The Ultimate Evolution

Every Party Ace member was struck dumb by the news.

They felt like a giant club had come cras.h.i.+ng down from the sky and hit them on the back of the head!

Or like a new recruit that had just joined the battlefield but was instantly stabbed with a b.l.o.o.d.y bayonet!

They were not prepared for this this. They did not expect this.

More importantly, the little bit of morale they had recovered with difficulty after their loss in the previous world was destroyed again! They had picked themselves up only to be struck back down to the ground. Even Zi and Reef, who were usually strong-willed, showed signs of defeat.

The only one who was not disheartened was Sheyan, not because he had a strong heart or was exceedingly calm, but because he"s extremely furious right now! His face looked like it was on fire. The muscles on his face twitched in anger.

Why? Because of Sanzi!

His little brother had just started following him in the nightmare realm, full of expectations, and within a minute of accepting the main mission in a nightmare world, they had already failed the mission and would face a 20% penalty in all base attributes. It was more than an embarra.s.sment. It was an utter disgrace to his status as a big brother.

The scenery along the road became blurry lines due to the speed of the bike. The wind roared into Sheyan"s ears. The nearest strand of black smoke came from a common Californian hotel in front. The bottom floor of the hotel was a parking lot. After the customers parked their car, they could just swipe their credit cards and go straight to their room upstairs to rest. The whole process was very convenient.

In Sheyan"s vision, there were originally two red dots representing the two important characters. The red dot representing Reese had completely disappeared; he had apparently turned into a cold corpse by now. Sarah Connor"s red dot, though still present, was very weak, like a candle in the wind that could go out at any moment.

Next, like a chain reaction, a series of notifications was sent to him.

[ Warning: The missions related to the heroine, Sarah Connor, will be deleted due to her death…. ]

[ Warning: The subsequent development of the world will be dramatically altered due to the death of the heroine, Sarah Connor…. ]

[ Warning: The heroine, Sarah Connor is dead and will no longer appear in the records of all the contestants experiencing this world in the future. ]

Sheyan instantly discovered something strange.

He did not get any notification about his mission failure!

By rights, since the male and female protagonists were both dead, his main mission should have failed immediately.

What"s happening?

Sheyan glanced at the mission hint of the main mission – make sure that history is not substantially rewritten – and a strange idea suddenly flashed in his mind.

"Could there be a sliver of hope still? That"s it, I know why! I know the reason! Although it"s dangerous and outrageous, but there"s still a sliver of hope for this mission. That mastermind behind the scenes could never have imagined that there"s a loophole due to timing!"

"It"s difficult for other people to exploit this loophole, but it"s possible for me! It"s f.u.c.king possible for me!"

A cold glint flashed in Sheyan"s narrowed eyes once he saw the light. He quickly made an enquiry, then revved his bike"s speed to the limit and accelerated forward. He lifted the front of the bike and drove up a car in front at high speed. Using the car as a stepping stone, he smashed the bike through the window of a room into the second floor of the hotel.

At the same time, Sheyan also issued some orders quickly and orderly in the party communication channel.

“Sanzi, I need you to go to this address and find someone. He"s just an ordinary person, so do whatever you have to do to make him obey you…. ”

“Reef, come here quickly and join me.”

“Mogensha, I"m breaking in. Get ready to cover me. There should be a T-800 and a lot of contestants inside. We may have some allies among them.”

When the huge Harley motorcycle crashed into the second floor at a high speed, the thick front wheel of the motorcycle kissed the T-800"s face. The sungla.s.ses it was wearing instantly broke into pieces.

Under such a violent impact, even the heavy robot from the future was forced to stagger back. It"s back crashed into a wall, which collapsed like a fragile wooden part.i.tion.

Sheyan had a clear view of the situation in the room. Although the whole place was in a mess, it could still be clearly seen that the enemies had simultaneously launched a fierce attack from both the room on the left and right side. The situation was akin to a move in wushu which striked the opponent"s ears with both fists. The defender could not defend against it.

Sarah Connor lay on the ground with a frightened look on her face. No traces of blood could be seen on her body. Her corpse was completely intact because she suffered only one fatal attack.

A very brutal attack.

Her neck was twisted by roughly 270 degrees. Her face, which was supposed to face forward, was now facing diagonally backwards….

What exactly was this strong, heroic woman thinking of before she died?

Seeing the crime scene where Sarah Connor died, Sheyan confirmed that his judgement was correct! With a hard push of his feet, the Harley"s exhaust pipe sprayed out thick black smoke once again. He crashed the bike into the T-800 while he himself landed smoothly on the floor with a somersault.

When ordinary people, and even contestants, took a high-speed rotating tire to their face, it was difficult to make any effectively responses besides the most basic self-protection measures.

But that was not so for the T-800. Although its jaw was in a terrible mess of flesh, blood and metal, it still forcefully jammed its right hand into the rotating wheel!

The artificial skin on the T-800"s right hand was thoroughly churned to pieces, but the Harley motorcycle"s front-wheel steel axles were also damaged beyond recognition. The powerful Terminator gave the motorcycle another punch, and then tore it apart. The motorcycle fell into a semi-disintegrated state.

Fortunately, a nearby contestant took the chance to fire a hot bullet into the fuel tank of the Harley. The expensive and eye-catching toy exploded violently, wrapping the T-800 in a huge fireball. That contestant should be a protector of Sarah Connor too.

Sheyan did not remain idle after jumping down from the bike. After a heavy landing, the muscles in his legs and abdomen tensed to the limit, and he burst out like a cheetah towards Sarah Connor"s body.

He acted just in time, because within a second of his landing, a few silent hisses could be heard.

That"s the sound made by a pistol with a m.u.f.fler.

Seven bullets were let fly and accurately pierced into flesh. If the special-made steel-core bulletheads had hit ordinary people, they would have churned the skin, muscles, and internal organs into a pulp. From the outside, the wounds would only look like small bullet holes, but the inside would look like conical holes the size of towel gourds!

Unfortunately, the one those seven bullets. .h.i.t was Sheyan. His strong physical defence caused the bullets to burst ahead of time, making a few b.l.o.o.d.y holes on Sheyan"s back. Sheyan didn"t even feel anything. He picked up Sarah Connor"s body and was prepared to run away.

But just then, there was a loud crash from the ceiling, and a T-800 fell down from above to block Sheyan"s way. It launched a punch without saying a word.

Sheyan took half a step back. Grabbing Sarah Connor"s body with his left hand, he blocked with his right.

Against the T-800"s force, Sheyan had to block with all his strength. His s.h.i.+rt was stretched taut by his tense muscles and the b.u.t.tons on it burst away angrily, exposing the bulging veins and steel-like muscles inside!

“AAARRGH!!!!” Sheyan"s eyes turned bloodshot as he growled with all his might. The nightmare imprint on his chest shone brightly and the pattern of a fist interlaced with a s.h.i.+eld emerged. That shocked all the contestants on scene.

A Growth Hunter was nothing to be surprised at, but this was the first time any of them had seen a dual-attribute Growth Hunter! Some of them instantly realised that it might be bad news to get mixed up in a fight of such a high level!

However, the T-800 in front of Sheyan was a very simple war machine which had no concept of a Growth Hunter or a dual-attribute breakthrough. Its power may be inferior to Sheyan, but its fierce will to fight made the notion of defeating him in a short amount of time unrealistic.

But in the next second, a light flashed outside the window.

Following that, a violent explosion damaged the neck of the T-800 fighting with Sheyan!

The robot"s head hung at a weird angle as it staggered back from the strong impact, then lost its balance. Dazzling bluish-white electrical currents sprayed out from its facial orifices.

But the tremendous force of the impact was not exhausted yet. It pushed the T-800 along the ground for more than a dozen rolls before sending it cras.h.i.+ng into the next room in a storm of dust and smoke. Based on the loud rattling noises it made, there was probably no furniture left intact in that room.

Sheyan was not fighting alone!

Brother Black was right behind him. When he saw Sheyan had his way blocked by the T-800, he did not hesitate to bust out the new killer move he just obtained — the pulse shot from the MIB world! The power was amazing indeed.

Brother Black did not stop firing after that. He alternated between ricochet bullets and special bullets to form a dense bullet net. Sheyan leaped straight down from the second floor of the hotel. Although he was constantly attacked, leaving a trail of blood and ragged clothes spattering behind him, he did not even bat an eye. Some contestants attempted to chase after him but a grenade from Mogensha was enough to temporarily delay their pursuit.

The pursuers did not give up that easily. There was a man who ran after Sheyan like a wild animal, scaling walls and obstacles maniacally to get to Sheyan. His eyes were bloodshot and two jets of thick white gas which lingered in the air like steam were ejected from his nostrils.

This guy, Deco, was a formidable contestant on the Terminator"s side. He was actually a concocting alchemist, with an ability somewhat similar to Sheyan"s. His ultimate concoction was something that could make his blood boil and enable him to obtain the fighting instinct of a crazed beast. He really stood out in the previous fight and caused great trouble for the defending side.

Mogensha"s bullets could not hit him at all; they were always a step late and always arrived behind him. It was the first time that Mogensha had encountered such a strange scenario. The reason for this was that Deco had a strange pa.s.sive ability which would refract the light acting on him. It was similar the way some pools would look shallow even though they were deep.

Of course, he would not be that hard to deal with if it was just that pa.s.sive refraction. The real problem lay in the fact that the refractive index of his ability was constantly changing, which led to the need to adjust to his refractive index all the time.

Deco moved as if he was ignoring gravity. He easily scaled the eaves and walls in his way, leaving behind clear footprints and raising a trail of dust in his wake. The distance between him and Sheyan kept getting shorter. He looked up at Mogensha and smirked, showing his sharp canine teeth.

A group of contestants followed behind him, firing as they ran. There were at least eight people in the group. Their shots were surprisingly accurate.

Although Sheyan was running with all his might, he did not forget to check the movement of the people in his rear. Suddenly, there was a sharp braking sound from the road nearby. A large tanker truck, in an attempt to avoid a stray dog, had lost control and overturned.

The giant tanker truck slid forward carried by its momentum, sc.r.a.ping meters long of horrible sparks on the road as it crashed towards the spot in front of Sheyan"s group! It hit a building and exploded, engulfing an area of almost 1000 square meters in flames!

The scale of the explosion was as magnificent as the detonation of a large napalm bomb!

Although it all happened in an instant, Sheyan clearly saw that both the stray dog and the driver of the large tanker truck were not under the control of contestants. But it was precisely the combination of the two which caused a seemingly accidental event that greatly hindered them.

These kind of things, which cannot be explained with science, were often called: misfortune.

Sheyan had already suffered a “fate” attack in the previous world, so he was sensitive to these kind of weird occurances! In this short instance, Sheyan was not thinking of how to escape the danger in front of him, but had come to an important realisation instead. A realisation which sprung up in his mind right after the tanker truck had overturned.

If there really was someone manipulating all this from behind the scenes, why not set the crash site of the tanker truck directly at their location? That way, there was no doubt that it could cause them more trouble.

This mastermind must have something malicious planned! Was he enjoying the cat-and-mouse game?

Sheyan immediately overruled this possibility. Anyone who could survive until now must be one who advocated efficiency above all else and wouldn"t do any unnecessary things. Just like the way veteran soldiers in ancient times wouldn"t perform any sword techniques that were purely for aesthetic purposes.

Therefore, Sheyan concluded that if there really was a mastermind behind all this, the person could not – or could, but needed to pay a great price – to use this way to directly affect or attack their group. The person could only indirectly weaken them!

More precisely, the person could probably dig a pit on the path the group would traverse through, but they probably couldn"t dig a pit directly underneath the group.

The shock wave and explosion from the tanker truck had stifled the speed of Sheyan"s group. The contestants in pursuit were about to swarm them.

Sheyan threw the body of Sarah Connor away. He did it in such a skillful way that the body rolled a few times when it hit the ground. Even if she was still alive, she would not have felt any pain.

At this point, at least half the pursuing contestants had shown different symptoms of illnesses such as coughing and chest pain. Deco was lucky to escape the disease. He pounced towards Mogensha like a bolt of lightning. Mogensha managed to dodge Deco"s initial strike, but Deco immediately swept upwards with his foot. Sharp claws had inexplicably grew out of his toes. The claws almost tore a deep wound on Mogensha"s chest.

At that moment, however, a curse-mix landed next to Mogensha"s feet. No matter how amazing Deco"s refractive illusion was, it could do nothing against an AoE stun effect unless it could mislead other"s vision for an error of over ten meters.

Brother Black swept his gun across to fire a fusillade of shots in Deco"s direction. The bullets were scattered over a large area like the shot from a shotgun. The bullets easily penetrated through the “Deco” in their sight without any resistance, but streams of blood spurted out two meters to the right of the image. That was Deco"s real location.

Sheyan lowered his head and rushed through the midst of a few Growth Hunters on the enemies" side. The nightmare imprint on his chest once again showed the image of the fist and the s.h.i.+eld! He fended off the attack of those hostile Growth Hunters and dashed right up to the unawakened Deco. With the "Zergling Rush" activated, he landed three consecutive punches on Deco.

A crisp sound akin to gla.s.ses breaking was heard around Deco"s body. That was the sound of his refractive ability being destroyed by Sheyan"s "Strength of the Sky"!

Deco regained his ability to move. Although Sheyan was right in front of him, he couldn"t help looking at the highway, because a red Ferrari had just burst through the residual flames of the tanker truck!

A woman, long hair fluttering in the wind, full of elegance and dignity, stood proudly on top of the Ferrari.

The mage dagger she held in her hand, curved like a crescent moon, was already s.h.i.+ning with a terrible light.

The light of death!

The light of destruction!

Deco, who had his refraction ward shattered, felt like he was standing there naked.

To meet Zi at this moment when he was the most vulnerable was as if he was standing naked in public with a sharp dagger held to his groin. He could almost feel the chill in his b.a.l.l.s!

Zi"s eyes were closed. Her curved silver dagger cut rapidly through the air. Each cut would produce a sharp, lightning-like trace in the air. Finally, the traces formed into a powerful and bizarre symbol — the crest of the Sith Republic in Star Wars.

The powerful and bizarre symbol flew to a spot a meter in front of the Deco and suddenly turned into a huge hand with jet-black skin and protruding joints. The hand had only three fingers and extremely long nails. It wrapped around Deco"s neck.

"Force Suffocation"!

The ability which summoned a Sith demon claw to strangle the enemy and terminate the enemy"s life with suffocating agony! The enemy killed by the Sith demon claw would turn into a certain amount of MP and fed back to the caster.

When Deco"s refractive ward was broken, he had already lost all fighting spirit. He had turned tail the moment he saw Zi coming. He knew that as long as he could run back to his group, he could be saved! But he had just run for a few steps when he suddenly felt a sharp pain around his neck. The terrible giant hand had tightened its grip. Deco"s vision immediately darkened. He groaned and screamed painfully, and even spat a few mouthfuls of green bile.

Sheyan"s disease broke out for the second time, and Deco was not fortunate enough to escape the infection this time. He instinctively grabbed his chest and gasped for breath.

Seeing this, Mogensha did not hesitate to pull out the Spartan javelin.

It was obvious that the power of the javelin had increased after Mogensha was promoted to a Growth Hunter. When he was throwing the silver lightning javelin, the muscles in his right hand swelled, and his nails actually grew into claws. Not only that, but an illusionary image of a crimson Spartan flag also appeared behind him, waving majestically in the air as if it was blown by the wind of Thermopylae!

The fierce lightning javelin shot away and pierced Deco three times in a row before splitting the air towards the group of contestants catching up from the back!

After taking the attack of the Spartan javelin, Deco was left with about three-fifths of his HP, an awkward state. If it was a little lower, he definitely would have used an honorary dosage, but if he did so now, it would feel like such a waste. After all, the optimum use of an honorary dosage was to administer it when one had only a sliver of HP left. One could then rise from the ashes like a phoenix.

While Deco was hesitating, Zi had opened her eyes.

Her eyes were as deep and as vast as a sea of stars. That kind of unspeakable charm was enough to make people lose themselves in those eyes. But in an instant, they turned into a terrible nebula storm which swept across Deco"s mind in the form of countless needles!

"Force Needle Explosion"!

d.i.c.ky instantly felt the world spinning around him. He screamed hysterically but he could make no sound. What he saw in his vision was the scenes of gla.s.s walls breaking and collapsing.

The Deco who was stunned by the "Force Needle Explosion" became the perfect target for Party Ace to concentrate their fire. He only managed to endure for three seconds before he blew up in a horrible fleshy, b.l.o.o.d.y storm. He was not even out of his stunned state yet.

Of course, Sheyan was also withstanding heavy pressure all this while. At the moment, Sheyan, Zi and Mogensha formed a triangle, which was the most basic arrow formation, and Sheyan was the tip.

There was no doubt that all the contestants in pursuit would attack Sheyan first. Although Sheyan was tough, there were simply too many enemies; he was still beaten black and blue and had to take cover in a building to the side. The other contestants refused to give up. They jointly bombarded the building, which collapsed after shaking a few times.

Sheyan rolled again and again, and when he escaped the building, he retrieved Sarah Connor"s body and continued to flee. Unfortunately, he slipped on a banana peel and lost his balance, falling to the ground. But even then, for some reason, Sheyan still tried his best to protect Sarah Connor"s body. He would rather take the fall himself than to let any harm come to the body.

“What"s that guy doing? Is he a necrophile?” asked one of the contestants on the opposing side in a strong Devons.h.i.+re accent. “Also, why is our mission not shown as completed yet?”

Another contestant, who was resentfully retracting his heavy sniper, replied, “It must have something to do with why he"s protecting the body so carefully. That guy"s a freaking monster! We"ve attacked him for so long but he"s not even in a state of near death! He just took a shot from me head on, too! He must have more HP than the devil himself.”

After the three on Sheyan"s side joined forces to kill Deco, the momentum of the pursuing side was stunted, because their opponents had just proven that had the ability to eliminate someone in an instant! The a.s.sault of the pursuers instantly lost its bite, but Sheyan, gritting his teeth while running away with Sarah Connor"s body, cursed viciously.

“d.a.m.n, that shot just now almost broke my arm. Whoever fired that shot, you better not let me catch you!”

The two sides continued their pursuit for two to three hundred meters. Zi kept firing her Force, and together with Mogensha"s shots, they could always force back any contestants who got close. It could be seen from the small details that Zi and Mogensha had already formed quite a nice understanding between them.

Sheyan could not help but wonder, what would the battle be like if Aziz was here with them too?… Aziz was admittedly very strong, but he was quite unruly. He was like a sharp blade. If the wielder could not control the blade well, the blade could easily hurt its wielder instead. Aziz was not someone whom an ordinary person could control.

In fact, even in Zeus" party, Aziz existed in a detached way, almost like an independent ent.i.ty outside the system. He could refuse Zeus" orders without giving Zeus any respect at all. But Sheyan felt, and he was positive, that he himself was one of the few people who could utilise Aziz and utilise him well.

At the moment, Reef had made all the necessary preparations and was quietly lying in ambush in the path of the pursuers.

Sheyan and the others retreated while they fought. While the contestants pa.s.sed by him in pursuit, Reef suddenly made his appearance and disrupted their formation with a "Cardiac Shattering Roar". Sheyan took the chance to turn around and rush into their midst with "Hornrage". At the same time, he threw down a curse-mix underneath him.

The seven or so pursuing contestants were instantly sent into chaos inside the dark green smoke cloud. After Reef"s "Cardiac Shattering Roar" had gained precedence, it had become a terrifying AoE speed reduction skill.

Stacked together with the stun effect, speed reduction and visual interference caused by Sheyan"s curse mix….. while the other side was not instantly defeated, they could no longer form any effective concentrated attack.

Brother Black and Zi took the chance to launch a wanton bombardment inside the smoke cloud. Sheyan"s mechanical gloves emitted a dark green glow as various mechanical parts on them began to rotate violently. He suddenly bent down and pounced forward like a tiger, not giving a care to the fierce slash coming at him.

The slash was very swift and very vicious.

Blood gushed out from Sheyan"s shoulder. Because of the vigorous pumping of blood in his body, the blood shot nearly two meters high. But Sheyan merely reached out his hands without saying a word to grab the throat of a gunman in front of him!

The gunman"s eyes immediately popped out while his legs kicked violently, but Sheyan was not affected in the slightest. Then, Sheyan squatted down and executed a shoulder throw. The gunman immediately lost control of his body and was thrown high into the air. It was Sheyan"s "Tactical Throw".

Without the need for any instructions, Brother Black and Zi simultaneously aimed at this guy in the air. This guy had already used an honorary dosage previously. Even though he hid himself in the back, he was still caught by Sheyan!

Powerful destruction continued to rain down on him, ruthlessly ravaging his whole body. Finally, he had no HP left to support his life…. The guy was violently shattered and split up before he could touch the ground! His body exploded, scattering his flesh and organs everywhere!

The Sith Lord"s sinister laughter reverberated through the air. A strand of dark aura appeared amidst the broken body pieces in the air and flew into Zi, filling up more than half of her previously depleted MP.

After Party Ace managed to launch a counter attack, the situation among the pursuers turned chaotic. They all fell into the dangerous mentality of ensuring their personal safety first and foremost. The enemies they were facing were simply too insane. If the s.h.i.+eld-wielding Reef also turned out to be an MT, then the party they were fighting was actually a dual-MT party!

Furthermore, the few contestants on the side of protecting Sarah Connor had come to their senses and, unwilling to have their base attributes reduced for no reason, had started firing or casting spells from afar. There was also that eerie and sinister disease which would occasionally break out. Sheyan"s group managed to hijack a pa.s.sing car and successfully escaped the pursuing contestants. Now, they just have to guard against the Terminators sent after them.

Honestly, Sheyan had been pushed to the limit during the escape. Not only had he used the "Gloryheal" ability, he had also used the free honorary dosage. After getting on the car, before he had even wrapped up his injuries, Sheyan had already started screaming.

“We"re being watched for sure! In my previous world, I fought with a guy called Fate, and I feel like the mastermind behind the scenes this time has a somewhat similar ability!

“You killed Fate?” asked Zi in surprise.

Sheyan smiled and answered, “That"s where your "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier" came from.”

“How did you kill him?” Zi obviously still found it hard to believe.

“Good question. I was able to kill Fate because there was a prerequisite for his ability – he had to see me when he use it! Having grasped this point, I used it to my advantage and was able to eliminate him in the end. Since the mastermind we"re facing now feels somewhat similar to Fate, the first thing we need to do is to escape that person"s surveillance!”

“How do you think he"s spying on us?” asked Reef with a frown.

Sheyan gritted his teeth as he pulled a piece of shrapnel out of his arm, then drew in a cool breath. “If I were that guy, I would find a way to use satellites to monitor Party Ace"s actions as soon as I enter this world. Do not underestimate the technology of 1984! Regardless of whether my judgement is correct, let"s try to stop that first.”

“Hey, realm, I"m applying for electromagnetic s.h.i.+elding as a lieutenant colonel to prevent other contestants from using native technology to get my information,” said Sheyan loudly.

Sheyan had already suffered from something similar in the Jura.s.sic Park world, where his every action was monitored via a satellite. Therefore, he was familiar with the procedure of requesting for electromagnetic s.h.i.+elding. Furthermore, he was now a lieutenant colonel, so the process had become even more convenient. After paying three achievement points, everyone in Sheyan"s party was s.h.i.+elded.

The s.h.i.+eld was naturally limited in some ways. First of all, the s.h.i.+eld was only effective against contestants of lower ranks. Secondly, if other contestants made their own satellite and launch it into s.p.a.ce, Sheyan"s jamming s.h.i.+eld would be invalid against it because the s.h.i.+eld was only effective for native technology.

