When Ye Pingjun and the other two reached the underground area, they saw Xie Xingchen holding a card as he sealed Higher-Dimensional Space.

Ye Pingjun’s heart sank. In the end, they were still one step too late.

He previously wondered how Xie Xingchen could guarantee with absolute certainty that he would obtain Gu Tiandong’s ability. At the time, Ye Pingjun guessed that Neverland possessed a card capable of stealing another player’s ability. He mentioned that possibility on the way down, but Du Heng responded with silence.

Only after seeing this scene with his own eyes did Ye Pingjun realize that the truth was even crueler than he imagined.

He never thought all players became cards. After all, Xie Xingchen and the others always targeted the Observation Group players. Mo Bai cared about Gu Tiandong far more than they did, and Du Heng, who knew the truth, never showed any fear that Combat Group players might also become cards.

From beginning to end, it was only the Observation Group.

The truth shocked Ye Pingjun, but he had no time to process it.

Gu Tiandong was dead while Gao Siyun was still here.

Gu Tiandong’s ability pushed her back some distance, but as soon as he disappeared, she lunged forward again.

Ding Xun moved before her brain could catch up. She didn’t notice Xie Xingchen taking the card, nor did she have time to wonder where Gu Tiandong went. All she saw was a gigantic, horrifying monster charging toward Mo Bai.

In a single stride, she rushed in front of Mo Bai and swiftly put on the Black Boots.

Time Acceleration only took effect while descending from a high place to the ground. After reaching this level, its effect disappeared, and the Black Boots could still be used by Ding Xun for more than 50 minutes.

Ding Xun truly deserved her reputation as the king of close combat. She sprang off one foot, spun beautifully in midair, and delivered a roundhouse kick directly into the enormous hand Gao Siyun thrust toward Mo Bai.

At the same time, Ding Xun summoned her Storage Pouch. She used up all her cards, but before setting out, she purchased a large number of ordinary long blades with no special powers or effects and stuffed them into her Storage Pouch. They weren’t cards, but products created by another player’s ability. Like Sheng Yan’s blood bombs, they could be stored in large quantities and used as consumables.

Ding Xun fastened the Storage Pouch around her waist. The instant the Black Boots struck Gao Siyun, she pulled out a long blade, gripped it with both hands, and slashed down with all her strength at the exact spot the boots kicked a moment earlier.

First, she used the Black Boots to seize Gao Siyun’s control over her body, then she cut the limb off with a weapon.

An enormous arm crashed to the ground, and foul-smelling blood splattered across the floor.

Ding Xun didn’t stop. She flipped through the air, planted one foot on Gao Siyun’s arm, and sprinted upward along the massive limb, using her agility and the power of the Black Boots to continuously erode Gao Siyun’s body.

Ding Xun was only an Intermediate player, yet her use of the Black Boots far surpassed that of an ordinary Advanced player. Never underestimate the strength of a close-combat specialist.

Gao Siyun let out a furious roar. She wasn’t stupid. At a glance, she could tell that Ding Xun herself wasn’t particularly powerful. The powerful thing was the Black Boots.

And that was merely a card.

Gao Siyun activated her instance-boss authority, Card Sealing.

The Black Boots, which glowed with an eerie light, abruptly became an ordinary pair of shoes, and their special effects vanished completely.

Ding Xun noticed immediately, so she didn’t recklessly press forward. The moment the Black Boots stopped working, she turned and ran.

Before retreating, she still managed to hurl the long blade in her hand toward Gao Siyun’s eye. Even if it missed, at least it would annoy her.

Gao Siyun swatted the blade aside and furiously reached for Ding Xun.

Her body was enormous, but she wasn’t slow and had countless hands. A gigantic hand suddenly grew from the part of her body closest to Ding Xun, reaching out to crush her in one grab.

At that instant, a metal exoskeleton charged forward and blocked the arm. A slash of Soul Reaping followed immediately, and Gao Siyun recoiled in pain, pulling her hand back.

Du Heng, wearing the exoskeleton, hoisted Ding Xun onto his shoulder and ran back.

“I should’ve let you attack first!” Ding Xun said regretfully. “If she’d sealed the Death Scythe first, I could’ve used the Black Boots afterward. You’ve got no energy left anyway, and fighting like this will exhaust you.”

