With all the current quest items collected, they were now just one step away from clearing the stage—killing those two bosses. The player free-for-all had caused such a huge commotion, yet those two bosses still hadn't shown up, nor did they make any move to wipe everyone out in one go… how strange.
Mu Anqi thought about it and figured those two bosses must not have recovered much yet. Plus, since they had already taken down the bat demon—no, the Duke of Night bats—it made sense that the bosses hiding in the dark didn't dare to act rashly, only watching from the shadows.
If she were the boss… then this group of defeated, heavily injured but not yet dead players would make excellent nourishment. Mu Anqi glanced at the still-withdrawn "Fence-Sitter Squad" and thought they would also make good bait.
Finding a new, spacious room, Mu Anqi stuffed all those players inside together. As for the bodies of the players who had already gone to the Nirvana Space to revive during the battle… Mu Anqi gave no chance for any monsters to exploit them. She chose to shake her little fire dragon and cremate the corpses—leaving not a trace of flesh or blood behind.
As for those six players, they clearly weren't any good people either. Since their combat abilities weren't crippled, and that guy in the baseball cap even had teleportation skills… Mu Anqi merely smiled at them and said, "If you don't want to go madly confessing to the bosses and say no fewer than ten lines of love to them, or uncontrollably grab the nearest same-gender player for a passionate kiss—then I suggest you behave yourselves and stay here as decent bait."
The fearless macho team captain suddenly shuddered, his expression terrified as he instinctively took a step back, putting some distance between himself and the guy in the baseball cap.
The baseball cap guy almost turned into a statue. He looked faintly at Mu Anqi and couldn't help but softly ask, "…Is your ability called 'Social Death Expert'?"
Mu Anqi gave a mysterious smile. Social Death Expert? That's nothing. She'd figured it out—she had money, and with money came freedom. Whatever she wanted to see, she could see! A rich woman with cash to burn—capricious, just like that.
Leaving this group of players here for now, Mu Anqi beckoned the baseball cap guy over, planning to borrow his skill. Now that they had bait, they also needed to be able to rush over in time.
Coincidentally, although the baseball cap guy had exposed his ability under surveillance before, during the actual gameplay—every time he tried to activate it at a critical moment, it never worked. Because of that, those bosses probably didn't even know he had teleportation powers. Truly, it left one speechless—perhaps it was fate?
And whenever something involved "fate," Mu Anqi couldn't help but glance at Zhao Guogu. Perhaps this too was within the "mascot's" calculations.
The baseball cap guy set up a teleportation array inside the room, then followed Mu Anqi, her group, and the five-person squad into the large room next door. This open-scheme tactic was used without any attempt to hide it… after all, hiding it would be pointless. As for his captain and the other players, they were left behind in the room as bait, together with the ones who had fainted, were injured, or had become delirious from the backlash of regret.
What they didn't know was that a small flying insect quietly slipped in through the crack under the door, stuck to the ceiling, and looked down from above, capturing all of the players in its view.
The macho team captain rested against the wall for a while, rubbed his stubbly chin, and suddenly spoke: "If he could hook up with that rich lady, that'd be great—bring her into our team…"
"Snap out of it," the female player beside him said earnestly, running her fingers through hair dishevelled from tunnelling through the earth. "Captain, it's still daylight."
It wasn't that no players wanted to run away—after all, who would want to be bait? But where could they run to? To clear the game, the ritual had to be completed, and all the ritual items… were in the hands of those two teams. Before leaving, Mu Anqi hadn't killed them. On the contrary, she had even said that if they behaved and cooperated as bait, once the ritual was complete and the passage to clear the game appeared, they could tag along and clear it too.
The boss had conquered them completely through sheer "financial power," "combat strength," and "skill floor." Even players who had thoughts of running away wouldn't dare act on them. They only sat there silently, full of regret: why had they been so blinded by greed…?
If they'd just stayed quietly in the apartment, passing the days without being beaten or hurt, wouldn't that have been fine? The difference between players… was truly immense.
On that side, some players were pretending to be dead, some were questioning life, and others had completely given up on themselves. Zhao Guogu held the screen in her hand, taking everything in. "Those two bosses probably won't come this soon—they might wait until midnight."
"Let's rest in turns and recover our strength." Their amount of fighting today had clearly gone beyond their limit; to say they weren't tired would be a lie. Even with that group mental immunity skill, Wu Sansheng could still feel a trace of fatigue—but she always restrained her emotions and never showed it.
As she said this, Wu Sansheng turned to the five-person team. "This one…"
"Chen Niannian." The telekinesis ability team captain introduced herself, then clarified the exact characters of her name for Wu Sansheng and the others. After that, she introduced her teammates one by one. For example, the buzz-cut guy whose ability manifested as silver rods and operated over an area was named Zheng Hanyu. The magician was Gu Miao. The male player who could wave his hand to form an invisible shield but had such low presence he was easy to overlook was Ke Chen. And the cool female player with eight-pack abs and long legs, who could effortlessly lift two massive iron hammers, was Lin Qiongli.
