Yu Huaiting clicked to extract and handed the dull little knife item to Fu Songcheng.
Fu Songcheng looked at the oxygen-starved, red-faced “Fu Songcheng,” pulled out his hand, and quickly caught the item.
He drove the little knife viciously through Quan Heng’s hand and pronounced with contempt: “Item activation—sever all connection between this person and ‘Source Star.’”
The system notification sounded instantly.
[S-rank causality item activated.]
Quan Heng let out a scream of utter agony.
His body began convulsing violently, and the appearance that had originally belonged to Fu Songcheng began to collapse.
The person on the ground gradually stopped looking like Fu Songcheng, transforming into a gloomy-faced stranger.
Quan Heng, who’d wanted to play someone else, could now only be himself.
Fu Songcheng released him and stood up.
The woman in red’s shell swayed slightly from blood loss.
Yu Huaiting immediately stepped forward to support him. Fu Songcheng expressionlessly pulled the dagger out of his left shoulder, not even frowning.
He walked up to the collapsed Quan Heng and looked down at him from above.
“Let’s see—who’s this?”
Intense pain and deep panic seized Quan Heng at the same time.
The composure that belonged to Source Star was thoroughly shredded the instant [Sever] took effect.
He was like a fish forcibly dragged ashore, gasping violently, the blood hole in his wrist endlessly pouring blood.
But this wasn’t the most fatal part.
“Impossible… this can’t be!”
He screamed himself hoarse into the communicator: “Secretary! Cut my login channel!”
“Shen Ning! What are you doing! Pull me out!”
Fu Songcheng raised an eyebrow—hearing a long-unseen acquaintance’s name in Quan Heng’s crazed shouting.
Quan Heng’s heart sank completely to the bottom.
His real body was right now lying peacefully in the Source Star hibernation pod, enjoying the protection of the most advanced life-support system.
But his spirit was trapped in the instance because of the high-authority causality item.
And the secretary, abnormally, hadn’t recalled him to Source Star in advance.
He was now no different from every ordinary player in this instance who could die at any moment.
“Damn it! Fu Songcheng, what the hell did you do!”
Quan Heng cursed through gritted teeth, his face twisted with fear and fury.
Crack—boom!
The bar counter, the glass shards all over the floor, the dim lighting—the entire space—all filled with spiderweb cracks in an instant, like a mirror struck by a heavy hammer, then collapsed with a roar.
The fragments dissolved into countless streaks of light in the darkness.
After a brief weightlessness, the three landed heavily on hard steps.
They’d left the instance dream Quan Heng had woven to recreate his reunion with Yu Huaiting.
Quan Heng clutched his bleeding hand and rolled on the ground, groaning in pain.
Fu Songcheng stood steady. Since Quan Heng’s constructed dream had dissolved, he too had restored his own appearance and system panel.
At this moment, they were in a narrow, dim stairwell.
Cold white voice-activated lights flickered overhead; the stairs seemed endless, extending all the way down, bottomless.
“This is…”
Yu Huaiting straightened up. His fingers gripping the greatsword tightened sharply, and only the instant he made out the surroundings did he wake as if from a dream.
The chaotic timeline was finally straightened out.
He was not some Yu Huaiting who’d just cleared Avalon with Fu Songcheng.
He’d come to find Fu Songcheng.
Fu Songcheng was trapped in a dream. To bring him back, he’d entered the depths of Fu Songcheng’s dream—only to be caught in a repeated rewind of the team-up invitation.
The culprit was self-evident.
Quan Heng had cut off his path to finding Fu Songcheng and dragged him into an infinite-loop dream. In that dream, Quan Heng wore Fu Songcheng’s face, repeating the scene of their first meeting over and over, trying to make him accept him that way. He’d even wanted to use that dream to kill the real Fu Songcheng, trapped in the shell of the woman in red!
At the thought, Yu Huaiting felt a wicked fire rush straight to the top of his head, burning away all his reason.
He whipped his head around, staring dead at Quan Heng, who’d just crawled up from the ground, covered in dirt.
“You son of a—”
Yu Huaiting ground out word by word through gritted teeth, his voice carrying a bone-chilling viciousness.
Quan Heng had just raised his head, not yet having time to speak, when Yu Huaiting strode forward, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him up whole.
Bang!
He drove a fist into Quan Heng’s cheekbone.
Quan Heng’s head snapped to one side.
“You think you deserve to impersonate him?”
Yu Huaiting’s voice was cold as ice.
Bang!
Another punch, landing solidly on Quan Heng’s abdomen.
Quan Heng doubled over in pain, tears and snot pouring out uncontrollably.
Every punch Yu Huaiting threw carried a whistle of torn air, venting the fury pent up in his heart. He pinned Quan Heng onto the cold steps, fists raining down like droplets.
Quan Heng’s heart was undergoing a collapse more terrifying than physical pain.
How could this be?
He was a higher-up on Source Star!
He controlled the entire Death Party game world; he looked at these people like bacteria in a petri dish. He’d looked down from on high, one-sidedly liked Yu Huaiting, and hadn’t hesitated to break fairness, letting Death Party be criticized by viewers.
But now, he was being ground into the floor by his favorite player like a stray dog being beaten.
The sound of breaking bones echoed through the stairwell.
Quan Heng’s face was covered in blood, his vision blurred by it. He wanted to open his mouth to beg for mercy, even just to stall for time, but his pride let out only indistinct pained cries.
Looking at the killing intent and disgust in Yu Huaiting’s eyes, he finally snuffed out the last shred of his fanatical infatuation with Yu Huaiting.
Yu Huaiting wouldn’t love him. He’d rather be Fu Songcheng’s enforcer, circling around him, and wouldn’t spare him an extra moment. Even if he imitated Fu Songcheng perfectly, the moment that person appeared, Yu Huaiting would instinctively follow his lead.
And stripped of his Source Star identity, before these two, he had no capital to stand on high at all.
“Stop…”
Quan Heng squeezed broken syllables from his throat, trying to grab Yu Huaiting’s arm, only for Yu Huaiting to twist it backhanded with another crisp sound of bone breaking.
Fu Songcheng stood quietly a few steps away. His gaze moved off Quan Heng and looked around.
After Quan Heng’s disguise was stripped away, this place revealed its true face.
This was his first dream layer.
The stairwell of endless descent.
Fu Songcheng looked at the steps extending into the endless darkness beneath his feet, and the corner of his mouth suddenly curved into a self-mocking sneer.
Laughable, really.
Fu Songcheng had always been someone who put reason and efficiency first. He hated losing control, hated emotionality, and hated even more those weak emotions that could cloud his judgment. Even being with Yu Huaiting, he’d stayed wary, calculating, lucidly choosing to fall in love with him.
Yet because of their separation, he’d become anxious over gains and losses, trapping himself.
He laughed at himself—he’d truly fallen for this person.
Even though he often thought that if Yu Huaiting turned bad he’d just pull out, by the time he realized it, he was already sunk in the mire called love—the more he struggled, the deeper he sank.
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