“You couldn’t beat her even with the Black Boots!” Du Heng replied.

The two returned to Mo Bai’s side and saw Gao Siyun tear off the arm that the Soul Reaping struck. Her body regenerated rapidly, growing a new arm in its place.

The severed limb and blood lying on the ground began releasing thick black fumes. Ding Xun had the sharpest sense of smell, and the moment she caught the scent, she started coughing.

“Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough!” It wasn’t just one or two coughs. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Ding Xun felt like something had lodged in her throat. She coughed violently, trying to force it out, then spat out a large chunk of bloody flesh.

“What the hell is this?! Did I just cough up part of my lung?” Ding Xun cried.

“Why do you think this place is called Disease Town?” Du Heng said. “Take a healing potion, now!”

A healing potion couldn’t restore the piece of lung Ding Xun coughed up, nor could it cure the disease Gao Siyun spread. But at the very least, it could stop the bleeding and prevent Ding Xun from coughing out her entire lung.

Agonizing pain tore through Ding Xun’s chest. She spat out another mouthful of blood, hurriedly swallowed a healing potion, and finally felt a little better. But she still desperately wanted to cough.

She forced down the urge and asked Du Heng, “Can you beat her?”

“Once the Exoskeleton Puppet drains me down to an actual skeleton, my Soul Reaping could probably cut off one of her real body’s fingernails,” Du Heng said, calculating the gap in strength between himself and Gao Siyun.

“So your Death Scythe is basically a nail clipper!” Ding Xun said weakly.

Apparently, the thing she attacked with the Black Boots just now was just a piece of clothing Gao Siyun created for herself.

“Let’s run,” Du Heng sighed. “Get back to the surface and hope Sister Xue can hold her off.”

While the two stalled Gao Siyun, Ye Pingjun reached Mo Bai’s side and quickly applied the positive effect of Expectation Value to her.

His ability could affect only one person at a time. The moment he used it on Mo Bai, the negative effect on Dai Qianzhong disappeared.

Earlier, Ding Xun bound Dai Qianzhong loosely with strips torn from her clothes. When Gao Siyun attacked Mo Bai, Ding Xun simply tossed Dai Qianzhong onto the ground and rushed forward to protect her.

Dai Qianzhong lay there in a depressed daze, her head filled with thoughts like I’m a failure. But the moment Ye Pingjun transferred his ability to Mo Bai, Dai Qianzhong inexplicably began to feel better.

If Expectation Value continued for three days and completed one full cycle of negative influence, then even after Ye Pingjun removed it, Dai Qianzhong would need time to recover from the negative effect.

But it was active for only 19 hours and never completed a full use, so its negative effect faded quickly as well.

Dai Qianzhong felt her breathing ease. She tested her body and discovered that the only thing restraining her was a crude strip of cloth.

This? This was what tied her down?

What on earth was she thinking before? How did she allow herself to be frightened into submission by such weak ordinary players?

Dai Qianzhong thought she must have lost her mind earlier.

Ye Pingjun’s ability was terrifying. If he reached the Advanced level, he would be extremely difficult to deal with.

Someone like that had to be either an ally or eliminated before he got the chance to mature.

Dai Qianzhong slowly stood and looked toward Ye Pingjun.

“Mo Bai, pull yourself together!” Ye Pingjun kept trying to comfort her. “We can’t lose to malice. If these terrible people really make you turn into something like Boss Gao or Professor Yang, if you lose yourself and become filled with nothing but hatred, then that’s when we truly lose.”

Mo Bai said nothing.

She seemed immersed in her own world, and Ye Pingjun’s voice couldn’t reach her.

He saw that Mo Bai’s hair, which previously reached only a little past her shoulders, was growing longer and longer. The black ends floated without wind, drawing closer and closer to the black-clad Mo Bai in the mirror.

Ye Pingjun’s heart lurched. This was bad.

At that moment, Du Heng and Ding Xun also came running back. Du Heng slashed three times at the pursuing Gao Siyun, slowing her advance.

He shouted to Ding Xun and Ye Pingjun, “I’ll hold her off! Take Mo Bai and go!”

