Chapter 485: Solitary Star (5K)

Zhong Tian Beiji dropped his empty magazine rifle and sprinted straight into the room, slammed the hatch shut, jammed the iron club into the door handle, not daring to waste a second.

One major trait of the Hundred Trials Immortal Destiny is that fortune and misfortune are intertwined: one minute you're lucky, the next you're cursed.

Sure enough, within seconds, Zhong Tian Beiji first pinched his pinky in the door, then tripped over nothing and bit through his tongue.

Fortunately, he'd pre-injected painkillers; he pushed up with one hand and stood, pulling three vials of Sugammadex from thin air and injecting them into the three child players.

Without pause, he took out four small blocks of C4 plastic explosive and stuck them to the cabin walls.

At that moment, heavy footsteps echoed above deck; U. S. soldiers reached the lower level and slammed against the hatch, the iron club in the handle groaning under the impact.

San Ri Yue's eyelids trembled, slowly opening, and with a "Huh—" he sat upright on the operating table.

"You're awake?"

Zhong Tian Beiji glanced at her briefly amid his work, instantly understanding—San Ri Yue had unknowingly killed two SVIPs, so her power unlock progress was higher than the remaining two players, allowing her to awaken faster.

"I'm… still alive?"

San Ri Yue looked dazed, nearly toppling off the operating table.

"You're alive for now. After this, who knows?"

As he installed the C4 explosives, Zhong Tian Beiji tossed a heavy black canvas bag over his shoulder to San Ri Yue. "Open it. Put diving respirators on everyone. Then tie them together with ropes."

"Got it."

San Ri Yue took a deep breath, jumped off the operating table, clumsily unzipped the canvas bag, pulled out eight diving respirators, and fitted them onto herself, the two unconscious players, and the remaining five VIPs.

Then she connected them all with safety ropes.

Zhong Tian Beiji had found this yacht so quickly because Li Cheng provided intelligence—the earlier room footage had subtle, imperceptible rocking, proving the room was on a ship.

Considering the interior decor wasn't military, the most likely location was a luxury yacht—and one with U. S. soldiers stationed aboard.

Master Pi Fu's order to Zhong Tian Beiji was to rescue three players and extract five VIPs. As for the exact method—

Boom!

U. S. soldiers smashed through the door, only to see Zhong Tian Beiji and the others crouched beneath the operating table, holding detonators in hand.

Boom—

As the detonators were pressed, all four C4 blocks exploded simultaneously; a quarter of the aluminum alloy wall tore apart, seawater gushing into the cabin and sweeping the soldiers clustered at the door away.

Torrential water flooded the corridor; the entire yacht rocked violently. Zhong Tian Beiji waved one hand—the iron club on the floor flew back into his grasp and vanished into his backpack slot.

With another gesture, he pulled out an electric underwater propulsion unit and led the group out of the yacht, diving beneath the waves.

————

"What do you mean 'detainees have escaped'?"

On the Apache helicopter, Black Pharaoh's temple veins bulged; he lost his calm media composure and roared over the comms: "Soldiers, find them! Or you're a traitor to all humanity!"

After his outburst, Gao Chao's emotional control brought Black Pharaoh back to calm.

The advantage still lay with him: Epstein was in his hands, and Master Pi Fu's side had failed their mission—they remained trapped in child-sized bodies until the system timer expired.

Their task was to kill them all before the system timer ended, ensuring no one slipped through.

The future of this world hinged on these few minutes. If Black Pharaoh won, he secured player qualifications and power seeds for this world, preserving the spark of resistance against interdimensional travelers.

If Black Pharaoh lost, it wouldn't just mean wiping out most of America's elite—he'd invite absolute retaliation from otherworldly transcendents.

Bioviruses, memetic contamination, conceptual curses—even the most realistic network-wide attacks—were beyond what the world of 2009 could withstand.

"Thermal signature detected!"

The co-pilot's shout pulled Black Pharaoh back to reality: on the thermal screen, Master Pi Fu's figure skied down a slope on a metal plate, racing straight toward the coastline.

What's he doing? Committing lemming suicide?

No time to think—Black Pharaoh flung his palm downward.

Shhh—

A chilling wind swept past; the nightmare bear, nearly three stories tall with glowing red eyes, burst from the forest shadows and swiped horizontally at Li Cheng.

