Chapter 490

"Come in."

When Li Cheng reached the 666th floor of the Predation Alliance headquarters, Truth's Side was fiddling with the 【Evil God Chessboard】.

The chessboard displayed a minutely detailed miniature landscape: a middle-aged white-collar man, covered in blood and holding a bloodstained crowbar, stood dazed on the rooftop of a high-rise hotel, overlooking a devastated city.

Countless mutated zombies hunted and fed on humans.

The mutants were either immensely strong, able to smash through concrete walls; or incredibly fast, able to chase down speeding vehicles; or had grown wings, swarming rescue helicopters in the sky.

The entire city burned; intermittent gunshots across neighborhoods could not halt the zombie tide.

Survivors—pregnant women, disabled elders—gathered beside the middle-aged white-collar man; all wore expressions of despair. Worse still, the rooftop iron door thudded repeatedly as the mutated creatures in the stairwell slammed against it with full force.

Just one second before the door shattered and all survivors were about to hold hands and leap off the rooftop, a sudden transformation occurred.

The slightly bald, beer-bellied man emitted a rainbow glow, instantly incinerating his bloodstained clothes and revealing thick body hair.

An inexplicable Japanese female choir suddenly sounded; everyone—including the mutated zombies who had broken through the door—was frozen in place, staring dumbfounded as the middle-aged man was compelled by invisible force to spin like an ice skater, striking one humiliating pose after another.

The entire process lasted over twenty seconds; when the rainbow glow faded, the bald man now wore a sailor outfit exposing his navel, white thigh-high stockings, and long boots, and the crowbar in his hand was tied with a cute pink bow.

"What the hell, I'm gonna throw up."

If the mutated zombies still had language ability, they would have definitely shouted this; they lunged wildly at the survivors—only to be pulverized into blood mist, one by one, by the bewildered girl-boy warrior uncle.

"The Girl-Boy Warrior's Apocalypse is now in theaters."

Truth's Side chuckled as he closed the chessboard and looked at Li Cheng. "What's up?"

"It's like this."

Li Cheng briefly recounted the events of this mission, the existence of the Oracle, and the theory the Oracle had finally spoken.

"Hmm."

Truth's Side reached his left hand beneath the shadow of his hood and scratched his chin; after a moment's thought, he snapped his right fingers.

The crystal-shaped familiar, serving as a desk ornament, immediately stirred, floated to the front of the bookshelf, remotely retrieved a stack of files, read their contents, and projected them into the air.

"Lin En joined the Predation Alliance two years ago at Lv10, then defected a year ago after stealing a large volume of confidential guild data—she was Lv27 at the time."

Truth's Side said casually: "I know this person—an outsider who smuggled herself over from another world; her life essence is a fantasy creature."

"You knew?" Li Cheng blinked in surprise.

"Mm."

Truth's Side nodded. "There are two types of players from other worlds: one resides in a main universe on par with Earth, with tens of thousands of mid- to high-level transcenders—must be strictly monitored.

The second type resides in a sub-universe, where the entire world has only a handful of chosen ones—no need to worry much.

I realized Lin En wasn't human from Earth; she slipped into Earth during a 'tremor' in the Killing Ground, hiding long-term within the Killing Ground's physical form,

using a hyper-realistic robot to appear publicly in the Slums and join the Predation Alliance.

Given her diligent overtime work and the massive contribution points and scientific breakthroughs she provided the guild, I didn't expose her immediately.

But she scared herself—thought her identity was exposed and the guild planned to capture and dissect her—so she struck first, stole internal data, defected, and hid in some forgotten corner of the Killing Ground's physical form."

Li Cheng raised his hand helplessly. "Classic overthinker."

Truth's Side replied honestly: "Not entirely. I planned to wait until she reached Lv28 before capturing and dissecting her—though, of course, I'd revive her afterward."

Li Cheng clicked his tongue, didn't dwell on the issue, and asked instead: "How much truth is there in the World Tree theory the Oracle mentioned?"

Truth's Side paused, then suddenly said: "Lizard People Conspiracy Theory."

"Huh?"

"Many netizens worldwide, especially in the U. S., are obsessed with the Lizard People Conspiracy Theory: that a group of extraterrestrial lizards, using shapeshifting abilities, infiltrate human society and control key economic, political, military, and media institutions, aiming to establish a New Order in preparation for the arrival of alien lizard spacecraft."

Truth's Side spread his hands. "In fact, it's not entirely a lie. Several years ago, I deeply participated in a related project: replacing real-world celebrities with bio-engineered humans, the most typical example being Zuckerberg.

To test the validity of the World Tree theory.

The alternate-world Zuckerberg did not become a bio-engineered human after his Earth counterpart was replaced; his dominant hand, speech patterns, habitual expressions—all remained unchanged, indirectly falsifying the World Tree theory.

During this process, unrelated individuals accidentally witnessed the logistics team replacing Zuckerberg's tongue implant in a luxury hotel suite, fueling the Lizard People Conspiracy Theory on the dark web."

". What?"

The information overload made Li Cheng pause. "Wait—Zuckerberg was actually replaced?"

