The Fate Loom

New Machinery City, Old Town, a former human settlement, Kowloon Walled City.

The selection of a site for any machinery city requires a large amount of "manual data".

The settlements that previously housed these "artificial data" sources were natural old town areas.

The old town, the former city, the walled city, and the underground area have different names, but they are essentially the same.

Night

Baozi went online alone, picked up a surgical kit he had prepared in advance, and slipped away from the new urban area to the urban walled area. He then wandered into an alley, turned left and right, and entered an underground market.

They sell everything here: weapons, living people, unnumbered networked devices, and prosthetic bodies damaged by a virus.

In short, it has everything.

This is often the easiest place to get negative buffs. According to players, a trip to the Underground will give you at least 3 debuffs.

So even players rarely come here.

Of course, a big reason is that without the prestige of certain special underground forces, you simply can't buy the really good stuff.

This is a huge pig slaughtering scam.

Building 11.

Baozi walked into the old building that was about to be demolished, stepped into the shaky elevator, and pressed a series of floor numbers like a naughty child.

'4, 5, 7, 2, 1, 8, 9, almost there.'

The elevator swayed and began to sink.

Baozi put down his finger and then decisively turned on all the functions of the 'human brain firewall'.

The elevator creaked and stopped, but the doors remained closed for a long time.

Baozi ground his teeth and placed his hand on his waist, where he had bought an electromagnetic pistol at a high price. It was not only convenient to carry, but also had a damage output of 9,000.

The problem is that it charges slowly; it fires three times in one go, but it takes 10 hours to charge each time.

"Who is it?" an electronic mechanical voice asked.

"Friends of crows and owls."

You can only choose one of the two.

"I choose the one with wings."

With a creak, the elevator doors opened, revealing a small, unlit room.

"Was that artificial intelligence that just spoke?"

"No, it's a tamed electronic virus that will invade you if you say the wrong thing."

As the line "Carrying a knife but no umbrella on a rainy night" rang out, Baozi finally breathed a sigh of relief and muttered:

"Brother Umbrella, can we stop with this gimmick? Anyone who doesn't know better would think I'm out catching ghosts in the middle of the night."

"I'm sorry, my current situation is a bit special. I can only come here by accepting a mission. This place is an assassin's hideout for the Assassination Alliance. I can't go anywhere else."

In the darkness, a figure sat at a table, his voice a little hoarse.

"Holy crap, Umbrella Bro, you didn't get 'Player's Affection' too, did the assassin organization put it on you? Delete it right now!"

Baozi was startled. If Umbrella Bro had been brainwashed, it would be difficult for an ordinary person to handle him.

After all, this guy is in the top tier, and his level is almost 40. If he goes crazy, who can control him?

"Pretty much, maybe a bit more complicated."

A man carries a knife but no umbrella on a rainy night.

"What do you mean? Umbrella Bro, you seem perfectly normal."

"Turn on the light and check, then remember to turn it off again."

"Ha?"

Using the light from the window, Baozi found the light switch, and with a "click," the light illuminated the entire small, shabby room.

"Nothing's wrong. Hey, Umbrella Bro, where are you?"

Baozi looked around and saw that the small room was empty; there wasn't a single living person in it.

"Are you playing hide-and-seek with me, bro? I know your assassin's hidden skills are awesome, come out here, you're not some bat."

Baozi looked around, even scanning under the bed, but couldn't find the other person.

He suddenly remembered that Umbrella Bro had just said, "Close it again."

Baozi paused for a moment, then turned off the lights.

In the darkness, the figure carrying a knife but no umbrella reappeared in the rainy night.

In the darkness, a figure sat.

"Holy crap, a ghost!!"

"Now you understand, right?"

"Umbrella Bro, how did you manage that?" Baozi wiped his sweat.

He carried a knife but no umbrella on a rainy night and made no attempt to hide anything, simply explaining the current situation.

It's the same quest as before: collecting the "Nine Assassin Blades".

This is a task chain.

After completing the quest chain, he triggered a hidden faction quest and received a high-level faction quest called "The Legacy of the King of Assassins".

After completing this task, you will obtain a hidden class, "King of Assassins".

After much effort, Umbrella Bro finally finished it.

Then, they went to the headquarters of the "Assassination League" to receive the fate modification from the "Weaving Machine of Destiny".

According to the quest prompt, "The Loom of Destiny" will delete a name. From then on, you will perish in the light and be born in the darkness.

"To put it simply, it's a negative buff during the day and a positive buff at night."

Baozi's summary.

That's right.

But as he completed more and more assassin missions, the gifts from the "Weaving Machine of Fate" also increased.

Gradually, things started to look bad.

Initially, outside of missions, they were unable to communicate with anyone.

