Chapter 180

Zhao Zijing and the others stared in stunned silence as the faces on the entropy-devouring cloud twisted in nausea—some even vomited, spewing black smoke mixed with garbled characters.

Midnight Howl couldn't help asking: "How did you do that?!"

"It's simple—just take a course at a psychiatric hospital. Everyone there is a genius, and they talk so beautifully. I love it." Li Cheng casually chatted, adjusted his glasses, and subtly rubbed his temples.

"."

Zhao Zijing vaguely suspected something—the chaotic voices echoing in the darkness earlier had seemingly come from Master Pi Fu.

He artificially generated massive information entropy by mimicking other voices, exceeding the entropy-devouring cloud's absorption limit.

But that couldn't be right—if it were this simple, the Global Supernatural Alliance would've discovered it long ago and documented the solution in their database.

Zhao Zijing didn't know that Li Cheng possessed both the Multi-Brain-Domain Method and the Immersive Role-Playing Technique, allowing him to fully embody his roles.

Moreover, Li Cheng had idly browsed through diverse materials, including biographies, historical documents, and documentaries.

He didn't just mimic speech, gestures, and expressions using Immersive Role-Playing—he also delved into the inner psyche, excavated human nature, and "replicated" the subjects he portrayed.

Only then could he produce a complete human information entropy to "fully saturate" the entropy-devouring cloud.

"Thank goodness it worked."

Li Cheng silently muttered to himself, "Didn't have to use the second plan."

Each time the entropy-devouring cloud absorbed information entropy, it erased Li Cheng's memories of the persona he'd portrayed, leaving his head throbbing faintly.

For this reason, Li Cheng had prepared a backup: in the darkness, he activated the temporary skill 【Summoning Technique: Thousand Paper Cranes】, letting the paper cranes hover in midair, away from the exploration vessel.

He was ready at any moment to trigger the 【Familiar Swap】 skill, teleporting the mission battery and radar equipment to the paper cranes' location and making a getaway.

As for now—

"Sanfen Guiyuan Qi!"

Li Cheng muttered lowly, rubbing his hands together to conjure a pitch-black gravity energy sphere out of thin air, then flung it upward.

The solidified entropy-devouring cloud immediately twisted under chaotic gravity, curling into a dense mass like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

"Eighteen Dragon-Palming Strikes!"

Li Cheng hurled a string of grenades; after a thunderous explosion, the black cloud vanished into nothingness.

He knew Zhao Zijing likely had a reconnaissance skill, and turned to her: "Solved?"

"Mm." In Zhao Zijing's 【Dot Matrix Detection】 skill's vision, the entropy-devouring cloud had indeed disappeared.

"That was close," the driver exhaled, relieved—he wasn't afraid of enemies like Zombie Tyrants or Alien Queens, but hated ghosts, vengeful spirits, and conceptual beings that were invisible and intangible.

The former could be dealt with by just fighting outright; the latter required exhausting mental effort to find a solution.

"By the way—"

He recovered his composure and asked Li Cheng in confusion: "Why shout 'Eighteen Dragon-Palming Strikes' while throwing grenades?"

"It's a unique combat technique,"

Li Cheng said seriously: "Saying one technique while using another effectively confuses the opponent's perception. In life-or-death combat, even the slightest advantage can decide the outcome.

I learned this while training dogs. When I told them 'sit,' I meant 'spin'; 'come back' meant 'shake hands'; 'lie down' meant 'run'; 'forward' meant 'bite him.'

Later, several of the dogs I trained became guide dogs—I wonder how they're doing now."

Well, the big bad guy's been found: Weibo @ Dai Dai Da Pi Fu.

The ship's lighting slowly returned to normal; Midnight Howl and the others looked like they were holding back nausea, when a female scream echoed from below deck.

Zhao Zijing waved open the hatch and saw Catherine, Mendoza, and the Bandaged Man standing in the corner, while the Black youth, Miles, lay sprawled on the floor, eyes rolled back, dead for some time.

Midnight Howl stepped forward, pressed his finger to Miles's neck, and frowned: "No pulse."

He pulled a vial from his backpack and poured the unknown liquid into Miles's mouth.

Zhao Zijing also took an AED defibrillator from the medical cabinet and shocked Miles's heart.

Catherine, raised all her life in a middle-class white community in London and never before seen a corpse, stammered: "It was pitch black just now—I heard something hit the floor, but the room was too dark, I didn't know it was Miles falling—"

The players ignored her; after frantic efforts, Miles's heart rate remained zero—during those few brief minutes between the entropy-devouring cloud's appearance and Master Pi Fu's solution to overload it,

the entropy-devouring cloud had devoured not only light, books, and hard drive data, but also Miles's information entropy, causing his heart to stop and killing him instantly.

"Tch."

Midnight Howl spat in annoyance, stood up, and stopped resuscitation.

As a mixed-race American of Native American descent, he and Miles were barely countrymen. More importantly, he'd wasted a dose of emergency medicine on a dead man—

and a dead man couldn't pay him any reward after completing the mission and becoming a player.

Total loss.

"The first death… may not be the last."

Zhao Zijing also ceased resuscitation, her expression solemn.

These ordinary people were indeed burdens, but they were also reward packages after mission completion—and human airbags.

Transcendents could deduce environmental dangers and survival strategies by observing the bizarre ways ordinary people died.

Besides, Zhao Zijing was an agent of the Global Supernatural Alliance; emotionally and professionally, she couldn't just let the remaining three die.

After a moment's thought, she flipped her palm and produced three green syringes, handing them to Mendoza, Catherine, and the Bandaged Man.

Catherine, flustered, asked: "What is this—"

"Gen-Sys Biotech's superpower injection."

Zhao Zijing said: "After injection, it triggers rapid genetic mutation, temporarily activating a random superpower.

The power could be fire manipulation, super strength, skin hardened enough to resist bullets, or tiny spikes growing from fingertips allowing you to climb skyscrapers like Spider-Man.

This is an immature product from Gen-Sys—superpowers usually last only five minutes, and each use significantly increases your risk of developing cancer over the next fifty years.

I'm giving these to you—use them only when you're in mortal danger and the transcendents can't protect you. Understood?"

Mendoza stared fixedly at the glowing green liquid inside the syringe, his longing unmistakable.

As a scion of a Philippine aristocratic family, he'd vaguely heard whispers about the Transcendent World.

One vial — just this one injection — and you could transcend the ordinary, gaining a strange power that billions of others could never reach.

As for the cancer risk, if you could complete the mission and get out of here to officially become a player, there would naturally be countless ways to delay, or even cure, the cancer.

The three of them held their injections. Mendoza was full of longing, Catherine shrank back timidly, and the bandaged man said nothing as he tucked his into the bandages on his chest.

Li Cheng felt no ripple in his heart — these injections had limited effects; ordinary people had to gamble like buying a lottery ticket, betting on the odds to draw a useful superpower.

And even if they did draw one, it would only be on par with a lv3 to lv5 Extraordinary. At most one could say Zhao Zijing was willing to invest heavily, willing to spend money on ordinary people — each injection cost 500 game coins.

He suddenly thought of something, turned his head and said to Zhao Zijing, "Actually, I'm an ordinary person too. How about you give me one too?"