Zi also became more cautious. After the satellite monitoring threat was resolved, she pulled out her silver crescent dagger. Threads that looked like the tentacles of a jellyfish extended out from the tip of the dagger. They wiggled around, carefully searching for anything suspicious.

Zi was being over cautious, as she knew of some black magic that could monitor other"s actions through a crystal ball. As it turned out, Zi"s wariness was not unfounded. After a brief search, she shook her head and shouted, “There"s nothing.”

Sheyan immediately felt that something was wrong, and as soon as Zi finished her sentence, she pierced her slim fingers at a seemingly empty s.p.a.ce at the side. The place sparkled for a moment, showing signs of spatial instability. She flicked her dagger and caught a fist-sized magical creature from within.

The creature had four ears, and its purplish-black body was uneven like a toad. Its tongue was red and flat, dripping colorless, transparent mucus. As soon as it was caught, it screamed in hysteria and jumped onto the tip of Zi"s dagger, killing itself and contaminating the blade of the silver storyline dagger.

After that, everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Their bodies felt lighter, as if an invisible pressure had been lifted.

Not long after that, they suddenly heard the sound of a bird fluttering and beating its wings outside the car window. It turned out to be a lark, which were usually very shy, pecking at the window.

Sheyan immediately let the bird in, then spread out a newspaper. The lark began to peck the newspaper with its beak. Each letter pecked was jotted down by Sheyan. In the end, the message turned out to be:

“I"m fine. The thing is done.”

It was obviously a message from Sanzi.

Sheyan appeared deep in thought as he said, “We can now confirm the second thing about the mastermind – he can only attack one target at a time. Otherwise, he would"ve dealt with Sanzi as well. Since Sanzi was moving alone, it was a great chance to eliminate him. The fact that he didn"t shows that he can"t control two sides at once.”

Brother Black finally relaxed. He lit a cigar for himself and inhaled the pale blue smoke deep into his lungs, before puffing out a smoke ring. “That b.a.s.t.a.r.d! He actually followed us all the way into this world!”

Sheyan scoffed. “Since he doesn"t know when to stop, this world will be his grave. Reef, help me take care of this woman. Let me bandage myself.”

Reef picked up Sarah Connor"s body and asked in doubt, “But boss, why do you value this woman"s corpse so much? Sure, our mission was to protect her, but she"s already dead!”

Sheyan pulled out the "Chris Redfield"s Lucky Bracelet" and soaked it in Sarah Connor"s blood. Then, he continued to bare his upper body to let Zi pull out the bullets or shrapnels that were imbued in his body with the Force.

As for Reef"s question, Sheyan narrowed his eyes and replied, “Since the male and female protagonists are both dead, why haven"t we failed our mission yet?”

Reef felt weird about that too. After thinking for a while, he said, “I don"t know. Is it related to this corpse?”

“Of course it is. I also know that if we don"t do anything, the mission will fail in an hour at the very latest,” replied Sheyan faintly.

“Why?” Even Zi was curious.

But their discussion was interrupted by Sanzi"s message in the party communication channel. “Brother, I"ve dealt with that guy. You guys can come now.”

Sheyan nodded. Brother Black stepped on the accelerator, executing a beautiful drift, and the car rushed towards Sanzi"s location. Soon, a professional-looking ambulance, which looked very new, came into view. The ambulance was parked on the side of the road and Sanzi was in it.

“What the h.e.l.l.” Brother Black was so surprised that he dropped his cigar. “I know that the Terminator world is a bit more technologically advanced than the real world (Skynet was self-conscious on August 29, 1997, killing 3 billion people that day. What could the real-world internet do in 1997?), but the ambulance is not going to bring back a person whose neck has been broken for half an hour. Come on.”

Sheyan ma.s.saged his temples and exhaled in relief. He said seriously, “Your thoughts are clouded, AK. Think carefully. Who"s the main character in the Terminator?”

Mogensha was stunned. He murmured, “The main character….in the Terminator?”

At this time, Sanzi had already got out of the ambulance together with a rather unhappy-looking middle-aged man. He led the man to their car. Although the middle-aged man did not look like he had been bound, beaten, or threatened, his movements were stiff like a puppet.

If you looked carefully, you"d notice an inconspicuous spider crawling on the artery on his wrist.

The spider was not the harmless kind which bite could turn someone into an American superhero. It was a North American venomous spider, which cyanide venom it inject could kill someone in a minute and fourteen seconds.

The reason why the information was so precise was that when Sanzi “invited” the middle-aged man over, in order to put some weight on his persuasion, he let the spider bite an impolite security guard in front of the middle-aged man.

The security guard lasted for a minute and fourteen seconds.

Sanzi then asked for the middle-aged man"s opinion. After confirming that the man had no intention to challenge the security guard"s record, he brought him here without much trouble.

Sheyan stepped forward and said to the middle-aged man, “I"m so sorry we have to meet in this way, Professor Edwards. I know you"re a distinguished n.o.bel Prize winner, a top geneticist in the United States, and an esteemed scholar globally – at least, that"s what it says in the phone book. The reason we brought you here is because we need you to do a tiny little favour for us. Don"t worry, it"s something you"ve done countless times before.”

Professor Edwards" face twitched. He could barely maintain his calm as he said, “Do you think I can perform any experiment in my present state, gentlemen? Every experiment I do requires the utmost precision!”

With a smile, Sanzi moved the venomous spider to the corner of a wall before releasing it. Sheyan smiled at the uneasy looking Professor Edwards and said, “See, we"re very sincere. And I repeat, what I need you to do may be very complicated for us, but for you, it"s as simple as drinking water. You may have done it thousands of times for the past 20 years. When it"s all done, you"ll get a handsome reward to make up for your psychological trauma.”

Following Sheyan"s words, Sanzi threw a diamond that was at least three carats to Professor Edwards. It was worth noting that there was a “x.x.x Jewelry Store” price tag on the diamond still. The diamond was obviously obtained through illegitimate means.

Professor Edwards was still hesitating on whether he should refuse the offer when Sheyan said softly, “That was just the deposit, prof. After it"s done…..”

Sanzi took out a s...o...b..x-sized pouch and shook it. The contents tinkled loudly. Sheyan smiled and nodded. “This pouch will be yours. Of course, if you fail, it won"t be pleasant for you.”

The were currently in a very chaotic place with pretty bad public security, so as soon as Sanzi revealed their wealth just now, several people had already started moving towards them slowly with their hands behind their back. There were also some who would occasionally glance over from the distance. All of them obviously intended to rob the group, and probably a.s.sault Zi too while they were at it. Mogensha smoothly captured one who got too close. He"s not exactly a nice guy himself. He stuffed the muzzle of his AK into the robber"s mouth and fired without hesitation.

Professor Edwards" face twitched. He knew that he had met a group of criminals today.

“I can help you, but at least let me know what you want me to do!”

Sheyan asked Reef to bring Sarah Connor"s body out.

“She"s been dead for less than half an hour,” he told the professor.

Professor Edwards went forward to inspect the corpse. After a while, he nodded heavily.

Sheyan stepped forward and whispered, “What I need you to do is….”

When Professor Edowrds heard Sheyan"s request, his expression suddenly lightened up. Finally, he asked a little nervously, “That"s all?”

Sheyan nodded. “That"s all. But I need you to make sure that the success rate is 100%!”

Professor Edwards clenched his teeth and told Sheyan, “Fine! But you have to fulfill a few criteria first. It"s impossible to ensure a 100% success rate with the limited facilities in this ambulance. We have to go to Elia Private Hospital at once!

“Wouldn"t that take too much time?” asked Sheyan in hesitation while staring at the corpse of Sarah Connor.

Now that the topic of conversation finally turned to his field of expertise, Professor Edwards smiled with ease and said, “Not a problem. There are always some differences between what"s written in books and in reality.”

He stepped forward and examined the corpse in Reef"s arms. His eyebrows gradually became less tightened as he said, “Under normal circ.u.mstances, five minutes after death is considered one phase. During this phase, the brain will die and the major organs will decay. The next phase is the following three hours. Within three hours, the body will not undergo much changes in its internal environment except for the brain, the heart and the digestive system. At least, the muscles will remain soft. Body temperature will drop to about 30 degrees. Many anaerobic reactions will continue, and some special cells will remain active. Note that this estimate is for the elderly who suffer from chronic illnesses. For people who were physically healthy when they were alive, the duration can be extended to up to four hours. People like the corpse in question, for instance.”

“OK.” Sheyan hesitated no longer. “Since the professor is so confident, there"s no reason why we shouldn"t support him.”

The group quickly jumped into the ambulance, turned on the siren and drove to Elia Private Hospital. On the way there, Sheyan looked at Mogensha and asked, “Do you understand now?”

“Nope,” replied Mogensha with a shrug.

Sheyan smiled and said, “First, tell me. Who"s the main character of the Terminator world?”

“The two who just died,” answered Mogensha.

Sheyan shook his head slightly. “Wrong! The first main character in the Terminator world is the future leader of the Resistance, John Connor, while the second main character is Skynet. All the stories revolve around them.”

“But John will only appear in the future, and the same holds true for Skynet. The two of them have nothing to do with us right now,” Mogensha could not help exclaiming, “Are we supposed to travel through time?”

Sheyan smiled and said, “Wrong. John…is right next to us.”

As soon as Sheyan uttered this sentence, Zi and Sanzi"s displayed an incredulous look, feeling as if something had been punctured inside them.

“How"s that possible?! You mean…you mean…”

Sheyan said slowly, “In the original plot, Sarah Connor was a single woman until she met Kyle Reese, a warrior from the future. Maybe it"s fear, maybe it"s love, maybe it"s to vent, but they made love pa.s.sionately in the process of being chased, resulting in John Connor.”

“According to the information I"ve got, Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese had spent more than 48 hours together before we entered this world.”

Sheyan"s eyes sparkled with a ray of light that seemed to be able to discern everything. “Well, 48 hours were plenty of time to be attracted to each other and make love. According to the plot, the chances of conceiving after s.e.x this time are 100%, or the main plotline wouldn"t exist otherwise. Now….you should understand what I mean when I said John is right next to us.

(TL: Holy sht) (ED: Yeah, this sht"s wild)

“The future leader of the Resistance, Mr. John Connor, is still with us in the fallopian tube of his mother, in the form of a fertilised egg — Sarah Connor is dead, but the fertilised egg is still alive! It"s precisely thanks to the existence of the fertilised egg that our main mission is kept alive!”

“As long as John, the protagonist doesn"t die, no matter what happens, the plot will not change too much! We"re actually pretty lucky. It only takes one stray bullet through Sarah Connor"s abdomen to completely destroy our chances of completing this mission. The bullet doesn"t even have to hit her uterus or fallopian tube directly because the resulting biological contamination would be enough to kill the fertilised egg.”

“But… But there"s still a ways to go to turn him from a fertilised egg to a fetus,” Mogensha could not help saying.

“That"s why Professor Edwards, the great geneticist, is here with us. His authority in this field is beyond doubt. He has just told us that human organs will fail within five minutes after a human"s death, but the preservation of fertilised eggs in fallopian tubes lasts for about four hours….”

“Because Professor Edwards told us this right after we shot a guy"s head off with a gun, I think the information should be credible. No one would joke with their own life after all. Oh right, I forgot to introduce another one of Professor Edwards" ident.i.ty. The yellow page clearly stated his t.i.tle as: the Director of the Stepford Infertility Center. He has performed more than 1,000 IVF operations so far.”

The so-called IVF, or test-tube baby technology, is not a technology which enabled babies to grow in test tubes, but a process of manually combining an egg and a sperm into a fertilised egg in a laboratory dish, then transfer the embryo (the new life conceived through in vitro fertilisation) back into the woman"s uterus (embryo transplantation). The embryo can then develop in the uterine cavity like in a normal pregnancy until it reaches full term, after which it can be birthed normally.

This method is a great boon for many parents with inactive sperm or fallopian tube deformities, and the number of test tube babies worldwide has reached a figure of four millions.

What Sheyan wanted Professor Edwards to do right now was simple enough – to suck that precious fertilised egg out of the fallopian tube of the dead Sarah Connor (a woman expels only one egg a month, so it"s not difficult to find) and after the proper treatment, transfer it into the womb of a healthy woman.

In that way, the future saviour will still be born – just with a different mother.

Professor Edwards could already perform the IVF operation successfully 20 years ago, so the only thing he wa worried about right now was not the failure of the operation, but whether Sheyan would keep his promise afterwards….

“Those people are way too strong!”

The one who spoke was Ougens, who had unwittingly joined the side of the Terminators.

During the pursuit, he was pretty relentless at first.

He felt as if he had fallen into a huge conspiracy after coming to this world. After painstaking effort, their side had finally managed to kill the two mission targets and finally saw a sliver of hope, but a bunch of people had suddenly appeared halfway through and stolen away Sarah Connor! Of course they would chase with everything they had! (All of them thought Sarah Connor either had a glimmer of life left, or had faked her death.)

But what happened afterwards scared the life out of Ougens.

Be it the dual-attribute MT, or the masked female mage, or the black man with the golden AK, they all appeared to be as unshakeable as towering mountains in front of Ougens. And there was that dual-MT configuration towards the end!

This led directly to the pursuers being struck down mercilessly one by one even though their numbers were more than double that of the opponent"s!

Ougens was almost sure that even the T-800 Terminator would be killed in a head-on fight with that formidable squad! The fact that that group had chosen the defending side of the mission meant that their side now was facing an insurmountable task.

Shots rang out again in the distance. Amidst the rising smoke and dust, a T-800 Terminator moved past Ougens" side and ran along in a cold silence towards a contestant running in panic over fifty meters away.

The only advantage of choosing the Terminator"s side was that they would not be attacked as long as they were not within ten meters of the Terminator.

Ougens narrowed his eyes. He had already resigned himself to failing the mission, so he was determined to recover his losses from his enemies. He immediately gave chase.

The fleeing contestant suddenly turned around and fired.

Some of the bullets missed their target and burrowed themselves into the wall nearby, while the rest hit the T-800, but besides making holes in its clothes, they did not seem to hinder the Terminator much.

However, the bullets were just a feint. The contestant suddenly opened his mouth and out slipped an orange-sized electromagnetic grenade. With a kick, the grenade flew straight at the Terminator. Amidst a harsh static noise, even the mighty Terminator immediately fell into a state of interference.

The contestant was going to escape successfully!

Just then, a figure flashed out of the pillar to the left of Ougens. The person was dressed as a hippie and had a mohawk haircut. Between his fingers was an Ace of Spades poker card. A ray of light shot out with a light flick of his fingers.

A shrill noise which was like the sound of a chainsaw forcefully sawing through steel could be heard. The flying card shot through the air and left a faint trail of light behind it. When it cut through the steel surface of a car, the surface would split, roll up, and emit some dazzling sparks!

Following that was the abrupt halt to the ceaseless shooting of the gun. It was replaced by an agonising scream. A severed arm that was still tightly holding on to a gun traced a parabolic path in the air before cras.h.i.+ng down to the ground.

This seemingly ordinary poker card possessed an unstoppable momentum! It very easily injured the defending contestant!

Since someone from his side managed to strike down one of the opponents, Ougens was supposed to relax a little, but instead, his brow furrowed even more.

The young hippie, Thompson, was a card dealer in Las Vegas before he entered the nightmare realm. His innate ability was that card throwing skill he just displayed.

But the greater the power, the bigger the cost, so in every world, Thompson would at most use these “sharp cards” five times. They were his ultimate skill and literally his trump card. Based on how pale he looked at the moment, it was obvious that he did not have the energy to throw another card.

Since he had already used his ultimate move at this point, didn"t that mean he had lost all confidence in his future undertakings in this world? He was taking the chance to reap as much benefit as possible from the current battle!

Ougens watched as the pale Thompson stood there grinning while checking his spoils after successfully killing the enemy. He felt that something was off, but for the life of him, he couldn"t pinpoint what it was.

Suddenly, the powerful T-800 Terminator got up from its original position. It was only hit with an electromagnetic grenade, so there shouldn"t be too much damage – maybe some interference in his internal program, but that"s all.

But now the T-800"s eyes suddenly exploded, and a bluish-white electrical current sprayed out of them, reaching a length of three to four meters. The joints all over its body started emitting sparks. Then, the mechanical parts that made up its body fell apart and crashed down into a heap of sc.r.a.p iron, as if they had suddenly lost the force which held them together!

That wasn"t all. The pile of sc.r.a.p iron was still burning on the ground. A large amount of black smoke rose into the air and formed words. This method of transmitting information was really similar to the way the realm handed out the main mission when they first stepped foot in this world!

“O lost sheeps, I will guide you to the road of success…”

At this time, Sheyan"s group had arrived at the Elia Private Hospital.

They were not afraid of any ambushes. Besides, Professor Edwards didn"t look that uptight.

Sheyan"s actions from before had undeniably lifted the morale of the whole party.

The enemy had already laid down the chessboard in a way that would ensure their defeat, but his plan was still foiled by Sheyan, who had found a sliver of chance from examining the details. Sheyan had then expanded that sliver of chance into a legitimate path to success!

The main mission of Party Ace was still teetering precariously on the edge of failure with the male and female lead both dead. Even if they completed the mission, they would probably get the lowest evaluation, but for the members of Party Ace, the rewards were no longer important. All they hoped for was not to have their attributes deducted again.

By now, Sheyan had gained a better understanding of Sanzi"s usefulness. His role as a summoner was only one aspect of it. After providing him with enough powerful equipments, in conjunction with Sanzi"s own innate talent, he had completely broken the shackles of an ordinary summoner.

The way summoners usually operated was to tame and train creatures in safe places, then summon them to fight in dangerous places. Because once the summoner was interrupted during the summoning process, it was very troublesome.

But most of the time, Sanzi could recruit and control a creature immediately after they met. This undoubtedly made for very flexible tactics. Although offense was the main means to victory, other aspects could not be ignore too. For example, the lark that came to them to deliver news before, or the venomous spider that was used to threatened Professor Edwards, were both very useful.

Before stepping into Elia Private Hospital, Sanzi had even summoned a few rats to scout the place to prevent them from stepping into a trap. Instead of a summoner, he was more like a druid who had mastered the way of nature.

None of the other members had said anything when Sanzi joined the team, but it was inevitable that their impression of him was someone who got in through nepotism. But now, Sanzi had proven himself to be very useful in a utility role and could effectively make up for any shortcomings in the team with his summoned creatures. Therefore, although they had only spent a few hours together, even the most demanding person among them, Zi, had silently acknowledge Sanzi as a teammate.

They had drawn the equipments of the two opponents Zi had killed in the last fight, in addition to some achievement points. Neither of those two guys were anything special. They drew a dark blue equipment and a black equipment, both of which were not very useful to them. As a result, they were given to Sheyan to feed to the internal furnace in his "Planetary-Grade High-Energy Mechanical Power Gloves".

The energy bar of the gloves had already fallen below the red warning level because Sheyan, or more precisely, the entire Party Ace, had no extra funds to recharge them. The two pieces of equipments came just in time to solve the problem. After the gloves were fed with the equipments, the energy bars of the gloves were finally increased to approximately 70%.

Each of them had also obtained the t.i.tle of "Machine Predator". The effect of the t.i.tle was pretty weak, but it was very useful for t.i.tle synthesisation.

(TL: "Machine Predator" was mentioned way back in chapter 8)

Elia Private Hospital appeared to have a good working relations.h.i.+p with Professor Edwards. The people here seemed very familiar with him. Sheyan stood at the side in a white coat, silently overseeing the series of procedures without anyone questioning his presence.

Professor Edwards had lost count of the number of times he had retrieved an egg from a woman"s body. It was even easier to do so from a woman"s corpse, since he didn"t need to apply anesthetics or consider the feeling of the patient. It saved a lot of time.

He removed the egg in a practiced manner and soaked it in a top-grade nutritional liquid, before inspecting it under a microscope. After a while, he smiled.

“It"s a very healthy fertilised egg. It seems that the death of the mother has not had any effect on it yet.”

Sheyan also checked the microscope. He knew that the sperm was the smallest cell in the human body and a man could excrete hundreds of millions of sperms at a time, while the ovum was the largest cell in the human body and there would normally be only one of it at a time. Therefore, a fertilised egg was easily visible with a low power microscope.

“What"s next?” asked Sheyan.

Professor Edwards hesitated for a moment before he answered, “Normally, we"ll monitor the fertilised egg and inject some nutrients to make it grow stronger, then give it one to three weeks to develop. Finally, we will implant the embryo in a healthy woman"s uterus.”

Sheyan said flatly, “We don"t have that much time. Don"t worry, I have full confidence in the embryo"s strength and luck. But before that, I"d like to witness an embryo transfer operation. I heard that the operation is very simple and is only as difficult as a circ.u.mcision operation?”

“Well, yes, in theory, if we do all the necessary preparation beforehand.”

“Good. Then please arrange it. I"d like to take a look at the next embryo transfer operation. You mentioned before that more than a dozen patients come here every day for check-up and operations?”

Sheyan naturally wouldn"t leave everything to a storyline character. That would be a very dangerous move.

He did not forget the fact that a large number of Terminators and contestants, armed to the teeth, were extremely interested in terminating the fertilised egg.

Which was why an hour later, he got himself a bottle, a syringe, an injection gun, and a book.

The bottle is filled with the latest nutritional liquid, which could provide enough nutrients to the embryo soaked inside it to ensure that the embryo obtained the necessary nutrients as it would in the fallopian tube. This bottle of nutritional liquid could ensure that the fertilised egg grew healthily within seven days.

The syringe could suck 1000cc of the nutritional liquid and the embryo inside it without harming the embryo. It could then be fitted onto the injection gun.

The length of the needle on the injection gun had undergone precise measurement. It could easily penetrate the skin, abdominal muscles, and outer wall of the uterus, so that the tip of the needle be placed just inside the uterus. With a pull of the trigger, the liquid and embryo in the syringe would be transfered into the uterus without spilling a drop.

The book was t.i.tled “All About IVF”.

Having done all this, Professor Edwards discovered that those mysterious and vicious people did not break their promise. He not only got his diamonds, but had also survived.

But six hours after Sheyan and his group left, another person found Professor Edwards. Despite the professor"s cooperative att.i.tude, he was nevertheless killed.

That"s because the person who interrogated Professor Edwards would rather that what the professor had said was a lie. He understood that if Professor Edwards had not lied, it would be very difficult to stop Sheyan now, unless….unless they could kill every woman of childbearing age in Los Angeles!

Currently, John was still a fertilised egg, while both the male and female lead of the Terminator movie were dead, so Skynet"s dispatch of Terminators had been halted.

Sheyan was now sitting in a McDonald"s, eating hamburgers and drinking c.o.ke with all the Party Ace members while carrying a thick briefcase.

“We must be careful in the selection of John"s mother. We must make sure that the first reaction the new mother shows upon finding herself suddenly being pregnant will be to cry tears of joy and thank G.o.d, instead of calling an abortion centre to ask how much it"ll cost. We"ll leave the rest to the realm. They"ll surely arrange everything better than we will,” said Sheyan while chewing a mouthful of bbq chicken burger.

“This is a big project, boss,” murmured Mogensha.

Sheyan drank half a c.o.ke and burped comfortably before lifting the briefcase on his hand. “I agree with you, AK, but we have to do it no matter how big the project is. Here"s some demographic information Sanzi and I have gathered, including a list of families that are looking to adopt boys, and a list of infertile patients waiting for treatment. There"s a mother with a fallopian tube deformity, a father with low sperm count….there must be something we can use in here.”

While Sheyan was speaking, he handed out a thick pile of information to each of them.

