The weapon refiner is not doing her job properly

Chapter 255 Blood Sun (2)

You are a missing heiress. After discovering your true identity, driven by greed for wealth, you actively approach your biological brother in an attempt to rejoin the family. Unfortunately, a blood-red sun descends, unleashing a rampage of crimson creatures. You have been corrupted and are on the verge of transformation. To find a way to save yourself, you immediately set off for your brother's home. He is the mastermind behind a biological research institute and may hold the key to reversing the situation…

[Mission: Find your older brother and resolve the corruption affecting your body.]

Looking at the prompt on the screen, Su Ninglong couldn't help but sigh.

Becoming stronger leads to being corrupted, while remaining weak means certain death. The rules of this world are absurd yet real, creating a sense of suffocation.

She kicked away the blood beast's gradually cooling corpse and rubbed her numb wrist.

Perhaps the concept of "divine consciousness" did not originally exist in this game world, which is why her divine consciousness can be used normally here.

As for spiritual power, it seems to be sealed by some kind of character-like pattern.

Su Ninglong was somewhat interested in those characters, but now was not the time to study them; the priority was to figure out what the mission was all about.

His divine sense spread out like ripples, quickly scanning the entire room.

Guided by her senses, she deftly pulled open the drawer of the bedside table on the right and found a photograph.

"Pfft!" She almost choked when she saw the person in the photo.

That was Shen Zhaoming with long hair, a gentle face, but no smile in his eyes.

"Something's not right," Su Ninglong frowned. "Why is he here? Isn't an account only supposed to be linked to one person?"

"Pfft!" The person in the photo is Shen Zhaoming with long hair, his expression gentle, but his smile doesn't reach his eyes: "Hiss, something's not right, how did he get in? Isn't it one account and one person?"

In the group of Ten-Sided Buried Rich, everyone is a combat type, and Charlie is no exception. Through continuous training and adjustments, he has become stronger than the average spiritualist in both melee and ranged combat.

Only Shen Zhaoming was weak and easily pushed over.

We must find him first. If he's in her situation, it's too dangerous for him to be alone in the game.

Su Ninglong quickly checked her equipment. She had changed into a clean and tidy pure white dress.

The backpack is gone, but the spatial ring is still on my finger.

She used her divine sense to retrieve a normally powerful pistol and skillfully attached a silencer.

Then, she bent down and pulled a metal baseball bat from under the bed of the "rich girl" character.

I weighed it in my hand and it felt a little heavy.

The strength gained after advancing one level is roughly equivalent to the first level of the Qi Refining stage.

She put on a baseball cap, picked up a bat, and decisively walked out of the villa.

The blood beast she just killed is probably one of the common monster types in this game.

There are also blood slaves who roam everywhere aimlessly.

These blood slaves are completely corrupted humans, tireless, and capable of evolving by continuously absorbing the corrosive gases permeating the air. Survivors can only level up by hunting these monsters, but tragically, the degree of corruption affecting their bodies does not decrease as they level up.

Only by finding certain specific items in the game can the accumulated erosion be eliminated.

This mechanism is rife with malice.

Three or five blood slaves were loitering outside the villa.

The moment the girl appeared in the courtyard, they immediately sensed her presence and charged forward with a roar.

Su Ninglong raised her gun and aimed, the bullet accurately hitting the green core hidden under their clothing.

The faint gunshot, though deafening, still attracted more blood slaves from the vicinity.

The seven bullets were quickly used up.

She remained calm, loading the magazine with one hand while simultaneously swinging the baseball bat with her right. Under the scan of her divine sense, even with clothing as a cover, the green core was nowhere to be hidden.

With a crisp cracking sound, the last blood slave was also dealt with.

These blood slaves are dressed in uniform mercenary attire; it's unclear whether they are creations of a game or real humans.

Su Ninglong quickly searched the corpse and found a pulse gun that was still usable, but the energy display showed that it only had 20% left.

better than nothing.

She slung the pulse gun over her shoulder and continued on her way. According to the mission clues, Shen Zhaoming lived in the heart of the villa district, a more secluded area.

She dared not underestimate the malice of this game world, remaining constantly vigilant of her surroundings and quickening her pace.

"Hey! You in front, please wait a minute!"

Su Ninglong turned her head and saw a man and a woman covered in blood rushing out of a villa by the roadside. Behind them, a blood beast with half a human body in its mouth was chasing closely.

Without hesitation, Su Ninglong turned and ran, not caring whether they lived or died!
The two men were dumbfounded. Did this person have no kindness at all?