The blow came fast and low, skimming the ground—no time to dodge or veer.

Li Cheng's pupils contracted; he jammed a metal pipe into the ground ahead and leapt upward like a pole vaulter.

The pipe-shaped Huiyu slid forward along the ground; Li Cheng arced through the air and pulled from thin air—a child's bicycle.

The high-torque, anti-gravity 【Bat-Wing Heavy Armor Motorcycle】 had regressed into a pink, training-wheel-equipped kid's bike with tassels on the handlebars and cat stickers on the front frame.

Li Cheng gripped the handlebars, executed a 360° aerial spin, and landed hard on the ground. Huiyu reverted to its slime form and clung to the bike's front frame.

Still showing off at a time like this?

That was Black Pharaoh's first thought; his second was that this must be one of Master Pi Fu's skills—performing stunts restores mana or something.

Too bad he didn't know Li Cheng was just intermittently showing off—if he had, his expression would've been even worse.

Black Pharaoh's momentary hesitation passed to the nightmare bear.

The bear froze for two seconds, then blurred into semi-transparency, slicing through trees and shrubs at ground-hugging speed, jaws gaping wide.

"Big talk."

Smelling the blood behind him, Li Cheng raised an eyebrow, gripped the hollow metal pipe, and unleashed a miniaturized version of 【Ride the Tide, Ride the Wind, Ride the Clouds】.

A gale blasted from the hollow pipe, propelling him forward just in time to evade the bear's bite.

Not enough—he pulled out the perfect-quality item 【Backup Hidden Energy】, which had shrunk into an Hermès power bank with a cheeky "This Side Faces the Enemy" sticker.

Zzzt—

He drew mana from the power bank and summoned a six-legged magic cannon vehicle the size of a large dog, firing a shot at the nightmare bear.

A 25mm semi-armor-piercing incendiary round struck the bear's chest—like hitting gelatin, it slowed instantly, inflicting no effective damage.

"I refined the deaths of over a hundred thousand civilians from Afghanistan and Iraq to forge this bear,"

Black Pharaoh's roar echoed from within the nightmare bear, "After such sacrifice from this world, why won't you just die quietly?!"

"So the mass deaths of Afghan and Iraqi civilians count as your sacrifice? Then you're invincible."

Li Cheng bared his teeth in a mocking grin, pulling out every trick he had—first drifting his bicycle to dodge the bear's chain of pounces and bites, then using Fog Concealment to block its line of sight and pull away.

The bear flickered into a phantom and teleported again, cutting off Li Cheng ahead, bearing down on him like Mount Tai collapsing overhead.

The Servant Swap skill was still on cooldown, the Hover Engine still locked—at the critical moment, a blurry voice from Oracle came through the walkie-talkie: "Aim for the belly. Use a blazing flash."

No time to hesitate. At a thought from Li Cheng, the six-legged magic cannon war chariot running alongside the bicycle automatically switched its barrel and blasted out a pillar of fuel fire.

The flames burned through the bear's body and struck some unseen core,

The bear's form flickered violently, lost all mass, and Li Cheng simply rode straight through it.

"Hm?"

Li Cheng's heart skipped a beat—even the weakened version of his Information Integration Glasses couldn't see through the Nightmare Bear's weakness, yet Oracle somehow knew.

Could she have an ultra-long-range scanning skill? That would be bad news,

If Oracle found out he was both a level-12 Sun Bar user and a Xiaohongshu user, he'd be done for.

Whoosh—

In a flash, a Hellfire missile fired from the armed helicopter high above dove down. With nowhere to dodge, Li Cheng flung the ball-form Grey Rain outward, wrenched the handlebars hard to the side, and activated 【Stubborn-Root Stone Art】.

The next second, the missile exploded with a roar, the blast wave hurling Li Cheng into the air; his petrified body slammed heavily into a tree trunk.

The bat-wing weight armored motorcycle's child-bicycle form was totaled on the spot,

There wasn't even a moment to mourn the motorcycle,

Li Cheng braced himself against the trunk and struggled to his feet. The stone on his body cracked and shattered, fragments falling away; as the petrification wore off, every crack became a wound, blood seeping out.

