Gamers Are Fierce

Chapter 1189: Chapter 188: Escape Route

"So boring~"

Chaichai, utterly bored, tossed aside the game controller, leaned back, and sank into the beanbag chair.

"What’s wrong now?"

Li Ang, sitting behind a table studying a semiconductor chip, lifted his head and glanced at her.

"The current video games lack challenge, it’s a loneliness like snow."

Chaichai shook her head, stretched her arms behind her head, adjusting her posture on the beanbag chair.

Li Ang glanced at the "You Have Died" message on the TV’s black-and-white screen, then continued to study the chip, saying casually, "If you were lonely like snow, how did you die?"

"Because the opponents are all dumb AI, there’s no thrill of slaughter."

Chaichai pursed her lips and said, "The American financial market has completely collapsed now, so many game companies have shut down.

Although some electronic tech-type equipment props in battlefield games can help ordinary people quickly develop large games,

no one plays them,

many people have moved to the colonizable Portal World, turning all games into ghost towns, with only AI left."

This was indeed the truth. After the explosive awakening of the Star Gate, all political entities worldwide were forced to change.

Organizations like the Special Affairs Bureau pursued the path of advanced collectivism. Tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of residents lived centrally in urban towers, receiving "paternal" management, obeying allocations, and doing their best, with highly intelligent machinery ensuring the fairness and progressiveness of the management process.

Meanwhile, entities like the European Heavy Industry Group and a few other large multinational corporations became giant corporate governments akin to those from literary works.

Although they managed their subordinate residents in a unified manner similar to advanced collectivism,

their objectives, processes, and forms were entirely different.

The sole purpose of the corporate government was to perpetuate its existence, ensure social stratification, and maintain its ruling status forever.

A few oligarch families and players possessing powerful transcendent powers occupied the top of the ruling hierarchy,

below which were the corporate managers and middle-tier Transcendents—they were the white gloves extracting benefits for the big figures above.

Further down were billions of workers—every resident under a corporate government’s control was an employee. Without any fortuitous encounters, they could never join the ruling class throughout their lives and had to continue striving, by any means necessary, to climb the ladder in hopes of someday reaching the middle tier of the system.

Since the Special Affairs Bureau and the Heterodox Academy gradually moved their headquarters to the Portal World,

the European and American regions on Earth are now showing a posture of several corporate governments opposing each other.

Worse than corporate governments are criminal enterprises—they typically exist in areas where multiple corporate governments are at a standoff, either not managed by or temporarily ignored by them, ruled by several Transcendent criminals or Transcendent criminal families.

The living conditions for their subordinate residents, comparable to those in Colombia during Pablo Escobar’s time, required paying protection fees to the "godfathers" and "godmothers" of each neighborhood. Occasionally, being killed offhandedly left no place to seek justice or make complaints.

To escape such harsh and adverse living conditions, large groups of anarchists have emerged globally—they distrust any political entities and would rather enter the wilderness than accept any form of governance.

These people form tribes, naming themselves the Wanderer Tribes, each led by a player or Transcendent, sometimes numbering in the tens and sometimes hundreds to thousands. Every tribe member must learn to use, maintain weapons, and survive in the wild, wandering perilously across anomaly-filled wastelands under the guidance of a tribal chief.

The number of these wanderers far exceeds many people’s expectations; not only in Europe and South America but also in the once-prosperous North America, numerous American families, lacking the qualifications to move into urban towers and seeing through the insidious nature of the American government, have ultimately opted for the wanderer’s path, dragging their families along.

Like roadside weeds, the anarchist wanderers live and die, quietly embodying a kind of Mad Max post-apocalyptic style.

Of course, the worst living environments are not among the three aforementioned—wanderers led by Transcendent chieftains can barely survive if they are carefully cautious,

and due to the standoff between various corporate governments, coupled with the presence of the Special Affairs Bureau and Russia, faintly resembling the budding form of the Red Empire, they don’t dare to act excessively in the open—not too excessively anyway, as it would draw criticisms from other corporate governments,

and the relatively superior living conditions under the Red Empire’s control serve as a comparison.

At least for now, it’s like this.

The severest survival environments are slave societies and primitive societies.

