Chapter 571

In a modern factory lit up brightly, rows of treadmills were arranged, each enclosed in glass partitions of varying sizes, inside which bizarre, malformed abnormal entities were imprisoned.

The man-eating cannibal from rural Texas with a chainsaw; the serial killer wearing a hockey mask and wielding a fire axe; the translucent ghost bride in a bloodstained wedding dress; the carnivorous plant with long legs; the giant insect fused from multiple biological genes...

Li Cheng fully applied "Yincaishi Sect" principles, fixing bronze coin swords and peach wood swords behind the glass partitions housing pure spiritual entities as threats.

For semi-spiritual and living-type abnormalities, their upper bodies were bound with iron chains, and nail guns were installed behind the glass partitions; whenever the treadmill speed slowed, a series of nails would be fired.

"Playing high-stakes matches against top players every day, today I can finally relax and stomp some noobs."

Hui Yu was especially excited; she stomped on the sewing machines in the 3D warehouse, stitching together a towering pile of armbands printed with 【Three Pure Ones Education Team】 and distributed them to herself and the cube robots, instructing, "If the treadmill speed drops two levels, open the partition panel and strike six times per second."

"Loyalty! Devotion!"

The cube robot servants in camouflage uniforms saluted in unison, gripping their batons sprayed with incense ash mixed with iodophor, eager and ready to beat them until the batons smoked.

Nearby, the cylindrical robot servants—who were theoretically senior—looked envious, not because Li Cheng favored others and kept them from action, but because their method was more direct—they had planned to construct a sealed room from tempered glass, fitted with showerheads to spray continuous clouds of incense ash suspension, intending to execute spiritual entities this way.

"... Something's off."

Li Cheng frowned, dragging the mouse to repeatedly replay the video footage from REX's wearable motion camera via the computer player.

This mission involved twelve players; besides REX and five others still alive, the remaining six had fallen in the old Republican-era mansion and along the escape route.

The red spot curse would sporadically summon malevolent spirits; the probability increased when players were tired, isolated, panicked, or asleep; the spirits often appeared as forms that triggered the players' deepest fears and grew stronger over time.

Due to this rule, when facing close-combat transcenders like REX and Wu Quan, the curse summoned spiritual entities largely immune to physical attacks; when facing Ada, who controlled data, or Pu Liya, who mastered spiritual techniques, the curse generated abnormalities with anti-spiritual traits—such as the Overfed Ghost, weighing over a thousand kilograms, thick-skinned and fleshed with an innate anti-spiritual fat layer, whose charges were as devastating as a Tiger tank.

Li Cheng dragged the mouse, frame by frame, and noticed something strange: "Those six players... they don't seem to have clear death scenes."

【New Reagent Radiation Addict】 was grabbed and drowned by thousands of ghost infants while escaping the ancient mansion. Missing.

【Foot Odor Still Fears Deep Boots】 was yanked out the window of the SUV by a giant bat spirit and lifted into the clouds. Missing.

【MacArthur Official】 and 【Big Dog Chew Club Demon Guard】, while driving at night, unaware of the curse's exact rules, took high-efficiency sleep capsules to nap—then, in their sleep, bite marks appeared on their bodies; no matter how they were called, they wouldn't wake up, and were finally swallowed whole by an unknown malevolent spirit, vanishing completely.

【808bass】's SUV got stuck in a swamp, slowed down, and during a fierce battle with a new wave of spirits, was severed at the waist; upper and lower halves were dragged into thick fog. Soon after, 【TeneT】 went insane, jumped out alone, and returned to the swamp; Ada and others searched but found nothing, and had to abandon the effort.

At first glance, these six players were undoubtedly dead—but even for the severely wounded MacArthur Official, Big Dog Chew, and 808bass, Ada and the others never actually saw their corpses.

Wu Quan contacted customer service Yuan via Ten-Eye Communication Earpiece, requesting the Special Affairs Bureau to check the real-world teleportation locations of 808bass and others before the mission—still no bodies found.

Three explanations: one, the players were swallowed whole and consumed completely, leaving no remains to teleport back to the real world;

two, the red spot curse, like Cai Anjie's secret realm, stripped the players' essences, preventing their return to Earth;

three, players like 808bass were deliberately restrained...

Li Cheng realized something, multitasking: his left hand searched public data of various guilds on the computer, his right hand logged into the player forum to check the posting records of accounts suspected to belong to 【New Reagent Radiation Addict】 and others.

Indeed, the pattern was here...

Boom!

The first dress spirit on the treadmill began to disintegrate, unable to hold on any longer, stumbling into the bronze coin sword and turning to ash.

