Chapter 78-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
Chapter 78
Jiang Yusong's pupils contracted. Her breath hitched for an instant. Facing someone who appeared ten years her junior, she felt a genuine flicker of fear — and the urge to submit.
With the secret of her abilities exposed by Bai Shan, Jiang Yusong dropped all pretense. Steeling herself against the tingling at her scalp, she held her ground and declared, "You're very powerful, but my ability isn't bad either. Before you can kill me, I'll make you pay a price!"
Bai Shan tilted her head indifferently.
Jiang Yusong assumed Bai Shan was using the threat of death to intimidate her into submission. But Bai Shan was merely stating a fact.
Because in eleven hours, Jiang Yusong would discover that her abilities were also unaffected. Jiang Yusong's identity was special — she wasn't some random nobody. If she made it back to the Capital alive with information about Bai Shan, this journey would become far more troublesome.
Bai Shan believed her greatest secret wasn't being the Tyrant — it was that she had played Tomorrow's Dominator version 1.0.
The Tyrant was certainly a figure of immense importance, but for a nation — for the world's governments — the true nature of Tomorrow's Dominator mattered far more than the Tyrant's real identity. Unfortunately, Bai Shan was connected to both of those critical secrets.
The standoff dragged on, neither willing to yield an inch.
A white spot of light appeared silently on Bai Shan's shoulder. At some point, the mall's floor-to-ceiling glass window beside them had been burned through, leaving a small hole.
A beam of light, solid as a lance, pierced through and struck Bai Shan's shoulder. She felt a sudden sting, looked down, and found a small patch of her jacket scorched away, exposing the charred lining beneath.
"That is light — omnipresent light. Even when the sun is hidden behind clouds, light never disappears."
Jiang Yusong broke the silence.
She lifted her chin. Even with her jaw trembling, she pressed on, "I'll say it one more time. I can't tell you, but if you're willing to come back with me, you might — might be given access to classified information."
Bai Shan stared at the spot of light on her shoulder and spoke slowly. "Let me make myself clear for the last time. I'm here for Hai City's secrets. I don't care who you are or who's behind you — don't try to give me orders."
Her gaze shifted from her shoulder to Jiang Yusong. Their eyes collided like sunlight focused through a lens — one more second and something would ignite.
"Hold on!"
Lin Huijun took a big step forward, placing herself between them.
"Bai Shan, wait. Jiang — Comrade Jiang Yusong... I'd like to ask you about someone."
Lin Huijun's gaze was steady as she looked at Jiang Yusong.
"What?"
Jiang Yusong, still on high alert, took a beat to respond. She turned to Lin Huijun, confused.
"My name is Lin Huijun. My mother is Lin Haiying. She's a soldier."
"Several months ago, she was transferred up north. Not long ago, her name appeared on the Leaderboard. As her daughter, I've been wanting to know how she's doing."
"Perhaps... you've heard of her, in the Capital?"
A look of shock spread across Jiang Yusong's refined features. She hadn't just heard of Lin Haiying — the name was legendary!
"You — you're Commander Lin's daughter?"
Until now, Jiang Yusong's attention had been fixed on Bai Shan. Only now did she study Lin Huijun closely, and the resemblance hit her — the jawline, the build, the bearing — all strikingly similar to the awe-inspiring figure in her memory.
The difference was that Lin Haiying's face was more angular and chiseled, her frame more solid. Lin Huijun's eyes were a touch larger, lacking the depth and warmth that years of experience had forged. They were earnest and clear.
"Uh, Commander?"
Lin Huijun had no idea her mother had risen to that rank.
"The more I look, the more I see it. Genetics really are powerful."
Jiang Yusong had only met Lin Haiying once. The Capital had convened a classified meeting, and Lin Haiying attended, stayed less than a day, then hurried off again.
"Commander Lin has always been on the front lines, facing the most dangerous mutants. Every one of us deeply admires her."
"Compared to the Tyrant, who hides in the shadows, people like her are the true light of humanity, the paragon of our times—"
"Thank you! Thank you for telling me about her." Lin Huijun couldn't help cutting in.
She glanced at Bai Shan's expression. Bai Shan flashed her a teasing smirk, eyes practically saying, "Wow, the 'light of humanity's' daughter."
Lin Huijun fixed her with an earnest, clear-eyed glare.
Of course she wanted to know about her mother. But the real reason she'd suddenly played the family card was to prevent Bai Shan from killing Jiang Yusong.
Jiang Yusong had risked her life to volunteer for Hai City in a moment of crisis. She was someone with courage and conviction. Lin Huijun came from a military family — she understood the paramount importance of operational security and sympathized with Jiang Yusong's reaction.
"Yusong-jie, we all came here for Hai City — for the survivors fighting to stay alive."
"Granted, the two of us are just insignificant, impulsive students. But as long as we still have our strength, we can't bring ourselves to simply walk away. Before we go, we want to do whatever we can for this city."
Lin Huijun spoke with earnest conviction, then added half-jokingly:
"Yusong-jie, you've been through the most stubborn, most impossible-to-dissuade age yourself. The tighter you guard your secrets, the less likely we are to give up."
"If you won't tell us what's really going on in Hai City, how can you expect us to back down?"
Jiang Yusong's eyes flickered between Lin Huijun — the spitting image of her idol — and Bai Shan, the spitting image of the Grim Reaper.
