Chapter 17-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
Chapter 17
In nature, plants can also be cruel and efficient hunters.
Banyan trees have extremely developed root systems with strong destructive power on the surface. They excel at strangling other trees—a single banyan can dominate over a thousand square meters of land, forming a forest from one tree.
Such a domineering "tyrant" would only have one per territory.
Bai Shan reasonably suspected that the mutated tree in this building, the mutated trees she'd seen on the road, and the roots destroying and eroding the ground along the way were all controlled by the same consciousness.
Because she had encountered such a situation before.
In the fifth playthrough of "Tomorrow's Dominator," Bai Shan died in a boundless forest.
That forest blocked out the sky and sun—not even a single bird could be seen. Bai Shan controlled her character wandering aimlessly. While digging for wild vegetables, she accidentally unearthed an advertisement sign for a children's hobby class. Only then did she realize this place had once been a city.
To leave the forest, she dug everywhere, unearthing city landmarks and maps. She finally found a route to the next city, but the forest wouldn't let her go.
Giant snake-like tree roots rose from underground to block her path. Tree tendrils in the sky formed an impenetrable net, pursuing her from above and below.
In that playthrough, her talent was called [Flash Burst], which gave her extreme speed. So she evaded the forest for several days until she reached its depths, arriving at the forest's center.
The giant tree rose from the ground like a magnificent hundred-story building. The main trunk stretched beyond sight, and countless aerial roots extending from its branches plunged into the soil, forming new trunks that supported the massive canopy. It looked like a vast forest.
In reality, from beginning to end, there was only one tree. The other "trees" were merely branches it had split off!
Kill the main trunk, and you could kill an entire forest. Unfortunately, by that time, Bai Shan had exhausted all her means of attack.
Now, the game scenes that had once been on her computer screen were unfolding before her eyes in reality.
The building beneath her feet was on the verge of collapse. Bai Shan stepped back to steady herself. The rooftop door was like a giant maw of the abyss, instantly spewing countless branches. Wildly growing branches shot up from all sides of the rooftop, surrounding her completely—not a single ray of sunlight could penetrate.
The tree cage imprisoned Bai Shan and was slowly shrinking the space. Its direct attack power wasn't strong—what it excelled at was releasing information to lure prey, then slowly strangling them.
Prey trapped within, even with sharp claws and indestructible weapons that could easily cut through the flexible branches, would eventually be worn down under the endless encasement.
Her vision suddenly darkened. Bai Shan looked up at the airtight tree cage. This tree really wasn't underestimating her—layer after layer wrapped around, afraid she might break through.
It seemed the experience reward for killing her was very tempting to the tree.
"Given enough time, you could grow into that too."
A single tree could dominate an entire city. A single branch could pierce through a prey's heart.
"Too bad you met me."
Bai Shan spoke words only she could understand. Her hand suddenly moved forward, and the tree cage contracted violently in response.
As if sensing something, urging the strangler banyan to immediately kill this unpredictable prey, the cage extended finer, denser tendrils toward Bai Shan.
The next moment, white light suddenly blazed in the dim tree cage, momentarily even engulfing her silhouette.
After the sudden brightness, a ball of white light appeared before Bai Shan. It clearly looked like just a ball of light, yet it made the tendrils recoil as if scalded by fire.
Bai Shan held this ball of white light in both hands. She took a step forward, and the gnarled black tendrils retreated a step. The sealed tree cage was quietly withdrawing its branches.
"Congratulations—this is my only usable S-tier item."
Bai Shan raised one corner of her mouth, but there was no smile in her eyes. It was only the second day since the game descended, and she already had to bring out an S-tier item.
[Ball Lightning (S Tier)
Effect: Luminous plasma that can pass through any obstacle to reach any location. Explosion time can be set (limited to within five minutes). Once five minutes are exceeded, the ball lightning will automatically explode with tremendous power.]
"But you're worth it."
After saying this, Bai Shan threw the white light ball high into the air.
At the same time, the branches surrounding her frantically withdrew, beginning to retreat down from the rooftop.
Ball lightning is a real physical phenomenon that occurs in nature. It usually accompanies thunderstorms and is extremely rare.
The mutated banyan sensed an enormous threat. It had never seen a thunderstorm, but countless trees on this planet had been ignited and destroyed by it—a natural force that no plant could resist!
The sunless tree cage disintegrated on its own, and bright sunlight once again shone on Bai Shan.
