The Endgame (Part Two)

"Buzzz..."

Nurse Lin waved the long spoon, producing a metallic hum. Visible Mutation Energy surged out, rapidly stitching her wounds shut.

Not only that, but Xu Kai sensed the hum and took a step back.

The colors in his vision began to return, and his body was visibly mutating. He hurriedly pulled another red pill from his pocket and swallowed it.

The medicine acted quickly, halting the change in colors. But Xu Kai could already see a faint red tint around him and the red of Nurse Lin's pupils.

Grinning viciously, Nurse Lin wielded the long spoon like a blade and slashed diagonally at Xu Kai. A long blade aura pushed slowly forward. It moved so slowly because its edge was gradually cutting through the air, making a sizzling sound.

Yet despite how slowly the blade aura moved, Xu Kai felt he couldn't evade it.

Whenever the long spoon moved, it produced a strange metallic noise, almost identical to the source of the mutation.

The sound caused cognitive disorientation. Xu Kai felt his limbs go numb, heaven and earth turn upside down, and his sense of direction go haywire. As the blade aura slowly reached his face, it had already drawn blood beside his ear.

Slash!

Xu Kai was cut in two.

"Hehe, sorry, but you offended someone you shouldn't have."

Nurse Lin admired the long spoon in her hand and quietly waited for the reward the game would grant her. She looked at it for a long while, but no announcement came.

Puzzled, Nurse Lin looked at Xu Kai again and discovered that the two halves of his body were clumsily stitching themselves together with Weird Energy.

"You? What kind of monster are you? How can you still be alive after being cut in half?"

"Hehe, guess. Ever heard of a loach? You can't kill one by chopping it in two!"

"I clearly cut you lengthwise!"

"Hehe..."

Xu Kai smiled, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly. The pain throughout his body was so intense that even his willpower couldn't suppress it.

"Hm? Playing riddles? No matter what tricks you have, you're dead. You're not the only one my slash was aimed at."

Hearing that, Xu Kai immediately turned and looked at the blade aura.

The blade aura had been slow to begin with, and it hadn't disappeared after cutting through Xu Kai. It was still cutting its way out of the Arena. It had reached the edge and was heading toward Elevator Four.

Elevator Four was the elevator belonging to that monster from before.

Boom!

The blade aura smashed through the wall, revealing the long, empty elevator shaft inside.

Through the cracks in the wall, Xu Kai saw the monster inside, its entire body firmly bound with ropes.

Xu Kai knew the ropes well. They looked much like the blood-colored rope that cost one City Coin, but they were higher-grade and bore more runes.

After cutting through the wall, the blade aura continued unabated and struck some of the ropes hard. The runes on them lit up with a tremendous noise, and with a snap, several ropes finally broke.

With those ropes broken, the pressure on the monster eased considerably. It swept a thick forepaw outward, and the other ropes snapped in response.

The monster let out a cry of freedom, tore through the wall, and strode out of Elevator Four's shaft.

Roar!!

The moment it stepped out of the elevator room, it unleashed a terrifying roar. The sound waves took physical form, blasting the floor up and crushing it all the way through. Everything the terrifying waves reached was reduced to fragments.

Xu Kai didn't even have time to turn before he was shattered.

On his 121st Save-Load, Xu Kai returned to the moment the blade aura cut through the wall.

His ears were buzzing, and the monster's roar still echoed in his memory.

Xu Kai had no time to adjust. The blade aura had split the wall, and the monster would burst out soon.

Roar!

The familiar roar rang out, kicking up a cloud of dust from the floor.

Forcing down his discomfort, Xu Kai twisted his ankle in advance and ran to the side, narrowly avoiding the direct impact of the monster's sound wave.

Even so, the residual sound waves pierced Xu Kai's internal organs. Only after coughing up a large mouthful of congealed blood did he feel somewhat better.

His whole body trembled, but he didn't fall.

Xu Kai felt he had become a veteran doctor. He couldn't have been more familiar with having his internal organs shattered.

Relying on his formidable memory and willpower, Xu Kai stitched his organs back toward their normal state, bit by bit.

