Chapter 306: Deprivation

Human beings are animals that rely extremely heavily on sensory correction.

In *Candle in the Tomb* there is a classic case: a person who loses their sense of direction in the dark thinks they are walking in a straight line, but in reality they have been walking in circles the whole time.

By the same logic, take a sheet of A4 paper, cover both eyes, and write an essay on it — you'd think the characters you write would be neat, but in fact they'd be crooked and run into each other's columns.

After losing all his senses, including the sense of pain, Li Cheng used his consciousness to issue movement commands to his limbs in the smallest possible increments.

He slowly and steadily moved his arm, reaching for the Victory Banner Spear strapped to his waist, while continuously releasing intent in his mind, attempting to activate the spear's second special effect.

【Special Effect 2: Flag-Planting Moment. Plant the spear into the ground, summon a banner, create a five-meter-diameter area, rapidly clear all negative effects within the area, lasting 5 minutes.】

Hum!

All senses came flooding back like a tide; hearing and vision were abruptly restored. Before Li Cheng's eyes, everything was clear — he saw that he was still leaning against the wall, the spear clamped in his hand and planted on the ground, and a gold-and-red circle of light five meters in diameter had lit up beneath his feet.

As for the other players, all of them were just like he had been moments ago: expressions blank, no reaction to the outside world, while still flailing their hands and limbs about.

Especially Zhao Zijing — her telekinesis was pouring out wildly, tearing up the floor, destroying the walls, sending metal shards flying everywhere.

The Hundred-Pole Bear got caught in the crossfire, with several gashes cut into its body by the metal shards.

Li Cheng had just been about to pull Zhao Zijing into the light circle as well, when his vision abruptly darkened.

The sight he had just recovered faded once more, as if a black curtain had fallen again, covering his eyes.

?

Something was off. Steel and the Victory Banner Spear were perfect-quality weapons, with very high Mystery and priority — ordinary illusions, hallucinations, and mind control should all be easily broken by them.

Why was this happening?

Li Cheng activated his Multi-Thread Brain Domain technique to think at high speed, and while his vision had not yet completely vanished, he did two last things—

From his dimensional warehouse, he took out four muscle relaxant syringes and flung them at the necks of the Hundred-Pole Bear, Zhao Zijing, Fu Dinghua Long, and the Hyena, plunging their muscles into paralysis so they could do nothing to harm themselves or others.

Then he took out five oxygen masks capable of forcing comatose patients to breathe, and put them on everyone including himself.

All of the above happened within just a few short seconds. By the time Li Cheng had the oxygen mask secured on himself, his eyes had plunged completely into darkness, and all his senses were stripped away once more.

"Tsk, here we go again."

With the first experience under his belt, the second time was familiar and easy. Li Cheng controlled his body to slowly sit down against the wall, and in absolute darkness began thinking at high speed.

"Let me sort through the clues at hand first. To begin with, this sensory deprivation — whether you call it an ability, a spell, or a barrier — shouldn't be the work of that three-headed, six-armed aberrant monster. Otherwise it could have used it from the very start.

Also, when we first walked into the embryo cold-storage room, the Hundred-Pole Bear didn't mention the perfume scent getting stronger, which indirectly proves that 'Nezha' wasn't hiding here — it had only passed through.

Just like before in the hydroponics room, 'Nezha' led us into another aberrant monster's territory."

Normally speaking, an ordinary person who knows they are sharing a room with an aberrant monster, and has been stripped of all senses with no ability to resist, would definitely be panicking out of their mind by now.

But Li Cheng was, after all, that weirdo who, when he had nothing better to do, would use 【Death Curse Torrent】 to give himself a shower for fun — every time he bathed in the black water, he would see all kinds of horrifying, terrifying hallucinations, and after seeing so many, he'd grown numb to them.

"The few corpses lying on the ground are still fairly intact, with no obvious signs of being preyed upon. There are two possibilities.

One: the aberrant monster hiding somewhere nearby doesn't want to eat people, it just naturally possesses an aura-type sensory-deprivation talent. Two: that monster does want to eat people, but its body is very weak and it's very afraid of death, so as long as even one player still has the ability to move, it won't easily enter the fray. The second possibility seems somewhat greater."

Li Cheng thought silently that even an aberrant monster still had to follow the natural laws of evolution.

In nature, predators with powerful bodies have no need to evolve venom glands, silk sacs, or other such exotic tricks. The ones that carry venom are almost always the physically fragile weaklings.

By the same logic, an aberrant monster possessing such an outrageously exaggerated sensory-deprivation ability doesn't need to have a particularly strong physical body either.

"Steel and the Victory Banner Spear's negative-effect removal triggered, then immediately failed — that's strange too. The fact that it triggered proves the system does indeed classify sensory deprivation as a negative effect, but why did it immediately fail? Could it be that—"

He thought of something, hurriedly opened his player panel, and carefully observed the various data.

Spirit, Stamina, and Sanity were all recovering rapidly, at a rate slightly higher than normal.

Just as he thought.

The little figure in Li Cheng's heart sat cross-legged in the boundless darkness and suddenly slammed its palm.

The loss of one sense makes the others more acute. With all five senses gone, the player can recover their state faster — effectively circumventing the Victory Banner Spear's rule restriction—

In examining them one by one—/p>

The spear had no self-awareness; it probably thought Li Cheng was off doing some seated meditation.

If the spear could talk, it might even have chimed in with, "Boss, your meditation game is badass."

"Alright, that layer's figured out too. The question is how to break the current situation."

The little figure in Li Cheng's heart scratched its head like Ikkyu, and after obtaining the information that "the aberrant monster's body is very weak," the optimal solution was undoubtedly to control his body and attack randomly in all directions to drive the aberrant monster back.

But after sensory deprivation, driving the limbs became especially difficult — sitting still in place was fine, but once a weapon was used, it was very likely to hurt teammates or himself.

Time ticked away second by second; the oxygen tank's capacity was limited,

and the aberrant monster — no one knew where it was hiding or what form it took — hung overhead like the Sword of Damocles, liable to fall at any moment.

"... I can only use that method."

The little figure in Li Cheng's heart took a deep breath, used intent to issue a command to his body, summoned the automated dimensional warehouse, and took out a large quantity of painkillers.

Dezocine, aspirin, rotundine, pethidine, codeine.

Since he couldn't see and had no sense of touch, Li Cheng simply didn't open the medicine containers, and directly activated the Patchwork Puppet special effect to connect all the medicine cans to his abdominal cavity.

The pills merged into his body and immediately took effect. Li Cheng silently opened his backpack panel, drew the Two-Form Blade, and brought it down heavily in what was roughly the direction of himself.

【Special Effect 2: Yin-Yang Conversion. After use, causes one type of power within the body to temporarily gain the upper hand, and keeps the body from collapsing for a short period.】

In the past, when he used the Two-Form Blade, it was always to let the Worm Lord's Heretic power surge through his entire body and gain power beyond the norm — but this time, he intended to do the opposite.

The blade swept across his body, the two poles of power within reversed, and the human side was greatly amplified. Correspondingly, the medicines that had just been producing a numbing effect all reversed, becoming a bone-piercing stabbing pain.

(End of Chapter)