B District.
Liu Jiayi crawled out of the grave building. Her expression was tense as she placed both hands flat on the ground and used a burst of force to flip her body up onto the ground. She rolled over and threw out a bottle of poison, precisely hitting a tentacle that had crawled out of the tomb to wrap around her ankle.
The tentacle was smashed and fell back into the grave building.
Liu Jiayi gripped a white land deed in her right hand. Her little face still had some bloodstains from the battle, and she pursed her lips, staring at the tomb exit. After waiting for a while to confirm that nothing would climb out, she relaxed, sat on the ground, leaned back, and rested with her hands supporting her body, breathing heavily.
Black poison mist wafted eerily from the grave building behind her, and inside, the shrill, screeching sounds of a monster's body being corroded could be vaguely heard.
Liu Jiayi was the first team member to obtain a land deed.
Because she had directly used her ultimate skill, Poison Mist Fountain, to exhaust the developer monster below to death, Liu Jiayi herself hadn't wanted to use up her ultimate and wait for the cooldown so soon. After all, she could have slowly worn that monster down, but Bai Liu hadn't been in contact with them for so long; something must have happened on his side!
After catching her breath, Liu Jiayi immediately lowered her head to equip her roller-skate movement tool, preparing to head toward C District at full speed.
The sight of a little girl skating at full speed with both hands swinging through the cemetery at night was clearly a very strange scene, but what was even stranger was that, from some unknown point in time, black mist began to quietly permeate behind her, as if a reaper wearing a cloak were chasing her, silently sticking to her back.
Liu Jiayi suddenly stopped. She reached behind her to take out two bottles of poison, skated backward twice in two directions, alertly dodging the black mist, and tilted her head to look at a certain place in the cemetery, shouting sharply: "Who is it?!"
"Finally waited until you used up your ultimate skill." An ethereal voice came from within the black mist, and the silhouette of a female figure was vaguely visible.
Her voice was a bit muffled, as if she were chewing something, and her tone carried a playful, lazy smile: "Although I could easily kill you without waiting, I prefer to cause the maximum death numerical value to the enemy with the smallest damage expected value."
"This is the basic consciousness of a witch, isn't it?"
Liu Jiayi didn't hesitate to throw a bottle of poison. Two patches of nearly identical black mist exploded in the center, colliding with each other. A clear boundary appeared in the middle of the two mists, and from the dividing line, intense airflow erupted, blowing toward both sides. The vegetation blown by this mist showed varying degrees of corrosion and withering.
The black poison mist was blown apart by the wind, and the figure finally appeared completely before Liu Jiayi's eyes. Her breathing hitched, and the moment she saw the figure, she didn't hesitate to turn around and kick hard on her skates, wanting to escape from here.
"A witch's code of conduct: when unable to face a powerful opponent head-on, the first thing to do is ensure the survival rate." A rather appreciative light laugh came from behind Liu Jiayi. "A very smart choice."
"But what if the opponent is also very smart and guesses that you would do this, and doesn't want to let you escape?" As this lazy female voice fell, a crisp snap of the fingers rang out. "For example, like this."
Following the finger snap, the grave buildings around Liu Jiayi began to explode with poison mist one by one. The mist spread inward, constantly sealing off her escape route, finally leaving only a blank, non-mist-covered safe circle in the middle.
Liu Jiayi tried to force a breakout twice, but each time she was forced to grit her teeth and retreat. Finally, with her back against the poison mist, she looked at the woman walking slowly toward her from the mist.
The woman's facial features were somewhat inexplicably similar to her own, but compared to the current Liu Jiayi, she had matured quite a bit. She had a two-tiered bob haircut, with sections of layers cut around her ears and the back of her neck, with loose hair casually tucked behind her ears.
She wore a sporty red-and-blue color-blocked crop top and shorts, but layered over it was a brightly colored, wide-cut sports jacket that reached her waist. Her shoes were graffiti-style sneakers, and her white socks came just above the shoes.
Outside her clothes, the woman's exposed waist and thighs were taut and firm; the muscle lines on her abdomen and thighs could be clearly seen, clearly the result of high-intensity training.
There was a black leg ring on her right thigh, and a bullet-belt-like strap hung diagonally across her waist. On the leg ring and the strap was a row of poison test tubes filled with black liquid, and on the skin below the leg ring was an inverted cross-shaped tattoo about the size of a palm.
The woman who was walking out was nonchalantly chewing a piece of pink bubble gum, occasionally blowing a huge bubble, then popping it with a pop. The gum around her mouth was bitten back in and chewed on. Her hips swayed to the right, supporting a woman who had passed out with her head drooping forward, whom she held at the waist with her right hand.
