Chapter 48-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
Chapter 48
Unfocused pupils snapped into sharp clarity in an instant. A blood-smeared face suddenly loomed overhead, one of its eyeballs dangling from the socket by a thin thread of tissue, swaying back and forth, grazing across vulnerable human skin.
Squelch—
Cheng Yue, who had been lying on the ground gasping for breath, flipped over in one motion. The knife that never left her hand plunged into the thing's temple, and with tremendous force, she shoved it back into the pile of corpses beside her.
Another squelch as she pulled the knife from the rotting flesh. The young woman staggered to her feet.
Aside from the patch of ground where she had been lying, the surroundings were carpeted with corpses in various states of death — filthy hands and feet tangled together, torsos stacked upon torsos, each in a different stage of decay. The person rising from among them no longer looked human — more like a reanimated corpse.
Passing a miraculously intact storefront window, Cheng Yue studied her reflection, almost forgetting who she was and what she was here to do.
Her black leather jacket, soaked through with foul blood, had lost its sharp edge. Her carefully maintained appearance had become wretched. The sticky sensation of a dead person's eyeball seemed to still linger on her face. Cheng Yue reached up to wipe it away, only smearing her face dirtier. Her dulled reflection overlapped with the toppled plastic mannequin inside the display window.
Crash — Cheng Yue's fist smashed through the window, leaving a carpet of broken glass behind her as she continued walking aimlessly forward.
Was this the third day, or the fourth?
Cheng Yue pondered the question as she followed a rugged road uphill, arriving at a hilltop that overlooked the entire town. A stone painted with colorful letters stood at the summit — Cheng Yue didn't recognize the word.
Colorful houses built along the mountainside were crammed tightly together, rising and falling with the terrain. Cable cars shuttled endlessly back and forth across the hills. It was a beautiful sight, Cheng Yue thought — before the game's descent, this might have been some Instagram-famous tourist spot.
The weather here was hot, probably around 20°C. Using common sense, Cheng Yue surmised she had been teleported to some tropical region, or perhaps the southern hemisphere.
Judging by the density of the buildings and her observations over the past few days, this was likely a slum in some underdeveloped country.
A slum bursting with vibrant colors — this area might once have been home to many warm-hearted residents.
But since Cheng Yue arrived, she hadn't encountered a single living person.
The Position Swap Battle had been going on for three days, and she hadn't even found her enemy!
The only clue she had was that Camila's ability seemed to involve controlling corpses — an endless stream of corpses.
Cheng Yue had no idea what had happened here. There wasn't a single mutated animal or plant, yet human corpses were scattered everywhere.
Had Camila killed all of them?
Cheng Yue considered it, then shook her head. If it were all Camila's doing, she would rank at least in the top 10, comparable to Charlie Anderson.
A dry, hot mountain wind carried the stench of decay. Cheng Yue had grown numb to it. She listened as rustling sounds from the surrounding hillside forest drew closer.
The army of the dead charged at her tirelessly. For Cheng Yue, they weren't difficult to deal with.
She leaped lightly from where she stood, her body floating in midair. She looked down at the swarm of corpses crowding toward her below. They raised their arms, reaching toward the sky as if trying to drag her down — but the moment her gaze met their frozen, rigid, terrified, resentful expressions, they looked more like desperate people struggling for rescue.
Cheng Yue leaped to the rear of the undead army, turned her head, and pushed her hand backward. Hundreds of stiff, slow-moving corpses were instantly blasted away by a tremendous force, snapping like grass in the wind, a dark mass tumbling down the hillside.
Many corpses struck trees, rocks, and houses on the way down, their heads separating from their bodies, falling to pieces. These lifeless bodies were too fragile.
No matter how many came, they posed limited threat to Cheng Yue. Her talent [The Absolute Center] was perfectly suited for handling such situations.
But Cheng Yue's expression was hardly better than those of the corpses.
"Camila, Camila..."
Cheng Yue murmured the name, her expression bordering on madness, every syllable dripping with hatred. She already knew — this Position Swap Battle could only end in one of two ways!
One: she found Camila and killed her. Camila had yet to show herself, which meant she didn't have the ability to confront Cheng Yue directly. Finding her would be tantamount to winning.
Two: she continued circling the 30-kilometer arena like a headless fly, day after day, until her mental state collapsed — and then Camila would emerge to claim victory.
"Camila! Come out!"
Her hoarse shout echoed across the silent hilltop. Cable car after cable car drifted slowly past behind her, their creak against the support towers the only reply.
She suddenly turned to look back.
