player reload.

Chapter 525: Anatomy
The city hall castle is built against the mountain, with towering and majestic towers. The gates are tightly closed, and the moat in front of it has long since dried up, leaving only a thin layer of pale yellow substance clinging to the surface of the riverbed rocks.

Li Sheng, panting, inserted the brass key into the lock and pushed open the gate. Wanli Fengdao, Claudia, and Mianyue, all badly injured, passed by him and tumbled into the castle.

"Woo——"

A deafening roar came from afar. The King of Mushrooms, with its back against the clock tower, swelled to a size of thirty meters, its legs deeply embedded in the ground, and mycelium from its feet spreading across the entire square.

The item [Xianqi Gu] needs to be activated 24 hours in advance. After taking effect, it comprehensively improves all basic stats, including temporarily increasing the player's level.

The skill [Life-Gathering Domain], once activated, ignores friend and foe and continuously draws life force from the surrounding soil and living things, greatly increasing the self-healing speed;

Skill [Divine Incarnation], usable at Lv32, proportionally amplifies size and strength;
Various items and skills stack up, with the most crucial one, [Xianqi Gu], requiring a 24-hour cast time. However, the time limit for this mission is 48 hours, so the Mushroom King only activated it after boarding the train, and now it can be released.

Countless mechanical gargoyles filled the sky, surrounding a giant mushroom-shaped creature taller than a clock tower, and continuously blasting beams of light at it.

Mycelia are born and die, die and regenerate, but the King of Mushrooms can spread endless spores every time it stands still and punches, every time it breathes.

The spores adhered to the gargoyle's surface, growing like styrofoam in the wind, invading the engine, dragging the gargoyle to the ground, and assisting the seaweed-like swaying hyphae in strangling and tearing it apart.

Such an exaggerated increase in power must come at an equally high price. Li Sheng nodded to the Mushroom King from afar and slammed the door shut.

"How much air do you have left in your lungs?" Claudia asked hoarsely. She had just switched to new bottled lungs and felt intensely exhausted after a brief exchange of fire.

"70%" Wanli Fengdao lifted his skin, glanced at the remaining gas in his gas cylinder, and his brain raced—if a player's strength is equated with the amount of gas remaining in their lungs, then everyone's gas consumption rate is constantly accelerating, and their remaining survival time is at most...
10 minutes.

"There's no time, hurry."

Wanli Fengdao took the lead, while the astronaut Will was located at the deepest part of the castle, requiring him to pass through the main hall and side halls.

They burst through the hall doors and found the floor filled with stiff, motionless mechanical citizens of the town.

Unlike the little girl who had become a spirit and the shop owner Robinson, these "people" had physical bodies. They were men and women, young and old, holding hands, with blank expressions. Their backs were connected to a small gas well in the middle of the hall by a metal hose.

The gas well was covered in dust, clearly abandoned for a long time. Along with it, all the mechanical organs of the town's residents had stopped functioning and had long since lost their vitality.

With a quick glance, Wanli Fengdao vaguely guessed what had happened—the mechanical inhabitants needed to breathe high-pressure gas to survive, but neither the medium-sized gas well in the bell tower nor the large gas well in the church could provide enough high-pressure gas.

With nowhere else to turn, the mechanical residents chose to come to the hall together, breathe in the last bit of high-pressure gas, and hold hands to welcome death.

Having completed numerous scripted missions, I've witnessed countless horrific tragedies.

Unlike some of his peers who are callous and indifferent, treating the characters in the script as pigs, dogs, or even tools for boosting scores, Wanli Fengdao, who was once a passionate young man, has learned to control his emotions while retaining basic empathy.

'These people are long dead; they're just illusions created by the Land of Dreams. The most urgent task is to find that astronaut.'

When they burst through the side hall door, they indeed saw the dissection table, which looked extremely out of place on the red carpet, and behind the dissection table, the narrow tunnel leading to the metal dome.

Dang Dang Dang——

A crisp chisel-like sound came from deep within the tunnel. Wanli Fengdao breathed a sigh of relief, suppressing the unease that gnawed at his back, and rushed straight into the tunnel. It was dark all around, and the air was extremely rotten. Xiaodao could sense that the chisel-like sound was right in front of him, and he could even vaguely see the back of astronaut Will, who was holding an ice axe.

However, with each step he took, his strength was rapidly depleted. Wanli Fengdao stretched out his palm in vain, and his whole body collapsed weakly to the ground.

Snapped.

The bat-claw gun grabbed his waistband and dragged him out of the tunnel. Wanli Fengdao vaguely regained his senses, only to see the Dragon Slayer Sword lying on his waist, just ten meters from the entrance, far from reaching the end.

That tunnel, like an insurmountable chasm, separated the players from the astronauts.

Wanli Fengdao, clutching his knees and panting heavily, said with difficulty, "Drones, does anyone have any drones? Fly them in and find the astronauts."

"It's no use. The tunnel space is like a maze; every step forward puts a heavy burden on the player, including killing field items and drones."

Mianyue saw it clearly, and her expression became relieved.

This wasn't a typical scripted mission with clear instructions and hints. They had done everything they could, and there was nothing they could do if they couldn't complete it.

The only saving grace was that Mianyue and her three companions had all purchased commercial insurance.
“…” Claudia bit her lip, reluctantly cutting open more than a dozen blood bags and controlling the flow of blood into the tunnel.

But the problem persisted: my brain slowed down rapidly, my energy was quickly depleted, and I couldn't sustain it any longer. I could only slump down, my hands hanging limply, and stand against the wall.

Outside the castle, the explosions gradually subsided, while the sound of ramming continued to echo from the castle gates—the gargoyles had suppressed the Fungus King and were still able to spare some of their power to try and wipe out the players.

"Thank you all for your hard work and companionship. All good things must come to an end. Looking back on the time we've spent together, every effort, every collaboration, and every night of working overtime is deeply etched in our hearts. When we're together, we're a blazing fire; when we're apart, we're stars in the sky. The road ahead is long, but we'll meet again at the summit."

In the midst of the oppressive atmosphere, an AI electronic recitation suddenly began to play from somewhere. Even more outrageous, a PowerPoint presentation was projected onto the walls of a side hall of the castle, showing close-up photos of Reyes, the griffin, the white horse tombstone, the mushroom king, and others in turn.

"???"

Wanli Fengdao's eyelids twitched violently, and he couldn't help but cover his forehead and complain, "Is this some kind of startup team's farewell speech after burning through investors' money? It's like we're all dead."

No, the real complaint is, we've been together the whole time, when did you make this PPT?

"You don't understand, do you? My action camera has a built-in editing function. It can also automatically capture close-up photos of my teammates."

Li Sheng casually put away the action camera. "Of course, I would never secretly use my teammates' photos to take out online loans or anything like that."

"A crime announcement, huh? What Phantom Thief Kid?"

Wanli Fengdao rubbed his temples, then suddenly seemed to remember something and tentatively asked, "Do you already have an answer for this mission?"

"It's not an answer, just a guess."

Li Sheng strode towards the operating table in the side room, pushed himself up with one hand, climbed over the railing, and lay down on it. "I want to dissect myself."

(End of this chapter)