Chapter 262

Six bombs, elaborately shaped, had golden spheres with large, grinning, bared-teeth faces carved on their fronts.

o￠o

【Item Name: Timed Gold-Instant Bomb】

【Type: Consumable】

【Quality: Premium】

【Effect: Gold-Instant Blast. Timer detonates in three hours, triggering ten linked explosions.】

【Consumption: None】

【Cooldown: None】

【Usage Condition: None】

【Note: Oh Gold-Instant Blast! Be a hero from a fairy tale. Oh Gold-Instant Blast! Hot blood flows in my heart.】

【Note: Can be placed in backpack slot; cannot be taken out of the script world.】

Six premium consumables—quite generous to hand out, though the power remains unknown.

Li Cheng picked up one bomb, hefted it, and asked, "What can you offer me?"

"This."

Yagami Light walked to the wall and pulled down a black coarse cloth.

Behind it stood a two-meter-tall, red-painted, plainly crafted humanoid powered armor.

Its helmet was smooth and rounded, topped with an antenna, equipped with a three-eyed night-vision system and a pig-nose gas mask; a bright red star was painted on the chest plate, and a rotary Gao Si machine gun was mounted on its back.

On the belt were four large characters—

"America Must Fail!"

【Item Name: People's Powered Armor】

【Type: Powered Armor】

【Quality: Perfect】

【Effect: America Must Fail. Armor made of special steel, capable of withstanding large-caliber armor-piercing incendiary rounds. Built-in nuclear fusion battery enables prolonged combat. Also equipped with Gao Si machine gun, medical pump, stealth module, and jetpack.】

【Consumption: None】

【Cooldown: None】

【Usage Condition: Constitution attribute ≥ 5】

【Note: Defeat American imperialism and all its lackeys!】

【Note: Can be placed in backpack slot; cannot be taken out of the script world.】

This powered armor came from the game "Fallout" series.

"How embarrassing, you're too kind—we're friends."

Li Cheng beamed, said nothing, and immediately took the red powered armor.

Yagami Light raised an eyebrow, watching his space ability firsthand, and said calmly, "I've set these bombs to detonate in three hours. When the city descends into chaos, I'll carry out my plan—you outsiders can settle your grudges and revenge."

"Deal."

Li Cheng rubbed his hands together like a fly, pulled out the Suicide Notebook from his backpack slot, and grinned, "Night Brother, got any other good stuff? I'll trade you this book—recognize it?"

"First, my surname is Yagami, not Night. Second, that book isn't the Death Note. Third, this isn't a convenience store."

Yagami Light glanced at him. "You have less than three hours."

Seeing no more value to extract, Li Cheng gave an OK sign and hurried away with Hui Yu.

Once they left the infected zone, Li Cheng's smile vanished; his brow furrowed. Hui Yu asked, "What's wrong?"

"Something's off."

Li Cheng whispered, "Yagami Light said he has no trustworthy people, so he needed us outsiders to plant bombs on the surface while he uses the chaos to launch a rocket and pierce Toy City's atmospheric barrier."

The problem is: who built the rocket for him?

Though Yagami Light is a high-intelligence criminal high school student with top grades, athletic prowess, exceptional psychological resilience, and acting skills, building a rocket is not among his abilities.

Hui Yu thought for a moment. "Maybe the toy factory built it automatically? Like the powered armor."

Li Cheng still shook his head. "The toy factory is inside City Hall. Do you think Yagami Light sneaked into City Hall and stole a rocket dozens of meters long?"

Besides, from his tone, the rocket is underground—likely in a launch silo.

Building a launch silo—digging soil, pouring concrete, erecting steel frames—each step is a massive project. How could he hide it from everyone else?"

"He didn't tell us the truth."

Hui Yu understood. "Then what do we do? Go back and interrogate him face-to-face?"

"We could, but it's unnecessary. On the matter of causing trouble for City Hall, our interests align."

