Chapter 581: Settlement

The five-minute countdown for mission completion ended, and Li Cheng and Hui Yu returned to Earth’s surface, their bodies reverting to solid form.

“The Network Rangers—so it really happened within the network domain.”

Li Cheng muttered to himself; in the instant of return, he and Hui Yu existed for about a millisecond as green code data.

“? What’s so special about that?” Hui Yu asked, puzzled.

“Normally, mission return is direct teleportation.”

Li Cheng explained casually: “When the Arena Game first launched, multinational conglomerates ran experiments.”

They first placed players in completely dark, lightless rooms, lying inside glass containers filled with diluted milk; players executed script missions, vanishing instantly from their original location, then upon completing the script, they donned tight-fitting suits covered in femtosecond laser emitters, returned to a supine position, activated the lasers, and waited for the five-minute countdown to end—upon return, the femtosecond lasers pierced the diluted milk, captured by an ultra-high-speed compression imaging system operating at 10 trillion frames per second.

The results proved that player return time was far shorter than picoseconds or femtoseconds—that is, one ten-quadrillionth of a second.

“Hmm…”

Hui Yu blinked, thought it over, and understood Li Cheng’s meaning: “When players return, their body posture changes, meaning surrounding air or liquid gets compressed.”

The average human volume is 0.07 cubic meters; if it’s air, fine, but if it’s liquid, pushing aside 0.07 cubic meters of water in one ten-quadrillionth of a second would generate a massive underwater explosion shockwave.”

The only explanation for why this doesn’t happen is that the Arena intervened directly to nullify the effects of teleportation.”

“Exactly.”

Li Cheng felt a quiet satisfaction—his books weren’t read in vain, the Silver Wing Path wasn’t installed for nothing; Hui Yu’s intelligence was steadily approaching normal human levels.

“If player return weren’t interfered with by the Arena, major guilds wouldn’t need to research WMDs—they’d just hire a hundred players, fatten them up, turn them into Liangzi, and have them infiltrate enemy coastlines underwater, triggering tsunamis to drown coastal cities using the return effect.”

Li Cheng paused, grimacing as he clicked his tongue, “Arena players grow fast, sure, but they’re still under the Arena’s control.”

Even top-tier Qiangzhe like Michael, the Side of Truth, cannot resist teleportation.”

“It’s got downsides and upsides.”

Hui Yu said casually: “The higher the Arena’s upper limit, the higher the ceiling for players, right? After the next update, maybe they’ll unlock level caps—Lv50, Lv60, even Lv100.”

“True enough.”

Li Cheng nodded—great wisdom appears foolish, great foolishness appears wise; Hui Yu saw through it clearly.

“Oh, the Evil Science Alliance’s reality show got updated.”

A notification popped up on Hui Yu’s phone; her eyes lit up, she immediately projected the screen onto the living room’s LCD TV, grabbed snacks and drinks, and sank comfortably into the sofa to eat and watch.

“This summer, 39 brave challengers were thrown into a survival game beyond reality: one outsmarted with flawless strategy, another manipulated human darkness to gain advantage, another charged forward without fear of peril…”

The TV blared passionate narration, accompanied by flashy, dazzling preview visuals and individual character intro animations.

“Contestant One: I’m Ma Jiajue. I’m starting to lie now.”

“Contestant Two: The most important thing in life is maturity—that’s the life creed Hanibal taught me, from Zuo Chuan Yizheng.”

“Contestant Three: The only one who saw through the truth was Kaczynski—a man who looked like a math professor from UC Berkeley but possessed criminal intellect beyond human norms!”

???

Li Cheng nearly spat out his salt soda: “What the hell is this?”

“It’s the Evil Science Alliance’s new reality show—called ‘Death Game.’ It just launched on FeiNet last week and has aired three episodes.”

Hui Yu explained matter-of-factly: “The head of the Evil Science Alliance’s biology department made a breakthrough in neuroscience; to keep researching and earn more funding, he launched a reality show, gathering 39 death row inmates from various countries, removing their bodies while preserving their brains, implanting false memories, then linking their brains to servers, falsely telling them they’d been selected to join the Master God Space Death Game.”

“Brain in a vat, huh.”

Li Cheng’s eye twitched: “Isn’t this a violation of human rights, anti-human? How did the Global Supernatural Alliance approve this?”

“That’s because every contestant is a bottom-tier scumbag stripped of all rights—including human rights.”

Hui Yu sneered, fast-forwarding; contestants included, but weren’t limited to: Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia—massacre,

Cannibalism, child soldier recruitment;

Pedro Alonso López, Colombian serial killer, nicknamed “The Andes Beast,” who committed over 300 murders while roaming Central America;

An Italian intermediary who, during the Yugoslav Wars, invited over a hundred wealthy merchants from the US, Russia, UK, France, and Germany to form a tourist group, then set up sniper rifles on the mountains beside Sarajevo, killing civilians for sport.

Each one was a bottom-tier monster among monsters, with no lower bound to their anti-human depravity. The bloodthirsty viewers of Loujie felt zero guilt watching them brain-dead on the show.

They’d even welcome a voting segment where buying a specific brand of milk lets you vote to increase contestant difficulty.

“Even Kaczynski would break out in sweat competing against these monsters.”

Li Cheng’s eyelid twitched—admittedly, the Evil Science Alliance’s brain-in-a-vat tech was quite advanced: visuals were crisp, effects realistic, but the plot was painfully absurd, especially when characters screamed, “Master God! All Zhongzhou Team, restore! Deduct reward points from Ma Jiajue!”

Hui Yu was engrossed in the reality show; Li Cheng returned to his room to check his mission rewards.

【Player Overall Performance: S+, Game Coins and Experience Gained Increased to 160%】

【Reward Settlement In Progress】

Although the Phase-Shifting Demon was a conceptual bio-weapon created artificially, lacking subjective initiative, its level was undeniably Lv33.

It was no weaker than Midhean North Pole, Ten Thousand Sealed Blades, or White Horse Tombstone at the same level.

【Mission Reward 1: 3155 Experience Points】

【Mission Reward 2: 6720 Game Coins】

With the 1.6 multiplier, the Phase-Shifting Demon granted Li Cheng 5048 experience points and 10752 game coins.

Li Cheng rose from Lv26 with 1572/2600 experience to Lv28 with 1320/2800 experience.

【Mission Reward 3: Randomly seize one highest-quality item or one skill from the Phase-Shifting Demon’s inventory】

The last death duel mission was back in the Ba Ji Black Heaven scenario, fighting Jiang Zhihui in Seoul, South Korea—back then, the reward also included looting items and skills, which granted Li Cheng the [Spirit Familiar Swap] skill and [Proof of the Odd Mechanic].

“This time I lost the Bat Hook Gun and the Steel Flag Spear— Zhishao let me see some return on investment.”

Li Cheng muttered, then shouted, “Open!”

A flash of golden light appeared; at the end of his skill bar, a phantom named [Illusion-Reality: Bullet Display Splendor] materialized.

“This one’s good!”

Illusion-Reality: Bullet Display Splendor could attack or defend, had low cost and short cooldown; combined with skills like Dragon’s Breath, a single blast could summon a rain of fire, terrifying the enemy into submission.

“Just [Illusion-Reality: Bullet Display Splendor] alone is worth at least a perfect-grade learning scroll—already more than worth it. As for the other item…”

He rubbed his hands eagerly, clicked the chest—and as a blinding light flashed, his expression turned strange: the chest was filled with random junk.

“Cardboard box, old newspapers, a tattered tent, a handcart, a broken blanket, aluminum cans… This is literally the standard survival kit of an American homeless person?”