Zhao Zijing and the others were dumbstruck, watching the faces on the Entropy Devouring Cloud contort into expressions of discomfort and nausea. Some of those faces even vomited, expelling a jet of black smoke laced with garbled characters.
Midnight Howl couldn’t help but ask, "How did you do it?!"
"It’s simple, just do some advanced studies in a mental hospital, where everyone is talented, and they all speak so nicely, I really like it," Li Cheng said nonchalantly, pushing up his glasses and subtly rubbing his temple.
Zhao Zijing had a faint guess about what had happened, the noisy voices that had risen from the darkness seemed to all originate from the Ant.
He used the technique of mimicking others’ voices to temporarily increase his own information entropy, exceeding the absorption capacity of the Entropy Devouring Cloud.
But that wasn’t right. If it was that simple, the Global Supernatural Alliance would have discovered it by now and would have documented the solution in their database.
Zhao Zijing didn’t know that Li Cheng possessed both the Multi-threaded Brain Domain Method and the Immersion Acting Method skills, allowing him to fully immerse himself in the characters he portrayed.
Moreover, Li Cheng, in his spare time, had browsed through various materials including biographies, historical documents, and documentaries.
It wasn’t just the use of the Immersion Acting Method to imitate speech and mannerisms, but also to delve deep into the heart and excavate human nature to "replicate" the character being portrayed.
Only by doing so could he create a complete set of human information entropy to "sate" the Entropy Devouring Cloud.
’Thank goodness it worked.’
Li Cheng silently mumbled to himself, ’No need to resort to the second plan.’
Whenever the Entropy Devouring Cloud absorbed information entropy, it would snatch away the memories of the portrayed characters from Li Cheng’s mind, causing him a faint headache.
For that reason, Li Cheng was prepared. In the darkness, he had used the temporary skill [Summoning Technique: Thousand Paper Cranes], allowing the paper cranes to hover in the air, away from the Exploration Ship,
ready to activate the [Demon Exchange] skill at any moment, to teleport himself, along with the Task Battery and radar equipment, to the location of the paper cranes and make a getaway.
"Three Points Return to Essence!"
Li Cheng gave a low shout and rubbed his hands together, creating a pitch-black Gravity Energy Ball out of thin air, and threw it into the sky.
The materialized Entropy Devouring Cloud, immediately affected by the chaotic gravity, congregated into a clump like iron filings to a magnet.
"Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms!"
Li Cheng then threw a string of Hand Grenades and after a massive explosion, the black cloud dispersed into nothingness.
He knew Zhao Zijing probably had Reconnaissance Skills, so he turned to look at him, "Is it solved?"
"Mm," Zhao Zijing could see with his [Point Array Detection] skill that the Entropy Devouring Cloud had indeed disappeared.
"That was really close," the Driver said with relief. He was not afraid to face enemies like zombies, tyrants, or the Alien Queen, but he found it most troublesome to deal with Ghosts, Resentful Spirits, and conceptual creatures that were invisible and intangible.
With the former, a direct combat approach would settle things, but with the latter, one had to wrack their brains for a solution.
He perked up, puzzled, and asked Li Cheng, "Why do you shout ’Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms’ and throw a Hand Grenade?"
"It’s a unique combat technique,"
Li Cheng said seriously, "Shouting one thing and using a different move can effectively disturb the opponent’s perception. In a life-and-death fight, any slight advantage can determine the outcome.
This is what I realized when training dogs. Giving the command ’sit’ actually meant telling it to turn in circles, ’come here’ was actually a handshake, ’lie down’ meant to run, and ’advance’ actually meant to bite them.
Several of the dogs I trained ended up becoming guide dogs, but I have no idea how they’re doing now."
Ah, the villain has been found, tweet @The Grand Ant.
The light on the ship slowly returned to normal levels, as Midnight Howl and the others grimaced in discomfort. Then, from the cabin below came a woman’s piercing scream.
