid the burning frame of a car that was rolling in their direction.

The Cadillac was, however, hit by a human body that was flung towards them!

The body belonged to the earlier driver who had not fastened his seat belt. Life had obviously left his body at the first moment of impact as evident from his deformed chest. In the corner of his eye were tears mixed with cigarette ashes!

The impact from the body left a huge dent on the Cadillac"s window. A large number of cracks branched out from the center of the dent like cobwebs. However, the toughness and practicality of this Cadillac was beyond imagination. Even with the collision, its speed was not greatly affected. It continued to drive forward arrogantly.

“Someone obviously wants me to stop,” proclaimed K calmly, “but why should I oblige him? Nevertheless, this person is pretty amazing. He could actually overcome the calculation speed of 18 times the speed of light of the alien computer on my car to create such an accident and tried to drag me into it.”

Aziz suddenly turned solemn:

“I didn"t expect Fate to be among the people who came here! He finally made a move. Is it because over half the time limit has pa.s.sed?”

Sheyan shrugged:

“Fate? He sounds pretty arrogant from the name he gave himself.”

Aziz said coldly:

“You"ll understand when you fight with him. This guy is a completely different magic cla.s.s from mages like Zi and Finarsih. Fighting him was like fighting with the mud. Even if you have a full cartridge of bullets, you won"t find a target to shoot at.”

Sheyan merely shrugged and said:

“You want an MT to fight a magic cla.s.s? What a great idea.”

Aziz"s mouth curled into a mocking sneer but he did not say anything else. In the distant crowd, a person suddenly covered his mouth and coughed softly. A large amount of blood flowed out from the gaps between his fingers.

“So strong.”

His voice was full of disappointment.

They finally reached the MIB headquarters before the partic.i.p.ants could completely surround them thanks to K"s skillful driving. Nevertheless, the rear of the Cadillac still took 2 shots from sniping rifles.

The two shots were launched with exploding armour-piercing bullets that were normally used to deal with the likes of armoured vehicles and tanks. The bullets would first penetrate into the armour, then explode three to five seconds later.

These two shots stripped the Cadillac of its gorgeous appearance and turned it into a fallen phoenix that had its fur plucked clean. However, they still failed to cause substantial damage to the Cadillac"s engine and the Cadillac soldiered on until it reached the MIB headquarters" gate.

K immediately ran towards the gate of MIB base as soon as K he got off the car, while at the same time yelling into the microphone on his suit:

“Activate the level system alert! I repeat! Activate the level system alert!”

“Executioner Z would like to know the reason.”

“G.o.ddammit Z, I know that we should focus 99% of our energy and effort to search for the Galaxy, but these guys are crazy! I highly suspect that they"re Jones" allies who are trying stop our investigation with violent means.”

“How violent? Just take a look at my beloved Annie! My baby is now even uglier than your Beetle…. Um, Z, I was just giving an example, I don"t really mean that your Beetle is ugly…..No, that"s not what I mean!”

Although the dialogue between the two powerful figures was not that harmonious, Sheyan and Aziz still saw a lot of changes being made as they fled into the MIB base.

Firstly, the gatekeeper changed from a physical body to a 3D image. There were suddenly many inconspicuous sensors lining the walls on the corridor. When the positive and negative poles of these gadgets were connected, they would produce powerful death rays.

These visible sensors served as good attacking targets for intruders. When they were attacked, the real killers would emerge from the ceiling and the ground.

The elevator had been shut down in order to prevent giving the enemies a direct route to the core area of the base. Besides that, the energy saved could also be redirected towards the powerful weapon system.

With K in the lead, the three quickly reached the emergency pa.s.sage and began a long stair climb. They have to keep cooing like pigeons along the way or they would face some serious consequences. They looked ridiculous.

A few partic.i.p.ants had arrived outside the MIB headquarters but they did not advance further. They started sizing up their rivals warily to look for any chances that might be beneficial to them. More importantly, everyone knew that the MIB headquarters was extremely dangerous. No one was willing to take up the role of an MT and carve open a b.l.o.o.d.y road.

In reality, Sheyan was the only MT who partic.i.p.ated in the b.l.o.o.d.y World. No party would send their MT to this world that required speed, attack power and quick resolution to battles.

Sheyan and Aziz were very happy to see this deadlock because as time goes, many people will s.h.i.+ft their attention from the five invitations letters they carried to those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds around them. The fragile alliances were so vulnerable that they were simply not comparable to parties.

K brought Sheyan and Aziz to the secret room deep below the base. According to K, even if the world is destroyed, this place would be one of the last areas to go down.

It was obvious that K had stopped worrying about the situation outside after the level alert was activated. He simply brought the two of them to the computer room and inputted the bone text symbols into the computer which stored a large amount of data on alien civilizations and cost more than 90 billion US dollars to build. However, he did not get any result.

K no doubt found this unacceptable. Sheyan, however, suddenly recalled a famous saying in the real world in China: For questions on internal affairs, ask Baidu. For questions on foreign affairs, ask Google.

