Chapter 246: Attack

Li Cheng instantly realized and immediately pulled out his phone to search the news.

The top trending headline was a terrorist attack—a man of unknown identity, armed with a gun, stormed the downtown museum of Toy City and opened indiscriminate fire on civilians, killing over forty innocent people on the spot.

He then exchanged gunfire with the Toy City police who arrived afterward, resulting in multiple officers dead or wounded; the current situation at the scene remains unclear, and the suspect is suspected to have escaped.

Vast amounts of videos and images spread online, confirming the horrific scene of the terrorist attack.

Many vehicles along the road also heard the broadcast, causing the entire traffic flow to stall.

It was terrifying enough that an armed terrorist was roaming the downtown, but even more terrifying was that the advertising screens on the exteriors of skyscrapers flickered and were hijacked.

"Hey, can you see this?"

All large screens on streets and alleys simultaneously displayed the same footage.

It was a clown wearing a red suit, with green hair and vivid paint smeared across his face, standing in an elevator lobby, a large black canvas bag at his feet, facing the phone camera and adjusting his hairstyle.

"The current time is 5:20 PM."

The clown, filming himself with the phone, spoke in a light and cheerful tone, showing the time on his wristwatch to the lens.

The digital clock in Li Cheng's taxi displayed 5:40, meaning the footage on screen was not live but a recorded video from twenty minutes earlier.

"Good afternoon, citizens of Toy City. Let me introduce myself—I'm Joker, a trivial little toy."

The self-proclaimed Joker said cheerfully: "You may not know me, but that's fine—just know that like you, I've lost loved ones to Toy Fault Syndrome."

The city hall took away my wife and children, promising they could cure their Toy Fault Syndrome, but in the end, they handed me a death notice and didn't even give me back their ashes."

I tried demanding answers, protesting at their doors—I got beaten. I appealed to newspapers and online platforms—I got only suspicion, indifference, and mockery."

As he spoke, he unzipped the canvas bag.

Inside were packed full of rifles and pistols; the clown picked up an M16 rifle and smiled: "I have nothing left to lose—I can only use the most primitive language—violence—to voice my demands."

Ding dong.

The elevator reached the first floor; the cabin door slowly opened.

"Remember—don't speak Russian."

The clown muttered to himself, stepped out of the elevator, and fired at the defenseless toy citizens inside the museum.

The toys on the scene included LEGO bricks, plush dolls, and plastic figurines.

Armor-piercing bullets flew everywhere, shredding plush dolls and smashing plastic. Toy citizens fell like wheat, cotton fluff and plastic shards scattered across the floor—no blood, yet an eerie cruelty lingered.

Those who survived the first barrage screamed and fled in terror.

Joker didn't rush after them; instead, he pulled out five photographs and showed them to the lens: "These are my other five companions. We've decided to challenge the city hall within the next twenty-four hours and destroy all social order."

Nuclear power plant, city hall, reservoir, school, subway—Toy City's entire infrastructure is our target.

Get ready—this city is about to burn fiercely.

Hehehe hahahahaha."

Amid the clown's maniacal laughter, the video cut off, the final frame frozen on the five photographs.

Those five photographs were unmistakably old images of Gouchen, Frankenstein, Batmos, Eugene, and Li Cheng himself.

"Fuck."

Li Cheng's eye twitched—since players commonly wear action cameras during mission execution, it's easy to record footage of other teammates in the same mission,

meaning the appearances of mid- to high-level players are generally public knowledge, easily searchable.

This Joker from the Laughing Troupe likely found photos of Gouchen and others in an offline database and printed them out temporarily.

By doing this, he instantly drew the entire city's hatred and exposed every player to the spotlight.

Li Cheng himself had long mastered the worm gene's face-shifting ability; his appearance in every cooperative mission was different, and his reputation only surfaced in a tiny circle.

The photo Joker pulled out was from long ago, during his first cooperative mission—the one called "Curse of the Dead Spell"—when he wore that erotic Daoist robe.

It was utterly different from his current appearance, so he didn't need to worry about being immediately discovered by Toy City's official forces.

"The question is—why did he do this? The Stormtroopers are just token security forces; Toy City's true defense strength is certainly not weak."

Li Cheng thought rapidly: "Unless he believes the benefits of launching this attack and drawing the city's hatred outweigh the risks."

Possibility one: he believes Gouchen and the others are far stronger than him, and direct confrontation offers zero chance of victory, so he's deliberately introducing an outside force."

Possibility two: he possesses some extremely powerful stealth skill, allowing him to hide quietly while Toy City's official forces hunt Gouchen, hoping to survive until the end."

As long as all other competitors die first, he wins."

Possibility three: both of the above are true."

————

At the same moment, in the city's sewer system.

Since many of the city's citizens are made of plastic, metal, or cotton, and eat lightly, the sewer smell isn't too foul; occasionally, LEGO bricks shaped like feces floated past on the water's surface.

Joker, in his red suit, stowed the gun-filled canvas bag into his backpack slot, then sprayed himself liberally with deodorant to eliminate the odor.

"Hehe, I only uploaded the pre-recorded video online, yet someone secretly tampered with it—directly broadcasting it to every advertising screen in the city."

"The only one with this kind of hacking skill… is Batmos of the Whale Song Guild."

Joker pulled out the photograph with a wry smile—the man in the photo looked nothing like Batmos on the advertising screen: one was a slender young man, the other an ancient, withered elder.

Clearly, Batmos had seen Joker's uploaded video online and decided to push it further.

Using hacking skills, he hijacked Toy City's advertising screens to accelerate dissemination, and also altered the photo of himself within the video.

He had thought of the same thing as Joker: if this mission were fair competition, none of the others could possibly defeat Gouchen from the Global Supernatural Alliance.

Even if they teamed up, they couldn't beat him.

The prerequisite for victory is—and must be—the removal of Gouchen, forcing him out first.

"Tch, I wonder who among the remaining few stole the key from Cervantes' corpse—he still owes me five hundred yuan!"

(End of Chapter)