Chapter 173#
The Hunt 24#
For some reason, after that sentence appeared, the chat on the blackboard seemed to stutter for a moment.
The figures in black raincoats in the streets and alleys suddenly shivered.
Then, the speed at which messages refreshed on the black stone slab slowed down eerily, as if the network was fluctuating and many people had disconnected at the same time.
Fifth Street.
In the center of the street garden was a fountain pool, its waters radiating a bright, pure luster under the moonlight. In the middle of the fountain stood a tall, classical carved pillar.
In the night, two figures approached the garden from different directions. When they saw each other clearly, they stopped, exchanged an obscure glance, and got straight to the point: “The Circus?”
“The Circus.”
“Do you have high-level items?”
“Yes. Do you?”
“Yes. How much do you know?”
“They have nearly a hundred people now, and it’s expected to increase to over two hundred after tonight. What about you?”
“The ones responsible for their outer defense are two lunatics and someone with a black-winged flight item. There is a heavy machine gun at the high point.”
After a brief exchange that touched only on the essentials, they reached a consensus. Each took a few steps forward and stood before the fountain.
“It’s still better to talk face-to-face. Those people on the blackboard are all damn psychos; I grossed myself out just writing those words. Which ID are you?”
“The ID isn’t important. We must act tonight. Once they have more people, the risk will increase.”
As they spoke, a third and fourth person emerged from the shadows.
Then a fifth, a sixth… they had all matched the secret signals from the blackboard and arrived at the rendezvous point to join the plan for a joint assault on the Circus.
“First, lure away…”
“Then…”
“When more people arrive…”
As they spoke in hushed voices, the night wind blew through the city. A trace of chill rose from the ground, seeping into their bodies.
At some unknown point, the voices in the street garden gradually quieted down.
Then, they stopped.
In the silence, only the sound of the fountain’s water continued to splash.
“Something feels wrong…” someone said, shivering slightly.
It was hard to describe the feeling. The surrounding scenery clearly hadn’t changed, yet it felt as if they had moved to a different place. An abnormal sensation came from all directions, as if they were situated within an invisible field, being watched by something.
Those who could gather here were all veterans with plenty of experience in the Evernight. They understood how dangerous this intuition was.
But where was the source of the danger?
The surroundings were silent; everything was still, without a sound.
They looked at each other, but they heard no sounds other than their own breathing.
Only the feeling of being watched followed them like a shadow.
“What the hell is it…”
The people instinctively huddled together, warily scanning their surroundings. Those with defensive items activated them in advance.
Yet, they didn’t feel the slightest bit of peace.
“There’s something ghostly here. Does anyone have a high-level defensive item?”
One person said, “I do.”
Saying this, he activated an item he had just obtained and hadn’t had time to test yet. Its category was “Guardian,” and its name was “Absolute Defense.”
After activating the item with his mind, a line of small text appeared before his eyes.
“Attack is the best defense.”
“Therefore, absolute defense can only be achieved through absolute attack.”
“You will rapidly lock onto your opponent and launch an attack against them at the fastest speed possible.”
An anomaly occurred.
Everyone present watched as the person who had just claimed to have a high-level defensive item suddenly stiffened. He raised his right arm with an extremely jerky motion, as if someone were prying his arm to force the movement.
His raised right hand held a gun. Following the motion, the muzzle aimed upward.
Everyone followed the direction of the muzzle—
At that moment, the drifting clouds in the night sky shifted, the moonlight brightened by a few degrees, and the water curtain of the fountain happened to fall.
A figure with short silver hair stood with his back to them at the very top of the pillar. Against the backdrop of the night, this figure appeared exceptionally lonely and exceptionally cold.
No one knew when this person had started standing there; they only knew that the moment they saw him, the feeling of being watched suddenly exploded. It was him!
Bang!
The man who raised the gun fired. The bullet flew straight toward the person’s left back, toward the location of the heart.
The person didn’t dodge.
There was a strange sound of impact. The second after the bullet hit the person’s back, it actually bounced off vividly.
The deflected bullet hit another spot on the ground, leaving a charred pit, yet the person was completely unharmed. He slowly turned toward them.
Under the moonlight, he had a cold and flawless face.
“He looks a bit familiar…” someone murmured.
However, the visitor was unfriendly, and there was no time to think about why he looked familiar.
In the next moment—that figure suddenly leaped into the air and dropped toward the ground!
No one could see the trajectory of his descent. After a nearly silent thud of landing, the silver figure had already appeared behind someone on the outer perimeter, his fingers locking onto the person’s neck from behind.
Crack.
The perfectly shaped fingers closed effortlessly. The sound of the neck bone snapping rang out clearly in the night.
“…” Everyone went still for a moment, and then a voice rang out from the crowd: “Kill him!”
In an instant, all forms of attack were unleashed: bullets, flying blades…
The person didn’t move an inch.
But those standing close could see that in his eyes, countless streams of data seemed to be surging.
Just as the first bullet was about to hit his forehead—the person moved.
His body leaned to the side, his right leg exerted force, and in an instant, he glided forward like a ghost, finally twisting his body in mid-air.
It was as if he had calculated all the blind spots and evaded every single attack.
This was not a movement a human could make.
Nor was it a calculation a human could complete.
While completing this series of evasive maneuvers, a handgun had appeared in his right hand at some unknown point.
