Life Game In Other World
Chapter 179: Continue Speaking (Two-in-One Big - , Request for Subscription, Favorites, and Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 179: Chapter 179: Continue Speaking (Two-in-One Big Chapter, Request for Subscription, Favorites, and Monthly Tickets)

He casually pulled the bloodstained short sword out, and the young man’s figure disappeared into the night.

Facing such a large team wasn’t about going head-to-head.

To eat an elephant, an ant must start bit by bit from a small part of the elephant.

Use one’s strengths to attack the enemy’s weaknesses, gradually eroding their numerical advantage, reversing the balance of power.

Stealth and slaughter in the dark.

This is what assassins do.

As blossoms of blood opened one by one, He Ao felt his control over the role of "assassin" becoming more and more complete, and the cost of deploying "Stealth" decreased.

...

"Drop the gun, or I’ll kill him,"

A gaunt-looking mercenary held a scrawny worker by the neck with his arm and pressed a gun against the worker’s head while looking at He Ao.

At his feet lay the bodies of four teammates.

He had avoided the slaughter by stepping out to use the restroom.

When he returned, he just happened to see He Ao pulling the short sword out of his teammate’s body.

He didn’t hesitate, immediately taking another worker who had also been to the restroom hostage to threaten He Ao.

He Ao glanced at him and switched the Butcher Pistol to handgun mode.

All of Pena’s mercenaries had one thing in common: bloodthirsty, cruel, and exceptionally indifferent to life.

He raised his arm and fired.

Bang—

The mercenary fell to the sound of the shot, splattering the face of the worker he was holding with bright red blood.

"Ah!"

Feeling the person behind him fall, the worker gently touched his wet cheek, then looked at his hand now covered in blood.

Terror-stricken, he ran off into the distance, stumbling several times and nearly falling over.

He Ao didn’t chase after him but continued deeper into the night.

Dark red patterns on the Butcher Pistol flowed with an eerie glow; if the gun were a greedy diner, it must have been well-fed that day.

Consequently, He Ao felt his affinity with the gun growing stronger.

He had just taken care of the last scattered squad outside.

Pena had clearly noticed He Ao’s attacks on the scattered squads and ordered all the mercenaries to regroup in front of the administration building.

He Ao silently walked along the paths between the factory buildings.

At this hour, all the workshops were humming with activity, the roaring noise filling every corner, making it difficult to encounter any workers on the roads.

Compared to the clamor of the massive factory machinery, the sound of gunshots from He Ao’s battle with the mercenaries was nothing but firecracker pops.

But this road wouldn’t remain deserted forever.

The night grew deeper, and the time for the night shift change was approaching; soon, workers arriving for their shift or just getting off work would be everywhere.

With more workers around, there might be accidental injuries, possibly leading to riots and disrupting the rhythm of the battle.

This wasn’t good for either He Ao or Pena.

Pena didn’t order a shutdown, perhaps because he wanted to keep the workers as leverage against He Ao, but a more likely reason was that he simply didn’t have the authority to stop the factory, nor did he dare to.

Many machines in the factory couldn’t be shut down, as once turned off, restarting them would require far more resources than keeping them running, and these resources were money.

Moreover, as long as the factory was operating, it meant production was ongoing, but if it stopped, that meant no output, plus there were costs like labor and rent to be paid, which equated to losses.

For the consortium, losing money was more frightening than death. They couldn’t do anything against a penniless He Ao, but they certainly could against Pena, who was employed by the consortium.

So Pena didn’t dare stop the factory, not even let a disorder lead to a worker strike.

Consequently, He Ao could be almost certain that right now, Pena must be even more anxious than he was.

After all, "Joey", with nothing to lose, might not care about the workers’ lives, and that was something Pena wasn’t clear on, but he absolutely couldn’t afford to let the factory stop because of the unrest caused by the battle with He Ao.

At this moment, He Ao had already arrived at the gathering place of Pena’s mercenaries.

He counted them, excluding Pena, there were twenty-seven mercenaries left.

Of these twenty-seven, five were around Pena, four were occupying high ground in the administrative building, and the remaining eighteen were in groups of three in various corners, watching their surroundings vigilantly, nearly filling every blind spot in their line of sight.

He Ao, with Stealth activated, walked past them and tied the last three laser grenades together before tossing them into the crowd.

