Chapter 273 |
The Judge of Defying Gods teamed up with other team members to push Spades towards the game pool. The group walked in a loose and casual manner, but passersby still avoided them in fear.
“Look at the state of things!” The Judge of Defying Gods blamed Spades, “You made this happen! You are so aggressive even when playing a game in the game pool!”
Spades lifted his eyes and gave him a faint glance: “They are not just afraid of me, they will be afraid of anyone who brings victory. It has nothing to do with what I have done. They are just afraid that they will not get this victory.”
“If these people’s fear is a part of gaining victory, then let them be afraid.” Spades turned his head, indifferently.
–The implication is that the victory will be his after all, and his tone was arrogant and certain.
The Judge was shocked to the point of speechlessness.
Spades, who seems to have zero emotional intelligence, sometimes thinks so sharply and thoroughly about things that he wants to make an issue out of them, even when they try to suppress him.
“Well, pick any three games.” The Judge held his forehead helplessly, he really couldn’t do anything about Spades, “-let’s see how well you’ve been training alone for a while and let you test the results of our group training.”
“…… If we have the ability to suppress you.” The Judge of Defying Gods took a deep breath and said solemnly, “Just get ready to return to the team, it’s time to start proper league training.”
The entire team of the Killer Sequence disappeared in place.
The other end.
Mu Sicheng lowered his body and climbed across the floor of the Killer Sequence guild, sharp monkey claws snapping into the walls. The question mark-shaped tail of the capuchin loomed out behind him, hanging on any protruding decorations and finishes.
He was also clad in a chameleon-like coat that changed colour depending on the environment – an extraordinary-level prop that Bai Liu acquired in the game pool and gave to Mu Sicheng when he was assigned this task.
And it was indeed a very correct allocation that allowed Mu Sicheng to infiltrate the Killer Sequence in a smooth and seamless manner.
A few extremely brilliant colour changes and scary air swings landed Mu Sicheng firmly in a long corridor next to the top floor of the Killer Sequence Guild.
Mu Sicheng casually shook off the crumbs of wall dust stuck to his nails, his tail retracting behind him like a wire. His red pupils examined from side to side and he raised his eyebrows in mild surprise –
–What the hell is this big guild doing? You don’t have any security measures in place for your home base? Is this just waiting for someone to steal from your home?
Mu Ke, who is well versed in the history of the guilds, would have done well to explain to Mu Sicheng why the guild building for the Killer Sequence is in such an empty and unguarded state.
The Killer Sequence, a newcomer to the game that only rose to prominence last year on the back of Spades, is very likely to ride on last year’s success and grow to become the number one guild – something that all guild leaders would logically want to do.
But with the Killer Sequence, there is no president – because Spades doesn’t do presidents.
So the guild has developed in a rather wild state, with high potential newcomers who are quirky, have certain abilities, a personal admiration for Spades, and don’t want to be tied down to the big guilds.
Although there is a building, the members of the Killer Sequence adhere to a state of straying, and the membership status of those gathered in this Killer Sequence building is in a state of Schrödinger’s duality.
When they play the league, they need the guild as a requirement for registration, and at that time they are the guild team candidates.
If they don’t play in a league, then they are individual players.
These people, the new generation of Killer Sequence guild members, are so strongly influenced by Spades that they feel they were born to win the league and each feels like a ruthless league shark!
This one-upmanship didn’t get better until The Judge of Defying Gods was scooped up – he made the group of troubled members recognise that there are only five kids who can be league killers – no, players.
Before you become killers, you need to do something else for the guild to grow.
–Yes, the half-way decent tactician who was poached by Spades and slapped with the title of [Guildmaster] has to worry not only about training the team and managing disobedient team members, but also about the development of the guild, big and small.
You could say that one tactician is working as eight, working overtime at all times, and Spades does not pay wages.
Under these circumstances, the guild’s security was already the next most important consideration for the Judge – he was working overtime both in and out of the game and was on the verge of sudden death.
