An explosion? What a coincidence.

On his fifty-sixth rollback, Xu Kai was still pretending to be unconscious while the short-haired woman went through his phone.

His last death had been utterly absurd. To kill them, the two "evils" had arranged for so many cars and so much explosive.

The worst part was that no one had survived the explosion, including the "evils" themselves. They were like killing machines, disregarding innocent lives and their own, concerned only with accomplishing their goal.

Was this what a trained material was like? Xu Kai was actually a little glad the Weird Duke hadn't trained him into one. Otherwise, staying alive would have been even harder.

Xu Kai thought back over the previous rollback again and again, searching for a way to survive.

He hadn't expected the two "evils'" trump card to be neither their own formidable strength nor a plot to drag them off a cliff, but modern explosives.

Do they suffer from fear of insufficient firepower too? Faced with enemies like these, Xu Kai had a plan. He made up his mind: after doing this, he would face whatever the world thought of him without flinching.

Xu Kai slowly woke up and looked at the short-haired woman. She was still staring at the phone, its light reflecting off her fair face.

"Why can't I get through? I guess I'll just have to call down the list again."

"Ahem, what are you doing with my phone?"

"Huh? Nothing. I was going to tell you when you woke up, but then you suddenly passed out again."

"I passed out? Wait, does that mean you can take someone else's phone?"

"Master Xu, I was wrong. Here, take this money! I had no choice. None of us have phones, so we have to use yours to contact someone and get them to take us to the crematorium."

Without another word, the short-haired woman handed Xu Kai the money. Xu Kai was about to curse her out, but he shut his mouth again.

There was only one reason: the Short-Haired Woman had given him too much. As someone playing a driver, it really wasn't right to take the money and curse her out.

"Go ahead and use it. Remember to give it back when you're done."

"Of course, of course."

The short-haired woman started making calls again. There was still a busy signal, but the notification on the phone had begun to change. Some enormous thing was blocking the phone signal.

Just like in the last rollback, the short-haired woman immediately grew alert and called the other players over to hide behind the Funeral Car. She also invited Xu Kai to hide with them, but she only had two hands and could only grab Yellow Hair and JK.

Xu Kai nodded. He did follow them behind the Funeral Car, but he didn't stop there. Instead, he hid somewhere farther away and more suitable.

"Wow, Short-Haired Woman, you even invited the NPC? The NPC just used you as a meat shield!"

"Shut up. That's normal. NPCs are just ordinary people. They'd only get in our way!"

The short-haired woman retorted to Yellow Hair, but just as she was about to say more, her voice suddenly dropped.

She saw a pickup truck racing straight toward the Funeral Car. She immediately grabbed the other two again and dodged to the side.

An observant person would have noticed that the pickup slowed considerably after hitting the Funeral Car, coming to a stop right where Xu Kai was.

The two "evils" had only just gotten out when Xu Kai kicked them down as if he'd known it would happen. He then pulled out their gun and fired five shots in succession.

Bang! Bang! Bang!...

Xu Kai spread his shots evenly across the head, chest, hands, and legs. When he finally hit the leg, the burly "evil" breathed his last. His Weird Energy dissipated, but his corpse remained.

"So that's where this 'evil's' weakness was moved."

Xu Kai murmured to himself, but his hands didn't stay idle. After he fired, the skinny man hid behind the pickup, dodging one shot. Seeing that Xu Kai was out of bullets, he didn't fight him either. Instead, he extended his Weird Energy and crawled up the mountain road.

Xu Kai watched the skinny man go up the mountain and smiled. He didn't follow him to finish him off. Instead, he pretended to search the burly man's corpse for something, then pulled out an object and exclaimed in surprise,

"How do you set the timer on this thing?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the timing was just right. Xu Kai turned toward the road they had come from, where beams of light were rushing around the bend.

They came from car after car, all arranged in advance by the two "evils." As soon as the cars rounded the bend, they would be bewitched by the Stone Statue Weird's Weird Energy, then accelerate toward Xu Kai and the others.

Xu Kai had long since fixed his gaze on them. He used up the Weird Energy in his body, and the cars at the front of the convoy suddenly caught fire. The flames spread in the wind from the moving cars, and they were about to explode.

Xu Kai hurried toward the players. They reacted as well, scrambling to hide under the Funeral Car. Immediately afterward came a tremendous blast, and marbles flew out from it. One even grazed Xu Kai's injured shoulder.

"Wh-what's going on?"