Mu Anqi's group also introduced themselves in turn. The guy in the baseball cap, who had been dragged over to serve as a teleportation tool, couldn't help but speak up too: "My name's Li Lianfeng—Li as in 'wood Li,' Lian from 'pitiful,' and Feng from 'maple.'"
Hmm… yet no one responded.
Who cared what the tool guy's name was? Calling him "the baseball cap guy" or "the teleportation player" was plenty.
The surveillance screen was set on the table. Mu Anqi's group and the other team reached an agreement: they would take turns resting. The ones keeping watch would monitor the screen while also keeping an eye on the baseball cap guy—it felt a bit like working the night shift in a security room.
They really did end up waiting until midnight.
…
The Poison Toad and the Corpse Ghost had met privately before. The Corpse Ghost had already noticed that the small "distractions" it had set up hadn't hindered the players at all. Even though the game's planners had added an extra immunity-to-control buff, the Night bat still ended up dead… which left both bosses deeply alarmed.
They had also watched the battle between the players. In their eyes, those heavily injured players were nothing more than fresh, warm supplies—but not easy to obtain. It wasn't that they hadn't considered taking advantage, but those four teams of players were simply too weak. The other two teams had joined forces against them and won easily! And that ability to control people just by reciting a blessing—utterly broken. They themselves had no immunity to control; if they showed up, they'd be killed for sure. As for the restrictions…
The Corpse Ghost was agitated: "Go poison her mute!"
"She's got a player by her side with a poison-warding pearl," the Poison Toad sighed. "My poison can't get through."
And so, the two bosses could only watch helplessly as Mu Anqi and her group cremated the corpses of the dead players, then stuffed the remaining powerless ones into a single room to serve as bait.
It was obviously bait—so blatant it didn't even try to hide it. They had gathered all those players together, openly luring them in. And yet… they couldn't resist the temptation.
If they didn't kill players, their strength would be hard to recover. The more players they killed, the better their condition would get, and only then would they have a chance to take down that demon squad. But if they went… they might just die for nothing.
The Corpse Ghost gritted its teeth and couldn't help secretly contacting the Planner Ghost, wanting to know what the higher-ups meant. Were they supposed to sacrifice themselves, or play it safe?
"…The purpose of this game is for you to bring fear to the players! To make them tremble day and night in the terror of death, to grit their teeth, break their limits, find items, and struggle desperately against you—even sacrifice their teammates if they must!" The Planner Ghost's face had gone green. "It's not for the players to scare you! Not for you to be so terrified that you don't even dare make a move!"
"I understand all that, but… we just can't beat them," the Corpse Ghost replied helplessly.
The Planner Ghost: "…Do whatever you want, your pay stays the same." The Planner Ghost was powerless to change anything. No matter how absurd things got, he couldn't just turn the Corpse Ghost and Poison Toad into high-tier bosses capable of annihilating those outrageously overpowered players. Besides… those players had connections—and they were watching the live broadcast from the audience seats. He couldn't afford to go too far.
Forget it—might as well treat it as entertainment. In all those games that the "money tree" invested in, weren't the ghosts always turned into jokes to amuse everyone? That still counted as emotional value, after all.
Just then, he suddenly sensed something and shot to his feet, looking outside. He couldn't see what had happened on the Shattered Mirror Continent, but he could feel the direction—"Who… just broke through?"
A breakthrough into the Kaiyuan Stage, no less. Impressive. Judging from the fluctuation of yin energy, it was clearly a great ghost from the Taiyin side.
Heh, another point for Taiyin!
Thinking that, he hurriedly shoved his dropped tongue back into his mouth, turned his attention back to the game, and resignedly stopped struggling—just watching those two idiot bosses sneak up on the players.
As the two bosses tried to suppress their aura and slipped in through the window, a faint poison mist from the Poison Toad inevitably seeped inside. At that moment, Wu Sansheng, who was watching the monitor, narrowed her eyes—and in the next instant, the silver bell faintly trembled. Clearly, a boss was drawing near.
"The fish took the bait."
Switching from rest mode to combat mode only took one minute. Even better, the two bosses had come in after midnight—which meant… the buzz-cut guy, Zheng Hanyu, could use his area restriction skill again.
"Hold on a moment, let me seal this area first." He pulled out a silver rod, tossed it down the corridor, and quickly chanted three incantations in a low voice as he activated his skills one after another. "Area Purification, poison disperse!"
"Area Confinement, no escape!"
"Area Amplification, range expand!"
With the three skills unleashed in succession, the silver pillar shot up and pressed against the ceiling, standing in the corridor like a load-bearing column. Ripples spread outward in waves, wrapping the entire tomb apartment within their range.
"Now they can't get away," Zheng Hanyu said with a relieved smile. Clearly, he had never gotten over the fact that the Poison Toad had escaped from him before. Having used all three of his skill activations at once this time, he didn't believe that toad could sprout wings and fly away again!
At that moment, the baseball cap guy activated his marker, instantly enveloping Mu Anqi and the others within it. In the next instant, they appeared directly inside the players' room—face to face with the sneaky Corpse Ghost and Poison Toad, who had still been trying to act low-key.