Why Does This Guy Keep Gambling with His Life?

Ji Xun carefully observed the shadows of those mercenaries fleeing in panic.

He had clearly seen it just now: before that man's head was severed, a cut had first appeared in the shadow on the ground, and only then had his neck been sliced through.

In other words, some mysterious force had killed his shadow.

Then the man had died.

"Another incomprehensible method."

Ji Xun muttered softly.

It looked just as sinister as the Curse Arts from before.

This had to be the Calamity rumored to haunt the fourth floor of the bunker, the one no one had ever seen.

The intelligence said that anyone who went to the fourth floor might die for no apparent reason. Their wounds looked as though they had been cut by sharp blades, yet no one had ever seen what the monster looked like.

Seeing this, the Mechanical Arm Girl also felt a chill run down her neck.

Even she would have found it impossible to defend against such an attack.

She glanced beside her. Although she could not see clearly in the darkness, the faint rhythm of his heartbeat had not changed in the slightest.

She knew this guy was as calm as ever.

The Mechanical Arm Girl did not know why the two of them seemed to have genuinely avoided being discovered by the monster while hiding here.

But as she thought about how her teammate had smashed the Gas Lamps earlier, she vaguely formed a guess: could darkness prevent the monster from detecting them?

How had this guy discovered that?

The Mechanical Arm Girl felt that she had grasped the key point.

Yet before her thoughts could go any further, the guy beside her suddenly drew his gun again.

Several gunshots—"Bang!" "Bang!"—exploded against her eardrums.

The girl's eye twitched for no reason. Then her Facial Expression changed drastically, and she turned her head in disbelief.

The Calamity had gone after the mercenaries. Originally, as long as the two of them hid quietly here, they would most likely escape disaster.

Yet to everyone's utter surprise, gunshots rang out beside her!

The Mechanical Arm Girl was stunned as she watched Ji Xun suddenly raise his gun and shoot out five nearby Gas Lamps.

Had this guy gone crazy again?

Wouldn't firing now attract the monster?

Before she could understand what was happening, his rapid yet clear combat instructions reached her ears. "That Calamity is hiding in people's shadows. It'll definitely attack me soon. Tell me when you sense it. If I make a mistake, kill it."

"..."

Hearing this, the Mechanical Arm Girl suddenly understood: this guy had fired on purpose to lure the monster over?

But how did he know the monster would "definitely" come for him?

And she had not even accurately sensed the monster's situation. How did he know it was hiding in shadows?

Wait. Shadows!

If the monster hid in shadows, then without shadows, it would have nowhere to hide, wouldn't it?

When were there no shadows?

When there was no light!

The realization struck her, and she finally understood why this guy had destroyed the lamps and hidden in the darkness.

Ji Xun knew his actions would definitely confuse his teammate. Since she was a source of combat strength, he still had to explain. "Light lets people see things, but sometimes it obscures the brilliant stars in the darkness."

Taking advantage of the monster not having arrived yet, he added, "Once we lose the target, it'll be very troublesome when it comes looking for us again."

The Mechanical Arm Girl looked enlightened.

Indeed, once this shadow Calamity killed those mercenaries, it would definitely come for the remaining living people in the laboratory—them!

If they were ambushed then, the risk would be infinitely greater with the monster's silent stealth methods.

She instantly understood why he had chosen to lure the monster now.

She also guessed what he intended to use against it.

But while she roughly understood the reason, this was the strongest and most troublesome known Calamity in this Alternate Dimension!

Did this guy never hesitate, not even for a moment, whenever he gambled with his life?

The abrupt gunshots also caught the attention of the three mercenaries facing certain death.

They were first stunned. Who was shooting?

Then came the wild joy of surviving a disaster.

Those two idiots had actually lured the monster away!

Wait. That wasn't right.

Those two guys had not died?

Had the dog-headed monster not gone after them?

But there was no time to care. Escaping was more important.

The three wished they had grown several more legs. In just a few blinks, they had vanished into the corridor.

Ji Xun had not waited for the monster to kill all the mercenaries before acting. After all, he needed Baldy and the others to keep stirring things up and trigger the unknown dangers ahead.

Leaving survivors alive was fine too.

The gunfire had merely attracted the monster's attention; it had not locked its hatred onto him.

Worried that the monster might not take the bait, Ji Xun directly took out a lighter.

The moment he lit it, Ji Xun's figure appeared in the darkness beneath the flickering flame.

The firelight illuminated the face behind his Gas Mask. Flames reflected in his eyes, making them shine brightly.

With the lighter held behind him, his constantly swaying shadow appeared in front of him.

The Mechanical Arm Girl already knew what he was trying to do.

This guy wanted to use himself as bait and forcibly kill that monster!

His decisiveness did not even leave people time to think. There was no room for further consideration now. She quietly retreated into the darkness and readied herself completely. If her teammate made a mistake, she could still salvage the situation.

It had come!

The girl extended her senses to their limit and suddenly detected the target.

"It's here!"

