Chapter 44-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
Chapter 44
Before Cheng Yue even opened her eyes, she caught the stench of blood — mingled with a nauseating sourness. She instinctively raised a hand to cover her nose and mouth.
[Welcome, player Cheng Yue, to the Position Swap Duel! Please review the rules!]
[Position Swap Battle rules are as follows:
1. Deathmatch. No time limit. Kill the opponent to win.
2. The thirty-square-kilometre area surrounding the challenger's location serves as the battlefield. The game system will teleport the challenged player to the challenger's area.
3. Other players are permitted within the battlefield, but there may be only one challenger. During the Position Swap Battle, if any other player attacks the challenged player in any form, the game system will eliminate them.
4. Once the challenged player arrives, no player may enter or exit the battlefield in any form.]
Her body swayed slightly. Cheng Yue grabbed the glass panel beside her to steady herself. The system's rules buzzed in her ears, struggling to register. She managed to catch a few key phrases.
Deathmatch. Thirty square kilometres. No outside interference allowed.
Her feet rested on a steel floor that rocked unsteadily. Cheng Yue could no longer hold up her mask of composure and confidence. She had no mental energy to spare on the rules right now — her eyes swept her surroundings in disbelief.
Just moments ago she had been in the organisation's car, watching the familiar scenery of Nanzhou City outside the window while the radio relayed fresh intel. The next instant, she had been transported to a completely foreign space.
She was in a cable car!
Opposite her, empty blue gondolas swayed past one after another.
Her cabin was ascending. Below, the mountainside was blanketed with houses — vivid, colourful, the entire slope a patchwork of mismatched blocks stacked at varying heights. Grand in scale, the architecture radiated a passionate exuberance utterly unlike anything in China.
At first glance it was stunning. But a closer look at the cramped, filthy streets threading between the colourful houses — and the putrid, bloody stench that still clawed into her nostrils at this altitude — told Cheng Yue everything. Beneath her feet lay a brutal world, one completely unlike Nanzhou City.
The cable car continued to climb. Another pylon loomed ahead. The cable crossed the colourful hilltop and vanished — no end in sight.
Inside the swaying cabin, her heartbeat was as transparent as the panoramic glass. Cheng Yue did not even know where to look. Where was the enemy? Where was this Camila who had challenged her? What was she supposed to do?
Hadn't her mission, just moments ago, been to kill those two outsiders?
Cheng Yue had started as a child model at six, officially debuted through a talent show at eighteen, and at twenty-two possessed far more professional experience than the vast majority of her peers.
Her mental fortitude should have been more mature than most people her age. Before the game's descent, she could flawlessly play the role of the sweet, polished, quietly determined ideal idol. After the game's descent, she had reinvented herself overnight into a strong, dependable saviour.
Cheng Yue knew she was exceptional. Wherever she went, she could claw her way to the top through ruthless competition.
But "Cheng Yue" was a product — her mother, her agency, her business partners had built the stage, written the script, choreographed the moves, and engineered the most marketable image possible. Her job was simply to perform it.
From childhood onward, this working model had become the very foundation of her survival.
Through the clean glass, a foreign, impossibly high sky stretched beyond. Cheng Yue braced her hands forward, staring fixedly at the glass inches away, trying to make out her own reflection in its faint sheen. But the hazy shadow told her even less than seeing nothing at all.
Suddenly — clack — the glass door was shoved open, the noise swallowing a vicious curse.
The young woman looked down at the colourful houses below. The alien landscape stung her eyes. A surge of fury rose from somewhere deep inside — directionless anger that made her sharply groomed brows look even colder.
A black figure leapt lightly from the cable car, dropping into the colourful streets. Black leather boots hit the ground with a heavy thud; a silver zipper flashed with cold light.
"Camila Caro..."
Right. Kill this person, and she could return to the normal track.
But where was she hiding?
Cheng Yue walked the streets, passing one foul-smelling, brightly painted house after another, stepping around stray dogs gnawing on corpses, striding over gruesome severed limbs. This place had clearly endured a vicious battle.
*
"Over there!"
A white car hurtled along a white road, streaking through green hills and blue water — at a glance, it had the understated elegance of a Chinese ink-wash painting.
Lin Huijun was behind the wheel. She shouted: "Right there — I saw it fly past!"
Bai Shan sat in the passenger seat, her smile stiff. "Good. You spotted it first, so you're in charge of dealing with it."
"There is absolutely no way I am getting out of this car to be showered in bird droppings!"
Bai Shan's voice cracked at the edges.
She should have been on guard. Winter, wetlands, migratory birds — and a massive flock of mutated giant birds at that. It meant an inexhaustible supply of excrement!
Nanzhou City's respectable urban appearance had kept Bai Shan from immediately connecting it to a place she had visited in [Tomorrow's Dominator] version 1.0.
The 1.0 world depicted at least a year or two after the game's descent. Many locations had already been altered beyond recognition, and Bai Shan could not link them to real-world places — as though it truly were a fully fictional setting.
But gazing at the "snow-white" landscape outside the car window, her memory came flooding back like a toilet being flushed.
In version 1.0, mutated bird flocks had not only occupied Nanzhou City but several other cities in the province. They nested in steel frameworks, bred, and — just like humans — claimed cities, squeezing out other species to become regional overlords.
Yet whether driven by migratory instinct or by some unusual scent drifting in from the coast, by the time the [Tyrant] drove through, most of the mutated birds had already flown away.
Back then, she had just unlocked her second Skill, [Tyrannical Command], and had few items. She had relied entirely on the RV's durability to bull her way through.
Those birds were ferociously aggressive. They pecked at the windows with enormous beaks, seized the RV with razor talons and hurled it to the ground — battering its HP bar down by a full 20%. The RV was a game item with high physical-damage resistance; losing 20% counted as severe damage.
