Chapter 380: Group Chat

Since Brother Ce had said so, Li Cheng respectfully accepted and headed to the city hall's top-floor conference room.

The conference room wasn't large; a single oval table occupied the center, with just over thirty seats.

As time passed, representatives from major guilds filed in one by one and took their seats.

Vice Chairman Zero-Day Vulnerability of Whale Song, Grand Master Keeper of the Holy Knights, Chairman Mistletoe of the Thousand Throats Beast, Chairman King of the Trapped Beast of the Monster Alliance, and Head Ferdinand of European Heavy Industry.

Li Cheng sat at the corner of the round table, watching this scene, thinking: if only a nuclear bomb were placed beneath the table and detonated.

Hmm, given the power of this crowd, they might just withstand a nuclear blast.

Tap, tap, tap.

Zhong Tian Beiji strode down the corridor in a sharp suit and tie, the GOC laurel badge pinned to his chest, his expression solemn and serious, yet his twitching fingers betrayed his inner excitement.

He craved advancement so desperately.

When he first became a player, he carried only a paltry hundred million cash from his family, joined a group as a low-level GOC administrator, and through grit and struggle, finally rose to his current position as GOC Southeast Asia Director.

Today, he'd been assigned by his superiors to attend this meeting of the Loujie Neighborhood Committee.

What kind of people get to attend this meeting?

Zero-Day Vulnerability, Keeper, Mistletoe.

Each of these individuals was a towering hero, a lone wolf who slaughtered across the land—clearly, the prestige was immense.

Just as his heart surged with emotion,

Carrie, Chairman of the Monutong Alliance, walked toward him—her features exquisite, expression cold, clad in a blood-red Gothic gown, surrounded by phantom black butterflies that absorbed all light.

Carrie arrived at the conference room door at the same moment as Zhong Tian Beiji; he immediately stepped aside and pulled the door open for her, bowing respectfully: "After you."

Carrie completely ignored Zhong Tian Beiji's friendly smile and walked past him into the room without a word.

"."

Zhong Tian Beiji's perfect smile remained unbroken; he took an almost imperceptible breath.

Compared to these veterans, his foundation was still thin—but it didn't matter; his leveling speed was unmatched!

In less than three years, he'd risen from Lv1 to Lv34. Simply being here was proof of his status and standing.

Zhong Tian Beiji strode into the conference room full of ambition—then,

He saw Master Pi Fu, lounging at the table, legs crossed, sipping an iced cola.

Huh???

Where are the guards? Where are the guards? Get this unauthorized person out!

His mind short-circuited; Zhong Tian Beiji stared at Li Cheng with a bewildered gaze, then silently took his seat.

Li Cheng paid him no mind, continuing to scroll on his phone.

As expected, the player forum's post volume surged rapidly—everyone had been shaken.

【I was at the Loujie explosion site (pic) (pic) (pic) (pic)】

【Breaking: Loujie's underlying logic breached?!】

【My uncle's on the Neighborhood Committee—I've got an insider tip, not sure if I should say it】

【To ensure your safety, you must earn money first! 2025 AI new opportunity: I made 150k in four days using DuckSeek—anyone can do it】

Li Cheng's eye twitched—since the day Whale Song launched the player forum, spam ads had flooded it endlessly.

Even Whale Song's AI program, designed to auto-delete forum ads, was useless—the behind-the-scenes interest groups behind the spammers used AI too, and kept evolving, able to mimic and even surpass ordinary forum users.

Some posts had serious titles, like 【First Step in Life: Which Guild Should New Players Join?】

The content seemed legitimate, analyzing the pros and cons of major guilds, employee benefits, hidden perks, long-term plans—but then, midway, the tone would shift violently, pushing part-time mercenaries and no-credit loans.

They especially pushed hard for superhumans with mutated bloodlines to sell fresh plasma.

It was downright despicable.

"Is everyone here?"

Brother Ce glanced around the room.

Mistletoe, clad in a deep red robe, scratched his pale beard. "Hoenheim and Michael haven't arrived yet."

"Ignore them."

