Chapter 481: Pharaoh (4K)

Li Cheng flipped the forceps and said coolly, "The Evil Science Alliance's work."

"The Evil Science Alliance?"

Zhongtian Beiji paused, frowning: "When we entered the script mission, there were seven figures. Now only four of us have regrouped."

One Evil Science Alliance player entered this world with us and killed DeSchwartz early on,"

or was he captured accidentally, and to survive, leaked combat zone intel to the world's natives?"

Zhongtian Beiji had seen plenty of such posts on player forums—evil minds exhaust themselves, but fools stumble upon clever ideas.

There really were idiots in team missions who thought they could freely manipulate and exploit NPCs, sneaking in copies of "World War II History" or "Soviet History" into scripts, only to trigger a plot rampage and all die together hand in hand,

with only the action camera returning to Earth.

Could it be that they too have a trash teammate who leaked forbidden info to the NPCs, causing the difficulty to skyrocket?"

"In my opinion, no."

Li Cheng shook his head, casually: "Take beef as an example—once chewed and swallowed, stomach acid and pepsin immediately begin breaking down proteins to soften the meat."

Within one to three hours, active digestion begins: the stomach contracts powerfully, mechanically crushing chunks into semi-liquid chyme."

Between three and six hours, the chyme is gradually batch-released into the small intestine."

This world's DeSchwartz was over seventy. His gastric acid secretion, gastric motility, and digestive capacity had declined sharply compared to a young man's. Judging from the degree of food digestion in the stomach and the contents of the chyme in the small intestine, at least four hours had passed since his last meal. And at that time, we had not yet entered this script world."

In other words, this finger was not the work of our batch of players."

Zhongtian Beiji instantly understood, eyes narrowing: "This script world had players descend before."

"Correct."

Li Cheng nodded, placed the stomach and intestines back, and stored the corpse along with them in the 3D warehouse—DeSchwartz, as an Epstein Island SVIP, granted 6% ability unlock progress; recycling the body was perfectly efficient.

"Players had descended before."

Zhongtian Beiji's mind raced—he was, after all, a GOC elite. He rapidly replayed the logic in his head: "That player's descent time, going backward, was likely no more than ten years ago. And their interference with the world was probably minimal. Their level should be above Lv25."

The descent time and degree of interference were easy to understand: the butterfly effect amplifies tiny disturbances. If that player had revealed supernatural power publicly during the Cold War and been discovered by superpowers, even leaving behind a legacy of transcendent power, the global situation in 2009 would have changed drastically,

and no Western elites would be leisurely throwing parties on Epstein Island as they were in the real world timeline.

The information about level being above Lv25 came from the bear-like monster capable of phasing and teleporting.

At this thought, Zhongtian Beiji was struck with sudden dread.

All Epstein Island SVIPs were top-tier figures from the American pyramid. If they had encountered supernatural power, they would never have failed to exploit it—certainly not without forming research teams to analyze its fundamental nature.

Ten years' time—if the world's underlying logic permitted spiritual energy to exist, and they poured unlimited resources into it, they'd have uncovered something by now."

"Let's keep moving. If I'm right, there shouldn't be many living people left in the valley."

Li Cheng said indifferently, striding forward.

Until they reached the forest's edge, the scene suddenly opened up.

A wide, calm river flowed silently; on its southern bank stood a six-meter-tall wooden statue of a human body with a bull's head, seated on a chair.

The statue itself wore an ancient Roman toga, half its body bare, revealing muscular physique—but paired with the bull's head, it looked grotesquely unnatural.

Beneath the statue sat an altar, upon which rested a satellite phone.

Before the altar stood two rows of burning copper basins; between them lay numerous corpses of prominent figures, their deaths gruesome.

Business tycoons with bitten-off tongues;

Old European nobles with eyes pierced by firebrands;

Senators who died from carbon ingestion;

"No!"

Zhongtian Beiji's pupils contracted—these black-robed figures wielded influence greater than the Sultan of Brunei in the underground winery; they were unquestionably SVIPs.

The combat mission's objective was to kill eight SVIPs. Only one had been eliminated so far; completion felt impossibly distant.

The good news: Epstein was nowhere to be seen.

"The system prompt hasn't appeared—the mission hasn't failed."

Li Cheng shook his head. At that moment, the previously blocked civilian walkie-talkie crackled again with the Oracle's voice: "Hello? Can you hear me?"

