Chapter 1 The "Hmm?"

Li Ang raised his eyebrows slightly upon hearing the system notification. "So this time it's not obliteration?"

The penalty for failure in this team script mission called [J巨兽之海] (Jushou Zhi Hai, Sea of Colossal Beasts) was the random destruction of several personally bound items.

According to the rules of the Killing Game System, personally bound items couldn't be abandoned, discarded, transferred, sold, or bought.

As long as the player was alive, they couldn't sever the binding relationship. Even if they took the equipment out of their inventory and threw it into a corner of the world,

others wouldn't be able to pick it up and use it freely.

Many items of perfect quality or higher possessed personal binding attributes.

Whether it was the Biological Blueprint, the Divine Mark, or the Glimmering Dice of Destiny, Li Ang couldn't afford to lose any of them.

Naturally, there was no reason to refuse this mission.

He organized his equipment and items, adjusted himself to peak condition, and entered the ocean at 20:00 as required by the mission.

The moonlight was cold and clear, the seawater icy.

Li Ang submerged himself in the ocean, silently counting down the seconds until teleportation.

The next second, the sensation of being immersed in seawater vanished. Bright, flashing neon lights filled his vision, his feet stepped onto solid ground, and the sounds of the city assaulted his ears.

The blare of car horns,

the clinking of chopsticks against porcelain bowls in restaurants,

the chatter of passersby,

the pop music playing from street-side shops.

This was...

Li Ang looked around. He was standing on the sidewalk of a not-so-wide concrete street.

The buildings on both sides of the street looked like creations from the last century—old, low, and faded. Air conditioning units, sheltered by green awnings, were visible everywhere on the exterior walls.

The ground floors of the buildings were crammed with various shops, all displaying dazzling, colorful traditional Chinese character (fan ti) billboards, radiating a bright glow in the night.

[新辉眼镜专卖店] (Xin Hui Glasses Store)

[崇高大药房] (Chong Gao Pharmacy)

[711]

[六福珠宝] (Lukfook Jewellery)

[星华旅店] (Xing Hua Hotel)

[子记澳门面食茶档] (Zi Ji Macau Noodles and Tea Stall)

These multicolored billboards were layered upon each other, densely packed. Some, unable to fit, stretched upwards, hanging in mid-air like suspended city walls.

Looking up, one could see not only the dazzling array of billboards, but also the spiderweb-like electrical wires strung between the buildings in mid-air.

And looking into the distance, beyond this old, narrow, yet exceptionally bustling district,

one could see rows of towering skyscrapers.

Pedestrians thronged the streets.

Foreign tourists wearing casual shirts and straw hats, filming the street scenes with cameras,

groups of middle school students in school uniforms, carrying backpacks,

young couples dressed in matching outfits,

white-collar office ladies carrying handbags, hurrying along.

The unique street scene, the Eastern features of the pedestrians, and the Cantonese they spoke all confirmed Li Ang's location.

Doo—doo doo—

The green light on the pedestrian crossing had already turned off.

Li Ang, the only one standing on the sidewalk, drew the ire of the drivers behind him.

A middle-aged driver in a red taxi, wearing a white undershirt, honked twice. Seeing that Li Ang still hadn't moved, he impatiently leaned his head out the window.

Just as he was about to say something, he noticed Li Ang's eyes.

Indifferent, calm, as if piercing through the steel jungle to gaze at the deep night sky.

For no reason, the middle-aged driver shivered, an image of the Buddha statue he had brought back from the temple the day before yesterday flashing through his mind.

He silently retreated back into the driver's seat, his hand leaving the car horn.

Fortunately, Li Ang didn't stubbornly occupy the sidewalk.

He took a few steps forward and stood on the side of the road.

This city... wasn't South Port (Nan Gang) in the real world.

Although it looked very similar, he had used his spiritual energy to read the minds of passersby, and the results showed that this place was called [新港市] (Xin Gang Shi, New Port City).

Some subtle differences also indicated that this place was different from the real world—

On both sides of the street, every one or two hundred meters, there were stairs leading underground.

Judging from the shape of the stairs and the signs next to them, they seemed to be air-raid shelters.

Such a dense network of air-raid shelters, was it to avoid war? Or to escape natural disasters?

Just as Li Ang was pondering, he heard further prompts from the system.

[Mission Objective: Evade pursuit from the human faction, kill three deep-sea behemoths]

[Mission Reward: An item or scroll of the same quality level as the player's highest-quality item *1]

Hmm?

Li Ang clicked his tongue with interest. The mission reward this time was an item or scroll of the same quality level as the player's highest-quality item.

He had an epic-quality item like the Glimmering Dice of Destiny, which meant that upon completion, he would receive at least an epic-level piece of equipment.

This rule was perfect for players with bad luck.

It's just this mission objective...

Killing three deep-sea behemoths was easy enough to understand—fighting monsters. Li Ang had seen plenty of tokusatsu (special effects) films before.

Evade pursuit from the human faction.

Pursuit?

Li Ang clenched his fist in place. His power was not restricted in this script mission and could be fully utilized.

The Bullet Dodge Technique, Psychic Abilities, the Divine Mark, the Biological Blueprint, the Mind Monkey Staff—all of these equipment skills could be used.

Under these circumstances, ordinary modern conventional armies couldn't stop him at all.

