Chapter 216: 1v6, Ke Mingqing's Player War, Surprise Attack (4)

Across a sea of fire, Lan Feng and Genkawa Tsuguo raised their heads, staring intensely at Ke Mingqing's silhouette.

Twenty seconds ago, there had been six of them—six of the world's most outstanding players, each the absolute elite of their respective regions.

Yet, in less than twenty seconds, Ke Mingqing had slaughtered four of them like pigs. It had happened too fast to react, as sudden and devastating as divine punishment.

Only two players remained alive in the casino.

"Strong as a fucking monster..." Lan Feng murmured, scratching his red hair. "Is this the true strength of a Red Name Player?" Scowling, he spoke up.

"Hey... you're Jin Chengwu, right? I'm curious. Why are you turning against the other players?"

Genkawa Tsuguo also looked up, staring at the blood-red player ID hovering above Ke Mingqing's head.

They waited for the silent executioner to answer.

It was true, Lan Feng thought. From the beginning, there had been no room for negotiation. Ke Mingqing had struck the instant he revealed his player identity.

They were players—a shared destiny binding the only hundred of them in the world. Their interests were perfectly aligned. If they failed to exterminate the super-human species, they would all die.

Knowing that, why did they have to slaughter one another?

Wasn't it just because this mad dog had disguised himself as a super-human species and attacked without a word?

Lan Feng wanted to probe Jin Chengwu's motives. Did this Red Name Player also know just how valuable the white-haired vampire's heart was?

But if he did, where had he gotten his intel?

As Lan Feng's thoughts raced, Ke Mingqing merely stood in silence.

After a moment, he lifted the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his face and spoke lightly.

"Why should I explain myself to two dead men?"

As he spoke, he temporarily shifted his Fused Lightning state back to his Blue Lightning state.

This was a hidden technique Ke Mingqing had discovered through recent experiments. Reverting a portion of his Fused Lightning to Blue Lightning slowed the drain on his Fused Lightning time limit while allowing the Blue Lightning to heal the wound on his shoulder.

"Is there any need to take things this far? We're on the same side." Lan Feng's eye twitched as he threw his hands up. "You just killed four of my guys. Do you have any idea how precious four players are?"

He paused, lowering his voice.

"Every time we lose a player, our chances of completing the mission drop, and we inch closer to death. Don't be a fool, brat. It's not too late to play nice."

Ke Mingqing shrugged, not bothering to reply. The wound on his shoulder had mostly healed, and the faint blue arcs of electricity quietly faded away.

"At least give me a reason," Lan Feng pressed, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

"No reason. I just want to kill."

Ke Mingqing tilted his head, meeting Lan Feng's gaze. "Satisfied?"

"You really are a fucking mad dog!"

Lan Feng spat onto the ground, spitting out the cigarette along with it. He ground the smoldering butt under his heel.

He plucked a black coin from beside a slot machine's lever, shoved it into his pocket, and cursed.

"Goddammit. Couldn't the system open its fucking eyes when picking people? It dragged this rabid dog in here, and now it expects us to finish the mission?"

"With speed and power like that, he definitely has a time limit," Genkawa Tsuguo said, his brow furrowed. "We just need to drag this out, and he'll hit his limit."

"All I know is that if we don't kill him, we're the ones running out of time."

Lan Feng raised his eyebrows as he spoke. He tightened his grip on the pool cue, locking his deadpan stare onto Ke Mingqing.

Suddenly, Ke Mingqing shifted his gaze away from them. He tilted his head back, staring blankly at the dark blue prompt window hovering above him.

[Warning: Fused Lightning state remaining duration—"7 seconds".]

Only seven seconds were left before the electricity stored in his Thunder God state would run dry.

Ke Mingqing knew full well that once he dropped out of the Fused Lightning state, his number two Theater Puppet—which possessed only half the stats of his main body—would stand no chance against these two players.

