Chapter 310: Holy Flame

The voice echoed through the empty space, expressions of astonishment climbing onto every face; Bai Ji Xiong hurriedly twisted around and bit his own tail hard, using the pain to confirm he wasn't under an illusion.

The aberrant monster, possessing wing membranes and horns, resembling a demon, still stood in place, gripping a human head in its hand, and spoke in a human voice, "Ceasefire."

If the first time it spoke could have been a coincidence, then speaking a second time proved the players hadn't misheard.

"."

Zhao Zijing cast a sidelong glance at Li Cheng; seeing the latter raise an eyebrow without a word, she gritted her teeth and asked the demon, "Why."

Earlier downstairs, the three-headed, six-armed monster had dared to launch an attack despite being surrounded by over a dozen Transcendents.

Now only five players remained, and this new demon was clearly stronger than the previous one—its power advantage undiminished, in fact increased.

"One. Devour. Evolve. Possess. Consciousness."

The demon tilted its head toward the three players lying on the ground; Dorian Gray's face, which had just regained color from a micro health potion, turned ashen once more.

He had been cut open across the chest and abdomen while conscious, his internal organs gnawed and eaten.

Li Cheng pushed up the information-integration glasses perched on his nose bridge with his middle finger, his brain running at full speed.

Intelligence and cleverness cannot be equated with self-awareness.

The demon monster, having devoured the players' high-quality flesh and blood and evolved once more, had crossed the threshold and truly gained self-awareness.

"Two. Plunder. Player. Aptitude."

The demon raised the human head in its hand, and above its horns the characters 【lv1】 slowly materialized.

The worst-case scenario had still come to pass.

Zhao Zijing flicked her fingers lightly, releasing invisible telekinesis to form a spherical barrier around the group, while subtly exchanging a glance with Fu Ding Hua Long.

Player aptitude can be transferred through killing; if it falls into the hands of an otherworldly creature, it means that creature can also travel through scenario worlds, acquiring Transcendent power from the myriad realms.

For a demon possessing intelligence and self-awareness, becoming a player would mean boundless freedom—as vast as the sea for fish to leap, as high as the sky for birds to fly.

No longer trapped to die in this godforsaken otherworld.

Already worth it—no need to fight anymore.

"We can cease fire."

After a moment's thought, Zhao Zijing pointed at Dorian Gray and Camus lying in the green slime, "But you have to hand those two over to us. And stop draining the electricity from this Gao Ta."

"Acceptable. Transfer."

The demon didn't move, "Deny. Stop. Drain. Electricity."

"Why?"

Andre furrowed his brow tightly, "The earthquake is still spreading; if the Gao Ta doesn't operate, everything—including you—will be erased by the collapse."

The essence of the collapse is spatial disintegration; even the human-head balloons floating in the sky can be dragged down and annihilated—being able to fly is useless.

"Error. Gao Ta. Accelerate. Collapse."

The demon manipulated the severed head to speak: "Power off. Safe."

This explanation once again exceeded everyone's expectations; according to Noah, the collapse was a catastrophe triggered by the space-jump engine, and the Gao Ta was responsible for delaying the collapse.

Yet according to the demon, the Gao Ta was actually accelerating the collapse?

Bai Ji Xiong felt his brain couldn't quite keep up; these two sides—one an evil scientist who triggered the entire disaster, caused the extinction of seven billion humans, and still hadn't revealed his true form,

the other an aberrant monster that had just been eating people. Neither side had any connection to the words 'reliable' or 'honest.'

What to do—who to believe?

Expressions shifted across everyone's faces; the Special Affairs Bureau's training materials had a dedicated lesson on using micro-expressions to distinguish lies from truth, but unfortunately the wing-membrane demon was speaking through a severed head.

Zhao Zijing instinctively turned to look at Li Cheng; the latter rubbed his chin and muttered, "This really is a classic scenario—both sides accusing each other of lying.

It reminds me of a detective short story I read before, where the protagonist was trapped in a snow mountain, found two identical companions inside and outside the tent, each accusing the other of being a snow-mountain monster in disguise, and in the end the protagonist could only survive on two people's worth of food for five months until rescue arrived."

? Two people's worth of food means he made both companions into food, right? What kind of detective story is that? Hannibal?

Fu Ding Hua Long and the others' mouths twitched, their expressions constipated, but they had to admit that having a companion who remained unmoved even as a mountain crumbled beside them gave an inexplicable sense of security.

Warm. Very reassuring.

"In any case, we can't verify the truth of what you're saying for now,"

Li Cheng looked up at the wing-membrane demon and said, "If you don't mind, you can wait here a moment while we go verify."

Please... favorite_（! ）

This floor is roughly eight hundred meters above the ground; first use the 【Familiar Swap】 skill to exchange positions with Grey Rain, confront Dr. Noah's projection in the underground parking lot, then use 【Skill USB Drive】 to reset the Familiar Swap cooldown and teleport back.

The whole process won't waste much time, and it can also avoid the situation of 【one fewer combatant allowing the wing-membrane demon to run rampant】.

The wing-membrane demon said nothing—apparently tacitly agreeing to the proposal.

Li Cheng took out the skill USB drive, just about to teleport, when in the next instant, without any warning, the wing-membrane demon flashed forward, the severed head in its hand piercing straight through Father Andre's chest.

"Hah—"

Andre's heart burst; his pupils dilated momentarily, and the powerful vitality of a close-combat Transcendent kept him from dying immediately—his burly arms clamped around the wing-membrane demon's right hand like iron pincers, white Holy Flame igniting across his body.

The Pale Holy Flame, triggered only when a holy professional is on the brink of death, instantly incinerated that severed head into flying ash,

Having long been prepared, Bai Ji Xiong's form swelled violently, transforming from an ordinary Border Collie into an earth elemental roughly three meters tall, swinging a literally sandbag-sized fist in a wide arc to smash down on the wing-membrane demon's head.

The demon's right hand was gripped by Andre, so it merely raised its left hand above its head, catching the stone-hard fist as easily as if it weighed nothing.

The force of a thousand jin transmitted through its body down to the floor beneath its feet, causing the alloy ground to crack and shatter.

Clang clang clang clang—

Zhao Zijing slammed her palms together violently; over a dozen metal arrows, under telekinetic control, shot toward the wing-membrane demon from different directions at high speed.

Faint white mist appeared around the arrowheads—they had already broken the sound barrier.

Meanwhile, Fu Ding Hua Long leapt back repeatedly, pulling nearly completed paintings from his backpack slot one by one, tapping each with a brush to summon lions and tigers, door gods, and special-ops squads wielding spears and firearms.

The players, having long witnessed the horror of the aberrant monsters, went all-out from the start—every active and passive skill deployed, and any consumables with control effects thrown in without regard to cost.

Only—

The membrane demon drew nearly half of Gao Ta's electrical power, and this energy had been stored up the entire time, never used.

Bzzt—

The spherical lightning centered on the demon and spread outward in all directions. Father Andre, standing before it, was instantly electrocuted into charcoal. Zhao Zijing's metal arrows were heated red-hot by the current, lost their telekinetic conductivity, and fell to the ground.

(End of chapter)