“……”

Bro, you’re giving me way too much credit!

I’m a damn Combat Power 5 Trash, how the hell do I have any “definite” chance of killing Administrator 4444??

Confidence is good, but blind confidence can get people killed!

Jiang Ye felt like his nature leaned toward caution; he didn’t have Li Ku’s kind of certainty.

Still, Li Ku thought so highly of him, so Jiang Ye didn’t want to ruin that face.

After a brief silence, he replied to Li Ku:

[Should we send cannon fodder to explore the Tombstone Underground Palace first, or try to take out Administrator 4444 right away?]

Li Ku asked: [Take out Administrator 4444—how sure are you?]

Jiang Ye: [About 0.8 of a cheng.]

“?” A question mark popped over Li Ku’s head as he confirmed: [You meant the unit is wrong, right? 80%? Or eight cheng?]

Jiang Ye: [The unit is correct. It’s 0.8 cheng, less than one cheng.]

[…]

Li Ku fell silent for a moment: [Sorry, that was presumptuous of me.]

That was apologizing? Jiang Ye couldn’t resist teasing: [You’re oddly polite for a person :) ]

[…]

Li Ku stayed quiet again: [Then let’s arrange cannon fodder to explore the underground palace first.]

[Fine.] Jiang Ye actually wanted to ask Li Ku to help him use some Skin Sand to craft another mimic mask, so he could test the mask’s effectiveness and the clone kills clone effect before officially facing Administrator 4444.

But considering their actions might still be under administrator surveillance, he decided not to act rashly and risk drawing suspicion.

Right now the administrator probably didn’t even know he had become one of Jiang Ye’s clones.

After a quick plan, Jiang Ye and Li Ku resumed searching for uncontrolled monsters on the 49th floor.

There were no monsters in Room 4906.

Li Ku went to 4903. When he “beeped” the door open with an administrator substitute work badge, he explained to Jiang Ye:

“Guiwen and I came here before. Guiwen said there was a resident in this room, but when I knocked, nobody answered.”

“Now we have a substitute badge, so we can force our way in.”

The moment they forced the door, a sharp, piercing catlike yowl echoed from inside.

That brutal scream would make anyone who didn’t know better think someone was torturing a cat in there.

At the instant the door opened, alongside the shriek, a black shadow lunged at Li Ku.

It moved so fast Li Ku barely reacted, and the shadow actually crashed into the scar fissure on his face!

On impact, the shadow vanished as if swallowed by the scar’s black aperture…

Jiang Ye stared in astonishment and blurted, “That shadow… did you capture it alive?”

Li Ku’s scarred face revealed no expression.

After a short pause he said, “No. That shadow… most likely was absorbed by the dark energy.”

“Most likely?” Jiang Ye was even more surprised, “The black-hole space in your scar doesn’t belong to you, or isn’t fully under your control?”

Li Ku considered before explaining: “It contains weird dark energy. It’s not entirely mine, nor fully under my control.”

“Most creatures that enter it are likely to be swallowed by the darkness.”

“This isn’t the time to debate that. Let’s try another monster.”

They continued checking rooms.

Finally, in Room 4909, they captured a red marionette.

Black threads oozing from Li Ku’s facial scar had bound the puppet tightly, but the threads couldn’t muffle the constant, piercing screams it emitted.

The shrill, grating sound made the skin crawl and the head throb.

Li Ku’s composure was ironclad; he forced himself to ignore the noise.

In Room 4923 they seized an irregular black stone, bound it with the same threads, yet its high-pitched screams still came through.

Then in 4926 they captured a frenzied, out-of-control roll of cursed paper.

That one was the worst.

The paper roll unfurled entirely, the cylinder careened around the apartment room in chaos, long sheets stained with blood snaking ten meters through the space and winding around.

At the instant the door opened, the roll lunged for Li Ku’s scar fissure.

Fortunately Li Ku reacted in time and used his threads to restrain it.

Even after restraining the cylinder, it took a lot of effort to control the unfurled sheets.

Li Ku had hoped to catch more monsters, but those three took almost half an hour in total.

Given his agreement with Guan Ce, he didn’t continue hunting lost-control monsters and prepared to go downstairs to meet up.

Jiang Ye had no objections, but warned, “I feel like these uncontrolled monsters are especially interested in the scar space on your face…”

Li Ku nodded slightly; of course he’d noticed.

After thinking briefly, he speculated, “Apartment players say monsters are dark-type creatures; they instinctively prefer dark environments.”

“The scar on me happens to lead to the darkest environment. Maybe they sense that and, like moths to a flame, throw themselves at it.”

Jiang Ye nodded and said nothing more.

The three of them—well, it looked like three—arrived at the first floor where Guan Ce and his three tattooed thugs were already waiting at the front desk.

Five other players looked visibly terrified beside them.

When two of them saw “Ji Zixuan” they immediately cried out, “Boss!”

Those two instantly got slapped on the back of the head by Li Hongbin and received a cold warning:

“Not an ounce of awareness. Do you have anything to say here?”

They fell silent, though their eyes still glanced at “Ji Zixuan” with hope, as if waiting for him to back them up.

Too bad this “Ji Zixuan” didn’t even know them.

After a short handover between Li Ku and Guan Ce, “Ji Zixuan” opened access to the underground Burial Ground using proxy administrator privileges.

Eleven players and the three screaming monsters entered the Burial Ground together.

The hollow Burial Ground indeed showed no sign of Administrator 4444.

Jiang Ye sensed again and became even more certain that Administrator 4444 was inside the Tombstone Underground Palace.

Li Ku moved expertly to the tombstone area and easily pushed aside the grave markers blocking the Underground Palace Passage.

Guan Ce, seeing the passage, looked surprised and asked Li Ku, “Should we have players scout first or release monsters and test the waters?”

