Chapter 474

Pfft.

Li Cheng pulled a steel pipe out of the armed man's neck, where blood kept spurting.

The originally heavy 【Steel and Victory Flag Spear】 had shrunk into a half-length hollow steel pipe, its top forged into a sharpened bevel, its bottom stamped with the Laiyang Steel Pipe trademark.

Though merely an ordinary steel pipe, it was more than sufficient to assassinate four armed personnel terrified by Bob's skin suit, disadvantaged by terrain, and wearing no armor.

"Here."

The Oracle, seated in a wheelchair, picked up a submachine gun and tossed it to Li Cheng.

The MP7 submachine gun, designed and manufactured by German HK, chambered in 4.6×30mm, with a 30-round magazine; these armed personnel used the MP7A1 model, without a suppressor.

"It's a good gun."

Li Cheng pulled back the charging handle and muttered in amazement: "Man, back when I was retaking the Gaokao at the cram school to boost my score, the school made all students hand in electronic devices—phones, MP4 players, MP5 players—all confiscated. I had to turn in my own MP7."

???

Only you believed the teacher's line that "forgetting your pen in the exam hall is like forgetting your gun on the battlefield"—you actually brought a gun to school?

The Oracle's eyelid twitched; her immense mental resilience kept her from voicing a retort, but she too picked up an MP7.

She also rolled up the sleeve of the corpse at her feet and found a bulldog tattoo on its upper arm, beneath it the cursive English letters USMC. The other arm bore a pirate skull, oars, wings, and a battle knife.

"Retired U. S. Marine. More precisely, ReconForce."

Li Cheng glanced and said casually.

USMC stands for United States Marine Corps; the bulldog is the unofficial mascot of the Marines, and the pirate skull with oars represents the ReconForce, the unit with the strongest sense of honor.

The U. S. military has long had a tattoo tradition, believing that tattooing symbols of historic units like Rangers and Marines onto soldiers effectively boosts their sense of honor, belonging, and combat effectiveness.

Of course, another grimly humorous purpose is that the wildly varied tattoos help identify a soldier's exact identity when he's blown to bits by a roadside bomb.

So you had to assemble yourself. jpg

Of the four armed personnel, one bore the Marine tattoo; the other three had U. S. Army and gang tattoos. This indirectly proves the island favors hiring retired U. S. soldiers with weaker moral sensibilities—

Before the Iraq War, the U. S. military banned applicants with extremist, racist, or gang-related tattoos; only when the war intensified did they relax the requirements.

Those "good kids" from U. S. military families, devout in religion and traditional values, were too out of place on the island.

Far more suitable were the ex-military scum who'd once been in gangs, had blurred moral codes, and went to war purely to legally hunt humans—the island operators trusted them.

Li Cheng and the Oracle had just caught four armed personnel off guard and killed them; the rest would now be on high alert.

Fortunately, the power progress unlocked by killing a VIP also benefited the player's summoned entities.

Li Cheng pulled out Grey Rain in slime form; the slime, once palm-sized, had grown to the size of a hand, rolling around in his palm.

"Know what to do?"

Li Cheng made a gesture and instructed patiently: "Go down to the winery. Find the armed personnel."

The slime Grey Rain gave a "I get it" look, wriggled in place, and transformed into a figurine of the Empress.

Li Cheng's temple twitched with a visible vein. "I said armed personnel, not Wu Zetian from 【King of Glory】."

Got it.

Grey Rain nodded and turned into a pink bunny-eared girl.

"I said armed personnel, not Xiao Wu. I think you owe me some Blue Silver Coiling."

Li Cheng could distinctly feel the Oracle's strange gaze behind him. He winced, pointed at the corpse, and told Grey Rain: "Armed personnel, right? The ones with guns! Be creative. Find them."

Got it, got it.

Grey Rain nodded, plopped onto the floor, and rolled down the stairs.

————

After the power lines were cut, the underground winery plunged into darkness, save for the faint green glow of battery-powered emergency exit signs.

Tap, tap, tap.

Footsteps came from above the stairs; the emergency exit signs on the walls cast clear human-shaped shadows.

The previously silent underground winery suddenly erupted with armed figures leaping from behind oak wine barrels, firing at the source of the footsteps.

Gunfire erupted in dense, chaotic bursts; muzzle flashes illuminated floating dust in the air.

Bullets ricocheting off the stone walls pierced wine barrels, causing unfermented wine to gush out, filling the air with its aroma.

