Chapter 431

"Hehe, hehehe."

A sinister laugh echoed from shadows over a hundred meters away; a playing card of brass sliced through the void, parting space like Moses dividing the sea.

The Card King, blind in both eyes, emerged from the tear in space, shouldering a bulging, heavy cloth sack.

"You all look in good spirits."

He scanned the scene with his eye sockets, pausing strangely at Li Cheng: "Their player essence was stolen—they can't run. Yours is still intact, so why aren't you running?"

"Abandoning teammates isn't my style."

Li Cheng shook his head, "Even in games—I always click 'No' when surrendering. Even when all four teammates curse me out for going AFK from the start."

He lifted Red Spider's body in one hand, took the coconut-shell-like skull fragments from Gray Rain, and poured the brain matter inside the skull back into the brain.

For the sake of surprise in the ambush, the card the Card King had just played carried no extra spiritual power—only spatial teleportation, plus the card's own mass and kinetic energy, caused the damage.

Red Spider's brain… maybe, possibly, perhaps could still be pieced back together?

"Heh, stubborn mouth."

The Card King shook his head, casually: "If you want to die, then I won't stop you."

Before he finished speaking, Binary Tree suddenly stomped one foot; green data streams spread outward from his sole, instantly covering the entire corridor.

This technique was called 【Cyber Secret Art: Spatial Anchor】—literally anchoring space, forbidding any spatial teleportation.

As a core member of the Whale Song Guild, Binary Tree naturally had knowledge of the Card King's data.

Besides being able to, like the Marvel comic character of the same name, infuse energy into playing cards for remote detonation, he also possessed a pirated version of Flying Thunder God: short cooldown, low cost, short-range teleportation.

So Binary Tree immediately disabled the opponent's spatial teleportation—preventing ambushes and preemptively blocking escape.

Not only Binary Tree held this thought; Sun Yuying suddenly raised both arms, releasing a flood of paper airplanes from her sleeves.

The Card King didn't dodge or evade; his left hand flicked downward, summoning a stack of playing cards, his fingers spinning them into a three-layered fan shape, then thrusting it forward with force, unleashing a violent hurricane.

While dispersing the paper airplanes and causing them to collide and explode, he himself unfastened the large cloth sack on his shoulder and smiled lightly: "Want a group brawl? I've got people too."

The sack opened, and out flew over a dozen corpses.

Some were players from the second and third waves to enter the dungeon, their expressions vacant, drenched in blood, limbs and torsos severed then crudely stitched together with iron wire.

Wires and metal rods were jammed into every part of their bodies, especially their heads and backs.

(Slightly odd—no sign of the Paladin Order's priest, Andre.)

"Rise, my warriors."

The Card King grinned, leaping backward, shielding the stitched corpses before him: "Obey my command—kill them."

Shhh—

All the stitched corpses moved in unison, drawing various weapons from the void—some sprayed machine-gun fire, others unleashed sword qi, still others summoned lightning serpents and thunder eels, attacking the living side.

"How is this possible?!"

Nicolai's eyes trembled violently—he could retrieve items from his inventory, a privilege only players had.

And forums had long tested this: once a player died, their essence transferred directly.

At this point, forcibly resurrecting corpses with necromancy meant the newly revived bodies could only use powers they had mastered in life, not the full suite of skills or certain items under the Battle Arena system.

Yet these dozen stitched corpses the Card King unleashed could all use their skills normally—how was this possible?!

How could they retain player essence? No time to think—combat erupted instantly.

A corpse with ID 【Noise Warrior】—purple-haired—gripped a skull-shaped electric guitar and yanked a barbed steel string.

Zing—

Visible sound waves swept the entire battlefield, deafening noise piercing eardrums, driving everyone into mental chaos.

Especially Anthony—his half-chanted spell was abruptly interrupted, his face paling slightly from mana backlash.

Two other corpses, IDs 【Fat Monk】 and 【Thin Monk】—tall and thin, short and stout—wore Qing-era long gowns, floating through the air like kites.

Thud! They slammed into Infinite Justice Gundam, each gripping one end of the twin-headed greatsword, spinning and shoving forward with all their strength.

Forcing the Gundam's joint motors to overload, spewing thick smoke.

One side had endured relentless battles, exhausted and worn down; the other was "fully rested."

Worse, this dungeon exploration was originally planned for team cooperation—no one anticipated player-vs-player combat.

To coordinate better, they had already shared intelligence in advance—so the Card King's side knew full details of the player faction.

"Don't let her plant the coffin in the ground!"

The Card King shouted; one massive stitched corpse plunged a single hand into the ground, triggering an earthquake that forcibly shook the coffin embedded in the Bai Ma Mu Bei out of the earth.

Another small corpse, wearing a wizard's hat, dove down on a broomstick.

"Red Witch of the Monutong Alliance"

Binary Tree's expression turned solemn—he recognized the witch-hat girl.

Clang!

The witch girl leapt off her broom, punching straight at the Bai Ma Mu Bei—so fast she broke the sound barrier.

The Bai Ma Mu Bei sidestepped, seized the witch's arms, twisted her waist and back, preparing to throw her over her shoulder onto the ground.

The witch girl's body spun halfway through the air; the floating broom rushed to her feet in emergency rescue.

She kicked off the broom, using the recoil to break free from the throw, instead wrapping her arms from behind around the Bai Ma Mu Bei, arching her slender waist backward with full force, flipping the opponent upside-down and slamming her onto the ground.

This technique was called the Germanic Arched Back Suplex—requiring immense lower back strength; once successfully executed, it almost certainly crushed the opponent's head and cervical spine first—minor result: unconsciousness; major: neck snapped, instant death.

Of course, as the highest-level melee transcendent in the entire battlefield, the Bai Ma Mu Bei wasn't that easy to kill.

She planted her left hand on the ground, bending her elbow from fast to slow to dissipate the immense force; her right arm went limp as a whip, lashing toward the witch girl's temple.

Their wrists clashed; both rose from the ground simultaneously, fists colliding, afterimages flickering—suddenly locked in a back-and-forth exchange.

"Wtf?"

Gray Rain, who was helping Li Cheng scoop up Red Spider's brain matter, stared in stunned disbelief—the Bai Ma Mu Bei was a level-29 melee transcendent, the kind who treated mutated T-Rexes like HakiMi pets—her power was unquestionable,

"Weren't you talking about the Crimson Witch? How can she go fifty-fifty with the Tombstone Sisters?"

"Not the Crimson Witch, it's the Flying Swan Witch. Flying Swan from the Wong Fei-hong one." Binary Tree explained at top speed: "The Monutong Alliance is mostly mages, but there are also melee heritages.

"They cast Enlarge, Stone Skin, Blessing, and a whole series of spells on themselves, then take a two-or-three-hundred-catty metal staff with Faerie Fire attached and smash people with it."

(End of chapter)