Chapter 58-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
Chapter 58
"Waaah—"
On the living room sofa, the child watching TV scrunched up her face and burst into tears. On screen, a fluffy penguin chick was snatched away by a skua. The adult penguins gathered below could only watch helplessly as the small, adorable life was killed and became the skua's meal.
The child's sobbing drew her mother from the study. Bai Tianqing asked what was wrong. Little Bai Shan pouted and refused to answer, so her mother sat down to watch the documentary with her and quickly found the answer.
"Baby penguins are fluffy and adorable. Every species is cute when it's young."
"Look — this is a skua chick. Nestled against its mother, begging to be fed. Isn't it cute too?"
Bai Tianqing pulled up a photo from her collection. A fuzzy brown chick was curled up beside its mother, the two birds nestled together in a small nest — a tender, heartwarming scene.
First-grader Bai Shan turned her head away stubbornly. Deep down she felt that admitting the skua was cute would be a betrayal of the poor penguins.
"If the mother bird's hunt fails, the chick will have no food and will starve to death. They don't know they're 'skuas.' All they know is that they have to survive."
Bai Tianqing spoke slowly, her words gentle and unhurried.
The child on the sofa had stopped crying. She crossed her arms, wearing a stubborn expression that refused to concede.
She was smart. She vaguely understood that her earlier emotions were somewhat childish and silly — especially in an adult's eyes.
"Nature has no right or wrong. So crying for the penguin, or crying for the skua — neither is something to be ashamed of. Learning about the cruel side of the world isn't meant to make you colder."
"You sit glued to the TV watching nature documentaries every day — isn't that because, beyond the cruelty, these creatures are fascinating, beautiful, and deeply moving?"
Bai Tianqing reached over and pinched Bai Shan's trying-to-look-cool face. The cheek apparently felt quite nice, because she didn't let go.
"Bai Shan, Mom is really glad you're a child who cries."
"Someday you'll understand — this world is worth living in, even through tears."
The documentary moved on to its next segment. Little Bai Shan wore a half-understanding expression. She scooted away from her mother's relentless cheek-pinching hand, then reached up and wiped away her own tear stains.
The stench of blood hung in the air. Beneath the green gauze, Bai Shan wiped away a warm drop of blood from below her eye.
The massive bird impaled by a steel pipe let out a mournful cry and plummeted lifelessly. She had lost count of how many that was.
Dozens? Hundreds? If her experience bar weren't capped by the game version, it would be climbing rapidly, with the mechanical voice constantly announcing gains — stimulating the thrill and glory of leveling up.
Back in Qianxi Town, Bai Shan had once wiped out thousands upon thousands of parasitic fish lice and even unlocked an achievement.
But this time, facing mutated birds that possessed a measure of intelligence and emotion, Bai Shan truly felt the weight of "I am killing many lives."
To humans, the mutated birds were airborne bandits — "skuas." But in the birds' eyes, humans remained what they had always been: apex predators skilled at seizing territory and killing.
Under the game's prodding, the cruel laws of nature had only intensified. Bai Shan was surprised to find she still had the leisure to spare a thread of sentiment, to recall that conversation from ten years ago.
She was a little glad she hadn't lost herself in the pleasure of killing from on high.
She was a born rebel who loved going against the grain. The game encouraged domination and slaughter. Even if she couldn't break free of its rules for now, she would hold them in contempt — not for any grand reason, but simply because she despised anything that tried to dictate her choices.
Bai Shan took a deep breath.
[The Absolute Center] liberated Bai Shan from gravity and inertia. Her body floated effortlessly a hundred meters above the ground.
More and more mutated birds gathered around her. Countless pairs of dark, gleaming eyes stared, having witnessed the overwhelming carnage. None dared approach.
The green net drifting overhead was yanked down by Bai Shan. The feathers it carried fluttered down with it, like a fall of snow.
Without the green gauze, Bai Shan's vision became clear.
She saw it — high in the sky above her, a massive black shadow was blotting out most of the moon, hurtling toward her.
The mutated birds nearby erupted in agitation. Despite their varied sizes, species, and colors, all of them began shrieking at high frequency, their feathers vibrating. The piercing sound waves closed in around Bai Shan.
Bai Shan clapped her hands over her ears with an annoyed tch. The shadow on the moon drew closer, approaching at blistering speed.
The sheer distance lent the terrifying speed a deceptive quality.
She had no doubt — if she failed to react in time, a collision at that velocity would shatter a person into chunks on the spot.
But as it happened, Bai Shan also possessed super speed.
Courtesy of a certain Great Sovereign-level cheetah — [Supersonic Movement].
Atop a nearby building, a mutated owl rotated its head 180 degrees. In its bright, piercing pupils, Bai Shan simply vanished!
The vast dark shadow's trailing army was suddenly left far behind — it had accelerated too!
A dark brown body that scarcely flapped its wings, yet carved through the night sky like a subtle gale. Only its white tail feathers left a cloud-like trail in the air.
Bai Shan drew an arrow from her [Personal Domain]. The arrow blazed with a lethal flame. The fire streaked across the sky like a meteor.
Red and white collided in an instant!
Bai Shan held no bow. She gripped the burning arrow in her bare hand, and just as she was about to crash into the shadow, hurled it like a javelin.
The shadow rolled nimbly in midair, deftly dodging the point-blank arrow, then slid past Bai Shan at uncontrollable speed.