Therefore, without waiting for K"s consent, he tapped the shoulder of a busty blonde beauty next to them and asked her to help them make a search on her ipad worth USD$125.

The result left them speechless. The $125 had beaten the $90 billion. Google revealed the meaning of the seven different skeleton words one by one:

“Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, l.u.s.t!!!”

“The seven sins…..They actually mean the seven sins in theology!”

“The seven negative emotions, also known as the original sins. They"re the basic motivation for people to perform evil!”

The result of the translation was no doubt out of the expectation of Sheyan and Aziz. It was hard not to attribute the cruel and mysterious ritual to the aliens, but if they consider the sacred atmosphere surrounding the ritual, the seven sins were the most reasonable explanation.

K mumbled something under his breath. Sheyan and Aziz couldn"t hear him clearly, but it was obvious from his expression that he felt very frustrated with this result because there was no way Jones was a man of faith – at least, there"s no way he"s Catholic. This happened to confirm Sheyan"s words – K"s wrong judgment had caused the earth to take a large step towards destruction.

At that moment, a harsh alarm sounded throughout the entire MIB base. An electronically synthesized female voice announced:

“All members with combat abilities, all members with combat abilities, please take note. Living creatures have invaded the base. The species of the creatures are unknown, but they should be highly intelligent and have a high probability of being controlled.”

Sheyan and Aziz looked at each other and saw the shock in the other"s eyes. The development had exceeded their expectation. Attacking the MIB headquarters was definitely not a good choice. It was equivalent to provoking the government. They did not expect something like this to actually happen!

A screen instantly cut to the image of a humanoid creature crawling on the ground on all fours. It was entirely covered in mucus and had very sharp claws. Its decaying skull cap was broken through by its deformed brain. The creature then crawled on the ceiling and walls, ignoring gravity.

This thing was no stranger to Sheyan. It was a Licker from the Resident Evil world. Dozens of ferocious beasts followed behind it. These beasts had snake-like heads and wolf-like bodies that were devoid of fur. When they moved, the muscles under their skin squirmed like water, an indication of their explosive power. Their six strong legs looked deformed but extremely fierce.

(TL: This is bonus chapter #3 for October. Enjoy! And thanks for the patreon support!)

“So it"s a combination of Lickers and Viperwolves…Are they planning to lead the charge with a ma.s.sive amount of summoned creatures instead of an MT?”

Both Sheyan and Aziz were battle veterans. Perhaps Sheyan had a little less fighting experience than Aziz, but Sheyan himself was an MT, so he was even more familiar with MT-related tactics than Aziz.

When they saw such a tactic, the corresponding way of dealing with it immediately popped up in their minds!

Sheyan instantly reminded K:

“Be careful of those Lickers. They carry a lot of viruses on them. Humans that are directly killed by them carried a great risk of turning into zombies!”

Aziz also chimed in:

“The weakness of the Viperwolves lies on their waist…”

Under the guidance of the two, only 5% of the MIB"s energy reserve was spent to exterminate all the summoned creatures. The automatic weapons were enough to deal with them. More importantly, the army would arrive soon. The summoner must not have sent their strongest summoned creature out of self-interest, which was why the pressure was so light.

This did not put Sheyan and Aziz at ease in the slightest. They both aware of the possibility of this attack being merely a diversionary tactic. They immediately checked the system structure layout of the entire MIB with the help of K and found that the system was seamless, but only when dealing with humans!

Even a wise man sometimes made a mistake!

Considering the strength of the top-tier existences among the partic.i.p.ants, the seven ventilation shafts and six sewer tunnels in the MIB base might as well be un.o.bstructed shortcuts! Sheyan and Aziz exchanged glances and immediately determined that if the enemies had infiltrated the base, their first target wouldn"t be the two of them, but the power supply room instead!

Right when they realised this, the lights around them blacked-out for an instant, then came back on as if the power supply was merely unstable. K"s expression turned grim. He said:

“When the MIB base was built, two backup power supplies were prepared in case of emergencies. If the main power supply was attacked, the two backup power supplies will take over its function. They could last for at least thirty-six hours.”

Sheyan nodded and said:

“I understand. Give the two of us 10 soldiers. We can guard one of the backup power supplies. Next, declare a state of emergency, activate all defensive systems, then concentrate your remaining manpower on the other backup power supply. Our objective is not to win, but to persist until military reinforcement arrives.”

K gave a deep stare to Sheyan and Aziz and finally said:

“Okay.”

The long, clean pa.s.sage had a metallic texture. The surrounding lights were akin to the runway lights on s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps. The patterned timing with which the lights lit up made it seem like light was flowing along the runway. They presented a strong high-tech feel.

Sheyan folded his arms across his chest while he calmly stood in the middle of the pa.s.sage. Anyone who saw him right now would feel his oppressive determination to guard the place. Even if the sky fell down, he would hold it back up.

