Chapter 609: Fleeing with the Pearl, the Celestial Demon Orb Descends into the World

Within Singapore's urban district, HaraBoard Corporation's electromagnetic levitation airship glided between skyscrapers, its onboard women in kimono, vibrant neon lights, and Japanese decor all proclaiming its special purpose.

As the airship passed by, within a high-rise building featuring an aerial garden and advanced security, a metallic matte, silver-glowing life-support capsule rested before a polycarbonate-laminated, gold-threaded glass floor-to-ceiling window.

Nearby, several shadows dropped from the airship.

As the sliding lid automatically opened, muscle-relaxing and calming drug sprays slowly misted onto the face of the occupant inside the capsule.

The young man inside the capsule opened his eyes, took a deep breath, then began gasping violently!

He yanked the silver metal line from the back of his neck, slapped the capsule's side wall to shut off the micro-impulse muscle massage device; transparent walls displayed his vital signs, and the AI butler kindly prompted: "Your heart rate and hormone levels are slightly abnormal. Would you like to schedule a home visit from your family physician?"

"Schedule it immediately!"

The man rolled out of the capsule, revealing a face of moderate handsomeness, deep features, clearly mixed Eastern and Western ancestry.

He appeared around twenty, sitting up from the capsule still frantically patting his bare torso—relieved to find his skin still pale, untouched by any black, tattoo-like sinister demonic runes—then slumped back against the capsule.

Laser-engraved on the sliding lid before him was the logo of Fantasy International, alongside a small line of text—

"Western Kunlun: 2nd Anniversary Limited Edition Virtual Capsule · XIC866 Model!"

"Shhh!"

A teasing whistle suddenly came from behind him; Great Shi Sui spun around to see a woman with a punk-style short haircut standing in the shadows, holding an anti-jamming electronic intrusion board displaying his photo and virtual net personal space page.

"Not bad physique!"

The woman teased, then turned to those behind her: "The person you're looking for—he's him!"

From the shadows near the window in Great Shi Sui's spacious electronic entertainment room emerged three figures; Great Shi Sui cried out in terror: "Who are you?" His heart pounded—this was a luxury apartment in Singapore's affluent district! HaraBoard's famed security team had been silently breached…

One intruder was bad enough. Two, three, four… were they treating his home like a public toilet?

And what bizarre individuals they were.

One was a towering man in typical Singaporean biker leather, his hair tied back, carrying a long sword; he regarded Great Shi Sui with faint confusion. Another was a young woman in Hanfu, her face utterly clean—no cybernetic modifications whatsoever, unlike any local from the autonomous region.

The last was a lovely girl; her attire clearly marked her as aristocratic—the external virtual net interface hanging at her waist like a jade pendant, the electromagnetic-triggered defensive shield—she was unquestionably from a wealthy clan.

Someone like him, a middle-class worker dispatched from the Central District, could never aspire to such a lineage in ten lifetimes.

"My junior sent us here with the sword just to find him?" Seeing Yan Shu prodded Great Shi Sui's body, making him weakly whimper: "What are you doing?"

"He doesn't look like those previous Yan Ou mechanical puppets—he's just ordinary flesh and blood!" Seeing Yan Shu frowned.

The female cultivator with the sword case glanced at her electronic board and confirmed: "It's definitely him! Great Shi Sui Riding the Blue Ox—real name Yuan Yuan Chaoguang! Veteran Western Kunlun player, the one who posted those threads on the forum! Born in the Central District, transferred to Singapore, Southeast Asia's core autonomous region, because his uncle works at Fantasy International. Previously ran a life-support capsule maintenance shop through his uncle's connections; now he's a professional gamer!"

Great Shi Sui Riding the Blue Ox—or rather, Yuan Yuan Chaoguang—felt as if he'd been stripped naked and laid bare before these people.

He weakly clutched his chest and whispered: "Gentlemen, my credit card's in the cabinet in the living room…"

"You don't understand what I mean…"

Seeing Yan Shu kept prodding Yuan Yuan Chaoguang, as if searching for some hidden strangeness beneath his human skin.

"He's been by my junior's side for so long, chosen as the target—how could he still be ordinary flesh?" Seeing Yan Shu stroked his chin. "Knowing my junior, within three days he'd have acted… no, he'd have already transmitted the Dao techniques!"

"The cultivation methods here are so strange—how could my junior resist the urge to touch him, given his curiosity?"

"Maybe his shell is intact, but his insides are already ruined?" Seeing Yan Shu measured Yuan Yuan Chaoguang's scalp with his fingers; without spiritual sense, he couldn't probe the man's soul, and he grew deeply concerned.

"Yan Yan Shixiong, stop messing with him!" Shi Princess Qingcheng suddenly interrupted. "My younger brother is just as troublesome as the others in our clan! I ordered the humanoid dolls to intercept him and got ahead of the game—I found what Master Brother Qian ordered us to retrieve. The time my brother mentioned is almost here. Let's focus on the task…"

As she spoke, she clenched her right hand as if holding a sword, stepping slowly toward Yuan Yuan Chaoguang.

Yuan Yuan Chaoguang felt utter despair—he'd just experienced a hallucination in the game!