“Now we need to find the right person. First, John"s mother should be below 35 years old because older mothers are three times more likely to suffer from pregnancy complications.”

Not many people would discuss work in a McDonald"s, but such people were not few either. The focus of the public was on the recently invading machine mob, so they were especially alert to anyone with stiff, dull faces, and would immediately call the police if they saw any signs of suspicious activities. Since Sheyan"s group talked and laughed merrily, no one suspected them.

The first round of screening by Party Ace already eliminated 3/4 of the candidates.

Sheyan ordered another Colonel Chicken (TL: This ain"t KFC wat u doin author) and issued the second requirement while chewing on the chicken.

“Second, John"s mother should have a decent job, which ensures that she has enough money during the pregnancy to cope with all kinds of accidents.”

This requirement further eliminated 1/2 of remaining the candidates.

Sheyan continued, “She should have a refined husband, someone who"s highly educated, non-alcoholic, and has no record of violence – after all, domestic violence is one of the main causes of miscarriage.”

After listening to Sheyan"s request, Zi shrugged and said, “You sure set a high standard. We"ll have to make calls to investigate and verify their situations.”

“I"ll pay for the phone bills,” said Sheyan with a smile.

Zi rolled her eyes at that, but even this action of hers contained an indescribable charm. It stirred Sheyan"s heart. Without any change in expression, he rubbed Zi"s leg tentatively under the table. It resulted in his toes being stomped by the heel of her stiletto. The pain penetrated into the very core of his being, but he dared not make a sound.

After this round of screening, there were only nine candidates remaining. Everyone was relieved that the most difficult phase of the task was over. However, Sheyan"s next order sent them to the brink of insanity.

“Now, the last requirement.” Sheyan said with some difficulty, “I want to know the exact time of their menstrual period.”

“Boss, you"ve gone too far!”

“I object!”

“We"re not risking our lives in the nightmare world to satisfy a certain person"s abnormal fetishes!!!”

“SILENCE!!!!!”

The veins on Sheyan"s forehead throbbed. “Do you seriously think I"m that kind of person?”

Sheyan"s expression that was full of righteousness finally silenced them a little, but Jinkuang suddenly appeared and laughed wickedly.

“Brilliantly done, my master….”

Sheyan shut his eyes in misery. The righteous image he had worked so hard to create was immediately destroyed.

He yelled bitterly, “You ignorant, illiterate, uncultured ma.s.ses! It"s clearly written in “All About IVF” that a woman has certain time periods when she"s not suited to get pregnant. For example, during the menstruation period and 10 days afterwards, the environment inside the uterus is like a barren land, and the success rate of embryo transfer is no higher than 30%. The most suitable time for embryo transfer is seven days before menstruation! Dealing with ignorant people is a real pain.”

Towards the end of his speech, Sheyan was already roaring and growling, but he suddenly noticed Zi giving him a chilly stare.

“Who did you call ignorant?”

Sheyan coughed sheepishly and changed the subject. “Let"s move on. All their contact information is here. Tell them that you"re staff from the hospital calling to get some information from them in order to properly process their request. Try to speak in a textbook doctor"s tone. It won"t be much of a problem.”

The survey found that the contact details of four of the nine candidates were already out of use. The remaining five contact numbers were successfully connected, but two were picked up not by the candidates themselves, and the people who picked up the phone could not answer questions as personal as menstruation periods.

Of the 3 remaining candidates, one had a change of heart. She had suddenly realised that children were “terrifying creatures” and no longer wanted to have one.

In the end, their choices was narrowed down to two. Ms. Adess told them that her period was half a month ago,while Ms. Dumbley was just done with her last period. Therefore, they had no choice but to set their sights on on Ms. Adess.

The remaining process was simple.

Sheyan slipped some aphrodisiac into the dinner of Ms. Adess and her husband and waited for them to have some action. Then, using ether as anesthetic, he succeeded in injecting John Connor, still in his embryo state, into Ms. Adess" body.

The most error-p.r.o.ne part of the embryo transfer operation was gauging the depth at which the needle needed to penetrate the body. Too deep, and the needle would penetrate through the uterus, but too shallow, and the tip would not reach into the uterus.

They were errors often committed by newbies who performed the operation with nervous, trembling hands. Sheyan was also a newbie, but he was someone who had gone through a lot of life-and-death situations, so his mental strength was unbelievably strong. He succeeded on his first try.

After cleaning their trails and removing anything out of the ordinary, Sheyan set fire to the several archives he had been to, destroying all the sources of the information he had gathered. This way, it would be impossible for their enemies to find Ms. Adess unless someone had a precognition ability.

As a matter of fact, divination abilities did exist in the realm, but the cost of divining the whereabout of a main character that was still in an embryo form must be alarmingly high. So, Sheyan was not too worried regarding this matter. He was worried that the party would bring trouble to Ms. Adess if they were found, so they did not hesitate to leave far away.

After all that was done, they finally received notifications from the realm.

[ The saviour John Connor"s embryo has been removed from his biological mother"s body. He is currently alive. ]

[ Please wait patiently. After the critical period of thirty-six hours, your main mission will be deemed completed. ]

Everyone on Party Ace breathed a sigh of relief. The sword at their neck which threatened to cut their base attributes had moved a little further away. That kind of agony was almost unbearable.

These thirty-six hours, of course, could not be spent in vain. Sheyan and his team had ensured the complete secrecy of their operation, so as long as they stayed far away from Adess now, the embryo of John Connor was almost impossible to be found. These thirty-six hours were a free gift for Party Ace.

And as all the Party Ace members knew, Sheyan came to this world due to that mysterious metal nut. There was no time like the present to unravel the mystery surrounding the nut.

But Sheyan frowned when he heard this suggestion because he did not intend to do so.

Sheyan had not forgotten about the “mastermind behind the scenes”, and he was almost certain that the mastermind was related to the Stockholm party. Since Drogba had already done this mission, he would certainly reveal the mission process in detail. There was no doubt that if they chose to complete the nut mission now, the other side would launch an attack at the most difficult juncture in the mission!

Sheyan must of course try his best to avoid such a thing from happening. The enemies were strong to begin with, and they were also hidden in the shadows, waiting to ambush. In such a situation, let alone completing the mission, even survival would become a problem.

Sheyan noticed that during the period when Party Ace was moving in secret, the contestants on the opposing side had hid themselves too. He was unable to see any signs of their actions. On the other hand, the contestants who had accepted the mission of protecting Sarah Connor would occasionally appear on the news channels as if they were moving around aimlessly.

This inevitably gave Sheyan a huge pressure.

The enemy could actually organise the contestants on the opposing side, who were woefully divided, and helped them disappear without a trace in a short period of time!

A deep scrutiny would reveal that the capability displayed by the mastermind was actually really frightening. The vanished enemies were like a dagger of an a.s.sa.s.sin lurking in the dark; though invisible, one could feel its existence, its bloodthirst and its razor sharp edge!

If it was someone else, they would surely have made a hasty judgment under such intense pressure.

But Sheyan happened to be an extremely patient man. More importantly, he believed he could afford to wait! In the end, the one to break down first would definitely be the other party!

Because sometimes, waiting is also a form of attack.

A powerful attack!

Why is waiting also a form of attack? Because the other side was a loose bunch of guys after all. They lacked the kind of strong organisational force that bound a group of people with common interests together.

They would be fine if there were plenty of time. But because they weren"t organized and distrustful of each other, and with the 36-hour deadline swiftly approaching, they were under great pressure!

Sheyan truly felt that the mastermind had done an amazing job. He was able to gather these loose bunch of contestants together as well as to get them to buy in by suppressing their desires and willingly hide themselves. But it would take a G.o.d, not a mortal, to calm these contestants down when they were on the verge of failing their mission and having all their base attributes deducted.

So Sheyan chose to wait and let the precious time pa.s.s by. At this point, it was a war of patience. The greatest advantage possessed by Sheyan"s side was that they would emerge victorious if the status quo remained until the end.

In other words, they completely held the upper hand.

To be honest, Sheyan was extremely wary of that mastermind behind the scenes. His mysterious way of attacking was indeed difficult to guard against. If Party Ace made any rash actions and lost the initiative in this battle, resulting in them being ambushed, Sheyan was not sure if he could protect Mogensha or Sanzi"s life.

Similarly, the enemy"s loose organisational structure ensured that they could not withstand a sudden a.s.sault by Ace Party too. It would easily collapse the morale and core that they had so painstakingly built!

And so, a stalemate had become the main theme of this battle.

Whoever revealed a flaw first, would lose!

As time went by, even Sheyan"s teammates were showing some anxiety. Instead, the other contestants who had received the “Protect Sarah Connor” mission had been keeping themselves busy, as was evident from their appearance in news footages on TV from time to time.

The official news channels became an important method for Sheyan and the rest to get information on the outside world. They were mostly interested in anything out of the ordinary, such as a gas explosion that occurred at a certain research inst.i.tute. Military-grade gas tanks like those used in the inst.i.tute would never blow up that easily. Some technology inside must had been stolen.

Another example was a gun fight between some drug traffickers and the police. It must be the work of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, either to gain reputation with certain factions or to achieve some milestones.

Even the Cyberdyne Systems company, which would produce Skynet, had been hara.s.sed. Note that it was just hara.s.sment and not an a.s.sault. The hapless perpetrator seemed to have bitten off more than he could chew. In the end, sadly, he was carried out covered with a white cloth on a stretcher.

“Those people sure are calm.” Reef clutched a cup of water and paced back and forth restlessly. If he gripped the cup any tighter, it would surely crack.

They were now on the rooftop of a thirty-storey building, where a rusty galvanized iron shack had been built by the building manager to earn a little extra cash for himself. The rusty iron rattled as the wind blew. Whoever stayed here would feel an oppressive feeling.

This place may look like a tough spot with nowhere to run if the situation got dangerous, but there were actually three buildings around it that were lower in height, and the gaps to those buildings were all less than 20 meters in width. It would not be hard for a contestant to jump to the opposite side.

Moreover, Sheyan was confident in the team he built from scratch. In this world, it would be hard to find any side that could force them to run away in panic in a direct confrontation.

If they did not have to protect the corpse of the female lead in the previous battle, Sheyan and Reef could just rush into the midst of the enemies. With Zi and Mogensha"s help, the ones to flee would have been the enemies instead!

Another important point was, if the mastermind really did have the confidence of dealing with Party Ace, why would he bother with so much set-up and schemes?

Sheyan knew well that the most sure-fire way of obtaining victory was not with schemes, but to crush the opponent with an overwhelming superiority!

Faced with Reef"s doubts, Sheyan just smiled and said, “They will lose their cool sooner or later. In fact, now that half the time has pa.s.sed, I can already guess where they"re hiding.”

Mogensha"s spirit was instantly lifted when he heard that. “Where"s that?” he asked.

The only peculiarity Sheyan could detect on the metal nut before entering this world was the SOS distress signal engraved on its thread – but the it was only visible under a high power microscope.

While in the nightmare realm, even someone as sharp as Sheyan found it hard-pressed to glean any more information from the existing clues. However, after entering this world, the nut began to show some more information:

“Workshop No.7, Knox Factory.”

Since a location was given, there was no doubt that any stories that would develop later would start from there. Together with the SOS clue, the time, the location and the event could be fully deduced.

If the mastermind behind the scenes truly had something to do with the Stockholm party as Sheyan had speculated, he would know this place too. Now that Sheyan had vanished from public view, the only ambush point they could set up was right there.

Sheyan looked serious as he told them, “Although I know the enemies must be around that place, we still have to wait. It"s now a battle to see which side will lose their patience first. Our disadvantage is that we entered this world almost a whole week later than they did, so we don"t know if they"ve prepared anything in secret. The good news is that it"s almost impossible for them to find us as long as we hole up here. Whoever move first will show their flaw first! And don"t forget, the status quo is beneficial to us. So why not wait?

Party Ace"s main mission slowly approached the time limit.

An hour left….

30 minutes left….

10 minutes left….

Sheyan"s face darkened. One of Sanzi"s summoned creature was a very strange plant familiar which could be used for surveillance. Sanzi could plant the plant familiar in the body of a homing pigeon to turn it into a moving surveillance camera.

The homing pigeon was currently perching on a building next to the Knox factory.

So far, there had been no movement in the factory.

This had completely strayed from Sheyan"s judgment. In Sheyan"s estimation, internal strife and chaos should have broken out among the opposing contestants, who were nothing more than a rabble, as the time limit counted down to 10 hours!

Now, the time limit was already within 10 minutes, but the place was still so quiet!

Sheyan felt the situation slipping out of his control, which was a frightening thought. His throat felt dry. Zi thoughtfully handed him a gla.s.s of water, which he gulped down.

“How could this be?” Sheyan couldn"t help muttering to himself. “There"s definitely no mistake in my judgement.”

[ Mission completion countdown begins: 10, 9, 8, ….. 1, 0! ]

[Silver party Ace have completed the main mission: “Save”]

[ Main mission: Save ]

[ Mission details: Even though Sarah Connor and her boyfriend did not survive the intense a.s.sa.s.sination attempt, but their child, the future leader of the Resistance, John Connor managed to survive the ordeal. His life will no doubt change dramatically, but Skynet"s goal was not achieved. ]

[ Mission evaluation: D – Extremely bad! Ladies and gentlemen, for a time, you put Mr. John Connor"s life in a very precarious position. More importantly, the death of his mother will inevitably change the future. It would have been great if you could keep Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor alive! ]

[ Mission reward: 3000 utility points and 2 achievement points (legend level +1). You are not qualified to receive free attribute points. ]

The low evaluation score of the main mission was within Sheyan"s expectation. His attention was still focused on the Knox factory"s side. The factory had remained oddly calm without anything unusual happening at all.

Sheyan waited for another hour after that. The whole time was spent in anxiety. His dark eyebrows were furrowed deep as he paced restlessly back and forth in the iron shack like a trapped animal. Reef and the others were silent in fear of disturbing him.

Suddenly, Sheyan grabbed a piece of iron that protruded from the wall and tore it off as he yelled, “I understand now! That b.a.s.t.a.r.d!!! I"ve underestimated his cruelty and his resolve! Let"s go to the Knox factory! ”

It took less than twenty minutes for Party Ace to arrive outside the factory. From how heavily-guarded the place was, there was no doubt that the factory was a key military facility. However, for their group, it was not too difficult if they just wanted to infiltrate the outer area and not the core area. The guards wouldn"t be able to detect their presence.

Next, Sanzi used his ability to control ten odd rats to survey the area.

The rats soon found a suspicious location inside the Knox factory.

It was a place that used to be an hall, but was now an abandoned warehouse.

This place was suspicious because….even a rat could not get in.

The party soon reached the entrance of the warehouse with Sheyan and Reef in the lead. They forced open the door with violent means.

The door looked old and broken, but it was actually very strong.

Looking inside, Sheyan had a very ominous feeling because the moment the door had opened, he could already detect the pungent smell of blood…..

Then, just as the heavy door was pushed open by a crack, Sheyan and Reef both saw dead bodies – at least ten of them!

Bloodied bodies were scattered everywhere.

More importantly, they were all bodies of dead contestants….

Sheyan even recognised some of them. They were the few who had caused himself considerable trouble in their pursuit of Sarah Connor"s corpse.

The spectacle in front of him made him come to a realisation, but he also suddenly thought of something.

It was a very important thing!

"If it were me, what would I do after killing all these people?"

This thought immediately made him feel an unspeakable horror.

Then, his attention moved back to the door of the warehouse.

The door that looked old and broken, but it was really hard to open! When he had used all his might to push it open just now, he seemed to have felt something….

Several thoughts flashed across his mind.

"It couldn"t be the timer type – that guy couldn"t have known when we would come here. So, it could only be the trigger type! Fortunately, Zi and the rest were very far away in case something unexpected happens. We still have a chance!"

Sheyan immediately stopped the stupid act of pus.h.i.+ng the door open.

The knuckles on the gloves on his hands began to spin wildly while emitting a blinding green glow. Sheyan grabbed the arm of the puzzled Reef and flung him towards the distant Zi with a shoulder throw. At the same time, he screamed, “Use "Courage", quick! Get as far away from this d.a.m.n place as possible! ”

It was fortunate that the hidden mastermind had truly pressured them, so every Party Ace member was on high alert the whole time. Sheyan"s warning won them a few seconds of buffer time, which allowed them to withdraw a few dozen meters further and to find cover for themselves.

After that, a terrible explosion occurred.

More than 20 meters underground beneath the warehouse, a reddish-gold ball of light suddenly appeared. The diameter of the ball of light was more than 10 meters, but it was gently but quickly swelling up, or at least, that"s what it looked like. Anything that came in contact with the ball of light would vanish , including soil and water….because they were all made of atoms.

Countless atoms started to split, and a frantic energy started to surge up!

The reddish-gold ball of gentle light immediately exuded a vibe of madness, greed, and utterly unspeakable hysteria! It produced a black hole-like suction force in an instant, seemingly trying to suck everything around it into itself. Even the surrounding s.p.a.ce was showing signs of collapse!

The warehouse door that was forced open by Sheyan and Reef was collapsing too. It was a huge piece of iron over 10 meters long and 3 meters thick, but it was instantly swallowed inside. The door was completely annihilated without much ceremony.

Of course, if Sheyan was still standing there, he could not have escaped the terrifying suction force either.

But he was not standing there. He had already used the "Mind Transmission" ability from the magic ring from the Harry Potter world, "Entanglement of Victory". He had become a rainbow and moved over 20 meters away, thus escaping the core area of the suction force.

Even so, Sheyan was still unable to resist the terrifying force. He could only grab tightly to a broken steel beam with all his strength, barely holding on.

His face was sweaty (TL: arms spaghetti), his muscles twisted, and his teeth rattled loudly. He held on with every ounce of strength he had, but his worst fear soon came true. He could only watch while the life-saving steel beam squeak in protest as the raging suction force forced it to gradually bend!

Just as the steel beam had been bent from a straight line to a 90 degrees angle, the suction force started to die down. Sheyan suddenly stumbled forward. Instead of being happy, he was shocked!

That"s because he had discovered that the air before him had a strange sense of flowing current. Light smoke rose from all over his body. He was like a block of sugar that was thrown into the water, rapidly dissolving!

Even more frightening was the fact that Sheyan found himself no longer able to breathe. The air flowing into his nostrils broke into tiny pieces like thin icicles. They collided with each other and ran rampant in his respiratory tract, covering his respiratory tract with wounds. All Sheyan sucked into his lungs was blood! His own blood!

“AH AH AH AH! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

Sheyan let out an earth-shaking roar! His fists punched the air in front of him hard, temporarily crus.h.i.+ng the air and returning it into its gaseous form! At the same time, he lowered his body so that he lay flat on the ground.

The hard ground in the warehouse area collapsed, falling down towards a burning red sea!!

A cascade of blood-red magma rushed straight into the sky, then came cras.h.i.+ng down like a waterfall. It seemed as if it was going to sweep everything down with it!

Next,

A huge explosion happened.

For the first few dozen seconds, everything was quiet, as if the earlier peace had been restored. After that, everything slowly unfolded like a slow-motion scene in a movie.

The grand explosion was like a blossoming lotus, slowly and elegantly devouring everything around it! Finally, it shot menacingly towards the sky, forming a huge gray vortex in the clouds!

This power of this explosion was extremely terrifying, exceeding even the destructive force of nuclear weapons at its core, but its scope was not large. It also had a very clear border, which was 20 meters around the warehouse. Outside this core area of 20 meters, the power of the explosion quickly diminished.

Sheyan was just outside the core area of the explosion.

Standing close to such a terrible explosion zone, Sheyan somehow did not feel any pain. Instead, he felt his blood boiling all over. He only managed to hang on for about three seconds before the sacred and majestic pale yellow layer of "Life-link" enshrouded him.

That was the reason Sheyan had to throw Reef away. If both of them were trapped in the danger zone, then both of them would have perished, unlike the situation now where Reef could help Sheyan take the remaining damage, which was quite a staggering amount as well.

Reef"s HP declined at an alarming rate. What shocked Sheyan was that a thin but clear line of crack had suddenly appeared on the "Life-link" layer on the surface of his body under the terrifying force of the explosion! The crack, though not very long, was really frightening. If the protective layer was broken, Sheyan would definitely crumble to ashes.

“Hang in there! PLEASE hang in there! I swear, if I survive today, I"ll definitely upgrade the level of "Life-link"!”

Fortunately, the duration of the explosion was short; it left as quickly as it came. And the power of the explosion seems to have been limited, because the shockwave after the explosion did not burst towards every direction, but was concentrated upwards like a volcano eruption. Otherwise, the entire city of Los Angeles would have been destroyed.

At the site of the explosion, a strange pit, shaped like a cylinder, could be seen. The pit was 80 meters wide and at least 200 meters deep. Smoke rose up from around the pit and from inside it. If one were to stand at the edge of the pit and look down to the bottom right now, one would catch the sight of some reddish-gold energy remnant seething like boiling oil underneath, before it dissipated.

This explosion could really be called a “surgical knife strike”; it was precise, effective, and domineering- small-scale but powerful!

Sheyan lay less than three meters away from the edge of the deep pit, charred and blackened. He breathed heavily as his fingers dug deep into the ground.

When Brother Black pulled him up and carried him on his back, Sheyan could still curl his lips into a smile. He said weakly, “Seems like today"s not the day I die. Even a trap like this couldn"t kill me.”

He fainted after that.

Mogensha was in still shock due to the unexpected explosion. His mind was in turmoil so he didn"t know what to say. When he saw Sheyan fall unconscious, he turned to Zi for help.

Zi looked really pale too. If Party Ace was slightly careless and had congregated around the warehouse door, there probably would not be many of them left, if any. An explosion of this scale was unlikely to escape the attention of the government, not to mention that the Knox factory was supposed to be a military facility with heavy protection. In order to avoid a direct conflict with the government, they could only withdraw temporarily and wait for Sheyan"s injury to heal.

Sheyan was having a really agonising dream.

In this dream, he had accidentally slipped into magma. He was hot and dry and in desperate need of water, but he could not find a single drop.

Fortunately, at that moment, a strong hand suddenly supported his back. Sheyan then felt something sweet and cold pouring into his lips. His instinct made him suck greedily until he could not stomach any more. He uttered a sigh of satisfaction afterwards.

After drinking enough water, Sheyan"s brain had pretty much woken from its stupor. He slowly opened his eyes, but quickly closed them again because of the harsh light. At this time, Zi said gently next to his ear, “We"re safe now; there"s no rush to get up. Just remember what you"ve been through and then adjust to the environment. You just had a severe concussion….”

Sheyan took a deep breath and continued to lie in bed as he was told. After about a minute, he opened his eyes and sat up.

“How long has it been since the explosion?”

Zi looked at the time and replied, “It"s been seven hours.”

Sheyan nodded in response.

“Normally, if we don"t have a side mission, we can only stay in the same world after finis.h.i.+ng the main mission for 12 hours at most. Well, that"s not a problem. We still have more than four hours of time left.”

“I"ve been in this world before, so I know the way to trigger a side mission. We"ll look for a certain b.a.s.t.a.r.d and start a side mission first so that we can prolong our stay in this world. Ouch!”

Sheyan groaned because of a sharp pain in his back. A strand of reddish-gold negative energy from the core of the explosion had caught onto his back and eroded into his body. It had not dissipated even after such a long time.

This reddish-gold energy stubbornly resided in Sheyan body like bone-sucking maggots. Even the "Stairway of the Sun" couldn"t do anything against it. Every time Sheyan"s wound healed a little, the negative energy would mercilessly erode and re-injure him. How could he get better this way?