If he failed to decide the battle in these seven seconds, his chances of surviving the aftermath would be practically zero.

One second they were chatting; the next, Ke Mingqing snapped back into his Fused Lightning form. Dark blue arcs of electricity erupted from the floor, engulfing his entire body.

Without a shred of hesitation, he sprinted forward.

Amid a violent roar that shook the entire casino, the teenager dashed forward. His spiky hair, wrapped in thick, ink-like lightning, whipped wildly in the wind, and his flight attendant uniform began tearing at the seams.

He bolted in a straight line, accelerating until he was nothing more than an ink-black afterimage, finally blurring into a streak of dark blue lightning.

In a flash, Ke Mingqing tore through the sea of flames left by the exploding motorcycle. Cloaked in trailing fire and thick, inky two-toned lightning, he shot toward Genkawa Tsuguo like a bullet!

Boom—!

Genkawa Tsuguo could barely track his movement, hearing only that deafening blast.

Facing the gale rushing toward him, Genkawa Tsuguo took a deep breath. He lowered his head, hiding his eyes in the shadow of his frog hat.

He gripped a black-and-gold spinning top in each hand. They were about half the size of his palm; one bore the crest of a sun, and the other, a moon.

[B Rank item—Vibranium Spinning Tops (A pair of the hardest, heaviest spinning tops in the world, yet impossibly light in the hands of their wielder.)]

But Ke Mingqing didn't immediately launch himself at Genkawa Tsuguo. He knew he had multiple lives to spare, but Bai Ziling only had one. He couldn't afford to be reckless.

He only had one shot. He couldn't afford to make a mistake.

In midair, Ke Mingqing raised his right index finger, condensing a wild, crackling arc of electricity at its tip.

The lightning splattered like ink before instantly coalescing into a perfectly straight line, like a suddenly drawn bowstring.

A heartbeat later, the beam of dark blue lightning shot straight at Genkawa Tsuguo.

Bang—!

The lights across the casino dimmed. The intertwined dark blue line seemed to drain all color from its surroundings as it cleaved straight through the darkened air.

But a second later, something bizarre happened.

The lightning bolt brushed right past Genkawa Tsuguo's shoulder. It was like striking the reflection of the moon on water, producing nothing but a splash.

"It missed?"

Ke Mingqing blinked in shock. "How is that possible?" he muttered to himself.

He blinked, and suddenly Genkawa Tsuguo was in a different position. It was as if Ke Mingqing had just fired at the phantom of a frog leaping across a lily pad.

[B Rank item—Frog Hoodie (When an opponent launches a targeted attack against you, a slight sensory distortion will occur.) (Cooldown time: 5 minutes)]

"An item effect?" Ke Mingqing guessed.

[Warning: Fused Lightning state remaining duration—"5 seconds"!!!]

"Hey, hey! Where are you looking, you little bastard?!" Lan Feng snarled. Raising his pool cue, he twisted his arm and batted a coin right at Ke Mingqing.

With a sharp crack, the coin rocketed toward him like a golden cannonball.

A fleeting flash of gold reflected in Ke Mingqing's eyes. He kicked off the floor, dodging it by a hair's breadth—but the coin still gouged a deep trench into his shoulder as it passed.

Yet his body didn't pause for even a second. Clutching his bloody shoulder blade, Ke Mingqing lunged toward Genkawa Tsuguo again!

But just then, Genkawa Tsuguo's body erupted in blinding flashes of white, crimson, and aquatic blue.

The two spinning tops in his hands began to transform. Brilliant colors latched onto both—lightning cascaded outward from the friction of their spin, fiery patterns curled around their edges like clouds, and a gentle sheath of water encased them, creating a deceptively harmless protective film.

[Tier Skill: Enchantment—'Fire Element' (For a short period, grants your weapons and offensive abilities fire-attribute power.)]

[Tier Skill: Enchantment—'Water Element' (For a short period, grants your weapons and offensive abilities water-attribute power.)]

