Chapter 75-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
[??? No way bro...]
[Feels like something just flashed by in an instant]
[A low-ranked player daring to go all-in and challenge Tyrant — there's no way this was a brain-dead impulse. He must've gotten hold of critical intel or an incredibly powerful item, something that gave him a real shot at beating Tyrant. I'm so hyped right now. This swap battle could rewrite the Leaderboard and even reshape the entire human player landscape. Let's wait and — I hadn't even finished typing and it's already over?!]
[Uh, what just happened? Did it even last one minute?]
[His peak rank was around 90th, right? A low-ranked player getting instantly killed by Tyrant isn't surprising. But what was going through this guy's head when he voluntarily used a Position Swap Order against Tyrant? This might be the world's tenth greatest unsolved mystery.]
[Shen Yuanzhi was pretty shrewd though. How did he end up pulling something this ridiculous?]
[Unless Tyrant had a knife to his throat forcing him to use the Position Swap Order, I can't think of a single reason.]
[There's no way Tyrant would've been interested in him. I bet Tyrant was just as confused when the challenge suddenly popped up]
[Tyrant lmaooo]
[I think daring to challenge Tyrant takes tremendous courage. If he'd just lasted a little longer, it would've been an inspirational, tragic tale]
[Friends, I have a very reasonable theory — what if Shen Yuanzhi was Tyrant's biggest fan? Willing to die just for a chance to meet his idol!]
[Tyrant's fan? That sounds absurd at first, but think about it — it might actually be the most logical explanation!]
[If he was Tyrant's fan, everything makes sense]
[Qin Zhen broke Tyrant's record for fastest swap battle. To defend his idol's honor as number one, Shen Yuanzhi threw himself into the arena and fell on his own sword to help Tyrant reclaim the throne]
[LOYALTY!]
[Dammit, I want to see Tyrant before I die too!]
[Shen Yuanzhi is looking down from heaven, disappointed in all of you...]
[Finally some news about Tyrant, and it's over in under a minute. Even if someone happened to walk past the battle, they might not have even noticed]
[Speaking of which, what city was Shen Yuanzhi in? Has anyone seen him?]
The world channel was abuzz with speculation over this farcical swap battle. Since the game's arrival, people had rarely found a topic this purely entertaining. Although a few voices protested about respecting the dead, they were treated as part of the joke.
Stuck in Hai City, Bai Shan couldn't easily open her Game Panel and had to sit this one out for now.
She waited on the spot for a while. No submission notification came, and she received none of his items.
It was as if Shen Yuanzhi had truly become an ordinary person, with no abilities or items to yield to her.
Bai Shan felt a twinge of regret. After all, anyone who could crack the world's top 100 on the Leaderboard had to have at least an S-tier Talent.
Unwilling to give up, she walked over and examined Shen Yuanzhi's corpse. She prodded it and discovered a layer of transparent film draped over his body.
She gave it a firm tug. An almost-invisible raincoat peeled away.
She instinctively moved to activate [Inspection] to check the item's details, then remembered the RV's health bar incident — viewing game information triggered attacks. She held back.
Even without checking the details panel, Bai Shan could guess this Transparent Raincoat was a game item. Shen Yuanzhi had already demonstrated its function — the ability to phase through walls and other solid objects.
Shen Yuanzhi was the "Brother Shen" Yan An had mentioned. He should have had one companion with him at the time. He'd killed that companion, completed the ritual, and in return received this item from Liu Chaoyun.
But based on their brief encounter, Bai Shan judged that Shen Yuanzhi hadn't gained a Talent ability — he'd only had this single item.
"So this is what Liu Chaoyun calls 'bestowing abilities'?"
Bai Shan stared at the item in her hand and raised an eyebrow. Liu Chaoyun was lying. She had no means of granting Talent abilities whatsoever. She simply rewarded items to a select few converts to demonstrate her "divine power." Hai City's residents, who had never been exposed to the game, were easily duped into believing she possessed genuine miraculous abilities.
In reality, any outsider player who took items out within the first twelve hours could keep them even after their game abilities vanished. Items that had already been withdrawn wouldn't disappear.
Lin Huijun's [Frozen Tilapia] had already proven this.
The con wasn't particularly sophisticated. What was truly alarming was that Liu Chaoyun had obviously come prepared — her methods suggested she'd known Hai City's mysterious rules in advance.
Even nearby Nanzhou City had been completely in the dark about Hai City, without a single clue. Yet Liu Chaoyun and her cult had managed to obtain such critical intelligence? Bai Shan had initially dismissed them as a flock of deranged fanatics, but now she regarded Liu Chaoyun and the Omniscient God Cult with considerably more wariness.
Bai Shan turned the Transparent Raincoat over in her hands. Her grave expression eased slightly.
"At least this thing is useful."
An item suited for assassination — though for the life of her, Bai Shan couldn't think of anyone she'd need to go out of her way to assassinate.
She tried storing the raincoat in her game space. It didn't budge. Storage failed.
Hai City was practically a land of bugs. Resigned, Bai Shan stowed it in [Personal Domain] alongside the pile of guns.
She stood, spared the corpse no further glance, and left the rooftop immediately.
The swap battle hadn't been a total waste. This time in Hai City, the rules hadn't appeared as a holographic screen — instead, they'd been injected directly into her consciousness.
Bai Shan hadn't spent the whole time laughing. She'd noticed that one rule had been modified.
