Chapter 1 The Road is Too Long

The road to the Star Pirates' lair was too long. Mingmei felt like the line ahead hadn't moved much at all for the better part of the day.

She stood on tiptoe, peering at the invisible line ahead, her hands clutching the straps of the insulated backpack she was carrying. She glanced at Lu Xiaoyao beside her.

The other girl was also looking around, just as bewildered as she was. The endless line was just too absurd.

"How long will this take?"

Lu Xiaoyao gazed at the long line ahead, her patience wearing thin.

"Soon, I guess. Once we get to the destination, we'll be instantly transported into the starship by a space button-modified conversion device," Mingmei said softly to Lu Xiaoyao. "It's the same principle as instantly entering a mech."

"I know the principle, but it's still too slow! It's not like the people in front are taking small steps. My god, after four or five hours, they suddenly take one big step… Is it like not moving for half a day, then taking a step that takes three years to complete?"

"Who knows?"

Mingmei looked around, both in front and behind her. She couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at the sight of over a million people converging on the destination from all directions.

Lu Xiaoyao looked at the crowd and couldn't help but worry, whispering in Mingmei's ear, "There are so many of us, is it really true that only 300,000+ will survive in the end?"

Mingmei couldn't answer her question. She glanced around at the people who had been conscripted, most of whom were young.

Mingmei swept her gaze over a few people nearby, then lowered her eyes. A faint expectation arose in her heart.

"Perhaps your idea from that day is possible."

Suddenly, Mingmei affirmed the idea Lu Xiaoyao had proposed a few days ago, which made Lu Xiaoyao pleasantly surprised but also a little confused. She didn't know why Mingmei had suddenly said this.

Mingmei didn't have time to explain to Lu Xiaoyao at this moment. She kept her eyes on the people around her, as if confirming her own thoughts.

Someone above had thought of the same thing as them.

She saw many people in the crowd who didn't seem ordinary.

Bright, firm eyes, upright posture. Even though they were just wearing ordinary clothes, Mingmei vaguely guessed their identities.

…

Wang Dian stood in the crowd, the wound on his head not yet healed. He looked around, and his heart couldn't help but clench when he didn't see any children.

"Let's go."

Zhen Po's workplace wasn't far from Wang Dian's. The two had met a few times going to and from work, and since they were both players, they had become familiar with each other over time.

He had also heard about what had happened with the scar on Wang Dian's head.

"What about your parents?"

Wang Dian had been incredibly envious when he heard that Zhen Po's in-game parents had both signed up. Saving a stranger was a completely different feeling from saving someone you knew or your own family.

But when he heard Wang Dian's question, the smile that Zhen Po had been barely managing to maintain vanished.

Wang Dian had tried to persuade them, but they hadn't done it.

His whole family had signed up, but he was the only one who had been chosen.

"They weren't selected."

Zhen Po never expected that he would face this kind of selection process. He was the only one in his family who had been chosen. Wasn't that too unethical?

But as they moved closer to the designated location, Zhen Po looked at the faces and figures of the people around him, and a bold idea gradually took shape in his mind.

At this moment, Zhen Po realized a possibility:

This selection was intentional!

There must be players among those in power.

And their meaning was obvious.

They wanted to protect those with the most ability and potential.

The elderly and children… had basically been abandoned by them.

On one hand, Zhen Po agreed with their approach, but on the other hand, his emotions couldn't accept it.

He couldn't let go of his family, even if it was just in the game. He couldn't make that kind of choice.

Zhen Po reached out and touched the backpack behind him, which was filled with many things his mother had packed for him before he left. His father's careful instructions still echoed in his ears.

"No matter what happens, taking care of yourself is the most important thing. Don't be impulsive. Your mother and I can take care of everything at home. You must put your health and safety first when you're out there. Your mother and I are waiting for your good news."

…

"I see Zhen Po and them!"

Mingmei and Lu Xiaoyao moved forward with the crowd. Lu Xiaoyao spotted Zhen Po in the crowd at a glance. Lu Xiaoyao had only met Wang Dian a few times and wasn't familiar with him, but they nodded to each other after she greeted them.

"Everyone was selected?"

After Lu Xiaoyao found an acquaintance, she looked around, hoping to meet someone else she recognized, at least from the neighborhood. Lu Xiaoyao remembered that there were quite a few of them.

"Some of them weren't selected."

Zhen Po sighed before finishing his sentence. He mentioned a few classmates he knew who had signed up enthusiastically, but they had all been rejected.

Wang Dian watched from the side for a while without mentioning Ye Qing's situation.

She had voluntarily given up on signing up. He didn't know what she was thinking. He could only respect her decision, and it wasn't something he could bring up and discuss with others.

It wasn't his place to take her choice as a topic of conversation.

"That's true. There are so many people in the country, and we players only make up a small portion. It's possible they were screened out."

Lu Xiaoyao felt it was a pity, and Mingmei also felt melancholy about it.

But there was nothing they could do. The game had to continue, and those of them who had been chosen were destined to keep moving forward.

However, what made Mingmei and the others uneasy was that after standing in line for so long, they didn't actually enter the starship until a whole day had passed.

And as soon as she entered, she was separated from Lu Xiaoyao and the others.

When Mingmei walked shoulder to shoulder with a large group of people into a huge space, the unease in her heart grew to its maximum.

