Chapter 422: Corpse

The King of Cards' mental state was clearly abnormal; his mouth stretched nearly to his ears, his gums continuously oozing blood.

He clutched the camera, muttering to himself with no logic whatsoever—words like, "He's already caught me."

"Eight shadows, eight possibilities, hehehehe."

As the camera shook, the viewers could finally see the background—the King of Cards was standing right in the middle of this ruined town.

Binary Tree's pupils contracted; the DV camera's upper-right corner displayed a timestamp showing the video was recorded two and a half hours ago, and scattered across the ground were the severed limbs of other players.

The second wave of players, including Lorendate, were immediately attacked and killed by the King of Cards after being teleported here, unable to even trigger emergency exit.

Individual players from the third wave who entered afterward met the same fate.

"Wait, is the King of Cards really that strong?"

Red Spider couldn't believe it; even the later players had an average level of LV25, only slightly weaker than their own first-wave group—how could the King of Cards have slaughtered them all like chopping vegetables?

"Look at the cards on the ground."

Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao, experienced and sharp, pointed to the black-and-gold cards stuck haphazardly into the earth within the video frame—"There's spiritual energy connecting them, forming a suppression array."

Red Spider frowned slightly, then realized: "He's been brainwashed and controlled by some abnormal entity, so he knew players would teleport here from the surface, and waited in advance."

"Probably."

Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao felt a splitting headache, rubbing his temples in exhaustion. Abnormal entities were already hard enough to deal with—now there was a traitorous King of Cards too.

"Dad, don't hit me, Dad!"

The mentally deranged King of Cards shrieked and sobbed in a high-pitched voice, then collapsed to the ground, weeping for over half a minute, before suddenly laughing again.

He flicked his palm, retrieving all the cards.

Then he hummed an unknown tune, like a scavenger, gathering the scattered body parts into a snake-skin sack, finally dropping the camera and walking alone into the darkness.

In the final second before vanishing from the frame, the King of Cards seemed to remember something, turned his head, and grinned as he spoke at lightning speed: "Cha Yu Ji."

Those three words, like a spell, echoed above the town; the black lake at the center of the ruins suddenly boiled, bubbling with countless air pockets.

'Damn it.'

The same thought rose simultaneously in every player's mind: the King of Cards, already controlled by an abnormal entity, had deliberately left the camera behind—just for this moment, to trap newcomers with this incantation.

Plop!!

The black lake's surface exploded; dozens of highly decayed human corpses leapt from the depths, lunging at the players.

These corpses moved as fast as the Vietnamese ghost from before, and their movement defied physical laws—they floated and drifted freely.

Gray Rain swung his skull-crushing power hammer, smashing one corpse-demon—only to find another corpse-demon clinging to its back, swinging its bony, white arm toward him.

Gray Rain quickly ducked his head, sinking it into his chest, avoiding the claw slick with corpse fluid.

The corpse-demon's arm bone, still carrying momentum, slashed into the brick-and-stone wall—but the wall didn't crack or tear; it simply dissolved.

Like erased by a Photoshop eraser tool.

Meanwhile, Red Spider pulled from his inventory a vintage wooden birdcage.

【Item Name: Old Baijing Birdcage】

【Type: Ritual Item】

【Quality: premium item】

【Effect: Cage and Bird. When opened, it creates an invisible suction force, drawing in objects matching the concepts of "flight," "bird," or "wings," shrinking them and imprisoning them for ten minutes.】

【Cost: 150 Spirit Points】

【Cooldown: 1 hour】

【Requirement: Must possess property deed within Old Baijing's Fifth Ring】

【Note: Cannot suction objects too large, too small, or moving too fast.】

【Note: You know what? Old Baijing's dad is still a dad—spends all day eating, drinking, carrying birdcages, and fighting crickets. My job? My dad finished it all when he entered the pass.】

Red Spider didn't deliberately block his teammates; Li Cheng could directly see the full description of the birdcage through his Info-Synthesis Glasses, and internally screamed, "What the hell."

This 【Old Baijing Birdcage】 was clearly part of the same series as the 【Old Baijing Ape Skull】 he'd sold earlier—the difference being this one was premium quality, still slightly inferior to the perfect Ape Skull.

No wonder the Ape Skull required Old Baijing household registration and accent, while this birdcage only needed a property deed—not even a Sihe Academy in the Second Ring.