As well as the poor security of the killer sequences, catalysed by the triumphalist spirit of the Spades, this is a place where everyone is a fighting madman, biting off more than they can chew. The stronger the opponent, the more excited they become.
Guilds with sound minds will basically not touch the Killer Sequence.
Mu Sicheng looked around carefully to make sure that not many people were left in the building and quickly chose to make a further move to break deeper into the building.
As is the general practice of the guild, there are usually two places where high level props are kept – one is in the personal store in the system panel of the guild’s dedicated storekeeper.
The Warehouse Keeper not only keeps props, but is also responsible for testing and maintaining them in-game once a week, as he keeps a large number of high grade and rare props on his person all year round, and is considered a mobile vault, and is one of the two most confidential positions in the guild, along with the Weapon Transformer.
The top warehouse keeper in the game is the Golden Dawn family, and that doesn’t mean one person in particular, but all the members of the guild.
The guilds have no idea what they do, and all of them seem to be highly trained as if they were police warehousemen. They are particularly good at keeping, guarding and storing dangerous goods.
Many guilds, such as the King’s Guild, the Kabbalah Life Guild and even Charles’ Gamblers’ Club, have spied on Golden Dawn’s stockpile – not necessarily to steal items, but to know what items they have is an important part of league intelligence.
But no matter what these guilds do, they are all unsuccessful. It can be said that they are the natural enemy guild of looters and thieves.
And it seems that Golden Dawn has recently reorganised the guild’s anti-theft structure again under the direction of Armand, a new member of the team.
Having captured a King’s Guild scout within one dimensional minute the other day, it would be an understatement to describe Golden Dawn’s current warehouse structure as solid as gold.
Mu Sicheng frowned as he made his way through the Killer Sequence – he felt that the structure of the warehouse here bore some uncanny resemblance to the information Wang Shun had shown him about Golden Dawn’s warehouse structure earlier.
Behind him, a translucent, rotating barrier that separated the space rotated slowly for a moment.
[System Alert: A player has triggered the warehouse trap prop you set!]
The system panel of the Judge who had just entered the game popped up with such an alert. A team member next to him asked him what was wrong, the Judge smiled and explained, “Nothing, someone just triggered the warehouse protection prop I had set aside.”
The team’s jaws dropped, “Someone actually dared to come to the Killer Sequence and steal something!”
“I don’t remember our warehouse having anything to protect it, do you?”
“No one can look at the warehouse either, our guild doesn’t even have a warehouse keeper. Judge, what’s the protection prop you’ve left behind?”
The Judge of Defying Gods was so annoyed by the noise that he had to raise his voice to calm the curious players and sighed helplessly, “- Our guild really has no way to divide up the manpower to protect a warehouse anymore, so I had to use the simplest yet most effective method of warehouse protection. “
Curious, the team moved over and asked, “-what’s the solution?”
“I contacted the president of Golden Dawn and offered a sum of money and a prophecy. I managed to outsource the protection of our warehouse to him.” The Judge smiled a warm and affable smile, “I set up props that would deliver guests who came to Golden Dawn’s warehouse directly.”
The team: “……”
……Judge, you actually single-handedly prostituted the strongest warehouse keeper……
The Judge sighed sadly and shook his head, “I would have even tried to outsource the training, but the Deer Hunter Guild, which trains the best and toughest players, doesn’t take on outsourcing battle team training, eh ……”
“But I’m on my own and you guys don’t really listen to me as a tactician……”
The team: “……”
The…… deer hunters believe in Spartan training! Their team members howl every day! They don’t even have time to take a shit or drink water! It’s so miserable! They’re getting kidney stones at such a young age!
One small member of the team, who was not usually very obedient, swallowed stiffly, “Just come, we will listen to you……”
The Judge looked at him with a smirk, “Really?”
All the players nodded frantically.
–
The more he walked, the more Mu Sicheng felt that something was wrong. He stopped just in time, looked around at the architecture and moved his nose to sniff carefully – the bright, open corridors were lined with strange mixed smells. The smell of people was suddenly complex and varied and there was a hint of the cold smell of metal doors.