Brother Ce shook his head. Hoenheim, the Supreme Mage of the Bell Tower Guild, had reached the pinnacle of arcane magic understanding and spent his days locked in his floating mage tower conducting experiments, rarely stepping outside.

As for Michael, the nominal strongest of the Global Supernatural Alliance, he'd been missing for nearly a year—no one could reach him.

If not for the "Friends" panel showing Michael still online, they'd have suspected he was dead.

"Let's begin."

Brother Ce snapped his fingers; a 3D projection materialized above the oval table, recreating the Loujie explosion scene, playing the footage of Sakai Izumi's detonation.

Everyone frowned as they watched the entire clip.

Ferdinand, Chairman of European Heavy Industry, spoke first: "Sakai Izumi was a member of our guild. Four months ago, during a team expedition into a Reality Killing Ground, he was accidentally caught in a spatial current released by a security construct and vanished."

The security constructs patrolling the Killing Grounds varied wildly in power—weak ones were on par with modern armies; the strongest could reach, or even surpass, Lv35.

"Watch again,"

Brother Ce nodded and replayed the footage, slowing it frame by frame.

As each frame was examined, more details emerged.

Before the explosion, the countless eyes on the surface of the 【Bright Flame Tumor】 clearly performed a "scanning" motion.

Not only did they scan the street environment, but within each pitch-black eyeball, the pupils performed thousands of high-frequency scans in under a second.

As Brother Ce waved his hand again, the image switched from 3D projection to spiritual perception mode.

The eyes of the Bright Flame Tumor emitted a torrent of spiritual energy, sweeping across the entire Loujie, reaching the colossal pipe dome above, then spreading outward along the pipes.

King of the Trapped Beast (a muscular, fur-clad giant) frowned. "What does this mean?"

"Simple. This tumor isn't just a bomb—it's a beacon."

The Side of Truth said calmly: "The psychic signal emitted by a tumor before it detonates spreads along the pipelines."

"Like radar positioning, it can reveal the location of Lousjie to the one who planted the tumor—the otherworld player."

The King of the Cornered Beast raised an eyebrow. "Huh? Are there really otherworld players in the Killing Ground?"

Many Earth players who entered script worlds to complete missions were killed and possessed by natives. It's not strange that otherworld players exist too.

But for otherworld players to log into the Killing Ground's physical form? That's bizarre.

Like the Loch Ness Monster—rumors abound, yet not a single solid, reliable piece of evidence has ever surfaced.

Now, hearing it from the Side of Truth, it's finally confirmed.

"Two months ago, I and Hoenheim captured a level 10 otherworld player roughly three billion kilometers from Lousjie. He came from the South Pacific Federation of a parallel Earth."

"In his world, the Killing Ground game also exists—and it has only been four months since its arrival. The total number of players worldwide is barely three thousand."

The Side of Truth said calmly: "Subsequently, I captured six more players in total, all from different worlds, some even non-human alien races. Most hovered between levels 5 and 20."

"According to these transcendent beings, the player count and quality on their planets fall far short of Earth's."

"Of course, only at this stage."

This news was too shocking. Li Cheng silently observed the people behind the oval table.

Representatives from European Heavy Industry, Prometheus Laboratory, and Special Affairs Bureau—all with official backing—remained expressionless, clearly having received insider information before.

The King of the Cornered Beast finally caught on and complained to the Side of Truth: "Damn it, Old Side, you're not being fair. You didn't even hint at such an important piece of info."

The top-tier players were all survivors who made it to the end during the chaotic, turbulent early days of the Killing Ground's arrival four years ago.

Luck, intelligence, strength, and perseverance—all were indispensable. And because only they reached the end, they knew each other intimately.

The Side of Truth's voice remained utterly flat: "I posted it on WeChat, tagged everyone."

"Huh?"

The King of the Cornered Beast immediately pulled out his phone, opened the twenty-person group called "Survivors Drinking Tea," and indeed found the chat history—he'd never read it carefully back then, and had even replied with "Received."

"Oh, then it's fine."

The King of the Cornered Beast put his phone down with a calm expression, pretending nothing had happened.

Zhongtian Beiji, sitting beside the King of the Cornered Beast, happened to catch sight of a milk dragon emoji in the group chat.