Patak. Red Spider opened the birdcage's door; instantly, a gale erupted, sucking in dozens of floating corpse-demons, shrinking them to cricket size.

The only problem: the number of corpse-demons seemed endless, continuously crawling out of the lake.

"Get to the truck!"

Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao shouted, rapidly pressing buttons on the armored truck's central console; the rocket launcher retracted into the weapon bay, replaced by a machine gun turret.

All machine guns fired at once, their muzzle flashes outshining the drone lights; brass shells, blessed by Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist temples, poured down like waterfalls.

"I'll help." Binary Tree crossed his hands; green data streams flowed from his fingertips, pouring into the machine guns.

He temporarily took over the armored truck's fire-control system, loading it with an auto-tracking program and linking it to the drone's laser radar.

The drone handled target identification, tracking, and positioning.

Binary Tree's electronic brain calculated and predicted movement trajectories, transmitting data to the truck's fire-control system to command the machine gun turret, creating overlapping fields of fire—a seamless net of firepower.

With only minimal Spirit Points consumed, the machine guns' accuracy and lethality skyrocketed.

The blessed bullets, infused with trace spiritual energy, caused corpse-demons to disintegrate on contact—their offensive power and defense were wildly mismatched; easily pierced by bullets, they turned to ash.

"We have limited enchanted bullets—we need to run."

Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao slammed the accelerator, ready to break through the encirclement—but the corpse-demon swarm, unlike the Meat Mountain L, wasn't slow; they used their sheer numbers to block the armored truck's path, draining ammunition relentlessly.

Worse still, inside the 【Old Baijing Birdcage】, hundreds of shrunk corpse-demons used their corpse-fluid-coated, annihilation-effect arm bones to continuously strike the wooden slats, making the cage creak and groan—on the verge of collapse.

At the critical moment, Red Spider pulled a large bucket of quick-dry glue from his inventory and plunged the entire birdcage into it.

The glue hardened instantly, "freezing" all the corpse-demons inside. Even though their arms still possessed annihilation effects, their bodies were immobilized—unable to escape easily in the short term.

This trick wasn't Red Spider's own idea—he'd spent 100 game coins hiring a consulting firm to test it—

There were specialized information firms in Louch Street that specialized in testing skill and item combinations for players.

If you spend a bit more money, you can even hire high-level players above lv30 for one-on-one coaching to help plan your build.

The effect is similar to the think tanks behind those official guilds backed by the state.

After temporarily sealing over a thousand rotting corpses, Red Spider casually handed the birdcage to Li Cheng, then put on his shades and hopped onto the roof of the heavy truck with a rather dashing flourish.

Master Pi Fu, Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao, and Binary Tree had all done their part — now it was his turn.

"Open!"

Red Spider bellowed, activating his skills and gear one after another.

【Eight-Armed Asura】 — six extra arms sprout from his body.

【Eye of Death】 — speeds up neural reaction, making time feel subjectively slower.

【Tactical Goggles】 — boosts aiming efficiency by 100%, every shot hits its mark.

【Gun-Fu】 — improves limb coordination; a sharp wrist-flick at the instant of pulling the trigger can make bullets curve mid-flight.

【Overload, Overheat, Never Misfire】 — replaces physical bullets with spiritual energy, boosting fire rate and damage against undead units.

When all these skills and gear stacked together, the final effect, as seen through Li Cheng and the others' eyes, became:

He started spinning.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

Red Spider's whole body blurred into an afterimage; the eight pistols in his hands were like anti-aircraft guns, blasting out sheets of gunfire that precisely struck the forehead of every rotting corpse lunging at them, perfectly taking over for the machinegun turret that was about to run out of its blessed ammunition.

"Open — so it's not 'open' as in activate a skill, but 'open' as in cheating."

Grey Rain sighed sincerely, pulled out his phone, opened the camera, filmed a video of Red Spider, and uploaded it to his offline TikTok with the caption: "All I see is my teammate's sweat and effort."

"Stop filming, hold this for me." Li Cheng handed the birdcage to Grey Rain, then ran toward the lake surface himself.

Seeing this, Binary Tree hurriedly shouted: "Wait — where are you going?"

"Find the source."

Without looking back, Li Cheng knew Red Spider's spiritual energy would eventually run out, while the number of rotting corpses kept increasing at an abnormal rate — the only way out was to find the source of the corpses.

(End of Chapter)