The Mutation Energy helped a great deal too. Instead of prioritizing turning Xu Kai into a monster, it prioritized repairing his fatal wounds.

For the moment, Xu Kai had pulled through.

The sound waves passed through the Arena and vanished, leaving the entire floor overturned, with not a single intact patch.

Nurse Lin was unharmed. Protected by the long spoon, she hadn't been affected by the sound waves.

But her face was full of confusion, as though she were surprised by Xu Kai's vitality:

"That didn't destroy your core? Are you Evil or a weird entity? Why are you so hard to kill?"

After speaking, Nurse Lin charged at him with all her strength.

As soon as she moved, the monster charged out in coordination with her.

Xu Kai shifted his attention to the monster first, because it was faster.

The monster swooped down and slammed hard into the Arena floor.

Xu Kai had climbed onto the railing in advance, avoiding the direct tremor.

When Xu Kai steadied himself, he saw an enormous, abyssal maw facing him.

Red light flickered inside the maw, and a searing red glow burst forth. Endless red light filled Xu Kai's vision.

He painfully turned to ash!

Unsurprisingly, Xu Kai died again.

The monster was too strong. Despite its enormous size, it was also fast. Xu Kai had to make absolutely no mistakes to survive.

The margin for error was zero.

And so Xu Kai died—not just on that Save-Load, but on the 121st, the 122nd, the 123rd...

Not until the 150th time did Xu Kai return to the moment the monster burst out.

Xu Kai didn't stand. Instead, he clutched his body in pain and fell to his knees.

There was no other reason. It hurt too much.

The nurse had cut him in half earlier, and he had barely managed to stitch himself together with Weird Energy. That had already been excruciating, and then he had died so many times in a row. It wasn't that his mind couldn't endure it; his body had instinctively dropped to one knee.

Pain was a kind of memory. Xu Kai had to preserve that memory to maintain his nearly undying vitality.

So the moment Xu Kai dropped to one knee, he stood again. Without looking around, he deftly leaped outward and successfully climbed onto the railing. Once there, he didn't even glance around, instead using Weird Energy to sprint along it.

Sure enough, when Xu Kai left his original position, a blast of heat pierced straight through the railing, causing the entire railing to erupt with unimaginable heat.

Xu Kai had been prepared. He was already climbing along the railing with Weird Energy, shielding himself from the despair-inducing heat. He traveled almost an enormous circle before dropping from the air again.

At that moment, the monster stopped breathing out its attack, and the place Xu Kai was falling toward was right in Nurse Lin's direction.

Nurse Lin seemed not to have expected Xu Kai to charge toward her instead of running away.

She stared at the figure dropping from the sky, holding the long spoon in one hand and reaching into space for a long saber with the other.

The hand holding the saber swung so fast it left afterimages. As Xu Kai landed, it transformed into three figures: one chopped, one slashed horizontally, and one stabbed diagonally.

But the moment Xu Kai landed, Nurse Lin froze.

She saw that Xu Kai's posture was extremely strange. His arms were crossed, and his body was slightly curled up, allowing him to evade all three of Nurse Lin's strikes exactly.

"Hmph! Hm?"

Nurse Lin prepared to pull her saber back for another strike, but when she tugged hard, it didn't budge.

She looked back and found that the hand holding her saber was restrained. Her eyes met Xu Kai's red pupils.

They were indescribable eyes, containing so much that they seemed capable of seeing through one's heart.

Startled, Nurse Lin tried hard to pull her saber free. When it wouldn't move, she looked back and couldn't help shouting:

"Lunatic! You're a lunatic!"

Xu Kai's left arm had been broken into three sections, connected by dense Weird Energy to keep it alive. Yet each section gripped Nurse Lin's long saber tightly in its flesh, while his hand firmly grasped hers.

Unless Nurse Lin cut off her own arm, she couldn't break free of Xu Kai's hold.

With her right hand and saber immobilized by Xu Kai, she could only swing the long spoon in her left hand, hoping to use its disorienting effect to paralyze him.

But the moment she raised her left hand, Xu Kai stopped it with his right.

