Chapter 224: Hengda

Which one should I upgrade? The automated vertical warehouse has plenty of space and isn't even close to full, so no rush.

The electronic pet egg is just Gray Rain's temporary shelter; having Gray Rain crawl inside during each mission is enough, and it has no real upgrade needs.

The nuclear lighter and the Consultation Synthesis Glasses could be worth considering,

The former is a direct offensive device, and upgrading it would surely refill its fuel.

The latter is an essential intelligence-gathering tool.

After careful thought, Li Cheng didn't rush to decide, but went to Lujie to see if anything new had arrived.

————

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Abandoned by my parents, betrayed by my spouse, rejected by my children, laid off in middle age—desperate, I became a player. How do I turn my life around? Visit Tony's Hair Salon, and I'll tell you slowly.

Lujie was still Lujie, its buildings a chaotic mix of styles, storefronts blasting bizarre traffic ads.

Li Cheng walked along the street, scrolling through the latest auction house item list on his tablet.

The first hundred pages were fine—actual valuable items or skill scrolls, with plenty of fine pieces among them.

The last few dozen pages were just oddities that had sat unsold for years, piled up in the auction house.

Like 【Leg Hair Forever-Free Cream】, a one-time-use product for lifelong hair removal;

The 【Solar-Powered Flashlight】, which only turns on under sunlight;

The 【Summoning Technique · Jet-Black Snail Shell】, which summons a venomous snail that relentlessly pursues enemies at a fixed speed;

Even a bottle of 【Dr. Mad's Party Carnival Potion】, which causes the user to speak with auto-tune effects, urinate soda, fart party streamers, and excrete edible chocolate.

The seller dared to demand 1000 game coins for such a nonsensical potion, claiming it could serve as an emergency food source in extreme conditions.

I wonder who gave him the nerve.

"Didn't see anything suitable—should I just store the taser for now? For offensive gear, I can buy a couple items from the auction house to fill the gap temporarily."

As Li Cheng pondered, he saw the road ahead blocked—a crowd gathered outside a household appliance store, staring through the glass at a TV screen. Two familiar faces were among them.

One was Duizhan Qibing of the Whale Song Guild; the other was Andre of the Knights Templar.

"Oh, fancy meeting you two. What are you watching?"

Li Cheng waved a greeting. Duizhan Qibing looked surprised; Andre, remembering Li Cheng's performance in the last routine mission, struggled to hide his wariness.

"War."

Duizhan Qibing nodded toward the TV screen. "Gen-Sys Biotech and Prometheus Lab—their shared hidden space, Gao Ta—is under siege by slaughter experiment specimens."

The TV broadcast showed live battlefield footage.

Among layered mountains stood a metal spire two kilometers tall, narrower at the top, wider at the base, its summit fitted with a complex structure resembling a Tesla coil.

At its base lay a vast cluster of auxiliary buildings: smart factories, nuclear power plants, substations, cooling towers, office towers, laboratories, and more.

"Gen-Sys and Prometheus Lab once had bitter rivalries—fierce commercial battles erupted worldwide, often culminating in assassinations of each other's senior staff and their entire families.

Now they're so close they share the same pants, sharing the same hidden space.

No one knows whether they discovered it together and decided joint development was the only way, since neither could fully control it alone,

Or whether they simply got along well enough to decide to develop it together."

Duizhan Qibing added casually: "The exact ability of 【Gao Ta】 remains unknown. Forum users generally suspect it continuously produces black-tech products,

Giving Gen-Sys an edge in biotech and Prometheus Lab an edge in mechanical engineering."

As Duizhan Qibing spoke, the broadcast showed the attackers.

A vast, sky-blocking shadow surged forth—billions of malevolent spirits, shadow hounds, and death souls, like a tidal wave, rushing toward Gao Ta.

"These demons are actually one single being—the Shadow Calamity. As a native species of the slaughter zone, its power equals a Level 40, or several Level 38 transcenders."

Andre's tone carried a hint of schadenfreude: "Current consensus is that the Shadow Calamity has no self-awareness, acts purely on instinct, feeds on any form of energy, and actively seeks nuclear plants and power stations.

The Shadow Calamity cannot be killed—only temporarily repelled by intense light, explosions, or holy blessings.

In the past, the Special Affairs Bureau, which controlled the endless-energy 【Hidden Space · Simulated Star Corridor】, was besieged by the Shadow Calamity many times; each repulsion came at a heavy cost.

Now it's finally Gen-Sys and Prometheus Lab's turn."

Andre's 【Knights Templar】 guild was full of religious fanatics, naturally disliking Gen-Sys for its biotech research and blasphemous creation of new species. They were delighted to see them suffer.

The other onlookers wore expressions of pure voyeuristic glee, cheering loudly for the Shadow Calamity.

On screen, alloy walls rose around the tower; defensive weapons—rocket bunkers, anti-air cannons, light-prism towers, magnetic coil arrays—all fired in unison,

Eliminating the Shadow Calamity's billions of manifestations beyond a five-kilometer radius of Gao Ta.

The Shadow Calamity could not be killed—it regenerated instantly—and Gao Ta's defensive firepower seemed endless; both sides were locked in a grinding stalemate.

Ordinary employees of the two companies living inside Gao Ta fled their office towers and hid in underground bunkers.

Meanwhile, the guild's transcenders, alongside Company Product bio-titans, held their combat posts, using rifles and pistols to eliminate any stragglers that breached the defenses.

The entire war rapidly devolved into a war of attrition. As usual, large guilds could always repel the mindless Shadow Calamity—at a certain cost.

Li Cheng watched the epic battle on screen, eyebrows raised, once again recognizing the value and allure of hidden spaces.

This thing is probably worth far more than the Two Yin Sword—it could even stand up to Hengda Group's 2.4 trillion in total liabilities. This side suggests Mr. Xu learn from Tony's hair salon teacher—become a player himself, see if he can turn things around.

The question is: Cervantes also holds a key. How much did the Special Affairs Bureau know about him to let him carry that key into Death Duel missions?

————

At the same moment, in the Special Affairs Bureau's underground prison in the real world, Cervantes lay unconscious on a recliner, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back.

His head was plugged with data cables, all connected to a supercomputer, which directly read his brain memories.

"In this Death Duel mission, Cervantes lost the skill 【Ride the Wind, Ride the Wave, Ride the Cloud】, but he didn't lose any items from his inventory."

Outside the interrogation room, Zhao Zijing took a deep breath and said gravely: "Cervantes himself doesn't even know what he lost.

In other words, before the Special Affairs Bureau captured Cervantes, some transcender far stronger than him had implanted a mental lock, forcing him to permanently 'forget' that he carried an item of extreme importance."

This person could only be the Guild Leader of the Laughing Madly Troupe guild, 【Sako】."

(End of this chapter)