He had to admit: this flesh-tumor abomination bore a certain resemblance to the Eternal Sun. But the resemblance wasn't to the celestial Eternal Sun that had hung over Far Dusk Town during the Stars Dagger experint. Rather, it reminded him of...
A certain player who now held the candidacy for Envoy.
That's right — Hu Xuan.
For so reason, the colossal tumor brought back vivid mories of the distended belly he'd seen when delivering Hu Xuan's "offspring."
'What a... terrifying mory.'
Few patients had earned a lasting place in Dr. Cheng's mind. The Life Sage was definitely one of them.
Cheng Shi frowned toward the tumor's direction, noting that Big Cat had headed there to rescue people. The Prosperity Agent had clearly hit trouble. But rather than rushing to help, Cheng Shi swept farther away from the tumor, apparently intent on using the wind's traces to asure the entire experint site inch by inch.
He wasn't worried about Big Cat at all. After all, this was a Druid who could go toe-to-toe with Eposka. After fusing with Fate, she'd only grown stronger. No way she couldn't handle so man-made abomination.
And indeed, just as Cheng Shi guessed, Hong Lin could beat it. But the fight was far from easy.
At the end of the day, Eposka was an undead brute that only knew brute force — perfectly suited to Big Cat's fighting style. This new opponent, however, was an intelligent being with a talent for "magical" attacks.
Its strikes might not be lethal, but they were extrely... fertile.
After all, it was presumably created by 0221 to replicate the Eternal Sun. Every murmur, every roar, every lash, every gaze could plunge its enemy into a nightmare of being sward by "newborns."
Hong Lin was the living proof. After trading blows for just a few rounds, the enemy kept shrinking while she kept growing. Eventually she had no choice but to pull back and deal with the "children" sprouting across her body first.
Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.
Hong Lin's seething rage was like a foreign object lodged in her throat — couldn't spit it out, couldn't swallow it down. The thing's reproductive speed was staggering, and her own "conception" rate was right up there. The back-and-forth left her with no option but to abandon the brute-force approach and think of sothing else.
The mont Hong Lin fell back from the fight, the players she'd rescued sward to her side, beginning to treat the "wounds" of this equally terrifying giant bear.
Yes — Hong Lin had already saved Tao Yi. And not just Tao Yi. Everyone, including Mo Li and the Prisoner, had been rescued. Before the giant flesh-tumor appeared, re tentacles were no match for a modern-day Druid's fury. But once it showed up, even this unrivaled warrior found herself stalled.
As the saying went: you could never predict where Birth would next shock you.
Hong Lin was genuinely shocked. She squinted at the tumor, unable to shake the feeling that she wasn't fighting a single abomination, but an army of Birth numbering in the tens of thousands.
The players were shocked too. Apart from Tao Yi, who had so grasp of Hong Lin's prowess, even Mo Li was stunned by the sheer destructive force she'd displayed.
Consider: he and his team of peak players — the Prisoner included — had barely managed to hold their own against the endless sea of tentacles. And now...
This Prosperity Chosen, supposedly the most combat-capable player alive, had single-handedly smashed through every tentacle in the vicinity.
Nobody expected that "good at fighting" ant this good!
'Can a player even do this?'
Mo Li's gaze toward Hong Lin was impossibly complicated. Were it not for the scent of Fate he detected on her, he might have assud she'd defected to War, just as he had.
"Hong Lin, you..."
He directed every mber of the team to pitch in, then walked to the foot of the giant bear and craned his neck upward at the terrifying beast. He was about to say sothing when the Prisoner cut him off from behind.
The Silence Chosen stroked his chin thoughtfully for a mont, then uttered a sentence that left every person present slack-jawed.
"Hey big bear — if you just birth all those bear-cubs and bear-grandcubs, can't we drown that thing with our own bear-swarm tactic?"
The words had barely left his mouth.
"BOOM—"
Whether the giant bear lost her footing and her paw dropped instinctively, or Hong Lin casually slapped the ground without noticing soone at her side — one unlucky soul ended up flattened into the dirt.
She didn't bother checking who it was. Breathing heavily, her expression grave, she looked at Mo Li:
"Getting out doesn't necessarily an fighting our way through. So scores can be settled later. With so many arrays disabled, we might already have a way out.
Mo Li, don't worry about . Head the way I ca from and find Wei Mu. He probably knows how to get you all out.
And — if you feel any gratitude for
saving your lives — take your people and look after Cheng Shi for .
The Fate Weaver is over there too. Help
get him and Tao Yi out."
"Wei Mu — he's here too?" Mo Li's expression shifted to surprise.
"How else do you think I got in? Let's see how much longer 0221 can keep this experint running, now that he's used so many players as consumables. Today — I want to see this site crumble!"
With that, the giant bear let out a thunderous roar, shoving every helping player behind her. Then she rose to full height, leveled a claw at the distant flesh-tumor, and threw a provocative gesture.
The tumor, however, showed no reaction. It didn't seem capable of anger. It simply continued bombarding the bear with tentacles, murmuring its ravings as before.
In an instant, the giant bear was even bigger than before.
...
anwhile, elsewhere.
Thanks to the mass distribution of tickets, the players who'd entered the experint site numbered far more than just a handful. Beyond Cheng Shi and Hong Lin, many peak players had joined this "Truth Ga" — and Hu Wei was among them.
The Grand Marshal's network was truly vast. Not only had he secured a ticket from Wei Mu, but within an incredibly short ti he'd assembled a squad of "soldiers" willing to explore the control center with him.
He'd originally been investigating this affair to find Da Yi. But after receiving Lord Ultraman's guidance and learning about 0221's progress in divinity assembly, he'd made the snap decision to check out the experint's control center first.
If Da Yi happened to be imprisoned there — a double win. If not... he trusted that a peak assassin could protect himself.
So Hu Wei moved out. Swinging a greatsword wreathed in blazing fla, he carved a path and led a contingent of determined, grimly excited players toward what he believed to be the control center.
And that place happened to be the area with the fewest tentacle traces in the entire zone.
"Those skilled at defense hide beneath nine layers of earth" — basic military doctrine. Hu Wei didn't believe 0221 would place his most critical facility sowhere prone to intense combat. So he skirted the conflict's epicenter and felt his way toward the quietest, most silent region.
Before long, he and his entourage arrived. And at that very mont, Cheng Shi — having completed a full circuit of the periter — happened to reach the sa spot.
The Pen of Finality's Wind Taming Ranger had just swapped to a new mask in a corner. Before he could even act, he saw his good "big bro" descending before him in a blaze of firelight.
No brotherly greetings, no pleasantries between old acquaintances. No startled double-takes of surprise. Cheng Shi managed a textbook smile and hadn't even opened his mouth before Hu Wei hit him with a question straight from the soul:
"Who are you THIS ti?!"
Cheng Shi's smile froze. He absolutely hadn't expected his identity to have beco one of Hu Wei's triggers.
'Hu-bro, oh Hu-bro... I already told you as Ultraman that you could trust the Fate Weaver. Why are you still this guarded around ?'
'But who else could I possibly be? I'm obviously the last person you want to see.'
'Hee~'
...
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