"Nurse Lin, let's not play that flute."

"You... how did you know it was a flute?"

Xu Kai didn't answer. The last time, he had answered, only to be instantly cut down by the follow-up strike Nurse Lin had prepared.

This time, Xu Kai squeezed the bottom of the long spoon and forcibly stuffed some Weird Energy inside, blocking the air hole. Then he swept his right hand diagonally down across Nurse Lin's head, trailing dense Weird Energy.

"Hehe, know how I got my flute? I have space..."

Nurse Lin stopped before she could finish.

Her throat had been cut open, and she could no longer speak.

Xu Kai's diagonal slash continued unabated and lodged firmly in Nurse Lin's right shoulder.

He knew Nurse Lin wasn't dead yet. What she had been about to say was that she had two Talents: one for saber techniques and one for space.

Her space Talent could only take small objects. She had used it to steal this flute from Fat Auntie.

Xu Kai had heard her say this countless times during the previous Save-Loads, and had died countless times as well.

This time, Xu Kai had silenced her directly.

He had figured out almost everything about Nurse Lin. Perhaps even Nurse Lin herself didn't know her body as well as Xu Kai did.

Xu Kai's right hand had swept across her neck and landed on her right shoulder, locking it firmly in place.

That was where Nurse Lin released her spatial power. Only after Xu Kai had held it firmly for several seconds did her body go limp.

Then Xu Kai pulled his left hand off the long saber and thrust it through Nurse Lin's abdomen. That was where her life force lay, where her core was.

As he pierced her, Xu Kai stared fixedly at Nurse Lin's body and activated his Talent, until her entire body began to burn.

Only then did Xu Kai let out a soft breath. He had already done everything he could and used every means at his disposal. In the previous Save-Loads, he had never done this well.

Yet Nurse Lin still moved unconsciously. A powerful surge of Weird Energy pushed Xu Kai's hand away from her right shoulder, and then Nurse Lin's head flashed momentarily, in a humanlike manner.

It flashed right to Xu Kai's side!

The long spoon was also taken by her Talent and flashed to Nurse Lin's mouth.

Xu Kai couldn't understand how Nurse Lin could still play the flute with her head severed.

But Xu Kai had no way to stop her. The rest of Nurse Lin's body wrapped around him like mud in an instant, while the long spoon shattered piece by piece, revealing its original form as a flute.

Xu Kai saw triangular spiral runes on the flute, strikingly three-dimensional and eerie.

"Woo-woo, buzz..."

The flute began to play in full, and Xu Kai felt himself mutating wildly. This mutation wasn't making him taller, nor was it turning him into a monster with wings of flesh on its back. It was a deep red.

It began with Xu Kai's pupils and then spread to his body. He was like someone soaking in a dye vat, undergoing some kind of change.

Fortunately, the flute stopped, and Xu Kai's mutation slowed.

Xu Kai sensed with his Weird Energy that Nurse Lin could no longer play.

She couldn't withstand that power and died first, her head also turning to ash.

Even so, Xu Kai still couldn't move. All five of his senses were occupied by red, and he could only use his Weird Energy perception a little.

His Weird Energy perception couldn't reach far; the red power was constantly suppressing it.

Xu Kai was frantic. Nurse Lin wasn't the strongest one—the monster was!

The monster that had broken free of the ropes was still alive, and it was right beside Xu Kai. But all he could see was red, and he couldn't see it at all!

Xu Kai thought he was dead for sure this time. He had already prepared himself mentally, but a childish voice sent a chill down his back.

"Xu Kai, the game's over. You won."

Xu Kai perceived the scene through his Weird Energy. The enormous monster was slowly shrinking, its face twisting and gradually changing into a human face.

At the same time, the game's voice sounded.

[Under the temporary rules established for the Red Shirt Arena, a temporary victor has emerged in this match]

[Warning: unknown error. Instance initialization recommended. Time limit: thirty minutes. The Instance will be forcibly initialized after thirty minutes]

Clearly, the Instance boss had done something to deceive the game, attempting to achieve some purpose.

