Chapter 151: Avenger Cannon

On the original art website, downloading hundreds of images of buildings in different styles, crudely cropping and piecing them together, was more or less what the Slum Street looked like.

"Whoa."

Gui Yu, wearing a demon mask and wrapped entirely in a gray robe, constantly gasped in awe, like Liu Laolao touring the Grand View Garden.

Next to a sacred and solemn church stood a gothic castle radiating evil energy. Beside a towering modern skyscraper stood a Japanese keep.

A witch's herb shop selling dried bats and toad eyes faced a near-future clinic capable of curing most diseases using genetic technology.

The streets were packed with pedestrians, shoulders brushing against shoulders.

Green-skinned orc men in suits, half-mechanical beings chanting sutras, witch women wielding laser swords, and masked riders on land birds.

It was an entire night parade of demons, making one wonder if they'd stumbled into a cosplay convention.

The vast majority were players disguising their true identities to relieve psychological stress.

A small fraction were players who had genuinely transformed their races, voluntarily becoming vampires, half-beasts, dragonfolk, mind flayers, demons, witches, and other monstrous races.

"Keep close."

Li Cheng, wearing a gas mask and draped in the Navy's "Justice" cloak, tugged at Gui Yu's robe sleeve to urge her forward—she was fiddling with a so-called "dragon egg" sold by a roadside pet vendor.

If you actually hatched it, you'd only get a fire-spitting mutated salamander.

It had the same scammy vibe as a primary school snack stall selling "crystal babies."

Gui Yu hurried forward and asked curiously, "How many people are there in this Slum Street?"

Li Cheng replied offhandedly, "There are roughly 270,000 players worldwide, but very few choose to live here permanently. Most are contract workers without player qualifications."

State machinery, pharmaceutical giants, military-industrial complexes, tech companies, multinational banks—all clustered to set up offices here, making real estate more expensive than Manhattan in the real world; even a modest-looking storefront might earn annual revenue comparable to a publicly traded company.

To cut labor costs, shops use automated checkout systems or purchase robotic staff, goblin clerks, and bio-synthetic humans from organizations like the Alliance of Demon Scientists, the Guild of a Thousand Throats, or Gen-Sys Company.

Goblin employees lack player qualifications, cannot escape the Killing Ground, and cannot survive outside the Slum Street, making them extremely useful.

Of course, to maintain morale, major corporations also dangle big promises like "work ten years and you can buy back your freedom."

Li Cheng came here on business; he led Gui Yu through winding alleys to a modern building bearing the sign "Fu Bao Zhai."

Due to the Killing Ground's overwhelming complexity, no single large corporation can handle all operations, so they often form trading consortia to enter and expand markets within the Killing Ground.

Fu Bao Zhai was no exception; it was backed by several multinational corporations, primarily dealing in auctions, with side businesses in collateral, lending, and leasing.

Li Cheng declined the warm reception from the handsome and beautiful front desk staff and operated the self-service terminal himself. He inserted seventy sheets of 【Death-Seeking Notebook】 into the slot; the machine inside (also a Killing Ground item) absorbed the paper, read its effects, and uploaded the data to its internal network.

Fu Bao Zhai cooperated with major guilds; excellent items like the 【Death-Seeking Notebook】 were instantly detected by guild web crawlers upon release and quickly bid on.

Each blank sheet of 【Death-Seeking Notebook】 sold for 50 game coins, totaling 3,500. It restored a large amount of blood to Li Cheng.

Once other players finished drawing on a sheet, it gradually turned to ash; if unused for too long, it would expire automatically. But the 【Death-Seeking Notebook】 in Li Cheng's possession would grow a new page, allowing it to be reused and resold multiple times.

After completing the sale, Li Cheng did not leave immediately. Instead, he and Gui Yu sat on a bench and continued browsing Fu Bao Zhai's inventory on a tablet computer.

After much deliberation, he settled on three pieces of equipment.

The first was a Sea-Shark-type single-person mechanical exoskeleton, an Affairs Bureau Product, actually manufactured by Northern Industries Group; its overall design resembled the open-frame powered armor from the movie *Edge of Tomorrow*.

It was equipped with a high-density solid-state battery, active phased-array radar, electronic jamming system, power augmentation system, infrared targeting, a rocket pack, and most importantly, a modular shoulder-mounted mechanical arm and high-precision fire control system.

