Chapter 859 - 729: The Gang

"Hey, Blood Lion Roar, your days of robbing everywhere are over, give me the stuff."

"If you want it, you’ll have to come and take it yourself. You know the rules."

Artillery roared, smoke billowed, and deafening explosions echoed along the walls and ground, causing the distant crystal chandelier to sway incessantly.

Similar dialogues were unfolding everywhere in Demon City.

Players with bloodshot eyes were plundering, stealing, and even killing each other. The castle buildings collapsed and are rebuilt on their own.

The Cadillac raced through the crisscrossing corridors, with drones following behind, shooting lasers to scan the terrain.

"The bad news is, others are getting crazier. At first, they focused on robbery, sparing lives as long as they handed over their stuff. Now they are forcing people to join gangs to rob other players."

White Horse Tombstone paused, "The good news is, it’s convenient for us to act during the chaos."

To conceal the fact that the group actually preserved some sanity, everyone wore red contacts, and the Cadillac SUV was modified, equipped with a large plow, machine gun turret, and adorned with saws, caltrops, and skull decorations.

Looking like a gang of robbers.

Just... is it really necessary to be so exaggerated?

Hansel sneaked a glance at Pifu in the front passenger seat. He was shirtless, revealing sharply defined chest and abdominal muscles. His upper face was painted with white foundation and black eyeshadow, and he wore an exaggerated pig nose respirator,

while his arms were covered in tattoo stickers of skull patterns.

Like Old Qiao from "Mad Max," a doomsday killer, wasteland warlord, and head of a war gang.

"I can hardly wait to taste the bloody flavor."

Li Cheng rasped, slightly lifting the respirator, munching on a Northeast blood sausage.

Gray Rain sitting behind him wasn’t doing much better either, clad in a leather tight suit studded with nails and barbs (made of rubber so not harmful), with miniature chainsaws installed on the backs of both hands.

Not a doomsday killer, but rather a pathological one...

Hansel raised his hand in a headache, trying to rub his forehead, only for the metal fingertips of the Power Exoskeleton to touch the mask, producing a crisp clashing sound.

He was unsure whether to praise Pifu and Gray Rain for their positivity or criticize their carefree attitude.

"The structure of the castle... does it change when regenerated?"

Midnight Dad in the driver’s seat looked at the 3D map returned by the drone on the car’s display screen, furrowing his brow unconsciously.

The battles between players and monsters, as well as players and players, caused massive destruction to the castle buildings, which undergo subtle changes during regeneration.

Originally parallel corridors were broken through, previously isolated rooms merged into spacious halls.

Midnight sensed that there might be some hidden implications behind this and, after some thought, pressed a screen button, summoning the AI assistant and saying, "GPT Vesper, help me analyze the rules of terrain changes in Demon City."

"Hmm?"

White Horse Tombstone and Hansel immediately directed subtle glances at Midnight Dad,

The intelligence level of the AI assistant depends on the parameters scale and the number of graphics cards. If deployed locally, it would only have a limited level of intelligence unless tethered to a warehouse of servers and compute cards.

Often, it gives surprisingly nonsensical answers due to lack of internet connection or subtle changes in the physical constants of the Script World causing bugs.

White Horse Tombstone has a friend, a Close Combat Extraordinary he met at the gym, who executed a Script Task on college entrance exam day, asking the AI assistant to help solve puzzles,

AI assistant [Offline Expert Mode]: We regret to inform you, to ensure the fairness and impartiality of the college entrance exam, the puzzle-solving function will be temporarily disabled during the exam period. Thank you for your understanding and support, and we wish all the test-takers the best of luck!

Player: I’m a freaking university student.

AI assistant [deep thought for 5 seconds]: Laozi was a great historian, philosopher, and thinker of ancient China. There is no evidence proving that Laozi’s mom is a university student, which is disrespectful and baseless slandering of historical figures.