Bai Shan seized the opening. Another flaming arrow appeared in her hand. She personally thrust the burning shaft at the shadow's exposed underbelly.
Simultaneously, the first arrow reversed course in midair — a pincer attack on the shadow from both sides!
In the combined glow of moonlight and firelight, Bai Shan identified the creature up close: a white-tailed eagle, a raptor known as the "tiger of the skies."
Was this mutated white-tailed eagle the leader of the flock?
Bai Shan got her answer quickly.
A mutated peregrine falcon materialized from nowhere and deliberately intercepted the returning arrow. Amid its shrill cry, [Inextinguishable Sun Flame] burned it to nothing.
On the other side, just as the arrowhead's flame was about to be driven into the mutated eagle's belly by Bai Shan's own hand, a feather sliced through the arrow shaft in the blink of an eye!
The burning arrowhead tumbled downward. Bai Shan barely glanced down before another mutated bird swooped in, voluntarily swallowing the flame and arrowhead — sacrificing itself to block her attack.
In the split second Bai Shan's attention wavered, the eagle's talons — larger than a human — came straight at her face.
Rough, thick yellow feet. Gleaming black hooks sharp enough to catch the light. They raked through the air with an audible whistle, backed by a violent gust bearing down on her.
It seemed as though anything caught in those talons would lose all ability to resist.
Today had started with a special-class mutated creature in the morning, a fight with Cheng Yue in the afternoon, and just now the simultaneous manipulation of thousands of steel pipes against a surrounding swarm. Even Bai Shan was feeling the fatigue.
But she remembered that she had effortlessly obtained a precious ability during her time in Nanzhou City.
[Constant Moment] — lock your state at your peak condition. No external force can harm you. Duration: 3 minutes. Cooldown: 24 hours.
Immune to external harm. Restored to peak condition!
A violent impact slammed into her abdomen. Bai Shan seemed unable to dodge in time. The eagle's talons clamped around the tiny human in the sky, as casually as plucking a fish from a lake.
Compared to the mutated eagle's body, Bai Shan looked like a small fish indeed.
The hooked claws tightened with smug satisfaction. The mutated white-tailed eagle tried to drive its hooks into its prey — but failed, unexpectedly.
The prey in its grip seemed coated in an impossibly slick golden shell. Claws sharp enough to slice a human head clean off couldn't gain a single millimeter of purchase. No matter how hard it squeezed, it couldn't break the skin.
As if sensing something, the mutated eagle immediately loosened its grip — but Bai Shan had already clamped one hand around its ankle.
Another arrow loaded with [Inextinguishable Sun Flame] appeared in her hand.
The [Inextinguishable Sun Flame]'s fire was limited — only three uses per day. This was the last one.
In the next instant, a piercing screech split the night sky. The mutated eagle's wings — spanning dozens of meters — flipped out of control. Its massive body lurched and dipped in the air.
Bai Shan's eyes flew wide open, arrow still in hand. Wind shrieked past her ears. Her body was falling — yet for a moment all she could do was stare, stunned, at the eagle overhead and its continuously bleeding stump—
Just as she had been about to strike, one of the eagle's own feathers had sliced through the air and severed the very talon she was gripping!
"Bai Shan!"
Faint shouts reached her from below. The cacophony of bird cries grew even louder. Mutated birds dove at her only to be knocked from the sky — a chaos of combat noise.
Bai Shan had no time to check the battlefield below or Lin Huijun's situation. Her eyes were locked on the eagle above — the one that had resolutely severed its own foot.
Beneath the night sky, the mutated eagle faltered for only an instant before steadying itself. Riding the moon's silvery path, it launched another dive straight at her!
— This was the leader bird of the Wetlands!
Bai Shan's gaze was intensely focused on the sky above, the wonder in her eyes identical to the child glued to the television all those years ago.
Then her lips parted in astonishment. The mutated eagle simply vanished before her unblinking eyes.
She was certain — it wasn't moving too fast. It had genuinely disappeared from the spot!
Teleportation? It could teleport?
While human players each received a unique ability, animal and plant players typically just enhanced along their natural biological traits. Still, Bai Shan had encountered mutated creatures with special abilities back in version 1.0.
They had basically all reached Great Sovereign level.
Bai Shan suddenly felt a frigid current of air from her flank.
She adjusted instantly, flipping in midair from a supine freefall to an upright stance, floating in place.
She found herself back at rooftop height — roughly a hundred meters up. The mutated eagle stood on a rooftop further away, wings folded.
It seemed to have realized it needed to keep its distance from this dangerous human.
Before Bai Shan could close in again, it spread its powerful wings — spanning dozens of meters, stretching across the entire rooftop.
Its shadow nearly engulfed the roof from edge to edge.
Those eyes remained razor-sharp. The outstretched wings beat once, and countless black feathers shot toward her like a dense spray of bullets, leaving no room to breathe!
Bai Shan stood on the opposite rooftop. She didn't dodge. Instead, she charged straight at it once more!
[Constant Moment] lasted only 3 minutes.
Within three minutes, she had to take down this leader bird — one that could teleport, fire feather projectiles, and might well be Level 50!
*
Author's Note:
Hey everyone, I've been traveling the past few days, so I've shifted updates to before midnight. Don't stay up too late — you can read in the morning!
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