[Where’s the official side! Official, come out and take your beating! I want to enter the game!]
[What kind of death party is this—this is clearly a heart-fluttering party! One thousand signatures begging for public slots to be opened!]
[The one above, stop dreaming. You’d just be cannon fodder if you went in—you really think everyone can go on killing sprees?]
[Don’t care, don’t care—I’m going to use my money ability!]
Just as the crowd was in an uproar and public opinion had fermented to its peak, a banner announcement bearing the official gold certification seal slowly scrolled across the top of every livestream and forum.
[Death Party Official Announcement: Thank you all for your attention and support. After internal evaluation, we have decided to add 100,000 instance login slots!]
[At the same time, the first batch of officially authorized VR login devices will open for pre-sale tonight at eight on the Star Network Mall. Experience it first—life-and-death speed—please look forward to it!]
The moment this announcement came out, the viewers fell into a frenzy.
Shen Ning looked at the soaring data curves on the screen, the corner of her mouth curving in satisfaction.
“Ratings broke historical records. Not only has this season’s investment been fully recouped, there’s even considerable surplus.”
Shen Ning’s fingers tapped lightly on the desktop, ambition flickering in her eyes. “Accelerate the production line for hibernation pods for mass instance entry. The Death Party metaverse era—under my hands—is about to begin.”
Outside Death Party it was lively, and inside it was lively too.
[Player: Fu Songcheng]
[Clear Rating: S+]
[Points Obtained: 500]
[Passive Skill: Forced Sale]
[Skill Description: When a target you attack takes damage, they must instantly shout “Awesome!” Otherwise, an additional 1% of maximum HP will be deducted.]
[“I hit you—did you say thank you?”]
“…”
Fu Songcheng imagined it—him stabbing a knife into another player’s chest, and the other shouting “Awesome!”
The image was too beautiful. It would pollute his own mental state.
Yu Huaiting’s side, however, had more normal rewards.
[Player: Yu Huaiting]
[Clear Rating: S+]
[Points Obtained: 500]
[Obtained D-rank Item: Truth]
[Item Description: Area-of-effect explosive item. Once thrown, not a blade of grass remains. D-rank is only its lower limit, not its upper limit.]
[“I say, this is the truth.”]
As expected of a friendship instance focused on leisure—the official rewards were infuriatingly stingy. An S+ rating gave a mere 500 points.
Neither of them took those 500 points seriously—after all, in the instance, they’d harvested batch after batch of Source Star fans, and adding the ten-thousand-point “tip” received at the end, their total assets had doubled from this trip.
Fu Songcheng was just calculating whether to bump up his and Yu Huaiting’s attributes again when the communicator on his wrist suddenly vibrated violently.
He looked down, and his brows immediately knitted.
The sender was one of the Dawn guild’s decision-makers, Old Zhao.
[Old Zhao: Little Fu, do you have time? Come to the Dawn base. There are some important matters I’d like to discuss with you in person.]
Fu Songcheng stared at that line, his heart full of doubt. All his handovers and contacts with Dawn had always gone through Chen Ke.
Now, Old Zhao was actually bypassing Chen Ke to contact him directly?
This was absolutely abnormal.
Almost the same second, another private message popped up on the communicator.
[Chen Ke: Fu Songcheng! Dawn’s in big trouble! I’ve taken everyone and defected. Do you have somewhere we can go?! Emergency!!]
Just as Fu Songcheng was hesitating over whether to reply to Chen Ke, the public screen broadcast a system announcement.
[Server-Wide Public Channel Announcement]
[Bounty Issuer: Dawn Guild]
[Bounty Content: Effective immediately, full-scale capture of the traitors Bai Mu, Xu Qingyao, Chen Ke, Xu Zhun—eight people in total.]
[Bounty Reward: 2,500 points for each person captured or killed.]
The public channel instantly exploded.
[Holy crap! 2,500 points per person?]
[That’s equal to seven or eight high-difficulty instance runs for me! What on earth did these people do? The official side stepping in?]
[Who cares what they did! Brothers, grab your weapons! If you catch someone, you might get to eat from the public trough!]
Fu Songcheng looked at the bounty just posted on the public screen and thought to himself that Chen Ke had this time kicked a steel plate.
[Fu Songcheng: You caused this big a disaster, and you want to hide with me?]
Less than three seconds after the message was sent, Chen Ke’s voice call came through.
Fu Songcheng hesitated for a long time, but ultimately answered, saying irritably, “You’d better give me a reason not to trade you for points.”
“Mr. Fu! Fu the God!”
Chen Ke’s voice was pressed very low, the background noisy, with wind sounds—clearly he was running for his life at a sprint. “Besides you, no one dares take us in! Just consider us owing you our lives. From now on, Bai Mu will serve you like a beast of burden…”
“Hey! How can you say that, Comrade Chen!”
Fu Songcheng heard Bai Mu’s protest.
“…”
“…”
Forget it. Quan Heng was still on Blue Star through Bai Mu’s skill. He couldn’t really let these people be hunted down and killed by the whole server.
“I’ll send you the address later.”
After hanging up on Chen Ke, Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting exchanged a glance and, without needing to say it, headed to the Dawn guild base.
Old Zhao’s office was in the central area. At this moment, this legendary, highly respected decision-maker was sitting on a wooden sofa.
Seeing Fu Songcheng push the door open and enter, Old Zhao’s expression was kind. Even with such a huge incident, his amiability and authority hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
“Little Fu, I’m glad you were willing to come.”
Old Zhao signaled to the secretary to pour two cups of tea for them.
Fu Songcheng sat down cautiously. “It’s our honor that you invited us.”
Perhaps having heard too much polite talk, Old Zhao sighed at these words.
“I’ll be direct with you. Chen Ke, together with Bai Mu and Xu Qingyao, took Dawn’s war-reserve points and fled. You know Dawn provides items and healing potions to players at low prices—with them doing this, all of Dawn’s painstaking efforts over so long are ruined in an instant.”
Old Zhao spoke earnestly. “Little Fu, I know you and Chen Ke had some prior connection. But he is now the sinner of all of Dawn, even of all players! We hope you’ll cooperate with Dawn to capture them and bring them back. If necessary, killing them is acceptable too.”
Fu Songcheng looked at this kind face before him—even carrying a smile—yet speaking of killing a former capable subordinate.
He suddenly recalled what Chen Ke had said:
Dawn has changed.
“Since it’s a Dawn mission, I’ll certainly take it.”
Fu Songcheng agreed readily.
That night.
In the high-grade residential district, Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting, relying on their newly acquired money ability, directly rented a secluded little villa with extremely high defense levels.
At two in the morning, the villa’s back door was quietly pushed open.
Chen Ke, Bai Mu, Xu Qingyao, Xu Zhun, and the others slipped in stealthily.
Everyone bore injuries of varying degrees; Xu Qingyao was especially pale, supported by Bai Mu.
Fu Songcheng placed several anti-tracking items. Yu Huaiting voluntarily paced around the villa, circle after circle, keeping watch to ensure no Blue Star players would tail Chen Ke and the others.
After confirming there was no external threat, Fu Songcheng began handling the internal trouble.
“2,500 points per person—you few are worth over ten thousand combined.”
Chen Ke coughed awkwardly, poured himself a cup of tea to steady his nerves, his forehead covered in cold sweat.
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