Tearing Tendons and Breaking Bones (Part 1)

Gravity Aura had four strengths over other Auras; during the earlier fight against the Watchers, it had demonstrated Absolute Hit and indirect damage.

What was easy to overlook, however, was that gravity manifested in the form of a "field." As long as someone was within the Gravity Field, it ignored all resistances and affected anyone.

More importantly, Gravity Aura had no casting windup, no visual or sound effects. It could be released completely silently.

That was one reason Li Aoz had chosen to start with gravity. It could provide him with powerful crowd control, even the ability to kill opponents above his level.

The only problem was that his development level was too low. His Aura Value was insufficient, and its consumption rate was as high as 110%—meaning that while activated, it consumed 1.1 Aura Value per second.

The Charm attribute was directly linked to the Aura Value cap, but in the early stages, there were basically no means of rapidly restoring Aura Value. One could only rest quietly and wait for it to recover.

During that time, Mutants basically had no Combat Power at all.

Li Aoz was not worried about its potential or growth. He was willing to spend vast resources developing Gravity Aura; no Omega-class Aura had low potential.

But doing this in the early stages inevitably meant suffering. Li Aoz also did not want to waste experience on other secondary classes and attributes.

It was an economic problem. Many Mutant players in his previous life had been unable to keep playing for precisely this reason.

Whales could hire companions and power-levelers to get through the hard times, then happily enjoy the game once they reached level sixty. Ordinary players, meanwhile, had to grind specialties miserably, hone their skills, and keep their levels down—because if their levels were even slightly higher, players with Main Classes from other paths could mindlessly crush Mutants of the same stage.

After all, the difference in attributes was simply too great.

Li Aoz could not help but sigh. Good thing this body had relatively high base Charm; otherwise, he would really be in for a miserable time.

Real life was exhausting enough. No one wanted to keep suffering in a virtual world.

"Come to think of it, if you're this strong, why did you even bring me along for a team-up?"

Nomi suddenly realized this and asked, wrench slung over her shoulder.

Too lazy to explain, Li Aoz simply picked up a pistol from the ground and shot himself in the arm.

Bang! You took 24 damage. Limb Damage—Left Forearm, Crippled (Unable to lift).

"Holy shit!"

Nomi jumped in fright, while Li Aoz remained expressionless. He skillfully dug out the bullet, then used the medkit he had just looted from a Watcher to disinfect and treat the wound.

"That's why. I'm frail. I can't take two bullets."

"Then why didn't you just say so?! Why did you have to shoot yourself? You scared the hell out of me!"

"Habit."

Li Aoz tossed aside the pistol. For an ordinary person like him, a 9mm handgun only needed two bullets.

Even without hitting a vital point, the powerful kinetic force and cavitation effect—just the bullet tumbling through flesh—were enough to make an ordinary person suffer unbearable pain and lose their mind.

Being hit by a bullet felt like taking a full-force punch from a two-hundred-pound brute. Even with body armor, it might not break bones or pierce flesh, but it would still leave bruises and abrasions on the skin.

But to thugs in their teens or members of Nethermark Humanity, bullets were barely any different from peanuts.

Nethermark Humanity's medical supplies were quite effective. After quickly stopping the bleeding, he could immediately swing his arm normally again. But Li Aoz did not continue bandaging it. Instead, he used a knife to tear the wound back open, leaving it bloody and mangled to make the injury look horrific.

Once his disguise was complete, Li Aoz led Nomi around the floor's surveillance cameras and to the shelter's west entrance. It had long since been sealed off, making it impossible to enter or leave. Only several empty oil drums had been casually discarded there.

"What are we doing here?"

Before Nomi's skeptical question had even faded, gravity twisted, and the oil drums on the ground restacked themselves into a staircase leading up to a sewage pipe overhead.

"—Oh?!"

Li Aoz offered no further explanation. In truth, there was more than one shortcut that could be opened up inside the shelter, but he remembered that there was a hidden Easter egg here.

Working from memory, he led Nomi onto the pipe and crawled low for a stretch.

"Go straight for forty-five meters. At the end, turn right at the red 'X'-shaped graffiti, then climb up through the ventilation duct. At the end, turn left..."

Li Aoz was a little too tall to fit into the cramped space, so he shoved Nomi inside. A few seconds later, she crawled back out with soot and grime all over her face.

"Ptooey, ptooey! It's full of filthy junk. Disgusting!" Nomi wiped the grease from her hands onto her clothes in disgust. They were her own clothes, so she did not care.

"Where's the thing I wanted?"

Li Aoz immediately demanded it. Nomi slumped her shoulders and tossed him a pale blue badge. Li Aoz opened his palm and examined it. The badge depicted a yellow puppy with an exaggeratedly oversized head, ringed by words that read:

"I am Doom Slayer Isabelle!"

Eureka! You discovered a developer Easter egg: "Assemble! Doom Slayer Animal Crossing"!

You triggered the achievement quest: "Ready Player One"

"During the development of 'Star Abyss,' we drew a great deal of inspiration from past video games and traditional competitive events. To pay tribute to games from the Old Era, the 343 members of the development team placed various Easter egg badges throughout the game. Players who collect Old Era game Easter egg badges will receive corresponding rewards based on the number of Easter eggs collected." —All Employees of the "Star Abyss" Studio

Collect Easter eggs to your heart's content!

"You can get a reward once you collect four Easter eggs."

Li Aoz remembered that Frostplate did not have many Easter eggs, and they were easy to find, all located in a few fixed places.

By his estimate, the White Fang Gang should already have begun fighting Nethermark's High-Level Combat Power. So he led Nomi onward through the pipes. In less than two minutes, they heard shouts, killing cries, and the sounds of beating. The corpses scattered across the ground had been twisted beyond recognition—either their bones had been shattered, or their necks and limbs had been forcibly torn off. The scene was extremely bloody. Li Aoz could tell at a glance that this was the attack style of a Martial Artist.

Simple, brutal, direct, effective.

Martial Artists' killing power in the early stages was far too terrifying. Their attacks against humanoid targets were usually pulverizing, and enemies often died without an intact corpse, making players so uncomfortable that they often had to activate "Teen Mode" for relief.

"Damn... these people died horribly. Creepy as hell—Head Nurse Nordly must've done this."

Nomi claimed she was scared, but she stepped over skulls with complete composure. Tilting her head, she suddenly noticed something. "There's still fighting up ahead—hey, you're not seriously going to make me fight that female tyrannosaur, are you? I don't want to die!"

"I'll go through the ventilation ducts," Li Aoz instructed. "In a moment, we'll attack the White Fang Gang, and you'll go in with them—but first, you need to attack some doctors from the Nether Traces."

"Why are you making this so damn complicated? You keep yammering on—if we're doing it, just do it!" Nomi said impatiently. "I mean, it's not like you can't fight. With me backing you up, just make them all drop to their knees. Is that really so hard? If my boss shows up, I'll kill them all!"

"Don't rush." Li Aoz narrowed his eyes. "If we kill them all, there won't be anything in it for us."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean? You chickening out again?"

"It's better to cut off one finger than injure all ten—but looking at it the other way around, if you really hurt them badly enough, cripple them badly enough, would they still think about gathering strength and coming back for revenge?"

"Huh? What the hell are you talking about?"

Li Aoz smiled.

"My favorite book is called How to Raise Pigs Scientifically and Get Rich."