At present, Zhang ili had told a lie, but the other six had promised not to Judge her.
The only ones left who could Judge her were Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong, yet these two were frozen in place by her Death Gaze, not daring to make any careless movents.
Cao Xiu had also lied, but he bypassed the consequences of his lie using his Reset to Zero.
Just by looking at these two, one could see just how absurd the Skills of players bottlenecked at a Star Rating could be.
The difficulty of this Instance was not considered high. However, the players involved—whether Three-Star, Two-Star, or One-Star Players—were all top-tier existences within their respective ranks. Together, they ford a luxurious lineup for Infighting. While they might have harbored nurous objectives previously, at this very mont, only one remained: survival.
Chen Ran was the one who orchestrated this Instance. His intentions were self-evident: to break free from being hunted by multiple Three-Star Players, forcibly minimizing the number of Three-Star Players he might encounter. Simultaneously, he aid to kill every other player except Qiu Yinong, thereby influencing the grand chess match within the 18th Level.
Peace sought through struggle will survive; peace sought through compromise will perish.
This was Chen Ran's line of thought.
For Zhang ili and Cao Xiu, both had told lies. The mont Chen Ran unleashed Eternal Kingdom, the two of them would undoubtedly die. Therefore, if they wanted to survive, they had to kill Chen Ran.
As for Zhou Chen and Li Zhitong, they were acutely aware that their intellects were at the absolute bottom among the players present. If they continued to fight, they would eventually et a single outco: death.
If one carefully analyzed the core reasons behind this Infighting, they would discover three main points:
First: The Points and Rewards from the Instance.
Such trivial Rewards were actually entirely dispensable to them as Two-Star Players.
Second: The possession of Qiu Yinong.
The activation phrase for Qiu Yinong's Skill made her exceptionally easy to manipulate.
Third: Chen Ran must die.
Chen Ran's Skill posed too great of a deterrent to the 18th Level; they had to ensure he died within this Instance.
Consequently, if Zhou Chen and Li Zhitong wanted to put an end to the Infighting, their best course of action was to kill both Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong.
Conveniently, those two were currently immobilized.
As for the three Three-Star Players, they knew that to control Qiu Yinong, they first had to eliminate Chen Ran. Only after that would they engage in Infighting among themselves. However, the current situation had already spiraled beyond their control.
The reason was simple. Zhang ili was terrified that Qiu Yinong would Judge her, leaving her with no choice but to use her Death Gaze on Qiu Yinong. This ant that if Li Zhitong used his Skill to kill Chen Ran, Qiu Yinong would also suffer the fatal consequences.
It was an irreconcilable standoff, unless they could force Qiu Yinong to speak a Future Lie, such as promising she would not Judge Zhang ili.
But from Qiu Yinong's perspective, she refused to be manipulated into becoming a re pawn for a Three-Star Player or so Floor Master. To prevent this, she had to fiercely protect Chen Ran, using her own inherent value to force the three Three-Star Players to hesitate, afraid to throw a stone at a rat for fear of breaking the vase, and keeping them out of the current confrontation.
Simply put.
In this deadly ga, if one were to rank them based on their sheer desire to kill Chen Ran:
Tier One: Zhang ili and Cao Xiu.
Tier Two: Li Zhitong and Zhou Chen.
Tier Three: The three Three-Star Players.
Then, the identity of the person who must provide the lie was incredibly obvious: Cao Xiu!
After all, the other five still had a way out, but Zhang ili and Cao Xiu—the two liars—had their backs completely against the wall.
Seeing everyone's eyes land on him, Cao Xiu wore a terribly grim expression. "I am currently in my Skill's Reset to Zero state. Simply put, even if I tell a lie later, you can only use your Liar-Slayers to Judge , and you cannot undergo a Sacrifice Judgnt to use a Skill."
Reset to Zero ant returning to the origin, the very starting point. Every player's starting point was the beginner tutorial Instance; back then, the players' Liar-Slayers had not yet been imbued with Skills.