Although it could only restrict the game for thirty minutes, that was enough to demonstrate the power of an Instance boss in this world.

Xu Kai was wrapped in red from head to toe, unable to move at all. He watched the monster before him shrink and gradually take on his appearance, then speak in his voice:

"Xu Kai, you're strong, really strong. To think you came up with a way to delay your mutation."

The monster walked up to him and touched the spot where his heart should have been. There was nothing there.

"You actually thought to take your heart out beforehand and keep it alive with Weird Energy, so the mutation would prioritize repairing your fatal wound. Genius! I've never seen such a daring genius!"

The monster evidently considered itself the victor. Even with only thirty minutes, it continued talking at length, casually taking the Chief's certificate from Xu Kai's hand.

Immediately afterward, the monster took two more certificates from inside its clothes and put all three together.

A flash of red light passed over them. The red shirt on the certificate vanished, replaced by a picture of a hospital. On it, in scarlet lettering, were the words: Discharge Certificate.

But the Discharge Certificate was blank, bearing only the director's red seal.

Holding the Discharge Certificate, the monster waved it at Xu Kai, seemingly showing off its success. Then it bent down with great interest and gently picked up a strand of Weird Energy from the floor.

"This Weird Energy is connected to your heart, isn't it? So thin! So far! And there's more than one strand. Even if I followed this one, you could cut it off immediately! As Evil, every bit of Weird Energy you extend makes the pain worse. To think you can endure transmitting Weird Energy over such a long distance. You're a real freak..."

The monster strolled along, full of admiration for Xu Kai.

"Too bad you're so stubborn. Wouldn't it be better to embrace my master? Accept the mutation and you can live, become a noble weird entity..."

"Sorry, but ever since I came in here, all I've wanted is freedom..."

"Hmph, freedom? Look at yourself. Are you free now? Whatever I ask, you have to answer!"

The monster smiled and gently tugged at the red on Xu Kai's body. Xu Kai felt his body come under its control, and his thoughts began to wander.

"Tell me, what's your number?"

When the question sounded, the red automatically invaded Xu Kai's mind, indexing relevant information like an online browser.

When it reached one area, the red passed around it as if it hadn't noticed it.

That area contained his memories of death, the part for which the game had recommended deep verification. Even the game couldn't find his cause of death, much less the red.

But the number was on a much lower level. The red still found the relevant memory area and frantically stimulated Xu Kai to speak.

"Number, number nine five two zero one..."

The overpowering red light amplified its bewitching power, forcing Xu Kai to think about his number.

As soon as Xu Kai began thinking about it, his mouth spoke the number beyond his control.

After hearing Xu Kai finish reciting his number, the monster nodded and took out a medical record. As it filled in Xu Kai's number, it kindly explained:

"What I'm filling out is something you can think of as a record. As long as the number is correct, the record is genuine."

The monster smiled maliciously and filled in the number.

[Unknown error, checking... detected that the numbered member is alive. Correction successful. Relocating number]

The game's voice rang out. Xu Kai heard it clearly at first, but the signal gradually weakened and eventually moved over to the monster.

He was shocked to discover that his game authentication had disappeared. He couldn't open the game interface either, and he had returned to the state he had been in when he first arrived in the City.

So the monster wanted to take his place and become a weird entity—and it had already succeeded.

It had a Discharge Certificate and had completed three Arena matches. It even had a number.

The monster's face began to change. Xu Kai could even sense that its Weird Energy came from the same source as his own.

It completely transformed into his likeness, but Xu Kai could do nothing. The red light produced by the flute was of far too high an order.

But Xu Kai had not given up. After all, the game had never authenticated his Talent, and he had possessed it before coming to the City.

"Goodbye."

The monster felt out its new body, then touched Xu Kai between the brows. The red light turned into flames and burned him to nothing.

With Xu Kai's body destroyed, his heart could not survive on its own either. In the end, it was utterly annihilated.

Sure enough, the game hadn't interfered with his Talent. He could still use it!

After dying again, Xu Kai revived once more.

He kept a firm count of how many times he had died.

This was his 151st Save-Load. He had returned to the moment he was asked for his number.