’Stealth’ wasn’t true invisibility, but rather a distortion of perception.

During strong interactions, like combat, this distortion would weaken, thus making one visible to those with stronger mental forces, revealing one’s form.

For instance, when He Ao killed the man operating the machine gun firing at him in the office, he exposed his own form, and was thus ’discovered’ by Pena.

Similarly, the distortion effect would weaken on inanimate objects once they left He Ao’s body, allowing them to be detected.

Like the grenades at this moment, they would be noticed by the mercenaries once thrown.

Therefore, the instant He Ao threw the grenades, he immediately ran toward a distant corner.

Meanwhile, the mercenaries who saw the grenades swiftly ducked or rushed into cover.

Intense explosions erupted suddenly, followed by a downpour of gunfire from all directions.

He Ao was hiding behind a factory building, calmly waiting for the bullets to sweep past him.

The core of a small force fighting a larger force was ’guerrilla tactics’.

Retreat when the enemy advances, harass when they halt, strike when they’re weary, pursue when they retreat.

To keep the enemy on their toes, exhausted by constant response, slowly grinding down their strength.

Pena clearly realized that He Ao was planning to whittle down his forces step by step, but Pena, who was clearly in a greater hurry, had no time to keep confronting He Ao.

A surge of powerful psychic energy burst forth, sweeping across the area.

He Ao peeked out, looking around.

Through the perspective of Super Memory, he saw the soul of the most powerful person in the crowd burst forth in a pale orange glow, rapidly spreading in all directions.

Every mercenary touched by this glow flickered in their soul, seemingly as a response to the light.

Soon, He Ao was swept by the light, and he felt a strange force invading his soul, trying to twist his perception and make him submit to the will of the one who spread the glow.

Of course, this force was almost instantly expelled by Super Memory.

But this meant that He Ao’s form was exposed.

Without any hesitation, he burst out and ran towards the factory gates.

"Pursue!"

Pena coldly commanded, gently touching his forehead as if the recent explosion had also drained him significantly.

This time he did not disperse his men but gathered everyone together.

He had also realized that to kill He Ao, he must gather all hands and make a concentrated effort. Any spread out, and He Ao would find them and pick them off one by one.

He Ao quickly burst out of the factory, with the mercenaries closely following behind.

They chased him through several streets, then suddenly He Ao’s figure vanished from everyone’s sight.

By then, they had reached a small, circular plaza.

A few rusty iron seats were placed on the plaza, several old street lamps evenly lined the edges, of which only one flickered with a dim glow.

And in the middle of the plaza was a small flower bed that seemed long neglected, with most flowers wilted except for one white chrysanthemum gently swaying in the evening breeze.

The moment Pena saw the solitary white chrysanthemum, his expression changed and he quickly darted to the side.

Simultaneously, a bullet slicing through the air passed through the space where Pena just stood, hitting a mercenary behind him, and an intense explosion suddenly erupted, blasting several nearby mercenaries into pieces.

At this moment, on the rooftop of a nearby building, He Ao held the already assembled gauss sniper rifle, shifting the muzzle to target Pena, who had just moved to the side.

He fired again.

The bursting flames rose once more, shattering the bodies of a few mercenaries.

This was the location He Ao had selected for Pena even before entering the factory.

Pena’s mindset, including the urgency when chasing out of the factory, was all within his grasp.

He Ao pulled out a vial of Corpse Flower Solution from his waist and put it to his mouth, tilting his head back to pour the liquid in, and while holding the test tube with his lips, he took two high-explosive bullets from the side and loaded them into the magazine of the sniper rifle.

Although the gauss sniper rifle had a long-range and was highly effective, it could only hold two high-explosive bullets at a time, so its ammunition capacity was limited.

He Ao quickly reinserted the test tube back at his waist and activated "Super Memory."

Due to the unrestricted use of Super Memory and Stealth, He Ao’s twenty vials of Corpse Flower Solution were now down to eight.

Although this was the case, he had never fought such a well-supplied battle before.

The feeling of using Super Memory continuously was exhilarating.

Pena’s intuition was exceptionally sharp; he never stopped moving his body, and within a few short seconds, he had changed his position three times.

At the same time, the third bullet from He Ao followed swiftly.

This bullet, too, was dodged by Pena, killing a few mercenaries by his side.