Worse still, his left leg was completely broken.

The Nightmare Bear flickered like a TV screen with bad reception, rose onto its hind legs, shoving aside the trees in its path, and looked down at Li Cheng from above.

Li Cheng wiped the blood from his face, parted his lips, and whispered, "." The bear instinctively let out the Black Pharaoh's voice: "What?"

"Schemes of great ambition, yet fears to risk his skin; chases petty gain, yet forgets his life."

Li Cheng raised his head and said with a light smile: "You were chasing me so desperately just now because you were afraid I'd escape into the sea and drag this out until the mission timer ran out.

And now you don't dare kill me yourself because you think the advantage is in your hands—you're afraid that if you actually become a player, getting killed would drag you into an endless chain of death missions.

You want your soldiers to harvest my head, so they can earn the qualification.

Fair enough—being President of the United States in this world, ruling the three branches with transcendent power, bound by nothing, answerable to no one,

Running creative mode in the real world is way better than being a Killing Grounds coolie—the latter's average lifespan is even shorter than a bodybuilder's or a pill-girl's.

But pity, it's precisely because your life has been too smooth that you've lost your killer instinct—everything you do, you have to make sure you're safe first, and so you missed your last chance."

A fierce premonition of doom descended on the Black Pharaoh's heart. On the beach, Grey Rain in slime form leapt high into the air and self-detonated mid-flight.

The guests still fleeing for their lives under the gunfire of the American soldiers hadn't even reacted before steel needles pierced through their skulls one by one.

Grey Rain's current system note lists her as Li Cheng's summon—any VIP she kills naturally counts toward Li Cheng.

【One VIP has died. Player ability unlock progress increased by 2%】

【One VIP has died.】

System prompts scrolled down like a waterfall. With lightning speed, Li Cheng gripped a power bank in his left hand and drew spiritual energy,

while his right hand, sheathed in the Mercy Soul-Bestowing Glove, lifted the corpse of Ghislaine Maxwell.

This woman was not merely Epstein's mistress, but his equal partner—using the connections of her late father, Robert Maxwell, British publishing magnate and Mirror Group publisher, she pried open the door to the world's elite social circles for Epstein,

and together with him trafficked people and ran illegal detention operations.

The reason the Black Pharaoh was so confident he had the player cornered was that he had killed off all the original SVIPs, leaving Epstein alive so that through him he could designate new SVIPs.

And now—

Mercy Soul-Bestowing and Assembled Puppet activated simultaneously. The battered Maxwell corpse's eyes snapped open; under Li Cheng's control, it suddenly raised an arm and pointed toward the distant sea. "They are the new SVIPs."

Out on the sea, Zhongtian Arctic, who had swum out using an electric underwater propeller, had a safety rope tied behind him to five VIPs wearing breathing masks.

If Epstein's authority was 100%, then Maxwell's might be 80%,

and the remaining 20% was filled in by Joker and Oracle.

The two had infiltrated the island's surveillance center and retrieved the surveillance video archives and ledger hidden inside the safe.

This was the modern-day American equivalent of the Officials' Secret Records—with the videos and the ledger, Maxwell's designating power was also raised to 100%.

The Black Pharaoh's eyes nearly split with rage. Ignoring whether he'd be granted player qualification, he remotely controlled the Nightmare Bear to bring a paw slamming down.

In that instant, time seemed to slow a thousandfold; the helicopter's rotor blades turned lazily,

the Nightmare Bear's fur gleamed in the firelight,

Zhongtian Arctic pressed the detonator, setting off the plastic explosives stuck to the five unconscious VIPs.

Boom!

The bear's paw hung suspended at a height of one point four meters above the ground, unable to sink any further.

Li Cheng braced it aloft with one hand; his wounds healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the system chime still rang in his ears.

【Phase Two Mission Complete】

【Player Restrictions Lifted】

"Hoo—"

Li Cheng rolled his neck, withdrew Maxwell's soul, dropped the corpse, and wrapped both arms around the fingers of the bear's paw.

"My turn."

His feet sank deep into the ground; his small frame erupted with terrifying force, hurling the Nightmare Bear over his head and slamming it into the earth.

