34. The Fate of the Vanquished (Please follow for updates!)

[Mission Failed]
[You have returned to the train]

Xiaoyou opened her eyes. She was sitting in the train that was at once unfamiliar and familiar. Warm light shone through the window, spilling across her face.

"Failed..."

Xiaoyou closed her eyes and tilted her head back. "It doesn't matter... Next time, I'll remember: just killing players is enough to earn back the gold coins... I can still run another scenario mission; there is still a chance."

"Yes, kill players."

She was an actress. She had relied on her boyfriend to put her through college, dumped him, and then got together with a minor director. She had acted in adult films and mainstream dramas, later turned to live streaming, and became a mistress, eventually securing an apartment in the city center of a first-tier city. Now, she was on her own. From a social perspective, Xiaoyou was successful—she had a house, money, and beauty, all gained by stepping on others to climb the ladder.

At least, that was what she believed.

The phenomena in the "Endless Corridor" were very similar to reality: kill players and use their gold coins to sustain your own life. To survive, killing a few people meant nothing.

The sunlight hit her face. A strand of hair blocked her eyes, and she reached up to brush it away.

"Huh?"

Her hand? She looked down at her two severed wrists.

"Where are my hands?"

[Reiteration: If a player's limbs are severed during a mission, the pain will be suppressed after the mission ends, but they cannot be restored. This condition will be carried over to the "reality" you reside in.]

"Cannot be restored?"

Xiaoyou’s gaze shifted from bewilderment to shock, and finally to terror. "How am I supposed to live without hands?"

[We wish you a pleasant journey.]

"Pleasant my ass! How am I supposed to survive without hands!"

Her voice echoed in the empty train. No one answered. The warm light shone on the dust motes, blending warmth and oppressive dread in a bizarre way.

...

As expected, the "Endless Corridor" encouraged high-intensity conflict between players, Li Nuo thought. His greatest future opponents would likely be other players. He holstered his gun and slung it across his back.

At this moment, Marjie had already stopped the tricycle.

"Li Nuo... she didn't necessarily come to kill us," Chen Shou said. Although the chubby guy also suspected that this girl's unusual appearance likely meant no good, having grown up in a harmonious society, he still held onto a shred of fantasy regarding "truth, goodness, and beauty."

Li Nuo ignored him and walked with Marjie to Xiaoyou’s corpse.

Li Nuo stared expressionlessly at the body. Xiaoyou’s face had been blown away; she was beyond recognition.

Marjie frowned. "Height 155 centimeters. A-cup."

He then reached out and picked up the pistol Xiaoyou had dropped on the ground. A system notification sounded in his ear: [After a player dies, if an NPC is present, the corpse will remain until the area is empty. The moment a player’s heartbeat stops, the equipment on their body and the body itself become models and cannot be taken.]

Marjie relayed this to Li Nuo.

"Looks like I need to learn a thieving skill if I want to pilfer items from players," Li Nuo mused. Feeling there was nothing more to ponder, he stood up to head back. "My stomach feels uncomfortable."

"Are you pregnant?" Marjie asked.

"Thanks for that... It’s probably stomach cramps from 'killing someone' for the first time. If I had hacked her to death with a cold weapon, I might have vomited." Li Nuo felt somewhat dissatisfied with the aftereffects of his first time "finishing someone off."

They returned to the vehicle and continued on their way.

2B had been watching silently from the side. She found these people increasingly strange; to her, PVP between players was like an inexplicable skirmish. A combat-type android’s curiosity was like a cat’s, but she was restraining herself, prioritizing the mission and the safety of headquarters.

Chen Shou glanced at Li Nuo from time to time. He had watched a movie once that contained the line: "Don't kill, because once you kill, everything changes."

Now, this line fit Li Nuo perfectly. The suicidal tendencies and various psychological issues seen in soldiers returning from the battlefield were precisely because they had experienced or participated in such slaughter; their entire cognitive framework had collapsed, making it impossible to reintegrate into normal society.

Watching too many bloody movies might make one think their tolerance is high enough, but the things that truly make people uncomfortable aren't found in films—they are real-life occurrences. Ordinary people always overestimate their state in extreme environments.

Li Nuo realized this.

"So, I’m still a normal human after all."

"Don't underestimate yourself," Chen Shou retorted. Judging by past events, he was certain that Li Nuo would soon get used to a life with blood on his hands.

"To complete the mission, one kills the target. This is common sense. Why discuss it?" 2B asked.

*You, an executioner-type android, certainly wouldn't understand...* Li Nuo thought to himself, then said aloud, "I still need to train myself. If I run into a guy who is a serial killer in real life, the situation definitely won't be as pleasant as it was just now."