Another person fell.
Yet the person who performed this series of actions remained standing quietly; even his breathing hadn’t faltered for a second.
No, he wasn’t breathing at all.
The person who first said “he looks familiar” suddenly spoke with a trembling voice: “He is… he’s the one from Blue Star… Unit 01!”
As soon as the words “Unit 01” came out, the expressions of several people suddenly changed.
In the Evernight, the City of Mists wasn’t the only place of legend.
Among those legendary worlds, there was one called “Blue Star,” named because the world relied on a planet that was entirely silver-blue.
That planet was covered in skyscrapers, artificial intelligence was omnipresent, and it was constantly raining, yet it always flickered with multi-colored, blurry neon lights.
After the Blue Star world showed signs of fracturing, its entrance was exposed in the Evernight, attracting the attention of many.
The power it contained was incredibly strong, and it was an extremely rare high-order scientific logic world. This meant that if someone could pry a piece of power from Blue Star, it was possible to add a scientific structure to their own territory, achieving a qualitative leap—such as leaping from the age of cold weapons to the age of firearms.
Thus, ambitious Evernight Walkers flocked to this world, attempting to accelerate its fragmentation and collapse to get a piece of the pie.
However, almost everyone who went in died.
The lucky survivors said that the actual ruler and guardian of Blue Star was not a human, but a super artificial intelligence. The people there addressed it respectfully as the Mainframe.
The Mainframe’s code name was “Unit 01.” Every inch of Blue Star’s land was watched by it, and every building and device was under its control. Those who sneaked into Blue Star from the outside were all identified by it and then slaughtered without mercy.
After the news spread, some gave up the idea of invading Blue Star, while others continued to enter one after another. Regrettably, those who went in either lost contact entirely or escaped half-dead, avoiding Blue Star ever since.
Gradually, the Blue Star world became a well-known forbidden zone in the Evernight.
Under the Mainframe’s dominance, everything on Blue Star operated in an orderly fashion. Not only did the world stop fracturing, it even showed signs of improvement. Everyone thought that Blue Star would eventually repair itself and become a miracle within the Evernight.
However, fragmentation seemed to be the destined fate of all worlds. Just when everything was calm, news came from afar that Blue Star had suddenly shattered and then vanished.
In vague rumors, Blue Star’s fragmentation was not due to external forces, but because an unavoidable conflict had occurred between the humans of Blue Star and the intelligent Mainframe. The humans chose to destroy the Mainframe and terminate the progression of their civilization. The specific reasons were unknown, but it was said to be a lamentable tale.
No one knew who eventually obtained the power of Blue Star, nor did anyone know what kind of end that legendary Mainframe met. A legend thus concluded.
In the street garden of Fifth Street, those who remembered this rumor turned and ran.
Not only was the Blue Star Mainframe not completely dead, but he had even appeared in the City of Mists—it was a joke. The strongest artificial intelligence was nothing to play with; if they didn’t run now, when would they?
Panic-stricken footsteps echoed. The man still watched them quietly, without breath, without a heartbeat. His chest didn’t rise or fall; only the RGB light on his single earring shifted with colors.
The person who was fleeing suddenly stopped in his tracks.
—At both street entrances, a figure wearing a black raincoat stood.
Up close, one could even smell the scent of low-quality plastic emanating from the black raincoats.
Only, they no longer had the luxury to notice the quality of the raincoats, because the black raincoats hadn’t come to join them either.
—They had come to kill.
The sounds of fighting erupted.
Dark clouds obscured the moon, and the ground was stained with blood.
When the two in black raincoats put away their weapons, in the center, the silver-haired “Unit 01” also stopped.
The last person fell to the ground.
The two in black raincoats were conversing in low voices.
“Is this the legendary Priest of Discipline? I heard he has no weaknesses other than consuming a lot of electricity.”
“Supposedly an AI. I haven’t been back to the company headquarters for several eras; this is the first time I’ve seen him.”
“Just cooperate and get it done.”
The three locked eyes.
Discipline had never seen these two in the Paradise. But based on their conversation, he knew their identities.
In the Eternal Day, there were not only the dozen or so Priests of the Tower of Creation, but also many “Roaming Gods” wandering outside, as well as “Guardian Gods” stationed in key worlds and important territories. Only when Priests with different duties were combined did the Eternal Day have its precise and solid operational system.
These two in black raincoats were exactly these external Priests. Since their duties were different, the combat power of Roaming Gods and Guardian Gods was much higher than those theoretical Priests in the Tower of Creation.
They brushed past each other.
One of the black raincoats said in a low voice to Discipline: “Did you see the chat on the blackboard just now?”
Discipline: “I saw it.”
The other said: “Did the Boss come here too?”
There was no evidence to prove that “Goodnight Fog City” was their Boss, but when that sentence was refreshed on the blackboard with an emoticon, his scalp went numb instantly as he was slacking off, as if the scruff of his neck had been seized by fate.
Countless pieces of data flashed through Discipline’s mind, and he reached a conclusion: In the current context, the term “Boss” corresponded to the “Main God.”
He nodded.
They dispersed into the night. The two in black raincoats seemed to disperse even faster.
—It was impossible to slack off anymore. If they were called out by name one more time, it looked like they would die without a whole corpse.