Communications base station

Qiu Chengnan, 24, a genius lawyer with a defense success rate of 90%, had won...

Xiao Hao skimmed through the competitions he had entered, the awards he had won, his achievements, and so on.

His focus was on the major turning points in Qiu Chengnan's life.

When he was in high school, his younger sister, Qiu Yanan, had killed herself.

He and his parents had gone to the school to demand answers, but nothing had come of it. In the end, his personality had changed drastically, and he had transformed from an unremarkable high school student into an academic superstar.

Frowning, Xiao Hao read Qiu Chengnan's file over several times.

The police chief waited quietly beside him. Only when Xiao Hao put down the file did he ask, "Do you think Qiu Chengnan is behind what happened at the communications base station?"

Xiao Hao could hardly be certain based on a single file. "Hard to say. He's a little more suspicious than the other two."

"Then..."

At this stage, the monsters would not exceed level 10 anyway, and Xiao Hao had a very versatile set of skills. Even if he could not defeat that strange ghost, he could still escape.

"I'll go take a look."

Only when the number one player finally agreed did the police chief breathe a sigh of relief.

"All right. Shall we drive you there?"

"No need."

Driving was too slow.

With that, Xiao Hao leaped out of a window high up in the building. The officers all looked up, watching his tiny silhouette appear right in the center of the moon.

"Salute!"

The officers watched Xiao Hao leave, lowering their hands only when he was out of sight.

According to the official file, Qiu Chengnan was a low-level player whose Ghost Banner only had an intangibility skill, but Xiao Hao did not quite believe it.

The chat would tell him whether that was true.

Bounding forward with the Bouncing Martin Boots, Xiao Hao murmured, "Ghost Banner..."

Sure enough, hints popped up in the chat.

As expected of viewers from another world. They really get me.

[If the Ghost Scythe Ring the streamer obtained was his early-game Easter egg, then the Ghost Banner was Qiu Chengnan's Easter egg.]

[The Ghost Banner is hard to use, but its potential is enormous. Play it well, and you're guaranteed to be number one in the Nightmare Survival Game. Even the number one players from all ten games might not be a match for the Ghost Banner.]

[Once you bind the Ghost Banner, you can never bind a Battle General Guardian again, but the Ghost Banner can guarantee the loyalty of troop Guardians!]

[That might sound useless, but ghosts... count as troops...]

[Ghosts have the highest potential and the greatest risks of any troop type across the ten games. Since they're intelligent, they're very likely to turn on their masters!]

[Ghosts are what players become after death. Even though they count as troops, they still have all kinds of skills...]

[If only there were a Human Banner. Subdue a hundred absolutely loyal people... hehehe... ahahahaha...]

The last chat message made Xiao Hao's face darken.

As expected of viewers from another world. They don't get me at all.

The Ghost Scythe Ring was equipment he had only obtained by defeating a major boss. According to the viewers, it was called a game Easter egg.

Did that mean Qiu Chengnan had killed a major boss too?

I had to rack my brains, use up all my cards, and rely on the cheat-like hints from chat to pull it off. Wasn't Qiu Chengnan ridiculously strong?

If he was that strong, why had he died in the great battle?

That didn't make sense!

Or...

Had he never died at all?

Players had all sorts of skills, so faking death was not impossible. Could he have faked his death so he could avenge his sister?

Learning that Qiu Chengnan had also obtained a game Easter egg made Xiao Hao's expression turn grave.

He really could not afford to underestimate anyone.

Even an early-game divine artifact fell a little short of the Ghost Banner. As the game received updates, the early-game artifact would gradually lose its edge, while the Ghost Banner would keep growing stronger.

Fortunately, the Ghost Banner had been discovered before it could mature. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

As he pondered this, the towering communications base station came into view in the distance.

The communications base station had been built in the suburbs. Despite the bright, clear moonlight that night, this place was damp and sinister.

As Xiao Hao approached, the officers in the hotel saw his figure appear on the surveillance feed.

Unfortunately, the footage only showed the perimeter. All the cameras inside had been destroyed.

The first obstacle to entering the station for repairs was opening that iron gate.

The maintenance workers had died before they could even get the gate open.

All the corpses outside the gate had purple faces. Xiao Hao moved closer to inspect them and found several needles embedded in each body.

Without warning, Xiao Hao suddenly jumped. Several poisoned needles struck the spot where he had just been standing, driving straight into the gravel on the ground.

Xiao Hao landed lightly on a utility pole, his shadowy face turned toward a glass window in the station building.

Behind the window stood a vulture over two meters long. It had the hideous head of a female ghost, and its slender tail was densely covered in poisoned needles.

The female ghost's blood-red eyes fixed on Xiao Hao. A moment later, she slowly turned intangible and vanished.

What was going on?!

Was this Huo Donglan from the file?

But how could Huo Donglan have a skill that let her turn intangible and disappear?

Had she only gained it after dying and becoming a ghost?

Huo Donglan did not make Xiao Hao feel threatened. She had not even reached level 5.

With his doubts mounting, Xiao Hao simply used Shadow Transformation to slip through the gap in the iron gate.

A base station serving an entire city naturally had a fairly large building. The space beyond the large iron gate was as big as an auditorium, with an office area and numerous equipment benches. Precision instruments sat on the benches, and the dense tangle of wires made Xiao Hao's eyes swim.

In the dark, silent station building, only Xiao Hao's footsteps could be heard. Each thud seemed to strike his heart. He could sense more than one pair of eyes watching him from the darkness.

Around the corner of a large machine, Xiao Hao spotted an expressionless man.

It was Chang Zhiqian!

Why were all the dead players showing up?!

Chang Zhiqian's face suddenly split open. Like a human whose brain had been taken over in Parasyte, his entire head abruptly opened into an enormous bloody maw, resembling a blooming carnivorous flower!

His head divided into flat strips of flesh lined with sharp teeth. As the man swung his neck, the fleshy strips lashed toward Xiao Hao!

Xiao Hao jumped again to dodge, only for a vulture demoness to suddenly materialize in midair. Her needle-covered tail lashed viciously across his back!

Like a kite with its string cut, Xiao Hao was flung out of the air and slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Directly above the dust cloud, a human-faced spider five meters long appeared, clinging to the ceiling. The human face on its back had six pitch-black eyes, all staring at the rising dust.

Besides the bloody, tooth-filled maw at the front of the spider, beneath the human face on its back was an enormous mouth that almost split its back apart! A purplish-red tongue extended from that mouth. A human face seemed to be imprisoned beneath the palm-sized surface of the tongue, struggling in agony!

A stunningly beautiful woman suddenly leaned out from behind a large machine, looking utterly seductive in a bikini. As more of her body emerged, her lower half was revealed to be a thick snake's tail!

The woman's yellow-brown eyes also watched the rising dust, and a sweet smile appeared on her face. Yet the scales on her snake tail stood on end, their sharp edges scoring countless scratches into the concrete floor.

Thud... thud... thud...

Footsteps sounded across the floor.

With both hands in his pockets, a man sneered. "The number one player? You're nothing special."

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