The evil Tang Erda leaned against the invisible wall of the [Magic Space] prop, using the still-warm barrel of his gun to light another cigarette for himself. He lowered his head and took a deep, lung-filling drag, then suddenly opened his mouth. "You still haven't escaped from this worldline; is the situation in this worldline still okay?"
He bit the cigarette filter and paused. "Is Su Yang still alive?"
"Alive," Tang Erda answered. He was quiet for a moment. "In the real world, there currently hasn't been any destructive dungeon login; everything is still just about getting by."
The person opposite him was silent for a while, then scoffed. "After restarting so many times, you finally managed it."
"Not bad. How did you do it? Give me some pointers?"
Tang Erda slowly tightened his grip on the gun barrel hanging by his thigh and opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could, the person opposite glanced over and saw the pattern on the silver gun handle that Tang Erda was gripping. The movement of his head paused, and his expression suddenly changed.
He slowly looked up, his dark blue eyes revealing a questioning glint and killing intent, as if he were interrogating a prisoner. "Why has the pattern on your gun handle become the logo of the Wandering Circus?"
Without waiting for Tang Erda to answer, he got up and closed in on Tang Erda, pulled out the gun tucked into the back of his belt, and aimed it at Tang Erda without hesitation, the ferocity in his eyes barely contained. "You actually sold your soul to Bai Liu (6)?!"
"He is not Bai Liu (6); he is different from Bai Liu (6)." Tang Erda slowly lowered the gun he had raised, then raised both hands in a gesture of surrender to show friendliness. "The Bai Liu (6) in this worldline is named Bai Liu, the 'Liu' of the willow tree. He…"
"Everyone who sells their soul to that guy makes these excuses." The person opposite flashed an incomparably mocking smile. "You should know better than me what people who have been bewitched by that guy look like."
The person opposite spat out the cigarette butt hanging from his mouth, his dark blue eyes staring straight at Tang Erda through the swirling, rising nicotine smoke. He clicked the safety off. "I'll give you one last chance to make excuses. What is the reason you sold your soul to Bai Liu (6)? Was there any forced situation?"
Tang Erda paused.
He tried to find a reasonable way to describe the Bai Liu of this worldline, to persuade the version of himself opposite him to believe that Bai Liu would not do that.
Won't commit crimes? A law-abiding citizen?
Tang Erda knew that none of this was quite accurate. He could feel that the depths of Bai Liu's heart remained in that state of being able to cross the line at any moment, but for some reason, up until now, Bai Liu had maintained a relatively harmless state.
And he didn't know why, but he deeply believed that this state of Bai Liu's would continue indefinitely.
Tang Erda took a deep breath and raised his eyes. "No coercion. I trust him."
The face of the person opposite darkened completely, and he pulled the trigger. "Then die."
"Bang——!!"
—————————————————
District D.
Mu Ke was searching through the cemetery buildings floor by floor, cautious and careful. Two hours ago, Bai Liu had sent a message to them through the communication device, saying to focus the search on the central area of the individual graves and the unfinished cemetery buildings.
Mu Ke hadn't seen any individual graves, but after two hours of careful searching, he had finally found the unfinished cemetery buildings.
He pried open a tombstone and, upon seeing the unfinished cemetery building passage underneath with steel bars protruding from the walls, couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief.
He could finally complete the mission and go to District C to regroup with Bai Liu and the others. He was very worried about the condition of Bai Liu, who was carrying a bleeding buff status.
Mu Ke pulled out the short twin blades from his back and held them in his mouth, placed both hands on the two sides of the cemetery entrance, lifted his body, and leaped nimbly and steadily onto the steel bars, rapidly approaching the central floor below.
Upon seeing the massive cemetery room in the center—whose construction style was completely different from the "Incinerator" he had seen before—Mu Ke's eyes paused. He pointed his toes on the steel bars, leaped rapidly downward, used the momentum to jump into the room, and then swirled to jump into the upper left corner.