The white light ball thrown high began to fall. Bai Shan clasped her hands together in a fist shape, raised her arms, her stance like she was playing volleyball in PE class.
Every inch of her body tensed, like a bow drawn to its limit—
The white light ball fell, and Bai Shan's clasped hands swung down hard!
The light ball slammed toward the ground like a volleyball, but it didn't bounce off the surface. Instead, it passed through the floor like a beam of light, continuing to travel downward.
One minute!
This was the explosion time Bai Shan had set.
Time she left for herself to escape—and time for the strangler banyan to escape, if it could.
The undigested corpses in the elevator shaft were piled very high—definitely more than just this building's residents.
The topmost corpse wore a police uniform. It was very likely the strangler banyan had killed them outside and dragged them in. This building was most probably its lair.
The massive root system spread outward with this building as its center. Its main body was buried deep underground beneath this building—perhaps it had already hollowed out the building's foundation.
However, the deeper the roots, the harder it was to escape. Bai Shan had used herself as bait to lure it into concentrating its previously scattered forces—all to catch everything in one net!
The thirty-story building tilted and sank. The branches on the rooftop had already retreated, leaving only a few fallen leaves. Bai Shan ran into the stairwell, racing at top speed through the intense shaking to reach the 25th floor and burst through her front door.
Books fell one by one from the bedroom bookshelf—world history, historical classics, economics texts, science fiction novels... Finally, a high school required textbook fell. Dust-covered sneakers stepped over them, then doubled back.
Bai Shan took a photo frame from the bookshelf.
"Lin Huijun!"
Bai Shan pulled open the car door and jumped into the RV's passenger seat, quickly fastening her seatbelt.
"Go! Now!"
Bai Shan urged, covered in dust and debris from the ceiling.
"Go where?!"
This was the 25th floor!
Lin Huijun sat in the driver's seat. Perhaps from too much tension and shock, her facial muscles couldn't form any expression—only her brown pupils trembled.
Bai Shan shouted, "Drive forward! Crash through! Right now, immediately!"
Crash— The bookshelf against the wall toppled, slamming onto the RV. Both their bodies shook with the vehicle.
How many seconds were left in the one-minute countdown? Bai Shan didn't know. Seeing Lin Huijun not responding, her right hand pressed against the front of the car, about to activate [Tyrannical Command].
The next second, her body suddenly fell backward—Lin Huijun gritted her teeth and slammed down on the gas!
The black RV shot forward like a beast released from its cage, ramming through the already cracked wall. Cement and bricks shattered as the black vehicle leaped out from the 25th floor!
The car stereo automatically played as the vehicle started.
"Sweet dreams are made of this~"
"Who am I to disagree?"
"AAAAAHHH—!"
The weightless black car plummeted. The teenagers' unrestrained screams echoed through the air, drowning out the husky music. Then, an earth-shattering explosion swallowed everything—space and time seemed to freeze at that moment.
BOOM—!
The [Ball Lightning] that had traveled to the building's base exploded as promised. The massive energy released blasted apart the entire building. The car, halfway through its fall, was sent flying again by the surging dust and debris, like a leaf caught in a hurricane.
Gray-yellow dust blotted out the sky, engulfing half of Rong City's skyline.
A section of blasted branch landed on the crosswalk. It seemed to continue rolling forward from inertia. The black car falling from the sky couldn't brake in time and tumbled several times on the ground, finally tipping over dramatically onto the crosswalk—right on top of the rolling, withered branch.
Tian Hui, Grandma Wu, and the other evacuees who had run to the community basketball court to escape the earthquake watched the sky-covering yellow smoke spread and covered their mouths and noses. Their exposed eyes were filled with stunned shock.
The next moment, billions of humans around the world—fleeing, hiding, fighting—wore the same stunned expressions of shock.
Just one day later, the mechanical voice sounded in everyone's ears once again:
"Congratulations to player [Tyrant] for killing Level 20 player [Strangler]!"
"Becoming the first Earth player to kill a Level 20 player!"
"Congratulations to player [Tyrant] for unlocking achievement [First Blood]. Reward: Item [Resurrection Ticket]. Channel function unlocked. World Channel is now opening..."
"—World Channel is now online!"
A blue light screen popped up before Tian Hui. Her 20/20 vision couldn't even capture a single word clearly—the World Channel was refreshing at a terrifying speed, in dazzling languages, with humanity's confusion, anger, fear, excitement...
The entire world erupted into chaos.
Author's Note:
Going VIP tomorrow, 10,000-word update prepared.
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