"Cease fire. On alert."

The security team leader growled. Though all present were retired U. S. military, they were merely hired as cosmetic guards in the winery, wearing no body armor—their protection level was even lower than that of the VIP's personal bodyguards.

The leader gave two subordinates a glance; they crouched against the wall, holding MP7s, advancing stealthily under their teammates' cover to the wall's rear, then switched on their tactical flashlights mounted on the guns, shining them toward the stairs.

The space was empty—no bodies, no blood, only embedded bullets and a puddle of silver liquid shaped like a paper-cutout human silhouette.

Hum—

The human silhouette shuddered violently, sprang upright, and re-liquefied in midair, reforming into a slime.

Before the security team's stunned stares, it pulled a hammer from within its body.

The perfect-quality 【Skullcrusher Power Hammer】 had shrunk into an ordinary iron carpenter's claw hammer.

Even the hammer's handle end bore a tag reading "Only 29.9 Yuan."

The slime spun twice in midair, swung the hammer with full force, and smashed it into an armed man's knee.

Bang!

The knee shattered on impact; the unlucky bastard screamed in agony, collapsed uncontrollably to the left, blocking the stair entrance and obstructing his comrades' firing lines.

Now's the moment.

A girl with golden hair dashed down the stairs, using the elevation advantage to clamp her hand around the armed man's neck, preventing him from falling.

Simultaneously, she swung her gun forward, pressing the barrel under his armpit, using him as a shield to minimize her own exposed surface.

Her slender fingers pulled the trigger; a metal hail swept the underground space, blowing the head off one guard who dared to peek out.

Another armed man hiding behind the wall lunged forward, shoved aside his comrade used as a sack, trying to deflect Li Cheng's aim.

【Dragon's Breath】 mini version, 【Milk Dragon's Breath】!

Li Cheng opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and spat out a stream of scalding, pearl-laced milk tea, drenching the armed operative's face.

The heat made him scream in pain, clamping his eyes shut—then a bullet blew his head apart.

Li Cheng smacked his lips, savoring the milk tea in his mouth. Oh, it was Mixue Bingcheng—seven parts sugar, with red beans, coconut jelly, pearls, and taro balls.

Using the human sandbag as cover, he swept fire forward, suppressing the enemy, calmly counting bullets fired in his mind: "Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven."

The enemy's security captain was also a ruthless man—he wasn't fazed by the bizarre sight of a metal slime or someone spitting milk tea; he immediately shot his subordinate dead, poured fire at Li Cheng, and ordered the rest to retreat step by step.

He himself ran the fastest, dashing deep into the corridor.

The 4.6×30mm rounds fired by the MP7 submachine gun penetrate 280mm into 20% military gelatin at 50m, capable of piercing through a human chest 25cm thick.

Li Cheng promptly dragged the sandbag backward, dropped his empty MP7 in his right hand, grabbed a new gun from a dead operative's grip, and clutched the hammerhead Gray Rain handed him in his left.

This scene felt like it had returned to the days when Li Cheng was a newbie and Gray Rain was a brand-new liquid metal robot.

The slime Gray Rain writhed and reshaped into a thin, umbrella-like canopy, with the hammer handle as its shaft.

Li Cheng held the umbrella forward to block incoming bullets, rolled over, and took cover behind a stone pillar.

His small frame pressed against the pillar, fully hidden. Listening to the dense bullets whistling past his ears and shards of stone exploding around him, Li Cheng couldn't help shouting: "You're selling your life for three thousand dollars a month?!"

In 2009, the U. S. average annual salary was $37,610; after taxes, monthly pay was exactly $3,000.

Gunfire still crackled like New Year's firecrackers. Li Cheng shook his left hand, turning the umbrella into a mirror, swung his right firearm around from in front of him, and fired precise shots from deep behind cover, hitting several armed operatives in the thighs and shoulders.

He targeted non-lethal areas because wounded soldiers effectively hamper enemy combat effectiveness.

As expected, the enemy formation faltered.

At the last moment, the security captain who had fled earlier returned, clutching two M67 grenades just taken from the armory.

The round grenades, carrying everyone's hopes, arced through the air toward the stone pillar.

But—

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

A wheelchair hurtled down the stairs; Oracle sat in it, a submachine gun resting on her knees, her right hand gripping the armrest to avoid being thrown off, her left hand wearing an old-fashioned soccer goalkeeper glove.

