The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 371 Self-destruction
Players who can enter the Steam Phantom copy are all at the top of the pyramid in the Wilderness, and their strength and vision far exceed those of ordinary full-level players.

Their strength is enough to resist the impact of the erosion of the abyss, which allows them to remain calm at all times and basically not make rash decisions.

Except for crazy people, of course.

The players kept their cool and did not take any action immediately after Julie said start. Instead, they looked around carefully.

There were thirty-five players present, and only five invitations to fight for.

There will be many people who will be eliminated. The sooner you start, the greater the possibility of being eliminated.

The most important thing between players is not to get into an absolute melee.

Being hit by a few skills with unknown range and having to leave the stage unwillingly with a face full of question marks is a scene that no one wants to encounter.

The players moved slowly and quickly formed five small circles around the five invitations.

As the first player took the invitation letter into his hands through the air and then escaped in stealth, the players in the square began to fight.

In addition to Wu Chang's real self, Wu Chang's true self and the people from the Administration were standing on the roof of the clock tower in the distance, also collecting information about the players on the field.

After a brief observation, he found that this final battle was far more interesting than he had imagined.

It was discovered that not all of the players who appeared in the square were those who had failed to grab an invitation before and came to try their luck.

Among them, there are some strong guys who come to the final battle to fry fish to show their strength.

For example, among the players who were trying to grab the invitation letter closest to St. George's Cathedral, there was an exceptionally eye-catching player.

He had an exaggeratedly large saber hanging from his waist and was wearing a black evening suit, as if he was attending a dinner party rather than a brutal battle.

He was not distracted at all by the players around him, and walked straight towards the invitation letter with elegant steps.

"Being selected as this group means that your vision is not worthy of attending tonight's banquet." He sneered as he reached out to take the invitation.

At this time, the battles in the other four venues had already begun. The players around the man with the saber were already eager to try, and when they heard him mocking them, they naturally couldn't bear it.

A bald man wearing a riveted leather jacket and sunglasses suddenly burst into flames and hit the man with the saber in the face.

"You have to try to see if they are suitable..."

Before the bald man could finish his harsh words, he flew backwards, leaving a black line on the stone ground of the square, and only stopped when he hit the light shield of the battle space.

Everyone looked at the bald man who flew out, and saw a clear fist mark on his face. The fist was so powerful that it not only broke his nose, but also made his face concave.

Fortunately, it was only a minor wound. The bald man crawled up from the ground and ran out of the combat space using all four limbs.

Leaving here means that he has given up the final battle for the invitation.

Before people could recover from the bald man's withdrawal, the next moment, the other three men in the group surrounding the invitation letter followed the bald man's example and were knocked out.

The saber man reached out and picked up the invitation letter on the ground. He smiled at the two female players who hadn't reacted to what happened and said:

"I don't like hitting women, especially beautiful women. It's too rough and affects their beauty."

The two female players slowed down their pace as they prepared to retreat, feeling relieved. They were about to say, "I withdraw from the battle for this invitation letter," but when they opened their mouths, only "huh, huh" breathing sounds came out of their throats.

Looking down, they found bright red blood gushing out of their necks. They didn't know when their necks had been cut open by the man with the saber.

They didn't even see how the man with the saber drew his sword.

The two men quickly covered the wounds on their necks. One of them drank a bottle of healing potion and then turned into a stream of light and escaped.

The other person was more cautious, and worried that the man with the saber would make the last move, so he directly activated the item to escape from the copy.

"What a fast knife." Jian Xing couldn't help but exclaimed on the bell tower in the distance.

As an expert in using cold weapons, Jian Xing couldn't help but compare his flying sword skills with his opponent's swordsmanship.

After comparing the simulations in his mind, his face turned a little ugly and he said:

"Within thirty meters, my sword is not as fast as his knife."

Although he could see the man with the saber draw his sword, he couldn't surpass him.