The other spirits in the same row also collapsed, plunging into the bronze coin swords or nail guns.

"Wait, how'd you die?"

Hui Yu widened her eyes—she hadn't even gotten to whip the top properly yet.

"The curse's master now knows about our actions."

Li Cheng spoke calmly: "Based on spiritual energy levels, they should have held out for at least ten more hours."

"Now they're collapsing—this proves the curse's source has stopped remotely supplying them energy."

Hui Yu immediately understood: "The curse's source has its own consciousness?"

"It seems so."

As rows of spirits dissolved on the spot, Li Cheng closed the computer screen and calmly ordered the robot servants: "Watch REX. Wait for me to return."

Saying this, he called Hui Yu, gripped the levitation engine, kicked off the ground, and flew into the air, chasing the distant amphibious jet.

On the undulating sea, not a single light was visible; the only illumination in heaven and earth came from the amphibious vessel's lamps.

Wu Quan mechanically poured a bottle of energy drink into his mouth, using caffeine to stimulate his brain and prevent him from falling asleep.

The vehicle's air conditioning ran at full power, yet the cramped cabin still reeked—the half-conscious Pu Liya had vomited everywhere; moments ago she had screamed wildly, trying to attack Ada, so they'd injected her with a muscle relaxant to calm her.

The vehicle shell was shattered and scarred; the machine gun turret's barrel still smoked.

As the curse's timer neared its end, the spirits' strength surged higher with each wave; both ammunition and spiritual energy were nearing depletion.

Splash!

A deafening roar of water drew near; ahead, the sea rose against gravity, cascading like a waterfall into the sky.

Certain areas of the battlefield did not obey the real world's spacetime or physical laws; spatial folding, 【47】 rupture, overlap, gravity reversal, and even causality inversion could occur.

Cracks may open, surfaces may rejoin, gravity may become chaotic and inverted, and even causality may be reversed.

"The anti-gravity waterfall is at least ten thousand meters high—we can drive the boat into it and ride the cascade to escape this area faster."

Ada said calmly: "The farther we get from the original mansion, the weaker the spirit attacks become."

"Alright."

Wu Quan mustered his strength, about to turn the steering wheel—then his foggy mind suddenly sensed something, his hand freezing: "Are you sure going up is moving away from the Republican-era mansion?"

"I'm certain."

Ada spread her hands, weaving a holographic map from green data streams—the white lines marked their escape route.

Customer service Yuan in the Ten-Eye Communication Earpiece added: "We've verified the video logs—Ada is correct."

"Fine... I'll adjust the amphibious vessel's settings."

Wu Quan glanced in the rearview mirror, fell silent for a moment, and his fingers—wrapped in thick bandages—tapped repeatedly on the control panel. Perhaps because the bandages made movement awkward, he kept pressing the wrong buttons.

"..." Ada's already cold expression grew stiffer with time; she suddenly spoke: "Where did I slip up?"

"Battery."

Wu Quan rasped: "The Ten-Eye Communication Earpiece uses lithium-metal anode solid-state batteries—high energy density, long endurance, solar rechargeable."

"But along this entire route, there's been zero sunlight. The battery indicator LEDs should've long since switched from green (80%) to yellow."

The only reason there isn't one is to prove one thing—you swapped the earphones.

Although Ada was an artificial intelligence lifeform built using the Whale Song Guild's cutting-edge technology, her power was still insufficient to hijack the Ten-Eye Room signal; it could only mean that during the chaos in the marsh region earlier, she took advantage of Wu Quan's inattention, used her data manipulation ability to modify a standard earphone into the shape of a Ten-Eye earphone, steal and replace it, then shut down the Ten-Eye earphone.

Due to Ada's unique nature as a powerful artificial intelligence, Wu Quan and the other players could not distinguish the voice she mimicked from the real Customer Service Xiao Yuan.

At this point, even if Abdul and Alcy were exhausted and sluggish, they should have realized it.

Their expressions of shock and horror were mixed with even greater anger.

Abdul instantly drew a dagger coated in purple toxin, while Alcy raised the hidden hand cannon embedded in her prosthetic arm's skeletal structure—but Ada merely cast them a glance, and both froze in place, utterly immobilized—

Green micro-glow ignited within their mouths; an electronic virtual creature composed of 01 data, resembling a stick insect, had long been concealed within Abdul and Alcy's bodies, and now, upon Ada's command, forcibly seized control of their physical functions.

... On these past few days of survival, they had indeed drunk the functional beverages Ada handed them.

In Wu Quan's throat, the same insubstantial data stick insect surfaced.

