"Hey, I don't get it. Why not team up with them? That would be a really good—"
After watching the trio—two men and a woman—walk off, Beishi lingered at the doorway, looked inside at Xiang Nan seated in the chair at the center of the room, and asked.
Xiang Nan didn't answer. The corner of his mouth simply lifted.
Boom!
An explosion thundered from the far end of the street. Beishi's face changed; he looked over to see the three—who hadn't yet turned the corner—suddenly come under attack from strangers.
"What the—"
He sucked in a breath.
Two eerie figures had appeared near the departing trio, one to the left and one to the right, standing atop the roofs flanking the street. What stunned Beishi was how the two attackers looked.
They were human… but one of them had an arm that seemed boneless, stretching out and out like a flesh-colored steel whip dozens of meters long, a screaming blade on its tip lashing down at the road where the trio stood.
Wherever the edge swept, the packed-earth street split into gouged furrows and a cloud of dust roared up. The surrounding wooden houses exploded into splinters in an instant.
The other attacker was even more grotesque: his head split clean in two, becoming a pair of tentacles tipped with knives.
Like his partner, he whipped them wildly through the space where the three intruders stood, silver flashes dense as a curtain of light—a scything storm that shredded everything.
The force of it was so great that the billowing dust blew all the way to Beishi and the others.
"What are those things?"
They looked human, but more like some uncanny abominations. The speed and power with which their flesh extended were explosive—far beyond human.
Beishi hadn't expected a new fight to erupt the instant negotiations ended. One squad of intruders had already lost patience and was trying to thin the field before the mission even dropped.
Almost at once, he saw blood spray inside that haze of flying blades. Clearly, in the very first exchange, someone from the trio was wounded—or dead.
"This is why I didn't cooperate… because there's no need."
Xiang Nan, the only calm one in the room, smiled as he spoke.
"Unlike before, we didn't come here to make friends. Sure, players adjust their plans to the environment and the situation—but at its core, the Multiverse battleground still worships strength. Only the weak huddle in packs. The more people, the more variables—whether they're enemies or 'allies.'"
He looked at Beishi's stunned face, raised a finger, and smiled.
"Right now isn't the time to worry about others. Worry about ourselves."
His reminder had barely fallen when a shadow swept over their little wooden house. In a heartbeat, the sky seemed to go dark. A hulking monstrosity loomed up behind Beishi—towering like a building, bestial in shape—its maw yawning wide.
A second later it bit down, turning the house into mulch and slamming a crater into the ground with the impact.
Swish, swish, swish—
A few seconds later, Xiang Nan and the other four flickered to different spots, all slipping the lethal ambush.
Dressed in a black coat, Xiang Nan stood on a tree trunk, smiling. Unhurried, he fished out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a drag. Exhaling, his cold gaze slid across the battlefield to a clearing a hundred meters away.
Two people stood there, "watching" what was happening. Clearly, they were the ones who had launched the ambush. One was kneeling, both hands pressed to the ground, fingertips set on a totem-like array.
Under Xiang Nan's stare, both of them suddenly felt the breath of death.
"Not good—run!"
Goose bumps rose on one of them. He grabbed his partner by the collar, ready to bolt.
Meanwhile, the "beast" that had smashed their house reared its head again, as if to launch a second strike. Look closely and it wasn't a living thing at all, but a colossal "toy" cobbled from earth, lumber, and rubble.
Xiang Nan vanished from the tree.
The two ambushers sprinted the moment they realized they'd missed their chance. But after barely a dozen meters, a chill like falling into an ice cellar seized them.
The man who had been on the distant tree a second ago was suddenly right in front of them, blocking their path.
"Impossible?!"
Their faces drained. Xiang Nan didn't strike immediately. He took another pull on his cigarette. The brim of his black cap tipped up a fraction, revealing the eyes fixed on them. He flicked a glance at the rampaging colossus a hundred meters away and said with a smile, "Nice ability… magic?"
Bang, bang, bang!
Bullets snapped toward him—then seemed to pass straight through, leaving him unharmed. In truth, he'd moved so fast they only appeared to miss.
"Not magic? Summoning?"
Seeing their horror, he needled them again.
By now the two intruders had realized their guns couldn't threaten this man. One of them snapped his fingers. A stone sat in his palm, and a red spark arced over his fingertips.
"Hm?" Xiang Nan's eyes narrowed. The snapper wore a glove traced with totemic designs—some kind of energy pulsed there.
At the snap, the previously clear air turned into a choking sandstorm; it was impossible to keep one's eyes open. Obviously, they meant to use the cover to escape.
"Damn it… there's a player from an extremely dangerous world among this batch of intruders!"
Pale with fear, the fleeing man used his own man-made storm as cover and bolted in another direction. He had to get this intel back to his squad—or the consequences would be unthinkable.
The thought had barely formed when his partner gave a muffled grunt. A gleaming scalpel punched through the back of his skull and jutted from his forehead—a single, lethal throw.
His pupils dilated. Before he could even process it, an arm slid through the swirling dust from behind and settled on his shoulder.
"Don't rush off. I've got a few questions."
Acrid smoke drifted in. The man in the black coat spoke from inches away. The lone survivor's mind reeled—blank with terror.