Infinite Terror: Infinite Reversal

Chapter 83 The Fourth Person?
When the intense light and heat dissipated and the dust settled, Mu Xiang and Zheng Zha climbed back onto the overpass at the same time.

The three members of the Beiyanzhou team have disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only a mess.

Chu Xuan was standing at the edge of the overpass, silently looking at a gem in his hand.

Mu Xiang walked over to him, picked up some white fragments from the ground, and frowned, saying, "Shell fragments? Are these the white man's protective gear?"

If this inference is correct, then their strategic goals have actually been achieved quite well.

Mu Xiang then glanced at the gem in Chu Xuan's hand. Compared to the broken seashell, it still retained its original luster. This gem was the one Angelo had taken out earlier; it seemed he hadn't taken it with him when he fled.

"It seems to resonate with this item by overdrawing one's life force..." Chu Xuan said calmly, then tossed the item to Mu Xiang, "thereby achieving the effect of activating the elements. Although it may be most suitable for elemental power enhancers, such as the Logia-type Devil Fruits we saw before, it can also enhance the combat power of others to some extent."

Mu Xiang examined the object for a moment, then adjusted his glasses: "Hmm... This kind of load is too much for someone without enhancements; it's impossible to sustain a long battle. But for someone with other enhancements, it seems somewhat useless... Oh well, I'll go back and try to find out what this thing is. It doesn't even give any hints after being captured; it's really annoying..."

Zheng Zha walked over, still trembling slightly, his muscles twitching from time to time.

Mu Xiang laughed and punched him lightly: "You're too strong. You've unlocked the second-tier gene lock so quickly."

"Huh? Hahahaha..." Zheng Zha was stunned for a moment, then thought about it and realized that it was indeed the case. He seemed to have really entered the second-stage gene lock, and then he scratched his head and laughed.

He then said with lingering fear, "Damn, that shot at midnight was too powerful... What if we had been hit head-on..."

"That's what high-tech weapons are like." Chu Xuan adjusted his glasses. "Compared to the various bloodlines and skill enhancements in the early stages, high-tech weapons can achieve far greater power at a lower level. Whether it's Zero Point's Gauss ion sniper rifle or Overlord's tubular pulse catapult... even if your enhancements and gene locks are at an even higher level, you still won't be able to withstand them easily, and there's still a possibility of serious injury or even death."

Mu Xiang nodded: "Indeed, although technological weapons have many limitations and are ultimately external forces... their power must be taken seriously. The miniature railgun that Zero just used was only a C-level exchange item, but its single-shot power was already quite terrifying."

Chu Xuan glanced at the battlefield again: "This is also why I didn't recommend exchanging for the unlimited ammo version of the railgun... because the unlimited ammo version only reduces the reload time, and the single-shot power is not affected... We don't need to buy the B-grade unlimited ammo version. Considering the applicable scenarios, its cost-effectiveness is not suitable for a new team like ours for the time being."

"On the contrary, the Overlord's unlimited ammo version is the most necessary, because the tubular pulse ricochet gun with limited ammo needs to be reloaded in less than three seconds of firing, which is extremely cost-effective." Chu Xuan looked at Mu Xiang and the other two, "You have also witnessed its power in actual combat."

Zheng Zha nodded vigorously: "Yeah, that was so much fun... If they didn't have these kinds of props, Overlord could have wiped them all out by himself. Damn it, when we're rich in the future, we'll all have to get one..."

Upon hearing this, Mu Xiang and Chu Xuan both pushed up their glasses and exchanged a glance: "..."

"That's basically the situation..." Chu Xuan sat in the passenger seat, calmly summarizing the battle, "The initial objective has been achieved. We successfully depleted the defensive equipment of the Beiyan Continent team and separated them. We've sealed off this battlefield, and they've been dismantled... Things will only get simpler from here on out."

Is this automatically skipping the battle...?