Ding Xun glanced at Du Heng and felt a chill run through her. “Did something suck the life out of you?”

Du Heng’s cheeks were sunken, the skin around his eyes and between his brows was dark, and his lips were deathly pale. He looked like he hadn’t eaten for more than ten days, all gaunt and withered.

“I’m fine. I can still hold on.” Du Heng tightened his grip on the Death Scythe and calculated how many more strikes he could manage and how many steps he could delay Gao Siyun.

Ye Pingjun looked at Ding Xun, who was coughing blood, and Du Heng, who was nearly drained dry by the Exoskeleton Puppet. Steeling himself, he hoisted Mo Bai onto Ding Xun’s back, grabbed Ding Xun with one hand and Du Heng with the other, and ran toward the exit.

He didn’t want to let go of any of them, but none of them could leave.

Suddenly, everyone felt their feet sink. Their entire bodies seemed to be crushed under enormous gravity, and they couldn’t lift their legs.

Dai Qianzhong stood not far away. “Hand over Mo Bai, or kill her, and I’ll let you go.”

“Are you insane? Cough, cough!” Ding Xun shouted. “You think any of you will survive if that monster absorbs Mo Bai?”

Dai Qianzhong gave a disdainful smile.

She walked past them and stopped in front of Gao Siyun. Then she bent her finger and knocked twice against empty space, as if knocking on a door.

A door opened in the void, and Xie Xingchen stepped out. He looked down condescendingly at the battered group.

Facing Gao Siyun, he took out a card, and pure white light poured from it.

A six-winged angel appeared within the light, arms stretched horizontally as though nailed to a cross. His radiance enveloped the entire deep pit and even spread farther beyond it.

Gao Siyun was trapped within the light. The light seemed to seal her in place, leaving her unable to move at all.

Bathed in the light, Ding Xun felt her coughing ease significantly. She even felt that if she remained inside it long enough, the disease in her body would be purified.

Ding Xun raised her head and stared blankly at the angel suspended in the air upon the cross. His eyes were half-lowered, and a single tear hung at the corner of his eye.

He looked like a benevolent angel shedding a tear of compassion for all the suffering in the world.

That flawless face belonged to Gu Tiandong!

When he was still a Beginner, Gu Tiandong was constantly frustrated by his inability to protect his teammates. Once, Ding Xun used his frozen body as a shield against flying rubble, and he was actually a little happy to be useful.

And Gu Tiandong at the Advanced level was... this powerful.

Gao Siyun couldn’t move at all before him.

“What a perfect card.” Xie Xingchen looked up at the effect of Perfect Sufferer and praised it sincerely.

They went to extraordinary lengths to obtain this card, but it was all worth it.

And it was all thanks to Xie Xingchen’s strategy.

Xie Xingchen couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself.

He still remembered his previous failure. He originally intended to pluck that Red Spider Lily, but Mo Xiangyou left behind one final move that allowed the heart to take the card away.

To Xie Xingchen, that was a humiliation. His plan actually failed.

Even more irritatingly, after he returned to Neverland, the organization’s prophet told him that he left behind a hidden danger. The Red Spider Lily was a flower between two worlds. It could guide the living into the land of the dead, and it could also summon the God of Death into the mortal world.

Mo Xiangyou’s death would awaken the true God of Death.

Xie Xingchen scoffed at the prophecy.

He was the smartest man in Neverland, its strongest strategist. No one could kill him.

Still, he had no desire to leave such a hidden danger unresolved.

When the prophet said that the Disease Town instance would simultaneously give birth to an Ultra-Star Rank monster and an absolutely perfect card with absolute defense, Xie Xingchen began planning immediately.

He would obtain that card. Then no one would ever be able to hurt him again, whether it was an Ultra-Star Rank monster or that God of Death.

The card was difficult to obtain, but he succeeded.

Xie Xingchen noticed Ding Xun and the others arriving long ago. He still had ways to stop them, but he deliberately allowed them inside.

The Black Boots lay on the ground, and Du Heng held the Death Scythe. Both cards could damage Gao Siyun. Once attacked, Gao Siyun would inevitably use her boss authority to seal the cards.

And just as Xie Xingchen expected, Gao Siyun sealed the Black Boots, leaving her unable to resist Perfect Sufferer.

