Built-In Cheat

Mo Qiong's scalp tingled. He had spent so long seriously analyzing things, thinking he understood his ability.

Then this sudden adaptation completely threw him off.

This was definitely not an ability that could be summed up as simply having a one-hundred-percent hit rate. Mo Qiong wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

"Why didn't that happen during the earlier experiment?"

"Hmm. If something from the computer is sent to the phone without uploading it through a data cable, but is forcibly sent directly through the ability, this happens."

"Right. In other words, if an arrow isn't damaged midway and arrives intact at a place that originally can't accommodate it, this strange forced adaptation occurs?"

"And it isn't the 'arrow' adapting to the place. It's the place adapting to the 'arrow'!"

"That's way too Hegemonic Way!"

When Mo Qiong sent data, he could naturally transfer files to his phone using a data cable or some software.

But just now, he had directly treated his phone's desktop as the target.

What kind of Baidu Netdisk upload could send a file straight to a phone's desktop? There was no such function.

Yet under Absolute Hit, it had happened, followed by that bizarre forced adaptation.

It was as though the program had been updated and optimized, becoming capable of processing something it normally could not.

"No, wait. If the route is made as reasonable as possible, shouldn't it first enter cloud storage, then have the phone automatically operate in the background, open the cloud storage, download the file, and display it on the desktop through the phone's system? The format could be converted during that process. Why would it need to so bizarrely adapt a computer-system file?"

Mo Qiong thought about this doubt briefly and understood.

The Speed of Light was too fast, so the route became extremely direct.

Just like how an arrow's speed after leaving the bowstring would remain constant and never decay.

Electromagnetic waves traveled at the speed of light, directly reaching the phone's desktop. There was no decoding, no processing through multiple relay stations—none of that happened!

But he still could not understand the adaptation.

Why hadn't the file been damaged?

Mo Qiong connected his phone to the computer and used software to check whether the phone's system had changed.

Yet strangely, there were no changes at all.

Even stranger, when Mo Qiong opened the folder on the desktop again, it would no longer open.

"Huh? It's corrupted now?"

Mo Qiong's heart stirred. It was normal for an arrow to behave however it should after reaching its target.

But why had it not been corrupted before, only to suddenly become corrupted after he checked whether the system was abnormal?

It was somewhat like a quantum mystery... It was both a computer file and a phone file. Or rather, the phone had been optimized to process computer files.

But had that update and optimization truly happened? It had not. Instead, it existed in a superposition of optimized and unoptimized states.

The moment Mo Qiong checked what form it existed in internally, he immediately destroyed that superposition, causing it to collapse into the unoptimized state. The file became erroneous data.

This reminded him of a novel, Ball Lightning, which described macroscopic quantum-state phenomena.

A laptop's chip had been destroyed, yet it could still boot and run normally. But when someone dismantled the laptop to investigate this mystery, they found there was no chip inside. Then the laptop could no longer boot.

"Strange. Is it because I used a complex crossbow like a computer to fire a virtual object made of something like light and achieve an absolute hit, causing quantum phenomena that normally only exist microscopically?"

"Or is this something unique to the virtual world of data?"

Unable to figure it out, Mo Qiong opened a game. This could prove some things more directly.

First was PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Playing solo, he quickly entered a match, dropped straight down, reached the airport, casually picked up a pistol, and began hit-testing in the virtual world.

His computer's specs were awful. Han Dang had insisted that he download several of the games.

Even at minimum settings, they lagged. Moving the mouse sometimes caused obvious stuttering, so he was terrible at every game he played.

Still, he did not care at all about winning or losing in games. He merely caused Han Dang to cry out in frustration now and then.

Normally, with a tiny R1895 revolver at the airport, he was just there to give away kills.

"Bang!"

The moment he spotted a figure, Mo Qiong fired without even aiming.

Headshot kill...

"Damn... That works too?"

"My gun was pointed at the ground!"

Mo Qiong knew this was not an aimbot. The bullets themselves were locked onto heads.

In other words, his Absolute Hit ability had activated in the game as well. Like a cheat, it forcibly bent bullets around and gave people headshots.

At that moment, he was not firing signals, but bullets inside a game. This judgment was almost conceptual, absurdly idealistic.

"Tap tap tap..." Someone heard the gunfire and rushed over. Their footsteps were exceptionally clear.

Clearly, the other player had better gear and weapons. Hearing a pistol nearby, they immediately wanted to come collect an easy kill.

"Bang! Bang!"

A figure appeared around the corner. It did not matter that Mo Qiong's computer lagged, as long as his brain did not.

The instant he leaned out and saw that person, he locked the bullet's target onto their head.

Though the opponent wore a helmet and the little revolver could not kill them in one shot, two rapid shots would do.

The opponent only managed to hit Mo Qiong once before dropping dead on the spot.

"Fuck your mother, you cheating bastard!" The man had been headshotted twice by Mo Qiong while he was merely peeking around a corner. What else was there to say? He immediately started cursing furiously.

Looking at the crate on the ground, Mo Qiong smiled awkwardly and pressed his key to say, "Sorry, bro. First time using cheats. I'm not very good at pretending."