"I'm just curious, what exactly is the basis for the main god's judgment of strength? In the end, any of our speculations are still speculations, and there is no quantifiable standard that can be seen... And the performance of the Beiyan Continent team is clearly not worthy of their evaluation." Chu Xuan took a bite of his apple.

Mu Xiang sat diagonally behind Chu Xuan. He looked up at Chu Xuan, then lowered his head to think and said, "Personally, I still think the most intuitive thing is the acquisition and use of reward points... For a supercomputer-like god, this is the most intuitive thing."

“As a breeding team, the three of them must have earned far more reward points and exchanged for more items than us… I have no doubt that their combined wealth is greater than our entire team combined. Otherwise, their stats would be as bad as their actual abilities,” Mu Xiang popped a lemon candy into his mouth. “There’s no reason for a strong team to have entered the competition later than us.”

Chu Xuan nodded slightly: "But there are still two questions... The first is, what are the advantages of this breeding team model? The most obvious one is that it allows a small group of people to become strong first. However, based on our previous speculation about the difficulty of horror movies, we can think of another point..."

Although such speculation wasn't difficult, Mu Xiang, who had read the original work, still secretly admired Chu Xuan's thinking ability... If we disregard the script patches added to "The Primordial Era" more than ten years later, many of Chu Xuan's speculations were made under conditions of insufficient information. And if even Chu Xuan couldn't speculate, then for others it would be like a question with only a number written on it.

“That means lowering the difficulty… At least we witnessed this team battle. The breeders have no sense of responsibility towards the people they breed and will abandon them all when necessary.” Mu Xiang picked up the topic. “Because the value of the breeders lies in receiving the God’s reward for everyone, which has nothing to do with their quality. Even if they die, new people will come to fill in. So as a team, the overall mortality rate will definitely be very high, which may be related to the difficulty arranged by the God.”

“That’s right.” Chu Xuan snapped his fingers. “But this contradicts our predictions… Whether it was the Resident Evil game where Mu Xiang and Zheng Zha joined, or our previous Alien game, the Central Continent team completed a considerable number of side quests. Logically, our evaluation should definitely not be low. I even think that among the new teams, our strength is among the top two…” At this point, a hint of fanaticism flashed in Chu Xuan’s eyes—if someone else showed that look, it could be called passion: “And as a breeding team, the Northern Flame Continent team’s evaluation is even higher than ours… This is worth considering.”

His expression had returned to normal by then, and he casually took a bite of his apple: "This relates to the second issue. The Northern Flame Continent team suffered heavy losses when they entered because of our attack. We only found out what the horror movie was when we were teleporting; and we only found out if it was a team battle once we were inside the horror movie. From our perspective, that seems to make sense."

This guy is clearly expressionless, but his facial expressions are incredibly expressive...

“But that doesn’t make sense!” Chu Xuan said. “We entered the horror movie first, so we naturally won’t encounter any ambushes; but as a team that enters later, there is a possibility of being ambushed. If they don’t know it’s a team battle, they can only wait to die if they encounter an ambush.”

Hearing this, Mu Xiang nodded silently, then felt a jolt run through his body. He looked speechlessly at his side and saw that Zheng Zha had actually fallen asleep. For someone as physically fit as him to be like this, it seemed he had expended a lot of energy.

So Mu Xiang shook Zheng Zha awake and forced him to drink the tonic. Although Zheng Zha was very resistant, he eventually complied... because the tonic was human blood, and specifically Mu Xiang's blood.

Back in the God Realm, Mu Xiang and Chu Xuan had Zheng Zha drink blood while he was in a state of energy depletion to see the restorative effect. Although the God Realm's vampire bloodline had eliminated weaknesses including bloodlust, the problem was that bloodlust was a weakness, but restoring energy through blood drinking wasn't... it was actually an advantage for the vampires.

After trying various types of blood, they discovered that the blood of enhanced individuals was much more effective than that of ordinary people, and even more effective than that of ordinary animal blood.