Although the Arrival of the Killing Ground had triggered unprecedented global power realignment—where only strength could preserve wealth—many large guilds, such as the Thousand Throats Beast, the Monster Alliance, and the Whale Song,

during their founding, had collaborated extensively with multinational conglomerates, accepted investment, and cross-held shares. These wealthy elites clearly understood the importance of violence: they wanted to preserve their colossal fortunes but didn't want to become players at constant risk of sudden death.

So they parasitized transcender guilds, pursuing three strategies simultaneously: investing and buying shares,

binding promising transcenders through marriage alliances,

and desperately having children—so long as they had enough offspring, at least a few would become high-level players. The rampant proliferation of surrogacy agencies and infant acceleration chambers drastically reduced the time cost of raising children.

Zuckerberg, as a Jewish nouveau riche, was himself a member of the elite class.

Guilds most influenced by financial conglomerates—Prometheus, GS Biotech, and others—would inevitably oppose Truth's Side if he moved against his major shareholder.

"Unless—"

Li Cheng's mind flashed. "It's the Global Supernatural Alliance's order."

"Bingo."

Truth's Side said cheerfully. "Small matters get big meetings; big matters get small meetings. Michael and I both voted yes; no other top transcenders objected, so it passed.

Besides replacing Zuckerberg, we also subtly altered data: Mount Everest's height, Earth-Moon distance, lunar rotation period."

These modifications didn't affect the script world either.

The World Tree theory remains, to this day, purely theoretical."

After saying this, Truth's Side noticed Li Cheng's face showed no relief—his eye muscles had tightened slightly.

He asked in surprise: "What's wrong?"

"The Oracle told me she knew I knew you, and that I'd come to you immediately after finishing the mission."

Li Cheng drew a sharp breath. "She told me: if you mention Earth-Moon distance in your words, then the entire statement is untrustworthy."

At some point last summer, the distance between Earth and the Moon inexplicably decreased by 0.3 centimeters.

And this change was not caused by any transcendent force.

"."

The Hand of Truth hung suspended in midair; he paused for several seconds, then burst into laughter, slapping the armrest of his chair, "Hahahaha, alright, I admit I still underestimated her.

Though the answer is completely off, the reasoning process is worthy of praise."

The laughter gradually faded. The Hand of Truth leaned forward, elbows pressed against the desk, fingers interlaced beneath his nose, assuming the posture of Gendo Ikari, and said calmly, "She's right—it wasn't me, or Michael, or any transcendent being who altered the Earth-Moon distance.

It was caused by the impact of the last Arena's 【Shaking】—the one when you escorted the battery and 'me' back four years.

On that day, in the hidden chamber known as the 【Chanting Room】, occupied by the Knights Templar, we used a ritual device to observe a parallel world, its timeline set in early 20th-century Earth, where humans, elves, and demonic beasts jointly formed a massive alliance to fight the Abyss Demons.

Both sides had tens of thousands of Chosen Ones."

"That many?"

Li Cheng's eyelid twitched violently; even if all players across all ranks on Earth were combined, they numbered barely over two hundred thousand, more than half of whom were low- to mid-tier transcendent beings.

The Hand of Truth said coolly, "The good news is, that world has no Lv40s. The bad news is, the human alliance of that world discovered us and sent a message.

That message confirmed many things for us—and it was precisely because of that message that the GOC accepted the smuggled Dr. Noah from another world instead of simply eliminating him.

As for the message's content…"

The Hand of Truth spread his hands. Li Cheng immediately pressed, "What did the message say?"

"Its content carries a memetic effect; anyone whose Sanity cap is insufficient cannot remember it—they instantly forget."

"That's easy."

Li Cheng patted the Haihai Suohun Bell hanging inside his coat pocket and said confidently, "My Sanity cap far exceeds that of players at my level—it's more than enough."

The Hand of Truth said nothing, but pointed to the wall clock—its minute hand had inexplicably jumped forward two minutes, "This is already our sixth repetition of this conversation."

"Then never mind."

Li Cheng calmly tucked away the Haihai Suohun Bell.

He always believed in pragmatism: if the sky fell, Lv40s would hold it up—he didn't bother worrying.

Just as he was about to take his leave, the Hand of Truth called out to him, "One more thing. The player you saved during this mission is also from the Evil Science Alliance. He knows you don't lack money, and asked me to give you this as a token of thanks."

The Hand of Truth casually tossed a duffel bag to Li Cheng. Li Cheng opened it and scanned its contents with his Info-Synthesis Goggles—the items inside were numerous.

The red turban worn by Indian Sikh constables in the concessions of late Qing Dynasty—because Indian constables always said "ah sir," hence the term "Indian A San."

The laundry stick used by Korean police who collaborated with Japanese invaders during the War of Resistance—origin of the term "Korean Bangzi."

In addition, there were the coronation robes of the Nguyen Dynasty's Vietnamese monkeys-in-crowns, the fur coats of Russian Cossacks, the red hair of Dutch colonists, the arrest warrants for African smugglers, the red-neck MAGA hats, the Adidas jackets of Russians.

A complete collection of racial discrimination and stereotypical artifacts.

Li Cheng's expression was extraordinarily vivid; although he frequently used the Farm Lord Summoning Technique, his own racial knightliness was never that extreme, damn it!