Chapter 480: Morocco (4K)

"Sssss—"

Zhongtian Beiji carefully climbed down from the tree, using the blazing firelight of the Sirsky helicopter crash to pluck out tiny wood splinters from his fingertips, sucking on them as he mumbled to Li Cheng: "How's it going with the Oracle?"

"Hard to say, communication's cut off—only heard things like 'runway' and 'monster.'"

Li Cheng shook his head, hearing a thunderous roar in the sky, then decisively stamped the ground and leaped backward, vanishing into the shadow of the trees.

Whrrrr—

A fighter jet skimmed low overhead, its wake causing the treetops to thrash violently. From its silhouette, it was clearly an F16.

After passing the crash site, it did not leave the island but slowly turned, circling above it.

"We need to move."

Li Cheng pulled his gaze back; if this F16 was equipped with an AN/AAQ-33 Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod, it could, upon closing distance, use infrared detection to scan and lock onto smaller heat sources like humans.

He and Zhongtian Beiji were both in child-sized forms, with small thermal signatures and tree branches and leaves absorbing mid-wave infrared radiation—they wouldn't be detected for now.

But if time dragged on and other fighter models arrived, or even armed helicopters capable of prolonged loitering, things would turn bad.

They needed to shift strategy quickly and find Epstein and the other SVIPs.

Fortunately, the helicopter's map had already marked the most likely location with a bull icon—a valley inaccessible by vehicle and nearly impossible to traverse.

Just like the rich in the real world who chase branded snake-skin bags and flip-flops, they didn't care about practical utility—they craved the "fashion sense," the "premium feel" that set them apart from the masses.

You didn't hide your secret base anywhere accessible—it wouldn't have the right vibe.

As they pressed forward, Li Cheng and Zhongtian Beiji's expressions turned grim.

Dozens of trees in the forest had snapped mid-trunk and collapsed, their broken ends bearing claw marks, while the ground was littered with massive plantigrade bear footprints.

From the footprint contours, the creature's size dwarfed the African elephant by several times.

Zhongtian Beiji crouched, pressing his fingers into the depth of the prints, then lifted his head to scan the surroundings carefully.

The direction of broken trees and frequency of footprints were discontinuous, spaced dozens of meters apart, like flickering movement through the dense forest.

Exactly matching the supernatural monster mentioned by the Oracle before communication cut out.

"Knew the system had no good intentions."

Zhongtian Beiji took a deep breath, gripping his gun in his right hand and pulling from thin air a four-sided iron club.

The club was ancient and weathered, thick at the base, slender at the tip, unsharpened, faintly emitting a dragon's moan under moonlight, exuding multicolored mists.

Noticing Li Cheng's surprised gaze, Zhongtian Beiji moved forward, lowering his voice to explain quickly: "My power system comes from a dark fantasy xianxia world called 【The Forbidden Prophecy: The Heretical Book That Steals Fate】."

Roughly speaking, it involves stripping fate patterns from others and grafting them onto oneself, gaining cosmic fortune and supernatural phenomena as blessings."

As a conglomerate heir, Zhongtian Beiji didn't need to upload first-person walkthrough videos to FeiNet for meager subscription fees—he valued personal privacy deeply.

He never recorded videos himself and, after team missions, paid fellow teammates for video copyrights and hush money to prevent information leaks.

But since he'd decided to cultivate a good relationship with Master Pi Fu—and the latter had just saved his life—he had no reason to hide it.

"I'm naturally the Purple Palace Co-Residence Pattern, destined for lifelong fortune. I borrowed the Supreme Dispersing Light Pattern from Alexander the Great of the Type-Moon world, to reign supreme."

"I borrowed the Lianzhen Breaker Pattern from Guts of the Blade of the Immortal world, to fear no despair."

"I borrowed the Injury Official Extreme Pattern from Zhu Yuanzhang in his child form during the late Yuan chaos, to turn misfortune into fortune."

Uh… my cultivation method is incomplete—I can only absorb fate patterns from NPCs within the script worlds, and they must be 100% willing."

"But NPCs are pretty willing to trade with me."

That was true—Zhongtian Beiji always negotiated with NPCs just minutes before exiting the script mission, avoiding potential plot-deviation penalties.

And most NPCs either didn't believe in fate patterns or didn't care.

Especially young Zhu Yuanzhang—just before his father Zhu Wusi and mother Chen were about to starve to death, Zhongtian Beiji appeared from nowhere, gave them a magic bean, and told them to plant it, water it casually, and it would endlessly sprout instant noodle cakes.

Zhongtian Beiji smoothly "tricked" his way into the Emperor's Fate Pattern, satisfied, and left the script world—accidentally dropping a pamphlet titled 【The Flying Noodle Divine Sect】.