[Tier Skill: Enchantment—'Electric Element' (For a short period, grants your weapons and offensive abilities electric-attribute power.)]

[Skill Synergy: Elemental Power (When all three elemental enchantment skills are gathered, the power of each enchantment is vastly increased.)]

Watching this unfold, Ke Mingqing was nearly blinded by the strobing tricolor lights. He raised an eyebrow, muttering in disbelief.

"Are you playing Legend over here? What's with all these flashy special effects?"

Suspended midair with nothing to push off against and the nearest pillar five meters away, Ke Mingqing had no leverage. He also refused to waste his Superman Philosophy here.

He had no choice but to take the hit head-on. Wrapping his arms in dark blue lightning, he compressed the sharp electricity until it was nearly tangible. Like a pair of guillotines, his arms clashed with the incoming spinning tops.

High above the casino floor, the dazzling red, white, and blue lights clashed violently with his thick, inky lightning. Every collision struck like a falling thunderbolt, ringing out with deafening booms.

"These tops are so heavy..."

After a few brutal exchanges, Ke Mingqing was blasted through the air.

The fire had entirely incinerated both of his sleeves, and the enemy's electricity had lacerated his arms. Splashing water formed a hazy curtain, blinding him to the erratic trajectories of the spinning tops. He had to rely purely on feral instinct to counterattack at the very last millisecond.

Ke Mingqing repeatedly kicked off the pillars, twisting his body to launch himself like a cannonball, only to be violently repelled by the careening spinning tops each time.

In that split second, Genkawa Tsuguo caught an opening. He viciously flung his other spinning top, aiming squarely for Ke Mingqing's waist!

Ke Mingqing turned his head, catching the incoming attack in his peripheral vision!

However, he had no room to dodge.

Watching the spinning top magnify in his pupils, he forcibly contorted his body far beyond its physical limits, crossing his arms over his chest to block it.

A massive barrier of dark blue lightning erupted from his chest like a force field. The rampaging electricity slammed into the top's tricolor elements, detonating in a blinding explosion of light!

Ke Mingqing was blasted backward, crashing into the floor over twenty meters away.

He forced himself up onto one knee. Both of his arms were a gruesome sight—the bones were almost entirely shattered. His right forearm dangled limply, drooping like a severed stalk of wheat.

His left arm barely held its shape, but blood poured freely from it, soaking the ground beneath him and pooling outward until it trickled toward Bai Ziling.

"Giovanni..." Bai Ziling murmured, her lips parting as her trembling voice broke the silence.

"I'm fine."

Ke Mingqing spoke calmly as he switched a portion of his lightning back into Blue Lightning mode. Deep blue electricity coated both of his arms, soaking into every layer of skin, every shred of flesh, and every splinter of bone.

The gentle, water-like electricity swaddled his injured arms.

His wounds knitted together at a visible speed. Within moments, his ruined arms were fully restored to their original state, as good as new.

Ke Mingqing raised his arms and expressionlessly flexed all ten fingers. Every single joint, from his arms down to his knuckles, popped and cracked like a string of firecrackers.

Seeing this, the fiercely aggressive Genkawa Tsuguo and the distant Lan Feng both froze in shock.

"He healed?" Lan Feng's eyes went wide. He rasped, "What a fucking monster."

[Warning: Fused Lightning state remaining duration—"3 seconds"!]

"You bastard! I was wrong—we can't fight a war of attrition! He has healing abilities, and we don't!" Lan Feng shouted, yanking at the collar of his floral shirt.

"Any idiot could see that!" Genkawa Tsuguo yelled back.

Lan Feng raised his ringed fingers toward the ceiling, and five coins materialized between them. Going full-throttle, he relentlessly batted the coins forward with his pool cue.

The cannonball-like coins bombarded Ke Mingqing from afar, forcing him back like a hail of bullets until he was pinned into a corner.