*
"Huang Yuci, you still haven't answered my question. Who do you think will win?"
Bai Shan leaned back in the RV, pressing the question with curiosity.
Nanzhou City in February was at winter's tail end. It was a bit cold outside, but the RV's interior was a comfortable temperature. Huang Yuci shifted in her seat, as if uncomfortable.
"It's hard to analyze objectively when we know nothing about Camila." Huang Yuci mumbled, "I only know Cheng Yue. She's actually someone who adapts well to situations — whatever environment she's placed in, she does what needs to be done, and usually does it decently."
For instance, when Cheng Yue landed the lead role in her very first drama, Huang Yuci — as a fan — had actually steeled herself to praise the performance no matter what. After all, what kind of acting chops could a singing-and-dancing idol have?
But after the series aired, the reception was surprisingly decent. Cheng Yue's acting wasn't exactly stellar, but it was good enough for an idol drama.
Same with singing and dancing — Huang Yuci could subtly sense that Cheng Yue's passion for performing wasn't particularly strong. That was why Cheng Yue's actual vote count in that hit audition show was only third place.
Her vocal and dance skills ranked upper-middle among the hundred contestants — ace-level material. Her appearance easily placed her in the top tier. The show gave her plenty of screen time and storylines. By all accounts, a contestant with both talent and looks should have had several viral fancams during the competition.
In reality, several contestants who were inferior to her in both appearance and skill ended up shining brighter on stage and attracting more fans.
Huang Yuci had followed many celebrities. She could see clearly — what Cheng Yue lacked was genuine, heartfelt charisma.
Cheng Yue could execute a stage performance flawlessly, yet she herself couldn't truly immerse in or enjoy the stage. How could the audience be moved? In the end, the investors pushed her vote count to first place — not just because she was young and had great potential, but more importantly, Cheng Yue had already been a contracted artist under that TV network.
"That audition show had Cheng Yue's high-ranking debut scripted from the very beginning. But Cheng Yue didn't become an embarrassment of forced promotion — she lived up to every resource given to her, so the platforms were willing to keep pushing her."
"Setting aside the celebrity identity, there are plenty of people like Cheng Yue in real life — they can fulfill the goals set by family and society quite well, even when those goals aren't what they truly desire, or even when they're internally resistant. They still comply."
"It sounds like they're being controlled, and that's pitiable. But once the outside world withdraws its commands, they lose their goals and sense of direction, and tend to end up even worse off."
Huang Yuci's commentary was razor-sharp, nothing like a fan's. If she posted these takes on her stan account, it would be raided overnight.
Lin Huijun couldn't help but say, "The way you describe her, Cheng Yue sounds like a polished hollow shell. So why do you like her?"
"She's pretty." Huang Yuci said matter-of-factly. "I follow celebrities to feast my eyes on beautiful humans. If I wanted spiritual depth, there are plenty of great figures out there — it would never be an idol's turn!"
Lin Huijun was starting to suspect that Huang Yuci's sharp assessment of Cheng Yue was because the game's descent had made Cheng Yue fall short of her aesthetic standards.
"To answer Bai Shan's question — I think Cheng Yue will win. The goal of a Position Swap Battle is simple: kill the enemy. And Cheng Yue has always been a solid executor."
As Huang Yuci spoke, she glanced at Bai Shan in the rearview mirror and asked, "Why did you bet on Camila?"
Bai Shan stretched lazily in her seat and replied, "Because I admire Camila."
"Huh?" Huang Yuci gave an exasperated look. She could only think of one reason: "You admire Camila's courage to challenge?"
"I admire Camila's decisiveness."
Bai Shan answered.
Regarding Camila's sudden initiation of the Position Swap Battle, there was one strong possibility — Camila had encountered some life-or-death crisis, compelling her to open another life-or-death challenge to win a sliver of hope.
As for why she chose Cheng Yue, Bai Shan also found it strange. Perhaps there was an ability matchup advantage, or perhaps the situation was urgent and Camila picked a name she recognized that wasn't ranked too high.
Hearing this reasoning, Huang Yuci fell silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed. "Alright, decisiveness — that's something Cheng Yue lacks. But — Cheng Yue is very good at killing."
Bai Shan thought back. "She doesn't look like a ruthless killer type."
At their first meeting, Bai Shan had made a small show of force to suppress Cheng Yue's ability — a warning shot. For some proud, spotlight-accustomed powerhouses, this would be outright humiliation.
But Cheng Yue chose to stand down and leave peacefully. That showed she was cautious and restrained — clearly not a ruthless person.