It's suspected this triggered the Taiping Rebellion decades ahead of schedule.

Li Cheng rubbed his chin as he walked, saying, "So your 【Forbidden Prophecy: The Heretical Book That Steals Fate】 has pretty strong growth potential."

"Actually, efficiency isn't that great—it has plenty of flaws. For example, not every mission yields a suitable NPC."

"After absorbing a fate pattern, the next mission's difficulty increases slightly."

"After leaving the original world of the Heretical Book, I lack synergistic cultivation techniques."

"It's just a door-knocker to the threshold of top-tier strength."

Zhongtian Beiji paused, his expression complex: "Among mid- to high-level players in the Killing Fields' major guilds, there's a saying: all roads lead to Rome—even the most obscure, fringe power systems."

"In the Killing Fields, where infinite possibilities exist, even the most niche systems can synergize and complement others, achieving more than the sum of their parts, ultimately achieving immortality."

"But the greatest hidden condition is time."

"Huh?" Li Cheng raised an eyebrow, musing: "According to Johns Hopkins University data, modern people spend over three hours daily on their phones—so if you steal eight phones a day, you gain double the time."

???

Are you shopping at Huaqiangbei?

Are you AAA's secondhand phone direct-sales old Pi Fu?

Zhongtian Beiji's eye twitched as he continued: "For mid- to high-level transcenders, the weeks between missions are still too short."

"Only a few power systems require minimal intense training—like vampires, mutants, Devil Fruits, cybernetic implants."

"Most others—telekinesis, the Force, arcane magic, chakra, Dao techniques, ancient martial arts—all demand prolonged, grinding practice, sometimes even a sudden epiphany after years of effort, to break through."

"The alleyway markets and the so-called 【Spiritual Time Chamber】 or 【High-Fidelity Brain-Plug Gyms】 of major guilds are mostly for show—they can't deliver the real 'moment of breakthrough.'"

"An interesting fact: possessing a separate dimension, pocket space, or private cave doesn't automatically make you a top transcender."

"But every top-tier player owns their own type of pocket space."

"Thus, the theory holds: top-tier powerhouses' true age far exceeds their ID age plus time spent in script worlds—they exploit time-flow differentials in their pocket realms to fully unlock their power system's potential, thereby achieving immortality."

"Got it. Ample time is a necessary but insufficient condition for top-tier powerhouses."

Li Cheng nodded—player forums were public platforms, but Zhongtian Beiji, as a core member of major guilds, often had private circles where higher-level discussions took place.

This theory of time is quite enlightening, but Li Cheng didn't fully believe it—the sample size of Lv40 was too small, with too much irreproducibility.

Fighter jets could appear at any moment in the sky; Li Cheng and Zhongtian Beiji sprinted forward, rapidly approaching the valley camp on the map.

Thud!

Suddenly, both of them stopped in their tracks.

A low, pained moan came from ahead, and the wind carried a strange odor.

Without needing words, Zhongtian Beiji silently climbed into the treetops, raising his rifle to guard.

Li Cheng molded the slime-shaped gray rain into a flat cake, shoved it into the lining of his bulletproof vest as a secondary safeguard, then crouched and hurried forward. The moan came from a white-haired white man, clad only in a black robe with a pointed hood, slumped beside tree roots, a clean cut wound on his abdomen,

the wound was extremely precise and clean, with little blood seeping out—instead, intestines emerged.

Grayish-white, soft, slime-coated intestines stretched from the wound, like a Hawaiian lei, coiled around the white man's neck.

He endured intense pain at every moment, yet his past life of luxury had left him neither the ability nor the courage to push the intestines back in.

"Alan Dershowitz?"

Li Cheng narrowed his eyes—the old white man was none other than the famous American Jewish lawyer and legal educator who, since the 1960s, had become the youngest professor in Harvard Law School at age twenty-eight,

and over his sixty-year practice, had handled numerous landmark cases, served as legal advisor to five consecutive U. S. presidents, had disciples and protégés scattered across the globe, and even Supreme Court justices called him "Teacher,"

and across the ocean, legal professionals regarded him as their spiritual idol and guiding light.

In the real-world timeline, court documents showed this man was obsessed with Epstein Island,

entering the island over one hundred and thirty times, intimately associating with Epstein in social settings, and personally defending him to win his 2006 legal case.

After Epstein's scandal broke, Dershowitz repeatedly insisted on his own innocence but firmly opposed the release of the documents.

So if Teacher Luo had just renamed himself "Loli" earlier, he'd have met his idol already!

Why bother being denied even entry to the island?