[During a Position Swap battle, if any other player interferes with either the challenger or the challenged party in any way, the game system will eliminate them.]
In the first swap battle, the rule had only prohibited other players from interfering with the challenged party — a measure designed to protect the defender.
Bai Shan had considered this a balancing mechanism: the challenger already had the advantage of choosing the venue, so they shouldn't also be allowed to exploit that advantage by enlisting others against the defender. One rule favored the challenger; one favored the defender. Fair, as the game emphasized.
But now, that sliver of fairness was tilting.
This update blocked the possibility of Bai Shan using her charisma to turn local players into allies during a swap battle.
Not that Bai Shan needed anyone's help, but she couldn't shake the feeling this rule change was aimed at her.
After all, other players' roles could shift between challenger and defender. She was the only one who would forever be the challenged party!
Damn game!
Bai Shan returned from the rooftop to the mall's seventh floor. Leaning against the railing and looking down, she noticed no one was paying attention to the upper floors.
She quietly breathed a sigh of relief. Shen Yuanzhi had indeed used a fake name — at least he'd had that much sense. A Leaderboard player who'd lost their abilities would be treated as nothing more than a fat sheep.
In the mall's open atrium, the pitch-black mutant bird circled once more, dragging a bloody wing and screeching before crashing out of the building.
Lin Huijun had cornered a young man. She seized his wrist — the hand holding a conch shell — and he cried out in pain as his fingers opened, the shell clattering to the floor.
The monster was hard to fight, but as long as you found the person controlling it, things became simple.
From the start, Lin Huijun had picked up the faint sound of a conch. While fending off the mutant bird, she tracked the sound to its source and finally found the man hiding inside a department store.
Scattered merchandise lay everywhere. Lin Huijun kicked a toy ball out of her path. She'd caught the man, but now she wasn't sure what to do with him.
"Are you from Hai City?"
Lin Huijun asked, her tone uncertain.
"Yes — yes, I am!"
The young man blurted.
"They're controlling me! That old woman forced me to come! This isn't what I wanted! Please let me go—"
He blubbered and begged, while his other hand suddenly drew a folding knife from his pocket. The sharp blade flicked open.
But his left hand was clearly uncoordinated. To Lin Huijun, the motion was sluggish — frame-by-frame slow. She caught his knife hand by the wrist, wrenched the blade away, and reversed it against his abdomen.
The disarming was fluid and forceful, yet Lin Huijun's expression faltered. Complex emotions churned in her eyes, reflecting the man's terrified, pleading face.
Bang — a bullet struck the young man squarely between the eyes.
Lin Huijun released him. The young body slumped sideways into the pile of scattered goods in the corner.
She turned. Through the shelves, Bai Shan stood at the store entrance, watching her. Her mouth opened as if to call Lin Huijun's name.
"Bai Shan."
Bai Shan withdrew her gaze, following the voice to its source — Liu Chaoyun, standing a few meters away in the mall corridor.
A middle-aged woman flanked her, eyeing Bai Shan with a mix of wariness and hatred. Liu Chaoyun waved her off.
"But — what if that person tries to hurt you..."
"The Omniscient God will keep me safe."
The middle-aged woman reluctantly stepped back, watching Liu Chaoyun walk toward Bai Shan.
"Same as always, I see. Have you found your mother yet?"
"And Chen Xinyi — you didn't bring her along?"
The exchange had the surface of small talk, but the undercurrent between them was anything but yielding.
Bai Shan and Liu Chaoyun smiled coolly at almost the same instant — the young person's taut, full cheek and the old woman's loose, sagging skin both equally immobile, only the corners of their mouths lifting in a perfunctory arc.
"I don't want to kill you, Bai Shan. I only sent them to bring you here, because I knew you wouldn't come willingly."
"Your mother told you to call me Grandma Liu. You only said it once, and only in front of her. You don't like me, yet I've always looked after you as a junior..."
Bai Shan cut her off, frowning as she dug through her memory. "Your idea of 'looking after' me was trying to sell my family 999-yuan-a-bottle miracle water when I was sick?"
Liu Chaoyun's eyebrows shot up. "That was an insider-only discounted price! I only had three bottles' worth of quota. You ungrateful brat!"
Bai Shan rolled her eyes ever so slightly. She wouldn't have wanted it even for free — just touching it felt contaminating!
Liu Chaoyun caught her own lapse in composure and quickly restored her affected benevolence, though her mask was no longer holding as well as before.
"Bai Shan, children your age love doing the opposite of what adults say. I know you won't believe me. But for Hai City's sake, just behave for once."
"You're proselytizing — just proselytize. Aren't you embarrassed trotting out 'for Hai City's sake'?"
Bai Shan strode toward Liu Chaoyun. Liu Chaoyun held her ground, chin raised, not an inch of retreat.
"I received the Omniscient God's divine command to come to Hai City. Only I can save this place!"
Bai Shan gave an amused nod. From thin air, she drew an arrow, its icy tip pressing against Liu Chaoyun's chest and nicking the embroidered cotton jacket.
"How exactly did the Omniscient God tell you? A dream? An email?"
Liu Chaoyun smiled, her expression tinged with fervor.
"In your terms — it sent me a private message through the game."
Bai Shan's mocking demeanor faded. Her eyes turned peculiar.
Wait — since when did this game have a private messaging feature?
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