Zi carefully wiped the blood off Sheyan"s wound. The blood was very hot, almost boiling. Sheyan gnashed his teeth with his eyes shut tight, waiting for acute pain to pa.s.s.

He then said, “We"ll go look for a guy called Vincent… There"s a pretty high chance we"ll get a side mission from him. If Vincent lets us down, there"s bound to be a side mission with Skynet"s main programmer, Miles Dyson — of course, it"s much harder to gain the trust of the latter, so he can"t be our first choice. ”

Mr. Vincent has not made an appearance for a long time, so it stands to reason that most of us would have forgotten who he is. That"s right, he"s the soon-to-be-marginalised executive of Cyberdyne Systems, the backstabbing man who had called the police immediately after making a transaction with Sheyan. He could never have imagined that the man he betrayed back then would come back for him one day – bringing a whole group of people with him!

Sheyan gritted his teeth and climbed out of bed, then stood up with some difficulty while holding onto his shoulder. He could clearly feel the torment of the reddish-gold energy in the body. He had no choice but to numb the surrounding nerves with anesthetics. He felt slightly better after that, but his combat ability was still only half of what it was in his peak condition.

The group walked out and got on a bus heading to Cyberdyne Systems" company headquarters. The bus was quite empty. Sheyan and his party sat at the back of the bus. The atmosphere was heavy and n.o.body spoke.

Sheyan closed his eyes and pondered for a while, then slowly breathed out.

“Amazing,” he said in the party communication channel.

As if Sheyan"s words had broken some sort of barrier, everyone instantly felt relieved.

“You"re talking about the mastermind behind the scenes?” asked Zi.

Sheyan"s expression was as calm as the surface of a lake as he nodded while he replied, “Yeah. This guy is merciless, meticulous, and decisive. Not only that, he"s also very cautious. As soon as he catches a whiff of danger, he"s out. He doesn"t do anything he"s not sure of. All this makes it really hard to get rid of him! I"m afraid we have to be very wary of him in the foreseeable future. ”

“But his plan still failed,” Zi showed Sheyan an encouraging look. “All the traps he laid down were foiled by you – and you were unprepared before you went through them too. That"s not a fluke, that"s a proof of your strength.”

Sheyan said with a bitter smile, “To be honest, I"m not confident I"ll survive this guy"s scheme for the third time. But the good news is that it should be impossible for him to use another bomb like the one he planted before. Such a powerful bomb, as far as the strength of the current contestants are concerned, is enough to destroy the balance of the realm. Even MTs like Reef and I will be easily killed if we"re caught in the heart of the explosion. Something taboo like this will either have very stringent usage requirements like MCDH"s "Let the Bullets Fly" ability, or it must be exceptionally rare.

“But why did that guy kill the contestants on the same side as him?” wondered Mogensha.

Sanzi remarked, “Either it will be of great benefit to him, or it will prevent us from reaping any benefits.”

“Although the contestants on the opposing side did not fully complete their mission, they did kill Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese after all. Besides, the method Sheyan used to complete the mission was simply too weird. The realm must have compensated them somehow. Could they have been given extra time in this world? That is one of the most common form of compensation,” added Reef.

“You mean…the mastermind doesn"t want to see those people staying here?” asked Sheyan.

Looking out of the window of the bus, Zi muttered, “The opponent knows the steps involved in the “seed of divine artifact” mission. If – and this is only an a.s.sumption – there is a certain step which requires you to collect a certain amount of powerful souls within a limited time, it will explain the action taken by the mastermind.”

Sanzi seemed to have integrated nicely into the team. He voiced his opinion too. “That"s right, and it"s not as if he doesn"t get any loot for killing his allies. With his ability which appeared as if it could indirectly change someone"s destiny, it"s absolutely not impossible to kill all those contestants. The easiest way to go about it would be to sow discord among the crowd and let them kill each other first before stepping in and cleaning up the situation!”

Sheyan closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, then said, “Let"s put ourselves in the shoes of the mastermind and trace his trail of thoughts. He first followed you guys in the previous world, struck you at the most critical moment, continued to tail you into a second world, then used his Fate-like ability to lay down a powerful trap.

“At that point, the mastermind must have felt that his plan was fool-proof. Unfortunately, his scheme was foiled by me. The key lies in they way he reacted to that failure! A person"s performance after a major setback is always the most telling. When that guy realised that the contestants he had been using were becoming uncontrollable, he instantly ma.s.sacred them to eliminate the problem while it was still in its infancy. Then, he laid down another ferocious trap. He felt that we could possibly threaten his life, so he immediately returned to the realm.”

“This trap was actually really terrifying, because using it, the mastermind could kill three birds with one stone. First, he could kill some of our party members. Second, if I"m guessing correctly, the beginning of the mission on the “Seed of Divine Artifact” is closely related to the abandoned warehouse! Third, he could destroy the corpses and by doing so, prevent us from obtaining any information about him. If he was a gun user, there would"ve been bullet holes left on the corpses; if he wields a sword, there would"ve been slash marks.”

“We are dealing with a savage, cruel, meticulous and prudent person. He will never leave any chances for his enemies!” concluded Sheyan.

Reef suddenly asked, “How can you tell that he"s left the world?”

“If he"s still in this world, there would"ve been all kinds of strange accidents when were were dealing with the explosion just now,” said Sheyan seriously.

Reef nodded in acknowledgement. Zi said instead, “There"s something else I couldn"t figure out – the motive of the Stockholm party. The cost they"ve incurred so far to do all these things against us must be pretty steep. They"ve chased after us for 2 consecutive worlds as well as used a really precious explosive. Is it truly worth doing all this for the “Seed of Divine Artifact” which they might not even get back?”

After listening to Zi"s doubt, Sheyan said slowly, “I"ve been thinking about this, and I think I might have some idea. It"s hard for you guys to speculate about the reason behind their actions because there are some things you don"t know about.”

“Tell us,” said Zi with a serious att.i.tude.

Sheyan took a deep breath. Before his eyes was the b.l.o.o.d.y figure of the injured Cardinal, the eerie underground reproductive system, the b.l.o.o.d.y Invitation Letters that were like map fragments, and the strange conflict between his own Noah Realm C and the higher ups….

“I think the pursuit of the Stockholm party has a lot to do with my experience in the b.l.o.o.d.y World. The parties affiliated to other realms might think that it"s a lot less troublesome if they can eliminate me earlier….”

Zi was shocked after she heard Sheyan"s words.

She contemplated for a while and said, “If that"s the case, then the next realm war might be right around the corner. Do you mean to say that the realm which the Stockholm party is affiliated to is behind their actions?”

Sheyan nodded. He spoke slowly but without any hint of hesitation, “It"s very possible.”

(TL: The t.i.tle is a Chinese idiom which means to follow the clues.)

Everyone"s expression changed after hearing Sheyan"s answer.

It"s one thing to go up against a powerful party, it"s another to go up against a powerful party with the support of their realm behind them.

But Sheyan said calmly, “Don"t worry, it"s not such a bad thing. Realms should not be able to directly involve themselves in the fight between contestants- just like Asimov"s Three Laws of Robotics. If Stockholm party"s actions really had the shadow of their realm behind them, I don"t think our Noah Realm C would stay quiet. A promising and powerful team like ours should be afforded more opportunities and benefits by the realm, just like the way the United States Congress would allocate higher annual funding to special forces compared to ordinary troops.”

The others felt that Sheyan"s words had their merits. At that point, the bus stopped and Sheyan stood up. Although he was still affected by the maggot-like energy remnant, his back was straight, and his eyes shone with a peculiar excitement.

How could he not feel excited at the prospect of going up against such a formidable enemy?

Sheyan slowly stepped off the bus with a slight unsteadiness in his gait. He looked up and saw the huge building of Cyberdyne Systems towering majestically in front of him. Sheyan"s heart was filled with a complex emotion. The last time he was here, he did not even dare look straight at that building. Now, although the building still gave off a tremendous pressure, he was already trying to figure out how to squeeze out more benefits from it.

The streets of Los Angeles were still full of people and noises. Rows of colorful but outdated windows lined the streets. On the streets, there were quite a number of people who were listening to a walkman while dancing along to the rhythm.

Mogensha whistled at a woman who looked like Sheva Alomar and walked up to her for a chat. Zi walked towards a display window. Although her expression remained cold and aloof, her eyes burned with l.u.s.t…no, with desire.

Sheyan moved a little closer and heard her mumble, “A vintage Prada handbag, 1978 edition! Wow, a limited edition Chloe, and is that the special Hermes Birkin bag?”

Meanwhile, Reef looked enamoured with the antique lighters in an antique shop. His eyes were s.h.i.+ning as he checked the merchandises on display.

Sheyan"s gaze fell on Sanzi who was still staring at him. He sighed helplessly and said, “Now why do I feel like we"re the ones from a rich family instead?”

“Brother Reef, even if you get something you like here, you may not be able to bring it back to the nightmare realm. Even if it can be brought back to the nightmare realm, it certainly can"t be brought back into the real world,” Sanzi could not resist telling Reef.

Reef"s reply turned Sanzi speechless. “Ignorance truly is bliss. These beauties are so rare in the real world that they might as well have gone extinct. Having them in your possession, even for a few seconds, is a great pleasure!”

Sheyan and Sanzi could say nothing to that. It could be seen from this that the gap between the rich and the poor was present everywhere, even in the cold-blooded nightmare realm.

After Sheyan"s third angry roar, the group finally left the shopping street and headed straight for the Ba.s.saterre Steakhouse that was a hundred metres away from Cyberdyne Systems, albeit a little reluctantly.

Mr. Vincent"s vehicle was luckily parked outside the steakhouse – Sheyan could recognise it at a glance. This wasn"t yet the era when SUV"s were so popular that their annual market share could top 60%, so Vincent"s cross country jeep really stood out in the crowded parking lot. It looked a lot older than before due to the torment of the wind and the sun, as well as the owner"s neglect.

Sheyan looked around, but unfortunately could not find Mr. Vincent among the many diners. Since Sheyan he had been arrested here before and Jinkuang was in his usual slumbering state, the task of gathering information naturally fell on Sanzi"s shoulders. He had a frightening amount of Charm after all.

Zi unsurprisingly expressed a strong displeasure towards the cracked leather stools, greasy floor, and the thick grease on the tables. When Sheyan suggested a cup of coffee, she simply asked for a gla.s.s of water, which ended up serving more as a decoration than a drink. Zi thought that the food and drinks here were probably all tasted by c.o.c.kroaches before they got to be tasted by humans.

“Vincent? Oh, you"re talking about that guy with the large beard. He hasn"t been here for a week, and I don"t think he"ll ever come back.”

After a $17 tip from Sanzi, the s.e.xy-looking waitress was more than eager to talk to him.

“Why? Because the last time he asked for the bill, he found that he"d acc.u.mulated a considerable amount of debt in our steakhouse, and Mr. Vincent seemed to be in a poor financial situation, so he mortgaged his vehicle here and we never saw him again.”

“Our boss was still complaining two hours ago that the jeep was totally not enough to pay off the debt at all. The seats are hard, the shock absorption is poor, and its brakes are horrible – a slight touch and the whole car will screech to a halt. Our staff don"t like using the car for this very reason. The abrupt braking can turn fragile eggs and b.u.t.ter from delicious ingredients into garbage in an instant – causing the staff to lose bonuses and get a good earful from the boss.”

The waitress lost interest in the topic of the vehicle after that. She threw a wink at Sanzi and said, “I"ll be free at about 3 in the afternoon. Maybe we can have a drink at the bar next door?”

“Sure!” Sanzi replied excitedly. “Oh no I can"t! I"m sorry, I have something to do this afternoon.”

Sheyan stood behind Sanzi with a look of resentment on his face. He suddenly realised that Sanzi"s main source of motivation for adventuring in the nightmare worlds may just be the beautiful women in these worlds, and the attention he got from them thanks to his high Charm!

Sanzi managed to buy Vincent"s jeep from the steakhouse owner for $1,000 without much effort. The interior of the jeep was almost exactly as it was when Vincent had left it, because it had only been a week since then, and more importantly, n.o.body liked to drive it at all. That was the point that Sheyan found appealing.

After circling around the vehicle a few times, Sheyan suddenly squinted his eyes. He quickly burrowed underneath the jeep and found an accessory that was visibly out of place. The accessory was brand new, and after it was dusted off, its appearance contrasted sharply with the old vehicle parts around it. The jeep obviously had just been repaired not too long ago.

Sheyan then rummaged around in the vehicle"s interior and finally found a warranty from an auto repair shop called Rohank Power in the trunk. The warranty was crumpled like a piece of sc.r.a.p paper. It showed that the jeep had undergone maintenance there and changed a certain accessory at the cost of a few hundred dollars with a three month warranty.

Obviously, no matter who the owner was, no one would throw away a warranty that had not expired yet. Following the clue, Party Ace found the Rohank Power auto repair shop two hours and fifteen minutes before they had to leave the world. Then, from the registration information in the shop, Vincent"s address was found.

Sheyan could only hope that Vincent had not moved away. But given that rents in Los Angeles were usually paid annually, the chances of finding their target should be quite high. They quickly rushed towards Vincent"s residence.

Vincent was actually living on the 13th floor of a building, which was an unlucky number in western superst.i.tion. It seems like he was not a superst.i.tious person.

As soon as Sheyan and his party had just stepped out from the elevator, they immediately felt that something was off. After experiencing the previous explosion, they were all on high alert and were extremely cautious. They instantly scattered and put some distance between each other.

The deeper they went, the stronger the chill they felt. Sanzi"s mice were pretty energetic though. They scouted in front of the group with vigor, as if their pace of life recovery was accelerated.

Sheyan noticed that the parts of the wallpaper that were in contact with the floor had turned moldy, giving off a gloomy atmosphere of decay. Ordinary people may just feel that this place was a little gloomy, perhaps the residents here would fall sick easily, but contestants would feel a faint killing intent from this place.

Sheyan had one of the highest Perceptive Sense in the team. His senses were particularly keen, and he could gradually sense an intense feeling of death from a spot on the left! If he was not mistaken, that spot happened to be Vincent"s home. The closer they got, the stronger the eerie feeling.

“It should be a contestant,” Reef said confidently in the party communication channel.

Suddenly, Sanzi"s face turned pale. He wobbled back a few steps and issued a m.u.f.fled groan. The mice he sent to scout ahead had all burst into meat paste. Two trails of blood trickled down his nostrils.

Immediately afterwards, the solid wall started rippling like a water surface, and the wallpaper rapidly peeled off the wall, forming a bizarre giant mouth at least 5 square meters in size. The mouth emitted a chilling scream and bit down at Sanzi!

Zi reacted quickly. With a flick of her wrist, a sharp ray of light was shot from the tip of her crescent dagger and pierced mercilessly into the strange giant mouth, splitting it in two!

Zi"s Force had been enhanced to a very strong level by now via a lot of powerful equipments.

Although she had not transformed, under that sharp cutting Force, even the hard concrete wall was slashed more than a foot deep and over 5 meters long. It was as if a large electric saw had cut the wall.

But the eerie giant mouth healed itself after it was cut, the teeth inside turning even sharper and more frightening. It continued to bite menacingly, and would occasionally stretch out a long, thick tongue which whipped everything around it in a frenzy. The whole thing simply exuded a mysterious, eerie vibe.

Sheyan pounced forward and s.h.i.+elded Sanzi from the mouth. When his back was whipped by the red tongue, it felt like it was burned by sulphuric acid or fire, hissing loudly. A thick scorch mark was left on his back, as if a poisonous towel had dragged through it.

But what surprised Sheyan the most was that the enemy"s damage was much lower than he expected. But his face grimaced in pain immediately after that. A reddish-gold flame shot out from the old wound on his shoulder and back. Apparently, the intense action just now had triggered his old injury.

The energy in the form of a flame lashed out at the ghostly mouth that had pounce forward. The mouth immediately uttered a shrill scream. A corner of it looked like it was being forcefully torn apart. It instantly turned fade and finally evaporated into nothingness.

Sheyan yelled in indignation, “What the h.e.l.l is this G.o.dd.a.m.n flame? It can absorb that gigantic ghost as its food! It took me so long to decrease the remnant energy by a fifth, but now it"s burning even fiercer than it did in its prime!”

Reef remarked, “That just now should be a type of dark witchcraft that spread from East Asia, I think it"s called Oriental Black Magic. It"s characteristic is that it attacks by using various types of demonic familiars and evil spirits. There used to be a member in my party who practiced this magic. Because their demonic familiars are all in spiritual forms, ordinary attack methods are not very effective.”

“As for the fact that the negative energy in your body became even larger after it came in to contact with the ghost, the theory is simple. The negative energy in your body is probably the purest negative energy that can be found in a world of this difficulty. Just as the deepest darkness will give birth to light, I suspect that with a catalyst, it"s possible to turn the negative energy into a positive energy! The ghost is essentially negative energy itself, but of a much lower order, so it"s not difficult to imagine that it would be absorbed by the negative energy as nutrient.”

Sheyan"s gnashed his teeth tightly. He already broke out in cold sweat. “d.a.m.n. Are there any attacks in the form of positive energy?”

“There are, but they"re very rare,” answered Zi.

“For example??” asked Sheyan, gasping. He was tormented by the negative energy and had almost lost his ability to think properly.

Zi looked at him with pity. “The Cardinal you told us before. The attack he used must be a kind of positive energy….”

“…” Sheyan was speechless.

Zi sighed. “I guess you"d rather continue to be tortured by this stuff. Maybe you should just bear with it until we return to the realm.”

Sheyan sighed too, and shook his head. He did not know what else he could do.

Reef suddenly started chanting some solemn and complex incantations. At that moment, he looked more mysterious than an occultist and holier than the Pope. The Cardinal had performed holy spells too, but his appearance and actions when he did so was a far cry from the feeling of solemn holiness exuded by Reef in this instance.

But when Reef concluded his incantation, there was no sacred, glorious glow like one would expect. Instead, before him rose a vast swamp of filth, rot and stench, followed by a man with oil painted on his body and a huge, strange shaman mask on his face. He was a burly man with a weird spider-like pattern covering his skin. His eyes were also in the form of a spider"s compound eyes. His appearance, truth be told, was a little eerie.

“Is this your servant?” asked Sheyan as he gasped in pain while holding the wound on his back.

Reef nodded with obvious pride. “That"s right. He"s finally matured and is now officially my servant. But because his looks and combat method are too eye-catching, and once unsummoned, he can only be summoned again after we return to the realm, it"s necessary to put him in a disguise while we"re in non-combat situations. That will cost quite a lot….”

Hearing Reef"s complaint, Sheyan felt a headache coming. He grabbed his forehead and said, “Fine, fine. I can consider buying a permanent disguise effect for your servant, but he must at least prove first that the money will be well-spent.”

Reef burst out in laughter.

“The reason I"m summoning him now is precisely because this guy"s the best person to fight against spiritual creatures. The Ndipaya aren"t just famed for their terrifying diseases; their witchcraft is actually just as powerful. Go on, show us your strength!

Immediately, Reef"s servant drew out from behind him a wooden spear that looked very crude, only the sharp tip of the spear glistened with a dark green light! The man jumped up the wall and crawled on it swiftly like an agile spider, somehow defying the force of gravity.

The servant paused for a moment on the ceiling. Then, without any warning, he dropped down and rolled while curling in a huddle. Following that, a shrill cry in reverberated through the air.

It turned out that when Reef"s servant had paused briefly on the ceiling, he had pierced his spear into the ceiling like the sting of a bee, without anyone noticing it! A twisted and painful giant face of a woman instantly surfaced in the corridor.

The horrifying scene is hard to describe with words. It was as if the giant face of a woman was a huge poster that had been stuck in the corridor beforehand, waiting for Sheyan and his party to come near. The stab from Reef"s servant accurately pierced between her brows, causing her whole face to distort. The face then started to melt like a candle starting from the spot that was stabbed!

After the servant touched the ground, it crawled on all fours like a spider, moving forward at a tremendous speed.

A door to the side suddenly sprung open. A man dressed in tattered j.a.panese armor and wearing a grim ghost mask pounced towards Reef"s servant with his katana raised above his head.

The servant leaped up and curled into a ball in the air, skillfully avoiding the blow of the katana. A green ray of light flew out of the blowpipe in his mouth and penetrated the throat of the samurai. A puff of green smoke rose from the wound which was rapidly covered by moss. The veins on his neck bulged angrily and turned green.

The blow would have proven fatal to ordinary people, but not to the samurai. He should not have been able to s.h.i.+ft the momentum of his katana, but he simply let it slip out of his grip and, with an incantation, the strange katana inexplicably turned around and swung back!

A dazzling white light flew by at an incredible speed and cut the left leg Reef"s servant. Even the tough skin and strong defence of the Ndipayas could not withstand this terrible strike.

The muscular leg was immediately cleaved in two and sent flying by the force of the blow. It fell to the ground heavily and emitted a deathly black gas. The wound seemed to have melted from the high temperature, burning to a crisp. It was constantly squirming but not one drop of blood spilled out.

The samurai staggered back a few steps and gripped his throat tightly with his palm. He then reached out and caught the katana that was whirling back to him. Next, he actually stabbed himself in the throat with the katana. A large amount of smoke rose with a hiss, and the green in his veins was removed.

Reef"s servant rolled and picked up his severed leg. He recited a tribal shamanic chant in the native Ndipaya language. The pair of jewel eyes on his mask glistened with a blood-red glow. He proceeded to stick out his tongue and lick the cross-section of the severed leg, then simply re-attached the leg back to his body.

The broken part of the leg squirmed with a large number of parasites inside, but it soon returned to its original state, leaving only a scar in the form of a centipede.

Neither side seemed to have gained the upper hand in the exchange!

“I"ve found them!” Sanzi suddenly exclaimed in joy.

As soon as he said that, a miniature 3D holographic model of the thirteenth floor appeared before Party Ace. It was the result of the reconnaissance done by Sanzi"s mice. The target"s room was not too far away from where Sheyan and his party were. They just need to move 20 meters ahead, make a turn and travel through a corridor.

It could be seen from the holographic model that there were only two people in the room. One of them should be Vincent, the one they were looking for. Although the model could not show too much details, he looked somewhat depressed. The other was wearing a loose robe with large sleeves kind of like a kimono. The gender could not be confirmed. The person could be seen waving their arms incessantly, seemingly in some sort of ritual.

There was no need for Sheyan to issue any order.

Zi was the first to move upon witnessing the situation. She did not seem to be moving fast, but her movement contained a kind of grace and s.e.xiness. She suddenly vanished into thin air soon after. When she reappeared, she was already tens of meters away.

Zi approached so fast that it did not give the opponents any time for preparation. Her ceremonial gown danced elegantly in the air, and a magic barrier wrapped around her tightly. In the inner part of the magic barrier was a very solid steel mesh which seemed indestructible!

Wherever she went, the angry wails of evil spirits could be heard, but all those spirits could do was attack the t.i.tanium mesh magic barrier in vain. She reached the room Vincent was held in in almost no time at all, and proceeded to exchange blows with the contestant holding Vincent hostage.

Although Zi was a mage type contestant, she had always been fond of attacking up close, so even after transforming, she still focused on close combat.

With the strong frontal defence of the dark green Ndipaya set plus the protection of the terrifying "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier", she possessed a defence comparable to a high-rank MT. It enabled her to fight in her favourite combat method of trading blows with the enemy.

It was also the kind of combat that opposing mage type contestants hated the most.

In the short moment the two had engaged with each other, the windows, gla.s.ses, computer screens, mirrors and all gla.s.s products on the whole 13th floor – or rather, in the whole building – cracked and shattered, sending gla.s.s fragments flying everywhere. There must had been a lot of people injured due to this.