"Fuck..." The man was furious, but he knew cheats were rampant in this game. Without another word, he casually filed a report.

As for Mo Qiong, he continued controlling his character and experimenting.

Triggering his ability in a game could be passed off as cheating. Though he hated cheats too, it was better than making people think he had superpowers.

"I wonder whether checking the backend data after a report will reveal anything abnormal. Maybe like with the phone, the instant they inspect it, the abnormal data will instantly revert to normal?"

As he was thinking, a figure swept past him at an unbelievable speed.

That was absolutely not a movement speed that should exist in the game. Like lightning, it streaked past right before him.

"Boss, want cheats? Want cheats?"

"..." Mo Qiong was speechless. He raised his hand and fired twice, wanting to blow away this cheat-selling Flash.

Yet unexpectedly, both shots struck an afterimage.

"Huh?" Mo Qiong fell into thought.

The Flash's voice drifted nearer and farther as his body flickered unpredictably. "Bro, you can't hit me. So, how about it? These cheats are charged by the hour. Afraid of getting banned? You can buy a smurf. I've stocked up on a batch of half-price games, and I guarantee fair prices..."

He rambled on, only to see Mo Qiong suddenly control his character to pick up a UMP9.

"You really think I can't kill you?" Mo Qiong said. He knew why he had missed just now. He had only pictured a vague human figure, and when The Flash moved quickly, there were many such figures around him. The bullets passing through an afterimage had therefore completed their task.

To kill this Flash whose face he could not see clearly, Mo Qiong would either have to know what he looked like or use a clumsy method.

"Huh? Are you buying or not? If not, I'll kill you." The Flash spoke as if this were routine.

"The possible character appearances in this game are extremely limited..."

"Hm? What are you talking about?"

Mo Qiong was much less restrained in the game world than in reality.

He immediately raised his gun and began spraying into the sky.

"M-Yun killed CLQB with a UMP9..."

"M-Yun killed DR-flag with a UMP9..."

More than a dozen kill notifications popped up in succession. Only after he saw The Flash fall as well did Mo Qiong stop firing.

He had not seen his targets at all, but as a game, its character models were largely similar. Even details like clothing had only a limited number of combinations.

Race, skin color, gender, and perhaps hats—just mixed and matched over and over.

Mo Qiong casually imagined over a hundred different game-character appearances. Immediately, more than a dozen people in the match were caught in the crossfire.

And that was merely to kill the cheat-selling Flash.

When immortals fought, mortals suffered.

Mo Qiong would not use this brute-force killing method in reality, so he could only test its effects in a game. It now seemed theoretically viable.

"You fucking cheater!" The Flash's crate snapped angrily.

Mo Qiong smiled. "What? You planning to report me too?"

"You killed so many players from a distance. Your account is definitely getting banned." The Flash said.

"Even if the officials don't ban it, I'll seal this account myself after today." As he spoke, Mo Qiong exited the game.

The Flash's crate was left dumbfounded. "What? You quit instantly? You fucking used cheats, came in to kill a few people without winning, then quit?"

But Mo Qiong could no longer answer him. He had indeed exited the game.

In fact, it was not as simple as having killed a dozen people just now. He had fired at over a hundred character appearances.

"The death count doesn't match. Does that mean some bullets went into other matches besides this one? Did they hit player characters who weren't even in the same match as me?"

That was the only explanation. Mo Qiong was certain that his barrage had killed far more than a dozen characters.

Based on what he knew about his ability, perhaps no one in this match matched the character appearance he imagined, but someone in another match did. The bullets had likely crossed into different maps.

"This is way too absurd."

What Mo Qiong did not know was that he had not only fired bullets into other matches, but had even brought one unlucky match to an end.

A large number of bullets hit player characters in the final stages of a squad match.

There were still twenty-eight people alive in that squad-match final circle, and one team of four occupied the best terrain.

"This match is in the bag. We're definitely getting chicken dinner."

"This circle feels great... Someone's fighting in the blue zone, haha."

They were optimistic. Their lineup was intact, all four were alive, fully equipped, and they occupied the only cover in the favored circle. The chicken dinner was basically theirs.

Yet someone soon screamed miserably, "Fuck! Look at the kill feed!"

"Five kills! Six... seven... eight..."

"A UMP9 is flooding the screen!"

All four stared at the kill feed as the number of survivors rapidly dropped.

"Fifteen kills... sixteen... seventeen..."

"This is a fucking god!"

As they counted the kills, despair engulfed them, and their mental states instantly shattered.

Those kills had come so quickly, every shot a headshot—but who could land seventeen consecutive headshots?

"Fuck, why didn't this god make a move earlier!"

"Pfft pfft pfft!"

One of the four hiding behind cover soon went down. His helmet was utterly meaningless against three consecutive headshots.

"I'm fucking behind cover!"

"This bullet trajectory is ridiculous!"

"He's not even pretending! Damn, my mental's broken."

If they had known there was a god in the match, they would have quit long ago. Now they had reached the final circle and practically secured the chicken dinner, only for some cheating god to suddenly appear and flood the kill feed. That despair was beyond words.