Mu Ke spread his feet, shifted his center of gravity back, and crouched on his knees, sticking firmly to the wall like a gecko. He quickly pulled the daggers from his mouth with both hands, extended three fingers to press against the wall, and calmly surveyed the situation in the entire room.
The room was about two hundred square meters, and the interior was decorated with luxury and extravagance, no different from where the living resided, forming a sharp contrast with the 3–5-square-meter cemetery rooms nearby. On the red sandalwood table in the center was a shrine, and inside the shrine was a black-and-white photograph with the cause of death written next to it: "Died in a car accident."
Under the shrine was a porcelain-white ash urn.
If Bai Liu's deduction was correct, the land certificate should be placed inside that ash urn.
Mu Ke just wanted to jump down to reach for that ash urn. His body was leaning forward, but his movement suddenly paused. He retracted the three fingers he had pressed against the wall and looked down at his own fingertips.
There was only a thin layer of dust.
This room… had a subtle sense of abnormality. Some places clearly had heavy dust, but in other places, the dust was very thin, especially the corner where he had stayed, the ground where he had landed before, and—
Mu Ke's gaze slowly shifted to the red sandalwood table where the shrine was placed—this red sandalwood table holding the ash urn.
If the developer monster from inside the ash urn had crawled out, the whole room wouldn't be this tidy; there would definitely be obvious traces of dust being dragged. This situation, where the dust was only thinner along the path approaching the ash urn, could only mean one thing—
—That someone had approached this ash urn using the exact same method as him and had used the dust on the side to cover their own movement path.
"Only just noticed now?" A cold voice came from the side. Someone was dragging something heavy, and the clear sound of leather shoes stepping on the wooden floor followed. "What a disappointing worldline. My reaction speed to the environment is actually this slow."
A refined man's profile slowly emerged from the dark shadow in the lower left corner.
"If I had encountered an opponent like myself, this reaction speed would have been enough for me to kill your Guild Leader three times over."
Mu Ke jumped down from the wall, and the moment he saw the face of the person opposite, his pupils shrank.
Standing opposite was a much more mature version of himself!
This mature version of Mu Ke was dragging the corpse of a developer monster with one hand, dragging a long streak of blood behind him. His shoulders and height were slightly broader and taller than the current Mu Ke's. He was wearing a black suit that cinched at the waist, and a light-colored rose was tucked into the pocket of his right suit jacket.
He wore gold-rimmed glasses with a chain, the chain dangling from the side of his ear. On his left ear was an inverted cross pendant earring that swayed slightly. He was dressed meticulously, looking like a nouveau riche from the business world who had just walked out of a high-society banquet.
This mature version of Mu Ke looked up at the young Mu Ke with no expression on his face. He let go of the developer monster he had already killed, took a folded land certificate out of his pants pocket, and held it up to show him. "Is this what you came looking for?"
Mu Ke calmly distanced himself from him. This person, who looked just like him, gave him a very dangerous feeling.
This person absolutely could not have been summoned by Bai Liu, because when Bai Liu made a decision, although he wouldn't notify anyone, he would definitely inform them, his team members of the results caused by this decision.
So, this situation could only be…
Mu Ke's voice tightened. "Are you something summoned by Yuan Guang's skill?"
"Something?" The Mu Ke opposite finally looked at the young Mu Ke directly. "The only person with the right to evaluate me as 'something' is my Guild Leader."
This Mu Ke raised his chin slightly, revealing a bit of restrained arrogance, and even his tone of speaking was neither fast nor slow. "What kind of thing are you, to dare to evaluate me like that?"
As he said this, he let his hand fall backward, and the land certificate slowly drifted to the ground.
Mu Ke stared tightly at that land certificate.
However, the gaze of the Mu Ke opposite was fixed on the black dagger in Mu Ke's hand, his complexion darkening in an unfriendly way. "Did the Guild Leader of this worldline find you a skill?"