Li Cheng picked up the walkie-talkie: "I hear you."

"Phew,"

The Oracle exhaled sharply: "I'll cut to the chase—twenty minutes ago, a bear-shaped spirit-beast burst from the woods, shoved aside a decommissioned shuttle bus on the runway, then vanished.

Then a C-17 transport landed on the runway, carrying an 8x8 armored vehicle, two AH-64 Apache helicopters, and a full special ops team. They're unloading now."

The Oracle's voice was deliberately lowered, as if he was in some narrow, secret space.

Li Cheng asked: "Where are you now? How did you contact us?"

"Joker and I are hiding in a hole he dug with his skill. As for how we contacted you—there should be an electronic warfare aircraft near the island, launched from San Juan Airport—likely an EA-6B Prowler. It's jamming the 400–470 MHz UHF band, which includes civilian walkie-talkie frequencies."

The Oracle explained: "I used a player skill to hop frequencies and encrypt the signal to reach you."

"Understood."

Li Cheng took a deep breath and briefly explained his situation. The other end of the walkie-talkie fell into dead silence.

SVIPs dying en masse, Epstein missing, U. S. military helicopters and special ops landing, the mastermind seemingly wielding supernatural power—the situation was overwhelmingly dire for the players.

His mind racing, Li Cheng asked gravely: "Can you connect to this world's internet right now?"

The Oracle said: "With only the equipment I have, no. But if I use a player skill, I could force a connection via satellite relay. But it would drain most of my spiritual energy."

"Connect."

Li Cheng decided: "Focus on gathering news from the past ten years—look for deviations from the real-world timeline's major events."

"Understood."

The Oracle paused, then spoke rapidly: "On this world's timeline, during Christmas 1999, a meteor fell over Chicago, Yilinuoyizhou, killing and injuring hundreds, sparking millennial doomsday panic."

9/11 happened as scheduled; President Bush launched the Afghanistan War in October 2001 and the Iraq War two years later, but the campaigns went terribly badly—coupled with the Abu Ghraib scandal and the subprime crisis, he lost the 2004 election, and the first Black president took office earlier than expected."

This triggered a chain reaction: the war on terror raged fiercely, Ukraine's Orange Revolution occurred prematurely, Russia intervened militarily, and the conflict caused a biological research lab to leak, sparking a global pandemic.

The LGBT movement and Black Lives Matter movement emerged earlier, triggering a backlash that gave rise to the MAGA movement, with protests erupting one after another, forcing the United States to establish more military bases domestically.

The clues linked together in his mind, revealing a sliver of the truth; Li Cheng took a deep breath and said calmly, "I understand. What about the other areas of the island? Did any VIPs leave by boat?"

The Oracle paused. "No. I hacked into the island's surveillance system. Many people are crowded at the dock entrance, barred from boarding yachts by armed guards." Li Cheng nodded. "Good. In a few minutes, the C-17 transport will finish loading; the armed helicopters inside will likely head straight for the forest."

At that time, I need you to do two things.

Amid the strange gaze of Zhongtian Beiji, Li Cheng finished his instructions.

Then he stepped out of the woods, walked across the ground littered with corpses, and picked up the military satellite phone from the altar, shaped like a brick.

A sticky note was stuck on the side of the satellite phone, giving idiot-proof instructions: 【Press the dial button】.

Li Cheng smirked and answered the call. "Hello."

"Hello, traveler from the parallel world,"

A resonant, modulated middle-aged Black man's voice came from the satellite phone. "Or should I call you… Player?"

"'Traveler' sounds too divine. Just call me Player."

Li Cheng said calmly, "Anyway, nice to meet you, Black Pharaoh."

Correct. The middle-aged Black man on the other end of the satellite phone was none other than the first Black president in U. S. history, who profoundly reshaped American politics under the slogan "Change," hailed by public intellectuals as "a once-in-a-millennium leader who redefined American values."

Barack Hussein Obama.

"I like the title 'Black Pharaoh,'"

The middle-aged Black man chuckled softly. "Pi Fu, the Oracle, Zhongtian Beiji, Joker—do you happen to be one of them?"