Bai Shan had chosen to power through in one burst without stopping.
Now she had nothing to fear from them. Her refusal to leave the car was purely a matter of disgust.
"Well, we're already here."
Beside her, Lin Huijun gave an awkward laugh. No wonder this wetland had sprung to mind first — she recalled someone on the Nanzhou City channel complaining about how insane the place was.
The Wetlands and the surrounding structures had been taken over by the mutated bird flock. The birds swooped out periodically to snatch people and carry them back to the nest for dinner. Once taken, a person was as good as dead.
Tens of thousands of mutated birds lived there together. Escape was impossible. Rescue was impossible.
The Wetlands flock ranked among Nanzhou City's top-tier threats, but because the site was far from the urban centre and the birds were numerous, the environment hostile, and the cost-benefit ratio atrocious, the organisation had not invested much effort.
"Then I'll handle it — urgh!"
The car lurched violently. A raptor dove from above, razor-sharp talons clamping onto the front of the RV. A second bird swooped in from behind, sprawling across the rear, its hooked beak hammering at the roof.
The tyres skidded on the white-streaked road. Lin Huijun stopped the car, threw open the door, and scrambled hand-over-foot onto the roof.
The instant Lin Huijun reached the top, another bird glided out from the trees behind her. She ducked low; the hooked talons barely missed her scalp, and she felt the rush of wind skim overhead. She leapt with all her might and seized the giant bird's tail feathers.
Birds have hollow bones and lightweight bodies. The car-sized bird slowed for a beat when she wrenched it back. Bright yellow flames raced from its tail feathers up to the breast plumage, engulfing the body as it tried to climb.
The grey bird became a burning parachute. Lin Huijun, still gripping its feathers, wobbled her way down to the ground.
The moment she landed, nothing remained of the giant grey bird but a tuft of charred feathers in her hand.
[Obtained item "Light Feather"!]
[Light Feather (A-Tier)
Effect: A handy item that helps reduce the pull of gravity.]
The charred feathers in her hand suddenly turned snow-white. Lin Huijun held the two white plumes with no idea what to do with them — until they vanished from her palm. She looked around in confusion, then felt a gust of air rushing toward her.
She dodged instinctively, but her body moved far faster than she expected. In just two or three steps she had covered several metres.
Looking down, Lin Huijun discovered white feathers tucked into the sides of her shoes.
Her body felt dramatically lighter. The vastly improved agility, combined with her trained reflexes, gave Lin Huijun a crystal-clear understanding of what "wings added to a tiger" truly meant. Even the pain from using her ability seemed to have lessened.
The two birds clinging to the RV charged from opposite ends. Lin Huijun summoned her Frozen Tilapia.
She wielded the frozen fish like a throwing weapon with practised ease, hurling it with precision into the thick plumage of one bird's head. The other she caught by its slender leg with nimble speed and slammed it into the ground!
[Congratulations, player — you have reached Level 11!]
Several mutated birds circled overhead, eyeing the human below with predatory intent, yet none dared swoop again for the time being.
Amid the vast white expanse, the other person inside the RV had not stirred.
From a nearby abandoned building, a man who had been covertly observing them swallowed involuntarily. The organisation had said the one with the crew cut was only Level 10, but she seemed more formidable than some Gold Badge holders he had seen.
The other one — their actual surveillance target — had yet to make a move.
A Level-17 player would surely possess powerful items on top of her Talent. Sometimes items were even more devastating than Talents.
Cheng Yue's sudden conscription into the Position Swap Battle had thrown the organisation's plans into disarray. A Level-17 player sounded impressive, but against the 61st-ranked powerhouse among four hundred million players — unless this Bai Shan was mere steps away from the leaderboard herself, how could she compare? And Cheng Yue always had a retinue of players in the teens around her.
But what if Cheng Yue did not make it back alive? Then his assignment mattered a great deal.
Bai Shan's attack methods, the items she wielded — all of it had to be thoroughly documented. That way, the organisation could use this rare quarry to forge the next "Cheng Yue" as a successor, leaving nothing to chance.
In the distance, the RV suddenly moved.
The man snapped to attention. His eyes widened, irises lightening in colour. He could see clearly: the girl was still seated in the passenger seat, arms folded, not driving.
Yet the RV was reversing on its own, growing larger and closer in his field of vision.
Had the RV malfunctioned, forcing her to use her telekinetic ability to drive it? Were they leaving?
The man's pupils contracted violently.
"Ngh—!"
A strangled cry dissipated inside the abandoned building. The red dart that had sealed his throat boomeranged back, arriving in silence and departing the same way, returning to Bai Shan's hand.
[Qi Taotao has bowed before you!]
[Your "Admonition" can now freely invoke the Talent "Eagle Eye, Wolf Instinct"!]
[Talent: Eagle Eye, Wolf Instinct (C)
Skill 1: One minute of X-ray vision per day.
Skill 2: Unlocked at Level 20
Skill 3: Unlocked at Level 50
Skill 4: Unlocked at Level 90]
Bai Shan thought the X-ray vision skill sounded a tad unsavoury, but applied to her, it truly deserved the name "Eagle Eye, Wolf Instinct."
Ever since she had heard the announcement of Cheng Yue being pulled into the Position Swap Battle, she had kept part of her attention on the matter. Before Cheng Yue returned, it was only natural that the organisation would send someone to monitor them.
Though the organisation was hostile toward her, Bai Shan shared the same hope as them — that Cheng Yue would win the Position Swap Battle.
Because she wanted an SS-tier Talent with its second Skill unlocked.
*
Author's Note
Happy Women's Day!
Comments
Post a Comment