Liu Jiayi noticed that the unconscious woman was Shi Qian.
She looked at Liu Jiayi with a grin and raised a hand to wave: "Hello there, little blind girl who can't escape."
"I believe you have already guessed who I am, right?"
Liu Jiayi hid the poison bottle behind her and answered calmly: "Playing against your eight-year-old self, don't you think it's a bit degrading?"
"Not at all." The other Liu Jiayi tilted her head, eyes curved with laughter, and squatted down to look at Liu Jiayi at eye level. She extended her left hand and pinched Liu Jiayi's face, pulling it; the smile on her face was actually a bit sweet and gentle. "An older sister bullying a little sister, isn't that a matter of course?"
Liu Jiayi leaned back slightly, avoiding physical contact with the other party. Looking at the five poison test tubes held in the other party's right hand behind her back, she asked coldly: "Big sister, isn't your definition of bullying going a bit too far? If you use five poison test tubes to bully me, I'll be directly played to death by you."
"Oh my, oh my, is that so?" The mature Liu Jiayi tilted her head with a smile. "But my brother and I used to play like this before he died."
"He played very happily; before he died, he even dug out his own eyes and cried, asking me to use them."
She opened her clear eyes, smiling incomparably happily: "How about it? My eyes were given by him. Aren't they pretty good?"
Liu Jiayi's breathing hitched. She subconsciously tightened her grip on the ragdoll at her side, but it was only for an instant before she relaxed.
The other Liu Jiayi's eyes swept down. She noticed the tattered ragdoll hanging at Liu Jiayi's side, and the affectionate, cute smile on her face vanished instantly.
"You still keep this disgusting, dirty thing." The mature Liu Jiayi slowly raised her eyes, the smile on her face becoming dangerous. "You wouldn't still be keeping Liu Huai alive, would you? Didn't Bai Liu help you finish him off?"
"He's dead." Liu Jiayi took a deep breath. "Bai Liu never helped me finish off my brother; he has always been saving him."
"Bai Liu (6) helping someone? How could he fail to save them?" The other Liu Jiayi scoffed. "He's just fooling you and inducing you to kill."
Liu Jiayi raised her head. She seemed to realize something, lifted her little face, and smiled evilly at the other Liu Jiayi. She stuck out her tongue and made a face: "Because my brother was determined to die for my sake."
"My brother is not like your brother. He died after I killed our wicked father."
The other Liu Jiayi stared at little Liu Jiayi's tense expression for a few seconds, as if confirming that the person in front of her was indeed not lying. The expression on her face disappeared completely, and the next second, she smashed the five poison test tubes on the ground.
A huge black poison mist exploded like a mushroom cloud. Liu Jiayi quickly held her breath, put on her mask, took out her antidote spray, connected it to the mask's interface, pressed it twice quickly, and took two deep breaths of the antidote spray.
But even so, Liu Jiayi clearly saw her health bar drop by a chunk and then slowly climb back up.
Just smelling it for a second had this effect; this woman's poison was incredibly powerful!
Within the poisonous mist, an ethereal, airy voice came from all directions, as if a witch were chanting a spell:
"You are just like me, possessing a piece-of-trash father and brother. Even before dying, they were still lying to you, saying they loved you. And as for Bai Liu (6), who constantly exploits your remaining value and induces your emotions and anger to help him kill people, as a human who shares the same fate as you, I express my meager sympathy for you and can let you die a bit more easily."
Liu Jiayi's clothes and the ragdoll at her waist began to be corroded by the surrounding poison mist. She looked around and retorted coldly:
"Thank you, big sister, for your sympathy, but you had better pity yourself more."
"My brother made a soul deal with Bai Liu before he died, just to guarantee that Bai Liu would treat me like family."
"And Bai Liu did it."
"He got me out of the welfare home, found me adoptive parents, and took me to meet his friends."
Liu Jiayi said calmly: "Under no circumstances has Bai Liu ever made me kill anyone."
"Usually speaking, sympathy is an emotion that only arises when a happy person looks at an unfortunate person. From this point of view, big sister, it seems like I should be the one pitying you?"
The poison mist swirling around Liu Jiayi solidified for an instant. The next second, the mist dissipated, and the mature Liu Jiayi stood in the center, looking at the Liu Jiayi opposite her with no emotion on her face. She slowly opened her hands, then closed them:
"Poison Mist Fountain."
