Chapter 553: Escape

The Alpha Python's strength is unquestionable; without the self-contained Immortality Field of the Green-Skin Train, without the sanctuary provided by Dreamland, without the preparations made millennia ago by the top-tier powerhouse 【Yù Tiān Dí】, players from two main universes would have exhausted countless lives trying to survive Alpha's match-three game.

In fact, as a participant in the mission, Lei Yesi, hailing from a new-generation criminal syndicate in Jalisco, Mexico, was quite proud of having survived Alpha's grasp; though following the instructions of the Loujie Neighborhood Committee, he did not upload his first-person walkthrough video—which could expose the existence of otherworldly players—to Feiwang, he privately retained a backup and added his own director's commentary track, repeatedly savoring: "The otherworldly players led by the Fungus King? Even odds—I often solo-kill him."

"Alpha has been over-mythologized; he's not that strong. Surviving our hundreds of deaths while wearing the Immortality Field was just luck. We'll die a few thousand more times and eventually overwhelm him."

Even the Alpha Python's head, successfully recorded by the Heat Death Corridor, is far beyond the reach of a cultivator at this level to challenge.

After one breath, Li Cheng's spiritual power was exhausted, and the Phase-Magic vanished.

But the system notification signaling the end of the death duel did not sound.

Li Cheng scanned his surroundings; his pupils, hidden beneath the faceplate, flickered rapidly between red and green, contracting and dilating at high frequency, his cone and rod cells repeatedly adjusting to alter their spectral detection range.

Found it.

Far in the distance, tiny black particles invisible to the naked eye coalesced from scattered dots into wisps of smoke, attempting to drift into the bubbles symbolizing network devices.

Taking the human race alone as an example, Level 5 is a minor threshold, Level 10 a major one.

Level 5 means preliminary mastery of transcendent power, sufficient to skirmish with basic modern armed forces like police units,

militia, and—with good luck—escape from elite units without full-star ratings.

Level 10 means no longer a novice; one has gained deeper understanding of transcendent power and can employ diverse methods to contend with quasi-military forces, including but not limited to elite police, mercenaries, and PMKC private military security companies. Yet against modern informationized armies' land-sea-air encirclement, defeat remains the only option.

Level 15: even small-scale conventional military forces, including special forces, can no longer contain them. Only specialized armed units trained specifically to handle transcendent beings—like Mobile Task Forces—can manage them.

Or, disregarding collateral damage, unleash overwhelming long-range firepower: aerial bombs, missiles, rocket salvos.

Level 20 and Level 25: in a world without transcendent power, they can take whatever they want; even among today's Earthly major guilds, these individuals are regarded as reliable pillars.

Only transcendent beings of equal or higher level, and reverence for nuclear and sub-nuclear weapons, can control or suppress them.

There is no physical barrier between Level 25 and Level 30, but the player community universally regards anything above Level 30 as another realm—simply because of survivability.

At this tier, strength, agility, defense, endurance, HP, combat intelligence, and special abilities are all baseline, with no weak points.

Most importantly, Level 30 is extremely hard to kill.

Wolverine-Deadpool lineage, Lich's phylactery, Horcruxes, soul possession, Corpse Liberation Immortal, relic chips, Impure Land Reincarnation,

Resurrection Amulet, River of the Dead, Death Cycle, clone duplicates, consciousness upload, necromancy spells...

With tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of game coins spent, every conceivable survival technique, whether grand and majestic or bizarre and inscrutable, becomes achievable.

Long ago, a very blurry screenshot—like one copied hundreds of times on Weibo until it turned green—circulated on forums, depicting a legendary item named 【The Underworld King's Arena Entry Ticket】: upon death, it automatically activates, teleporting the holder into an arena to duel an opponent of equal strength; victory restores full HP.

Commonly called: "Win the Revival Match."

As a biological weapon from an advanced otherworldly civilization, the Phase-Magic's vitality far exceeds that of a cockroach—and yet it survived Alpha's head's breath.

"It's escaping!" cried Hui Yu, still hovering in midair, desperately piecing itself back together.

"It won't escape."

Li Cheng's expression didn't change; he snatched up the Alchemical Magic Cannon, rotated its track, exposed the loading port, and hurled his long-time companion, 【Bat Hook Claw Gun】, into it.

Times have changed; floating engines, familiar repositioning, and other gear and skills are now fully available—he no longer needs it for mobility.

Hui Yu saw the alchemical cannon glow with charging light and cried out in anguish, stretching his arm forward: "No, Bat—Hook—Claw—Gun!"

As his cry echoed, the alchemical cannon fired abruptly—a heavy metal ship's anchor, far larger than the cannon itself, shot out, instantly crossing half the network space and plunging into the ethereal black mist.

The Bat Hook Claw Gun's effect is to launch a grappling hook that embeds into a surface, providing a directional kinetic vector.

But after being loaded into the alchemical cannon, its effect changed to: 【Fire a projectile that forcibly drags the target toward the user】.

Crack!

The anchor, like a grappling hook, firmly caught the black mist. The thick iron chain tightened to its limit, emitting a grating, teeth-on-edge squeal.

Seeing this, the thin black mist no longer concealed itself—it revealed a shrunken, potato-shaped body, dragging the anchor embedded in its back, charging recklessly into one of the bubbles.

Alpha's head-breath had indeed inflicted horrific damage, causing the Phase-Magic—highly intelligent yet lacking individual will—to fully recognize the threat of death and attempt escape.

"You hold it!"

Li Cheng unhesitatingly tossed the alchemical cannon into Hui Yu's arms, then activated the hexagonal vector nozzles on his insect-form backplate, generating thrust to dash forward, following the iron chain's trail toward the Phase-Magic, and plunging into the same bubble.

In the real world: "As a finance KOL, I can assert that now is the best moment to surrender to the U. S...."

Before an old computer screen, a slumped figure in a sweatshirt, as always, tapped on a keyboard caked with cigarette ash, posting a press release tweet.

Suddenly, the screen blazed with blinding light, illuminating the cluttered, filthy room and startling cockroaches into frantic scuttling from the corners.

A black potato, dragging an iron chain, crashed through the computer desktop. Behind it, a figure clad in biomaterial armor sprinted in furious pursuit.

Both vanished in an instant, disappearing from the right edge of the screen. The entire display went dark, emitting a burnt odor. The slumped figure before the desk remained frozen in shock, his first thought: "Shit! My screen! How many press releases do I need to write to earn this back?!"

At the same moment, the LCD GG screens in Times Square, New York; hotel TVs in Xia Weiyi; smartphones across multiple districts in Seoul—all flickered with the Phase-Magic's image.