Yu Huaiting slowly straightened up, his shoulder and back bones letting out a series of dull cracks.
He rolled his neck and casually hoisted the broad, heavy greatsword onto his shoulder, the bulging veins on the back of his hand explaining his fury.
“You two are pretty impressive,” Yu Huaiting tugged the corner of his mouth, his gaze like he was looking at two corpses. “Teamed up on how to deal with us so quickly.”
The executioner’s expression shifted drastically, instinctively tightening his grip on the bone-cutting saber in his hand.
Lu Xiao also quickly retreated half a step, taking a defensive stance.
“Yu Huaiting, there’s a misunderstanding here.” Lu Xiao’s brows knitted tightly, trying to make her voice sound calm. “We were also schemed against by that Daoist—he wanted to sacrifice all of us together. Our common enemy now is him.”
“Him scheming against you, and you scheming against me—does that conflict?”
Yu Huaiting couldn’t be bothered to listen to this nonsense.
Before the words faded, he surged power into his feet, his whole body shooting out like an arrow loosed from a string.
The greatsword on his shoulder, carrying a terrifying howl of torn air, slashed mercilessly at the executioner’s face.
Clang!
The executioner raised the bone-cutting saber with both hands, blocking the strike dead. He let out a muffled grunt as he took the blow.
“Lu Xiao!” the executioner roared through gritted teeth.
Lu Xiao didn’t hesitate—her figure flashed, circling like a phantom to Yu Huaiting’s rear flank, the blade in her hand stabbing straight at his back.
Yu Huaiting yanked the greatsword back, and using the momentum of his turn, swept the broad blade out like a shield.
With a dull bang, the greatsword slammed viciously into Lu Xiao’s wrist.
Lu Xiao cried out in pain, the dagger flying from her hand, and the massive force sent her staggering back several steps, crashing heavily to the ground.
The executioner seized the chance to catch his breath and swung his bone-cutting saber at Yu Huaiting again.
The three instantly tangled in battle.
Blades and shadows flew, mud splattering.
They could indeed barely hold off Yu Huaiting’s assault, even leaving a shallow bloody scratch on his arm.
But as time passed, the situation tilted toward Yu Huaiting.
His greatsword grew heavier with each strike, faster each time, showing no sign of exhaustion.
By contrast, Lu Xiao’s and the executioner’s breathing had grown heavy, their movements gradually slowing.
The executioner’s hands, from repeatedly taking Yu Huaiting’s slashes head-on, were trembling uncontrollably—the bone-cutting saber’s edge had even curled into a few chips.
In a war of attrition, Yu Huaiting had never lost.
“Stop! Yu Huaiting!” Lu Xiao dodged a horizontal slash, her chest heaving violently. “Let’s talk!”
Yu Huaiting turned a deaf ear, raising the greatsword again.
“I can tell you how to change the sacrifice!”
Lu Xiao shouted urgently, speaking rapid-fire. “If you kill us, you’ll never know how to clear this instance!”
Smart people would seize survival chips for themselves in a desperate situation.
Yet Yu Huaiting’s response was only a more savage slash.
“I don’t give a damn how you clear it!”
Yu Huaiting’s eyes were bloodshot, like a madman utterly lost in slaughter. “Kill them all!”
The greatsword rose high, carrying death’s shadow, driving straight at Lu Xiao’s skull.
Lu Xiao’s pupils contracted, her mind blank—she knew she couldn’t dodge this strike.
Just as the blade was about to shatter Lu Xiao’s skull—
“Do as she says.”
Fu Songcheng’s voice sounded in Yu Huaiting’s mind.
Yu Huaiting’s arm jolted to a stop, the heavy blade halting less than half an inch from Lu Xiao’s nose tip.
The fierce wind messed up Lu Xiao’s hair. Her legs gave way and she collapsed straight onto the ground, gasping for breath.
Thud.
A blood-soaked corpse, completely devoid of vital signs, dropped from the void and slammed heavily into the mud.
It was the Daoist player.
…
Inside the duel space.
The Daoist player looked at the young man walking slowly toward him and swallowed hard, forcing composure.
“Brother, what kind of spatial item is this? Let’s talk this out—we’re all players here, no need to make things ugly. Let me out, name your terms…”
Fu Songcheng said nothing.
A lightning-fast straight punch slammed viciously into the Daoist’s face.