He'd seen an NPC dressed in modern clothes… no, the game's main villain—telling him he was his online friend!

Lately, the NPC had relentlessly harassed him in-game, slipping him insects every night, tattooing him with demonic runes of the Heavenly Demon Secret Script, turning a fantasy MMORPG into a horror game.

Now, just after logging out, before he could even determine if this was a sign of virtual-reality-induced psychosis, a group of bizarre criminals had broken into his home and kidnapped him!

The surrounding holographic projections suddenly shifted, light focusing on Shi Princess Qingcheng's hand!

Flashes of red and black coalesced into an ancient sword wrapped in black mist, glowing faintly red, as if forged from iron heated to incandescence.

Holograms from windows and walls alike cast light upon the blade, making it appear increasingly real—Yuan Yuan Chaoguang could clearly see the natural quenching patterns along its edge.

Only then did he realize: the sparks flying from the blade weren't embers—they were countless crimson, moving parasites, scattering into the void and returning from it; one crimson speck landed on the capsule beneath him, and the scattered silver metal lines suddenly writhed like snakes, slithering autonomously into the neural interface at the back of his neck.

"You… you're virtual net hackers?" Yuan Yuan Chaoguang's face turned pale with fear.

The female cultivator sighed: "We're cultivators… 'hackers' is an archaic term from the old era!"

As Shi Princess Qingcheng's Hundred Poisons Slayer Sword slowly pierced Yuan Yuan Chaoguang's body, he truly felt a piercing pain, gasping like a man choking to death; the woman stepped forward, touched his chest, saw no blood, then sighed and looked up: "He's just an unactivated virtual net artifact—no tech that controls reality, merely a program. Why act like you're dying? So much drama?"

Yuan Yuan Chaoguang gasped for air, before he could speak—he noticed the faint lines beneath his cooling mat, now fading…

Dense black threads suddenly surged to the surface, as if emerging from his veins—fine as silkworm silk, twisting across his body, forming intricate, sinister runes.

Seeing Yan Shu finally exhaled in relief, patted his pale chest: "I knew my junior had done something to him… This looks like a Yu Jiuyou Demon Rune!"

He spoke with nostalgic fondness: "When my junior once explained to me how he suddenly comprehended the ancient Wu Sect scripture, 'The Summoning Demon Classic,' I once helped him research it in our sect!"

"These runes were drawn by ancient Wu Sects upon sacrificial offerings—to invoke the demonic gods of Yu Jiuyou to consume the offering!"

"Sacrifice?"

Yuan Yuan Chaoguang trembled as he stared at the nightmare-runes crawling over his skin, nearly sobbing: "I knew it! I knew those weren't just mat marks!"

He glanced at Seeing Yan Shu and the others, sensing their aura was profoundly alien—out of place in this era, yet strangely harmonious to him. He paused, recalled… and suddenly understood: it was the aura of Western Kunlun's NPCs.

He, a lifelong gamer, a shut-in immersed in virtual worlds, sometimes couldn't distinguish game from reality—he'd exhibited similar behavior himself.

He stared at the grotesque patterns spreading over his body, at the countless parasites crawling from the sword embedded in his chest, struggling to send a message to his uncle.

A group of gaming-obsessed weirdos had broken into his home—perhaps they'd hacked Western Kunlun, infiltrated the new boss's data, and were trying to scare him!

Meanwhile, at HaraBoard Corporation's headquarters in Singapore!

The young man in the Zhenwu Tech Daoist robe, who had appeared that day, swiped his smart terminal: "My sister is so self-righteous. The few she's befriended may have decent martial cultivation potential, but to our level, they're merely useful tools. Did she really think they could protect her and steal the Hundred Poisons Slayer Sword?"

"I didn't act against her before—I feared her father, the board director. Now, I've already settled things inside the company."

"Yet she ran to Singapore… what a…"

The youth smirked coldly: "Walking straight into the trap!"

As he slightly raised his head, HaraBoard's AI, the Hachishaku no Magatama, effortlessly tracked the trail the female cultivator had desperately concealed.

Footage from every camera, sensor, holographic device, and surrounding robot's lens was pulled up; a clear path of movement emerged on the map, extending steadily toward the city center—until it even showed the perspective of a HaraBoard courtesan doll, witnessing them leap from a luxury entertainment airship…

"We've got you!"

The youth sneered, lifted his wine glass, swirling the deep red liquid like blood.

One by one, robotic serpents, black tortoises, and even Xuanwu-patterned units descended from Zhenwu Corporation's fleet surrounding Singapore's airships, heading toward the pinpointed target—a luxury apartment.

But at that moment, centered on the luxury apartment, darkness suddenly swallowed everything—the building's lights vanished.

Then the neighboring towers: dazzling neon signs, giant screens advertising HaraBoard, Tianhe Tech, SIC Consortium, MO Heavy Industries—all went dark one by one as the blackout spread, plunging half of Singapore into power failure.

The room the AI had locked onto was now invisible on the youth's smart terminal—all electronics had lost power.

Yet in reality, a faint glow, like a spiritual pearl, suddenly bloomed…