Chapter 413

After testing, the walkie-talkies could no longer establish contact with surface players.

Controlled by others, unable to escape, the only way out was to go downward.

Red Spider's expression turned serious; silently, she took out paper and pen from her backpack slot and wrote farewell letters to her lovers.

To make the letters seem more heartfelt, this gentleman had brought a small bottle of saline solution, dripping it onto the letters to fake tears.

Binary Tree recorded a video with a disposable phone, explaining the situation, then taped the phone to the wall so that anyone else who entered could quickly understand the current state.

"Let's go."

Binary Tree sighed, releasing six miniature drones, manipulating them with cyber-magic: two ahead, two behind, two circling around, scanning and patrolling with lasers, infrared, electronic waves, and other sensors for vigilance and protection.

The group moved forward in silence; the circular tunnels along the edge of the Jin Zita sloped gently downward, and every so often, the types of buildings changed.

Sometimes it was a school classroom, sometimes a hotel apartment, sometimes a bustling Shangcheng.

After long vigilance with no danger or living creatures encountered, Binary Tree thought of something and asked casually: "By the way, Master Pi Fu, why don't you log out?"

If you only consider personal gain and loss, the risks of further exploration in this mystery realm are not proportional to the rewards.

All players signed a magical contract before entering the portal; even if an individual discovers a hidden realm, they cannot fully control it, at most receiving 20% to 30% of the hidden realm's decision-making authority.

Moreover, Li Cheng is a lone wolf player; everyone understands the saying that an innocent man is guilty for possessing something valuable—it's impossible for a lone wolf to remain independent against several major guilds.

"Well…"

Li Cheng naturally could not reveal that he possessed a Toy Factory—not a hidden realm, yet better than one—and said casually: "My player essence remains intact; my personal panel is undamaged. I can log out anytime. I don't feel I'll die here."

"But what about you? Didn't you prepare a personality backup in the real world?"

【Personality Backup】 is Whale Song's proprietary technology, capable of digitizing memories, personality, and thought patterns, storing them on hardware devices or cloud servers.

It can resist brainwashing, charm, and mental manipulation, and in a certain sense, achieve "immortality."

For example, the 【Barthmos】 Li Cheng encountered during the Toy City mission applied to his guild for multiple personality backups.

"No."

Binary Tree shook his head; as a mid-to-high-level executive of Whale Song, he knew too well what "personality immortality" truly meant, and chuckled bitterly: "【Personality Backup】 is actually a false proposition. The essence of human thought is bioelectricity in neural networks; to replicate it precisely, you must match one atom to one atom, using the same number of atoms as the brain to trace and reconstruct the neural network."

Even with Whale Song's current technological reserves, this is utterly unachievable,

Since it's impossible, the next best option is to feed massive data continuously, "faking" a self with matching memories, personality, and thought patterns.

In essence, it's still a brute-force black box.

Like the wax figures of celebrities displayed in a wax museum—they appear lifelike, but inside, they are entirely different.

Knowing its essence, one ceases to fear it.

Binary Tree spoke lightly, but Red Spider, still writing her love letter, exclaimed in surprise: "So does that mean all the ultra-rich who spent fortunes asking Whale Song to back up their personalities are idiots?"

"In a certain sense, yes. These wealthy people are like creating an in-game avatar of themselves in a MMORPG and believing they've achieved eternal life."

Bringing this up, Binary Tree's mood finally improved; he grinned: "But I'm in no position to judge—they're the ones actually paying Whale Song real money."

The Arrival of the Killing Ground brought unprecedented upheaval and transformation to human civilization, giving those billionaires a glimpse of the chance at immortality.

The micro-life potions sold in Shangcheng cure all diseases; GS Biotech's modification technology can reverse aging; Whale Song's Personality Backup technology can achieve personality immortality—at least a simulated one.

Funny thing is, those ultra-rich believe spending one billion euros to have Whale Song create their personality backup is a ticket to eternal life.