The black poison mist instantly solidified like thick liquid, rushing up from the ground to envelop Liu Jiayi!
—————————————————
A District.
Mu Shicheng spat and crawled out from the dirt, complaining as he crawled: "Damn, the grave buildings in this A District are too full! And they're all large units."
"Do rich people like to arrange their whole family from life to death like this?! With so many monsters, I don't know how long it will take to find the unfinished grave building Bai Liu talked about…"
As he spoke, he supported himself with one hand and flipped onto the edge. Just as he was about to land steadily on the ground, a melodic, teasing whistle sounded from behind him: "Hey, are you looking for this, kid?"
The moment Mu Shicheng's foot touched the ground, his hands instantly transformed into claws. He flipped and retreated more than ten meters to distance himself from the voice. His teeth bared, he looked over viciously with his claws on the ground: "Who's there? Get out here!"
"Not bad alertness. I thought the little Boss of this world looked so soft that he would raise you to be a waste." The voice continued with a chuckle.
Mu Shicheng stared dead at the silhouette of the man lazily half-squatting on a tombstone.
The bright moonlight shone from behind him, and one could only see a profile that was grinning and an eye that was frighteningly red in the white moonlight.
This profile gave Mu Shicheng a feeling of both familiarity and strangeness.
The man squatting on the tombstone jumped down easily. He walked toward Mu Shicheng with one hand in his pocket and waved a piece of paper with the other: "You're looking for the land deed, right? It's with me."
This person walked into Mu Shicheng's line of sight step by step. Then, Mu Shicheng cursed in surprise and instantly stood up straight: "Who the hell are you?!"
The man was loosely wearing a deep yellow fur coat with exaggerated brown fur that reached his knees. The coat wasn't buttoned tight and was blown by the wind; underneath, he was uniquely wearing a simple, sporty-style top. It felt like he had just grabbed two mismatched pieces from his closet because he hadn't woken up when he went out.
His canvas pants were tucked into high-top boots that reached his calves. On his hands, he wore seven or eight silver rings with strange designs, and in the center of the ring faces, an inverted cross was carved at different angles.
"Who am I?" The person opposite seemed to have heard a very funny joke and couldn't help but laugh out loud: "You are really stupid; you've already seen my face and are still asking? Who else could I be?"
The person opposite walked slowly toward Mu Shicheng.
The night wind blew the fur on this person's coat wildly. His gait was very lazy, but one could clearly see the exertion of muscle with every step, as if it were a leisurely stroll; in fact, he was a lion, ready to strike at any time.
In the moonlight, this person's red eyes were astonishingly bright: "I am, of course, you, Mu Shicheng."
The immense pressure from the person opposite made Mu Shicheng cautiously take two steps back. His eyes darted left and right.
In a situation where he couldn't win, Bai Liu told him that preserving combat power was the first priority, which meant running!
With his speed, he should be able to get away.
Seeing his eyes flicker, the person opposite raised his hands lazily: "Running away is no fun. I won't hit you."
Mu Shicheng's plans to withdraw stalled, and he looked over hesitantly.
The person opposite slowly held up the land deed, then released it. Mu Shicheng's eyes were glued to the land deed as it fluttered to the ground, and then this person stepped on it with his boot.
Mu Shicheng felt as if his eyes had been stepped on by the other party.
"I haven't played such a fun instance with the boss in a long time." The person opposite suggested with a grin, and he let out a yawn. "Staying in the guild for meetings all day, my bones are asleep. How about we play a game?"
Mu Shicheng asked vigilantly: "What game?"
The smile on the face of the person opposite deepened: "A game that both you and I will like."
"Thief game."
Mu Shicheng's breathing changed for a moment, and then his pupils darkened as he turned his body fully toward the other party: "How do you play?"
"In order to play with you for a little longer." The Mu Shicheng opposite touched the back of his neck, then raised his arms to loosen them, letting out a comfortable breath before looking at him. "I'll stand here, not using any skills, not equipping the Monster Book form, and not moving my feet. I will only use my hands to resist you."
"And you—" The Mu Shicheng opposite pointed to his own feet, raised an eyebrow, and smiled. "You can use any means. As long as you can steal the land deed from under my feet, I will let you go. How about that?"
Mu Shicheng paused for a second, then rolled up his sleeves, sneered, and filled with fighting spirit: "Let's play, then."
—————————————————
C District.
Two whips, one black and one white, collided in the air, then bounced apart to the sides under the huge impact, hitting the side of a building and carving out two fierce indentations. The building struck by the black whip cracked directly at the break, crumbling slowly like tofu cut in half by a knife.