Pulled down by the short-haired woman, Yellow Hair listened to the sound of marbles piercing through things. His heart filled with fear and shock, and he couldn't help muttering,

"Holy crap, what kind of car bombs were those? They even packed them with marbles to cause secondary injuries? Are these people crazy?!"

Yellow Hair was shaken again and had already become incoherent. JK said nothing, evidently just as stunned. Only the short-haired woman checked the situation. Once she saw that the surrounding wreckage wouldn't cause any more explosions, she held Xu Kai's phone in her hand and seemed to have figured everything out.

"Master Xu, nice moves. You killed two thugs in a row and crushed the timer beforehand. I saw it all clearly... That supernatural act from before was fake, wasn't it? Care to explain? Or is your name Zhang..."

The short-haired woman silently mouthed a word, but Xu Kai ignored her.

But at her words, everyone's eyes turned to Xu Kai, and Yellow Hair finally caught on.

"Huh? Master Xu? That's right, those moves of yours—holy shit, awesome!"

Yellow Hair couldn't put the feeling into words. Ending with "awesome" was his last act of stubbornness.

"Sigh, what's there to explain? I haven't harmed any of you along the way, have I?"

Xu Kai spread his hands and looked at the ground. There was another person beside the burly "evil" now: the skinny "evil."

Xu Kai had used his skill to set off the explosions too quickly. The skinny man hadn't even reached the mountaintop before the marbles riddled him like a sieve and he fell down the mountain. The two ill-fated lovebirds had finally died together.

Seeing them dead, Xu Kai felt much more relaxed, but his face remained tense, and he didn't dare let his expression change easily. Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief. With those two dead, it was as if the Stone Statue Weird had lost his claws and fangs; he could no longer reach beyond the killing zone.

"Hey, the modifications those two lunatics made to this pickup are awesome! Looks like it still runs! JK, take a look..."

Hearing Yellow Hair, JK checked the pickup and gave the short-haired woman an okay sign. The outside of the pickup was covered in dents, the side windows were almost entirely shattered, and there were marble marks all over the interior, but overall, it was still drivable.

After clearing away the debris, everyone worked together to lift the coffin out of the Funeral Car, then managed to tie it onto the pickup at an angle. The whole truck sank under its weight.

"Hey, don't tell me this coffin isn't wood, but aluminum alloy! An explosion that strong didn't even damage it."

Yellow Hair was panting from exhaustion and couldn't help complaining.

"Probably a plot item. That's normal."

The short-haired woman waved it off and told the players to get in. She beckoned to Xu Kai as well and said,

"Coming, savior? Whatever you're hiding, you did save our lives. Let's go to the crematorium together."

Xu Kai dropped the act this time. He nodded silently and followed.

In fact, from the short-haired woman's perspective, Xu Kai was someone who was neither wholly good nor wholly evil. She believed his real name was Zhang Dekai. More than half his phone contacts had been deleted, leaving only some debt-bearers from Building 3, who were also being closely watched by Xu Kai.

And judging by his moves just now, he was a killer at the very least, a killer with quite a story.

But the short-haired woman didn't expose him. She had only mouthed the word when saying Xu Kai's surname was Zhang. She believed he understood what she meant, and as long as he didn't cause trouble, she was willing to keep his secret.

Unfortunately, her gesture was wasted on the wrong person. Xu Kai wasn't Zhang Dekai at all, though he really had killed Zhang Dekai.

Xu Kai was still thinking back on his decisiveness. He had set off the "timer" in advance. The "timer" was actually a black stone, which Xu Kai had crushed. Then he had used his skill, and flames had leaped onto the car windows. The people driving the cars had been blown to pieces by the explosives in an instant. Each car had at least one driver. At least twenty people, perhaps as many as a hundred, had all been killed by a single skill of his. He remembered every scene clearly.

Is this growth? If this is the price, I was ready for it long ago. I have to stay alive and become a Weird! Even if I have to kill more people, I'll keep killing until nothing binds me anymore. Then I'll end it all, end this damned game!

Xu Kai looked at his injured hand. A marble had gone through his palm, and the Weird Energy in his body was working to stitch it shut. He had just searched the pickup's toolbox, but there were no medical supplies. Before the previous instance, he had been a university student too weak to truss a chicken. Now he had killed countless people.

The others didn't notice anything strange about Xu Kai spacing out. They didn't speak either, each sitting and tending to their injuries.

The pickup drove slowly like that for a full hour before returning to a road Xu Kai knew. At that point, JK promptly stopped and looked up at the enormous building.

They had reached the Feng Town Crematorium.