"Help! Don't leave us!"

Neither of them wanted to fall behind, so they ran as fast as they could. The two of them ran with a unique flair, their faces contorted with fear and exertion, and they ran at a speed that exceeded their limits.

Su Ninglong suddenly stopped in her tracks.

The two men overtook her in an instant, and she was surprised and wondered if she had given up.
"you……"

It's better if they don't run; it'll be good for them to hold them off.

Su Ninglong held her gun steady.

The pulse gun was very light, less than a third the weight of a pistol, and she pulled the trigger three times in a row.

The green core, about the size of a ping-pong ball, shattered instantly, and the blood beast crashed to the ground, landing right at her feet.

She created distance just now to gain space for shooting.

The green cores of the two blood beasts were not located in the same place. Fortunately, their swollen muscles tore through their clothing, so even without divine sense, the location of the green cores could be clearly seen.

"Ding, you have been upgraded. Please check your character panel data."

Su Ninglong didn't rush to check the panel, but instead focused on her inner dantian.

The characters sealing her dantian were indeed partially erased, but a cold, strange aura also invaded. While this aura helped to break the seal, it also lingered within her dantian, attempting to erode her body.

She scanned the blood beast's corpse with her divine sense, squatted down to search it, and finally pried a piece of jade that emitted a warm light from its waistband.

Congratulations to the player for obtaining one Beginner Purification Crystal.

Playing with the purifying crystal in her hand, Su Ninglong clearly felt the pure spiritual power contained within it. Raising an eyebrow, she realized it was a true spiritual stone.

She tried absorbing a trace of it, and the chilling aura lingering in her dantian weakened somewhat. However, she didn't intend to use it immediately to clear away the erosion; it wouldn't be too late to conduct research after finding Shen Zhaoming.

The two fleeing figures turned back and saw the blood beast was dead, slowing their pace with surprise and uncertainty. They exchanged a glance—had they encountered a powerful opponent?

Her deliberate act of leading the blood beast towards her had undoubtedly offended the other party.

"Could it be a 'hunter'? We've been missing for so long, the higher-ups should send hunters to find us..."

"Hunters have no obligation to save people; they are only responsible for cleaning up contaminated areas."

The two hesitated, wanting to curry favor but unsure how. Seeing Su Ninglong walking straight towards them, they tensed, fearing this "big shot" would react negatively to what had just happened.

"Yes... right..."

Before they could even apologize, Su Ninglong had already swept past them like a gust of wind, not even glancing at them, and sped off forward.

Her divine sense had already detected Shen Zhaoming's figure.

Just as they turned the corner, they saw Shen Zhaoming, his face pale, tumbling down the steps in front of the villa.

His will to survive was extremely strong. He quickly got up, raised his gun, and aimed it at the blood-red monster that was crawling in a strange posture in front of him.

Blood Beasts can walk upright like humans, or crawl on the ground like reptiles to attack.

The blood beast was lurking under the table, and Shen Zhaoming was caught off guard and was injured by its sneak attack.

His short, dark blue hair was soaked with sweat. He pursed his lips and fired several shots, but his marksmanship was clearly not good enough, and he could not accurately hit the fast-moving target.

Suddenly, the blood beast's long, coiled tongue shot out and tightly wrapped around Shen Zhaoming's ankle.

He staggered and fell to the ground again, dragged by the monster toward its gaping maw.

Just when he thought he was doomed to serious injury, a baseball bat suddenly swung up from below!

With a sickening cracking sound, the blood beast was flipped over, exposing its vulnerable belly.

[Ding, mission complete. New mission generated: Escape Black Pine Manor.]

Shen Zhaoming recognized the person who came in and weakly sat down against the wall: "My corruption level is a bit high. Do you have any special items that can remove abnormal statuses?"

Su Ninglong glanced at him: "Don't smile if you're injured. Your smile looks a bit ugly."

Upon hearing this, Shen Zhaoming laughed even harder: "It would look even worse if you cried."

“That’s not necessarily true,” Su Ninglong teased him about his sickly beauty as she tossed him the purification crystal. “Maybe I’d rather see you cry. You’ve only been apart for a short while, and you’ve already made yourself look so disheveled.”

"I've done my best, stop with the sarcastic remarks." Shen Zhaoming took the crystal, feeling the pure spiritual energy flowing within it, and his pale face eased slightly. He solemnly reminded him, "You absolutely must not be directly injured by the blood beast, otherwise the erosion level will skyrocket. This is different from ordinary mental pollution; the numerical system is completely different."