Wu Chang also saw the performance of the saber man, and he said:

"He is so fast, not just because of his sword skills. Look carefully, he just used the power of the source of speed."

Leng Shan nodded after hearing this, and was about to respond to Wu Chang, but as soon as the word came out of his mouth, it turned into a "Hmm?"

"Can you see him using the power of the root here?"

Leng Shan suspected that there was something wrong with his ears. Couldn't the power of origin be discovered only when two people were close enough to each other and could sense each other's power?

What kind of operation is it to see the source of power directly from nearly a thousand meters away?

Wu Chang also showed a puzzled look and asked back: "Don't you think that if you master the root power, you can naturally see the root power of others?"

Leng Shan shook his head and said, “This is the first time I’ve heard of this statement, but I’ve heard of another statement that may be related to your situation.”

Wu Chang asked curiously, "What do you mean?"

Leng Shan moved his lips and shook his head, "Nothing, just pretend I didn't say anything."

Leng Shan took great effort to hold back the words "Dogs can see things that humans cannot see."

Wu Chang shrugged, guessing that Leng Shan was going to say something baseless like cheating, so he didn't ask any further questions.

He really isn't cheating. If other players can't see the root power, then there may be two sources of his ability.

One is his Eye of Breaking Laws, and the other is his inspiration value. No matter which one it is, it is a reasonable mechanism within the game, clear and innocent.

Leng Shan paused for a moment before continuing what he had been interrupted by Wu Chang's performance.

"The man with the saber is called Phantom. He is the strongest player in the Evolution Committee, at least in public."

Jian Xing suddenly realized, "The phantom ranked fifth on the battle power list?"

Ranked fifth on the battle power list, no wonder fighting in S-level dungeons is like frying fish.

Leng Shan nodded in confirmation. He looked at Jian Xing and actually explained to Wu Chang:

"The top fifteen players on the battle power list will be called ranked players. The threshold for ranking players is to master the power of the origin."

"The root power that Phantom controls is the speed in a small range. Combined with his job change to Blade Dancer, his sword skills are incredibly fast. He is one of the most difficult guys in the Wilderness."

"The best way to deal with a phantom is to use non-ballistic skills, such as curses or mental shocks, to attack directly outside the range of his root power."

Wu Chang raised his eyebrows. To be honest, he had never paid attention to the combat power list.

The so-called combat power list is a list that is arranged by the system based on a certain algorithm of the Abyss game, which converts the player's combat power into numerical values.

Except for a small number of high-scoring but low-ability players, and special cases like Wu Chang who started with 50 points of inspiration and 30 points of will, in most cases, the combat power list's estimation of player abilities is very accurate.

He remembered that when he had just started to complete the dungeon, he saw a prompt pop up from the Abyss game asking him whether he wanted to disclose his combat power value. He chose to refuse, so he was not on the list.

Many people who don't want others to discover their true strength, such as painters, also choose not to disclose their combat power values.

But the four major organizations are different. They need to demonstrate their dominance through the numbers of their top players, so they will select some of the top players to be on the list.

Wu Chang asked Leng Shan, "I haven't paid much attention to the battle power rankings before. Where do you and Jian Xing rank?"

Leng Shan said: "Because there are too many strong people like you who are hiding, my ranking will look better. I am currently ranked second on the battle strength list."

After hearing this, Wu Chang clapped his hands and said, "Excuse me, my dear. I didn't expect that he is the second-highest ranking leader."

Leng Shan showed a helpless look on his face. He ignored Wu Chang's reaction and continued:

"Although Jian Xing has an extremely powerful job transfer and has touched the root power, he is not yet at the maximum level. There is a lot of room for improvement. He is temporarily ranked 49th." Wu Chang looked at Jian Xing in surprise. When he first saw this kid, his will was on the verge of collapse. He was a noob who even had to ask for help to break through a C-level copy.

In the blink of an eye, they were ranked in the top 50.

