player reload.

Chapter 521 Half-decay
There was no time to ponder why such advanced war machines as gargoyles could appear in a town whose technological level was stuck in the 20th century.
The group of players filed into the shop, and the cowboy-hatted shopkeeper slammed the door shut and casually flipped the light switch to provide illumination.

The middle-aged man, whose name appears as "Robinson" under the information integration glasses, has a blurred figure, just like the little girl jumping rope. The difference is that he seems to have greater mobility and can even turn on the lights.

Mianyue looked around the store. The shelves were filled with a dazzling array of goods: candies and snacks, cigarettes and alcohol, cold drinks, machine lubricants, daily necessities, and so on. There was also ice cream in the freezer.

Li Sheng and the other humans focused their attention on Reyes—who had been struck in the chest by a beam of light blasted by a gargoyle in the previous battle.

Although the close-fitting tattoo served as a protective measure similar to a Kevlar bulletproof vest, preventing the chest from being pierced, the impact still spread throughout the chest and abdomen, causing numerous rib fractures. After coughing up ink and a small amount of gold powder, the victim fell into a coma.

"Help him up."

Wanli Fengdao wiped the sweat from his forehead, took out a bottle of life potion, and roughly poured it into Reyes' mouth. A strange thing happened: Reyes' wounds healed rapidly, and he slowly opened his eyes, but his eyes were cloudy and lifeless, and he had no self-awareness.

Wanli Fengdao pondered for a moment, then waved his finger in front of Reyes's eyes and showed him some erotic pictures on his phone, but he still couldn't wake Reyes up.

"Wow, Brother Dao, you're so trendy, you even follow those borderline bloggers." Li Sheng raised an eyebrow. "While I'm trying to kill myself, you're still using Kuaibo player to watch Teacher Wu ○ Lan."

"I'm not that old!" Little Knife rolled his eyes and then poured various potions into Reyes' mouth.

Li Sheng also inserted a USB drive into the back of Reyes' neck using a rag doll and started a hard drive repair software, but there was still no response.

"Don't try, he's already dead."

Wearing a cowboy hat, Robinson took another toothpick from his jacket pocket, put it in his mouth, and said indifferently, "So, you're Will's friends?"

“I am, they are not.”

Li Sheng reacted quickly, realizing that without knowing the worldview background, especially the specific relationship between Will and this Robinson, it was better to diversify his investments.

He asked, "Have you seen where Will is? And what do you mean by saying my friend is dead?"

Robinson casually remarked, "Didn't Will go to the City Hall Castle to continue tinkering with his inventions?"

The players exchanged a quick, almost imperceptible glance. The astronaut was the only living being in the castle, so that was his name.

Robinson said matter-of-factly, “As for your friend, a living person will die if they stop breathing for ten seconds. He stopped breathing for thirty seconds, so he naturally died.”

Claudia couldn't help but ask, "Aren't there any cases in this world of people being resuscitated after respiratory arrest?"

"What are you talking about? Everyone knows that if breathing stops for more than 30 seconds, even if you are revived, the person will only be in a vegetative state."

Robinson glanced at Claudia with a puzzled look. "Those gargoyles are Will's invention. As long as you don't blindly approach the castle, there will be no danger."

You should leave soon, unless you want to buy something.

"Do you have matcha ice cream?" Wanli Fengdao had already thought of this, and immediately took out his wallet and pulled out a large wad of cash.

Because the world settings of the various missions differ, players prepare a wide variety of currencies for convenience, including copper coins, broken silver, drachma silver coins, marks, rubles, gold yuan, food stamps, and US dollars.
They almost brought along the stone mill currency used by the indigenous people of Yap Island.

“I’m already dead, what use is your money to me? Here’s what we’ll do: run an errand for me to the church and bring back a new pair of lungs. I ordered them a long time ago, but I haven’t picked them up yet.”

Robinson, as if struck by a sudden thought, pointed to the centipede in the fish tank. "Also, leave someone else at the shop, let's have him, to help me repair the house. Roof repairs, exterior wall repairs, and things like that."

