Editor: Junyans
The plundering ended with an explosion.
At that moment, Bai Jingan’s men had just left the arms collection room with the weapons they had previously reserved to get, counting themselves among the first to get away.
They walked into the night and quickly counted the spoils—they were very rich. There was a fierce exchange of fire from time to time in the alloy building behind them. If you took a bag of arms from inside, it might change owners four or five times before it reached the door, with each previous owner dying in a different way.
One after another, people escaped from the arsenal. Most of them had a certain level of strength, knew what they were looking for and what they had gotten, and seized the time to leave.
Outside the arsenal, it was already late into the night. The air was filled with the scent of fresh grass and trees found only in the Upper City as well as the faint odor of blood on the mutant creatures.
Then the explosion occurred.
Bai Jingan was setting the magnetic virus bomb to safe mode when he caught a glimpse of several people running wildly out of the gate from his peripheral vision. He was stunned for a moment, and the moment he saw their expressions, he realized something big was about to happen—
But he didn’t shout anything as waves of sound exploded violently behind him, sweeping around him.
Tongues of fire and wind swept through the doors and ventilation ducts. Flames rushed to the sky, dyeing half of the night red. The sky was thick and murky.
A man covered in flames rushed out, screaming in an inhuman voice. The smell of burning flesh and blood, as well as building boards, filled the air.
Wei Xi fell down, and Eric yanked him by the hand and dragged him two steps forward. The forehead of the network logistician broke and blood flowed out, but there was no time to treat it.
Bai Jingan only had time to grab Xia Tian’s collar and block him with his body when the second explosion came.
Whatever the first explosion was like, the second was even more shocking.
There were so many explosive items in the arms collection room. He was unsure if it was someone who had gotten carried away while trying to destroy more arms, or if it was the planning team’s intention, but the flames destroyed all the remaining arms, reducing the danger of “a lot of players coming out with guns and making the game go too fast” into ashes.
Bai Jingan didn’t know how many players had already passed away, but it must be a lot. Under the fire’s illumination, the lights that had been put together around the arsenal appeared simply insubstantial. Even after so much effort, the alloy building was still indestructible. Under the light of the fire, it was a shadow that stood steadfastly on its ground. A hell in a box.
He felt like he heard countless screams, but it might just be an illusion. His ears were buzzing and the burning world was silent.
Another person rushed out bathed in fire, but collapsed at the doorway. The smell of burning flesh became more intense in the air. Inside the metal box, people screamed, burned and turned to ashes.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Beside him, Xia Tian struggled to stand up, and even gave Bai Jingan a hand, and said, “It’s okay.”
Bai Jingan didn’t believe a word. “You need your wound to be immediately sutured, and then…”
He was interrupted by a message alert tone that came out of everyone’s mobile phones.
The system mandatory email, which must be read.
Looking down, Bai Jingan saw that the sender was the Lawyer-in-charge, and the letter was written in beautiful flowery script and worded elegantly. The rough meaning was that he was glad that the heirs had had an exciting day, and that the better ones among them were already showing potential. These noble young people were asked to arrive at the banquet hall in fifteen minutes for an important announcement. If they didn’t show up, they would be deemed disqualified.
He had also fucking added: “If the situation is urgent, you can skip the suit.”
Bai Jingan turned his head towards the banquet hall. The lights in the banquet hall were already alight, and under the depressing night, it looked extremely luxurious and bright. Light music drifted out from inside the building, the tune playful and sweet, which seemed to be describing a journey full of expectation on a spring morning.
The plot line of the next scene had begun.
Xia Tian had his head lowered. The pale light in the distance was shining on him, his hair was scattered, and his eyes were a little out of focus. Bai Jingan had believed himself to be a civilized person, but right now, he really wanted nothing more than to swear.
Fifteen minutes later, a group of wounded people, all togged out in designer clothes, stood in the brightly illuminated banquet hall.
Preparations for the banquet had already been made. The huge crystal chandelier reflected light on the glistening champagne fountain. Everything was neat and tidy, and worth a lot of money.
The contestants stood there half dead. Each of them, one after the other, smelled like fire and smoke, while they wielded a variety of weapons, including pistols, submachine guns, laser guns, sniper rifles, grenades, and so on.
The hall, which had been packed with people when the game had started, was now half empty. The Lawyer-in-charge was still suited and booted, but the expression on the heirs’ face had lost the gentleness and kindness they had at the beginning, revealing a bloody inside.
When Xia Tian entered the hall, Angus stared at him with a deadly gaze.
Xia Tian looked back with a provocative look, indicating that he could kill again at any time. Bai Jingan dragged him to the sofa next to him, and a circle of people quickly emptied around him, and those who were sitting on the sofa stood up and walked to the side.
The hostility was palpable to all, and sparks were beginning to fly between the Lawyer-in-charge NPC—or the entire planning team—and a player who was too weak to sit up straight.
The Lawyer-in-charge averted his gaze, picked up his champagne glass, tapped it, and said, “Good evening. You all look like you’ve had a good day today.”
There was a stifling silence below.
He paused thoughtfully before adding, “We’ve invited you all here this time because of a message we’ve just received.”
