This is the cruel reality, their game, our Hell.

Zhen Qi Yi seemed unable to bear the cries but didn’t say anything, only calling out:

"Leader, I’ll go and get some more food. If there are steaks, I’ll grill some."

Su Changxing nodded and said, "Anything’s fine."

Then, pointing to the corpse on the ground, he said calmly to the middle-aged man with dark skin beside him:

"Drag them away and throw them out. Leaving them here will only make it stink... Besides, don’t cry. So many people have died that three more won’t make a difference. You can’t cry for them all."

The middle-aged man patted the woman’s shoulder and said, "The leader has spoken, don’t cry anymore. It affects everyone’s morale."

The woman immediately stopped crying and sat silently to the side.

Su Changxing recalled that this didn’t happen in the gathering place back then. Too many people died, and everyone became numb to death.

Eventually, they no longer reacted much to the dead; the only belief was to survive.

Candles were lit on the table, as the city’s power system had been destroyed by the rain.

Half an hour later.

Zhen Qi Yi brought over three sizzling plates of grilled steaks to the table, accompanied by eggs grilled with one side burnt and one side tender, with the yolk not fully set, and pasta covered in sauce.

Su Changxing observed and said, "Pretty quick hands you have."

Jin simply picked up the knife and fork and started eating, seemingly forgetting the poisoning incident earlier, or perhaps not caring at all.

"How’s it taste?" Zhen Qi Yi asked eagerly. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Su Changxing cut into the beef, tasted a piece, and nodded appreciatively, "It’s indeed good."

······

"This NPC is damn tricky!"

Wu Yan, dressed in chain mail, stood before the resurrection monument, cursing as he spoke to his comrades.

Around them were many people in strange attire, with soldiers patrolling in small teams on the streets, and lanterns like ice crystals hung by the street emitting a pale blue glow.

Everything seemed unreal, as if they were in a fairy tale.

"What happened?" his companion asked.

Wu Yan held back a breath and said, "After you left, the mini-boss of that quest actively wanted to trade with me, said that if I told him some information, he’d let me go. But after the transaction, he still killed me."

"So frustrating... And because I lost the quest item, I got penalized. I just can’t figure out what bad luck I had today..."

Before he finished speaking, a woman walking at the edge blushed and tried to hold back laughter, saying:

"You must be the first to be toyed with by an NPC."

Wu Yan felt a bit annoyed immediately, explaining:

"No, this NPC is very different. He even asked if we were playing a game, intelligent to this degree, it gives me the creeps. Plus, Chen Xin and those guys ran faster than anyone, left me behind."

Another man wearing a purple cowboy hat chimed in:

"We call it a strategic retreat. That guy was too strong. If we hadn’t run, there’d be three dead... Nonetheless, I saw someone online suspecting that this so-called game is the True World. It seems unreal, but in many places, it appears quite reasonable."

Wu Yan looked at him as if he were an idiot and laughed: "And you believed it?"

"Not that I believed, just that what was said made some sense. The AI of these NPCs is too advanced, in some ways no different from us," the man in the cowboy hat pondered.

Wu Yan touched the arm that had just been blown by a bullet and laughed:

"But we can revive, that in itself is unreasonable. Just baseless speculation... Better to think about how to level up. This game’s leveling is too hard. I’ll go back for revenge and restore my honor!"

Even though they could gain experience from kills, leveling up required a massive amount of experience, and simply increasing levels didn’t significantly enhance combat power.

"You’re thinking about revenge? I don’t think you’ll have a chance any time soon, at least not before reaching Level 20 or 30. And even if you do reach that sub-world, you might not find him," the man in the cowboy hat said brutally.

Wu Yan rubbed his temples and joked: "Have I been playing too long? Feeling a bit dizzy. I heard someone suddenly died while playing before."

"There’s another quest, decent rewards, do it and then you can log off."

"Alright."

······

Evening.

The dark city, a familiar feeling.

Su Changxing walked the streets filled with ruins alongside Jin, with the rain continuing to fall, lessening a bit, but not significantly changing.

Everything seemed to change in an orderly fashion.

He, on one side, was clearing out the remaining Gladiators, while also checking for the presence of other "Players."

"There’s a fish in the water!"

Jin suddenly stopped in her tracks, staring at a puddle.

It appeared to be a shallow pool of water, but something black seemed to swim within, and the faint sound of water being disturbed sent chills down one’s spine.

What is this...? Su Changxing pulled her back a few steps and took out Wooden Fish from his pocket, throwing it toward the front:

"Let’s see what this is first."

The Wooden Fish landed on the ground and unexpectedly turned into a live fish, flipping its tail and making a rustling sound, startling whatever was in the water.

"Swoosh~"

An octopus tentacle with a mouth surged out from the water, reaching for the lively fish on the ground.

Unexpectedly, the fish that Wooden Fish turned into suddenly swelled up and changed form into a ball, chomping off the tentacle in a swift bite.

The tentacle spewed out a large amount of ink-like liquid, staining the ground and water in the puddle.

The severed tentacle quickly retracted, leaving no trace.

After taking a bite, the Wooden Fish also returned to its original form.

[Cooldown time: three hours]

"It actually has attacking capabilities."

Su Changxing walked over and picked up the Wooden Fish on the ground, a bit surprised, then glanced at the puddle beside him, finding only a shallow puddle of water, with nothing else inside.

Was it an illusion?

Probably not, since the ink stains were still on the ground.

The seawater falling from the sky made this area strange, even making Su Changxing’s scalp tingle, unable to foresee what might happen next.

"Gone?" Jin’s face showed a hint of excitement, finding it novel, and then she tossed a "Hand Grenade" into the puddle, but no explosion came as expected.

It had disappeared...

"Forget it, let’s leave here."

Su Changxing frowned slightly, pulling Jin back, realizing they needed to leave this area quickly, or else something unpredictable might occur.

This was the city’s center, where the rain was heaviest, to the extent that some lower-lying areas were even submerged by seawater.

Such rainfall couldn’t possibly cause the current situation, and the city had decent infrastructure, with a well-developed drainage system.

There had been a seven-day rainstorm before, yet it hadn’t impacted West Bridge at all.

If the rain continued the next day, he might have to abandon Zhen Qi Yi and others, taking Shen Jinxuan and leaving here first.

The city was increasingly becoming unfathomable.