It is said that there are always people better than you, and there are always talents better than you. There are so many talented players in the Wasteland World, but now it seems that this is not the case.

I don’t know if there are too many players hiding their true strength, or if everyone’s combat power is indeed not high enough.

Wu Chang turned his gaze back to the square, paying attention to the competition for the invitation.

There are many players who share the same idea as Phantom and want to demonstrate their strength by frying fish to attract the attention of various forces, but Phantom is the only one who can play it well.

Most of the other players who come here to fish will run into their peers, and then the fight will become a stalemate, and they will become part of the fish pond, which further highlights the strength of Phantom.

There was no other player of Phantom's level in the square, but Wu Chang saw a few familiar faces among the players in the square.

The first ones who caught his attention were Booker from the White Tower and Veronica from the Evolution Committee.

If it were two months ago, their strength would not be enough to enter the S-level copy, and they would not be able to enter even if they were unlucky enough to draw a bad lot.

The Anthem Company and Doom were placed together with Wu Chang for two consecutive copies, which allowed them to gain a lot of benefits by clinging to Wu Chang. Their strength was greatly improved, and their combat power successfully ranked among the top 500, which qualified them to enter the S-level copy.

But they can only enter, and among all the players, they are at the bottom.

However, their goal was also very clear. The focus was obviously not on fighting, but on observing the players who had received invitations in front of St. George's Church and other players on the field.

Wu Chang could see that they came to confirm whether he had entered the dungeon or not, and it was obvious that they came to curry favor with him.

He sighed and thought, forget it, even someone like Jian Xing could rank in the top 50, so he didn't care much about the players' combat power.

Compared to a strange player like Phantom who is powerful but has an unknown background, he prefers to team up with a guy who is a bit useless but familiar.

Anyway, they are just helpers, and the losers have a clear position and won’t complain.

Among the three-member leg-holding team, Colton, who often teams up with Booker, did not show up.

Perhaps Colton's power is more inclined towards technology. The Steam Phantom, which has not yet popularized electricity and is still in the steam engine copy plane, is not suitable for him to display, so he was not selected by the Abyss Game.

After figuring out the reason, Wu Chang couldn't help but wrinkled his nose, with some dissatisfaction in his eyes.

The Abyss game is indeed considerate enough to players other than itself, focusing on difficulty balance and being full of humanity.

But when facing him, I just treat him as a rude person and now I don't even want to act.

Fighting for the invitation letter only determines your status when joining a faction and whether you can get more preferential treatment. Not getting it does not mean that the dungeon strategy will fail.

Because of this, players competed very restrainedly. Unless the atmosphere was right and they had to fight to their heart's content, most players did not use trump cards such as the ultimate skills of job transfer.

By half past eleven, the battle in the square was coming to an end.

Of the five invitations, four had been snatched away.

Except for Phantom, whose strength gap was too big and he walked directly to the chair area and sat down, no one dared to stop him. The other three players who were guarding the invitation letter were all alert to the players in the field to prevent others from stealing the tower before the final deadline.

There were thirty-five people present, and now nine of them have left, leaving twenty-six people in the square.

In total, except for the unlucky group that Phantom was in, all the members dropped out. In the other four groups, only two people were defeated early.

No wonder fried fish is hated.

As the competition for invitations draws to a close, players who have lost hope of competing gradually gather together and become spectators in the venue to witness who will receive the last invitation.

Just when the players' attention was focused on the final battle, an inconspicuous guy in the crowd made a slight clicking sound inside his body.

The tiny clicking sounds were drowned out by the noise of the skills colliding, and no one could notice them.

Except Wu Chang.

Both the original body and the true self noticed at the first moment that the extraordinary person who had been knocked to the ground a long time ago and gave up fighting for the invitation letter actually had a mist-like root power emerging from his body.

This root power is the same as the root power of the Steam Phantom Plane.