"Guess? The first love boy 【Pi Fu】, dazzlingly charming;

Qingfeng Baiyang 【the Oracle】, gentle and luminous;

Mermaid Lead Singer 【Zhongtian Beiji】, warm and radiant;

Aura Invincible 【Joker】, a national-style youth;

We are TNT, TeensinTimes."

Thanks to the system's inexplicable translation ability, this passage was rendered verbatim into the universal human language.

Obama fell silent for a long while; beside Li Cheng, Zhongtian Beiji's expression cracked, barely holding back a retort.

Why am I even in this? What the hell is "Mermaid Lead Singer"? A Fishman from One Piece? And why is the abbreviation for Team NINE's TeensinTimes TNT instead of TIT? That makes no sense at all.

To his surprise, Li Cheng seemed to read his thoughts and turned to him calmly. "Because TIT can be translated as 'Titmouse.' You've seen it, right?

The Hardworking Rooster crushes the Little Titmouse.

On the Great Titmouse of the Morro Islamic Front."

"Huh?" Zhongtian Beiji genuinely didn't understand. "What's that? Some new internet slang?"

Li Cheng froze, then realized: this overseas Chinese heir had lived an absurdly lavish life—dating models, influencers, celebrities every day.

The online resources netizens consumed were less than what he'd experienced firsthand, so he'd never bothered to look at them, never learned these memes.

"We're done."

Li Cheng slapped his forehead. He had nothing in common with a life so full.

After a pause, Obama hesitated. "An impressive statement. Why not follow the footprints up the mountain? I believe we can find room for cooperation."

"Let me organize the information I have."

Li Cheng said. "Four hours ago, Epstein and a host of VIPs and SVIPs held a sacrificial ritual to Moloch in the woods, consuming human flesh."

Then, at some point, an unexpected event occurred: all VIPs and SVIPs present died mysteriously; Epstein and the remaining SVIPs vanished without a trace.

That moment must have been when the island's management reported the anomaly to Epstein.

Combined with the bear-shaped spiritual footprints in the forest and the U. S. military's ultra-efficient strike, we can deduce the following—

You, the Black Pharaoh of this timeline, long before becoming a senator from Yilinuoyizhou, received a legacy from a Player's intrusion incident and gained supernatural power.

You then secretly manipulated events, reshaped the global order, and climbed step by step to the presidency.

When news of the island's anomaly reached you, you immediately realized another Player had appeared. You halted the ritual, killed all the VIPs and SVIPs, and hid the survivors.

Given your decisive actions and your precise knowledge of our four names,

There was another Player on the ritual site, in the form of a child, correct?

You learned our mission objective through him."

Clap. Clap. Clap.

From the satellite phone came applause; the Black Pharaoh chuckled lightly. "Extremely correct.

Dealing with smart people is refreshing. Most SVIPs on the island are already dead—only seven remain, all in my hands.

If I act, the deaths caused by me won't count toward your mission tally. Then the 【Escape from Lolita Island】 mission will fail."

I went to great lengths to build this stage precisely to speak with, negotiate with, and cooperate with you, the otherworldly Players."

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow. "Cooperate how?"

"I hand over the seven SVIPs so you can complete your mission. In return, you give me a copy of a transcendent power seed. How?"

The Black Pharaoh spoke in his signature, seductive tone, cheerfully: "For you, there's zero real loss—and you'll complete your mission effortlessly."

Li Cheng narrowed his eyes. "What if I say no?"

The Black Pharaoh said: "One: the penalty for mission failure is permanent entrapment in the script world. You might have an emergency escape card to leave, but your companions may not."

Two: even if you use the emergency escape card to leave, you'll still face the system's hidden penalty for skipping stages.

Three: multiple aircraft—including F-16s and F-22s—are circling the island at high altitude in wide arcs; several Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are heading toward Little Saint James Island; numerous missiles and bombs are locked onto the valley."

Zhongtian Beiji looked up and indeed saw the faint indicator lights of aircraft through the clouds.

Li Cheng clicked his tongue, unsure whether it was sarcasm or praise. "You're truly meticulous… and outwardly kind, inwardly black-hearted."

Hmm. Actually, Obama's face is black too. Literally: "Dare you compare what a real black hand looks like?!"

Zhong Tian Beiji grumbled inwardly, but heard Li Cheng draw a deep breath. "Alright, I'll come find you up the mountain. I'm sure we can have a positive and constructive conversation."

On the other end of the satellite phone came a hearty laugh. "YES, we can."