The silver-gray drone hovered silently like a specter haunting the daylight, suspended dozens of meters above the street. Its high-definition lens coldly documented the brief, brutal slaughter unfolding below.
Killing to achieve an objective and killing purely for rage or amusement—though both were fundamentally acts of taking life—were worlds apart in their significance.
Even Luo Ye, long accustomed to the violence of the illusionary realm, couldn't help but frown slightly. It wasn't about some bleeding heart sentimentality; it was about the line he drew within himself, the line that defined his humanity.
This illusion wasn't some video game where you could hit the power button and return unscathed to reality. Whatever its true nature, if you could see it, hear it, feel it… then for anyone experiencing it, everything within the illusion was real. If someone used the illusion's reset mechanics and isolated nature as an excuse to constantly shatter their own moral boundaries, the terrifying power gained in the short term would inevitably be consumed by the swelling beast within. They'd become nothing more than a slave to their own desires.
"Ross, Saffi, guard Ju Chuan Jing Xiang. I'm heading out." As he spoke, Luo Ye vaulted onto the second-floor windowsill.
"Wait… Ye Yan!" Saffi instantly grasped his intent. "Are you going after Miyamoto Rei?" Despite their prior agreement about non-intervention, she couldn't suppress her concern. "Those thugs have guns! Going alone, unsupported, is suicide! And Miyamoto Rei… her condition is critical. She could succumb or bossify any moment! More importantly," Saffi pressed, her voice sharp with pragmatic urgency, "what strategic value does saving one Miyamoto Rei even hold for us?"
As a seasoned illusion realm player, Saffi wasn't afraid of risk. What she despised was recklessly gambling on low-odds plays. While she disapproved of Luo Ye's chaotic personal life, that was merely a matter of character. From a team perspective, she deeply respected this temporary ally's integrity and capability. She didn't want to see him throw his life away.
"I'll explain on the way," Luo Ye's voice cut through her protest.
"On the way?" Before Saffi could fully process his words, Luo Ye leaped from the window. He landed with feline grace, transforming instantly into a streak of darkness weaving through the gaps between abandoned vehicles. Where he passed, blades flashed with deadly precision. Hordes of zombies fell like wheat before a scythe. Within moments, his agile figure vanished around a distant street corner.
"So… fast…" Saffi murmured, her eyes wide. This was her first glimpse of Luo Ye operating at full capacity. The sheer speed, the lethal efficiency of his strikes—it was deeply unsettling. At this stage in the game, most first-tier players relied on the basic double-hundred attribute boost. A lucky few might scrounge low-tier cultivation manuals or attribute potions, but pushing a single attribute past 200 points was rare.
Luo Ye, however, wasn't just at 200 points in Constitution. His Spirit attribute, amplified by his EX-rank [Sub-Human] bloodline, had soared to a staggering 400 points. This wasn't just exceeding the norm for first-tier players; his Spirit was brushing against the level of elite second-tier veterans.
"I suddenly feel…" Ross muttered, a touch of awe in his voice, "...like we've been dead weight all along."
"You've been dead weight, Ross. Don't lump me in with you," Saffi snapped, though a pang of bitter disappointment echoed beneath her irritation. She had considered herself elite among first-tier players. Witnessing Luo Ye's true power laid bare the sheer folly of that pride.
"Hey, Ross, Saffi. Can you hear me?" A voice, slightly distorted by static, suddenly resonated directly within their consciousness. Ross and Saffi instinctively looked around, then realized the sound was bypassing their ears, transmitted directly into their auditory cortex like the system's visual overlays.
"Ye Yan? Is that…?"
"Ah, volume might be a bit high. Just speak normally, I can hear you," Luo Ye's voice clarified, punctuated by the faint sounds of combat—grunts, slicing through flesh. "Upgraded the drone. Added comms. As long as you're within its 20-klick radius, we're linked… Text via thought if talking's inconvenient."
"Whoa! Seriously?" Ross's voice crackled with excitement. Almost instantly, a crudely drawn image of a troll face with the caption "EAT SH*T!" popped up in the shared visual feed at the bottom of their field of view.
Luo Ye: "..." Saffi: "..."
The moment they gained instant communication, Ross's first instinct was to test if they could send memes? The man was undeniably a talent… just one whose skills were spectacularly misallocated.
"Right. Images work too, apparently," Luo Ye conceded, his tone dry. With a mental command using the drone's admin privileges, he swiftly muted Ross's meme-spamming capabilities. "Alright, Ross, enjoy the quiet for a bit." He redirected the drone's camera away from the grim scene surrounding Miyamoto Rei, focusing instead on a building looming behind the gang of thugs.
"Shinjo… Shinjo Motorcycles?" Saffi read the prominent signage aloud, translating the Japanese characters.
"Ring any bells?" Luo Ye's voice came through, slightly breathless, the rhythmic sounds of his blade against undead flesh forming a grim backdrop.
Ross, still muted, frantically mimed steering a wheel and making engine noises at Saffi. Understanding dawned on her face. "That's the place? The one with the amphibious ATV? But… wasn't it supposed to be near the Takagi estate?"
In the original story, the protagonist's group, including Takagi Saya, were separated by the Takagi family's defensive perimeter. While Saya was rescued by her mother, Takagi Momoko, the others, like Miyamoto Rei and Kiritaka Kohta, were forced to find an alternate route. The crucial vehicle—the Vengeance 100 amphibious all-terrain vehicle—was discovered in a motorcycle shop along that desperate path. Without that machine clearing the way, their reunion would have been impossible.
"The illusion realm's storylines aren't bound to the original script," Luo Ye countered, his voice tight with exertion. "If everything played out exactly like the source material, the protagonist, Shido Shika, would just waltz through on plot armor, escaping Bedlam City within ten days. Why would the J-SDF be throwing cash at players for a clear, then?"
A sudden, tense silence stretched over the comms for nearly ten seconds before Luo Ye's voice returned, calmer now. "There's an unwritten rule here: the rarer the prize, the steeper the cost. I can't swear this Shinjo place holds that ATV…" He paused meaningfully. "...but with a well-armed gang dug in there? Even if it's not the amphibious beast, they're guarding something valuable. Guaranteed."