Zi was forcefully expelled from the room, leaving a trail of black smoke in her wake. A lump of sticky, surging blackness could be seen on the top left of her "t.i.tanium Mesh Magic Barrier". The lump looked like burnt plastic and emitted a foul smell. Even the t.i.tanium mesh inside the barrier showed signs of contamination.

But the opponent did not get off easy either. There was a series of rumbling sounds in the room, rather similar to the deafening noises a train made when it pa.s.sed through a tunnel. What could possibly make noises like that?

When Brother Black and Reef rushed in, they found the room to be quite empty, but there was a faint illusionary image of a tree disappearing in the air. Vincent was tied to a chair. His pupils had shrunk to the point of a needle, a dull smile plastered on his face. He kept murmuring the same sentence.

“Death in full bloom….”

On the wall next to Vincent, there was a strange black pa.s.sageway. Presumably, the thickness of the walls in such buildings would not exceed a metre, but the dark black pa.s.sage was clearly as deep as a cave, inclining downwards in twists and turns.

Reef and Mogensha immediately tried to give chase, but from the inside of the blackpa.s.sage shot out a large number of pink cherry blossom petals. A more careful observation would reveal patterned veins akin to human blood vessels on all the petals, as if they had sucked on human blood. Small pieces of short pink hair could also be seen floating through the air.

The two men were only momentarily halted by these things, but it was enough of a delay for the black door to close. They could only rush towards the window and look down. What they saw was Sheyan, who was somehow on the eighth floor, cras.h.i.+ng through the window there. He leaped down and smashed into the car directly beneath him, turning it into a heap of sc.r.a.p iron. A black portal was silently opening right in front of him.

Reef and Mogensha were overjoyed. They both knew that it was not a problem at all for Sheyan to tie down the enemy for a few dozen seconds despite his injury. But when they rushed downstairs, they found Sheyan standing there, his face as calm as the surface of a quiet lake. He did not look like someone who had just gone through a battle.

“Did that person run away?” asked both of them in amazement.

Sheyan shook his head.

“It would be more accurate to say that I let him go on purpose. Have you forgotten why the mastermind behind the scenes slaughtered all the contestants on his side? We might actually need to collect the souls of contestants in the near future. If that"s the case, I would rather let him go.

If it was any other party, even if Sheyan was the party leader, a statement like this would surely have led to a division within the team. The reason was simple – killing could have procured benefits for the team. Sheyan"s decision to let the enemy go was tantamount to harming the benefit of the team for the sake of his personal interest.

But there was no such problem for Party Ace because they all know that Sheyan was not a selfish person. They were willing to make a little sacrifice now. When Sheyan got stronger, these small losses would be nothing in their eyes.

At this moment, Zi suddenly asked, “How did this contestant escape from the mastermind? Could he be a new addition to this world – someone who has no connection to our previous main mission?”

“If that"s the case, that"s great news for us. New contestants entering the world to complete a new main mission after the mastermind had left – that"s definitely not normal,” remarked Sheyan.

The idea sent Sheyan into deep contemplation.

Sanzi suddenly said, “Could this be a countermeasure?”

A trace of admiration was visible in Sheyan"s eyes as he looked at Sanzi. “That"s right. If the mastermind had employed some special means or utilised some loopholes to follow our party into consecutive worlds, injecting new contestants into this world may very well be the countermeasure taken by our Noah Realm C in response to that!”

At this time, Zi poured some cold water on their enthusiasm. “I must remind you that even if it is a countermeasure, all realms must operate within the limits of the rules. That is to say, even if Noah Realm C is trying to help us, the help is limited. It"s absolutely impossible for them to send a bunch of weaklings for us to hunt down.”

“You"re absolutely right.” Sheyan regained his focus.

Zi continued in a solemn tone, “When I rushed into the room just now, I had a brief fight with the contestant, and he was very strong. Even in a situation where I caught him unprepared, he was still able to fight back with the miasma from the world of death. I would"ve been in quite the predicament if I didn"t have the t.i.tanium barrier. He seemed to be in the middle of a powerful summoning ceremony before I arrived. I saw the illusionary image of a huge cherry blossom tree looming in the room. The image of the tree was still vague, but it"s form was already visible. Based on that, I"d say that the summoning ritual must have been more than halfway completed. We might not have won if he had completed the summoning.”

Reef had returned to Vincent"s room and searched around it carefully. He found Vincent"s ID on the tea table, and there were some numbers and Chinese characters beside it (TL: I"m guessing the contestant from before was j.a.panese and he wrote in Kanji). Although Reef could understand each individual word thanks to the translating function of the nightmare imprint, he could not understand what the words mean when they were combined together, so he called Sheyan over to take a look.

“Boss, I know this word means “Heavenly”, and this word means “Stems”, but what do they mean when they"re combined together?” Does it have anything to do with farming?”

(TL:  )

Sheyan was at a loss on how to explain the phrase. He kept racking his brain for words that could be understood by his foreign friends.

Reef continued, “The next thing is even more interesting….”

Hearing that, Sheyan immediately s.n.a.t.c.hed the thing over and carefully inspected it. “It looks like the guy from before did not come here for a mission related to the Terminator; he was merely interested in Vincent.”

“Really?” asked Reef in surprise.

Sheyan explained, “Vincent actually had a reason to live on the thirteenth floor. On this piece of paper, the contestant used a unique eastern method to a.n.a.lyse Vincent"s date of birth, and judged that he was a rare Yin person, more commonly known as a medium! That"s why Vincent likes to live on the thirteenth floor, which has a higher density of negative energy. If he was born in the east, the job that suits him best would be an occult member and not a computer engineer.

After pondering for a moment, Sanzi said, “So did the contestant capture Vincent to turn Vincent into his familiar?”

“Very likely, but thanks to us, it"s not that possible anymore,” said Sheyan with a smile.

Sheyan knew of a way to wake Vincent up according to eastern superst.i.tion, and it was not that hard. The method Sheyan suggested was to mix a c.o.c.k"s blood (the c.o.c.k here refers to a male chicken) with wine and pour it down Vincent"s throat. Wine was easy to find, but where would they find a c.o.c.k in LA? In the end, they had to settle for a male turkey (a gobbler). It"s worth mentioning that there was no where to buy a living turkey around here – all the turkeys for sale were those that had been butchered and packaged – so the turkey they got was actually a pet kept by a certain family in the area….

Vincent was finally able to recover from his unconscious state after a few draughts of foul-smelling wine. He rubbed his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Sheyan"s pa.s.sionate face.

“I"m so happy to see you again, Mr. Vincent, but this time I"m not going to treat you to a steak or a Havana cigar. I"m just going to do a simple calculation of the debt you owe me back then, and the interest acc.u.mulated so far.”

Vincent"s face turned even paler. He was about to yell at Sheyan in his usual booming voice, only to find that two men with stony faces had come up to him, each pressing a hand that was as hard as iron clamps on his shoulders. The pain immediately rendered him speechless.

In the end, Vincent could only smile wryly. “Look at the state I"m in. If I tell you that I can give you a generous compensation, will you believe me?”

None of them took the bait. They kept glaring at Vincent without saying a word.

With no other choice, Vincent could only reveal his true intention. He shamelessly said, “If you can help me get back into Cyberdyne, your compensation won"t be a problem at all.”

As he said that, Party Ace finally received the notification they were waiting for.

[ Storyline character “Vincent” is issuing the side mission “Return”. ” Would you like to accept it? ]

(TL: The t.i.tle is Chinese slang which means to profit without putting in the effort.)

To be honest, the preferred type of missions for most contestants are a.s.sa.s.sination missions.

That"s because contestants are more violent than ordinary people, and violence is the easiest way to kill. a.s.sa.s.sination missions present many advantages for contestants – they are simple, convenient, fast, direct, and have no strings attached.

The mission put forward by Vincent at the moment was much more complex than a.s.sa.s.sination missions of the same difficulty rating. It may even involve decryption and other complicated tasks. For example, let"s say the difficulty of the mission was B. An a.s.sa.s.sination mission with a similar difficulty rating of B would have been more popular with contestants, even if the reward it offered was not as generous.

But Sheyan and the rest only had one hour left in this world, and beggars can"t be choosers. They accepted the mission one after another.

[ You have triggered the side mission: Return ]

[ Mission Briefing: We will often treasure something only after we have lost it. Vincent, who was pushed out of Cyberdyne Systems, was desperate to return to the magnate of the weapon industry. He is willing to receive the help of anyone in order to achieve this. ]

[ Mission Hint: The difficulty of this task mainly is mainly focused on three people: Supervisor Khaleed, Technical Director Pippen , and his former a.s.sistant, Ritton. As long as these three men are present, Vincent has zero chance of returning. But if extreme measures are taken against these three, it will draw the attention of Cyberdyne Systems and that will also destroy the hopes of Vincent"s return. It falls on you to find the balance. ]

[ Mission Deadline: 2 weeks.]

[ Mission Penalty: The relations.h.i.+p between you and Vincent will become hostile, and you will be deducted 10,000 utility points. ]

A pressure was immediately lifted off Sheyan"s shoulder once he saw the mission deadline. The reward for this mission was probably not that great, but honestly, the two-week deadline was already the biggest reward he could ask for.

Sheyan strongly suspected that this may be a privilege given by Noah Realm C within its scope of authority, that was, to provide them with a terrible mission that had a bad reward and very complicated steps, but came with a very long deadline and very low penalty for failure.

Other contestants may spit at Vincent"s feet and curse him out when they were presented with this mission, but it came as a pleasant surprise to Sheyan. The mission was perfect for him.

There was one problem: Vincent had become the target of another contestant and, if they were not careful, he might be made into the contestant"s servant. If any mishap befell the mission issuer, the mission would naturally be halted. They had to find a way to protect Vincent.

After some discussion, they decided to split up. It should be safe to that now since the mastermind had left. Zi would be in a group with Reef. It would be a group with a melee and a ranged contestant; an MT and a DPS — a perfect combination. They would protect Vincent and complete his mission at the same time.

Sheyan took Sanzi and Brother Black to work on his personal mission. The others would regroup with them if required.

The troublesome thing was, the mastermind had really harmed Sheyan"s mission with the bomb he planted. Although it stopped short of doing Sheyan in, it totally destroyed the core area of the mission.

Furthermore, an explosion of that scale would surely turn the mission"s core area into a no-go zone. Every notable force in Los Angeles would have their attention focused on the Knox Factory now. Investigating the place would not be easy.

Sheyan could only sigh and take one step at a time, improvising as he go. That was why the two-week deadline was so precious to him.

The work on the first day progressed as follows: Zi and Reef found out the whereabouts and personality of Supervisor Khaleed. He was a hard-headed, old-fas.h.i.+oned man, and to impress him, Vincent would need to produce tangible technical results, ie. procuring a certain amount of technological samples. This means that Zi and Reef had to get him three T-750 CPU chips and one T-800 CPU chip. The road ahead looked long and rough, but at least they had a goal now.

Meanwhile, Sheyan had nothing to show for his day"s work. He had spent the whole day having coffee in a nearby cafe with Sanzi and Mogensha. At the end of the day, they were stuffed so full of coffee that they they felt like caffeine was flowing in their veins instead of blood.

On the second day, Zi"s group suffered hara.s.sment from some contestants, but when they discovered the presence Reef, an MT, in the group, they beat a hasty retreat. Afterwards, the group examined a time displacement sphere laid down by Skynet and successfully eliminated two T-750s. They managed to obtain an undamaged CPU chip from one of the two Terminators.

Despite the recent high frequency of Terminator invasions, the government deemed the situation to be manageable because Terminators were by no means invincible. But the use of powerful weapons means that the Terminators were often torn apart, so an undamaged CPU chip was difficult to obtain. Therefore, CPU chips remained scarce resources. The chance of getting an undamaged CPU chip were much higher for contestants, who had superhuman powers.

Sheyan continued with his coffee-drinking operation on the second day. But this time, while they were drinking coffee, Sanzi had also sent his mice into the Knox Factory. At this point it was almost certain that Sheyan, the holder of the metal nut, had to personally enter the Knox Factory and reach the designated location to trigger the relevant follow-up storyline.

But the cruel truth was the designated location – the abandoned warehouse – had been reduced to ashes thanks to the mastermind. Sheyan would never know now what could have happened if he stepped foot inside the warehouse.

Sheyan had two objectives now. One, he must find out what was so special about that destroyed abandoned warehouse. Two, he must take a walk inside the Knox Factory and try his luck.

On the third day, Zi and Reef were just one T-800 CPU chip short of Vincent"s request. With these samples in hand, Vincent would only need an hour to produce something that would impress Supervisor Khaleed.

And similarly on the third day, Sheyan took his group for some coffee again, but for some reason, their drinking spot had changed from the usual cafe outside the Knox Factory to a Starbucks outside a rich area in the city of Orange. When the bloodstreams of Sanzi and Mogensha were once again full of caffeine, Sheyan finally stood up.

It was seven o"clock in the evening. The other two thought the day"s work was over, but Sheyan took them to an avenue nearby instead. Standing in the darkness and under the shade of the lush trees lining the avenue, and the trio looked very inconspicuous.

It had started to rain and snow earlier in the afternoon, so the sky had already turned dark around 5 p.m. The three men waited in silence for half an hour before they saw a seemingly low-profile car emerge from the rain, slowly moving towards the residential area nearby.

Two black Buicks followed thirty meters behind the car. The two Buicks both carried members of the secret police. They were apparently protecting the car in front.

The three men continued to wait. An hour later, they realised that four secret agents had been left behind to carry out the protection.

Mogensha snuck his neck back inside the windbreaker and cautiously said, “Boss, that guy"s a big fish. If we touch him, we"ll be poking the hornet"s nest.”

Sheyan smiled. “I gave them forty-eight hours to carry out the investigation. I believe that with their ability, they would"ve found out everything about the warehouse by now, down to the number of bricks used to build the warehouse and their individual production dates. What I"m going to do now is to get all this information from Senator Kane. It"ll be worth all the trouble in the world.”

Sanzi closed his eyes. The mice he sent out began to paint the terrain around the senator"s residence and the interior of the house. Sheyan also signaled to Mogensha to change into anesthetic bullets. After all, the consequences of stunning a few people with a anesthetic bullets were quite different from killing a few people. Sheyan wanted to concentrate all his effort on the mission itself, so he would like to keep the pressure from the government to the minimum.

Due to a lack of replenishment, the negative energy in Sheyan"s body had been reduced to the size of a pea, which seems to be the limit as it no longer decreased after that. It lay in Sheyan"s body like a bone-sucking maggot and would cause a sharp sting from time to time to remind Sheyan of its existence. Sheyan could not do anything about it. The good news was, though he was still affected some, his strength had recovered by 90%. That was more than enough for this operation.

Few people were willing to patrol outside on a cold, rainy night, so the guards would not be too much trouble. They just had to watch out for the numerous surveillance cameras in the neighbourhood.

Mogensha"s rifle scope was locked on the back of a secret agent. He pulled the trigger, and the powerful anesthetic shot produced by the realm quickly showed its effect. Mogensha immediately signalled to Sheyan.

“They"ll make regular contact every twenty minutes, Boss, so if you don"t want to cause a ruckus, you"ll have to get everything done in these twenty minutes.”

Sheyan was already standing quietly in the grounds of the neighborhood. The cold muddy rain penetrated his shoes, but the discomfort kept his mind clear. Sanzi quietly slipped in after him.

Sheyan started to take a few steps, but after 4 steps forward, he retreated 3 steps back.

It looked silly, but it was the only way to stick to the surveillance cameras" blind spot. If someone were to take an eagle"s view of the area, they would suspect that Sheyan must have a spy planted in the surveillance room, because not once was he caught by a camera.

Sanzi followed closely behind Sheyan. After traveling so for about 60 meters, Sanzi suddenly stepped in front of Sheyan. The reason was unclear at first, but soon after, several fierce and strong looking dark silhouettes slowly emerged from the darkness, gradually approaching them.

They turned out to be four German Shepherds!

Sheyan could hide from high-tech cameras, but he could not hide from the sensitive noses of canines!

But Sanzi, standing in front of Sheyan, did not look too concerned. He rolled up his sleeves and stretched out his hands in front of him. His face was filled with a warm smile, as if he had met an old friend whom he had not seen for many years.

Sheyan saw the accessory on Sanzi"s waist, "Chieftain"s Hobby", glow with a dark gold light. That was surely a sign of Sanzi busting out his moves.

The four German Shepherds approached cautiously, but unlike before, their tails were swaying in a coquettish manner rather than standing upright threateningly like a flagpole. Then, they jumped forward a hurry, eager for the touch of Sanzi, as if Sanzi"s touch was more tempting than the most delicious meat in the world.

Next, under the lead of those four “insiders”, Sheyan reached the outside of Senator Kane"s villa. He motioned for Sanzi to cover his back, then dipped his hands in some dirt on the ground and daubed his face before he pushed open the villa"s front door.

Senator Kane had locked his door, of course, and the quality of his security door was absolutely top cla.s.s, but a solid push from Sheyan immediately was enough to leave a clear palm print on the double-layered door with a five centimeters thick steel plate. More crucially, although the materials that made up the security door were top cla.s.s, the concrete wall which the door was fixed to was not as st.u.r.dy. The door, together with the part of the wall surrounding it, collapsed amidst a flurry of debris and dust. At least 7 square meters of the wall were completely destroyed.

Sheyan brazenly strode in. His eyes went past the long corridor, green plants, and a Chinese porcelain vase to Senator Kane at the dining table who had raised his head in shock.

“So sorry to disturb your dinner, senator,” Sheyan politely said, “but please spare me a few minutes of your time to answer some questions for me…. ”

Before Sheyan had even finished, a few people of excellent physique had already stood up at the side. Their hands were clearly empty before this, but in the process of standing up, they had completed the action of drawing, aiming, shooting the gun! At the same time, they s.h.i.+elded the senator with their bodies!

Sheyan had forgotten one thing. Senator Kane probably had something important in his house, so besides the secret agents outside, there were also secret agents in the house!

Not only that, instead of bullets, the secret agents had fired some kind of triangular cone connected to a slender wire. The cones flew forward at a surprisingly fast speed while hissing in the air like vipers, crisscrossing at multiple angles.

If Sheyan were to dodge the cones, even if he succeeded, they would hit Sanzi who was behind him!

Therefore, Sheyan could only cross his arms in front of him and take the cones head-on.

Pa Pa Pa Pa

Four triangular cones. .h.i.t Sheyan in the chest. The four secret agents who found their target pulled the trigger again!

A piercing blue light immediately burst forth from the wires connected to the triangular cones, and they seemed to be high-power electrical currents!

After the city of Los Angeles had suffered multiple Terminator attacks, of course the humans were not willing to just take things lying down. These newly-developed taser guns had the capacity to fry a T-750"s core CPU chip in one attack, and could even cause considerable threat to T-800s.

Sheyan crashed down to the ground, all the while shuddering from the electric shock. Those four wires looked a lot like thick blue light whips that were flogging his body! He continued to spasmed on the ground, unable to climb back up. Smoke rose from his body.

One of the secret agents walked towards him after the shots. The agent"s colleague was more cautious and issued a warning to him, “Hey! Be careful.”

The secret agent, however, appeared unconcerned. “What"s there to be careful about? Even if he"s one of those monstrous Terminators, he certainly can"t move now. And he doesn"t look like a Terminator; he looks like a human. G.o.d bless him, he"s lucky he"s not burnt to a crisp by now.”

Right as the agent got close to Sheyan, a ferocious German Shepherd suddenly appeared from the side, biting into his palm. The agent immediately cried out in alarm. “What the h.e.l.l is happening? Ain"t this one of the police dogs trained by Buck? Oh my G.o.d, it"s chewing at my bone! ”

At the same time, three other large German Shepherds rushed out and zig-zagged towards the rest of the agents. A secret agent took out a Submachine gun and sprayed a volley of bullets towards the dogs while Senator Kane left quickly under the protection of two secret agents.

But right then, the seemingly dead Sheyan suddenly rolling over and bounced up! He then rushed forward with all his might while crouching low. The traces left by the electric shock on his body were visible through his ragged clothes, but they also revealed his tense and swollen muscles. They were like the flowing muscles of a tiger when it was hunting, bursting out the strongest force to propel himself forward.

The enemy"s taser guns were so powerful that they could threaten Sanzi"s life and cause a lot of trouble for himself, so Sheyan could no longer afford to hold back. Sometimes, showing kindness to the enemy was being cruel to yourself!

He covered dozens of meters in the blink of an eye.

From a lowered pose, he exerted strength on his legs and suddenly sprang up.

One of the agents seized the opportunity to shoot at Sheyan, leaving a trail of bullet holes on Sheyan"s back. The remaining bullets that missed swept through a golden fish tank to the side, shattering it and flooding the floor with water. Broken gla.s.ses flew everywhere as did some tropical fish.

But Sheyan rose to his feet in complete disregard and kneed the chest of the astonished agent closest to him. The blow made a huge dent on the agent"s chest, causing the agent to vomit blood and fumble the taser gun he was holding.

With a tumble, Sheyan landed right on the taser gun, stomping down on it with a heavy foot. The gun was instantly reduced to rubble. By this time, these well-trained agents had already killed all the German Shepherds that had “gone crazy” and were trying to help Senator Kane escape.

Sheyan naturally couldn"t let them do that. He picked up the double-door Siemens refrigerator which happened to be next to him and flung the huge object at the stairs over ten meters away!

With a thundering roar, a hole of more than two metres was smashed in the revolving staircase to the second floor. The mistress of the house must like shopping very much because the refrigerator was chucked full of groceries and food, which were now lying on the ground. It would not be easy for Senator Kane"s aging legs to cross the gap on the staircase.

In the process of throwing the refrigerator, Sheyan was. .h.i.t with three more shots – one between his brows, one to his heart, and one to his throat. They were all explosive hits too because they had hit his vitals. Sheyan was instantly drenched in blood, cutting a terrible figure. The agents" proficiency with guns were evident.

Sheyan was truly angered now. He picked up an ashtray and flung it at a nearby agent. Under Sheyan"s monstrous strength, the sound the ashtray made while it tore through the air was akin to the horrible sound a plane made when it took off or landed!

The secret agent couldn"t avoid the ashtray. When his skull was smashed by the fist-sized ashtray, the ashtray shattered in an instant, but he too shot out as if he had been hit by a shotgun. His whole body flew over three meters backwards. When he landed, his head was pulled back at a terrible angle. A terrible dent the size of a bowl was made on his skull. Blood rushed out to fill the dent but could not fill it up! There was no way he was still alive.

Another secret agent was still trying to shoot Sheyan. Sheyan pulled a nearby chair to act as his s.h.i.+eld and charged towards the agent. The agent fired furiously, but his effort was in vain. The collision sent the agent flying backwards like a matador that was. .h.i.t by a charging bull. His back slammed heavily against the wall, then he slowly slid down. He still wore an angry expression on his face, but a careful examination would reveal that it was because the enormous impact before his death had caused his eyes to bulge.

The agent was not spared even after death had claimed him. Sheyan seized the agent"s corpse and threw it in the direction of Senator Kane. The corpse was shattered by the terrifying force upon landing.

But even now, a secret agent still rushed up to Sheyan from behind, hugged him tight, and screamed, “Take the senator away, I"ll….”

Before he could say the words “stall him”, Sheyan"s elbow had already met with his head. Willpower was useless in the face of such violent force. The agent turned soft and slid down.

Three further shots found Sheyan"s head, but this time, he only stumbled for a few steps. While the secret agents were preparing the next round of fire, Sheyan kicked the side of a coffee table to make it stand on its side, thus using it as cover to s.h.i.+eld himself from the bullets.

