Chapter 412

I survived.

Ash from the burning book floated everywhere; Ercha Shu turned back to look at the book *Robot Motion Programming*—the paper that had once held him had become ordinary white paper, with no trace of anomaly left.

A sense of relief after narrowly escaping death arose within him; he solemnly nodded to Li Cheng—had the situation not been so inappropriate, he would have immediately "requested a friend transfer" as thanks.

"Thank you."

Red Spider, equally grateful, quickly reverted to his cool-suited persona, pushing his glasses up with the muzzle of his pistol and saying with exaggerated arrogance: "The Suit Tyrants Guild repays every debt and every favor."

Then he froze in place.

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

Until cold sweat dripped from his forehead, and he rasped: "I can't log out!"

After being subdued by the black-clad woman and then inexplicably sealed inside the book, Red Spider had long abandoned any thought of "continuing exploration to find hidden riches."

He'd rather log out of the Killing Ground immediately, forfeit exploration, and transfer payment to Master Pi Fu once outside.

But when he opened his player profile and mentally slammed the 【Log Out of Killing Ground】 button, there was no response.

He still stood in place.

Cold sweat slid down his cheek; Red Spider instantly recalled a post he'd seen on the player forum, detailing possible reasons for being unable to log out of the Killing Ground.

First, the player is trapped in an illusion without realizing it.

Second, the player's brain is damaged and cannot generate the thought of leaving the Killing Ground.

Third, the player is actually in the real world and never entered the Killing Ground at all.

Red Spider wore gear that resisted illusion magic, so the first possibility could be ruled out.

Given that he could still open his player panel and click the log-out button, the second and third possibilities could also be ruled out.

That left only one possibility:

Red Spider's essence had become "incomplete."

Li Cheng instantly understood: "The Left-Right Half-Person experiment?"

"Probably." Ercha Shu's face was grim; he tried logging out too—and failed.

"What's a Left-Right Half-Person?" Hui Yu blinked.

"An experiment by the Evil Science Alliance three years ago."

Li Cheng explained: to explore the Killing Ground system's rules, the Evil Science Alliance once conducted an experiment using biological modification and soul-separation technology.

They split a player's body along its central axis—both left and right halves could survive, their brains separated, each capable of independent thought, each receiving half the soul's share.

In this state, the left half's brain thought of logging out, while the right half's brain thought of nothing at all.

The result? The player remained trapped in the Poor Street, never returning to the real world.

This test revealed a hidden rule of the Killing Ground: if a player merely lost limbs, their core identity was still recognized as a player, and all system functions remained accessible.

But if the "essence" of a living person was split too severely, the system no longer recognized them as a complete "player."

Only by reassembling both halves—or eliminating one half and its soul—could the player panel be used normally again.

Players at the time speculated this hidden rule existed to prevent system exploits—otherwise, players could create perfect clones, have ordinary people kill the clones, and gain extra essence out of thin air.

Or even more aggressively: bind a lv1 ordinary person, anesthetize them, insert a worm into their exposed brain, let the worm kill them and become lv1,

then have others chop the worm into a hundred pieces, and gain a hundred extra essences.

The Left-Right Half-Person experiment was widely known; the Evil Science Alliance and several other major guilds conducted a series of tests on the Killing Ground system, dubbed the CCB Project,

meaning "Check for Bugs."

"My essence was stolen." Red Spider's pupils contracted, his voice trembling with fear. "Mine too."

Ercha Shu slowly exhaled a heavy breath; part of his brain had been replaced with an electronic brain, and he was accustomed to viewing his internal state through a Linux OS interface.

In his data-stream vision, half the code that constituted "Ercha Shu" had vanished without cause.

Normally, a program missing 50% of its code would crash, throw errors, or simply fail to run.

Yet Ercha Shu still stood upright, unable to sense any discomfort whatsoever.

The method was utterly incomprehensible.

When Li Cheng told them he had just heard of some entity pretending to be the Killing Ground system and issuing tasks, their minds grew even more confused.

Red Spider frowned tightly: "What do you mean? That black-clad woman with reality-warping power is deliberately torturing us? Like *Saw*, forcing us into a death game?"

"Not necessarily the black-clad woman."

Ercha Shu adjusted his heavy VR glasses: "The drone footage delivered by Fu Ding and Hua Long showed the image of a Suit Baby."

This realm likely harbors more than one or two anomalous entities.

The atmosphere froze. If this realm were a scripted mission, that would be manageable—at least the objectives and failure penalties followed some rules.

But this was no scripted mission; facing completely unknown rule-level anomalies, it felt like "the referee and the judges are all my people—what can you possibly do against me?"

"There's still good news."

Ercha Shu, a programmer by trade, quickly suppressed his gloom and analyzed calmly: "At least neither I nor Red Spider died immediately—that proves Bai Ma Mubei and the others still have a chance of survival.

Find them; more people means more strength."

Saying this, he raised his right hand, which dissolved into green data streams, gently pressing against the wall.

The green data streams spread like radar waves, extending outward across the surface, growing fainter with distance.

This technique was called 【Cyber Secret Art: Sourceless Phased Array】, using radar-like scanning to map surrounding terrain and topography.

Typically used for wide-area exploration or as a 3D modeling tool in the real world.

The radar waves returned; Ercha Shu retracted his arm, his expression strangely uneasy.

Red Spider asked instinctively: "The scan didn't go well?"

Ercha Shu didn't answer; he simply pressed a button beside his VR glasses, projecting a 3D image.

The entire realm was shaped like an inverted pyramid; most of its interior was solid, and the radar waves could not penetrate it.

And on the outer perimeter of the Jin Zita were rings of passages that gradually descended and contracted.

Various buildings were scattered throughout the passages; the library where Li Cheng and the others were located sat on the very top level of the passages.

The Jin Zita structure had no exit, and at its very bottom, because the radar waves could not reach, everything appeared blurred.

The meaning was clear: if you're a man, go down a hundred floors.

(End of this chapter)