Xie Xingchen never intended to obey Dai Qianzhong’s orders. He merely took the opportunity to test the power of Perfect Sufferer.

The card was too perfect.

As long as it received enough points and energy, it could be used continuously, with no limit on the number of activations.

It could defend, and it could also purify curse-type contamination.

Not only were its abilities perfect, but its negative effect was incredibly minor.

It had only one...

The user would feel sorrow and shed tears because of the world’s malice.

Xie Xingchen wiped away the tear at the corner of his eye. The sorrow caused by the negative effect couldn’t suppress his joy.

Even if the Four Pillars of Heaven formed and the instance world merged with the Infinite World, so what? Without a domain, no one could seal Perfect Sufferer, and he would be invincible.

The prophecy also said that the formation of the Four Pillars of Heaven would lead to the birth of an Ultimate Player, the one and only Ultimate Player in all of history.

Legend said that an Ultimate Player could control the System itself.

That person would definitely be him, the one and only Ultimate Player, standing above the entire world.

When that day came, every member of Avici, Six Paths, and Mending Heaven would have to depend on him and beg for his protection. He would be the true master of this world.

Dai Qianzhong, that idiot, actually believed in their alliance. She actually believed he would share cards with her later.

Foolish.

This card belonged to him. Xie Xingchen smiled happily through his tears.

He showed enough. He withdrew the card, intending to release Gao Siyun and let her eliminate the remaining players.

Mo Bai possessed Ultra-Star Rank monster genes. She would always remain a hidden danger, so it would be better to let Gao Siyun absorb her.

The pure white light vanished. Xie Xingchen put away the card, then suddenly heard an icy voice.

“Give Gu Tiandong back to me.”

The voice belonged to Mo Bai, who had remained silent until now.

Xie Xingchen and Dai Qianzhong looked toward her at the same time.

Mo Bai’s long hair hung all the way to the ground. One strand pierced into her chest and wrapped tightly around her heart.

She was still beautiful, but there was no white left in her eyes. Both eyes were like lightless obsidian, beautiful yet unnervingly inhuman.

Ye Pingjun grabbed Mo Bai’s hand, trying to bring her back to reason. “Mo Bai, I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. I don’t know what choice someone is supposed to make in a situation like this. I’m disgusted by these people too. But... I don’t want you to become that kind of monster.”

He pointed toward Gao Siyun.

Ye Pingjun didn’t say, “Mo Bai, don’t become a monster,” because by now, he felt that there wasn’t much difference between humans and monsters.

“I want you to always remain steadfast and rational,” he said. “I want you to always know what you’re doing. If you decide to walk down a path of no return, then please be yourself. I will never deactivate my ability. As long as I’m alive, the positive effect of Expectation Value will remain with you forever. I know my ability is weak, but even if I were no more than a single strand of hair, I still hope that I can hold you back from the abyss.”

Mo Bai’s pitch-black eyes swept over Ye Pingjun, Ding Xun coughing blood, and Du Heng, who looked almost skeletal. But she didn’t answer Ye Pingjun.

Instead, she turned and walked barefoot toward Xie Xingchen. She spoke as though granting him a favor, “Give Gu Tiandong back to me, and I’ll leave you an intact corpse.”

“Hahahahahaha!” Xie Xingchen burst into laughter like he heard the funniest joke in the world.

“What fantasy are you living in? Do you see Gao Siyun? Defeat her first. Once you defeat her, this instance loses its boss. The instance will naturally end, and I’ll return to Neverland.”

If Mo Bai couldn’t defeat Gao Siyun, she would die as well.

Everything was already decided.

Xie Xingchen only needed to hide inside Higher-Dimensional Space and watch it happen.

Ding Xun clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles cracked.

Du Heng raised his scythe toward Xie Xingchen. Even if he died, he wanted to drag this bastard down with him.

But Xie Xingchen’s figure flickered and disappeared.

He returned to Higher-Dimensional Space where attacks from a lower-dimensional space couldn’t harm him.

“Fuck! You sure know how to crawl into your little dog hole!” Ding Xun roared. “You’ve got the guts to kill people, but not the guts to come out and fight me yourself?!”