–It was very similar to what he had smelled at the headquarters of the Heretic Authority.
While Mu Sicheng was sniffing, a green and blue butterfly with a golden trim rested peacefully in the window to his left, slowly flapping its wings.
Mu Sicheng turned his face away, frowned and wrinkled his nose, and whispered to himself, “- there is a little…… flowing air…… “
“-it’s the smell of the wind.”
The butterfly flapped its wings so quickly that a gale of wind swept down the narrow aisle. A blurred figure, wrapped in the gale, merged into one and attacked Mu Sicheng at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
With the pressure and speed of the wind, the opponent stomped on the surrounding walls and moved around, giving Mu Sicheng a good, hard blow.
Mu Sicheng crossed his hands and endured the blow. Not wanting to be outdone by the opponent, he used his claws to fight back. He raised his hand and turned to grab the man’s face and push him to the ground.
The other jumped lightly, floating up in the air against the wall, breathing faintly, almost imperceptibly merging with the wind. A butterfly rested on his shoulder, its wings still flapping.
In this wind, the loser is the one who can’t hold his form.
Mu Sicheng smelled his breath, the fast wind and the scent of butterfly scale powder.
The wind suddenly became fiercer, so dense that it was almost impossible to see.
Mu Sicheng’s chest rose and fell with difficulty from the immense pressure of the wind. He had to let go and back away, his monkey paws snapping into the metal walls to stabilise himself.
The wind was gradually dispersing.
Mu Sicheng jumped down as the man opposite stood on the wrecked ground, his short, light brown hair ruffled and dishevelled, shimmering in the white light with an odd layer of light.
Armand looked levelly at Mu Sicheng: “I never thought we’d be fighting again in a place like this, Mu Sicheng.”
“It doesn’t seem accurate to use words like evenly matched, does it?” Mu Sicheng raised an eyebrow and tossed the shiny gold winged hairpiece in his hand, twirling it around his finger and smiling dismissively, “- if this were a competition, it would be your head I’d be taking off, not the accessories on your head?”
“Is that so?” Unfazed, Armand gazed calmly at Mu Sicheng, “-that’s what you told me the first time you fought me and stole my record pen.”
“- My memories of the past are not all painful.” Armand’s eyes moved to the hairpiece, “There are also experiences.”
Mu Sicheng was struck by a sudden realisation and tried to throw the hairpiece from his hand, but it was too late.
The wing-shaped hairpiece on his hand exploded into a wire mesh shaped handcuff that wrapped around his hands, wrists and upper arms, that could not be broken free from.
Armand looked up at him, “You hate mesh restraints and handcuffs the most, so I combined them and gave this to you as a meet and greet gift.”
“It’s been a long time, Mu Sicheng.”
——
Mu Ke led Du Sanying, who had done his homework, to the game pool.
Du Sanying was doing a little better than Mu Ke thought, not only had he taken to them quickly, but he had already played more than 52 times – he was already eligible for league entry.
So after asking Du Sanying for his opinion and making sure he agreed to play in the league, Mu Ke helped Du Sanying with the league registration period and took him to the pool to practise as Bai Liu had instructed.
Du Sanying looked in awe at the posters swimming around in the pools and timidly looked at Mu Ke: “……Which one do I choose?”
“It doesn’t matter which one you pick.” Mu Ke explained patiently, “I have enough base stats to handle most games in the pool, and you’re a player with a full luck value; any game you pick won’t be too harmful to yourself.”
Du Sanying, still disturbed by his years of being the ‘lucky one’, cried, “…… but I’m the only one who’s lucky….. I’m surrounded by people who are generally unlucky.”
“I know.” Mu Ke politely kept Du Sanying at a distance, showing him his panel, “I’ll keep you at a distance to protect you and keep my own exposure to a minimum.”
Mu Ke reassured him with a smile, “I may look inconspicuous, but that’s because I’m an assassin by profession.”
Du Sanying hesitated, but finally went up and chose a game, and Mu Ke jumped in.