In certain remote corners of Africa,

some players holding Transcendent powers massively enslave tribal residents, conducting inhumane Transcendent experiments and rituals.

Human life is cheap, especially after the advent of relatively mature cloning technology.

Such inhumane acts inevitably attract suppression from the Global Occult Coalition,

but unfortunately, the Global Occult Coalition has not been faring well recently either.

As the Earth Village gradually disintegrates, a significant portion of the national members stationed at the Global Occult Coalition has responded to their country’s call and returned to their homeland.

Although those remaining, committed to the ideals of "Great Unity" and "Human Solidarity," are genuinely idealistic, with the Special Affairs Bureau and Gru, among others, offering humanitarian aid in terms of manpower, materials, and finances,

the Global Occult Coalition is undeniably facing a sharp decline in its available manpower.

Under these circumstances, even with Michael guarding it, the Global Occult Coalition finds itself somewhat powerless against the large-scale human tragedies unfolding worldwide.

Chaichai’s inability to find a live person to fill a game session is merely a small snapshot of the world today.

Li Ang, without looking up, said, "Maybe I can talk to Old Xing, see if we can set up a high-speed internet line just for gaming directly from the Special Affairs Bureau in the Portal World?"

Chaichai tilted her head, "Eh? Is that possible?"

"Possible my foot. Would you perch with your game console at the Portal World exit?"

Li Ang rolled his eyes, retrieved something from the void, and tossed it toward the beanbag chair.

"What’s this..."

Chaichai caught it with a raised hand and was taken aback, looking at the plain black umbrella in her hand.

Soul-Ensnaring Banner.

This special item, which had accompanied Li Ang and Chai Cuiqiao through an entire battlefield game, hadn’t been taken out for a long, long time.

The original function of the Soul-Ensnaring Banner was to absorb and store Yin energy and contain spiritual bodies.

Initially, Li Ang took this umbrella to absorb Yin energy at the cemetery and hospital morgue in Yin City to nurture Chaichai. However, with the Qinge Armor,

Chaichai could wear the Qinge Armor as a body, reducing daily Spiritual Energy consumption to nearly zero, and Li Ang’s growing strength no longer needed Chaichai as auxiliary equipment.

The Soul-Ensnaring Banner, disguised as a black umbrella, has since lain in a corner of the warehouse unutilized.

Chaichai queried in confusion, "Why are you giving this to me?"

Li Ang, without lifting his head, replied, "I found a shop in the Game Square that can enhance equipment. I upgraded the quality of the [Soul-Ensnaring Banner] from [Rare] to [Excellent],

and in a few days, when the shop acquires Equipment Enhancement Vouchers from the game mall, it might even enhance it from [Excellent] to [Perfect].

By then, the Soul-Ensnaring Banner will not only store a massive amount of Yin energy but also accommodate more spiritual bodies while ensuring their independent thinking, so they won’t lose self-awareness from living too long."

"Hey?"

Chaichai blinked her eyes, momentarily unable to react.

Li Ang casually said, "It means, as long as we have a perfect quality [Soul Guidance Flag], a mid-level Spiritual Body can live for a very long time without dying, becoming an Immortal Species in a certain sense.

From now on, you must keep the [Soul Guidance Flag] close and carry it with you at all times.

Although the Qinge Armor was reinforced again in Yin City before, it doesn’t have the function to anchor the Spiritual Body’s self-will."

"Oh, oh."

Chaichai instinctively gave up thinking, nodding to show she completely understood,

but soon after she belatedly realized something wasn’t right, looking at Li Ang with a slightly changed expression, "Why did you suddenly think of strengthening the [Soul Guidance Flag]?

I remember the shops that can enhance items in the killing game charge very expensively, right?

Seems unnecessary..."

"Just in case."

Li Ang simply said, taking out a stack of documents from the void, and handed them to Chaichai with the Spiritual Energy hand, "Also, these are two plans I’ve prepared, take a look."

Chaichai fell into silence, quickly flipping through the documents, only to see the first part detailing the plan for the Bug Nest Brainworm to transform The Portal World.