After shouting twice, she started coughing blood again.

Everyone was consumed with rage. Only Mo Bai remained standing there in eerie stillness, as if she no longer possessed any emotion.

Ye Pingjun looked at her anxiously.

Mo Bai said to him, “Don’t worry. I’m still me.”

Gu Tiandong died right in front of her. She thought about going mad, about throwing everything away and destroying the entire world.

What if malice swallowed her? What if she became a monster? She was already surrounded by malice. Could malice really nurture a pure-white flower?

And yet, she simply couldn’t go mad.

Her rationality was genuinely as solid as the Indestructible Diamond title suggested. Even in circumstances like these, she still couldn’t let herself act recklessly.

Rather than being a label that the System placed on her, that title was something she forged with her own hands.

Again and again, she broke through the Observation Group titles the System gave her. In the end, this was the one that remained.

It was like a brand she carved deeply into herself, a reminder that she would never descend into madness.

Her mind was pulled taut between reason and madness. Then Ding Xun, Du Heng, and Ye Pingjun appeared, adding a trace of softness back into her heart.

Throughout the entire instance, Gu Tiandong was betrayed and hurt again and again. Yet until the very end, the choice he made was still to protect someone.

He left Mo Bai only kindness, not a single word asking her to avenge him.

He only thought about protecting her, with not a speck of hatred.

People like Xie Xingchen were filled with malice, but kind people still existed beside her.

If all she received was discrimination and malice, then perhaps going mad wouldn’t matter.

But the Combat Group wasn’t all that terrible. Most players were ordinary and mediocre people who drifted along with the current. Among the few were people like Du Heng, upright and hot-blooded, and people like Xie Xingchen, selfish to the extreme and utterly devoid of empathy.

She couldn’t hate the entire world because of one piece of filth.

Even if she became a monster, she would keep her current mind.

How could she prevent herself from being swallowed by malice?

A single word flashed through Mo Bai’s mind: rules!

If she couldn’t control herself, she would let rules control her.

She would create rules for herself, rules she would never violate.

She could do it!

Mo Bai didn’t know where Xie Xingchen was hiding, so she spoke into the empty air.

“Who says this domain will open when Gao Siyun dies?”

Barefoot, she took one step toward Gao Siyun.

Gao Siyun, who desperately tried to absorb her, involuntarily took one step backward.

Gao Siyun could no longer sense the heart’s power. The strand of hair piercing Mo Bai’s chest continuously absorbed energy from it, and Mo Bai grew stronger.

Mo Bai walked to the center of the enormous space, and no one dared stop her.

Gao Siyun kept retreating. Dai Qianzhong’s heart pounded with unease, and she couldn’t understand what Mo Bai intended to do. Xie Xingchen cowered inside Higher-Dimensional Space, planning to wait until the final moment.

Mo Bai raised one arm. Several cards appeared in her hand, cards none of them had seen before.

“Ruins of the Count’s Castle,” “Ruins of the Research Institute,” “Ruins of the Heart-Mirror Room,” “Ruins of an Abandoned Hospital,” “Ruins of the Rose Manor,” “Ruins of the Amusement Park”...

These were the paths Mo Bai walked.

The Scene Cards floated into the air, transforming into translucent projections.

The System once told her that when the time came, she would naturally understand how these cards were meant to be used.

Now, Mo Bai understood.

She whispered, “Environmental Assimilation.”

Across every corner of Disease Town, beams of light appeared simultaneously at the locations where the Scene Cards originally existed. The beams pierced through layer after layer of space and connected to their corresponding cards.

“Smiling Circus,” “Abandoned Hospital,” “Plague Garden,” “Love Amusement Park.”

Using these four instances as anchor points, Mo Bai connected the domains that Disease Town swallowed. They enveloped the Organ Trading Market and the entirety of Disease Town.

This was the true power of the Scene Cards: domain construction!

Mo Bai intended to use these Scene Cards to assimilate the entirety of Disease Town, construct a domain belonging to her, and create rules that would restrain her and prevent her from ever being swallowed by malice.

She wouldn’t allow anyone to take Gu Tiandong away from her domain, nor would she allow malice to survive inside it.

She would become this domain’s...

Ultra-Star Rank monster!