Unaware that conventional computers cannot handle such massive data volumes, and since cyber-magic is involved, all personality backups are stored on Whale Song's servers.

To the server's daily maintenance staff, these billionaires' "eternal personalities" are nothing but a pile of code.

In a good mood, they input a sunny beach scene, making the personality code believe it's in the Maldives.

In a bad mood, they pull out the billionaire's personality code, beat and abuse it, then erase its memory and restore it with one click.

Called an eternal paradise, it's worse than the monkeys in a zoo.

As they talked, the group turned a corner and suddenly arrived at a theater.

The theater was spacious and grand, with ceiling lamps illuminating rows of tiered seats; at the front stood a wooden stage. The trapdoor at the center of the stage floor opened automatically, and a platform rose from below.

Standing on the platform was a theater manager with a horse's head and human body, dressed in flamboyant attire; as the platform rose slowly, he stepped out like a character from a Disney animation, gliding sideways with a moonwalk.

【Stage Two Mission Objective: Eliminate "s"】

The mechanical, artificial system alert sounded just in time,

All three players instantly grabbed their weapons, preparing to fight. Even Grey Rain put down the romance novel she'd rescued from the library and lifted her skull-crusher.

Too bad—it was already too late.

The horse-headed theater manager moved with lightning speed far beyond anyone's reaction time, crossing the entire theater to appear among the three players,

And with a human hand clad in white silk gloves, he gripped Red Spider's throat.

"Hehehehe,"

The theater manager, wearing a white horse's head, grinned, revealing large, flat teeth: "Good evening, everyone."

Good evening? Not bloody likely.

Not only does the inverted Jin Zita have no concept of "evening," but the speed this horse-headed creature just displayed far surpassed even the horde of Divine Corruption hosts.

This one's no friend.

"May I ask who you are?"

Li Cheng aimed his Ape Regression Gun at the horse head; Binary Tree pressed his finger lightly against the VR headset's button, ready to act at any moment.

"Didn't 'c' just say? I am 's'."

The horse-headed man spoke as if it were obvious: "This theater is my domain."

So the fake system voice was this so-called "c"? Doesn't sound like a real name.

Li Cheng's mind raced, but his face showed no reaction; calmly he asked: "If you're 's', then who were the tall woman in black and the baby in a suit I encountered before?"

The horse-headed man shook his head: "The woman in black is 'h'. The baby in the suit is 'e'."

Li Cheng deliberately left a loophole—he had never seen the woman in black or the baby in the suit, yet he used the phrasing "the ones I encountered before."

The horse-headed man did not refute or correct him, suggesting he might not know their exact identities.

The Red Spider, his neck gripped, struggled to breathe, two pistols clutched tight in his hands—though he knew that given the speed the other had just displayed,

the opponent could probably crush his throat before he even raised his guns and pulled the trigger.

Li Cheng's eyes flickered. "C, S, H, E—are there any other beings in this inverted pyramid?"

"You're asking a lot of questions, you know,"

the horse-headed man said lightly: "Don't ask all that nonsense. If you want to pass through here, either beat me, or satisfy one condition of mine."

Li Cheng and Binary Tree exchanged an almost imperceptible glance. The black-clad woman's H could distort reality, the suit-wearing baby's E could absorb energy, and this horse-headed man's S ability was unknown—were they to really fight, the three players might not gain any advantage.

"What condition?"

Li Cheng asked: "Let's be clear first—if it's about sleeping with you, this Red Spider here charges a very steep price."

???

You f—ing get serious, will you?! Sure, I'm a bit of a scumbag in matters of the heart, but I'm not interested in non-human creatures! And no matter how you look at it, this horse-headed man is clearly a stallion, right?!

The Red Spider, his neck still gripped, wore an utterly pained expression,

and the horse-headed man also rolled his eyes. "This is my turf. If you want to pass through here, you've got to pay the toll.

That is—stare into my eyes for ten seconds."

(End of chapter)