Player Reload
Chapter 476 - 442: Director

Chapter 476: Chapter 442: Director

In the distance, the basalt pillars echoed with the faint sound of ocean waves.

A powerful and ominous premonition hung over everyone like a heavy curtain.

"It’s coming!"

Accompanied by Bifurcated Tree’s tense whisper, the crimson, blood-like salty sea water surged, raising twenty-meter-high towering waves, sweeping toward them.

"Get on the Gundams!"

Blood Lion Roar yelled forcefully, maneuvering the Infinite Justice Mecha rapidly backward to avoid the water. As Zhangsun Yao boarded the Gundam, she didn’t forget to take Mikazuki’s corpse along.

Boom boom boom—

The tank tracks beneath the Infinite Justice Mecha crushed through sheets of basalt pillars. But ultimately, it couldn’t keep pace with the speed of the surging waves.

At the critical moment, Bifurcated Tree tossed out a device resembling a diving bell model, instantly erecting a hemisphere-shaped waterproof shield big enough to cover the Infinite Justice Gundam, blocking out the blood-lined water.

"98% water, the remaining 2% are proteins, glucose, hormones, electrolytes, enzymes, shedding cells..."

Li Cheng adjusted his information integration glasses, his brows furrowing unconsciously, "Is this amniotic fluid?"

"Yes, bloody amniotic fluid."

Bifurcated Tree pressed his lips tightly together. Normal amniotic fluid is mostly colorless and transparent, or slightly cloudy pale yellow. Red colored fluid is bloody amniotic fluid, typically related to placental abruption, placenta previa, cervical bleeding, and the like.

Thud!

A hairy adult hand slammed heavily against the waterproof shield outside.

Soon, a familiar face pressed against the shield, bubbling as it exhaled.

It was... Blood Lion Roar.

Zhangsun Yao, Li Cheng, and Bifurcated Tree quickly reacted, looking toward the position of the Infinite Justice Mecha’s cockpit.

Originally supposed to be sitting in the cockpit, Blood Lion Roar had somehow been replaced by a dry, skinny hooded figure.

Its entire face was hidden beneath the hood, with skin exposed outside the coarse fabric full of all kinds of wounds.

Including but not limited to cigarette burns, whip marks, cuts, blunt bruises, and so on.

"Divine Paper—"

Zhangsun Yao unhesitatingly activated a last resort technique, transforming her body into countless paper fragments, fluttering in the wind.

However, the hooded figure simply raised an index finger, interrupting Zhangsun Yao’s virtualization. She let out a sharp scream as she returned to human form from the paper, digging out her own eyes with her bare hands.

"Cyber Secret Technique—"

Bifurcated Tree’s angry shout hadn’t even fallen when he was pointed at by the hooded figure’s index finger, his entire body stiffening as he screamed, crushed his VR glasses with a punch, and gouged out his eyes.

Not only Bifurcated Tree, even the unconscious and unconscious Red Spider and Nikola lying in the Infinite Justice Gundam’s hand moved to gouge out their own eyeballs.

So that’s it, the Card Emperor was captured and controlled by this hooded figure called F...

A thought flashed through his mind like lightning; at this moment, an indescribable, intense fear swept across his entire body.

Hands and feet turned cold, blood flowed backward, heart stopped beating,

Li Cheng didn’t hesitate to sever the part of his brain responsible for fear, slapped the back of his head, actively popping out the eyeballs connected with nerves,

while simultaneously tossing out an electronic pet egg, storing away Gray Rain who didn’t understand what was happening, and soon he opened his personal player panel, exited the killing field.

Click.

Once again, he stood on the familiar living room floor.

Li Cheng panted heavily, the self-healing ability he plundered from the crowd taking effect, stopping the blood flow.

"Huh? We’re back in the real world?" Gray Rain, released from the electronic pet egg, was ready to fight to the death, holding a Skull Shattering Power Hammer, "What’s going on?"

"That thing can directly burn sanity values. Everyone else died."

Li Cheng installed electronic prosthetic eyes in his sockets; he just gazed into that hooded figure’s unreadable face for half a second, yet he burned 650 sanity points out of thin air.

Bifurcated Tree, Zhangsun Yao, Blood Lion Roar, along with the unconscious Red Spider and Nikola, all five of them just like the Card Emperor, were instantly brainwashed and controlled by the hooded figure, gouging out both of their eyes.

Luckily, he reacted quickly and plucked his eyes out beforehand, narrowly escaping control.

The players who participated in the first, second, and third waves, no one survived. Li Cheng pondered momentarily, opened the friend interface, and found the contact representative for this action.

This Secret Realm exploration was mainly led by more than twenty medium-sized guilds, and major guilds like Whale Song and Special Affairs Bureau also sent personnel.

Li Cheng seemed to be the only one who had visited the Inverted Pyramid and made it out alive.

He briefly explained to the contact representative what happened in the Secret Realm, including the death process of Bifurcated Tree and others.

After a moment of silence, the other side still expressed regret and gratitude to Li Cheng.

A few hours later, a post updated on the player forums announced the failure of this Secret Realm exploration action, with all remaining players withdrawing completely, and the website of World Nuclear House and other guilds also updated their obituaries—

Due to the automatic closure of the teleportation gate, World Nuclear House’s You Anjian and others couldn’t even recover Zhangsun Yao’s remains or arrange a burial place for her.

Perhaps this is the fate of the chosen ones; always standing by the river, how can one not wet their shoes? Ninety-nine percent of players will someday die inexplicably in script tasks or killing fields.

Li Cheng closed the forum webpage with mixed emotions, this being his first failed mission since his debut.

However, no time to mourn Blood Lion Roar and the others, Li Cheng instructed Gray Rain to separate a portion of liquid metal, shaped like realistic eyeballs, to fit into his eye sockets, then left through his front door, riding a bicycle.

"Where to go?" Gray Rain, forming into a bright silver hoodie worn by Li Cheng, whispered.