This effect was entirely different from Chen Ran's ability to ban others from using Skills. Here, other people could still use their Skills, but they could not execute a Sacrifice Judgnt against Cao Xiu to activate them.
Li Zhitong frowned. "You can deactivate your Skill first, and we promise..."
"It's too late." Cao Xiu's complexion was awful. "If I deactivate the Skill, the erased errors will be restored. My company previously only had 510,000 Points on its accounts. So much ti has passed since then; if I retract my Skill now, my company will go bankrupt imdiately, and I will die without a doubt."
Which was to say.
The Tier One group that wanted to kill Chen Ran the most couldn't possibly provide a lie.
Then it fell to the next in line: Tier Two.
Zhou Chen or Li Zhitong.
However, from their perspectives, they hadn't lied and still had an out. If one of them provided a lie and they successfully killed Chen Ran, naturally, everything would be fine. But if they failed to kill him, the one who provided the lie would be dood beyond redemption.
The risks far outweighed the rewards; neither of them was foolish enough to offer up a lie.
This was a situation that Zhang ili had never anticipated. In her initial calculations, as long as Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong died, their shares in Company No. 6 would be converted into additionally issued stocks.
When that happened, she could manipulate the Shareholders' eting to prevent Company No. 6 from expanding production. By securing the dividends, she would be able to tide over this crisis.
But she was unable to lie, Cao Xiu's lie was useless, Zhou Chen and Li Zhitong had no reason to lie, and the three Three-Star Players were even less likely to provide one.
This resulted in a complete deadlock—with no one to feed Li Zhitong a lie, there was no way to kill Chen Ran.
She pondered for a mont before turning to Zhou Chen. "Which company number do you think belongs to Chen Ran?"
"It should be Company No. 8," Zhou Chen replied, giving his answer almost without a second thought.
In truth, everyone already had a good idea about this. After going through these two Secret Rooms, they had all gained a solid understanding of Chen Ran's personality.
Company No. 8 had established an invincible position through several rounds of ruthless harvesting. This perfectly matched Chen Ran's decisive and uncompromising style of doing things.
"The wealthy NPC's Company No. 5 holds a twenty-nine percent stake in Company No. 8."
"Once Company No. 8 expands its production, that wealthy NPC will basically be in an invincible position."
"Who among us do you think will die first?"
"Furthermore, if Chen Ran survives this ti, he will definitely use Eternal Kingdom. Cao Xiu and I will face certain death."
"What do you think will happen to our shares that are parasitizing your company?"
Zhang ili's words pierced straight to the heart of the matter. If the three of them united and their combined shares exceeded fifty percent, Company No. 6 would no longer be under the control of the Shareholders' eting.
Cao Xiu, Zhang ili, and Zhou Chen—all three of them could barely scrape by and survive.
However, if Cao Xiu and Zhang ili died, the rest of the players could crush Zhou Chen with effortless ease.
They could directly initiate a Shareholders' eting and continuously force the expansion of production. That would cause his company's on-book funds to fall short of purchasing the raw materials needed for the expansion. In that case...
Company No. 6 would go bankrupt.
If he wanted to avoid bankruptcy, he could lay off employees. But what if the Shareholders' eting refused to approve the layoffs?
The outco was easy to imagine.
Which ant to say.
If Zhou Chen wanted to live, he had to deeply bind his fate together with Zhang ili and Cao Xiu.
If those two died, Zhou Chen would follow.
As for whether the other mbers of the Shareholders' eting would unite to kill Zhou Chen?
There was no need to even consider it. The mont other companies expanded their production, Zhou Chen would lose all his value.
Zhang ili and Cao Xiu had both lied. If Chen Ran lived, both of them would be in extre danger. If they were Judged and executed, Zhou Chen would eventually be played to death as well.
After clearing up this layer of logic.
A vicious glint surfaced in Zhou Chen's eyes.
He looked at the immobilized Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong, letting out a heavy sigh. "Don't bla . I just want to survive..."
Hearing this, Chen Ran's pupils violently contracted.
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