This didn't seem like their real final destination.

Mingmei looked around. At a glance, it seemed to hold at least one hundred thousand people.

More than one hundred thousand people were here. Combining Mingmei's own time spent queuing, even with over a million people, she shouldn't have needed a whole day to queue.

Unless she was in a place that wasn't the final step, and the people behind her had stopped because they weren't moving forward.

Mingmei looked up at the cold, silver-gray dome above her head. There were no obvious exit signs on the surrounding walls.

[Ghost, genetic modification. With so many people in the same place, what method will they use?]

[There are many methods.]

Mingmei: ??

[But the effects aren't very good, and people are likely to die.]

[In this environment, with so many people, what method do you think would be the most…]

Just as Mingmei was about to ask Ghost what method they would use, she suddenly saw several things that looked like showerheads appear on the dome above her head.

[Host, is there anything else you want to ask?]

[I don't think I need to ask.]

Could she really not see it?

…

Pain.

It was as if all the bones in her body had been shattered, then thrown onto a charcoal fire and roasted at high temperatures for a long time. Mingmei felt like she had died countless times.

It was even more painful than when she went back to find Mu Chen and was almost crushed directly by the Heavenly Dao!

This kind of pain was amplified countless times while she was conscious. Just now, the mist sprayed from the countless showerheads above her head quickly filled the entire space.

Screams came from around her. Mingmei couldn't see her surroundings. She only felt her whole body start to burn and ache. Her eyes seemed to lose their vision in a short time due to high-pressure bleeding.

In the time that followed, she couldn't feel anything other than pain. She waited until the pain in her body gradually subsided, and the sounds in her ears gradually decreased from the initial screams to moans.

Moans for help.

The darkness and blood color in front of her gradually faded, and her five senses gradually returned. The heavy smell of blood at the tip of her nose made Mingmei hesitate to open her eyes.

[What happens if something goes wrong with genetic modification?] Mingmei couldn't help but slow down her breathing.

[You will die, the kind where there is no complete corpse. Host, open your eyes with confidence. I'll censor it for you.]

After Ghost considerately censored the scene for Mingmei, Mingmei opened her eyes. In the huge space, compared to the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds before, the people sparsely scattered in various corners seemed to gradually regain their senses.

"Ugh!"

Someone opened their eyes and vomited immediately.

The ground was covered with red, white, and yellow things, and the tip of her nose was filled with a strong metallic smell accompanied by a rotten smell. This was simply a disaster for everyone who had just recovered all five senses!

What they thought was a new lease on life turned out to be a hellish scene the moment they opened their eyes.

"Ah—!"

Compared to the people who woke up and vomited, more people couldn't accept the reality and screamed.

"How… how could this happen?"

Obviously, the survivors had realized that something was wrong, and even their emotions were vaguely collapsing.

Especially those who mixed some names into their cries.

How could anyone accept the sight of their friends, who were chatting with them just a second ago, turning into piles of rotten flesh after they lost consciousness?

Mingmei looked at those people's reactions and sighed softly. She lowered her head and saw that Ghost had put red mosaics everywhere, and then marked them as—[Failed evolution minced meat]

"How can there be dead people? People are dead!"

The surprise in that person's eyes couldn't be faked. Although other people present had reacted, they weren't like him. Mingmei vaguely noticed that most of the survivors were probably the people Mingmei had guessed.

And the minority who were crying and yelling and trying to leave were obviously ordinary people who had signed up and been chosen.

They had never been so close to death in their entire lives.

"Aren't you all afraid? Ah! Is there anyone? I'm not going, I'm not going to that outer space, let me go home, I want to go home, I want to go home!"

That person shouted madly for a long time, but found that the people around him seemed to be watching coldly. No one wanted to say anything to him. Compared to other people's outbursts, many people present were suppressing their emotions.

They were clearly holding back a surge of anger, but for various reasons, it wasn't the time to explode. Even if someone else was ranting and raving at this moment, they simply ignored him.

Mingmei saw that person stumbled to the wall, stepping on unknown pieces of minced meat, and kept hitting and shouting.

Calling for people to let him leave;

Scolding everyone here for being problematic;

Resenting that he had been deceived;

In short, everything he could complain about and curse was shouted out by him.

Originally, Mingmei wanted to tell that person not to waste his breath and that someone should be here soon when that wall suddenly opened a hatch.

The hatch slowly opened, and Mingmei saw an electronic robot standing in the center of the door.

At that moment, Mingmei clearly felt the robot's electronic eyes sweep over all the survivors around him.

Following the robot's gaze, Mingmei also saw the disappointment on the faces of some of the people present when they saw that it was just a robot.

It was as if they felt regret that they hadn't seen a real alien.

"I want to go home! Let me out!"

The person who had been pounding on the wall just now saw that the door was open and rushed out as if his life depended on it, regardless of whether a robot was standing at the door or not. Before they could stop him, they saw the robot raise its hand and shoot the person rushing over in the head.

The shot accurately hit the center of his forehead, and his brains splattered out along with the laser. The loud bang of the corpse falling to the ground and the robot's finger holding a lethal weapon caused everyone to fall silent.

[Number of people present: 537. Inventory complete. Please follow me to the next location.]

The robot didn't react at all to killing someone just now and coldly ordered everyone who had survived…