Artifact Report

Chapter 418 Mai Minghe: Melted, Vanished
Version No. 2:
"What do you mean?"

In that instant, Mak Ming-ho could no longer hide his shock and anger, and no longer cared about what Brianna had gone through—"You also want the world to be completely swallowed up by the Nest?"

In the rainy night, Brianna rolled her eyes, a speck of black floating in her grayish-white pupils. "...So what if it is? Do you feel sorry for me?"

Mak Ming-ho took a step back.

Without turning around, she knew that Jin Xueli's car door was still open; she only needed to take a few steps back and walk around the front of the car to reach Jin Xueli's side.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through, but… no,” Mak Ming-ho said in a low voice. “I won’t allow it.”

“You won’t allow it?” Brianna suddenly laughed. “What makes you forbid it?”

“I will take those two target artifacts from your hands.” Mai Minghe slowly took a step back and said, “This world was not created for any one person. Even if your suffering is infinite, it should not be a reason to end the world. If I cannot persuade you, I can only stop you.”

Brianna lowered her head like a little girl and tucked her hair behind her ear—it was at this moment that Mak Ming-ho's chest tightened, and with alarm bells ringing in his mind, he turned and ran away.

"Jin Xueli!" She strode towards the driver's side door and yelled, "Gun!"

Jin Xueli, sitting behind the windshield, glanced at Mai Minghe's back and was instantly struck as if by lightning.

"Quick, give me a gun!"

When Mai Minghe shouted for the second time, the wind behind him had already pierced through his body, making him feel cold and painful—Jin Xueli finally came to her senses, grabbed the machine gun, and threw it out of the car.

Mai Minghe quickly grabbed the machine gun, turned around, and fired at the dark figure pressing down in front of him without even looking.

Plane 37:
Brianna screamed, followed by the sound of gunfire.

Her snake-like upper body was shot and flipped backward, falling onto the rain-soaked ground. The small bag on her chest was hit squarely by the bullet—several broken, black pieces slid out of the bag, splashing water onto the road.

"cell phone?"

Mai Minghe took a step forward and stood where a resident had recently slept prone in the rain, recognizing the original shape of the broken pieces. "How did the resident get a cell phone?"

"It's over, it's over, it's over! I can't, I can't! Jacqueline's basement! I can't get those two fakes out! You have no idea what you did, you idiot! How dare you hide a gun and ambush me!"

As soon as he got out of the car next to Brianna, Mak Ming-ho realized that it was too dangerous.

The other party was an unpredictable resident, and she had driven alone to find Brianna. If something went wrong, she wouldn't even have anyone to help her—she should have a backup plan.

While Brianna had her head buried in her arms and wasn't looking at him at all, Mak Ming-ho quietly hid a machine gun under the front of the car before walking over to Brianna.

When necessary, she only needed to step back to the front of the vehicle and bend down to pull out the machine gun—and sure enough, her plan came in handy.

But what does the resident mean by saying that "the two fake images can't be produced"?
Softening clay:

Mai Minghe gasped, his head, face, body, and consciousness all returning to the torment of the rain.

The rain continued relentlessly, pelting the skin again and again, offering no respite and seemingly determined to gradually weaken one's nerves until they collapsed and went mad.

……what happened?

What were those scenes just now?
She paused for a few seconds in surprise, staring at Brianna in front of her, then looked down at her own hands.

Just seconds ago, Brianna said, "Let the mortals come down to keep me company"... The timing couldn't be wrong.

Mak Ming-ho remained standing in the same spot, without a gun in his hand, and did not fire a shot at Brianna.

Was it a dream? Had she fallen into a dream again, just like before?
After Brianna finished speaking, she quietly looked at Maming River, as if waiting for his reaction.

She was like a long-abandoned house haunted by ghosts, her face and body covered in peeling paint, revealing dark holes cracked after the chandelier was pulled off... It was difficult to discern the expression on her face.

While still in a daze, Mai Minghe subconsciously turned his head and looked around.

If she had just fallen into a dream again, she might see "Dream" nearby—that is, the resident she saw in the waves.

The last time she was in a dream, it was because the behind-the-scenes host wanted to use her to overturn the tanker truck and spill the liquid into the world... So why is it this time?

She didn't have a gun, nor did she fire at Brianna. Nothing had changed; the host's purpose was never the same.

and many more.

Etc., etc.

What did she just see?

What did you just see?
Mai Minghe abruptly turned his gaze back to the car.

Jin Xueli remained seated in the driver's seat, her face blurred by a layer of water on the windshield as she looked at a person and a resident. The headlights were still on, the doors were still open, and there was still no one on the road.

But there was something unsettling about this scene—she saw it; her subconscious sensed it first.

Mai Minghe suddenly realized what was happening.

If she hadn't already been soaked to the bone and was shivering from the cold, she would have been covered in goosebumps.