Sheyan grabbed one of the legs of the coffee table, snapped it off with force, and threw it like a javelin. The table leg piercing through a sofa at a high speed before stabbing through the agent reloading his gun behind it.

All resistance ceased after that.

The villa regained its tranquility.

All the sound that remained was the cheers and applause from the talk show on the television, the dripping of blood, and the chattering sound made by Senator Kane"s teeth.

Sheyan, bathed in blood, strode toward Senator Kane. He lifted the senator from the ground and said earnestly, “My dear senator, I hope you can listen very carefully to every word I say from now on, because I"m in a bit of a hurry, and I won"t repeat myself. This will determine whether you will live or die.”

But Senator Kane merely closed his eyes and resigned himself to death. The thing he was guarding must be really important to make him choose death despite his fear.

Sheyan narrowed his eyes, revealed a trace of murderous gleam. He was not a brutal man who enjoyed killing; he was more inclined to solve problems through gentler means if he could. But when he met with uncooperative people, he would not mind using more forceful means.

At that moment, however, a wolfhound drenched in blood slowly walked into the house while herding a blonde lady in front of him. It appears that she had been showering as she was currently wrapped in a towel and her hair was dripping wet. Her body was seductively curvy, and her face was terribly pale.

The sight of her appeared to have provoked Senator Kane. He jumped up and screamed, “What do you think you"re doing?”

Sheyan took in the sight of Senator Kane"s white hair and wrinkles, as well as the fury and worry in his eyes. Then, he s.h.i.+fted his sight to the young woman"s youthful body. A sudden enlightenment and a hint of disdain entered his eyes. He went forward, grabbed the blonde"s hair, looked at Senator Kane, and said in a fierce tone of voice, “If I don"t get what I want, the two of you will die together!”

Senator Kane immediately lost his composure. He scrambled to Sheyan and grabbed Sheyan"s leg. “I can give you anything you want, but you must let her go!”

Sheyan narrowed his eyes and said, “Stop trying to waste time. Give me all the information you"ve got on the Knox Factory explosion. You have three minutes! I"ll cut off one of her ears for every piece of information you try to hide from me, and I"ll cut off one of her fingers for every second you"re late!”

Senator Kane was stunned for a moment.

“You want information on the Knox Factory explosion? You"re not from the Polar Bear?”

Sheyan was intrigued when he heard that. He said in a cold way, “You have 2 minutes and 50 seconds left.”

Kane appeared very relieved as he quickly rushed into his study and fetched a file for Sheyan. The words “Knox Factory Explosion Case” were clearly written on the file. Kane was not gone for long, so should not have had any time to forge a file like this. Sheyan walked away without a word after he got the file.

But the wolfhound was still holding the young woman hostage in a corner. Kane bellowed anxiously, “Why aren"t you letting my daughter go?”

Sheyan almost fell down when he heard the word “daughter”. He found that his previous a.s.sumption was a little too filthy, especially when he saw the beautiful young woman and the old man hugging and crying together in relief after the wolfhound had retreated.

In that instance, Mogensha suddenly spoke in the party communication channel.

“Boss, there"s trouble. You have to hurry up.”

Sheyan was startled. “We"re just about to leave.”

As soon as he said that, he saw the security guards of the residential area approaching from more than 30 meters away, shouting for him and Sanzi to freeze.

Sheyan did not take them seriously. He rushed directly at those men, swinging his fist at the taser-wielding guard at the very front, then swiped his leg to fell two other guards. The fallen guards instantly went down screaming and holding their ankles. It seems that bone fractures were inevitable.

The sound of gunshots could be heard from far away — Mogensha had started his sniping operation. Soon after, the unique whistle of the pulse shot was heard. The roof of a police car was flung ten meters high into the air by the terrifying explosive force! But two police cars still managed to get close to them although their tires had gone flat. The cars drifted and stopped horizontally in front of Sheyan and Sanzi.

There was no need for Sheyan to issue any orders to Sanzi because they had been blocked so many times in the real world that they had lost count. The two brothers understood each other perfectly. Sheyan took large steps forward with the momentum of a bulldozer, ramming his shoulders into two policemen who had their guns out, sending them flying.

But at the same time, Sheyan was also kicked in the chest, followed by a fist to his face. His entire body flew back like a sandbag! The a.s.sailant was a man wearing the same police uniform as the others, but his face was as rigid as a plastic model.

"The government have created their own Terminator?? Looks like a T-400 model or somewhere thereabout," Sheyan was instantly shocked by the pirating ability of the American government.

The Terminator police stepped forward with a deadpan look and punched hard, sending Sheyan tumbling backwards again! But in the process, its arm was also grabbed by the Sheyan. Sheyan yanked hard on the arm, producing a burst of electrical sparks in the joint on the Terminator"s shoulder. Simultaneously, Sheyan kicked hard at its knee until it almost bent the other way. The Terminator instantly lost its mobility. It fell to the ground, pus.h.i.+ng and twitching in a futile attempt to keep up his attack on Sheyan according to the pre-established program.

By now, Sanzi had found a motorcycle, G.o.d knows where. He stopped the motorcycle right in front of Sheyan, kicking up a ma.s.sive cloud of dust. After Sheyan jumped onto the seat, with a deafening roar of the engine, they quickly left the police in the dust. As for Mogensha who specialised in Agility, there was no need to worry about him.

By the time Sheyan and his group returned to the temporary rendezvous point, it was already eleven o"clock at night.

This place was one of the most chaotic ghettos in Los Angeles, and of course, it had the worst level of public security, but as long as you have the money, you can live like kings.

After greeting Reef and Zi, Sheyan went straight back to his room and soaked his whole body in the bathtub.

Normally, a water temperatures between 40 and 48 degree Celsius (104-118 F) was the best to eliminate the fatigue built up in the body – but Sheyan"s water temperature was set at 53 degree Celsius (127 F).

The water at this temperature was not really harmful to the human body, but it did sting. It also enlarged the capillary vessels to their maximum size.

Following the wriggling of Sheyan"s muscles, twisted and deformed bullets were squeezed out from Sheyan"s body one after the other, bringing trails of blood with it. The strong healing power of the contestants went to work after that. The blood that was squeezed out from the wound was black at first, but it gradually turned red. Finally, muscle tissues grew over the wounds to cover them up.

After replacing the water that had turned a shade of pink, Sheyan once again lay back in the bathtub and moved his fingers slowly over his shoulder and his back. The hard-to-describe feeling returned again.

When Sheyan was attacked by taser guns just now, for some reason, both the "Stairway of the Sun" and the negative energy in his body had reacted. As electrical currents as high as tens of thousands of volts run rampant in his body, Sheyan had felt a certain numbness.

He did not pay much attention to it during the battle, but on the way back, Sheyan could feel bursts of electric shock transmitted through his body, as if the "Stairway of the Sun" was waving its branches of its own accord. The negative energy had also disappeared.

Sheyan was utterly shocked. I must be known that the "Stairway of the Sun" was actually a very brutal creature, and it was only willing to become one of Sheyan"s organs because its consciousness had been completely erased. If it regained its consciousness, Sheyan would surely die a terrible death.

But it soon became apparent to Sheyan that the movements shown by the "Stairway of the Sun" seemed to be a kind of instinct, as if the tens of thousands of volts of electricity were a catalyst bridging the "Stairway of the Sun" to the negative energy. Whether the change was good news or bad news remained to be seen.

After confirming that he felt alright, Sheyan returned to the living room. The others were having the famous Russian sausage rice for dinner. Zi was perusing the detailed information given by Senator Kane and quickly found a list detailing the items stored in the abandoned warehouse. She went over it carefully.

Sheyan took a mouthful of the rice in front of him and found that it was indeed pretty good. Delicious juice flowed out of the sausages when they were bitten, but the sausage skin would not yield until the upper and lower rows of teeth met. When it did, the content would fill his mouth with a rich, memorable taste. He couldn"t wait to get to the next bite.

Zi suddenly exclaimed with confidence, “I think I"ve found the key item to trigger the mission. It should be the lathe stored in the abandoned warehouse. The metal nut was apparently crafted with this lathe. If we can find the operator of the lathe at the time of production, we will find out the secret behind the SOS microtext.”

Sheyan greedily gulped down his food while he reached over to take the stack of information from Zi"s hands. He looked over it carefully.

Not that he didn"t believe in Zi"s judgement, but he had to confirm things like this for himself – following the herd blindly was never his style. There was not that much information in the folder, only about six A4 sheets in total, but each of them was densely filled with letters. Sheyan could not help but silently mock the secret service. Was their budget so tight that they couldn"t afford to use a few more pieces of papers?

Zi had long acknowledged Sheyan"s extraordinary ability in laying out strategy deep down in her heart. As a former party leader and a proud person, she was looking forward to her views being affirmed. She looked at Sheyan expectantly, hoping to hear the words of approval.

Sheyan swallowed his last bite of rice while staring seriously at one of the A4 paper, then looked at Zi who had a hopeful gaze in her eyes.

“Um….can you order another delivery of the rice? It"s really good.”

Zi: ….

Half an hour later, Sheyan, who had three servings of the rice, was finally full. He said lazily, “Well, Zi, you"re not exactly wrong, but we have to consider our future moves. If we just follow the same route taken by our opponent in this mission, we will put ourselves in an extremely pa.s.sive position. Even if we manage to complete this step after considerable effort, who"s to say that the mastermind hadn"t sabotaged the next step in the mission progression?

Zi gave him an angry glare.

Sheyan smiled and did not pay her any heed. “So, I suggest that we focus our attention on the clue that the opponent likely hasn"t discovered – the microscopic SOS signal. I only managed to discover this abnormality in the realm after repeatedly requesting for the a.n.a.lysis of the metal nut with my rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Drubal didn"t seem like the party leader, so he shouldn"t have such a high rank. I have ample reason to suspect that he did not discover this piece of clue when he was performing this mission. That was probably why his mission evaluation rating was so low.”

“You mean, we should focus on things that can perform microscopic engraving?” asked Zi after a short contemplation.

Sheyan answered, “Correct. Take a look at this photo.”

Sheyan showed them a high resolution photo of the SOS engraving on the metal nut"s thread. Under the powerful magnification, the gap between each pitch on the thread was as wide as the Californian wilderness. The engraving was very clear and thorough, and the letters showed an obvious style of personal handwriting.

“This SOS signal is obviously not the work of an amateur. If any of us here were to carve an SOS signal on the wooden table, it will definitely look as ugly as the scribbling of a three-year-old.”

Sheyan knocked a finger on the oily table and exclaimed decisively, “The person who wrote this message is an expert in the art of micro-carving!”

Zi said with a pout, “Okay, then. Tell me what you found.”

“At first I thought I"ll be able to find a special kind of precision lathe used for micro-carving on the list, but unfortunately, there"s no such thing,” said Sheyan. He continued confidently, “But that couldn"t stop me! I started to make deduction based on the most basic of common sense. It"s impossible to make microscopic engravings on a metal nut with just the naked eye, correct? ”

Maybe all this talking had made Sheyan thirsty, because he stopped to drink some coffee before he continued, “Based on this line of reasoning, I found one, two, three…. four objects on the list of warehouse items which gave me a pleasant surprise. They were all either high-power microscopes, or objects that can be used for magnification purposes. It"s funny, we were still worried about not having any answer a moment ago, but now we have multiple choices – although most of the choices are likely wrong.”

Sanzi held his chin with his palm and asked with a hint of excitement in his voice, “What should we do next, then? Look for everyone who had access to these four objects one by one?”

Sheyan smiled, but he shook his head.

“From the highly secretive manner the sculptor used to ask for help, we can already infer a few crucial points. First, we must understand that no one will simply inspect an ordinary metal nut under a high-power microscope for no reason. Even us, who knew that there must be something weird about the nut, almost didn"t find the engraving. So, we can deduce that there was most probably an intended recipient for the metal nut. Only that particular person will inspect the nut under a microscope.

“What does that tell us? The only reasonable explanation is that the engraver and the person intended to receive the metal nut must be mutual acquaintances, and they must be acquaintances who knew each other through micro-carving. The engraver would tell the recipient, this is my latest work, behold my awesome skills, check out the masterpiece I made on it…. and if everything goes as planned, his secret message will be successfully transmitted.”

“Second, in this highly advanced civilisation where communication means are abundant and the laws are thorough, even reaching out to the president shouldn"t be very difficult. And yet, our engraver still chose such a covert method of communication. This could only mean one thing — the surveillance on the engraver was likely much tighter than we previously thought.”

“These two points may seem inconsequential, but they play a very important role in our screening process. In order to micro-carve under a microscope, the area around the microscope platform cannot be enclosed or semi-enclosed because there must be s.p.a.ce for the carving tools to operate. With this in mind, we can eliminate two of our choices. These two appear to be microscopes used to observe biological samples, so the area around the platform is an enclosed s.p.a.ce that"s shut tight in order to prevent contamination. They don"t meet the requirement for micro-carving operation.

“This is our target! This high-power microscope manufactured by the Renedine Factory in Alaska! And the reason it was retired to the storeroom was because it…was…rusty…”

Sanzi interrupted Sheyan with a dry cough. He said, “Isn"t your deduction too far ahead, brother? We have four choices. After you"ve ruled out two of them, there should be two more, right?”

Sheyan sighed. “The maximum magnification that the remaining microscope is capable of is 50x. Making a carving like this requires a magnification of at least 1000x. This isn"t rocket science, Sanzi. Use your brain.”

Sanzi stuck out his tongue and did not say anything else.

Sheyan looked around and asked, “Does anyone have anything else they would like to add?”

Mogensha and Reef shrugged. Zi looked indignant and seemed like she was going to say something, but found that she could come up with no retort. Sheyan then said while holding the stack of information, “Renedine high-power microscope, in use from March 1987 to January 1992.”

“Application: Inspection.”

“Location: Quality control department of workshop III.”

“Photo attached.”

After reading these information out loud, Sheyan closed his eyes as if he was organising his thoughts, then uttered slowly, “The person we"re looking for is someone who once worked in the quality control department of workshop III. The person probably had a rather unusual life experience, is not a heavy drinker but is addicted to smoking, quiet, and balding. Oh, and one more thing – one very important thing – he"s left-handed.”

This time even Zi was surprised.

“How could you possibly know so much?”

Sheyan laughed. “Although everything in the warehouse has been destroyed by the violent explosion of negative energy, there are still a lot of trails if we look close enough. I believe that we"re all in agreement with the first two points?”

“As for him not being a heavy drinker but is a heavy smoker instead, the reason I deduced that is because the guy is being closely monitored but still had to keep a huge secret inside him, so the pressure on him must be enormous. He must find a way to relieve the pressure. The most common ways are smoking and drinking, but long-term drinking will dull his nerve response and also cause his hands to shake. That"s totally unacceptable for a micro-carving enthusiast like him, so he can only seek comfort from nicotine.”

“Likewise, balding is also a symptom of tremendous psychological pressure. As for being left-handed, we can see that from this photo of the microscope. The image is a little fuzzy, but it"s not difficult to see that the left handle of the microscope had been grasped so frequently that the paint had fallen off. I believe the reason is obvious.”

Zi suddenly exclaimed, “He could"ve secretly used his colleague"s microscope to micro-carve.”

Replied Sheyan, “It"s possible, but the odds are slim. First, he"s closely monitored. Second, Renedine high-power microscopes aren"t cheap; it"s an especially expensive piece of equipment at the time. The microscope operator will have their salary deducted for any accidental damage to the microscope, so they will usually take care of it very well. It"s not very easy to get in contact with others" microscopes, so….”

“After what we"ve done tonight, I suspect the security of the Knox Factory will be even tighter tomorrow. It"ll probably be really difficult for us to perform any investigation,” said Mogensha with a frown.

“Which is why I have no plans to go to that d.a.m.n place tomorrow.” said Sheyan leisurely. He continued, “According to my investigation, the Knox Factory doesn"t seem to provide any form of accommodation for its employees. Now that we have a clear target, we just need to pay a visit to the head of the factory"s personnel department, or….the person in charge of the quality control department of workshop III. The whole operation won"t take too long, regardless of whether they"re willing to cooperate.

Sheyan was a person who attached great importance to time. There was still quite some time left until the deadline of the mission, but right after he identified his targets, he immediately investigated their addresses and rushed over to meet one of them.

The first target he chose was the person in charge of the quality control department of Workshop III. There were a couple of reasons for that. First, he had a relatively low position, so he would not enjoy much of the government"s attention and protection. Second, a lower level manager like him would have a much better grasp of the people under him compared to someone high up in the hierarchy like the head of the personnel department.

Obviously, not every citizen of the United States was closely protected by secret agents, and Sheyan was also not someone who would use violent means all the time. When they knocked on the door, they were invited in to take a sit in the living room. The mistress of the house, who was in pajamas, offered them some homemade cookies and hand-grinded black coffee before she went back to her vacuuming.

The supervisor, a middle-aged man with a beer belly, was watching a European Champions.h.i.+p game on TV with a bottle of beer in his hand. That seemed to be the reason why they were still awake at this hours.

The fat man was generous with his laughter, and when he squinted his eyes when he laughed, wrinkles could be seen on his forehead. His little daughter who was riding on a plastic horse was excited to see that they had visitors, but she was soon carried away by her mother.

Sheyan smiled at the supervisor from across the coffee table. “These cookies are so good! I"m sorry to call on you at such hours, Mr. Dursley, but rest a.s.sured, this won"t take too long.”

Mr. Dursley took a gulp of the beer and laughed. “No worries. There"s half an hour left before the semi-final of the Euro starts anyway. Just make sure we finish before that!”

Sheyan went straight to the point. “I"m here to enquire about a person. These are the characteristics of the person.”

Sheyan handed over a piece of paper on which he had written down his deductions of the target they were looking for. When Mr. Dursley looked over it, his expression sank. He was about to say something, but Sheyan spoke first.

“Please don"t reject my request, because….you must first understand the consequences of refusing me. ”

“First,” Sheyan signaled Sanzi to bring over a pa.s.sword-protected suitcase and opened it in front of Mr. Dursley to let him see the stacks of banknotes in it.”You"ll lose $500,000 of extra income.”

Sheyan threw the suitcase to the stunned man, who caught it with a stupefied look on his face. Sheyan then said with a smile, “To be honest, I"m a really strong b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and I usually get really angry when I"m rejected.”

As he spoke, Sheyan grabbed a metal ashtray from the table and squeezed.

Mr. Dursley watched slack-jawed as his ashtray slowly crumpled into an irregularly-shaped ball. Then, from between Sheyan"s fingers, solid metal seeped through like rubber!

“Now, do you recall anything? Do you perhaps have some good news for me?” Sheyan stared into Dursley"s eyes and said, “By the way, you have such a lovely family.”

A drop of sweat trickled down Dursley"s cheek, He opened his mouth as if to say something, but found his throat so dry that he couldn"t make a sound. He took a sip of beer and calmed himself before he said, “The one you"re looking for is most probably Nicholas. There"s only one description which doesn"t fit him – Nicholas drinks, and he drinks a lot.”

“Could it be someone else?” asked Sheyan with narrowed eyes.

“He"s the only one who fits the description,” answered Dursley confidently.

A grin broke upon Sheyan"s face. “That means I can find him at the front gate of the Knox Factory tomorrow morning, right? Do you have a picture of him?”

Dursley paused for a moment before he smiled bitterly. “My man, if you want to find him, I"m afraid it won"t be that simple. You"ll probably have to go through some complicated procedures and even after that, you might not get approved – because he"s currently locked-up in Fox River prison. His offense seems to be a rather serious one.”

This time it was Sheyan"s turn to be stunned. He did not expect such an outcome. After recovering from the shock, Sheyan smiled wryly and asked, “What did he go to prison for?”

“A group of people in black suits took him away. They didn"t look like the police; we suspect they might be the FBI. The only answer we got for the arrest was that he was a danger to national security,” replied Mr. Dursley. He had become very cooperative by now.

Sheyan nodded and stood up.

“Your cooperation so far has been much to my satisfaction. You just need to fulfil one last request of mine, and we"ll leave right away. No one will know that we"ve ever been here. Please provide me with a picture of Mr. Nicholas – a clear one.”

Dursley walked into his bedroom without any hesitation and brought out a group photo to meet Sheyan"s request. Nicholas" face was clearly circled with a red pen. Nicholas had a rather refined face, but he looked slightly depressed. However,his clean-shaven face showed that he still harbored hope for the future.

After obtaining the picture, Sheyan instantly got up and walked out the door. The suitcase was left behind as he promised. But after he had closed the door, he suddenly opened it again and told Dursley with a smile. “Mr. Dursley, if I were you, I"d definitely not leak a word about what happened here tonight. You"ll lose those half a million dollars, at the very least.”

When the gang returned to the chaotic ghetto, Sheyan immediately started gathering information about the Fox River prison. The more he investigated, the darker his expression became.

According to the record, the Fox River prison was a large high security prison. In fact, it was the ultimate prison in the United States, meant for the worst criminals. The prison was notorious its torture of prisoners ever since it started its operation.

The convicts inside were only afforded nine hours of time outside their cells every week, and had minimal contact with others. They were barely exposed to the sun and even had to take meals in their cells.

The cells were built with concrete. All the furnitures in the cells were fixed in place and cannot be moved. If someone tried to block the sewer, the toilet would shut down automatically. Shower water would stop on the same time every day to prevent waste.

An abundance of advanced technologies were utilised in the prison, with more than 3,000 guards, all armed to the teeth, monitoring the prison for 24 hours a day. In addition, the military base nearby could deploy troops there within 15 minutes to quell any potential riots.

Zi was initially checking the normal visiting procedures, but after a while, she came directly to Sheyan and told him straight, “Normal visits won"t work. To apply for a visit to this d.a.m.ned prison, you have to apply three months ahead. But that"s not all. According to what it says on the internet, the chances of an application being pa.s.sed are about as high as the chances of being accepted for a trip to the moon.”

Sheyan asked without any strength in his voice, “Did you find any news of Mr. Nicholas?”

“I did,” replied Zi, but she sigh afterwards. “His name and picture show that he"s in the prison, but…that"s all I could find. There are no further information about him. These heavy criminals have no human rights. There are rumours that they have to wear heavy magnetic ankle bracelets at all times.”

Sheyan sucked in a sharp breath like his teeth hurt.”Fox River is bigger than all of Los Angeles! We know nothing about the place, nor do we know the exact location Nicolas is detained in. Breaking into the prison is already hard enough, but we still have to bring a person out after that?! An ordinary person no less, with no superhuman strength!”

“We need information – a lot more information, and more importantly, we can"t alert anyone in the process. That"s why, be it bribing or coercion, we can"t do it to more than three people,” said Zi decisively. “For the sake of efficiency, we should start from the higher-ups in the prison. We don"t have to worry too much about the breaking-in part with our strength; we should focus on how to get out of that d.a.m.n place.”

“You"re right,” Sheyan said seriously. “This d.a.m.n mission is starting to stress me out. And up to this point, we still can"t see the end of the mission at all.”

Early the next day, Sheyan set out with Mogensha to a place near the Fox River prison for surveillance. Because the facility contained secrets about the police and the military, and there weren"t much information on the internet yet in this era, the two were completely ignorant of things regarding the prison administration. They could only collect information from scratch.

But the difference between an executive and an ordinary employee was still obvious from the car they drove to work. The two men could not enter the parking lot, but thanks to Mogensha"s dexterity, he managed to sneak into a nearby house and lock on to a target.

“The prison doctor of Fox River Prison.”

This was a crucial discovery. The prison doctor"s authority was not high and he would not receive a lot of attention, but he had to set up medical records for every prisoner, which means that he possessed the basic information of every prisoner. Some prisoners may have movement difficulties and couldn"t go to the medical centre, so the doctor would have to go to them. These opportunities mean that the doctor would be familiar with the internal layout of the prison.