“According to the message, the creatures you saw in the depths of the garden—what we call ‘white specters’—are evolving.”
The group of people looked at him with shocked and vacant expressions.
“We’ve found that they have recently shown some resistance to light,” Mr. Angus continued.
Then a silence ensued, which was then broken by a cacophony of voices, interspersed with a stream of curses. The Lawyer-in-charge’s expression remained the same. He had a calm demeanor and a smile on his face.
“You must be curious about these creatures in the dark,” Angus said, “They have an insatiable desire to kill. They only want to eat people or eat each other. They live in a hell of filth, depravity, and eternal suffering.”
As the group listened to his description, chills ran through their bodies.
“As biological weapons, they are near perfect,” Angus continued, “serving us with a never-ending desire—”
He laughed.
“I can’t believe everyone hasn’t guessed that they are all remnants of ‘Project New Life’, and all of you present have worked on that project and are responsible for their plight.”
The group let him plant this crime on their heads with a blank look on their faces. The music had been thoughtfully lowered when he had started speaking but was still lively and playful, and the night outside the window was as dark as a large splash of black ink.
“As the employees of this project, you have more or less committed a crime, and thus gotten your initial profits. But that is not the real reason for your success. You were successful because you had a sound strategic vision.
“Mr. Shi’s ‘Project New Life’ was not just a global biological weapons project, nor was it merely designed to bring wealth or mark a milestone in bio-mutation genetics. Its greatness lies in its ability to change the way we think and tell us where we will stand in biology.”
His arrogant, gelid gaze swept over the wretched assembly of listeners, the majority of whom were injured. Cheap guns were piled up everywhere, foreshadowing the bloody climax to come.
He smiled and continued the story of the Shi Empire.
“Mr. Shi has no heirs, and this plan is also an observation. Everyone here is a person with vision and courage. That’s why they were eligible to receive the invitation letter and contend for the heir’s seat. And those who fail in life or try to oppose the ‘new life’… will live forever in darkness as an experiment or as a punishment for disobedience.”
He scanned them. A dark crevice seemed to open in his smiling face, and there was malice inside.
“I think you’ve already figured out that some of those creatures outside were once human beings.”
The players were dead silent as the decorations of the lavish banquet around them reflected the light of the chandelier, radiant and pure, like a dream.
Bai Jingan was chilled to the bone. This was of course normal, they had probably found some… death row prisoners. This society could always find such a group of people, who were at the bottom of the societal ladder and could be used for anything.
Although he couldn’t think about how genetic technology could turn a person into one of those pale, twisted monsters… Everything was just for a show gimmick.
“There is nothing to be proud of in being human. Folks, in a normal and strict social system, there is a part of the population that is destined to take on the responsibility of being a stepping stone.
“Mr. Shi kept them deep in the garden as a warning to the normal world order. But it was not expected that they would proliferate, as livestock do—”
Bai Jingan felt Xia Tian sitting beside him tilt, his head touching his shoulder.
He felt his heart sink toward the abyss, but then sensed the man struggle and try to sit up straight, but without success.
“Don’t move,” Bai Jingan said.
“I’m a little tired…” Xia Tian said.
“Now, we want the victims to be trapped in the darkness forever and die in the form of livestock. People like you… have known for a long time that each person in this world has his place, and that words like life and dignity sound good, but are nothing but tradable trinkets under really huge amounts of money and power.”
His gaze once again unconsciously fell upon Xia Tian. Whenever he saw him, the look of arrogance and self-confidence would disappear, revealing bottomless anger and a deep-seated malice.
Bai Jingan had no doubt that Angus didn’t even want Xia Tian to die here. He wanted to see him fall into a darker and more desperate place.
Xia Tian was still leaning on his shoulder, no longer responsive to the outside world, while countless people in the floating city were watching his vulnerability and the wretchedness of not being able to even stay awake during the mission banquet through their terminals.
Bai Jingan, with his hand on his sword, looked straight into the eyes of the Lawyer-in-charge NPC and stood guard next to Xia Tian.
When he walked through the opulent banquets of the Upper World clad in a suit, everyone thought he belonged to the Upper City, not because he actually knew and liked this place, but because he pretended to.
But at this moment, he didn’t belong to the Upper City in any way. He was a fighter who had come out of the darkness of the Lower City, covered in blood and wounds, but with a straight back for his allies to lean on.
He had become whole again, with no parts missing. He was without any hesitation and hadn’t been worn down at all. And for the first time in the richly lit banquet hall of the Upper City, he appeared so distinct, strong, and impossible to ignore.
“So in the next period of time, the residential area may not be too safe.” Angus stared into Bai Jingan’s eyes and said coldly, “But as losers, I believe that their small evolution is not enough to pose a threat to you all. What you have to do is to ensure that they never take on human forms and die in silence.”
A deadly still permeated the crowd. Everyone had seen the monsters of the darkness—and some were fucking human variations. Just by looking at the importance given to the arsenal, it was clear what kind of disaster was to follow.
“Then,” Angus said, “have fun, everyone.”
Hello. Why can’t I read ch 73?
Ooh does this mean we get to see more scenes of BJG fighting? (Also, more of their relationship lol?)
Also, Thank you for translating! ❤
I hate the producers of this so much