Taking advantage of the opening Lan Feng had created, Genkawa Tsuguo rapidly closed the distance.

The boy in the frog hat sprinted toward him, wildly swinging his tricolored elemental spinning tops.

He arrived like the Grim Reaper bearing his scythe. The tops spun in a furious 360-degree arc around him, generating a violent tornado that obliterated everything in its path.

Everything was reduced to ash by the lightning and fire, before being washed away by a merciful spray of water.

The next second felt like an entire century. Pinned down by Lan Feng's relentless bombardment of coins and the frog hat boy's tornado of spinning tops, Ke Mingqing's room to dodge was rapidly shrinking.

His only remaining path was a dead end.

"Haha! Let's see you dodge this!" Lan Feng whistled.

"Allegory of the Cave."

Facing the meteor shower of incoming coins, Ke Mingqing suddenly stopped in his tracks. He turned his head toward the storm of spinning tops rushing at his flank, the scorching wind blowing back his bangs.

In that fleeting second, a calm-looking little paper doll materialized in his palm. Amid the utter chaos and destruction, the boy and the paper doll spoke in a haunting unison:

"Allegory of the Cave."

[Allegory of the Cave (Derived from the philosopher 'Plato'): Temporarily teleports you into a cave. You may return to reality at any time within 10 seconds.]

As the words fell, a Spatial Rift tore open behind Ke Mingqing like the gaping maw of a colossal beast, instantly swallowing him whole.

The rift snapped shut. Both the cannonball coins and the rampaging spinning tops struck nothing but empty air.

"He vanished?" Lan Feng was stunned.

Genkawa Tsuguo halted his frenzied assault. Every pillar within a ten-meter radius came crashing down.

Every slot machine in sight had been ground into dust by the spinning tops. Thin arcs of electricity and wisps of flame still crackled through the air, while a layer of water soaked the ruined floor.

A dead silence fell over the casino, an eerie stillness that bred creeping unease.

Genkawa Tsuguo froze. He whipped his head left and right, his eyes sweeping past the brim of his frog hat to scan the casino, but Ke Mingqing was nowhere to be found.

At that moment, Bai Ziling had completely concealed her presence. She hid behind a pillar like a fawn cowering in the brush, pinching her nose shut to prevent herself from making a single sound.

"Don't tell me he ran?" Lan Feng tilted his head and shrugged, his joints cracking.

"Impossible..." Genkawa Tsuguo murmured, his voice low. "He has to be nearby."

In the very next second, a massive Spatial Rift tore open just behind Genkawa Tsuguo and Lan Feng.

Through the rift lay a dimly lit cavern. Several torches flickered within its depths, casting eerie, distorted shadows across the stone walls.

Ke Mingqing stood at the cave's exit, staring at the two of them through the rift. Illuminated by the cavern's eerie firelight, his eyes looked like those of a man-eating beast.

[Warning: Fused Lightning state remaining duration—"2 seconds"!]

During the single second he had spent lurking in the cave, Ke Mingqing had compressed a palm-sized orb of lightning into his right hand.

Dark blue arcs of electricity violently chewed through the air, sending off waves of scorching steam. It didn't look large, but the energy packed inside was enough to blow clean through a residential apartment block.

Exploding out of the cave, Ke Mingqing launched himself right at Genkawa Tsuguo's back.

Hearing the howling wind suddenly rushing up behind them, the two men violently whipped their heads around.

"Where the hell did he come from?!" they cried out in shock.

Ke Mingqing feinted, making it look as though he were going to smash the lightning orb into Genkawa Tsuguo. But at the last microsecond, his palm sharply pivoted, slamming the terrifying, dark blue sphere right into Lan Feng.

"He's coming for you!" Genkawa Tsuguo roared.

Lan Feng's pupils shrank to pinpricks. The ferocious gale flattened his spiky red hair flat against his scalp.

Deep down, he knew... he was a dead man.