Mu Ke keenly noticed the emotional fluctuations of the version of himself opposite him. His gaze shifted to the hands of this Mu Ke, and he asked provocatively, his voice rising slightly at the end. "Yeah, so what? You don't have one?"
The Mu Ke opposite finally walked out of the shadows completely. Mu Ke noticed that he had no weapons in his hands; from his fingertips to the wrists where they connected to his suit, his hands were wrapped tightly in white bandages, and in addition, his neck was also wrapped several times in bandages.
He walked toward Mu Ke step by step, his eyes unreadable. While walking, he raised both hands and began to slowly and solemnly unwind the bandages on his hands from his fingertips, explaining softly and unhurriedly:
"The Guild Leader won't waste any time or energy on a player without a skill, nor will he cultivate such a person, because they have no value."
"Things without value are not worthy of surviving." The Mu Ke opposite said softly, his refined face having a grayish, gloomy feeling in the dark room. "It's the same principle that a heart disease patient shouldn't appear in long-term social relationships. This is a worldly axiom. As Mu Ke, you should at least understand this, right?"
Mu Ke's breathing quickened by two beats, but he quickly calmed down. He was retreating vigilantly as the Mu Ke opposite approached.
"In order to be more valuable to the Guild Leader, to stand on the same league competition stage as the Guild Leader, and as his team member to win victory for him." The Mu Ke opposite raised his eyelids, the bandages on both sides that had been unwound drooping to his elbows. "I trained desperately and worked hard. I killed many players to try to take their skills, but unfortunately, either they were unwilling to give them to me, or their skills weren't what the Guild Leader wanted."
"In the end, I became the only skill-less team member of the Wandering Circus." The Mu Ke's bandages finally dragged to the ground. He tidied the bandages in a leisurely manner and placed them on the red sandalwood table to the side.
Every area hidden under the bandages of this Mu Ke was now exposed. He looked up and watched the Mu Ke opposite quietly. "Do you know how I became like this?"
Mu Ke looked at the areas he had exposed, and no matter how calm he tried to be, his brow wrinkled.
From his fingertips to his wrists, and even his neck, they were covered in all kinds of scars—bruises crisscrossed, knife scars, bullet wounds, dense and shocking. Seeing these things appearing on [his own] body was really not a very pleasant experience.
"I only need perfect fighting techniques, precise environmental observation, and prediction of the enemy's actions. I am the Guild Leader's alternate main attacker." The Mu Ke opposite's voice rose with pleasure. He looked at Mu Ke with a cold, murderous intent in his eyes. "Every time a battle ended and scars appeared on my body, it was the Guild Leader who personally wrapped the bandages for me. This represents the value I created for him on the field."
"The more scars I have on my body, the more valuable I am to the Guild Leader."
"And you—"
The Mu Ke opposite raised both hands, and his feet in leather shoes rotated to exert force on the ground.
Almost in an instant, this mature Mu Ke appeared before Mu Ke's eyes, raised his hand to snatch the dagger from Mu Ke's hand, and slashed fiercely toward Mu Ke's neck.
Mu Ke instantly leaned back to dodge, while his hands flipped extremely fast to recall his weapon.
[System Notice: Player Mu Ke recalled his skill weapon.]
The dagger in mature Mu Ke's hand flickered and nearly disappeared, but it was within those few milliseconds before disappearing that this person's physical speed almost exceeded the system's logical judgment.
Just as Mu Ke recalled his skill weapon, this Mu Ke grasped the dagger and slashed it backhanded across Mu Ke's neck, leaving a huge bloody gash.
Blood sprayed out, splattering onto the gold-rimmed glasses of this Mu Ke.
He lowered his eyes and said in a tone of unprecedented disgust. "Your mediocrity and incompetence have failed to live up to the Guild Leader's partiality toward you."
"I am going to use the dagger he bestowed upon me to kill you myself."