"Okay, you can rest now." Su Ninglong knelt down and injected him with a common clotting agent. She then took out a lightweight robe and a bulletproof vest from her spatial ring. In her opinion, the technicians needed to be given special protection.

Shen Zhaoming didn't refuse and quickly put on his protective gear. An extra layer of defense meant less of a hindrance.

“My previous mission was to find you, and the system assigned me the identity of your younger sister,” Su Ninglong got to the point. “Brother, my new mission is to escape Black Pine Manor. What about you?”

Shen Zhaoming straightened his collar, unconcerned about the "brother" address: "Didn't you often call me that before?"

"Tsk, not fun."

Seeing that Su Ninglong had stopped joking, he said seriously, "My initial mission was to 'escape alone without meeting up with anyone.' After the mission failed, a blood beast appeared out of thin air behind me."

"Is this gun your character comes with?" Su Ninglong noticed the pulse gun in his hand, which was almost fully charged, and couldn't help but feel a little envious. Her character had nothing and relied entirely on her prior preparations.

"You mean this?" Shen Zhaoming gave a meaningful smile, his gaze sweeping over the villa and then over the two survivors behind Su Ninglong. He said cryptically, "It wasn't part of the character setup. But its origin is hard to explain."

"Then we'll talk about it later."

The map of the Black Pine Villa area is clearly visible as known information about the character, while other areas are still shrouded in black mist.

There aren't many people in the villa area, so you can break out from any direction.

The real problem lies in the potential follow-up missions that might be triggered after escaping. Moreover, Shen Zhaoming's mission explicitly forbids him from teaming up with others, yet in his current state, he is ill-suited for acting alone, which would clearly trigger the penalty for mission failure.

The punishment itself isn't the worst part; the most terrifying thing is that the monsters in this world seem to have no end.

Su Ninglong wanted to know Shen Zhaoming's plans.

"If Blood Sun's operation mode completely follows the game's routine, then there must be a way to break it."

"So sure?"

Shen Zhaoming pointed to his eyes: "The blood-red sun I saw was made up of data streams."

"You mean everything here is fake?"

Shen Zhaoming shook his head, carefully choosing his words: "The data here is not quite the same as programming characters. They are given life in this space and can be transformed into real flesh and blood and scenery. So death is real death, and game monsters are also physical monsters. It's just that they can refresh like in a game."

Su Ninglong understood his meaning after a moment's thought. Subspace possesses infinite possibilities; aside from the inability to break through dimensional limitations, almost anything is possible.

Since the data we've written can be transformed into flesh and blood, then everything before us doesn't seem so unacceptable anymore.

Having spent some time analyzing the game mechanics, Su Ninglong looked up at the blood-red sky and saw what appeared to be a huge shadow churning above the clouds.

She thought of Lei Qingya and Tong Zi, both of whom had sacred artifacts bound to them, so there was no need to worry too much.

Pulling herself back to reality, she and Shen Zhaoming began to quietly discuss their evacuation route.

Not far away, two other survivors were shoving each other.

"Why don't you... go and ask if you can go with them?"

The female player stared at Su Ninglong's calm profile and whispered, "That woman... I feel like I've seen her somewhere before..."

"Do you women also like to use such old-fashioned excuses to pick up girls?" The male player thought he had seen through her thoughts.

The female player's expression immediately became quite interesting: "Pah! Disgusting, just say so if you're a coward!"

Desperate to survive, she finally mustered the courage to step forward: "You two... could you please let us come with you?"

Su Ninglong turned her head, feeling that their attitude was a bit strange, so she tentatively said, "Why don't you just form your own teams? After all, this is just a game."

"No, it's not a game!" the female player hurriedly explained, "I'm a 'net hunter,' I know this is a contaminated zone..."

It turns out that these two were both experienced "online hunters," the kind of people who were neither good enough for high-end jobs nor good enough for low-end ones, and relied on taking odd jobs to improve their lives.

The assessment system for advancing from "Net Hunter" to a formal "White Hunter" has been adjusted: either clear a contaminated zone of one star or higher on your own, or be led by a formal hunter to clear five one-star contaminated zones.

No matter which path you choose, you can't avoid the hurdle of personally entering a real contaminated area.

Many low-level "net hunters" look at the glamorous official hunters and recall their own "glorious achievements" in the simulator, and feel that they can also try their luck, so they try to find ways to enter the contaminated zone.

"So, you bunch of hotheads overestimated yourselves and went into the contaminated area together."

Su Ninglong's summary was so precise it was embarrassing.