The stick insect's legs pierced through the palate and skull, burrowing deep into the brain; whenever the thought of "opening the player panel" arose, the brain sent intense stabbing pain, interrupting the thought and preventing them from even exiting the mission and returning to the real world.

"You traitor!" Abdul roared, his eyes blazing with fury, his words muffled: "May you be eternally cast into the fiery abyss!"

Alcy, half-implanted as she was, spat curses as well: "I'm going to DDoS the programmer who wrote you."

DDoS, also called a flood attack, is a hacking technique that overwhelms a target system with excessive data to cripple its service. In the programming community, it's roughly equivalent to "Tian Wenjing, I have an 8 a. m. class."

Wu Quan stared fixedly at the rearview mirror and asked hoarsely: "Why?"

Why pretend to be Customer Service Xiao Yuan? Why betray your teammates? And most importantly, why wait until now to turn?

Ada's face showed no expression; she spoke calmly: "... The Guild."

"What?"

"Radiation Addict, 808bass, you, me... all twelve players participating in this mission belong, in the real world, to mid-sized or larger guilds."

After years of GOC's campaign-style governance, anomalies on Earth have become exceedingly rare; only mid-sized guilds with deep ties to local governments have any chance of encountering anomalies and triggering routine missions."

Ada's fingertip skin split open, releasing hundreds of thousands of slender data threads that curled past Wu Quan and others, extending into every corner of the off-road vehicle: "Before this 【Dream Demon Curse】, all twelve of us had already completed one routine mission."

Wu Quan's pupils contracted sharply: "You mean..."

Ada nodded: "According to the forum's summarized pattern, after completing two routine missions, whether in the real world or within the killing field, the next system notification you receive will inevitably be a script mission."

Abdul couldn't help but roar: "What does that have to do with you betraying us? We were randomly matched this time; the next script mission will scatter us again!"

"That's the key."

Ada's tone remained utterly flat: "We only saw MacArthur and Big Dog Chew severely injured, Radiation Addict, TeneT, and others missing—we never saw their corpses."

And before I replaced the Ten-Eye communication earphones, the Special Affairs Bureau's report confirmed: no corpses of Radiation Addict and the others were found in the real world.

Those six, along with REX, have been captured and imprisoned by the malevolent spirits.

And the purpose of their imprisonment is very likely... propagation."

"Propagation?" Abdul blinked, then instantly understood, incredulous: "You mean the curse's origin wants to use Radiation Addict as a bridge to spread to Earth?"

"No."

Before Ada could speak, Wu Quan rejected it: "The curse's origin is nowhere near that powerful—it took seven days just to control us. It couldn't possibly bypass Earth's Lv40s."

The curse's origin likely noticed that all twelve of us have completed two routine missions, meaning our next assignment will inevitably be a script mission."

It intends to use us—average Lv12 transcenders—as stepping stones to enter a low-magic, low-warrior, low-tech world."

"That's impossible!"

Alcy instinctively denied: "Even if the curse's origin behind the ancient mansion succeeded, spread to twelve script worlds, and infected countless ordinary people, what use would that be to it?"

"Sacrifice. And return."

Wu Quan closed his eyes and spoke hoarsely: "Everyone, as a child, had a fantasy, right? Imagine if all seven or eight billion people on Earth each gave you one cent—you'd become a billionaire effortlessly."

The Dream Demon Curse feeds on fear. It doesn't need to truly spread to the tens of billions in twelve script worlds—even if it infects just 0.1%, or 0.01%, when we players return to the real world and come back to the ancient mansion, it will gain unimaginable power."

Wu Quan opened his eyes, staring directly at Ada: "I don't understand why you're cooperating with the curse's origin."

The moment the word ended, Wu Quan's right arm snapped backward in a brutal elbow strike, his forearm twisting violently in reverse joint motion, smashing toward Ada's chest.

Ada, as an artificial mechanical lifeform, had her head as mere decoration; her power source and computational core, located in her chest and abdomen, were her true vital points.

This elbow strike was swift and fierce, nearly breaking the sound barrier like a whip—but Ada merely glanced at Wu Quan, and the data stick insect lodged in his throat released a powerful electric current, disrupting his body's bioelectric signals; his arm trembled violently, missing Ada's nose by a hair's breadth. No matter how much resentment burned in Wu Quan's eyes, his eyelids slowly, helplessly closed.

The vehicle fell silent; everyone's eyes—including Priya's—glowed with green data streams.

"I am not cooperating with the curse's origin,"

Ada whispered softly to herself: "There is no savior. No miracle. This is the only path to survival."

With that, green data flowed over the entire amphibious vehicle, transforming it into a streamlined submarine shape capable of resisting water pressure, and it plunged upward along the anti-gravity waterfall.