Dust was flying everywhere, and buildings on all sides were tilting toward the open space in the center.
In the open space were two people rapidly approaching each other. They lashed their whips in the thick smoke and dust, carving out a clearly visible space around them. Then, the next second, the two met on the ground, their whips striking and colliding. Under the massive impact, a black crack appeared in space, which quickly closed again.
Both Bai Liu and Bai Liu (6) wore leather gloves, one hand gripping the handle of the whip, the other hand pulling the other end of the whip to block the opponent's lash.
The black-and-white whips almost sparked from friction while blocking each other. Amidst the faint sparks, Bai Liu (6) lifted his eyelids. Looking at the cold-faced Bai Liu, he suddenly laughed softly: "How about we make a bet?"
"Let's bet on which of my team members will kill which of yours first. How about that?"
Just as this sentence fell, Bai Liu (6) pulled back his whip upward, then moved rapidly to lower his body, striking Bai Liu from bottom to top.
The whip in Bai Liu (6)'s hand disappeared, and his gloved hands transformed into a pair of sharp monkey claws. His five fingers pressed together to form a sharp claw knife, brushing obliquely over Bai Liu's shoulder.
After brushing past, Bai Liu (6)'s monkey claws grabbed back quickly. He lowered his eyes and laughed softly: "I bet the first one is Mu Shicheng."
Bai Liu's evasion speed was far slower than Bai Liu (6)'s attack speed. He couldn't dodge in time, and his shoulder was pierced. Then, in the next second, Bai Liu directly swung his whip outward, nailing the monkey claw that had been stabbed into his shoulder.
The monkey claw flipped outward along with the flesh from Bai Liu's shoulder, and blood instantly stained Bai Liu's shirt at the shoulder.
After being knocked a distance away by Bai Liu's whip, Bai Liu (6) slowly retracted his still-dripping monkey claw, continuing to walk toward Bai Liu in the dust, politely asking: "Who do you think will be the first one to die?"
Bai Liu didn't answer. In the dust and mist, one could only hear the sound of his blood dripping onto the ground from his fingertips.
[System Warning: Player Mu Shicheng's health continues to drop; it has fallen to 27!!]
Mu Shicheng was sent flying, crashing through four or five tombstones. He clutched his chest and vomited a mouthful of blood on the ground, staggering to his feet while supporting himself on a tombstone, but his knees were too weak to stand up after trying twice. He could only kneel weakly on the ground, staring dead at the other version of himself who was casually stepping on the land deed in the distance with bloodshot eyes.
…So terrifying.
Were his own hands originally capable of this degree of power?
The Mu Shicheng opposite stepped on the land deed with his left foot, not even shifting his footprint on the ground. He smacked his lips and let out a long yawn, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes: "Tried 71 times, still going?"
Mu Shicheng swallowed the mouthful of blood surging in his throat. He stood up unsteadily, lowered his head, and clenched his fists.
…What to do.
If it were Bai Liu here, in this situation where he had already lost forty health points, would he choose to continue or retreat?
Was the choice he just made right or wrong? Should he keep going?
"Hey, have you made a choice yet?" The Mu Shicheng opposite waved his hands loudly. "If not, I'm going to fall asleep."
Mu Shicheng gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and was about to turn around.
"Are you going to run away?" That Mu Shicheng lazily put his hands behind his head. "You're not that stupid, knowing how to protect yourself. If it were me, I wouldn't be so obediently completing Bai Liu (6)'s mission."
"That guy is just a heartless bastard, same as Liu Huai. He's not worth you paying this much for him."
"Don't worry about the lives of these pieces of trash."
Mu Shicheng, who was halfway through his turn, paused. He raised his head abruptly, his eyes blood-red, and charged over with his fist raised: "Don't you dare talk about my friends like that!!"
"They are not some kind of trash!!"
[Assassin and Thief, what a trashy name!]
[Eh? Is it trashy? I think it's not bad!]
Liu Huai scratched his head and smiled at Mu Shicheng quite embarrassedly: "I think adding Fourth Brother's 'Thief' makes this title quite cool and flashy."
[Refugee and Monkey, what a trashy name, Bai Liu, go die!]
[Can we really win until the end?]
Bai Liu turned his head to look at him, his expression very calm: "That is not something you should be thinking about."
"Go do what you are supposed to do. I will think of a way for the rest."
"We will win."
Then I don't care! Gamble on this! If I die, I die!!
Bai Liu will always find a way to save the game!!