He was running towards an alley, ready to duck into the blind alleys. In fact, all the mercenaries were trying to squeeze into alleyways, just not as quickly as him.

And at this moment, countless pieces of information were converging in He Ao’s mind, as Super Memory was building a combat model for Pena and the other mercenaries.

Bang—

The fourth shot.

The darting bullet grazed Pena’s waist and exploded violently, blowing him away.

Even a body as strong as a C-level could not withstand the powerful high-explosive round; Pena’s waist area was now a bloody mess.

If the shot had hit directly, he might have died on the spot.

There was a slight deviation,

He Ao’s mind swiftly corrected the combat model and loaded new bullets.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the lull, Pena rolled into the alley that was already not far from him.

The entire square fell into a momentary silence.

Leaning against the wall, Pena watched as a mercenary came over, injected him with a hemostatic and pain reliever, and then used a suture device to stitch up the blast-torn flesh that could be stitched.

He slowly reached out his hand, and another soldier passed him a megaphone.

This alley wasn’t long, and the other end opened up to the square, almost making it the best sniper point nearby.

Pena didn’t dare to cross through the alley, knowing the moment he showed his head, it would inevitably be blown apart by an incoming high-explosive shell.

He picked up the megaphone, took a deep breath, and said with a light chuckle,

"Joey, do you know why I chose your parents to be the operators for the I-27 robotic arm?"

As he finished his sentence, he immediately rolled forward. An explosion rang out behind him, collapsing the wall.

That was the power of a high-explosive shell.

"Because they were the most honest and kind-hearted. Do you know why I took notice of your parents? Because they were the first to rush to put out the fire when the factory caught fire."

He Ao gripped his sniper rifle, moving the muzzle to search for the source of the voice.

"So after that Jack left, I immediately reassigned them to the I-27 robotic arm. Do you think they didn’t notice the problem with the I-27? They came to me several times, hoping I’d send someone to repair the I-27 robotic arm."

A second explosion sounded beside Pena, bricks collapsed, blocking half of the alley and piling up a small stack that obstructed the path ahead. Pena darted to one side.

"Actually, I quite enjoy this feeling of manipulating people, it’s much more interesting than killing. That’s why I specifically asked the board to let me manage a section of the factory."

Another blast tore down the wall beside Pena, his silhouette ran to the other side, and bricks tumbled down.

"There are many in the factory, some young people—they think if the factory isn’t good, they will switch to the next one, some just scramble by—if the factory isn’t good to them, they might even make trouble, causing losses to the factory. But people like your parents, they are the kind of people the factory loves the most."

Laughter laced Pena’s voice as another explosion boomed near his ear.

"They are plain and simple, and have no relatives in this city. Guess what’s the funniest part,"

Pena’s voice paused, and this time the gunfire didn’t resume, "The funniest part is, they bought a house. They actually yearned for a ’home’ in this city."

He couldn’t suppress it and began to laugh somewhat maniacally, "They bought a house, meaning they chose to carry a mortgage they couldn’t afford. It means they had to repay the bank every month, meaning they dared not change jobs easily, nor ask the factory for too much."

"The more interesting thing is, they have a child like you who has ’prospects.’ You going to a private school implies you’d attend a good private university, which means they need to prepare the funds for your university. They also have to accept the fact that you’re not going to bring any income to the family for at least five years."

"They fear the bank taking back their house if they can’t repay the mortgage, they fear having no money to support their child’s education if they lose their job, so they tread carefully every step of the way. That’s why, when they came to me requesting a transfer, they were always so meek and humble. That’s why I could send them to the most dangerous posts, so,"

He paused again, "When it was clear there was going to be a problem with the machinery, they had to grit their teeth and work."

"Because they feared being docked pay, so when the machinery jammed, they even dared not shut off the emergency power."

"They couldn’t afford a single week without income."

The whole square fell into a strange silence, leaving only Pena’s voice, amplified by the megaphone, echoing in the quiet of the night.

Thump—

A muffled sound of a body hitting the ground interrupted Pena’s quiet ’narrative,’ and fresh blood flowed along the blade of the silver sword.

The dim streetlight illuminated the cold cheeks of the young boy.

At such a close distance, the boy silently watched the man who had directly caused his parents’ death,

"You continue."