She felt her brain short-circuiting, overloaded by the hot-and-cold alternation.
Jiang Yusong raised both hands and clutched her head in agony. After struggling for a while, she calmed down, reining in her sharp yet fragile emotions.
"I'm sorry. I was a bit on edge earlier."
Jiang Yusong looked at Bai Shan, giving a slight nod — a gesture of concession.
"My teammates... are all dead, actually."
Lin Huijun's heart sank. Earlier, Jiang Yusong had only mentioned being swept away by the current, saying nothing about her teammates' fate.
Bai Shan wasn't surprised. If Jiang Yusong still had surviving teammates, she wouldn't have needed to skulk around under Liu Chaoyun's nose.
"To prepare for every possible scenario in Hai City, our team was specifically assembled to cover a wide range of specialized abilities."
"I control light. Colonel Zeng, our team leader, could alter local weather patterns. And we had a doctor whose Talent was cellular manipulation — any living thing that touched him was as good as dead..."
"Before entering Hai City, I was brimming with confidence. We'd gathered twenty elites with diverse, complementary skill sets. I truly couldn't imagine anything that could stump us."
Jiang Yusong gave a bitter laugh and seemed to feel a chill, pulling her scarf tighter.
The team had breezed from the Capital to Hai City. They'd been in high spirits the whole way, chatting and joking. Every mutant they encountered, no matter how fierce, was dispatched in under five minutes by a single member. Despite two prior teams going dark, the mood in Jiang Yusong's squad was optimistic. Twenty people, all with the skill and the temperament for the job.
Until they entered Hai City.
Colonel Zeng was the first to notice something wrong with her abilities. Her Talent was weather manipulation over a localized area — she could call down hailstones from a clear sky, or summon a tornado across rugged terrain.
She tried to stop the downpour overhead. For the first time ever, her ability failed.
"At that point, we hadn't even reached the twelve-hour mark, but her ability was already malfunctioning."
"Colonel Zeng said she felt as though she was being suppressed — something was wrestling her for control, and she was losing."
Bai Shan spoke up. "What level was she?"
"Colonel Zeng was Level 19. The lowest in our team was Level 17. Four members were above Level 20."
Bai Shan suddenly took two steps to the right. She leaned against the massive floor-to-ceiling window. Through the glass, she watched the ceaseless torrent of rain.
"The weather in Hai City isn't natural. Some ability is controlling it?"
Bai Shan's eyes lit up with sudden understanding. Under normal circumstances, a rainstorm of this magnitude simply didn't occur in February. She had initially attributed it to climate anomalies from the mutations, but now she could narrow the hypothesis — there was a player capable of weather manipulation, and at a very high level, easily overpowering a Level-19 user with a similar ability.
Could it be a human player? Bai Shan doubted it. The rain in Hai City had started on the very first day of the game.
"Yes, Colonel Zeng reached the same conclusion. She believed a hidden mutant was controlling the storms — and it was very likely the mastermind behind Hai City's anomalies."
Jiang Yusong continued, "Colonel Zeng also suspected the rain wasn't ordinary water. It might contain something unusual. She ordered us to avoid contact with it as much as possible."
Lin Huijun looked down at her soaked pant legs and coat hems. Both she and Bai Shan had been caught in the rain.
"We quickly found someone — an outsider searching for family. He told us that everyone who entered Hai City eventually lost their abilities."
"We theorized it might be related to the rain, so we became even more careful about avoiding it. Unfortunately, we then ran into a formidable school of mutant fish — or a fish tide would be more accurate. Densely packed, wave after wave, reeking of decay. They chewed through our vehicles."
"Didn't you bring defensive items?" Bai Shan asked.
"We had someone with a powerful defensive ability. At first, the shield held easily around the vehicles — completely impervious."
Jiang Yusong's eyes dimmed. "It didn't survive the fish tide. The twelve hours ran out."
The defensive ability failed without warning. The fish with their terrifying jaws swarmed in, baring razor-sharp teeth. The reinforced, modified vehicles were torn apart in no time.
"Everyone's abilities failed. All we could do was sit in the vehicles and spray the fish with gunfire until the tide passed."
"Not everyone's abilities failed." Bai Shan corrected her. "Yours are still intact."
"You were all on the same team. Everyone else lost their powers, but you were fine. There has to be something special about you — or something special you did."
Jiang Yusong sighed. "You know, I bet you're not very popular at school."
"Popular? She says I'm very popular. Lots of people care about me." Bai Shan pointed at Lin Huijun. Lin Huijun gave an awkward laugh.
Jiang Yusong shook her head with a smile. She too moved to the window, leaning against the glass, facing Bai Shan.
She rested sideways against the floor-to-ceiling window. One side of her scarf slipped naturally, revealing the neck it had been concealing.
Beneath the scarf, her skin was covered in grayish-blue splotches. A horrifying sight.
"I did do one special thing."
"Let me give you the conclusion first. Besides the weather-controlling creature, there's an even more terrifying type of mutant in Hai City — if you can even call it a mutant."
"They're extremely tiny, invisible to the naked eye, and they live in the water — including the floodwater below and the rain falling from above. Like light, they're everywhere."
"I'm not sure whether the loss of abilities is directly linked to them. The only special thing about me is that I can harm them."
"They're attracted to light — but light can also destroy them."
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