After Sheyan took some time to have a “sincere chat” with the doctor named Balland, they successfully obtained Mr. Nicholas" prison file.

Nicholas, Federer

Serial Number: 823132

Cell Location: Dangerous Criminals Zone A, Cell 16

Crime(s): Disclosure of state secrets, suspected of endangering the national security of the United States of America.

Sentence: Life imprisonment

Remaining Sentence: Remainder of life

Time Left Before Eligible for Bail: Not eligible for bail

Details: Do not be deceived by his appearance. He is a man who looks honest but is actually extremely dangerous.

As could be seen from the photo in the file, he was a man with confused and frightened eyes. He seemed to be as weak-willed as a frightened groundhog. Sheyan thought that the guy looked like he would tell you everything, including the colour of his girlfriend"s underwear last night, with merely a slight threat. There was nothing about him that looked “dangerous”.

Under the immense pressure from the governmental organisations, and the systematic torture he was surely subjected to in the prison, there should be nothing that Nicholas could hide. But the fact was laid before them. Even under such immense pressure, even in such a hopeless place, Nicholas was still guarding his secret.

Looking at Nicholas" information, Zi slowly said, “There are only two things that could possibly cause someone to act so much out of character. The first is love. Love has no logic. The other is survival. In the face of death, most people"s desire to live will get extremely fierce.”

Sanzi also raised his head and said, “The security of Fox River prison is so tight that it doesn"t even have a lot of mice. To avoid causing suspicion, my speed of mapping the layout is rather slow. But I can already confirm that the inside of the prison contained high-power mechanisms such as laser corridors (TL: like the one in Resident Evil), and at least one sixth of the prison guards are equipped with taser guns. We can"t afford to hold back.”

Sheyan pondered for a while before he asked, “When can the detailed map be completed?”

“Give me three hours,” replied Sanzi after some quick calculations.

“According to the information we obtained from the insider, seven criminals will be taken to Fox River prison at 7:40 a.m. tomorrow. We will begin our operation at that time.”

To get into Fox River prison through the sewers and ceilings would be a foolish idea. Even powerful contestants would find it impossible to turn that idea into reality. How can something that was done in every prison break movie ever, NOT be taken care of by the prison architect?

There was only one way to get in and out of this d.a.m.n place, and that was through the front door. To achieve this goal, the party split into three.

The first group would infiltrate the prison to rescue the target. The second group would try to cut off the prison"s power supply. Without power, the difficulty of breaking out from the prison would be halved, at the very least. It sounded like a simple job, but the prison actually had as many as three power supply sources, all of them heavily-guarded. It was no walk in the park.

The final group had the toughest job. Do not forget that there was an army base next to Fox River prison. The task of this group was to create a terrorist attack in Los Angeles powerful enough to attract the army"s attention, while making sure Vincent was protected at the same time. The attack must be large and eye-catching, but they must also avoid harming the innocent citizens as much as possible.

The groups are divided as follows:

Sheyan & Sanzi would infiltrate the prison.

Zi would protect Vincent and attract the army"s attention. The location she targeted for destruction was: Hollywood.

Mogensha and Reef would destroy the power supply system.

At 7:10 a.m. the next morning, Sheyan and Sanzi were patiently waiting somewhere. Soon after, the armed vehicle used to transport prisoners approached them. The court personnel that had already been bribed by Sheyan told the escorting prison guards to carry two more prisoners in the vehicle.

Such things did not happen often, but they had happened before. More importantly, Fox River prison was a notoriously harsh prison. There were only inmates eager to be transferred out; no one would willingly go inside.

Such a blind spot in thinking caused the prison guards to not sense anything suspicious. In any case, the prisoners still had to go through a series of screening procedures before they could be emitted into the prison, so there was nothing for them to worry about. Therefore, Sheyan and Sanzi managed to join the prisoners without much ha.s.sle.

The first impression Fox River prison gave them upon entry was that it looked like a super-large hospital. It was clean, tidy, and had an air of solemnity. Of course, the black prison guard uniforms could never be mistaken for white coats.

Sheyan walked down a wide, clean corridor. The s.h.i.+ny floor was almost as smooth as a mirror. The prisoner in front of him was loudly humming a song in a relaxed manner. The guard next to him ordered him to shut up impatiently. The prisoner glared at the guard with defiant eyes in response, and was rewarded with a baton to the head.

Although the unfortunate prisoner was built as tough as Rambo, he could only fall to the ground from that. The guard did not show him any pity; he gave the prisoner a good beating after that. During the process of the beating, Sheyan noticed that the people pa.s.sing by did not show much reaction to that at all, as if such incidents were common in this prison.

The prison guard only stopped after he was tired. He then stared at the remaining eight prisoners with a ferocious gaze. Sheyan instantly lowered his head.

The guard, upon confirming that no one dared to look him in the eyes, nodded his head with satisfaction and yelled, “Welcome to Fox River, kids! This is a place to atone for your crimes, not for confessions and reformation. I guarantee you that after spending some time here, you will scramble like dogs whenever you smell a chance to reduce your sentence. Now that"s how a real Fox River prisoner should behave!”

Following a series of examinations, Sheyan and the other prisoners were led to a place resembling an interrogation room, where an old woman with a shrill voice sat behind a computer. The great invention called the bra forcefully gave her shriveled and drooping b.r.e.a.s.t.s the contour that they had 30 years ago through the clothes. Each prisoner had to walk to a spot a metre in front of her and stare into a camera, after which the prisoner"s information would be displayed.

When it was Sheyan"s turn, he turned his face to the camera and, of course, the screen was blank. A buzzer sounded, but its volume had been adjusted to the minimum. The old woman glanced at Sheyan with cold eyes, then began tapping the keyboard with the same fingers which were used to count the 500,000 dollars Sheyan had sent her thirty-six hours ago. She added a series of words to the blank sheet.

Bent, Rocky

Serial Number: 1353214

Cell Location: Zone B, Cell 21

Crime(s): Robbery, fraud

Sentence: 7 years

Remaining Sentence: 2 years, 6 months

Time Left Before Eligible for Bail: 11 months

Note: This man was born in Was.h.i.+ngton and has received higher education, but a venture into speculation left his finances in ruins. His luck remained down until he robbed a bar with an empty gun one day.

Details: This prisoner does not pose a high threat. He is allowed to partic.i.p.ate in prison labour.

After gaining such an appraisal, Sheyan was taken away by a prison guard without any incident. They took a long trek through some smooth, s.p.a.cious and bright corridors to a narrow, rough, dark and dirty prison cell.

This was Cell 21 of Zone B.

This was also the place where Sheyan had to spend half a million dollars to get to. The only reason Sheyan chose this cell was because it was only a metre away from Zone A.

That metre contained a thick wall of reinforced concrete. Even the shock wave from a nuclear weapon would be weakened by 80% after going through this wall.

The reason Sheyan failed to enter Zone A directly was because it was not easy to be recognised as a heavy criminal.

He only had to bribe two people to become an ordinary prisoner. But to become a heavy criminal, even bribing 20 people may not be enough, because it needed the personal verification of the prison warden. is related to the prison governor"s own identification. The audacious Sheyan did toy with the idea of approaching the warden of Fox River, but he got a notification before he started which informed him that this action would likely lead to mission failure.

Cell 21 was about eight square meters in size. The narrow cell had to provide the sleeping s.p.a.ces for eight adult males, as well as facilities such as the toilet and the shower. One could imagine the cramped s.p.a.ce.

The floor here was very rough; it was a surface of flattened concrete. The eight-watt energy-saving lamp on the ceiling illuminated the cell in a pale light. Because there were no windows, this lamp was kept on the whole day.

Due to the prison"s time-limited water supply system, the strong odor of excretion will drift over from the toilet into the cell more often than not.

The prison had such a clean external environment, yet the prisoners were made to live in such terrible living conditions.

That was the idea of Fox River prison. To be exact, it was the idea of the prison"s CEO. There were no “good prisoners” in this world; prisons were meant to punish prisoners, not to let them turn over a new leaf!

The newcomer Sheyan was of course given the bed closest to the toilet. Actually, there was no bed. It was just the ground.

So what happened to his bed? It was in use by others.

The cell was so small, and the men who were placed in it were normally big and muscular. If they slept according to the designated 8-person arrangement, none of them would be able to straighten their legs. Even if they could, the part below the knee would be suspended in mid air without support.

It was naturally a terribly uncomfortable way to sleep.

So, the few inmates who were the first to arrive would oppress the newcomers. In order to stretch their legs comfortably when they sleep, they would force the last two who joined the cell to sleep on the ground. That was Sheyan"s current predicament.

That wasn"t the end of it. Because water supply was limited and there were not many water containers, the toilet was rarely completely clean of human waste. As soon as the guard was gone, in order to cover up the foul smell, a large, fat man grabbed Sheyan"s blanket and draped it over the toilet. He then looked at Sheyan provocatively.

Normally, the newcomers wouldn"t just tolerate such insults. They would at least be shocked and angry and get into an argument. The fouler-tempered ones would even start throwing fists. That kind of response was exactly what the other inmates were hoping for, because they could then gang up on the newcomer and give him a good beating.

But Sheyan showed no response at all, as if what had happened was totally irrelevant to him. As if he couldn"t smell the stink from the toilet, he sat down on his designated spot without making a fuss.

Sheyan"s “exemplary behaviour” completely ruined his fellow inmates" script. They exchanged glances and decided to wait until after the guards had made the evening rounds to teach the new guy a proper lesson.

What they did not know was that Sheyan had no intention of staying here for long at all. So what if he had to smell the stench for a little while? Of course, the main reason Sheyan could not be bothered with them was that right after he sat down, he felt the metal nut getting slightly hot. Following that, a string of notifications appeared before his eyes.

[ Explanation: What is the truth hidden behind the mysterious metal nut? You"re already really close to it. ]

[ Warning: Your search for Nicholas has attracted the attention of certain factions. ]

[ Warning: You must find Nicholas as soon as possible to discover the truth. ]

It was the first time Sheyan had encountered this kind of half-explanation, half-hinting notifications, and there was no mission handed-out too, but at least it showed that he was in the right direction.

Despite Sheyan"s seemingly confident display in front of his party members, he actually harbored some doubts deep down in his heart. Now that he had confirmation from the realm, he was naturally much more confident in his choice. In fact, the group of inmates should really be thankful of the timely notifications, otherwise it was hard to say whether Sheyan would have the patience to deal with their provocation peacefully in his anxiousness.

After two hours of waiting , the lights in the corridor outside the cell suddenly flickered and went out. Sheyan abruptly opened his eyes. The prisoners who were originally talking and laughing wildly were stunned. Since they had been here, the power of Fox River Prison had never gone out before! Some of the prisoners on death row and lifetime sentences started to feel some kind of unreasonable hope. Even the prison guards were looking up at the lights on the ceiling. They had never been bothered by blackouts, so it naturally caught their attention.

But the power returned very soon, and cold, white light once again illuminated the prison. The inmates were immediately overwhelmed with frustration. Sheyan continued to wait patiently. He believed that the blackout just now was not just an accident.

The lights flashed and went out again, and this time, no one believed it was just a coincidence. One of the prisoners began to scream excitedly, seizing the bars on his cell"s door and shaking it. Following that, many other prisoners did the same thing. Loud clanging noises could be heard coming from every direction. When the lights flashed on again, the illumination lit up the prisoners" disillusioned faces and the figures of the guards that had grouped up in a hurry and were rus.h.i.+ng over from the distance.

A loud scream broke out, followed by shouts of anger – that was the aftermath of a steel baton hitting an inmate"s head. Sheyan was counting down patiently. Since Reef and Mogensha had destroyed two power supply systems, the third should not pose them any problem either.

Reef and Mogensha indeed did not disappoint Sheyan. All the lights went out again for the third time merely five minutes later. The prisoners were already making a ruckus like it was a carnival. Some rushed to the doors of their cells and shook them, while others started smas.h.i.+ng beds. All the prison guards showed signs of hesitation in dealing with the prisoners in a blackout, and they lacked their usual courage.

Sheyan stood up at this moment. He walked slowly, but his progress was not slow – because all the people in front of him were thrown away. The person currently occupying the best position in front of the cell door was the fat man from earlier. He turned around and stared at Sheyan, while at the same time grabbing a “dagger” that was grinded from a toothbrush. He threatened, “Fool, do you think muscles decide everything? The biggest difference between humans and animals is that humans can use tools. Everyone attack him together! ”

Sheyan quietly said, “Although I wasn"t planning to use that dirty blanket, it was something that belongs to me. What right do you have to touch it? The moment you threw it over the toilet, I decided that I"ll show you the scenery under the toilet.”

The fat man yelled and threw himself at Sheyan. Two close friends of his lunged at Sheyan"s arm from the left and right, trying to hold him in place so that the fat man could stab the handle of his toothbrush into Sheyan"s stomach.

The two performed their mission admirably, but when Sheyan yanked his arms, they simultaneously issued a horrible scream. With a further pull of his arms, Sheyan broke the arms of the two men instead. The sharpened toothbrush handle reached Sheyan"s abdomen at the same time, but it was stubbornly bounced back. Sheyan grabbed the fat man"s throat and lifted him off the ground.

The fat man was suffocating. He kicked about wildly and tried to cry out, but he could not make a sound.

Sheyan stuffed the man"s head into the toilet and jammed it down hard. The fat man sounded like he was drowning. Sheyan was done with him. He turned around, went to the cell door, gripped the bars on the door, and slowly exerted his strength.

In front of the prisoners" astonished eyes, the tough prison door started to groan helplessly. Debris fell from the concrete walls around it – it was evident that the walls could not resist the tremendous power from Sheyan"s hands. As the doorframe became twisted and was pulled out, a series of explosions happened around the door, followed by one final loud bang!

The major explosion took place on the most severely damaged wall. The explosion was so strong that sand and stones splashed out like the spray of water when a pipe burst! Rubble and dust covered the shocked faces of the inmates in the tiny cell.

By the end of the explosion, the figure was still standing in front of the door like an unshakable mountain, but with some burn marks on his body. Sheyan held the prison door in one hand, seemingly wanting to use it as a weapon!

A guy who was staring into Sheyan"s back suddenly cried out, “He"s a Terminator! He"s got to be a Terminator! ”

The Terminators had been very active recently. There weren"t something convenient like the neuralyzer in this world, so the public had some knowledge of these terrorist-like monsters.

Sheyan went out to meet up with Sanzi according to their previous arrangement. Naturally, he attracted the attention of all the prison guards. This was just the zone where ordinary prisoners were locked-up, and the guards here were not equipped with high-tech products like the latest taser gun. At most, they carried electric batons and small-caliber pistols. It was not too difficult for Sheyan to knock them down. A few minutes later, all the prison guards were already moaning in pain on the ground.

These guards only tried to subdue Sheyan and did not try to kill him, so Sheyan showed them mercy. With no one stopping him, he moved towards Zone C where Sanzi was imprisoned.

Not ten seconds after Sheyan left, another man boldly stepped out of the now obsolete cell and rushed to his freedom, shouting in ecstasy, but he was quickly called back by his boss. He found the keys on an unconscious prison guard and proceeded to release all the prisoners there.

The Fox River Prison was extremely harsh on its prisoners, all of whom were violent and held grudges. Now that their fury were unleashed, the outbreak was naturally ferocious. Prisoners were released one after another. Because a large number of defensive measures had stopped working due to the blackout, the mob ran rampant and destroyed everything wherever it went!

This was also within Sheyan"s plan. The rioting mob would undoubtedly attract most of the government"s attention, which would buy him more time to escape from here.

Not far away from the cell where Sanzi was held, Sheyan detected the piercing smell of blood! He instantly had a bad feeling. After a few more steps, he suddenly saw a fierce-looking beast!

In front of Sheyan was a huge panther that was black all over except for its jewel-like eyes! The black panther was covered in blood, but as the blood fell on a clean, perfect layer of fur, it looked like rain drops on a lotus leaf – it seemed to display a cruel elegance that was only occasionally broken when the panther showed its claws and teeth when it moved. It was obvious that the panther had just taken part in a brutal slaughter.

Immediately afterwards, Sanzi walked out of a corridor to the side. He did not look too good, but he was not hurt, just angry. When he saw Sheyan, he immediately started complaining.

“You can"t fault me for killing these idiots, bro! They touched my a.s.s! ”

Sheyan sighed and patted Sanzi"s shoulders. “I don"t blame you. If I were you, I would"ve done even worse. Oh, right. You haven"t introduced me to your friend yet.”

Sanzi walked over and lightly scratched the threatening beast"s chin. The creature apparently enjoyed this very much. It squinted its eyes and purred like a cat through its nostrils.

“This is Mr. Bhag"thera. I had to pay a very high price to convince it to fight alongside me.”

(TL:  )

Sheyan nodded.

“Well, then, please tell Mr. Bhag"thera to try to refrain from killing civilians with no battle power. Ma.s.sacres of civilians on a large scale will likely give rise to unpredictable factors. The last thing we need now is for new problems to crop up out of nowhere.”

“I understand.”

They talked as they walked, and soon found themselves at a junction. Sheyan called up the 3D holographic map, which they had drawn earlier, from the nightmare imprint with a mere thought. They took a left turn and climbed up the stairs. According to the map, the entrance to the dangerous criminals zone was right here.

While they were still on the stairs, they could already see at least forty prison officers on high alert, guarding the zone with riot s.h.i.+elds and helmets on.

Perhaps Bhag"thera could feel the murderous intent of the enemies – it rushed out without waiting for Sanzi"s order. The vigour and agility it displayed were incredible. The prison officers holding riot s.h.i.+elds in the front row moved to both sides to reveal the gun-wielding officers behind them, who immediately opened fire.

Surprisingly, most of the shots fired by the prison officers were evaded by Bhag"thera, but the astonis.h.i.+ng size of the beast ensured that there were still some bullets which were able to find their way to its body. Dark red spots started to appear on the black sheen of its fur.

But when the giant panther was shot, not only did it not run away, it even started speeding up with a fierce howl. It looked as if it was using the pain to stimulate the potential in its body! It became a black hurricane as it tore through the prison officers with its fangs and claws. The officers were no match for it at all. With this, Bhag"thera gradually caught most of the prison officers" attention!

Suddenly, a light flashed. Bhag"thera seemed to detect a threat from it and immediately dodged to the side. Instantly, a sharp triangular cone connected to a long wire penetrated deep into the floor next to the panther! Next, a blue circle of electrical current diffused in all directions from the cone. Bhag"thera could not react in time and was. .h.i.t by the electrical ring. The shock made him tremble all over. After that, all its hair stood on ends and its movement became sluggish.

At that instant, a succession of shots sounded, and three more taser cones were fired. Two of them managed to hit Bhag"thera"s paralyzed body.

But Sheyan had already grabbed a cell door beside him and pulled it out of the wall. Sheyan then aimed this hundreds of kilograms of ma.s.s at the prison officers and threw it! The momentum of the spinning door was truly terrifying – the sound it made while it flew through the air was enough to give the officers chills down their back!

Although there was a distance of twenty to thirty meters between them, Sheyan was confident in the accuracy of his throw because he had used the skill "Tactical Throw". The shooters thought they would be all right as long as they hid behind the riot s.h.i.+elds, but the cruel truth was that only bunkers and corners could protect them….

Amidst a thunderous crash, the hapless officers scattered like flies. No one tried to pull the trigger at the risk of being smashed in the head. Bhag"thera swiped with its paw and easily snapped the wires behind the taser cones. It once again turned into a raging storm and rushed into midst of the prison officers.

Beast type creatures tend to be ferocious in nature, and before it became a summon creature of Sanzi, Bhag"thera was already a notorious monster that would even kill its own kind. Now that it had been shocked by the taser guns, it"s ferocious nature was triggered. Bhag"thera directly rammed into a riot s.h.i.+eld, sending the officer behind the s.h.i.+eld flying and bleeding.

The beast immediately brandished its claws and swept them to the side violently, separating the body of two prison officers who were wielding taser guns into two. The contents of their stomachs spilled out. Bhag"thera swept violently again and the b.l.o.o.d.y heads of these two officers flew away in a parabolic curve, landing at the feet of the prison officers at the back!

This immediately destroyed the morale of the prison guards, and it was clear that the salary of $3,000 a week was not enough to lift their spirit and inspire them to fight. Sheyan even heard a prison guard yelling into the phone in hysteria.

“Requesting for reinforcement! We need the army! We need B-2s, we need the Kitty Hawk, we need atomic bombs! My G.o.d! There are two high-end Terminators in here, and….”

At this point, the prison officer looked at Mr. Bhag"thera, apparently hoping to find an effective countermeasure against the panther in his mind so that he could request it as a reinforcement, but apparently he had no talent in this field, so his final line was:

“…and there"s also a Terminator that looks like a panther! Well, it"s ten times bigger than any panther you"ve ever seen!”

Since the opponents had already lost their will to resist, Sheyan did not kill them off. He selectively attacked the officers with taser guns and drove the remaining prison guards towards to the destructive mob of rioting prisoners behind him. Obviously, those guards who were very cruel to the prisoners were about to face their karma.

Then, Sheyan and Sanzi encountered the biggest obstacle that they had to face so far. A gigantic slab of steel, almost as thick as the door of a bank vault, stretched across the corridor in front of them. From the moment the blackout occurred, it would slam down and jam the pa.s.sageway to the dangerous criminals zone according to the pre-programmed instruction.

The object itself contained a battery that could power it for ten hours in the absence of power supply. Even the powerful contestants could only sigh helplessly in front of this large steel door, which was why the warden proudly called it the Wall of Lamentation. Theoretically speaking, unless this steel door which was packed full of advanced technology happened to be in the centre of a nuclear explosion, it was really hard to destroy.

Therefore, the progress of Sheyan and Sanzi was impeded at a spot that was less than 100 meters away from their target. But being impeded did not mean being baffled. The mice sent out by Sanzi before this had already made a thorough investigation around this particular problem, and they had already come up with an answer. It was actually not difficult to solve the problem as long as they did not fall into the conventional way of thinking.

Sheyan and Sanzi quickly arrived at the office of the prison guard nextdoor. With one kick at the door, this piece of junk made from composite wooden boards immediately broke apart. From the direction of the bed inside came a woman"s scream.

The only impression that the naked woman left on Sheyan was her impressive b.r.e.a.s.t.s that were as large as Christina Hendricks". Next to her was an officer with a pot belly, naked of course. Sheyan, who had thoroughly studied the administrative structure of Fox River Prison, immediately identified him as one of the two deputy wardens. Perhaps they were too engrossed in the act of pleasure; the huge commotion outside had been totally ignored by them.

As soon as Mr. Bhag"thera made its appearance, the couple"s screams of anger immediately turned into screams of fear. Sheyan knocked the deputy warden unconscious and let the woman go. He walked across the resting area to the wall on the other side, raised his fist, and slammed at the wall with a heavy blow!

His dark green gloves were remodelled from a pair of mining gloves, so they were originally designed to crack rocks. After ten punches in succession, Sheyan made one final, powerful strike. The wall instantly collapsed amidst rising dust and debris. The dangerous criminals zone was now visible on the other side of the wall.

A common misconception that people normally had was that it was much easier to break a door than to break a wall. This was normally true, but Sanzi"s mice detected several places where the walls between the common prisoners zone and the dangerous criminals zone were less than a meter thick. The choice between breaking through a one-meter reinforced concrete wall or breaking through that high-tech and impossibly thick slab of steel, was an easy one.

The designers of Fox River Prison could never have imagined that there would be a day when the prison would fall into such a state of panic that intruders could easily enter the prison guard"s office to break down the wall!