The first thing that jumped into their ears upon entering was a loud barrage of percussive gunfire that strafed the ground without stopping. All the monsters around were killed, mingling with the dead and unconscious bodies of some of the players falling to the ground in a bloody mess. The line between human and monster corpses was indistinguishable, a rather brutal sight.
Du Sanying was dumbfounded.
“This game is already at the end of the level.” Mu Ke was calm in the face of this scene and reassured Du Sanying, “It’s okay, you’re really lucky that the other players you came in with have already cleared the dungeon of the monsters.”
Mu Ke’s eyes shifted to the faces of the players’ completely disfigured bodies, narrowing his eyes. For fear of scaring Du Sanying, he did not say the second half of the sentence – there were players who had been cleared out as well.
Looks like there’s a pretty dangerous guy in this game.
Du Sanying’s eyes watered with fear and he bit his hand, “……but that’s too fast, isn’t it? I’ve only just come in…….”
“There are such players.” Mu Ke said calmly, “This game is no longer worthwhile, prepare to quit……”
A burst of high-frequency gunshots came from a distance indiscriminately, as accompanied by a pleasant “woohoo”. Mu Ke reacted quickly by pulling out his armour and shielding Du Sanying underneath himself, listening intently to the direction of the gunfire.
Du Sanying was so shocked that he tried to crawl out from under his armour: “Don’t come near me! Something unlucky will happen!”
The unusual sound of bullets hitting prop armour soon drew the keen gunman’s attention, but before Mu Ke could withdraw, the gunman sat on a huge spring and fell from the sky, crushing the prop armour where Mu Ke and Du Sanying were hiding.
Quick as a flash, Mu Ke rolled out from under his armour, dragging Du Sanying with him, pulled out his dagger on one knee, tilted his head to look at his visitor and then was struck dumb.
He had seen many players in odd costumes, but the one in front of him was still the type of player who could make people freeze in a life-or-death situation.
This player was sitting on a huge colourful spring that was more than three metres high and about one metre in diameter. His legs were raised, his feet were dangling and he was holding a dark green sniper rifle about half a metre long. The upper half of his face was covered by a piece of paper. The clown mask was drawn quite distorted, like a low-grade colouring assignment in a child’s art class.
The lower half of the face had overly large red lips drawn on the skin, which together with the paper mask above constituted a perfunctory clown makeup look.
The red lips had obviously been smeared on by his thumb with the blood of who knows who at random, smudged all over the place. A strong smell of blood and some crusts congealed by the corners of his mouth, still crackling and dropping scraps of blood as he smiled.
The exaggerated green flared trouser legs and the dark green sniper rifle were splattered with blood, bits of entrails and some white brain matter.
He sat on the spring and held his chin, his head cocked as he peered down at Mu Ke’s face. The corners of his mouth cracked into wider and wider curves, his apple-green eyes leaking out of the paper.
“I remember this pretty, pretty face of yours.” He said in an English laced with an Italian accent. The accent had a strange bloody elegance to it, the usual trailing tones of the upper nobility making him seem a little lazy, “-because I saw it on my knees.”
“So it impressed me at first sight.”
He lifted the sniper rifle in his left hand halfway up and then, as if suddenly remembering something, he jumped up on one foot and wobbled on the edge of the spring – like an acrobat performing on a rubber ball – with one hand in front of him and one behind him, bowing down with one hand behind his back.
It was another very aristocratic rite of passage, at odds with his current comical performance and outward appearance.
“My father taught me that I should introduce myself before I kill my opponent.” He bent over, his tone polite and respectful, “Out of respect for our opponent, we should allow them to know who it is that killed him.”
He lifted his smiling face, but there was no trace of laughter in his eyes: “My name is Daniel, Bai Liu’s beloved godson.”
Daniel raised his sniper rifle to Mu Ke, the grin on his face growing tyrannical, his attitude careless, “It doesn’t matter what your name is.”
“- you are trash unworthy of him, trash that doesn’t need a name.”
“BANG–!!!”
——–
Bai Liu, who had taken care of everything in the huge play pool, brought Liu Jiayi and Tang Erda to the edge of the pool.