Crack.
The crisp crack of a nasal bone breaking sounded.
The Daoist let out a scream, his whole body flying backward, crashing heavily into the gray-white wall and sliding down, spitting out a large mouthful of blood mixed with teeth.
“Wait! I can carry you through the instance!” The Daoist clutched his face, still trying to bluff.
Fu Songcheng remained silent.
He stepped forward, grabbed the Daoist’s collar, hauled him up, and drove his right knee viciously into the man’s abdomen.
The Daoist’s eyes bulged; his body curled up painfully like a shrimp.
Only at this moment did he truly realize the other had come for his life.
He tried to counterattack, tried to use his pitiful self-defense skills to strike Fu Songcheng’s joints.
But against Fu Songcheng—who trained with a combat maniac like Yu Huaiting—his counterattack was a dying struggle.
Fu Songcheng coldly dislocated both of the Daoist’s arms. Every strike precisely avoided lethal spots yet delivered maximum pain.
Minutes later, the Daoist lay slumped on the ground like a puddle of mud, covered in blood, barely breathing.
Fu Songcheng looked down at him from above and finally spoke.
“How do you know so much information.”
His voice was calm, yet carried a bone-piercing chill.
The Daoist’s mouth was full of blood, his vision already blurry.
Looking at the undisguised killing intent in Fu Songcheng’s eyes, he knew there was absolutely no chance of surviving today. His terror at its peak turned into deranged fury.
“Ptui!” The Daoist spat out a mouthful of blood and cursed loudly. “What are you… monster… just wait to die, all of you…”
Fu Songcheng didn’t mind his cursing at all.
He crouched down, his gaze calm enough to frighten.
“Let me guess.” Fu Songcheng’s tone was even. “After entering the instance, you contacted the other players of the same faction so quickly, knew the necessary conditions for the sacrifice with precision, even knew other sacrificial methods besides ours, and could get the formation diagram that controls the Evil God…”
He paused, his gaze suddenly passing over the Daoist’s body and looking up at the void gray-white above the space.
“Was arranged by you people.”
It was a declarative sentence.
The Daoist’s cursing stopped short. Fu Songcheng had clamped a hand around his throat, the suffocation making him struggle violently.
Fu Songcheng ignored his struggling, staring at the void as if seeing through this enclosed space, directly at the manipulators sitting high and mighty outside the screen.
“You’d rather create an even more invincible player, just to kill me and Yu Huaiting?”
Fu Songcheng sneered, then twisted cleanly.
Crack.
The Daoist’s neck lolled limply to one side, his eyes staring wide, his breathing completely gone.
With the Daoist’s death, the [Torn Cloth Curtain] judged the duel over.
The gray-white space collapsed instantly. Fu Songcheng, carrying the Daoist’s corpse, returned to the riverbank.
And by now, on Source Star’s livestream network, the bullet comments had completely exploded.
[Holy shit? What does this mean? Giving full-map vision and clear conditions at the start?!]
[I knew it—how was this Daoist like he had cheats, knowing everything!]
[The official side targeting players? Is this still a fair survival game?!]
[So that’s how it is! This is too damn ugly!]
[@Death Party, speak up! Come out and explain! Is this the fair competition you advertise?!]
Public opinion spread like boiling lava across every platform.
Meanwhile, inside Shen Ning’s corporate tower.
Quan Heng sat on the leather sofa in the reception room, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the rim of his teacup, impatience impossible to hide in his eyes.
“President Shen is still in a meeting. Please wait a moment.”
Shen Ning’s assistant wore a perfect, utterly warmthless professional smile as she refilled Quan Heng’s tea.
Quan Heng took a deep breath, forcing down his irritation. “I’ve already waited three hours. When will she see me?”
The assistant smiled and withdrew without answering.
And above the reception room, in the spacious, luxurious top-floor office.
Shen Ning leaned back with a cold face, watching the boiling bullet comments, nameless fire rising in her heart.
Fu Songcheng had seen through it, questioning the rigged game on livestream.
Quan Heng’s conduct was too ugly.
“President Shen, President Quan is urging again.”
The assistant’s voice came through the communicator.
“What’s the rush.” Shen Ning let out a soft laugh, her voice echoing in the empty office.
She pressed the communicator on her desk and said flatly to the assistant:
“Let him wait.”
Leave a Reply