Chapter 435 - 179: The Allure of the Beauty Snake, Speedrunning the Secret Path

"Fuck!"

"What the hell is going on?!"

"Who was that?!"

He had been holding his breath, ready to learn the ultimate goal of the Intelligent NPCs. To that end, Shen Fei was even prepared to give the NPC before him a [Heroic Mark]. He never expected that just as the NPC was about to answer, having uttered only a single word, his head would instantly explode into dust. Then, the corpse collapsed heavily to the ground.

It was just as this Qin Shi Huang had said; once he left the special region, he would be killed instantly. Now, his head had exploded—he was deader than dead.

WHOOSH.

Completely shocked, Shen Fei instantly deployed his Detection Defense Towers, sending out their scanning fields to cover the entire surrounding area. And then, he froze.

He scanned the area countless times. Shen Fei meticulously combed over every inch of the space within a 30-kilometer radius of [Ye City]. He even immediately contacted Zhao Li and had him release his Divine Sense to help him quickly sweep the area and search for any anomalies.

But despite their rapid scans—during which they even sensed the Boundary Wall of the special region to the east, which had already receded hundreds of kilometers from Ye City—the two of them still found nothing. It was as if Qin Shi Huang’s head had been crushed out of thin air by a great, invisible hand. There was no attacker to be found.

"Son of a bitch!"

Is it the rules? A rule that prevents human players from learning any information about the ultimate goal of the Intelligent NPCs and Super Bosses inside the special regions?

After nearly half an hour of rapid scanning, Shen Fei had even managed to learn the underwear color of quite a few beautiful female players in Ye City, but he still hadn’t detected the slightest anomaly. Turning his attention back to Qin Shi Huang’s corpse, a shocking guess surfaced in his mind.

The rules definitely existed. He had clearly sensed their presence in the three-plus weeks since the apocalypse began. Now, the NPC had merely wanted to reveal their ultimate goal, tempted by the [Heroic Mark]. Shen Fei never expected that he would be killed for it instantly, and he hadn’t sensed the slightest fluctuation.

Fuck! The more hidden it is, the bigger the secret must be! Which just makes me want to know it even more!

Finally concluding that the NPC could only have been killed by the rules, Shen Fei’s desire to learn this information grew even stronger.

Wait! First, it seems that NPCs and Super Bosses are incapable of speaking this secret! And only NPCs who have inherited into reality know this secret; the NPCs in the Game World don’t! That means the probability of me discovering this secret is almost zero! And even if I use a bug to find out what it is, it’s possible... I’ll get my own head blown off!

As his thoughts raced, Shen Fei quickly deduced a conclusion that shocked him to his core. Namely, from any angle, he couldn’t obtain this secret. It was completely impossible for him to know. Even if he ultimately learned the secret with the help of Black Spade A, the bug creator, he himself might get his head blown off in an instant.

"Damn it!"

This conclusion instantly soured Shen Fei’s mood. Originally, he had captured one of the strongest among the Intelligent NPCs and had been very happy to have learned so much about the special regions. But because of this final incident, a new shadow had been cast over his heart.

I still have to investigate the secret! A secret so important that it’s protected by a rule of instant death must be related to something monumental! It might even be related to future events in version 4.9 or even 5.0!

He’d just heard from Qin Shi Huang that after Intelligent NPCs and Super Bosses enter a special Secret Realm, unless they encounter something like a [Heroic Mark] or the [Ninth World], they basically only had one thing to do besides their mandatory quests: Devouring. Devour others, or be devoured.

Now that this greatest secret had resulted in an instant death, Shen Fei knew he still had to investigate. However, he would have to carefully consider the ways, methods, and channels he would use. He even had to set up multiple layers of plans to prevent himself from getting his head blown off.

I’ll enter a special region! I’ll scout out the conditions and life within these special regions!

Lost in thought, Shen Fei quickly made a decision. Since he couldn’t get the information by asking, he would enter a special region and investigate it himself, gathering and compiling the information personally. With the memories and experience from his past life, he was the best person to enter a special region and collect intel.

The Pacific Ocean special region alone contained over a trillion intelligent beings, which made it more than worthy of investigation. After all, since the apocalypse began, even with Shen Fei’s protection, the population of Great Xia, which originally numbered over a billion, had dwindled to less than three hundred million survivors. Adding in the human players from other countries around the world, the total human population was at most seven or eight hundred million. And now, the number of Intelligent NPCs in just one region exceeded a trillion. For humanity, this was not good news at all.

WHOOSH.

The moment he made his decision, Shen Fei shot out a fireball, incinerating the NPC’s corpse. Then, he left the interrogation room in Ye City.

As he walked away, he thought, I won’t rush into the largest one, the Pacific Ocean special region, just yet. There are a lot of special regions. I’ll start small and work my way up. First, I’ll investigate the special regions on land, within the borders of Great Xia...

Special regions were protected by powerful Boundary Walls, so ordinary players couldn’t get in.