Therefore, the AI assistant is in a superposition of being both useful and not, and ordinary mid- to high-level players usually wouldn’t entrust their lives and fortunes to AI.

"Vesper (Latin for evening) is the latest AI model from the United States, yet to be officially launched, currently handed over to mid- to high-level Transcendents of the United States for local trial use."

Midnight Dad explained: "Its performance is slightly inferior to Whale Song’s AI model, but as you know, national security."

In the field of artificial intelligence, Whale Song is a leader, each model update leaving insiders and outsiders dizzy and paralyzed, as if witnessing an atomic bomb explosion.

But Whale Song is a global guild organization not under the jurisdiction of the United States.

And everything not controlled by the United States can be labeled as "threatening national security," prohibiting in-country usage. Commercial vehicles are also forbidden from carrying installations.

"Alright."

The AI assistant spun in place on the display screen, entering deep thought, "Combining images provided by the camcorder and drone feedback,

Demon City is likely using a [pre-made module + random splicing + area rules] map generation logic.

Room sizes and types are pre-made, while internal items like candelabras, bookshelves, tables, and chairs are randomly generated,

connected through corridors, galleries, stairways, and steps to subsequent rooms.

Within a large area, the number of corridors and rooms is dynamically balanced, hostile creatures only patrol within the area..."

Looking at the updated thoughts by the AI assistant, White Horse Tombstone smacked his lips, "Why does it sound like a video game?"

"It is a game. It combines the fixed map exploration of Galaxy Demon City with the random generation of Roguelike. No wonder it feels familiar."

Li Cheng pondered, "The problem is, where’s the exit."

No sooner had those words been spoken than a sudden change occurred; the display screen in the midst of thinking began flashing rapidly, spewing gibberish, "I will answer you in the clearest, simplest, and most concise way possible,

In the eternal mansion of R’lyeh, where the Cthulhu sleeps, awaits your dream..."

Chaos spread throughout the entire vehicle, the car locked down, the horn blared loudly, machine gun turrets rotated firing, and the car lights flickered brightly.

"WTF?!"

Hansel in the rear seat almost got shook to the point of flying out, "Midnight, what button did you press?"

"I didn’t press..."

Midnight Dad was equally bewildered, after a moment of stunned realization, he cursed loudly, "fuck! The car is connected to the drone’s LAN, Whale Song people are messing with us! There’s an enemy assault!"

The vehicle veered uncontrollably, attempting to make the occupants dizzy, but it was clearly not very effective.

White Horse Tombstone and Gray Rain on either side, opened their respective car doors, and jumped out of the Out of Control vehicle with Hansel,

Midnight Dad took out a Rice Straw Festival, igniting it and releasing Voodoo Black Magic, turning himself into smoke to escape the vehicle,

As for Li Cheng, who was cosplaying "Mad Max," naturally couldn’t abandon the vehicle, which would undermine the spirit of the wasteland,

Immediately flipping a switch to recline the seat to free up space,

He gathered Qi in his abdomen, stomping down with both feet, breaking through the bottom of the car with a "boom."

The soles plowed through the stone terrain, forcibly decelerating the vehicle, and as its speed slowed, Li Cheng lifted his hands and raised the entire vehicle inside.

By now the vehicle had turned a corner, reaching a vast library with towering spires.

Soft moonlight shone through the glass, casting nine humanoid shadows on the polished marble floor, some standing, some sitting, some crouching, some upright.

Members from the Evil Science Alliance Ω, wearing fish tanks on their heads and capes on their backs;

A young man with blond hair, wearing a hoodie and headphones, accompanied by his black-haired companion wearing thick glasses like beer bottle bottoms — the duo from the Whale Song Guild, [Gao Chenluoxing] and [Iron Bar Can Win];

And of course, familiar figures crouching with swords.

"Pifu, we meet again,"

Wanli Sealed Blade slightly lowered his head, his eyes frighteningly red, "I’ve tolerated you for a long time."