The second was a Bat-Wing Heavy armored motorcycle, an Affairs Bureau Product, modified from the real-world Suzuki Hayabusa. With turbocharged engine and aerodynamic fairings, it could reach speeds over 400 km/h despite its bulletproof armor weight.

The third was a Avenger Cannon, a Company Product.

Its prototype was the General Electric 30mm GAU-8 Avenger Cannon, which weighed 280 kilograms on its own; with its ammunition feed system and drum magazine, it reached 1.8 tons.

The original Avenger Cannon had a recoil force of 4.6 tons, usable only on the A-10 Warthog attack aircraft, firing 4,000 high-explosive incendiary and armor-piercing incendiary rounds per minute, capable of destroying enemy tanks and armored vehicles like opening a can.

Company Product modified the cannon extensively, reducing its weight and recoil, barely allowing it to be mounted on ground vehicles.

Of the three pieces of equipment, the Sea-Shark exoskeleton and the Avenger Cannon had no supernatural elements, so their prices were relatively low.

The Bat-Wing Heavy armored motorcycle used dark magic technology and was classified by the Killing Ground system as a premium item, hence priced higher.

Together, they cost 3,510 game coins.

At this point, Li Cheng's current player panel read:

【Death-Seeking Gambler · Master Pi Fu】

【Lv11, EXP 60/1100】

【Strength: 10】 (Beyond Human)

【Agility: 10】 (Beyond Human)

【Intelligence: 9】 (Genius)

【Constitution: 9】 (Human Limit) (New Human: +1)

【Perception: 8】 (Top Hunter Level)

【Charisma: 5】 (Average) (Barbecue Enthusiast: -1 Charisma)

【Equipment Slot: Patchwork Doll, Holographic Bone Corridor, Bat Hook Gun, 170 Straight Blade, Nuclear Lighter, Thunder Horn *2,】

【Inventory: Death-Seeking Notebook, Insect Lord Divine Abomination Crystal, Akili Toy Sun Changyao *3, Wound-Stop Gel *6, Ten-Eye Communication Earpiece, Emergency Escape Card, Electronic Pet Egg, Mini Life Potion *1, Sea-Shark Single-Person Exoskeleton, Bat-Wing Heavy Armored Motorcycle Drone, Avenger Cannon, Erotic Robe】

【Skills: Mist Concealment Technique, Multi-Thread Brain Domain Method, Experience Roleplay Method, Instant Thunder, Death Curse Torrent (Temporary), Bloodlust Rage (Temporary), Cut-Scar Bleeding (Temporary), Wing Glide (Temporary), Misleading Slander (Temporary)】

【Game Currency: 3249】

【Qi: 425】

【Sanity: 360】 (Barbecue Enthusiast: +120 Sanity Max)

Li Cheng closed the tablet and was about to leave when he casually spotted an item in the sold list with an unusually familiar shape.

It was a palm-sized, elongated, hollowed-out stone with a faint internal structure resembling the number 5.

Wasn't this the 【Akili Toy Sun Changyao】?

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow—he already had one of the three keys obtained from the 【Alien Outbreak】 mission in his inventory, labeled by the Killing Ground as an anomalous item, said to unlock the Toy Factory within the Killing Ground and grant control over it once all seven keys were collected.

Li Cheng clicked the screen and found the item's name in Fu Bao Zhai was 【Blind Box Item】.

In the Killing Ground game, occasionally appeared some sealed items whose names, effects, and qualities were all concealed; to unseal them, one had to seek the Killing Ground system or civilian unsealers and appraisers.

As a logistics profession, Appraisers charge an extremely high fee every time they make a move.

Some players who can't afford it will list the blind-box items on the auction house, hoping some destined soul (or rather, a sucker) will be willing to pay up.

The original owner of the hollowed-out stone material clearly didn't know the item's true value—the starting bid was set at just 500 game coins, and the moment it went live, a mysterious buyer snapped it up with a 9,000-game-coin buyout.

The whole incident happened half a month ago. Li Cheng didn't really feel any regret, just furrowed his brow slightly, lost in thought.

According to the factory key's description, keys are mutually attracted to one another.

(End of chapter)