Of course, Mu Xiang's blood was the most valuable, so for efficiency reasons, Mu Xiang donated his own blood to Zheng Zha as a reserve food supply. Zheng Zha was disgusted by this experiment, not because he cared about scientific ethics, but because he found it repulsive…

Once, he had just finished an experiment with Mu Xiang and Chu Xuan when he saw Mao Xue Wang (a spicy Sichuan dish) on Zhang Jie's dining table, which made him vomit.

Zheng Zha reluctantly drank two vials in the end, and then listened to Mu Xiang and Chu Xuan's analysis.

Chu Xuan glanced at Zheng Zha in the rearview mirror: "Continuing from the previous topic... So we can deduce that something must have gone wrong with the Beiyanzhou team, which caused their situation to deviate from the breeding team's original intention. And after Zheng Zha unlocked the second-tier gene lock, their mention of 'the captain of the Zhongzhou team' also hinted at this... In fact, among us, Mu Xiang is the closest to the captain's position, whether it's in terms of leading the battle, analyzing the strategy, or considering the entire team."

Is this a compliment?

Then he adjusted his glasses: "When Mu Xiang negotiated with the Beiyan Continent team, he also claimed to be the captain of the Zhongzhou team. But after seeing Zheng Zha unlock the second-tier gene lock, the Chinese breeder said that Zheng Zha was the captain... but the white man insisted that Mu Xiang was the captain. This shows that in the Main God Space, there should be a captain position, and it is related to the degree of unlocking the gene lock, otherwise the Chinese breeder would not have said that... But before that, we had no idea about the captain as an official position."

"So what is the significance of the captain in our deduction? Perhaps it's related to the gene lock, but it should be more about intelligence, such as knowing about the horror movie... Otherwise, it's inexplicable that the Northern Flame Continent team entered 'Ju-on'. The Main God wouldn't send people to their deaths like that. Moreover, something must have happened to the Northern Flame Continent team to get them into their current situation... And our Central Continent team is most likely in the same situation!" Chu Xuan finished his apple. "This makes sense now, all our previous speculations."

Mu Xiang waved his hand: "That's right... but that's enough, we all understand."

Chu Xuan adjusted his glasses.

Mu Xiang realized that Chu Xuan was probing within a safe range. Just as he was about to say something, he heard Zhan Lan's message through the mental link: "Are you still chasing those two from the Northern Flame Continent team? Someone just broke through the Curse's blockade and forced their way into the city from another direction… Was it another member of the Northern Flame Continent team?"

"Impossible." Mu Xiang and Chu Xuan said at the same time, exchanged a glance, and then asked for details.

Mu Xiang knew that a certain author had revealed that the novel "Ju-on" in the Main God Space had a mastermind behind it. He claimed that destroying the House of Ju-on would force the mastermind to appear, and so on... In the ambush against the Northern Flame Continent team, the House of Ju-on had already been completely destroyed.

Mu Xiang had planned to complete this side quest before, and the appearance of the mastermind behind the scenes was within his expectations.

“Uh, he seems to have spotted me…” Zhan Lan’s voice was a little nervous. “He’s heading straight for our hotel.”

Mu Xiang suddenly crushed a lemon candy: "Zheng Zha, you and Ba Wang continue chasing that Chinese man and woman from the Beiyanzhou team. Lingdian and Zhao Yingkong are behind us, they'll go with you. Chu Xuan, we're going back to the hotel right away. As for that white man, he's already gone to the wrong place, his defensive items are broken, so he's the one we don't need to worry about the most."

Chu Xuan didn't say much, simply told Ba Wang to stop the car, and then he and Mu Xiang got out. He pulled out two bamboo dragonflies from somewhere, handed one to Mu Xiang, and they each put them on their heads before taking off and flying quickly towards the hotel, leaving Zheng Zha and Ba Wang dumbfounded.

(End of this chapter)