"Don't revive me! Wait for him to wipe our squad, then report him!"

"Pfft pfft pfft!"

Soon another person went down. Before long, only one person remained crouching alone behind their excellent cover. The other three teammates had all become crates.

"Only two people are left. It should be him and me." In despair, the last man pulled out a grenade, intending to give himself a frag grenade.

Yet just when he thought he would die the next moment, he saw the kill feed continue refreshing in the lower left.

That god had killed the twenty-seventh player. The survivor count became one.

At the same time...

"Winner winner, chicken dinner."

The squad that had just been furious enough to die was stunned. The channel fell silent for a moment.

"????"

"Huh? We got chicken dinner?"

"Did he kill himself?"

"No, the final kill notification says he killed someone else. It wasn't suicide."

All four were completely confused. They had never encountered such a situation, nor even heard of one.

As they stood there bewildered, something even more terrifying happened.

"Pfft pfft..."

Two green bursts of blood bloomed from the head of the final surviving teammate who had won the chicken dinner.

They signified that after he had won, someone had almost simultaneously shot his head twice...

"Holy shit!"

"What kind of god is this?"

"Beyond the mortal world?"

The four friends were terrified. This cheat was too horrifying.

They had already gotten chicken dinner, meaning they were the final surviving team. Three of them had become crates while only one was still standing, meaning he was the last person alive in the entire match.

At that moment, who could still shoot him in the head twice? The more they thought about it, the more terrifying it became!

"Could this be a paranormal game?"

"No, this must be a new kind of cheat: Impure World Reincarnation!"

"What? There are cheats like that too?"

One guy who seemed highly experienced in the game said, "No recoil is only a demigod. Aimbots and The Flash are merely minor immortals. True gods can fly through the sky and burrow through the earth, invulnerable to blades and bullets! And above them are even more powerful gods."

"Some have Absolute Domain, killing people invisibly. Enter the circle and you die."

"Some command the forces of heaven and earth. They can raise an Earth wall a hundred meters high, surround the entire circle, make it impossible to climb over, and leave people outside to die in the blue zone."

"There are even mighty beings who can unleash Universal Pull, sucking up all the equipment at the start, then dragging everyone before them and beginning a slaughter with a shotgun."

"Some powerful ones even possess eye techniques. Whoever they glare at dies."

"I've encountered all sorts of gods like those..."

The man spoke with a sigh, his tone that of someone who had weathered countless storms. Cheaters were called gods, and even gods had stronger and weaker ranks. Truly powerful gods were extremely rare, yet this man had encountered every kind. He was indeed unlucky enough.

His buddy hurriedly asked, "Then what about this Impure World Reincarnation?"

"It's just my guess. That immortal obviously wasn't counted among the players in this match. When he killed the second-to-last person, we were immediately declared winners," Big Bro said.

"Hiss! Could he have fired from another match and killed people in ours?" his buddies asked in horror.

Big Bro shook his head. "How could that be possible? If he could really do something like that, he wouldn't be an immortal—he'd be a saint! That kind of cheat would be altering things way too outrageously. It'd be completely unheard of. It probably doesn't exist; the game company isn't that useless."

"So I'm guessing that immortal is still in the game, only like a ghost, not counted among the survivors!"

"In other words, he might have died right at the start and was destined to never win. The reason he can still kill people is that he revived like Impure World Reincarnation, playing out a massacre where winning is impossible."

"That also explains why he could still shoot you after we won, because he basically counts as a Dead Person."

Hearing this analysis, everyone nodded in agreement.

"I don't think Impure World Reincarnation fits. We should call him the Undead God of War. Fuck, even a corpse can kill people—death is only the beginning." Everyone started imagining and speculating about this cheat.

This game had countless types of cheats. There were even Earth Escape, Earth-Style Wall, and eye techniques, so a living-dead cheat like this was probably possible too.

All they could say was that cheat developers were truly wild. They could even develop a cheat for people who treated the game purely as entertainment, couldn't be bothered to win, and only wanted to farm kills.

"This game really has everything. Even though we won, this victory feels..."

"Who cares what kind of immortal he is? Report him! Report him!"

It wasn't just them. Nearly every player who had been killed earlier wanted to report him.

But then something even more terrifying happened: there was no report button.

"What? We can't report him?"

In this game, deaths caused by the environment had no reporting option. For example, falling to death, dying to the toxic zone, getting killed in a bombardment, or crashing a vehicle and killing yourself—those were all deaths with no one to report.

Many powerful cheats could create such "fate-obscuring" immortals.

Take Absolute Domain, for example. Anyone entering the zone would die to a vehicle, as if they had jumped out and fallen to their deaths themselves. That way, the dead player wouldn't have a report button, because they wouldn't even know who had killed them.

Then there was Earth-Style Wall, which sealed off the zone so no one could enter. In the end, people could only stand before a cliff in despair and die to the poison. That couldn't be reported either, because no one knew which bastard had created the wall.

Those were all cases where no one had directly killed them.

But they had clearly seen the ID of the immortal who killed them. They even knew what gun he had used.

So why was the system now judging that they hadn't been killed by him?

"Fuck, it really is a ghost cheat."