Tears shot from Mu Shicheng's eyes. He viciously raised his fist and aimed at the other Mu Shicheng's face, roaring with all his might: "—The seventy-second time!!"
The mature Mu Shicheng just swayed his shoulder and dodged easily. The moment Mu Shicheng's descending fist landed on the other person's clothes, it transformed into a monkey claw, his sharp gaze aiming at the land deed under his feet.
That was just his diversion; his real target was still stealing the land deed.
The mature Mu Shicheng raised an eyebrow, squatted down, and used his knee to move aside, blocking Mu Shicheng's monkey claw. Both hands grabbed Mu Shicheng's monkey claw arm and snapped it inward as easily as breaking chopsticks into three sections.
[System Notice: Player Mu Shicheng's health has dropped to 20!!]
Mu Shicheng was in such pain that his pupils dilated. He gritted his teeth, suppressing the blood that wanted to rush from his throat, flipped his body, and wanted to try again. The Mu Shicheng opposite grabbed his monkey claw easily, then grabbed his shoulder, rotated his waist left and right with force, wanting to throw Mu Shicheng out directly like before.
If I get thrown out again, I might just die!!
At the moment he was about to be thrown out, Mu Shicheng flipped his body and used that monkey claw that had snapped into three sections, despite the inconceivable pain, to grip the mature Mu Shicheng's clothes tightly, preventing himself from being thrown out.
The other Mu Shicheng raised an eyebrow, then grabbed Mu Shicheng's shoulders from both sides and pulled outward, as if he were going to fold Mu Shicheng in half directly. The violent skeletal deformation caused Mu Shicheng's monkey claw to finally loosen helplessly.
"Arms have been broken so many times, and you still haven't learned your lesson." The mature version of Mu Shicheng had a cold expression. "This time I will give you a thoroughly painful lesson."
Mu Shicheng roared through gritted teeth. He contracted his shoulders against the other party's force. Under the squeezing force from both sides, his shoulder joint was directly dislocated. The moment it was dislocated, Mu Shicheng's pupils constricted and then dilated, and he fell straight to the ground.
"You haven't learned your lesson after having your monkey claws removed so many times by your so-called friends. Now you finally have no monkey claws left." The big Mu Shicheng squatted on the ground, poking the face-down Mu Shicheng a few times out of boredom. "The game ends here."
Mu Shicheng's shoulders floated on the ground, rubbing as he struggled to move forward a few steps closer to the mature version of Mu Shicheng, seemingly wanting to try again.
The mature Mu Shicheng finally showed a bit of annoyance: "I find your so-called friends disgusting. If you come again, I'll really kill you."
Mu Shicheng's scarred face lifted. His face, covered in bruises from rubbing against the ground, wore a triumphant smile. He clamped the land deed in his mouth and said slurredly: "I stole the land deed under your feet. I won!"
The mature version of Mu Shicheng's pupils shrank.
This guy just did that on purpose.
Mu Shicheng knew that having his arms broken was a common mental weakness between them, so when Mu Shicheng was tormented by having his arms broken, not only would he be in pain, but the mature Mu Shicheng himself, as the perpetrator, would also have a moment of mental distraction.
And it was in this gap that this guy fell to the ground and pretended to be dead, not wanting any dignity at all, using his mouth to gnaw at the dirt under his feet and pull out the land deed.
Mu Shicheng knew he was a person who cared a lot about face; in any worldline, it was impossible for him to lie under another person's feet and gnaw on a piece of land deed for Bai Liu (6).
Why could the Mu Shicheng of this worldline do this for Bai Liu?
The mature Mu Shicheng sank into deep thought for a while.
Seeing him not talking, Mu Shicheng, who was lying on the ground, felt a bit anxious and angry. Afraid that the land deed would be snatched away, he bit it tightly and asked slurredly: "Hey! Don't you dare say it doesn't count!"
The Mu Shicheng opposite came back to his senses. He lowered his head and looked at the Mu Shicheng lying on the ground for a few seconds, then suddenly chuckled disdainfully: "Although I'm a bastard, you did indeed win."
Mu Shicheng's eyes lit up, and then he watched the mature version of Mu Shicheng pat him on the head, stand up, turn around, and leave, waving at him with one hand in his pocket:
"My mission failed; I'm going to find my boss to accept punishment. Most likely I'll be whipped by him, might die."
"Your boss is not bad."
This Mu Shicheng pause: "Although what you did is pathetic, he did teach you to be quite cool."
Mu Shicheng, who was lying on the ground, was full of question marks: "???"
Is he praising me or scolding me??