Li Ku seemed to have thought this through and suggested, “You brought five players, I brought three monsters. Maybe release two players first to probe.”

Guan Ce nodded in agreement.

Li Ku asked, “How will we get information about what’s inside the palace?”

“I already prepared for that.” Guan Ce flipped his palm and produced several items.

“This shadow recording talisman can record images. If they come back alive, they’ll bring everything they see in the palace.”

“These two recording orbs are a pair, they can sync and transmit images in real time.”

“However, some special scenes may block image transmission.”

“So I prepared a contingency…”

He touched his neck where his Guan Gong tattoo’s head was inked.

The Guan Gong’s eyes in the tattoo stared fierce and murderous.

Guan Ce’s hand covered the tattoo’s eyes.

When he moved his hand away, the tattooed Guan Gong’s eyes closed.

In his hand appeared a pair of murderous eyeballs!

It was as if he had plucked the Guan Gong’s eyes out of the tattoo!

Everyone present was stunned.

Those five cannon fodder players, inexperienced, found the trick novel.

Li Ku, because of his own experiences, had a completely different feeling toward those eyeballs.

Amnesiac Jiang Ye felt suspicious—this Guan Ce…

His name sounds like “observation,” and he happens to have an eye-related ability. Pretty convenient.

He also noticed the two tattooed guys with azure dragon and black dragon tattoos looked surprised too.

So…

Had they never seen Guan Ce’s method before?

Each player had their own thoughts but didn’t say much.

Guan Ce pressed the pair of eyeballs into the two cannon fodder players’ eyes and explained:

“These eyeballs carry killing intent. In the underground palace they might help deal with some petty monsters.”

“Besides, they will transmit your visual field to me.”

“So with the shadow recording talisman, the recording orbs, and the shared-vision eyes…”

He looked meaningfully at Li Ku and said, “You probably prepared surveillance gear to monitor them, right?”

Li Ku did indeed flip his hand to reveal different tools—two small bees and a pair of sunglasses.

He didn’t explain them; he had the two cannon fodder drip blood on the bees and told them to wear the sunglasses during palace exploration.

The two cannon fodder complained despite themselves:

“The underground looks dim. With these sunglasses we’ll be blind as bats…”

Li Ku’s scarred eye glanced over them coolly: “Just put them on. The sunglasses will automatically enable night-vision for you.”

Facing these big shots, the cannon fodder didn’t dare argue.

The big shots gave a few more brief instructions and warnings. Li Ku then bound the black threads seeping from his scar around the two cannon fodder.

The two cannon fodder then descended the stairs that extended down into the palace.

At that moment Guan Ce’s recording orbs began working.

But the orbs showed only pitch-black images, confirming the palace was indeed dark.

After a few faint buzzing sounds, the little bees hovering over the players acted like spotlights and emitted light, and the recording orbs’ images became clearer.

The slightly clearer image showed a bottomless staircase heading down.

Step after step, it seemed endless!

Guan Ce frowned, about to speak, when a shout came through the recording orb.

The two cannon fodder looked like they had no footing and suddenly tumbled down the staircase!

Guan Ce’s heart skipped. He noticed something about Li Ku’s expression and asked directly, “Was that you…?”

Li Ku remained expressionless and replied matter-of-factly, “Going down step by step is too slow. I used threads to suspend them; they’ll be fine.”

It did seem that way.

On the feed the two players panicked and screamed at first.

Soon they realized the threads bound to them acted like safety lines holding them up.

Though the staircase bumps had caused them some pain, for players that level it wasn’t serious.

Once their emotions settled, they could avoid most of the impacts.

The two cannon fodder calmed down, and their descent accelerated.

This continued for nearly ten minutes until the recording orb finally showed a white light.

It looked like the end of the long staircase.

The two cannon fodder instantly became ecstatic.

But the players watching the orb reacted differently; none looked excited.

The three tattooed thugs’ expressions turned to shock and dread.

Li Ku frowned lightly and said in a low voice, “The palace I imagined wouldn’t have such a bright white light…”

This confirmed Guan Ce’s earlier point.

Li Ku had uttered the word “white light” and not been erased by Erasure.

So, as Guan Ce had said, the real trigger for Erasure is not the taboo itself but knowingly stating a taboo.

If Li Ku is unaware of the taboo, saying the word “light” won’t invoke Erasure.

Hearing the white light mentioned, Li Ku was oblivious and continued to Guan Ce: “From your expressions… you seem to recognize that white light?”

Jiang Ye had noticed the tattooed men’s odd reaction as well, but assumed it was because “white light” correlated to taboo words.

Guan Ce’s explanation surprised him:

“You’ve heard of the Abyssal Cataclysm, right?”

Li Ku nodded. “I’ve heard the end of the Eighth Day and the destruction of the last Novice Apartment session were tied to the Abyssal Cataclysm.”

Guan Ce continued: “They say the Abyssal Cataclysm back then looked exactly like this…”

Even saying it left him pale with fear.

Li Ku froze. “This scene… you mean the white light? A blinding white light that annihilated everything?”

Guan Ce bowed his head solemnly, his hand clutching the recording orb.

He warned Li Ku: “If you keep sending them down, the most likely outcome is annihilation.”

Li Ku was silent for a moment and his thoughts shifted.

From the orb’s perspective, the two deep in the palace continued descending toward the white light!

Clearly Li Ku didn’t care whether these two lab rats lived or died; he was more curious about the annihilation effect of the white light.

Guan Ce, hardly merciful himself, didn’t stop him.

Jiang Ye couldn’t help asking: “If that white light truly annihilates everything… wouldn’t the Guan Gong eyes you implanted in those two cannon fodder be annihilated too?”

“But you don’t seem worried about the Guan Gong eyes being destroyed?”