Right behind Sheyan was the backup power supply. During the early stages of the base construction, this place was already identified as an important defensive spot. All kinds of equipment was available here. Ten MIB agents, each armed with high-energy pulse alien technology weapons, hid behind riot s.h.i.+elds, forming a protective barrier.

Aziz was nowhere to be seen. He could only display his greatest strength when he hid in the darkness.

While it may be conceited to call the defensive arrangement absolutely impregnable, they were very confident that they could hold out until reinforcement from the US government arrived.

However, just five minutes after Sheyan and his group took over, the lights flashed again. When the lights turned back on this time, they look weak and dim. The backup power supply station behind Sheyan first emitted a deep roar, then started running smoothly. Apparently, the backup power supply station on K"s side had been compromised.

They held on for only five minutes!

Sheyan"s face twitched. The words “freaking useless” were about to escape his mouth but he forced them back.

The reason the defensive strength of the MIB base was so fragile was in large part due to the threat from the Arquillian Battle Cruiser.

The incident had led to the large-scale departure of aliens from Earth. Some of the aliens who lived in the MIB headquarters had also fled. If they were here, the base"s defensive strength would have been raised several times over.

Two minutes after the other backup power supply station was compromised, the door at the end of the pa.s.sage on their side sprung open. K and Z, both soaked in blood, ran over in a hurry. A few Viperwolves and Lickers were chasing after them!

Seeing this, the agents behind Sheyan got a bit agitated. After all, K and Z were held in very high regards around here. They were very popular figures! Some of the agents even planned to run out of their covers to help them.

However, Sheyan coldly issued an order:

“Fire.”

“What!!” The agents could hardly believe their ears! Of course they couldn"t execute that order. Instead, they yelled and started rus.h.i.+ng forward to provide help to their superiors.

But the next instant, a few ruthless and monotonous gunshots sounded. The heads of both K and Z exploded simultaneously, bursting into large groups of red mist. Their bodies fell down and rolled a few times on the ground. It was the work of the merciless Aziz.

“What the h.e.l.l are you guys doing??!!” All the agents snarled in anger. They could not find Aziz so they pointed their guns at Sheyan.

Sheyan sneered mockingly:

“You idiots call yourselves MIB agents? Look at the cross-section on their necks. Have you ever seen humans with that kind of body structure?”

The agents turned. suddenly turned their heads and suddenly found the blood in the pool. The neck sections of the two headless bodies were pulsating fiercely like the intense muscle contraction when a lizard had its tail severed. That instantly aroused their suspicion.

Sheyan roared:

“You bunch of noobs, what are you s.p.a.cing out for? Are you going to wait until the monsters are right in front of you, then knock at their heads with your gun handles?”

The agents woke up from their stupor and opened fire. The weapons they used were powerful indeed. Creatures such as the Viperwolves were all killed in one hit! Severed limbs and body pieces flew amidst violent explosions. Because the charging Lickers and Viperwolves carried great momentum, their broken flesh and limbs flung forward and dropped like rain after they died.

The agents were well-trained. They half-kneeled on the ground and kept shooting. Their shots were very precise.

But right when the creatures were all annihilated, an agent screamed painfully. A broken paw of a Viperwolf in front of him had suddenly come alive and leapt up from the ground, slamming into his eyes.

The strange occurrences did not stop there. The shattered flesh and limbs all started bouncing around like frogs and leapt around the agents. The flesh pieces that were originally non-threatening would melt like wax when they came into contact with the agents" skins and seeped inside their bodies. The horrible sizzling sound blended with the agonising screams of the MIB agents to turn the place into a living h.e.l.l.

The organic pieces also came into contact with Sheyan"s skin but for some reason, they triggered a Physique check. Sheyan"s insane Physique attribute was definitely not something they could overcome. As a result, the fleshes actually withered on his skin. Not only were they unable to damage Sheyan, they actually recovered his HP.

“Those were not summoned creatures!” Sheyan suddenly came to a realisation! “They were only temporarily turned into this form! There appeared to be more than a dozen enemies entering this place, but in reality, they all share the same life. It was akin to how five fingers on a hand may appear like individual ent.i.ties, but they share the same life.”

Following the death of the trainee agents, their bodies disintegrated into small chunks the size of tofu blocks. The chunks bounced like frogs and congregated at the end of the pa.s.sage!

An extremely thin person appeared at the end of the pa.s.sage. He looked very much like a dry corpse. As he stretched out his arms, the flesh chunks leapt towards him and dissolved into his body! Almost in an instant, the person turned from an extremely skinny man into an extremely muscular guy.

He was at least two meters tall. His muscles were solid, his shoulders were broad, and his waist was slim; all in all, he was a very fit man. It"s just that he was completely naked and his skin was s.h.i.+ny. He looked like the gladiators in ancient Roman Colosseum who smeared olive oil on their bodies! However, Sheyan and Aziz knew that it wasn"t the glow of olive oil at all, it was the glow of life! The glow of the lives he had just absorbed!