In short, Alan Dershowitz was a pure Jewish old litigator—death was too good for him.

The question was: who put him here?

Li Cheng detected no traps, turned to Zhongtian Beiji, raised his hand above his head, palm covering his crown, meaning "Cover me."

Zhongtian Beiji raised his wrist to forehead height, clenched his fist, meaning "Understood."

Shhh—

Li Cheng closed the distance in three strides, pressed the child-sized JR-15 against Dershowitz's forehead, and growled, "Where are the others?"

"Hhhhh…"

Dershowitz had clearly been left here for a while—his consciousness was fading, on the brink of death.

Seeing him about to die, Li Cheng decisively pulled an epinephrine syringe from his 3D storage and plunged it with a *pfft* into the old litigator's thigh.

Breathing quickened, heartbeat accelerated, pupils dilated—Dershowitz experienced a final surge of life; his eyes remained hazy, his speech partially restored, he shrieked, "Moloch! Pharaoh! Burnt offering!"

With that, his pupils rapidly dispersed, his entire body convulsed uncontrollably.

"Fuck, don't die yet! Finish talking before you die!"

Li Cheng frantically slammed down more syringes, then lifted his foot and kicked Dershowitz's chest hard, sending another length of intestines flying out.

'I thought you might as well just shoot him outright.'

Zhongtian Beiji silently grumbled in his mind—then, the next second, a system alert sounded.

【Stage Two Objective: Locate and kill eight SVIP clients. Current progress: 1/8 completed】

Huh?

Zhongtian Beiji froze for a moment, then realized.

As a leading figure in American legal circles, teacher to Supreme Court justices, the man who personally won Epstein's 2006 case, and the most frequent visitor to the island, Dershowitz naturally qualified as an SVIP.

Besides this system notification, Li Cheng received a separate alert.

【One SVIP deceased. Player ability unlock progress increased by 6%】

He turned to Zhongtian Beiji and frowned, "Did you hear what Dershowitz said?"

"I heard. Moloch. Pharaoh. Burnt offering."

Zhongtian Beiji said solemnly, "'Moloch' may refer to the ancient Canaanite deity Moloch, later demonized by the rising Catholic Church.

And that wasn't unjust—Moloch worship was closely tied to 'firstborn dedication': whether the first human child or the firstborn livestock, all were sacrificed to him.

As for 'Pharaoh,' the meaning is too broad—we don't know which pharaoh.

And 'burnt offering.'"

Li Cheng nodded, "I know that one—it's a two-cost attack card for Warriors, dealing 21 damage to all enemies. Add a Burn card to the discard pile."

?? You're playing Slay the Spire here?

Zhongtian Beiji's eyebrow twitched, undeterred, continued: "Burnt offering was a major sacrificial rite among ancient Semitic peoples—killing a pure animal, skinning it, cutting it into pieces, and burning it.

God once commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, only sending an angel at the last moment to stop him and substitute a ram.

This myth's origin is directly tied to Moloch."

Ancient people, unable to comprehend natural laws, feared nature's power, so they placed faith in vague deities and offered sacrifices—understandable.

Semitic peoples, the Shang Dynasty, the Aztecs—all practiced this.

But in the 21st-century modern world, a group of international elites at the pinnacle of the pyramid, who mouthed democracy and freedom and preached universal values, still secretly worshipped Moloch…

Please, just go back to feudalism—slavery is just too outdated. jpg

Wait.

Li Cheng suddenly remembered something; in Zhongtian Beiji's horrified gaze, he pulled out scissors and slit open Dershowitz's chest and abdomen, cutting out his stomach.

"Uh… you're not planning to keep it as a trophy, are you?"

"Trophy? What do you take me for? I didn't bring formalin today."

Li Cheng said casually, slicing open Dershowitz's stomach, "From the island's timeline, Dershowitz, Epstein, and others entered the forest camp before sunset,

"I don't believe this pack of extravagantly indulgent aristocrats can hold out for half a day without eating."

Sure enough, after cutting open the stomach, undigested food was plainly visible inside.

Caviar, red wine, beef, and a pickled, stewed finger.

Even Zhong Zhong Tian Bei Ji, who had seen the Dark Ages in the world of Sword Wind Legends, turned pale at the sight of that finger, whose size was clearly far too childish, and slammed a hand against his chest to stop himself from vomiting on the spot.

"."

Li Cheng's face was expressionless. With his left hand he picked up the finger using tweezers, and with his right he put on a shrunken version of the information-integration eyepiece, observing carefully.

【Item Name: Finger】

【Source: Young Human】

【Description: A burnt-offering sacrifice tainted by evil arts, its power drawn from the Demon Scientists' Alliance】