The Bug Nest will quickly spread out on the Portal Planet, first controlling and rearing 99.8% of the population on the Portal Planet to provide Power of Faith for Li Ang,

then building tens of thousands of Bug Nest Bases both on the surface and underground.

Because Li Ang has been tirelessly collecting gene samples from novel species and roadmaps from technological creations,

the current Bug Nest can now produce Bug Nest Rockets capable of entering space.

The Bug Nest Rocket, faster than the second cosmic velocity, can escape Earth’s gravitational field, taking the Bug Nest Mothership to other planets and satellites in The Portal World for cross-planet colonization.

"Besides the planet where the Portal is located, there are at least three colonizable planets in The Portal World.

The Bug Nest’s specially cultivated native algae can absorb toxic gases or liquids and emit oxygen and carbon dioxide,

and if water is lacking, other models of Bug Nest ships can drag meteors containing solid ice from space, crash them onto the colony planet, creating lakes and oceans.

The planet’s transformation process will be slow initially, but now the scale of the Bug Nest Brainworms is also expanding, and I’m gradually lifting their mental constraints, allowing them to be more creative and learn mechanical and gene technologies faster to speed up expansion."

Li Ang said, "One of the colonized planets will be modified to resemble Earth’s environment closely.

I’ll let the Bug Nest sow human gene seeds on the planet, cultivating purebred Earth humans, creating a natural Earth atmosphere.

If I encounter something and can’t escape for a long time,

you can live on that planet in the future or go to The Portal World of the Special Affairs Bureau, living in a real human society—I’ll inform Su Ni Sheng to look after you."

"..."

Chaichai finally realized, Li Ang is arranging a path for her.

She lowered her head, looked at the densely written document, and took a deep breath.

The fingers of Qinge Armor pinched the corner of the document, gradually tightening, crumpling the document.

"No."

"Hmm?"

"I don’t want it."

Chaichai suddenly raised her head, her hair flying, slightly pursed lips, and her eyes stared straight at Li Ang, for the first time showing emotion called anger in front of him, "What’s this supposed to mean, making it look like you’re going to die! Isn’t it just the battle of destiny, I’m going with you."

"This time is different."

Li Ang also interrupted Chaichai for the first time, expressionless, "The competition for the Portal has opened the prelude to a dimensional war,

and destiny, whatever it is, gives me a very... deadly impression.

Humans have limits,

any form of life, including seemingly powerful Transcendent, Immortal Species, Forever Species, also has a limit.

The killing game is still too dangerous, you are not a player, there is no need to share the risk with me..."

"Lulu lulu lulu lulu lulu."

Chaichai covered her ears, tightly closing her eyes, making gibberish noises from her mouth, "I don’t hear, I don’t hear."

"Following me will only increase the risk I need to take care of you."

Li Ang looked at Chaichai, who had fallen into a self-imposed isolation mode, unable to maintain an expressionless and cold face, helplessly said, "I’m serious.

Last time so many people died in the competition for the Portal, and this time the destiny battle, the participant scale is expanding, even more Otherworldly Players might emerge.

Even people like me, Michael, Su Ni Sheng may not come out alive,

or maintain their original personality and will, escaping..."

"Bring all the Bug Nests along!"

Chaichai resolutely said, "If even you feel it’s dangerous, then don’t consider the thoughts of the other people or organizations on Earth anymore,

I’ll make all the Brainworms and lower-level species expel large amounts of water from their bodies, compress their forms,

then scour the market for all spatial items capable of carrying life forms.

Finally, cooperate with the Portal,

certainly, able to burst out a large number of Bug Nest species in the shortest time.

Even if we can’t achieve ultimate victory, we can come out alive!

If necessary, we can still concede..."

"...If we can’t achieve the top few ranks, further touching the truth of the killing game, even if we concede and escape, we’ll die sooner or later in the killing game,

or in dozens of years when our predetermined life span runs out, like those gods before, dying early, turning into self-losing, lingering decaying corpses."

Li Ang shook his head, "Alright, this matter is settled.

Let’s go, the semi-finals on the seventh day are coming."

He stood up from the chair, reached out to pull Chaichai from the lazy sofa but didn’t manage to—Chaichai’s eyes were slightly red, with crystalline tears pooled in them.