My true self pointed at the abnormal person and asked Leng Shan:
"Is that guy the ranked player you mentioned?"

Leng Shan looked at the abnormal person, took a closer look, and shook his head, "I haven't seen him, why do you ask?"

Wu Chang said: "I saw the root power in it, the current root power of the plane."

As if to confirm what he saw, the clicking sounds coming from the Deviant began to grow louder, loud enough for the players around him to notice.

Then steam began to emerge from the abnormal person's seven orifices, and his body began to turn red and glow.

In St. George's Square, both the players in battle and the players in the seating area who had received invitations stopped what they were doing and looked towards the abnormal person.

An energy so huge that they could not ignore it was rapidly gathering in the abnormal person's body.

He turned into a huge bomb that could explode at any time.

"Damn it, are you fucking crazy!"

A player dressed as a magician next to the abnormal person took the first action. Light flashed on his staff, and the light condensed into a blade, stabbing directly at the abnormal person.

But as soon as the light blade came into contact with the steam emitted by the abnormal person, it melted away in an instant, just like butter on a hot pan.

The staff without energy poked the abnormal person, but not only failed to shake him, but made him even redder and spewed out more steam.

The magician refused to believe it and tried again with more strength. However, before he could use stronger skills, he was punched in the face by the player next to him.

"You are crazy. We are so close. If you blow him up, we will be the first to die!"

The magician also reacted, with fear in his eyes. He followed the example of other players, casting defensive skills on himself while moving towards the edge of the square.

Woo~
A huge whistle sounded from the Deviant's body. Sensing that the players were about to run, he released a huge amount of steam, which instantly covered the entire St. George's Square, including St. George's Church.

Players discovered that their abilities were ineffective in the fog, and only a few players, such as Booker, could still use their motorcycle abilities normally.

Not only that, as some players tried to escape, the abnormal person's self-destruction progress continued to accelerate, and the power in his body increased dramatically.

It's as if the players' fear will give it extra power.

"Don't run!"

Just as they were shouting at the players at the edge of the square to stop, the abnormal person's entire body turned into a red ball of light and was about to explode.

Even Julie and Phantom were frightened by the power accumulated in his body at this moment.

Just as they were about to take action to stop it, a figure suddenly appeared in front of the abnormal person. He ignored the surging steam, knocked the abnormal person to the ground with an elbow, and caused the abnormal person's self-explosion to pause for a moment.

Then, a big hole suddenly appeared in the abnormal person's chest. The power accumulated in the abnormal person's body seemed to have found an outlet. It turned into thick steam and leaked out from the hole in his chest, blocking everyone's vision.

The one who made the move was naturally Wu Chang. He used teleportation to come in front of the abnormal person, first interrupted the spell with a Mamba Iron Elbow, and then, following the guidance of the Omniscient Crystal, used extremely concentrated space distortion to offset the source of the steam while piercing the detonator in the abnormal person's body.

Unfortunately, in order to avoid alerting other players, his Mamba Elbow had to be used covertly without any sound, which made him feel like something was missing when he elbowed.

He pressed the abnormal person's head with his hand, and the touch he felt was not flesh and blood, but more like steel covered with a layer of human skin.

As the abnormal person completely stopped struggling, a line of information appeared in front of his eyes.

「Item Name: Self-Destructing Steam Cyborg」 (Unlocked by King Badge)

「Item type: Special」

"Item Description: A special product made from extraordinary beings, with most of the bones, flesh, and internal organs replaced with steel through a special process. The steam-transformed person retains some of the combat consciousness when alive, and will self-destruct upon receiving a command."

"Note: This self-destructing steam-powered man was manufactured by a Franken-class extraordinary machine tool. The Franken-class extraordinary machine tool is a product of the fusion of steam rules and mysticism. It can bridge the gap between life and machinery. It is the culmination of the Stilan machine tool and the shining pearl in the crown of industry."

(End of this chapter)