The players exchanged glances. Good heavens, they've reserved a new lung. Is this a church or a telecom fraud park in northern Myanmar?

However, when dealing with NPCs whose life forms are questionable, it's often safer to go along with them. Wanli Fengdao followed up, saying, "I can run errands for you to get the lung from the church, but are you sure you want him to help? Cough, my brother here isn't very mobile."

Centipede's disability wasn't just limited to his limbs; he only had feet, no hands. "What are you talking about? Isn't he perfectly normal?" Robinson blinked in confusion, seemingly unable to discern the difference between non-humans and humans from the perspective of an NPC, nor could he perceive the abnormalities in these superhumans.

"That's all right then." Wanli Fengdao remained expressionless, approached the door, and peered out through the keyhole. The gargoyles hovered in the air for a while before returning to the castle and continuing to lie motionless on the spires of the towers.

"Leave this to me, it'll be fine. You all go to the church."

Centipede used his telekinetic power to vibrate the air, and winked at the Mushroom King and Mianyue, the meaning being clear—he could stay in the shop to extract information from Robinson, and if there was danger, he could communicate remotely through the communication methods of the otherworldly players.

"Then let's set off. Oh, one last thing."

Brother Xiaodao stared into the shop owner's eyes and tentatively asked, "Why do we feel increasingly tired in this area?"

This question seemed to trigger some kind of switch. Robinson's expression turned cold. He straightened up, hiding his face in the shadows of the shelves, and calmly said, "It's not that you're getting more and more tired, but that the end of this universe is fast approaching."

All was silent; everything had returned to balance.

After saying that, he leaned out of the shadows, picked up another toothpick, and stopped answering any further questions from the players.

"."

Filled with many questions, the group of players left Centipede and the vegetative Reyes at the shop and hurried out onto the street.

Gray Rain, Tombstone, and Griffin are located in another part of the Land of Dreams. Centipede and Reyes stayed at the shop, leaving only Li Sheng, Little Knife, Claudia, Mushroom King, and Cotton Moon as the five extraordinary beings.

"To summarize the current intelligence, both your mission item, the Astronaut, and the Fungus King's mission item, the Ice Axe, are ultimately destined for this place. If nothing unexpected happens, my mission item, the Four-Dimensional Box, will likely also be used in the Land of Dreams. There's a sense that this whole incident was preordained."

Wanli Fengdao, leading the way, quickly said, "The core of all this lies with astronaut Will."

“Tritium.” Li Sheng suddenly stopped and looked up sharply. “It’s tritium.”

"What?" Claudia didn't react. Li Sheng snapped his fingers, unplugged the action camera again, and switched the view back to the beginning of the mission, to the bronze gate that the human players encountered.

"Remember the bronze door? The key to the door is the Fibonacci sequence. Even aliens, as long as they understand mathematics, can unlock the key by rotating a compass."

Li Sheng quickly said, "At that time, there were three patterns above the code compass, with fifty rays of varying lengths radiating outwards from a single point in all directions."

A blue dot is followed by a ring, and in the center of the ring are three dots: one red and two green.
In a Cartesian coordinate system, there is a downward-sloping curve in the first quadrant, but without specific coordinates.

At the time, none of us understood the meaning of these three paintings. We just thought they were graffiti by the gate builder with unclear intentions, right?
Until just now, those gargoyle statues used the same metal material, the same beam attack, and the same nuclear fusion engine as the Alpha Python. And the fuel used by the nuclear fusion engine was Helium-3.

Wanli Fengdao's pupils contracted. "You mean..."

"The second of these three paintings refers to tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, whose nucleus contains one proton and two neutrons, and an electron outside the nucleus."

The third image, depicting a rectangular coordinate system with curves, represents the process by which tritium decays into helium-3 via beta decay, with a half-life of 12.43 years.

Helium-3, on the other hand, is a raw material for nuclear fusion.

Li Sheng said expressionlessly, "At the same time, it is also the energy source for the Alpha Python and the Gargoyle."

In other words, the Alpha Python wasn't lured there by any of us players; its target from the very beginning was astronaut Will.

(End of this chapter)