Before the bear could struggle to its feet, Li Cheng gave a casual flick of his right hand, gripped the steel banner-spear restored to its full length, and drove it down with full force, piercing through the Nightmare Bear's neck.

Then he raised his head and looked toward the armed helicopter high above.

The Hover Engine activated. Li Cheng rode a spatial bubble, rocketing upward at light speed; at an altitude of three hundred meters, he smashed head-on into the incoming Hellfire air-to-ground missile.

He didn't use a light-speed elbow strike to elbow the Black Pharaoh to death on the spot—instead, deliberately controlling his position, he hovered at the same altitude as the Apache gunship.

Inside the helicopter, the pilot and soldiers wore expressions of terror and despair, while in Black Pharaoh's eyes, some other emotion still flickered.

"What are you hoping for?"

Li Cheng floated among the clouds, his expression playful. "A nuke?"

The Ohio-class submarine America had deployed in the Atlantic carried twenty Trident intercontinental missiles, each one loaded with an average of four W76-1 thermonuclear warheads.

The total explosive yield of a single missile was roughly equivalent to 400,000 tons of TNT—twenty-six times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

This was Black Pharaoh's final solution: nuke the island flat, kill every Transcendent; even if he could only obtain one Player qualification, it was still better than letting the tiger return to the mountain.

"You still haven't grasped one thing—the greatest advantage Players have over a quasi-modern Earth world lies in asymmetric power."

Accompanying Li Cheng's words, a figure shot up into the high sky from the heart of the island.

Oracle—she had simultaneously lifted her Player restrictions just like Li Cheng; the wheelchair beneath her had undergone a dramatic upgrade, transforming from a hand-pushed model into a sci-fi-style anti-gravity hovering alloy wheelchair.

Seated in her wheelchair, Oracle waved her hand and released a vast swarm of drone bees, which wove themselves into a great net high in the sky.

The Trident intercontinental missiles descended like heavenly fire, re-entering the atmosphere at extreme velocity.

At the physical level, the drone swarm naturally found it difficult to intercept ICBMs with their absurdly fast terminal velocity, so their strategy was interference.

The swarm shifted formation, changing from a net into a concave radar shape, blasting out violent electromagnetic waves that pierced through the electromagnetic shielding layer and burned out the missile's control circuits, command circuits, power circuits, and flight-control processor.

The Trident's engine cut out almost instantly, its speed plummeting. At that moment the swarm surged forward en masse, releasing anti-gravity tractor beams and catching the missile—which had no time to detonate—with effortless ease.

Like a miracle.

"Next, it's his turn to make an appearance."

Li Cheng's lips curved upward; he snapped his fingers, unleashing Summoning Art · Rancher.

Boom—

The roar of a large-displacement car engine exploded in the high sky. A Ford pickup truck, painted in Stars and Stripes livery, materialized out of thin air, and from the vehicle leapt that familiar cowboy.

After being upgraded from Estate Guard to Rancher, the cowboy's smile remained just as bright and sunny. He had switched to a felt cowboy hat, wore a leather jacket, pinned a Stars-and-Stripes brooch to his chest, perched a bald eagle on his left shoulder, and gripped a leather whip in his right hand.

"Gaa!"

The bald eagle let out its classic sound effect—so loud that even Li Cheng couldn't stop his eyelids from twitching violently.

In fact, the bald eagle, America's national bird, has a hoarse, low voice like a chicken's clucking—completely unpleasant to hear.

The eagle cries that often appear in movies, TV shows, and animations all come from another bird species, the red-tailed hawk; its cry is long and piercing, with natural reverb, perfectly matching American aesthetics.

As for why the bald eagle on the Rancher's shoulder can make this sound—well, it's a Conceptual God thing, don't ask too many questions.

After the Rancher's phantom appeared, he first nodded politely to Li Cheng, then looked at Black Pharaoh in the helicopter and froze for a moment.

The Rancher's principles made him itch to whip a Black man six times a second, while the principles of America's true Stars and Stripes made him hold a basic respect for the office of President itself.

What to do—whip or not whip?

After two seconds of hesitation, the Rancher's eyes lit up. He removed the Stars-and-Stripes pin from his chest and replaced it with a Lone Star flag pin symbolizing Texas independence.

Snap!

He laughed heartily, lashed out his long whip, and charged straight toward the helicopter.