With all his life's effort, he strained to keep his face expressionless.

Inside, he screamed silently:

Wait, these level 38 and 40 demigods and true gods are still using WeChat?

Are you telling me that I, a billionaire heir who clawed my way up to become Director of the GOC Southeast Asia Division, still don't qualify to join a group full of idiotic emojis?

This shattered my worldview.

Zhongtian Beiji's pupils dilated violently, his Dao heart cracked.

Li Cheng, beside him, remained unfazed.

The world has always been a giant makeshift operation.

"So, after Sakai Izumi disappeared, he was captured by an otherworld player. They let him go, let him return to Lousjie, then triggered the Haoyan Tumor to reveal its location."

Zero-Day Vulnerability, clad in a hoodie and wearing a fox mask, raised a hand and spoke in a mechanical electronic voice: "I have three questions."

"One: Why can the Haoyan Tumor bypass Lousjie's restrictions and cause damage?"

"Two: If these are truly otherworld players, why didn't they control Sakai Izumi and follow him into the teleport phone booth?"

"Three: If I recall correctly, the giant pipeline directly above Lousjie stretches over ten thousand kilometers, winding and twisting—even for someone like you, a top-tier psychic, your psychic detection technique probably wouldn't work, right?"

The Killing Ground's physical space is so vast that "ten thousand kilometers" is the standard unit of length. Vast stretches of impassable rock layers, forbidden zones, and death zones exist within it.

Four years have passed, and players have only mapped a small region—roughly the size of Jupiter.

The Side of Truth glanced at Zero-Day Vulnerability and said calmly: "The reason is simple. First, the tumor bomb is made using psychic energy as fuel and Security Guards as raw material."

"Lousjie only prohibits players from harming each other—it does not prohibit Security Guards from harming players."

Huh? There's such a rule?

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow. Indeed, he'd never seen a single Security Guard in Lousjie or its surrounding areas.

"Second: After testing with Hoenheim, we found that otherworld players can use the phone booths—but when they input the same coordinates, their teleport destination differs from Earth players'. The reason is unknown."

"In other words, even if otherworld players know Lousjie's phone booth coordinates, they cannot teleport there."

"Also, otherworld players cannot use 'mental control over Sakai Izumi to carry the magic gem to Lousjie, then use the gem to open a spatial gate'—"

"The distance is too vast; no spatial gate can be constructed."

The Side of Truth said: "As for the third point, psychic signals alone cannot penetrate tens of thousands of kilometers of rock, concrete, or mutated plants."

"But the otherworld transcendent who planted the bomb was clever—he embedded a gene-altering waveform within the psychic signal."

"Any Killing Ground native creature swept up by the signal, if it's a large vertebrate, will, over time, spontaneously develop the same tumor inside its body—as if parasitized—until it finally detonates."

"A single psychic bomb has limited detection range, but if this spreads infinitely, it will eventually reach back to the bomber."

"At that point, he can reverse-engineer the gene-encoded patterns within the tumors to trace a path leading to Lousjie."

"Like deducing past decades of climate from tree rings."

"The entire method is remarkably ingenious."

The Side of Truth's tone betrayed clear admiration and awe.

But to the others, the meaning of these words shifted.

Whale Song's vice-chairman, Zero-Day Vulnerability, shot to his feet and cried out: "Is it still possible to erase the psychic fluctuations of the bombs?"

Setting up such a sophisticated bomb requires at least level 35.

If an otherworld player locks onto Lousjie's location and traces it back to find the hidden bases of major guilds, then launches a counterattack on Earth—the consequences would be unimaginable.

European colonists, despite being human like the Native Americans, still physically exterminated millions and openly offered bounties for scalps.

Anyone with normal intelligence wouldn't harbor unrealistic fantasies about the moral standards of aliens they've never met.

"I've already erased it."

The Side of Truth had long anticipated the Zero-Day vulnerability's reaction, and said calmly, "But I can say with certainty that Izumi Sakai's death is only the beginning.

Sooner or later, we will have large-scale contact with civilizations from other worlds. The only difference is whether it happens on our initiative, or in response to theirs."

(End of Chapter)