【Item Name: Supreme King of Football Glove】

【Type: Worn Item】

【Quality: Perfect】

【Effect: Wall of Sighs. After activation, catch flying projectiles within a 270° frontal arc, hold them in your palm, delay their damage effect, then launch them in a non-directional manner.】

【Cost: Depends on the energy of the flying projectile.】

【Cooldown: 30 minutes.】

【Usage Condition: None.】

【Note: Can only catch physical flying projectiles; cannot block light, energy beams, curses, or other non-physical or microscopic matter.】

【Note: Chinese national football team.】

Uh. Everyone knows the Arena likes to slip jokes into item notes.

Apparently, the words "Chinese national football team" need no further description—they're already treated by the Arena as the ultimate joke.

In short, the 【King of Football Glove】, after being nerfed, became a low-tier item but retained partial effects.

The M67 grenades, mid-air, defied physics with a bizarre trajectory, curving sharply and landing perfectly in Oracle's hands; their 4–5.5-second fuse delay froze.

As she hurled them forward, the fuse restarted.

The spherical grenades arced again and detonated with a thunderous boom at the corridor entrance.

The two armed operatives standing closest were torn apart by shrapnel; those behind were stunned and dazed by the deafening blast in the semi-enclosed space.

Shhh—

A petite blonde figure darted out like a ghost from behind the stone pillar. Li Cheng didn't pick up his nearly empty submachine gun; instead, he gripped a sharp steel pipe in his right hand and Gray Rain's iron hammer in his left, charging into the lingering gray-black smoke and slashing into the dazed crowd.

His child-sized frame had limited strength, but none of these men wore bulletproof vests.

Li Cheng swung his weapon: the steel pipe pierced a soft abdomen, the hammer crushed solid ribs. One operative drew his Ontario Mk3 tactical knife and lunged at him.

Li Cheng dodged it by sliding low along the ground, exploiting his small stature, circling behind him.

Plop.

Li Cheng pushed off the ground with one hand, kicked off the wall with his foot, converting gravitational potential energy into kinetic force, and drove the steel pipe into the back of the opponent's knee.

Www★TTKдN★co

As the man cried out and knelt, Li Cheng spun the hammer 180 degrees, driving its sharp V-shaped edge into his temple.

Pfft.

Li Cheng pulled back the hammer and turned toward the corridor's depths.

No living man stood in the corridor.

The security captain's neck had been severed by grenade shrapnel; blood gushed out like water from a broken dam. He slumped helplessly against the wall, clutching his second grenade.

Unlike those plastic colleagues, this security captain—ReconForce-trained—had shared real, life-or-death bonds with the dead.

They fought together in Iraq, swept through Iraqi villages, tortured prisoners, slaughtered civilians.

He didn't care about the Geneva Conventions—he knew only American supremacy.

He glared at Li Cheng with furious, dying eyes, his weak fingers trembling as they hooked the grenade's pull ring, trying to take Li Cheng down with him.

"You're the Pretty Face Grenade King?"

Li Cheng walked forward calmly, forcibly took the grenade, and with practiced ease, reinserted the safety pin as the captain's eyes bulged in rage.

The first lesson for new players is mastering the use, assembly, disassembly, and maintenance of modern weapons.

Li Cheng had long unlocked his Multi-Threaded Brain Domain Technique; besides modern infantry weapons, he also mastered radio operation, design, and manufacturing; mapmaking; battlefield first aid; guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines; organizing, politically educating, and militarily training militias.

Even if dumped into the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, he could rally a militia force on the spot through persuasion, threats, and bribes.

Li Cheng casually pocketed the grenade and turned to look at Shen Yu. "You alright?"

"I'm fine."

Shen Yu's face was slightly pale. The 【Ball King Glove】 was, after its weakening, still a fairly high-consumption prop; she had a total of 65 points of spiritual power on her, and now less than 20 remained.

Considering that the island's administrator already knew of their existence, the main righteous force was rushing over at this very moment,

The current situation could only be described as—optimism couldn't squeeze into the evening rush-hour subway—not optimistic.

There was no turning back now, so they could only

Li Cheng pressed his ear against the brick wall. The underground winery had an open layout, like a karst cave structure, and he could clearly hear the dense footsteps in the distance, along with panicked, questioning voices.

The VIPs who had come here to bid on and buy slaves were, under the escort of the remaining guards, retreating toward the emergency passage.

Li Cheng bared his teeth in a grin, swung his hammer hard, and shook off the red-and-white grime on the war pick. The hunt was on.