Chapter 166 - 130: Longevity Cells

Chapter 166: Chapter 130: Longevity Cells

Each time a player upgrades a Card skill, their body must endure an infusion from the Card’s Spirituality.

If there’s no way to eliminate this influence, traitor cells will begin to appear in the player’s body.

With each successive skill upgrade, these traitor cells thrive, growing increasingly distinct from the player’s own cells.

Initially, this is merely a latent threat. As long as the Card doesn’t spiral out of control, the traitor cells won’t trigger a Rebound against their host.

However, the game-wide tremors that occur each round provide the perfect opportunity for these traitor cells to revolt.

The moment those death row inmates, steeped in Sin, entered the game’s range, they triggered an instinctual reaction from the Azure-headed Demon Dragon’s power.

And this instinctual reaction to Sin from the Azure-headed Demon Dragon was precisely what the Heaven-Reaching Giant wanted to Devour.

Only by completely Devouring this instinct could it seize total control.

These entities are the very core of the game, so this deep-level fusion naturally causes game-wide tremors.

This is also why the Cards are on standby—their very essence is undergoing micro-adjustments.

But if players think they can use this opportunity to escape the game, they are sorely mistaken.

The bond between the Cards and the players isn’t something that can be severed just by chopping off a hand.

At least, Chen Qi himself had yet to discern the true nature of this bond, let alone find a way to break it.

In essence, the micro-adjustments to the Cards meant the power of the Heaven-Reaching Giant was gradually taking control.

As a result, its influence over the players grew stronger.

And the "Boss" of these traitor cells—the very model they desperately tried to imitate—was the cells of the Heaven-Reaching Giant.

Now, their "Boss" had grown stronger, yet the original boss—the player’s own body—was foolishly resisting the new one.

It was obvious which side the traitor cells would choose.

A major reason the traitor cells reached the brink of rebellion was that Gutaf had extracted the King’s Game’s own accumulated power to quell the tremors at the game’s core.

This effectively weakened the protections afforded to players, leading to an incredible scene unfolding within their bodies.

···

"Kill! Eat!"

"Evolve! Evolve!"

Like metastasizing cancer, the traitor cells attacked the surrounding normal cells—their own brothers and sisters.

Because the two types of cells were so fundamentally different, the battle was completely one-sided.

The traitor cells had no ability for Assimilation; they could only frantically Devour their brethren to grow stronger.

At that moment, the players were busy suppressing their agitated Cards, completely unable to muster their will and Spirituality to resist.

And so, they could only watch helplessly as their own cells were Devoured.

Fortunately, the total proportion of traitor cells in the body was limited, so the Devouring did not spread quickly.

Players just needed to find a way to stall for time. Once the game-wide tremors subsided and the King’s Game restored its protection, the traitor cells would naturally fall dormant.

They would be forced back into a dormant state by the game’s power until the tremors of the next round incited them to rebel once more.

One could say every veteran player goes through this process, and most manage to survive it, shaken but unharmed.

But you could survive it once, twice, even three times. A fourth time was barely manageable.

A fifth round, however, was impossible!

Any player who endured a fifth rebellion would be completely Devoured by the traitor cells and reduced to a grotesque mass of flesh.

This was the reason for the unwritten rule: any player who failed to ascend to Apostle after four rounds would be "purged."

The simple reason was that those grotesque masses of flesh tended to cause trouble for the peace and stability of the Lanyu Kingdom.

···

"Damn that Everick! How dare he lead an ambush against me?"

"How dare he? Are the Order Keepers trying to start a war with us?"

Three hours before the game-wide tremor, Wen Jiuming, Vice-Chairman of the Demon Slaying Association, was ambushed by the combined forces of Everick and five other players from his second unit.

Even though he was a veteran Level 4 player, being caught completely by surprise meant he was still severely wounded.

If not for his formidable strength and his willingness to fight to the death, he might never have escaped. It also helped that the old fox Everick was too cowardly to risk mutual destruction to stop him.

"What in the world is going on?"

’For an old fox like Everick to be the first to turn on us...’

’We’re always the ones to fire the first shot.’

Back in his stronghold, Wen Jiuming felt something was wrong. He tried to contact his Chairman but couldn’t get through.

Wen Jiuming was suspicious but not overly concerned.

After all, his Chairman was an Apostle—and not just any Apostle. He would be perfectly fine unless he was ambushed by several other Apostles at once.

He, on the other hand, was a different matter. His wounds from the attack were far too severe.

Wen Jiuming then began to treat his wounds, focusing on purging the lingering taint of Everick’s power from his body.

It took him two full hours just to stabilize his condition.

But a full recovery would take at least another week.

By now, Wen Jiuming’s hatred for Everick ran bone-deep. Once he recovered, the first person he would kill was that old bastard.

However, when he received a report from one of his subordinates, a terrified and enraged Wen Jiuming finally understood why Everick had ambushed him.

’That bastard conspired with outsiders and sold me out!’

A passenger plane from the Nulis Federation had appeared in the skies above the Lanyu Kingdom. As a veteran player, Wen Jiuming knew exactly what that meant.

’Everick must have been colluding with outsiders! That’s how he knew hours in advance that the Nulis Federation would make its move today.’