Chapter 430: Ambush

Write an essay with the themes of specialization, transmission, and rotation, connecting to social life—using professional knowledge and belt drive to make the entire device rotate.

Li Cheng wrapped the belt around the PVC plastic pipe and yanked it hard; the spherical pipe device, affected by the levitation engine, began spinning at high speed in place.

The rotting corpses trapped by the metal buckets also spun along; their corrosive arms, like blades inside a meat grinder, efficiently sliced through the gray-green giants.

The giants' flesh regenerated rapidly, yet still could not escape being stripped of bone and muscle until they finally dispersed.

Li Cheng precisely grabbed the butterfly hairpin, disposed of the rotting corpses after extracting their last value, and dispersed them.

「. 」

Bai Ma Mubei, Changsun Yao, and the others had never seen the butterfly hairpin, so they looked utterly confused, while Erchashu and the others realized—

Even in the realm of the extraordinary, the physical law of energy conservation must be obeyed,

the gray-green giants had no weaknesses, regenerated infinitely, and their energy most likely originated from the entire secret realm, sharing the same source as the rotting corpses. Their essences were similar, hence capable of inflicting damage.

「Is that it? We've solved it? 」

Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao licked his lips; he had just prepared to die heroically, yet somehow lucked out and kept his life.

「For now, yes. 」

Li Cheng turned to look at Changsun Yao and asked curiously, 「How did you get here? 」

Everyone exchanged information; according to Changsun Yao, after being controlled by the woman in black, their consciousness had been severed, and when they awoke again, they were already on this pedestrian street,

she, Bai Ma Mubei, and Nicolas stood inside a Burberry boutique, standing on a display platform, as if serving as mannequins.

Judging from the time displayed on their watches, three hours and forty minutes had passed since they entered the secret realm.

「Just like you, we initially tried using our personal panels to exit the killing field and return to the real world. But when we discovered our player essence had been stolen and we couldn't withdraw, 」

Changsun Yao frowned and pointed to a pile of ruined buildings in the street corner, 「the gray-green giants emerged from there. They attacked us the moment they saw us. 」

The building itself had already collapsed during the earlier battle, but thanks to Erchashu—he deployed drones and mole-shaped robots to scan the scattered debris,

using the fracture surfaces of concrete, explosion marks, and flight distances to reverse-engineer and reconstruct the building in 3D projection.

「Why is it still a courthouse? 」

Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao asked in confusion; the building wasn't tall, only three stories, built of brick and stone. Above the entrance awning, a gilded metal sign bore the word 「CrownCourt. 」

「More precisely, it's a criminal court within the British court system. 」

Erchashu said: 「The British court system includes the Zuigaofa Academy, the Court of Appeal, the High Court, the Criminal Court, the Magistrates' Court, and the County Court.

The Magistrates' Court is lower in rank, handles cases with simplified procedures, and has no jury. If the case is serious or the defendant disagrees with the verdict, it is transferred to the Criminal Court, which imposes harsher penalties. 」

The sudden presence of a criminal court, so stylistically alien, in a commercial pedestrian street was truly strange.

Li Cheng lowered his head slightly and rubbed his chin with one hand.

The ouroboros pattern in the underground biological lab, the butterfly hairpin that generates rotting corpses, the gray-green giant emerging from the criminal court—likely representing anger.

「Heh. 」

Li Cheng suddenly smirked, letting out a light laugh; Erchashu and the others immediately asked expectantly, 「You've figured it out? 」 Li Cheng confidently swept back his bangs, 「Not at all. 」

「Then why the hell are you laughing? 」

「I thought of something funny. 」

Li Cheng spread his hands and gazed at the courthouse ruins, sighing, 「Back then, I planned to steal batteries, hoping to accumulate a small capital through primitive accumulation, use it to launch a pyramid scheme for illegal fundraising, then use the collected money to flee to Myanmar and open a casino,

then buy weapons with the cash flow, seize a mountain and declare myself king, using Myanmar as a base to invade all of Southeast Asia.

But I got caught stealing batteries and was sentenced by a court. 」

A battery thief who doesn't want to be a warlord isn't a good thief, right? Are you stacking buffs here?

Everyone who knew he was bullshitting rolled their eyes, but Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao listened with surprising seriousness—

Heroes aren't judged by their origins; today's forum elites, those high-and-mighty Lv38+ top-tier transcenders,

if you dug deep into their pasts, each one's origin story was wilder than the last.

Besides Truth's Side, the chairman of the Evil Science Alliance who started with a night club, there were those who got into construction—recruiting metal-controlling mutants and wood-release bloodline users to take contracts worldwide, building skyscrapers and bridges.

There were those in transportation—using ultra-high-capacity space items to load shipping containers at docks, then flying directly to destinations; one person equaled an entire cargo fleet plus oceanic shipping line.

There were those in education—acting as private tutors, taking commissions from the elite, using the Crown-Transmission technique to forcibly stuff knowledge into the children of the rich.

There were those in hotel business—using miniaturization devices to shrink normal humans to thumb-size, making them live inside luxury model houses; due to their reduced volume, only tiny amounts of expensive ingredients were needed to feed guests.

Even some damn plagiarism artists—bulk-downloading literary works from parallel worlds resembling modern Earth, smuggling them back to Earth, and uploading them online for profit.

In the first one or two years after the killing field game launched, all players scrambled to make money, each displaying their own unique ingenuity—nothing was impossible if you could imagine it.

Compared to that, starting from stealing batteries and slowly building up to opening a casino in Myanmar was downright pure.

Plain and simple is the truth. jpg

「Enough with this nonsense. Didn't that Horse-Headed One say there are other anomalies in this secret realm besides him? We can't figure it out now because we haven't gathered enough clues. 」

Red Spider rubbed her temples, 「In any case, let's leave here first. 」

Her words cut off abruptly; time seemed to slow down countless times, and everyone clearly saw—

Red Spider's forehead skin suddenly bulged and split open; fragments of her skull, along with brain matter, exploded outward in a spray.

Without a word, every player present instantly entered combat mode: Bai Ma Mubei slammed his coffin into the ground, Changsun Yao released paper airplanes to scout the surroundings, Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao pressed a button and switched his heavy truck back into Infinite Justice Gundam.

「Red—Spider—」

Gray Rain wailed, picking up the shattered skull fragments and splattered brain matter of Red Spider.

On the stone ground lay a deep, clean cut; at its bottom lay a black-and-gold playing card—the Black King of Spades.

「Card King. 」

Erchashu spat out the two words through clenched teeth, gazing at the empty air, coldly saying, 「Won't you show yourself? 」

Card King belonged to the Crown Casino Guild, Lv27, with average strength. He had just assassinated Red Spider, also Lv27, right before so many experts,

proving only one thing—he had allied with the secret realm, or rather, had been fully controlled by its anomalies and become a slave.

(End of Chapter)