Zhao Zijing waved her hand to open the door, only to see Catherine, Mendoza, and the bandaged man standing in a corner of the room, with the black youth Miles collapsed on the center floor, his eyes rolled back, breathless for some time now.
Midnight Howl stepped forward and pressed his finger to the side of Miles’ neck, frowning as he said, "No pulse."
He took out a bottle of potion from the Backpack, pouring an unknown liquid into Miles’ mouth.
Zhao Zijing also took out an AED defibrillator from the medicine cabinet, shocking Miles’ heart with electricity.
Catherine, who had lived her life in a middle-class white community in London and had never seen a dead person before, stuttered: "It was pitch black just now, I heard something fall to the ground, but it was too dark in the room, I didn’t know it was Miles who fell..."
The players ignored her, busying themselves for a while, but Miles’ heart rate still flatlined—within the few short minutes from when the Entropy Devouring Cloud appeared to when the Ant figured out a solution to burst it,
the Entropy Devouring Cloud not only devoured the light, books, hard drive data, but also sapped away the information entropy of the unfortunate Miles, causing his heart to abruptly stop and leading to his sudden death.
"Damn." Official source is NoveIＦire.net
Midnight Howl muttered discontentedly, stood up from the ground, and stopped CPR.
As a mixed-blood descendant of American Indians, he was barely a countryman of Miles. More importantly, he had wasted a bottle of emergency potion on a dead man,
and a dead person wouldn’t be able to complete a task, become a player, and give a reward to Midnight Howl.
’The first victim, might not be the last.’
Zhao Zijing also stopped the resuscitation, her expression grave.
Although these ordinary people were indeed a burden, they were also valuable as reward packages after completing tasks and... human airbags.
The Transcendents, through the inventive ways ordinary people died, could deduce the dangerous factors in their environment and find ways to survive.
Moreover, Zhao Zijing was an operative for the Global Supernatural Alliance; she couldn’t simply sit by and watch the remaining three perish.
She pondered for a moment, flipped her hand, and took out three green syringes, handing them to Mendoza, Catherine, and the bandaged man.
Catherine clumsily asked, "What is this...?"
"A superpower injection from Gen-Sys Biotech Company."
Zhao Zijing said: "After injection, it will cause rapid genetic mutation, temporarily activating a superpower.
The type of superpower is entirely random, it could be fire manipulation, or it could be infinite strength. Or having an impenetrable surface that bullets cannot penetrate, or growing tiny spikes on one’s fingertips, allowing one to climb skyscrapers like Spiderman.
This product is an immature release from Gen-Sys, the superpower is generally only active for five minutes, and each time it’s used, it significantly increases the risk of full-body cancer in the next fifty years.
I am giving these injections to you for use only in the direst of circumstances, when the Transcendents cannot tend to your safety. Do you understand?"
Mendoza was looking intently at the green sparkly liquid in the syringe, not concealing the eagerness in his eyes.
As a scion of a Philippine aristocratic family, he had vaguely heard some things about the Extraordinary World.
Just one injection, with this one injection, he could stand out from the rest, possessing strange powers beyond the reach of billions of others...
As for cancer risk, if one could complete the task, escape from here, and officially become a player, there are numerous ways to delay or even solve cancer.
The three of them took the injections, Mendoza was full of longing, Catherine was timid, and the bandaged man silently stuffed it under his chest bandages.
Li Cheng felt indifferent, knowing the injections’ effects were limited; ordinary people had to gamble on the chance of getting a useful superpower like buying a lottery ticket.
Even if they got lucky, it would merely be equivalent to the level of a Level 3 to 5 Transcendent. At most, one could say Zhao Zijing was generous, willing to spend money on ordinary people; after all, each injection costs 500 Game Coins.
Suddenly, he thought of something and turned to Zhao Zijing, "Actually, I’m an ordinary person too. How about gifting me one?"