Cliff screamed miserably, flailing his arms above his head wildly, easily dodged by Li Cheng who was propelled backward by the recoil of the [Death Curse Torrent] Water Cannon.
Li Cheng hopped back from Cliff, and on his way out, he didn’t forget to retract his left hand, which had been stuck to Cliff’s back, using the Bat Hook.
He had secured the nail.
[Item Name: Slave Master’s Nail]
[Special Effect: Heart Stealer. By nailing into the skull of a target with a central brain and higher consciousness, you can make them submit and follow your commands.]
[Cooling Time: 31 days]
[Use Conditions: Intellect Attribute of 15 points or higher]
[Note: After being enslaved by the Heart Stealers for generations, with the help of the Evil God Ragd, the Dwarf race finally broke free from their control. However, the prolonged slavery permanently changed their nature, making them gloomy, pessimistic, irritable, and like their former masters, capturing slaves everywhere.]
[Note: "Great benefits! 100 draws for free on login!" said the shipowner of an 18th-century Atlantic slave ship at a slave auction.]
Cliff, from whom the nail had been pulled, collapsed weakly to the ground, his eyes rolled back, fainting.
Li Cheng, in silence, first poured a Micro Life Potion down his throat, recovering his ankle from a severe fracture, then attempted to put the [Slave Master’s Nail] into the Backpack.
Sure enough, it could be put inside.
The killing field had detailed rules regarding ownership of player items—a situation where "Player A pats Player B on the shoulder and collects all the equipment worn by the latter into their own Backpack" would not occur.
Being able to directly place the Slave Master’s Nail into Li Cheng’s Backpack confirmed that it did not belong to Cliff.
"So that’s how it is."
Li Cheng slowly exhaled a turbid breath and, with Gray Rain’s puzzled look on him, picked up the metal tombstone from the ground.
The inscription on the back of the tombstone had almost faded beyond recognition, so Li Cheng popped out the Mantis Arm Bone Blade and etched a line.
[Will it work this time]
He hadn’t deliberately controlled the direction of his handwriting, merely sketching at random, but the characters perfectly overlapped with the previous text.
Gray Rain’s eyes widened in astonishment, unclear about what had happened.
Li Cheng put the metal tombstone back in its original place, next to the corpse of [Bismuth Yellow], then called Gray Rain, hopped onto the Bat Wing Motorcycle, and streaked toward the direction of the Y-shaped pipe.
In this chaotic time-distorted thicket of Mystery Lock, only the radar navigator issued by the system could be trusted.
Shortly, Li Cheng and Gray Rain arrived back at the clearing where the Y-shaped pipe was.
On the left side of the pipe, the two blue round recesses meant for batteries were empty.
On the right side of the pipe, the breach was still continuously leaking golden time distortion, like a sighing wall.
Gray Rain was confused and asked, "We don’t have batteries on us, what are we doing back here?"
Li Cheng said calmly, "Someone will come."
After about ten seconds, indeed, the bushes were parted, and Zhao Zijing appeared holding a radar navigator.
Her face had no wrinkles, showing she was from the next cycle.
"Ant, what are you doing here?"
The new Zhao Zijing sighed in relief and said, "We’ve already charged the second tube’s battery with 60% to Mithril, he’s now back to a Lv15 level.
With his cooperation, we should be able to take down Cliff, let’s go."
Li Cheng stood still and smiled, "Let’s call the loop I’m in loop A, and the loop you’re in loop B.
When Zhao Zijing, who has been affected by the temporal flux in group A, finds group B, I in group B would probably say one of the following sentences.
’You look different without makeup.’
’Zijing, why didn’t you tell me you have a sister?’
’Time, please slow down, don’t make you age anymore.’
These words were full of so many holes that Zijing in group B twitched at the corner of her eyes, and her expression seemed to say, "You do realize how annoying you are, huh! Your self-analysis is rather accurate."
"I won’t go with you, Zijing of group B,"
Li Cheng said, smiling, "Or should I say, Mithril’s tool."
"Huh?" Gray Rain raised an eyebrow, and after a while realized, "Eh? What tool?"
"I have no idea what you’re talking about."
Zhao Zijing took a deep breath, "Time is limited, Cliff might appear at any moment..."
"Ever since I stepped into the bushes, I’ve had many doubts."
Li Cheng interrupted Zhao Zijing, "If killing everyone equals escaping the loop,
killing most people equals restarting the loop.
Then why is it that in the Mercury Alloy Guild, only Cliff is left alive?
Everyone else, be it bismuth or mithril, are all long-dead mummified corpses."
"I don’t know," Zhao Zijing said gravely, "Perhaps the Mercury Alloy Guild’s loop is alternated with ours. Causing their cycle to stretch greatly, turning the bodies into mummies."
"This explanation is somewhat reasonable. However, I prefer another theory: The Mercury Alloy Guild is anchored in the final scene.
They’re like the brick walls of a village, with cracks in the walls.
Our loop, on the other hand, is like the eugenics propaganda painted on the wall. The poster gets washed away and repainted every so often.
But the brick wall itself is permanently fixed.
Li Cheng took out the voice recorder pen that belonged to bismuth, "This pen is in my hand, and I certainly won’t put it back.
Yet every cycle, the new team of players always finds it."
To verify his guess, Li Cheng pressed the recorder pen button and began singing seriously, "Shaolin Kung Fu is good, really good. Shaolin Kung Fu is great, really great."
After singing tunelessly for two lines, Li Cheng stopped the recording and shrugged, "Knowing myself, I would do this every cycle.
The recording doesn’t have these two lines, and combined with my test on Cliff,
it proves that every cycle, everything about Mercury Alloy will be reset back to the initial state. Including Cliff and Mithril’s memories.
The only thing that won’t be reset is the trace amounts of electrical charge accumulated in the mithril’s body."
"..." Zhao Zijing fell silent.
Gray Rain seemed thoughtful, no wonder Li Cheng had carved words on the metal tombstone before.
The tombstone was from the last cycle, permanently fixed, so the carvings by Li Cheng also had a degree of permanence, capable of withstanding the cycles’ erasure and remaining through to the next cycle.
"Another question, why did the Zhao Zijing from the last cycle—let’s call her C Zhao Zijing,
commit suicide by exploding her head with her own telekinesis arrow after resurrecting Mithril."
Li Cheng said casually, "According to Mithril’s explanation, it’s because C Zhao Zijing couldn’t accept her inevitable death and chose to end her own life.
But that doesn’t make much sense, the right move should be to cooperate to kill Cliff, then everyone commits suicide together to escape from the loop, right?
Unless, she was given an instruction to commit suicide immediately after using the battery to resurrect Mithril, to prevent us from getting answers from her.
And the person who gave C Zhao Zijing the instruction, was the Mithril from the previous B loop who had absorbed the electricity from two batteries, returning to Lv15 strength."