Ji Xun also immediately received a warning signal in his mind, like needles pricking him.

This mental transmission was the method the two had agreed upon. It was far more efficient than communicating through speech.

At almost the same instant, Ji Xun unhesitatingly activated the skill card Gambler's Severed Hand against his own shadow.

Only after he made his move did the Enlightenment in his eyes enter his mind.

Shadow Demon

Details: First-rank A-Class Calamity; a dark-element contamination entity skilled in shadow assassination. It is a demon that hides in shadows and can silently take your life; death is like the wind, always following close behind.

Another A-Class Calamity.

It was the monster on the bunker's fourth floor that no one had ever seen.

Because everyone who had seen it was dead.

Once it attached itself to a person's shadow, by the time that person saw it, they were already dead.

Yet before the Calamity could strike and kill, a mysterious power descended.

Ji Xun had predicted its arrival and cast the targeted card skill Gambler's Severed Hand on his own shadow.

A mysterious Curse Arts effect was released, and then the Enlightenment appeared.

"Curse cast upon target. 50% chance of successful judgment. Target has died."

Ji Xun had survived.

His shadow also writhed and deformed before collapsing onto the ground.

Looking closely, it was a pitch-black dwarf-like monster—the A-Class Calamity, the Shadow Demon.

Seeing the monster killed, the Mechanical Arm Girl immediately appeared beside Ji Xun. She stared at the corpse on the ground in disbelief, her eyes seemingly speaking: An A-Class Calamity had been killed just like that again?

It was so simple that she felt as if she were dreaming.

The Gambling Dog had been like this before, and now the Shadow Demon was the same.

It had been killed in a single exchange.

If she had not personally hunted a Fallen Witch of the same rank, one that had even been somewhat weaker, and suffered severe injuries in the process, she might have suspected that the difficulty of this Alternate Dimension had been lowered.

Ji Xun had explained it before, so the Mechanical Arm Girl understood the so-called secret to clearing the level.

She also knew that the Curse Arts card in Ji Xun's hand was the "key" to clearing it.

But even with the card, there was only a 50% chance!

A fifty-fifty chance of killing the monster, or dying on the spot herself.

How had this guy dared?

Moreover, no one had ever seen the elusive monster on the fourth floor. Even the most complete intelligence she had bought from the Information Broker contained only scattered fragments. How did this guy know the monster hid in shadows?

For a moment, she even suspected that her temporary teammate might be a humanoid Calamity himself. Otherwise, how could he know this Alternate Dimension so well? And how had he slept with a witch for an entire night without dying?

Once the thought arose, the girl asked in an odd tone, "How did you know the monster was hiding in the shadows?"

Hearing her tone, Ji Xun could clearly tell that this girl had gotten the wrong idea. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, he said, "It was recorded in those files earlier. What did you think those important clues were documenting?"

As he spoke, he roughly recited the contents of the file again. "Experiment Chamber 4011 test subject underwent Secondary Mutation into the A-Class Assassin Type Calamity Shadow Stealth Stab, hidden in shad..."

"???"

Only then did the girl realize she had overthought things, but what followed was incomparable shock.

Now that he mentioned it, she vaguely remembered that the files seemed to record research on some monsters.

But there had been such a thick stack that it would probably take days to finish reading. This guy had gone through it once and remembered everything?

Those materials were currently in her storage space. The girl asked in an odd tone, "You finished reading all those thick files?"

They had been threatened by monsters the whole way. Where would they have found time to read them carefully?

Ji Xun casually explained, "I didn't finish all of them. I picked out some key sections. The monster description happened to match the intelligence you gave me, so I kept an extra eye out."

His mind was extremely active, and reading ten lines at a glance was no difficult feat.

When he read alone, his efficiency was equivalent to several people flipping through them at once.

This was one of the few benefits brought by his abnormal Mental State.

But there was no need to explain so much.

Hearing this, the Mechanical Arm Girl vaguely understood something.

Could this guy have awakened some Mystic Type talent direction, such as intelligence?

That was the only explanation.

No wonder his body was so weak, yet he had remained so calm from beginning to end.

But remembering was one thing; actually acting was another.

The girl frowned again and asked, "But... that card only has a 50% chance of succeeding. Weren't you afraid of losing the gamble?"

"Obviously, I won the gamble."

Ji Xun spread his hands indifferently.

Of course, that was not all there was to it.

Seeing the gaze beside him that would not rest without an explanation, he could only say, "If you don't consider anything else, a 50% chance really does make this stage a gamble with your life. But now we can be completely certain that other forces in this space are influencing things."

"???"

The Mechanical Arm Girl still did not understand.

It could not be explained clearly in a few words, and Ji Xun had no intention of elaborating further. "You'll know soon enough. We've passed this Alternate Dimension's test. We should be approaching the final stage now."

There had indeed been an element of gambling when he encountered the Gambling Dog before, but this time was different.

The moment he saw Gambler's Severed Hand, he had been certain that he would kill this Shadow Demon.

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