There was not a single player at the game pool.
Liu Jiayi got it as soon as he saw it: “A big guild’s battle group just went down to the pool and the number of players playing in this guild’s game pool isn’t full yet, so other players are afraid to come over.”
She turned her head to Bai Liu, her eyes falling on his hand, which was tightly wrapped in bandages to stop the bleeding, “Why don’t we take shelter too?”
“When did I ever teach you to hold back before a tournament starts?” The woman’s reserved and elegant voice interrupted Liu Jiayi’s thoughts, the regular and pleasant sound of cork heels clattering over, “What you have to do before the tournament is to suppress others’ edges.”
Hearts wore a bright blue ribbon gown with a double draped neckline, elbow-length beige gloves on both hands. Her hair was pulled back in a neat and delicate bun at the top, and raindrop blue and green gemstone earrings about ten centimetres long were swinging around by her neck.
It was a classical and elegant style.
Liu Jiayi stepped in front of Bai Liu: “Queen, it’s been a long time.”
Hearts was also followed by a whole squad, obviously training as a group, but this time instead of Liu Jiayi beside her, it was a stranger.
It was a young foreign girl draped in a small, black and white nun’s dress, no more than thirteen or fourteen to the eye, with blonde hair and blue eyes. A pure white headdress covered her brilliant wavy blonde hair, and a cross representing a prayer to God was held firmly in her hand. The green of her eyes was more innocent and pure than the floating waves of the sea, with a vague blue tinge.
Liu Jiayi only had to glance at the girl to know that Hearts was dressed to keep the new team member company today –
–The new team member looked like a young girl out of a classical painting.
Hearts lifted a hand to stroke the girl’s forehead hair away from the front: “She is the new player to replace you. [Sister] Phoebe, go and say hello to your predecessor and wish her God’s blessing in the game.”
Phoebe walked up to Liu Jiayi a metre or so away, seemingly undaunted by her reputation as a young witch. She curtsied slightly, lifting the sides of her nun’s dress in a reserved salute, with the style of someone raised by everyone and a voice as sweet and beautiful as a honeyed delicacy.
“May the Lord bless you.”
Phoebe stood up and she looked expectantly at Liu Jiayi: “You have a brother too, don’t you?”
Liu Jiayi pursed her lips and glanced at Hearts, but answered back, “I did.”
“I have a brother too, not of the same mother as me, but we share a father – it’s the same with you isn’t it.” Phoebe smiled like an angel, “He turned his back on me as your brother did, on my family.”
“But I don’t blame him, I forgive him, and God forgives everything.”
Liu Jiayi didn’t speak, she watched Phoebe in alert silence, invisible thorns rising from her body.
Ignoring Liu Jiayi’s hostility, Phoebe, as if unable to contain her emotions, stepped forward and took Liu Jiayi’s hands in hers and placed them over her heart, looking at her with those beautiful, oceanic blue-green eyes, full of love and kindness.
“We’re so similar, maybe we should be blood relatives, brothers, sisters, or whatever, I’ve always dreamed of being friends with you!” Phoebe smiled, a genuine and happy smile, “You’re my favourite player.”
Her eyes sparkled, “I will win the game and then bring you God-given happiness.”
Liu Jiayi drew her hand back in surprise, Bai Liu stepped in front of her and looked up at Hearts.
Hearts nodded slightly and smiled, “Phoebe always liked Jiayi. She was actually better than Jiayi, but she volunteered to be Jiayi’s substitute just to make friends with her.”
“But it’s a pity that this friendship didn’t sprout.” Hearts’ meaningful gaze falls on Liu Jiayi, “and the child she liked ran away.”
“Really?” Bai Liu was unmoved, “So what was the reason you didn’t use Phoebe before?”
“Because I’m not stable enough. My brother is still alive and he sometimes does things that annoy and embarrass me, and it affects my performance.” Phoebe sighed in mock distress, crossed her arms and prayed, “God bless him, if only he would die sooner.”