Later, I couldn't log in to my account during the day, so I could only log in at night.

Then, even at night, they could only complete assassination missions and could not take on other missions.

In the end, aside from taking assassin missions, you can only operate in a few fixed assassin locations.

And so, things have become what they are now.

"Wait, Umbrella Bro, how long will this last?" Baozi interrupted, sensing something was wrong.

"It's been almost three months."

"..."

You're really carefree, playing single-player games?!

Why didn't you say so sooner!

"Because I get a lot of experience points, I'm almost at the fourth job advancement."

Carrying a knife but not an umbrella on a rainy night is a very honest way of life; he's just a tempting experience.

"..."

Is this the mindset of a pro player? It's truly baffling.

What negative statuses are displayed on the system panel?

"Two states: one is 'Fate Weaving', and the other is 'Infected by the Aura of Collapse'."

"What specific attributes?"

"I can't tell."

Baozi scratched his head. Umbrella Bro's current state sounded rather uncertain. He felt that he, being a "second-rate" person, probably couldn't handle it.

"You can't turn on the light, right? Fine, I'll give you a full physical exam in the dark first. Come on, take off your clothes first."

"..." Carry an umbrella but not a knife on a rainy night.

"What are you afraid of? You brought an umbrella."

As the two whispered amongst themselves, they were completely unaware that a figure was silently watching them from outside the window.

The next day

"That's strange, the testing equipment didn't detect anything wrong. Is it because my level isn't high enough, or was I dreaming last night?"

After finishing the physical examination for Umbrella Brother, Baozi rushed back to his prosthetic body branch before dawn, took out the second-hand testing equipment he had acquired at a high price, and began to study it.

Hair, blood, even a small piece of skin, and a deformable prosthetic "killer nail".

Nothing was detected.

Neither electronic virus infection, prosthetic rejection, nor even leukemia could be detected.

"Interesting, very interesting."

Baozi was talking to himself.

What interests him so much is not just Umbrella Bro's current state.

According to what he found out, the upcoming planetary storyline will be a grand fusion of virtual and reality.

All sorts of strange things will appear.

Although Umbrella Bro's current situation is neither human nor ghost, it is still relatively normal compared to those brainwashed players.

What interests him more is the breaking of a "common sense" principle.

That is, according to past common sense, no matter what kind of "physical symptoms" there are, dying once can solve the problem.

Some lending organizations have been bankrupted by players in this way.

However, last night, Umbrella Bro told him something that shocked him.

That means he deliberately hung up once in order to get out of this state.

However, it was all in vain.

In other words, this state is a 'permanent state'.

"This game is getting more and more frustrating. Even dying once isn't enough to make it work; it's insane!"

Baozi rubbed his head, preparing to contact some old acquaintances to see if they had any ideas.

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

"Boss, they are guests from the Research Association."

Baozi's eyes lit up, and he said, "Please come in quickly, please come in quickly."

A middle-aged man in a suit and tie walked in and smiled, saying, "Hello, I am a representative of the Research Association. I am here because your contributions to the Research Association are very significant. Our Research Association decided to grant you a higher level of purchasing authority, and we also have a new task for you."

Hidden Quest!

Baozi's eyes lit up.

One hour later—

"President, everything is settled," the middle-aged man said respectfully.

"Okay, go down."

Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, the senior engineer spoke without turning his head.

"I never expected something like this to happen!"

In fact, he had already spotted the other party when "carrying a knife but no umbrella on a rainy night" entered the new mechanical city.

The connection between Collapse Entity is extremely sensitive.

Although the other party cannot be considered a Collapse Entity, at most they can be considered an infected person with "Honkai aura".

This is why the senior engineer can detect the other party, while the other party cannot detect him.

Even more strangely, the infected person in the Honkai was actually a player.

Furthermore, through the dialogue between "I love Baozi" and "carrying a knife but not an umbrella on a rainy night," the senior engineer realized that the Collapse Entity infection, to some extent, can ignore the player's "natural disaster attribute."

"I never encountered this situation in my previous life."

Of course, he didn't obtain any 'cosmic relics' in his previous life either.

"So, the mastermind behind the Assassination League is also a Collapse Entity?"

Of the thirteen Collapse Entity, only three hadn't been dealt with by the senior engineer.

Number one, number four, number six.

Among them, No. 1 has been confirmed to be related to the Mother City Deep Web.

"So, is that 'weaving machine of destiny' number four or number six?"

The induction between Collapse Entity is mutual.

The senior engineer did not intend to break into the headquarters of the assassination alliance from the outset.

Therefore, it is quite necessary to let players test the waters first.

"This game is getting more and more interesting."

Since the Honkai Aura can infect players, does that mean that once you reach the level of a Cosmic Relic, you can somehow completely eliminate players?