The scene in the dangerous criminals zone was completely different from the outside. Numerous dangerous criminals were wearing heavy magnetic shackles, which clung to their feet like a pair of 30-kilogram steel boots. The prisoners here were subjected to various horrible treatments, and many guards in this zone were equipped with taser guns! This is an extremely dangerous area!

Sheyan and Sanzi stepped into the core zone of the prison where the dangerous criminals were kept. The zone was built in a “回” shape, with a rectangular corridor. There was only one entrance, and anyone who wished to enter or leave the zone must pa.s.s through the entrance. It was now the zone"s last line of defence.

Sheyan and Sanzi were forced back by at least a dozen guns as soon as they appeared. Of course, bullets were not a strong threat to Sheyan, but the three taser gun shots mixed within were something to be wary of.

The destructive power of the taser gun was already devastating on its own, but what"s more frightening was the paralysis effect! If Sheyan was. .h.i.t by one, he would have to brace himself to get hit by 7 more! That kind of damage was unbearable even for someone like Sheyan who had monstrous vitality. His life may very well be put in danger.

And our dear Mr. Nicholas somehow had the privilege to be placed in this core zone. Sheyan could not help but wonder if Mr. Nicholas had molested the daughter of a senator. Why else would he receive this kind of special treatment?

“You"re not going to use your diseases?” asked Sanzi while giving him a puzzled look.

Sheyan shook his head. “If I use my "Pestilence Monarch" on ordinary people, its infectious nature will likely lead to terrible consequences. Thousands of casualties may occur. Normally, I might not care, but right now, I have to think twice.”

Sheyan may have his worries, but he was not unprepared for this terrible situation. He squatted down and pulled out a green plant in a flowerpot next to him. He then dug a pit in the pot and buried several bottles of genetical-extract mixes in it before he poured a bottle of a specially-prepared nutrient solution inside.

That"s right, Sheyan had already antic.i.p.ated this situation, so the grown creatures from the Lord of the Rings world would crawl out of the soil and provide them with powerful reinforcement!

An indescribable breath permeated through the air. A large number of tentacles extended out of the soil to grab tightly to the edge of the pot, then began to spread to the surroundings. A terrifying throbbing could be felt in the air, as if something was resonating with the inner organs of every human present!

Then, a large amount of foaming mucus shot out of the flowerpot. The white foam quickly condensed into the form of an egg that was two meters tall, then cracked rapidly. A creature that was a mix between a lizardman and a frogman emerged from it. It bared its sharp teeth menacingly. A fierce glint could be seen in its two blister-like eyes.

The creature was holding a twisted vine in the form of a magic staff, but its sharp, strange-looking claws and cruel, uneven teeth showed that it was by no means purely a mage-type creature that knew nothing about melee battles.

“Master,” The grown creature bowed slightly to Sheyan and said, “Your wish is my command.”

Sheyan pointed to the prison officers who were stubbornly resisting on the opposite side and ordered the creature, “Once I"m ready, help me clean up these pests.”

With the help of the grown creature, they were like demolition workers, dismantling all the cell doors close to them and throwing the dismantled doors into the corridor, effectively creating several shelters and obstacles to hide behind. The prison officers across the room howled furiously.

Seeing Sheyan"s intentions, several brave officers tried to run out and remove the obstacles, but Sheyan"s grown creature showed its might. It stretched its neck and its tongue suddenly extended out. The tongue only reached as far as five or six meters away, but the poison secreted from the tongue shot forth and hit the back of an officer!

This poison was a little strange. After it hit the target, as if it was mercury, it split up and splashed towards the surroundings, staining the few officers to the side. Smoke immediately rose from where the poison touched those officers. They fell down to the ground and rolled around in pain.

This was the special ability of this monster developed by Sheyan: "Tongue Poison Bullets"! A high-speed ejection of highly corrosive poison using its frog-like tongue! Once the poison hit the target, it would split and inflict damage to nearby enemies!

Perhaps the grown creature"s attack was of little use against contestants, but it was a frightening weapon when used against the average storyline character.

In the midst of the chaos, Sheyan rushed out while carrying a desk which functioned as his s.h.i.+eld. The bullets smas.h.i.+ng into the table sent sawdust flying everywhere, but the taser guns were rendered useless against its insulation property. defense. It wasn"t until Sheyan was halfway there that a few people fired electric shots at the ground in front of Sheyan and used the AoE electrical shockwaves to force Sheyan back.

But this charge of Sheyan"s was merely a feint! His purpose was to attract the officers" firepower. The real killing move was Sheyan"s grown creature! It had the terrifying jumping power of a frog with its st.u.r.dy thighs, and could jump seven to eight meters with each leap. By the time it was noticed by the prison officers, it had already jumped behind the nearest “bunker” in the corridor and sent a "Tongue Poison Bullet" into the crowd!

Seven people or so fell to the ground and groaned in agony. They felt as if they were splashed with highly corrosive acid. Even the st.u.r.diest person could not aim their gun in that kind of situation.

And that wasn"t even the most horrible thing. The grown creature took advantage of the chaos to once again bend his strong thighs and leap forward. It landed right in the middle of the prison officers who were still trying their best to put up a resistance.

As soon as it landed, it shattered the staff it was holding. A large amount of white foam instantly occupied the whole area.Then, the creature began to wantonly kill with its fangs and claws. Screams followed one after another.

A prison officer in despair aimed his taser gun at the grown creature and pulled the trigger. He neglected one tiny thing. At that moment, the surrounding was almost entirely covered by the wet foam. The consequence of his electric shock was total annihilation….of the humans!

Sheyan shrugged innocently while he stared at the convulsing prison officers.

“Don"t blame me, my friends. It"s your colleague"s fault.”

Next, Sheyan started to move towards the core area of the dangerous criminals zone. It was actually pretty cool to see all those prison officers drop down in front of him.

It was evident that the government were extremely wary of the prisoners here. As soon as the first blackout occurred, the prison officers in this zone were already on high alert and had drove all the prisoners back into their cells. And when the second blackout occurred, the officers activated the emergency system….

The result of this was, if Sheyan wanted to continue into the core area of the dangerous criminals zone, he would have to go through a steel door that was armed to the teeth with dangerous weapons! As soon as Sheyan pressed his hand on the door, he knew that brute force could not solve this problem. Similarly, tearing down the wall would not work here either — there was a steel layer inside the walls!

However, although Sheyan"s face was gloomy, he truly believed that there must be someone who could help him solve this problem among the prison officers who were still alive.

After brutally killing five prison officers, the administrator in this area – the other deputy warden – was sold out by his colleagues. Under the threat of death, he could only choose to obey.

For some reason, Sheyan kept feeling that there was a hint of mockery in the deputy warden"s eyes. Although it was hidden deep, Sheyan still caught signs of it. It made him feel very uncomfortable.

Sheyan brought the deputy warden in front of the final obstacle and gave him a cold stare. The deputy warden placed his head in front of the door for a retina scan, thus opening the first lock, then undid the second lock with his fingerprint. Finally, he extended his hand and carefully placed something in his palm.

The object had a rhombic polycrystalline shape and was constructed in a very strange way. It looked a little like a maple leaf built from ice crystals, but it was black in colour. Based on its appearance, one might think that it was a work of art, or an unknown crystal, or a product of a scientific experiment. No one would think that it was a key.

But it really was a key.

Its only purpose was to open a door.

The deputy warden held the key that was gleaming like a black diamond in his palm, but instead of approaching the lock, he pressed a big red warning b.u.t.ton at the side! This b.u.t.ton looked terribly similar to the kind of warning b.u.t.ton in banks that were prepared in case of robbery!

Seeing this, Sheyan surprisingly did not stop the deputy warden. He merely put his mouth close to the deputy warden"s ear and reminded him, “If you dare to play tricks on me, I"ll kill everyone here!”

The deputy warden shrugged and gestured for Sheyan to step back.

“There"s no need to remind me, sir. I cherish my life very much.”

Following that, two red beams of light came out from the left and right of the gate. The deputy warden slowly lifted the “key” in his palm and let the two red beams s.h.i.+ne on it. The red beams illuminated the interior of the “key” and numerous tiny crystals could instantly be seen inside. The beams ran rampant inside the key as they reflected off the tiny crystals in succession, and finally shot out from the front!

At first, the light scattered from between the deputy warden"s fingers and turned into a very beautiful rain of light. Then, with the adjustment of the angle, they gradually condensed into one beam of light, which penetrated into the keyhole!

Sheyan thought that he was already cautious enough, yet he could not help but feel that he had severely underestimated the designer of the prison when he saw this spectacular scene. Even if the “key” was lost or stolen, as long as one did not know the correct method, one would definitely just plug the key into the keyhole, which was the most logical thing to do. Who knew what would have happened. The consequence was definitely not as simple as the door staying locked.

With the illumination of the light, the two steel bars blocking the door started to lift slowly. The first layer of door slid slowly to the left and right, revealing the second layer of smooth inner door. The surface of the inner door was very clean, like a mirror, but it gave off an indestructible vibe. Right in the middle of the inner door was a spiral-shaped indentation, accompanied by what seemed to be an LCD screen that had various numbers flas.h.i.+ng on it.

Sheyan and Sanzi were quite confused seeing this, but the deputy warden just walked over and picked up a small hammer beside the device and tapped it gently on the crystal key. It made an extremely low buzzing sound which seemed to reverberate inside their body.

Lines of words suddenly appeared on the inner door.

“Voiceprint a.n.a.lysis pa.s.sed”

“Compatibility: 100%”

“The door will open in 10 seconds”

Amidst the thunderous roar of motors, the emergency battery played its final role. The steel barrier in front of Sheyan was helplessly infiltrated.

Like most fortified strongholds that had fallen in history, it collapsed from the inside.

A dark corridor appeared in front of Sheyan. Both sides of the corridor were like honeycombs that housed vicious criminals. Sheyan"s arrival no doubt gave them great hope, so almost every one of them was shouting to be freed. The place became as noisy as a wet market.

At that moment, Sheyan once again saw the mocking intent in the deputy warden"s eyes, but he already could not be bothered with the deputy warden. He instructed the grown creature, “Keep an eye on him. If anything happens, eat him!”

The grown creature stuck out its frog-like long, red tongue to lick the face of the officer, who was panicking, and nodded gleefully.

Sheyan and Sanzi stepped into the corridor and identified the room numbers in turn. They"ve long committed Mr. Nicholas" cell number to memory. After more than ten meters, they finally saw Cell No. 16. Through the narrow cell window, Sheyan saw a figure curled up on a narrow military bed inside the dim cell. He seemed to be asleep.

Sheyan knocked on the door and enquired politely, “Mr. Nicholas? Congratulations on regaining your freedom. Let us leave at once, if you please; we"re in a hurry, and I"m sure you can"t wait to taste the delicious food outside.”

But there was no reply.

Sheyan did not believe that Nicholas had the kind of willpower to remain unmoved when the chance of freedom was presented to him. Even if he did not dare to run away, the response should not be so calm.

Sheyan"s eyes flashed past the mocking intent hidden behind the deputy warden"s eyes. An ominous feeling rose within him.

He rammed his shoulder onto the cell door, and the steel door creaked in protest. Sheyan slammed the door once more and it immediately gave way. As soon as he entered the cell, Sheyan was. .h.i.t by a bout of dizziness. His nose detected the faint smell of almond.

"Poison!!" That was the first thought in Sheyan"s mind.

He acted immediately. He grabbed Nicholas who was still on the bed and carried Nicholas out. But it seemed that Sheyan was too late. Anyone could tell that the man was dead. Yup, he had died just like that.

Sheyan could not stop the anger rising in him. He walked out with a nasty look on his face and stared daggers at the deputy warden.

“Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”

The deputy warden was about to speak when Sheyan suddenly snapped a prison officer"s neck. He then walked towards the deputy warden with a chilly look.

When the deputy warden saw the murderous intent in Sheyan"s eyes, he roared, “I didn"t do anything! When the prison was built, it was programmed that every five to eight minutes, the core inner zone must make a connection to the outer zone. This is done by the AI! Once the connection is unsuccessful for three times in a row, nerve gases will be sprayed into specific cell rooms to kill the prisoners inside. The secrets these prisoners hold can"t be allowed to leak out, even if it means killing them! It"s been nearly half an hour since the blackout started. It"s all done by the computer!”

Sheyan didn"t know what to think upon hearing that. He felt like he had been played. He was angry at being cheated, and he was also unwilling to simply give up. He couldn"t help feeling suspicious.

"This doesn"t make sense. It"s hard enough to escape from this d.a.m.n place even if I don"t have to take anybody with me, let alone when I have to bring along a baggage like Nicholas?"

Sanzi was gutted too, but those looking in from the outside could usually see a bigger picture. Sheyan, being the receiver of the mission, could not escape from the stereotypical way of thought of someone in the game. Sanzi was able to look at the problem in a more objective way. When he saw that Sheyan was silent, he couldn"t resist saying, “Bro, if we"ve failed the mission, then let"s just go.”

When Sheyan heard Sanzi"s words, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong. That"s right, failing the mission! Why had he not received the notification telling him that the mission had failed? He immediately looked at the previous series notifications and found that although all the key person in the mission had died, the notification remained unchanged:

[ Warning: You must find Nicholas as soon as possible to discover the truth. ]

This discovery immediately rejuvenated Sheyan, as if he had just taken a stimulant. He searched the corpse of Nicholas carefully and found that there were no suspicious marks, but there were several very obvious scars on his body. The scars were probably not knife wounds or something similar to that, because it was in the position of the heart. If there really used to be a wound there which could leave such terrible scars, the person would have died long ago.

Nicholas must have had a major surgery which resulted in those scars. It means that he had always been in bad health.

As soon as Sheyan noticed this, the mission hint changed.

[ It seems that you have discovered Nicholas" secret. Please find out the truth that has been buried in time. ]

Sheyan narrowed his eyes as he looked at the hint. For some reason, he felt that there was something left unsaid in the mission hint. Sheyan returned to Nicholas" cell, but found nothing useful. At the same time, Sanzi sneered maliciously at the deputy warden. It seemed to be something he had a lot of practice doing.

“Retrieve Nicholas" possession when he was brought here and hand it over to me. Don"t even think that you can take your own sweet time. From now on, after every minute, I"ll kill one person! They"ll all be dead because of you if you don"t come back here in 10 minutes!”

It turned out that when each prisoner entered this prison, everything he carried, including his clothes, cash and mobile was kept by the prison. His possession will be returned to him when he was released.

The deputy warden opened his mouth and seemed to want to say something to delay, but one of his subordinate, in the face of life and death, was having none of it. He shouted in a frenzy, “Send me! Please send me! I know where it is. I promise to get what you want in three minutes!”

And just like that, Sheyan successfully obtained a very old-looking bag, and it did have Nicholas" name on it. Sheyan pondered for a while and instructed his grown creature over. He tied Nicholas"s body tightly to the creature"s back with tape, then left with Sanzi.

I goes without saying that the outside of the prison was already in high alert by now. However, the prisoners Sheyan released along the way had caused great trouble to the government and the military.

Over a thousand vicious criminals were, in actuality, not that scary. A powerful bomb could instantly solve the problem. But there was also prison officers and staff inside, who numbered more than 500. Among them, there were also a few high ranking officials with some impressive backgrounds. No one in the government dared to abandon them.

A thousand criminals was definitely not the kind of hostage-taking situation where a shot from a sniper could solve the problem. This was a huge problem that had almost no solution. The government couldn"t even negotiate with them silently.

Under such circ.u.mstances, Sheyan and Sanzi took the simplest and most unexpected way to leave the besieged Fox River Prison.

They raised their hands and walked out. Sheyan had given his grown creature a disguise, of course. Otherwise, as soon as the creature that was totally beyond the current level of human understanding stepped outside, it would definitely be shot at without hesitation!

Thanks to the help from Reef and Mogensha, Fox River Prison suffered the embarra.s.sment of having its first full power outage since it was put into operation.

Right now, although the power supply problem had been resolved, the government was afraid of supplying power to the prison because it had been fully occupied by prisoners! Supplying power to the prison right now would just strengthen the enemy! Therefore, none of the information about the source of the trouble, Sheyan and Sanzi, had leaked out. The outside was entirely ignorant of the situation inside.

This bizarre situation was made possible not only due to the blackout, but also thanks to the great system of the Fox River Prison. In order to maintain a sense of mystery and strictness to the outside world, the warden forbade the use of mobile phones and other such modern tools inside the prison to cover up the happenings on the inside. The first thing the prison officers and staff had to when when they stepped into the prison was to turn in their mobile phones and other communication devices. They could only communicate through custom-made walkie-talkies once on the inside. If that was not the case, the prison guards could have spread news of Sheyan and Sanzi with merely an instant message.

Because Sheyan realised this, they did not arouse any suspicion when they claimed to be the negotiators sent by the prisoners. There was not much trouble after that. After breaking away from the army"s encirclement, they managed to escape the police"s pursuit despite having five police cars escorting them.

Sheyan broke the handcuffs on Sanzi"s wrists effortlessly, then threw them into the nearby bushes. They walked away side by side as casually as if they were taking a stroll. A hundred meters behind them, two police cars had overturned and were smoking on the ground. It was now rush hour, so traffic was viciously blocked and a large crowd of pedestrians were swarming the scene like a group of flies.

Several other policemen timidly and carefully followed behind Sheyan and Sanzi. They seemed reluctant to catch up, but they had no choice but to tail the two. Sheyan was not concerned with their existence in the slightest. There were seven taser guns in those five police cars and they had all been destroyed. Therefore, the two brothers were keeping a rather relaxed pace.

Sheyan was starting to understand Reef"s pain. After every fight, he had to pay a fee to disguise his grown creature. Reef had already mentioned this problem to him before since it was the same for Reef"s servant. The fee was not that high, but when battles happened frequently, it would acc.u.mulate into a considerable amount. The only solution was to purchase a package that could permanently provide disguise in non-combat state.

Half an hour later, when Party Ace reunited, they realised that the whole Los Angeles city government had been thrown into chaos – not only because of the outstanding performance of Sheyan and Sanzi, but also thanks to Zi, who seemed to have caused some really big trouble. Perhaps because she was part of the 1% in the real world, she could accurately target where it would hurt the government the most. On the contrary, the citizens were already numb to the commotion since the former large-scale invasion of the Terminators had given their nerves a good workout.

Mogensha was the last to return. There were still contestants at large in Los Angeles, so Sheyan was very worried about Mogensha"s safety. It would only take one planned ambush and a few shots of the taser gun to threaten his life.

Seeing Mogensha return unharmed, Sheyan finally relaxed.

After suffering such a serious terrorist attack, Los Angeles would surely launch a large scale purging campaign, and catch several scapegoats to take responsibility for it.

The five of them went directly to Santa Monica Bay according to their plan. Sheyan chose a large yacht, jumped on it, and sailed it out to sea. At this time, everyone was looking at Sheyan with concern, because of course they have found out by now that the grown creature was carrying a corpse. Zi saw that there was no disappointment on Sheyan"s face, so she asked cautiously, “How"s the mission?”

Sheyan smiled as he replied, “The mission has not failed yet.”

Following that, he pointed to the corpse that the grown creature was carrying.

“Now, allow me to introduce to you Mr. Nicholas, whom we spent a lot of effort to invite here.”

When people heard Sheyan say this, they looked to the corpse with some antic.i.p.ation. Unfortunately, there was no response at all from dear Mr. Nicholas. They could see that he was definitely dead.

After an awkward silence, Mogensha could not help exclaiming, “Boss, if you want to talk to him, you might need to become a necromancer first.”

Sheyan laughed. “Do you think the mission will fail right away after the death of a key figure? Nope. I must correct this misconception that you have. Have you forgotten what we"ve just experienced? Ms. Sarah Connor was dead in every way, but she was still an absolutely indispensable part of our mission….”

Sheyan"s words did sound very reasonable. Following that, Sheyan shared all his information with everyone, then announced that the meeting was adjourned. Everyone was tired after such a long journey. It was time to let them take a deserved rest.

At this time, the sun was just about to set. The upper porthole of the yacht was made of a special gla.s.s materials, which turned the light from the sunset into a golden glow. The white full moon appeared on the horizon, as if it was engraved in the sky. A scenery that had both the sun and the moon was quite the spectacle. The peaceful scenery, accompanied by the gently blowing sea breeze, seemed to wash away any fatigue on the body.

Zi walked over with a gla.s.s of red wine. In such a short while, Zi had already changed into a loose and relaxing dress, but the tight black stockings on her legs were still so seductive. In addition, when the breeze gently blew against her, it pushed her loose dress tight against her body, showing off her slim, alluring figure. She was simply stunning.

Although Sheyan did show much reaction on the surface, he could feel his throat going dry. From his perspective, Zi"s fair and delicate skin was on full display, as were her beautiful, long eyelashes. An intimate but awkward atmosphere permeated through the air. It was an atmosphere Sheyan had never experienced before, so he could only find a topic of conversation to break the awkward moment.

“You"re following up on our side mission, right? How"s the progress of Vincent"s wish to return to Cyberdyne?”

Hearing Sheyan move to this topic, the corners of Zi"s mouth curled up in pride.

“Supervisor Callit has been taken care of. Things should proceed smoothly from here on out, now that we"ve dealt with the stubborn old man. Technical Director Pippen is an old pervert, so that"s easy. Ritton will probably be tougher, but I already have some ideas. More importantly, Vincent himself has felt the threat, and had convinced Callit to let him join his team – so there"s no need to worry about his safety anymore.”

When Sheyan heard the words “old pervert”, he could not help looking Zi up and down. Zi"s cheeks turned crimson as she glare at him and stomp his foot with her heel. Sheyan could dodge the attack, but he did not dare. After the stomp, their legs immediately came close to each other. Even through the trousers and stockings, Sheyan could still feel the softness of her thigh. He immediately burned with desire.

Their position was rather awkward at the moment. Zi looked up at Sheyan while her teeth gently bit into her lower lip. There was a kind of obstinate charm to her.

But at that moment, Sanzi suddenly cried out from below, “Bro! Are we going into the high seas? Won"t the return trip take too long?”

Zi and Sheyan immediately separated as if they were thieves caught in the act. Sheyan coughed sheepishly and calmed himself down before he shouted back, “Let me take a look.”

As he said that, he went downstairs in a hurry.

Zi stared into his back and softly humphed.

“Let"s see how long you can run away from me.”

The large yacht they were on had a sailing capacity of over 2,000 kilometers and could withstand Beaufort 11 typhoon if it did not get close to the eye of the typhoon. Therefore, in order to avoid U.S. coastal patrol, Sheyan ordered them to sail directly into the high seas, so that they could rest at ease.

After some intense discussion, they came up with a general plan for what to do next.

The reason the metal nut pointed them at Nicholas was so that the owner of the nut could unlock Nicholas" secret.

The Nicholas" secret was obviously something quite special. It possessed the following characteristics:

First, it did not matter whether Nicholas was dead or alive. If he"s alive, great. If he"s dead, the secret could still be uncovered.

Second, the secret was very well hidden. Even under the pressure and torture from the U.S. government, Nicholas did not break.

Third, the secret was so powerful that Nicholas, who appeared to have a cowardly and weak character, became strong enough to withstand the professional interrogation of the FBI.

And finally, the secret was so important that Nicholas was cla.s.sified as a special criminal in the prison. In the case of an accident, he was to be killed to prevent the secret from leaking out.

There"s a high chance that the only thing the FBI did not know was the first point! This should be the ultimate cause of their failure to retrieve the secret by interrogating Nicholas. Sheyan and his party managed to draw a very crucial conclusion from this point….