Li Cheng said casually, "Besides, he's cautious. During our conversation, he kept subtly clutching a button—if the negotiation broke down or we attacked, he'd press it and summon bodyguards to swarm us."

As he spoke, he suddenly paused. "We need to move faster."

Hui Yu was confused. "What happened?"

"Joker is gone."

————

【Player Joker has been eliminated】

At the same moment, on Toy City's highway,

Eugene, still bandaged and seated in a black luxury armored car, also heard the system notification—his face turned pale.

Wait, Joker is gone? Wasn't he hiding after the terrorist attack? How did he get eliminated so randomly?

Eugene's mind was in chaos.

Blackzaki Ichigo, seated in the front passenger seat, answered a call and turned to him: "Just now, the safehouse holding Frankenstein was hit by a bunker-busting bomb. Heavy casualties. Frankenstein is missing."

The surveillance footage outside the safe house shows the attacker is that Joker you mentioned.

Eugene took a deep breath and immediately relayed the system notification he had received to Ichigo Kurosaki, "It seems Joker raided the safe house, attempting to kill Frankenstein outright, only to be counter-killed by the latter and forced to flee?"

Even if Joker is a member of the Laughing Troupe, dying in such a pathetic and suffocating manner is simply too ridiculous.

"I don't know."

Ichigo Kurosaki shook his head, "To keep Frankenstein under control, the people in the safe house injected him with a massive dose of muscle relaxants and severed part of his spinal nerves; he shouldn't have had any capacity for movement.

However, you outsiders possess far too many variable abilities."

Compared to script-based transcendants, the greatest advantage of Killing Ground players lies in the vast world providing infinite possibilities.

The bizarre combination of skills and items from different worldviews can produce an effect where one plus one is far greater than two.

There is an example on the player forum: someone obtained a Ritual Stone that allowed them to sacrifice parts of their own body to a heretical god in exchange for wealth, and they happened to possess a Troll bloodline capable of rapidly regenerating flesh.

Thus, they frantically chopped off their own hands and feet, extracted bones, peeled skin, and gouged out organs, exploding a pile of gold coins as high as a small mountain within a single day,

causing the heretical god on the other end of the Ritual Stone to become unable to bear it, cursing loudly before voluntarily severing the connection.

Who knows what combination of items Frankenstein held that enabled him to escape death and counter-kill Joker.

"The situation has changed; we're not going to the safe house. Return to City Hall."

Ichigo Kurosaki said in a heavy voice, "Driver, can you go faster?"

The ordinary-looking young driver said listlessly, "The roads are so congested; driving fast will inevitably lead to bumps and collisions. I need permission from City Hall."

The nuclear power plant video that Li Cheng disguised as Eugene released this morning had fully achieved its intended effect.

Numerous citizens of Toy City, whose friends and family had been taken away due to Malfunction Syndrome, took to the streets one after another, holding wooden signs and banners to march and protest, demanding that City Hall reveal the truth,

causing the city roads to become exceptionally congested.

Ichigo Kurosaki looked at the slow-moving traffic ahead, made up his mind, and nodded at the driver.

"As you wish."

The driver, who had just been listless, suddenly had eyes that turned cold and sharp.

He slammed on the accelerator, and blue flames erupted from the rear exhaust pipe. The black luxury sedan, which had been crawling along moments before, accelerated to extreme speeds, weaving through the traffic with the agility of a dragonfly.

This driver, worthy of being assigned by City Hall's intelligence department, possessed unparalleled driving skills, yet for some reason, whenever he could have avoided a collision, he deliberately used his bumper to ram into Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

While muttering under his breath, "I hate people who drive Mercedes-Benz the most."

Eugene, sitting in the back row, was thrown back and forth by the vehicle's G-force; already suffering from serious injuries, he was on the verge of vomiting. Through the rearview mirror, he saw the work badge hanging on the driver's chest.

Takumi Fujiwara? Well, that explains it.