At this moment, the vehicle reached the entrance, and warm yellow light bathed everyone. This was a spiral corridor connecting to the outside of the tower; thoughtfully, there were no stairs, allowing them to drive all the way to the top.

"If you're a man, you go to the hundredth floor, right?" Li Nuo pointed to the road ahead. "I’m betting your lives on this; there’s definitely danger ahead."

"Why are you betting our lives!" Chen Shou performed his role as the straight man perfectly.

"Whether it's dangerous or not, I don't know, but look at that," Marjie said, pointing ahead.

Twenty meters away, a player named Zhang Wei was leaning against the wall, sitting blankly and looking up at the sky.

Zhang Wei, real name unknown, was a level 12 veteran player. He was currently lost. The lingering shock of the mission difficulty spike had yet to fade when he saw Xiaoyou kill "Flat-head" Lao Guan. That scene played over and over in his mind. He had just been running for his life at the time, and before he knew it, he had ended up here.

Now, Zhang Wei had only one wish: for some big shot to take him under their wing...

The dim light filtered through the thick clouds in the sky and hit his face. A silhouette obscured the light source. *Did a big shot come...?*

He looked up and saw two gun barrels pointed at his face.

*Do big shots love to communicate with guns?*

Zhang Wei blinked and realized the two gunmen were the players he had initially dismissed as neurotic. They were fully armed, stocked with ammunition, driving a car with background music, and accompanied by a white-haired beauty... 2B?

"What did you guys go through...?"

Two minutes later, Li Nuo had extracted some information from Zhang Wei, taken his equipment, shot him dead, and collected 600 gold coins.

Zhang Wei’s mental state had already shattered; he could no longer function as a partner, and his only remaining value was that of a mobile vault. However, what caught Li Nuo’s attention was Zhang Wei’s claim that they had seen human corpses embedded into the walls.

As he was pondering this, white petals suddenly drifted down from the air. They looked up toward the top of the tower.

*The Flower of Apocalypse?*

At the same time, shouts echoed from nearby.

[Upper region entered]
[Defeat the final guardian]

As the system’s voice entered his ears, dense, tiny black dots appeared in the sky. They expanded rapidly, and the moment they descended, Marjie was already pedaling the vehicle frantically toward the top of the tower.

"What is that!?" Chen Shou braced his rifle, preparing to face the final danger.

Li Nuo frowned, watching the targets drawing closer in the sky. "Damn it... Wyvern hunters! Monsters from Final Fantasy XIV!"

At the same time, a thunderous sound came from behind; the spiral floating walkway began to collapse like stacked blocks!

*Bang! Bang!*

Chen Shou fired his rifle repeatedly, fending off the harassing Wyvern hunters. Meanwhile, there was an open doorway at the corner. Marjie swerved in, but suddenly a heavy breathing sound erupted, and a massive creature jumped out from behind the door, knocking over the vending cart!

*This damn ambush!*

Li Nuo gritted his teeth and rotated his body in mid-air. With the enhancement of [Melee Combat], his muscle control was far superior to his normal state, but even so, by the time he adjusted, the floating walkway outside had disintegrated like building blocks and vanished.

Suddenly, a flash of white light appeared. 2B chased after him, grabbed his hand, and dashed downward!

A combat-type android could run on vertical walls, but Li Nuo could not. Hearing the *tap-tap-tap* of 2B’s high heels on the rusted exterior wall, he saw the monsters chasing them down from above!

It didn't stop there; two more identical monsters broke through the walls and jumped out!

"Three in total!" Li Nuo shouted.

2B: "They are fine. As for the remaining opponents, I'll take two, you take one."

Li Nuo: "Huh?"

2B: "I will do my best to protect your safety; this is our contract."

*Thud.* 2B kicked open a semi-open window in the wall, threw Li Nuo inside first, and jumped in herself.

Several Wyvern hunters flew in from outside. 2B brandished her sword and cut down a few, but suddenly the three pursuing monsters crashed through the walls. 2B was quick-witted and kicked Li Nuo down to the next level first.

The floor was five meters high. Li Nuo pushed off the wall at the critical moment to assist his landing, ensuring it didn't hurt too much.

*If this were a Witcher, he would’ve been dead from the fall...* he complained as he stood up.

"It's you!?"

A resistance fighter's voice reached his ears. He turned to see seven resistance fighters there. The one who spoke was the girl with the ponytail who had initially led him into the resistance camp.

Li Nuo’s brow furrowed deeply.

2B—had she known all along that the resistance fighters were here?