Chapter 393

According to Andre's description, he first teleported alone to a corner of the building complex, and while exploring along the radar route, he spotted the man from afar.

The man's appearance did not match any of the players participating in this exploration, so Andre immediately avoided and retreated; on his way back, he felt a faint heat and stinging pain in his head, then immediately encountered Ozaki Aozora.

He mistook the other for a non-human monster and launched an attack.

Ozaki Aozora's account was the same.

"This is bad."

Bai Ma Mu Bei frowned deeply; by now, Battle Arena players had thoroughly researched all forms of curses, Gu poison, spirit possession, and dark arts—Lou Street openly housed several black magic shops.

Even real-world celebrities would voluntarily seek out sorcerers to implant parasitic worms into their stomachs, ensuring they never gained weight no matter how much they ate.

Or they would invite deities to possess them, enhancing their acting during film shoots.

Correspondingly, Lou Street had abundant countermeasures against all kinds of curses; the basic package of talismans, holy water, and amulets sold for only 230 game coins, discounted to 198 during holidays.

Ozaki Aozora, as a puppeteer, was not short on money, and Andre was a member of the Knights Templar with Vatican backing—wealthy and well-equipped; he certainly possessed no shortage of gear to remove negative effects.

The fact that both of them were unknowingly affected could only mean one thing: the middle-aged man's negative effect approached the nature of a rule.

"That thing—"

Crimson Racer suddenly lowered his voice and pointed toward the right street.

At the end of the road, a middle-aged man shuffled forward, wearing pajamas, hair disheveled, a fatal slash wound on his neck, gripping a bloodied cleaver, walking barefoot in a daze.

Having seen the example of the Vietnamese woman, Bai Ma Mu Bei had no desire to clash with the spirit within the realm; she immediately signaled for everyone to retreat.

The group silently withdrew, including Crimson Racer's several Pokémon, all cleverly covering their mouths to make no sound.

They retreated all the way to five streets away, completely out of sight of the middle-aged man, before finally exhaling in relief.

Beep—duh—

At that moment, the walkie-talkies at everyone's waists emitted a prompt tone, alerting them to a group message from the Whale Song Guild.

"Hey, this is Whale Song's 【Binary Tree】. We've located the hidden entrance and set up a radio and temporary camp at the entrance. I'm now sending the currently mapped realm coordinates to each of your terminals—you can view them in real time.

You can also find coordinates uploaded by other players marking dangerous areas within your terminals.

Additionally, voice channel creation has been enabled for private chats."

I have to admit, in the field of communications technology, the Whale Song team, composed of tech geeks and programmers, was remarkably capable—they actually managed to set up a communications station inside the secret realm in such a short time.

"Got internet?"

Gray Rain perked up instantly, pulling out a dozen phones from his pocket and logging into various mobile games to claim daily login rewards.

Li Cheng picked up the standard-issue walkie-talkie, resembling Huawei's Pura series foldable phone, unfolded its screen, and checked the message.

The entire realm's building complex covered approximately 28,000 square kilometers, with a colossal inverted pyramid buried at its center—the source of the strongest spiritual energy signals.

Outside the pyramid, over eight hundred light dots scattered across the map, each representing a player.

(The missing hundred or so were either killed by realm dangers or fled by force-exiting when things turned bad.)

The remaining players, upon logging in, voluntarily uploaded coordinates to the map, marking dangerous locations with red pushpin-style icons.

"What do you say?"

Bai Ma Mu Bei looked at Fu Ding Hualong, Ozaki Aozora, and others—they all belonged to guilds. Now that the communication network was live, they could coordinate with their own people to meet up.

"... I've discussed it with my colleagues from the Special Affairs Bureau—we'll rendezvous at the pyramid."

Fu Ding Hualong said, "We've only mapped 30% so far, and the areas are too scattered—it's better to head straight for the pyramid."

In players' power systems, there existed techniques that required two or more people to cooperate to unleash maximum power—

such as Thundercloud Array, Seven Stars Sword Array, Eyebrow-to-Eye Sword Technique, Dry Wood and Blaze Palm, etc. —

usually cultivated by blood relatives like brothers, fathers and sons, or spouses; but if two unrelated male players accidentally bound the 【Tender Affection Blade】, it would be extremely awkward.

Brother/Sister You're So Fragrant. jpg

"Same here."

Crimson Racer nodded as well—he was a Pokémon trainer and didn't need to bind teammates.

"Alright, I'll plan the route."

Bai Ma Mu Bei swiped across the map, then called out over the public channel to recruit teammates along the way.

As she busied herself,

Shhh—

The air ahead rippled, and the pajama-clad man with the cleaver appeared out of thin air directly ahead, his dazed gaze locking onto Bai Ma Mu Bei.

The group was first stunned, then immediately reacted—

The pajama man, like the Vietnamese woman and Gary Hoy, was trapped in a loop of his final moments before death.

The difference was, his loop lasted longer, his roaming area was wider, and his loop's starting point—unbelievably—was right on this street!

"Ugh!"

The pajama man, with the fatal neck wound, veins bulging on his face, descended into frenzied rage and charged at them with his cleaver.

Bai Ma Mu Bei, furious beyond words, let out a bitter laugh, and all her thoughts condensed into one word: "Fuck."

She lifted the heavy coffin in both arms and swung it like a folding stool, smashing it toward the man.

Hum!

The man's form flickered like an old film, instantly crossing ten meters to appear behind Andre, cleaver descending straight down.

Andre reacted swiftly, twisting his waist and turning, crossing his two short swords to block the cleaver.

Clang!

The resilient short swords—forged by master craftsmen, quenched in Vatican holy water, and mixed with minute traces of saintly ashes—were effortlessly cleaved through by the ordinary cleaver bearing the "Shuang Li Ren" logo.

The blade cut through like a hot knife through butter, shearing deep into Andre's shoulder blade, slicing through half his body.

Blood gushed forth,

Andre's pupils contracted sharply; his honed martial skills and bodily instincts forced him into a desperate move—he swung his broken sword forward at the man.

Buzz!

The man's figure flickered again, dodging Andrey's blade and the attacks launched by the other players,

teleporting behind the Sigil-Pin Painter Dragon, who was still plucking patterns off the scroll, and driving his blade straight through its heart.

The reason it was a piercing rather than a "stab,"

was that at the instant of teleportation, the man directly aligned the position of his meat-cleaver with the Sigil-Pin Painter Dragon's heart.

The Crimson Racer felt a chill surge through his entire body—the meat-cleaver in the pajama man's hand sliced through iron like mud, and came with unlimited teleportation, far more terrifying than that Vietnamese female ghost from before.

B-spot, one Namikaze Minato—I'm not joking.

The Crimson Racer's figure shot backward as he shouted: "Pikachu, use—"

Before the words were finished, the pajama man's figure flickered at high frequency; within half a second, Pikachu, the Abandoned Monkey, and the Blazing Beast took over a dozen slashes between them, and even the Fearow circling high in the air had both wings sliced open, tumbling down as it fell.

(End of Chapter)