There should have been two machine guns on the vehicle—one that Mai Minghe had, and one that was Mercury.

Just recently, when Brianna measured the distance with her eyes, Mak Ming-ho confirmed that both guns were leaning against the car window.

Now, behind the car window, there's only a gun left. "...You noticed too?"

Mai Minghe was startled and turned around to stare at Brianna.

She had somehow managed to crawl up to Mak Ming Ho – and with just a reach, she could grab his ankle.

She involuntarily took two steps back.

"What did you find?"

"Huh? Are you really that stupid?" Brianna tilted her head, looking surprised like a little girl. "??? The news of its birth, didn't you see it?"

...Mai Minghe genuinely had no idea what she was talking about.

"You're lying to me? You're not a dominant gamer?"

A dark interest simmered in Brianna's voice. "The players who dominate the game should all have received notifications about its birth on their phones."

“…I understand,” Mak Ming-ho took another step back and said, “I was trapped in the dream that the host set up for me, and my phone was always off.”

It was still in Mercury's hand when it was turned on a short while later—so much so that she only realized now that the last target artifact had been created.

“Then let me explain it to you kindly.” Brianna smiled good-naturedly. “First, you can ask Shirley Kim if she has the other gun.”

This is the most reasonable and simplest explanation; however, when Jin Xueli stood up from behind the car door, her hands were empty.

"A gun?" she called out through the rain, "I didn't bring a gun! Did you keep two guns in the car?"

Mak Ming-ho was stunned, but Brianna laughed.

“Well, you have two legs and you're standing so high, so you didn't notice.” After she finished speaking, she crouched down like a cat, curled up her arms, and raised her chin towards the front of the car. “Look under the car.”

While keeping a watchful eye on Brianna's potential sudden attack, Mak Ming-ho crouched down and glanced under the front of the car.

The machine gun was lying on the road under the vehicle.

"Wait a minute," Mai Minghe suddenly realized, "In a scene that just flashed through my mind, I hid the machine gun here when I got out of the car. Was that a dream? You saw it too?"

Brianna remained obediently lying on the ground, saying almost calmly, "Yes."

"W-What happened? Why—"

“Didn’t I tell you? Is it hard to understand?” Brianna laughed again. “??? It distorts objective reality. It can blur and shatter the boundary between reality and illusion… It can turn a bottle back into clay. Everything we perceive as ‘facts’ can be overturned and rewritten.”

Looking at the speechless Mai Minghe, she seemed very happy—even to the residents, her emotions seemed to switch too quickly and too cleanly.

"Still don't understand? Our world is like a clay vase that's slowly melting away." Brianna waved her hand and said, "The boundaries of our world seem to be becoming blurred... Even though the 'cause' never happened here, we see the 'effect' here. Isn't that amazing?"

All of this was too hard to digest and understand—Mai Minghe paused for a long time, and even Jin Xueli couldn't help but be drawn in by this conversation. She walked behind her and stared blankly for a long time.

“I don’t understand. If there was never a ‘cause,’ where did the ‘effect’ come from?” Jin Xueli asked, looking troubled. “No one touched that gun…”

"You didn't see the news either?" Mai Minghe asked.

"No, I lost my phone."

Brianna sighed. In the rain-streaked headlights, her breath was a deep, lifeless black, not a breath of white steam escaped her lips.

"How stupid! Humans just don't have sharp minds; they can't flexibly break free from the limitations of thought and look at problems with a more flexible perspective. This world is a huge lump of molten clay! Can't you even imagine that?"

"When the molten clay flows out, we see whatever it touches, because we are in the clay, right? If someone pushes a finger into the clay, we will see a finger. If the clay submerges an apple, our world will have an extra apple."

Mai Minghe felt that he vaguely understood, but he still had many questions—for example, where did the apples come from?

In what space does the "earthenware bottle" exist?

Is it really possible to understand the world this way?

Perhaps Brianna is right. The human mind has been limited by common sense and convention for too long, making it difficult to break out of the framework and use imagination to understand a problem. Maming River was trapped in various confusions. He struggled for a while, focusing all his attention on "???" and "clay", but the more he thought about it, the more confused he became.

When she finally realized that Kim Seol-ri had unknowingly gotten too close, it was too late.

Since Kim Seol-ri got out of the car again, Brianna has not reacted to her at all, and hasn't even glanced at her twice.

But in the instant that she struck, Brianna suddenly braced herself against the ground, like a giant python leaping up, carrying a heavy force that only a resident could possess, and slammed her hand down hard on Jin Xueli's neck.

"live--"

Enraged, Mak Ming-ho turned and lunged between the two men—but before she could utter the word "hand," her shout abruptly stopped.

Jin Xueli did not fall to the ground.

Jin Xueli did not retreat or dodge.

Jin Xueli disappeared.

(End of this chapter)