"What's your number?"

The monster asked the question again. Red spread into Xu Kai's mind, forcing him to recall the number.

Xu Kai had barely recovered from the pain of his previous death before he was subjected to this terrifying method of interrogation.

As expected, the red light was of far too powerful an order. Once again, Xu Kai failed to resist and gave the correct number.

The power of the red light was so torturous that Xu Kai had considered giving up. But even after he gave up, the cycle did not stop.

Once, twice, three times...

Time passed and wore him down. Bewitched by the red light, Xu Kai spoke the correct number again and again, suffering through one painful Save-Load after another.

Amid the torment of having his memories rifled through and being forced under its control, Xu Kai grew furious. He began to gather his scattered thoughts, gritting his teeth and holding on bit by bit as he slowly fought the red light.

He had only one way out: to fight the red light to the end. If his willpower could resist it for just one second, even if he could deceive it for one second, he would have a chance to survive!

On the 200th Save-Load, the monster looked at Xu Kai and noticed nothing unusual.

It asked the same question as always.

"What's your number?"

Xu Kai lowered his head almost imperceptibly and said weakly:

"Nine, four, two, three, one."

"Heh, your willpower's impressive. You've resisted the Great Being's power for so long. I'll make sure to give you a quick death later."

Laughing, the monster took out the medical record and repeated the same actions it had performed dozens of times before, boasting:

"What I'm filling out is something you can think of as a record. As long as the number is correct, the record is genuine."

With that, the monster filled in the number. The smile froze on its face, and it looked at Xu Kai in surprise.

Seeing Xu Kai's body controlled by the red light, it was utterly bewildered, but the hair all over its body stood on end, and it began to feel afraid.

The monster backed away frantically, its face full of disbelief:

"No, no, how could this happen?! This is impossible!"

For the first time, it felt fear, after having been certain of victory.

It desperately tried to tear up the medical record, but despite the monster's immense strength, it could not even tear the sheet.

Bathed in red light, Xu Kai endured the pain of his memories while watching this absurd drama unfold.

He had died more than fifty times in all, his mind so muddled that he could only count. As for numbers, he remembered only two: one was 95201, his number; the other was 95231, the pharmacy password he absolutely had to memorize. He had died ten or twenty times at the pharmacy just to enter a password!

Unexpectedly, there was more to this password. Xu Kai had too little reason left and lacked the energy to think much about it, but he could roughly guess that it was also someone's number—the number of someone who had once come to this Instance.

Sure enough, the monster's body began to change. It no longer looked like Xu Kai; instead, it slowly grew a little shorter and turned into the doctor who had died in the cafeteria.

"This number... why? Why does it belong to someone dead? I don't understand, I don't understand!"

The monster looked at Xu Kai in terror. It had never expected that a meal on its plate would pull such a trick on it at the very end!

No one could retain their reason under the red light. Could it, could it be the Great Being's will?

It did not understand. It had struggled with all its might, but against the game's power, it was utterly futile. In the end, it could only close its eyes in despair.

The game's voice rang out at just the right moment.

[Unknown error, checking... detected an anomaly in the numbered member. Correcting. Numbered member is dead. Immediate elimination]

The monster instantly turned to ash. The flute on the ground rolled over, and its triangular spiral pattern stopped glowing. Like a lifeless object, it slowly changed back into a long ladle and lay quietly on the ground.

Xu Kai felt his whole body relax as he was freed from the red light.

"Finally... am I out...?"

He lay down on the ground and watched the entire Arena gradually twist, returning to the cafeteria.

"Huh? How'd my ladle end up over here? Which damned bastard stole my ladle?! No wonder serving the food felt so awkward!"

Fat Auntie came out from behind the cafeteria's serving window and immediately spotted her ladle on the floor. She walked straight over.

Fat Auntie moved quickly, soon reaching the middle of the cafeteria. She picked up the ladle, then happened to notice Xu Kai lying on the floor. Furious, she shouted a whole string of words at him:

"Get up! No sleeping here! Hurry up and get back to your seat! The food's been served for ages—didn't you hear me?!"