At this, Huang Yuci kept smiling, but her gaze went hollow, as if lost in some memory. "Before you two showed up, Nanzhou City had no shortage of 'dangerous individuals.' That's part of how Cheng Yue got to rank 61."
"But she's truly not ruthless. She's a mirror — if the other side is vicious, she's vicious too. If the other side is innocent, she can't bring herself to act with a clear conscience."
"That's the kind of moral struggle any normal person would have. But she was placed in an extraordinary position by the Organization, and that kind of personality comes across as weakness."
*
The cable car towers stood tall among the hills. Black boots planted on the slender steel frame, Cheng Yue looked down from above, her gaze sharp as a hawk's, locked onto each cable car passing below.
Within thirty kilometers sat tens of thousands of densely packed houses. Over these three days, Cheng Yue had gone in and out of every building along the blocks, and had even found the boundary of the Position Swap Battle's arena.
An invisible barrier split a building's living room in half. Cheng Yue could see the sofa and walls on the other side but couldn't advance further — like a game character who had reached the edge of the map, unable to break through no matter what.
Though the Position Swap Battle had boundaries, the range was still enormous — especially in a place like this. Cheng Yue now understood why action movie characters loved hiding in slums.
It was far too easy for Camila to hide in this slum. The hillside-built, dizzying houses and tens of thousands of corpses could all serve as Camila's cover.
After days of dazed searching, the overwhelmingly saturated colors covering the hills, the scorching heat, and the stench of decay had rapidly eroded Cheng Yue's patience and sanity. She had nearly lost herself in this natural labyrinth.
Instinct drove her uphill to breathe slightly cleaner air. Standing at the hilltop, when she casually turned her gaze toward the cable cars, her scalp suddenly tingled.
Yes — how could she have missed something so obviously wrong!
When she first arrived, she had been teleported onto a moving cable car.
At the time, she assumed cable cars — being the kind of equipment that needed backup power for passenger safety — might still have electricity, or that this area hadn't fully lost power yet, like Nanzhou City.
But three days and nights had passed. Not a single house in this slum had electricity. Street lamps stood uselessly, nights were pitch black — yet the cable cars, like the corpses, were endlessly driven, cycling back and forth, chasing after something.
Cheng Yue crouched patiently on the cable car tower. [The Absolute Center] formed an invisible field of force. She watched cable car after cable car pass beneath her — one, two, three...
When her mental count reached fifty-five, [The Absolute Center] detected an anomalous gravity. Cheng Yue's pupils dilated with extreme excitement. In an instant, she leaped onto the cable car's roof. The metal plate groaned under her weight. She bent down, reached for the glass door below, and impatiently flipped herself inside.
Cheng Yue tumbled into the cramped cable car interior and finally saw Camila's face—
Her expression, fierce with excitement, froze abruptly. Cheng Yue stared in disbelief.
The floor and seats of the cable car were drenched in blood. A girl who looked middle-school aged lay still on the seat with only half a body, her expression perfectly calm. If her eyes hadn't still been moving, Cheng Yue would have thought she was dead.
— She had no legs. Blood had filled the cable car's interior, and she was still alive?
"...Camila?"
"Cheng... Yue."
The girl uttered two imprecise syllables in response.
The scenery outside the cable car slowly shifted. Cheng Yue stood rigid in place. She noticed the girl's brown skin — given her ethnicity, Camila might be even younger than she had guessed.
"You've been here for three whole days?"
The girl didn't speak. Her eyes gazed at Cheng Yue, her frail eyelids trembling.
Only then did Cheng Yue remember — they didn't speak the same language.
She had started child modeling work at a very young age, leaving little time for regular schooling. She could only desperately scrape together the handful of words she knew, sputtering them out in fragments.
"You, three days, here?"
The moment the words left her mouth, Cheng Yue regretted it. Her lips pressed tightly together, and she said no more.
Camila braced one hand behind her, struggling to prop her body up.
The cable cars that had been cycling endlessly through the mountains finally, in this moment, came to a stop.
*
Tires rolled over the smooth road surface as the RV cruised along the highway.
"So I'm betting on Camila. When two opponents are closely matched, showing even a hint of weakness becomes a fatal flaw."
Bai Shan gazed at the shifting scenery outside the window and shrugged. "It'd be best if Cheng Yue makes it back. I'm a woman of my word when I lose a bet."
[Bzzt—]
The moment her words fell, a mechanical voice suddenly rang out by their ears!
The expressions of all three people in the vehicle froze at once. Across the world, countless people stopped what they were doing at the same moment, listening to the new global announcement.
*
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