Even against organized special affairs bureau task forces using extraordinary weapons, he was confident he could charge in and out as he pleased.

"If the human faction's military power in this script mission is the same as the conventional armies in the real world,

then it's nothing to a player of my level.

Since the Killing Game is making 'evading pursuit from the human faction' a prerequisite or parallel condition for 'killing three deep-sea behemoths,'

that proves that, in the Killing Game's assessment, the human faction in this script mission world still possesses military force that can pose a threat to high-level players.

Interesting."

Li Ang tilted his head, looking around. He didn't see any familiar faces.

This script mission was marked as a team collaboration mode, but there were no players he knew nearby.

Were they not in the vicinity, or were they deliberately hiding?

Woo!!

A large loudspeaker mounted on a utility pole at the end of the street emitted a sharp, piercing air-raid siren, breaking the silence of the night.

At the same time, the pedestrians walking on the street all felt their phones vibrate.

Pedestrians, drivers, small shop owners on the roadside—

everyone put down what they were doing, picked up their phones, and read the text message they had just received.

Li Ang became the only person on the street who didn't pick up his phone,

but that didn't matter.

As a level six psychic, his perception allowed him to sense and glimpse the screens of other people's phones.

[Pacific Rim Allied Defense Force, New Port City Outpost Reminder: Abnormal spatial energy fluctuations have been detected in the Yau Ma Tei district where you are located. Please proceed immediately to the nearest underground air-raid shelter according to the map directions in the official city defense app.]

[New Port City Police Department, Yau Ma Tei Police Station Reminder: Abnormal spatial energy fluctuations have been detected in the district where you are located. Please proceed immediately to the nearest underground air-raid shelter according to the map directions in the official city defense app.]

...

Several text messages were sent simultaneously to the phones of every pedestrian on the street.

The passersby who had been chatting and laughing normally just a second ago

immediately showed expressions of fear and unease.

They frantically surged towards the stairs leading to the underground air-raid shelter.

Strangely, there was no pushing or trampling in the crowd. There was a hint of order in the chaos, as if these citizens had practiced countless times.

Li Ang raised his eyebrows, watching the surrounding pedestrians run away,

and slowly turned his head to look at the surveillance camera hanging below the neon sign on the side of the street.

He had a premonition that the human authorities in this world had already discovered him.

The truth was exactly as he had anticipated.

Within thirty seconds of the text messages being sent, the sound of helicopter rotors slicing through the air echoed in the sky.

A strangely shaped hovering vehicle drifted around the corner of the street and sped towards Li Ang's location.

The upper half of the vehicle looked like a normal armored vehicle.

The outer metal armor was painted black and was exceptionally thick, capable of defending against rifle and even machine gun bullets.

The windows, embedded with explosion-proof glass, were also slanted to effectively weaken the impact of firearms.

A flashing warning light was mounted on the roof, and the vehicle was encircled by red and blue police light strips.

Around the light strips, the orange and yellow pattern of "S.W.A.T." (Special Weapons and Tactics) was printed.

The lower half of the vehicle didn't have wheels, but six sets of hexagonal vector nozzles, which were spewing out pale blue flames, providing the vehicle with powerful upward and forward propulsion.

Of course, the most eye-catching feature of this armored vehicle, which was even more advanced than those in the real world,

was the three-meter-tall mecha suspended in mid-air below it by eight steel cables.

The mecha had a humanoid silhouette, its arms were thick and strong, comparable to siege hammers, and its fists were as big as ordinary car tires.

Each shoulder had a massive honeycomb-shaped vector nozzle on the back.

Its legs were bent forward,

and each foot had three sets of duck-web-like metal hydraulic load-bearing structures on the bottom.

The entire mecha was painted black and yellow.

The overall design resembled a headless silverback gorilla—a driver was standing beneath the gorilla's abdominal armor.

The hovering armored police car, dragging the armed mecha, sped towards Li Ang,

and slammed to a halt twenty meters in front of him.

The police spotlight on the front of the vehicle, like a beam of light, enveloped Li Ang.

Bang!

The two doors of the hovering police car opened simultaneously, and four special forces officers wearing multi-component bulletproof vests, full-coverage gas masks, and holding heavy assault rifles jumped out.

By grabbing the hanging ropes thrown from the car, they rapidly descended to the ground.

The four special forces officers were well-trained, always aiming their guns at Li Ang.

As soon as they landed, they quickly approached, using the unmanned vehicles on the roadside to secure advantageous firing positions.

At the same time, the hovering armored vehicle in mid-air released the eight steel cables below it.

The towering three-meter-tall silverback gorilla mecha crashed heavily to the ground.

Even with the hydraulic load-bearing system on its feet slightly reducing the force of the fall,

the mecha still smashed two spiderweb-like dents into the concrete road.

Buzz—

The vector nozzles on the back of the silverback gorilla mecha's shoulders ignited with blue flames.

The driver, hiding behind layers of armor, controlled the mecha, stepped forward, and stood in front of the four S.W.A.T. officers.

He casually reached behind the mecha, took down a heavy, water-cooled rotary machine gun as black as ink from the mecha's back,

and used the mecha's broadcasting system to shout at Li Ang, "This citizen, please stand where you are. This citizen, please stand where you are.

We are the New Port City Special Mobile Reaction Force, and we suspect you are related to deep-sea activities.

Please cooperate with us.

Stand where you are, slowly raise your hands, and turn around."