The impact of such words, spoken with such expectation by a naive young girl, was clearly powerful – Qi Yifang, standing behind Hearts, for example, was already in tears.
This is not the teammate he wants. She looks so pure every day, saying God bless you with her mouth, but when she cuts it off, her true colours are revealed. Even these teammates are being cheated…… wuwuwuwu.
As Hearts took Phoebe away to train, Phoebe turned and waved goodbye to Liu Jiayi with a sad look in her eyes.
“Goodbye little witch, I hope to God I have you in my dreams tonight.”
Liu Jiayi silently covered her goosebumped arms.
“Oh yeah and if you guys see my brother, I hope you’ll stop by and help me kill him.” Phoebe said with disinterest, as if she was asking for help with a disobedient pet cat that had scratched her, “His name is Daniel and he’s a fool who loves to play the clown.”
After Hearts left, Bai Liu put his hand on Liu Jiayi’s head: “Hearts was using her to disturb your emotions, so don’t worry about it until we know more about this [nun]. Let’s go into the game.”
Liu Jiayi nodded, took a deep breath and selected the game to log in.
[System Alert: Welcome to the game “Dense Woodside Town”]
[This was once a tropical frontier town at war, full of dense gunfire, filthy swamps, and small lakes. The jungle is full of treacherous beasts, flies, and mutilated bodies, and you are the soldier in charge of cleaning up the battlefield.]
[Points category game, the more corpses a player clears, the more points they earn, eventually the highest points within seven days wins the game].
Tang Erda looked at Bai Liu: “This is a points category game, different from the puzzle category. Generally there is no fixed main line, only background information, and to win the game mainly depends on two aspects. On the one hand is to gain your own points, and on the other hand is to hinder others from gaining points.”
Liu Jiayi looked around for a while, inspecting the environment before making a judgement: “A tropical environment, with lots of rain and wind, rich in both plant and animal species, and relatively complex terrain. It is important to be aware of the interference of these factors.”
She said as she handed a bottle of antidote to Bai Liu.
Bai Liu drank it down calmly, the blood returning to his face quite a bit: “But this game shouldn’t be too difficult, no players or monsters have attacked us yet – let’s get out after a quick sweep.”
Tang Erda and Liu Jiayi nodded their heads.
“To appear on the battlefield, the first thing is camouflage.” Bai Liu scanned the room, “We need three camouflage outfits ……”
Before he could say anything, a shot was heard.
This was a game set in a war context and the gunshots are likely to indicate that there is a conflict going on in the area.
Bai Liu, Liu Jiayi and Tang Erda quickly found vegetation to cover themselves, fell to the ground and rubbed some mud on their faces. They held their breath and closed their eyes to pretend they were corpses.
The hoarse roar of several men faintly penetrated through the dense gunfire and echoed through the hills and forests:
“Spades, don’t you run! You said you were going to lose!”
“You said you’d be punished for three games! You can’t be a man of your word, Spades! Put down the body you’re holding!”
“Spades, stop it! There are teammates surrounding you outside!”
“Spades, you really are trash! You actually fucking robbed your teammate’s body to win!”
A man in a dark green uniform moved quickly through the jungle. As he passed Bai Liu, the man hesitated for a rare moment and he lowered his head to get a closer look at Bai Liu, as if to determine if Bai Liu was a body he could pick up.
But before he could be completely sure, the men behind him hissed and caught up with him:
“Put down the body of the Master!!!”
In such a moment of no hesitation, Spades wasted no time in carrying Bai Liu and running, flinging his hand to use the whip without turning his head.
There was a crisp “snap” followed by a male voice screaming in agony.
“- you actually thrashed your teammate!”
Spades ignored this and continued to run forward with the two bodies in his arms as Bai Liu, who was being carried on his shoulders, slowly opened his eyes.
EN1: so much happening in this chapter..from mu sicheng’s date with armand cough i mean fight and mu ke literally getting SHOT plus liu jiayi meeting phoebe then bai liu and spades interactions ( $ _ $ )
EN2: spades fans, this is the arc for us!! get ready.