Chapter 1787

Chapter 1787 The Second Pure Land Project

Youli Longbai, relying on his memory, quickly navigated through the indoor venue and soon found the stairs leading underground.

At the same time, an invisible killing intent penetrated through the wall, closely following behind him. Just as Youli Longbai stepped onto the last section of stairs, a cold flash slashed out from nothingness, cutting toward the back of his head!

Youli Longbai gritted his teeth, quickly raising his long sword to block behind him, but he couldn’t clearly see the direction of the Invisible Assassin’s attack. With his body extremely weak, by the time the blade grazed his cheek, he had already staggered backward into the center of the underground chamber.

Youli Longbai looked up at his health bar, [1430/1600]

Originally, his health cap was 2100 points, but as the organ failure in his physical body became increasingly severe, his life force rapidly drained away, leaving him with only 1600 points now.

Although he blocked the Invisible Assassin’s strike, he still lost a significant amount of health. In his current physical state, he could no longer sustain intense face-to-face combat.

Youli Longbai spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, steadied himself in the center of the underground space, glanced at the Invisible Assassin security guard coming down the stairs, gritted his teeth, and rushed toward the dungeon where Lin Qiye was located!

“Longbai, are you alright?”

Lin Qiye, who had just returned from death, watched this scene with an extremely grave expression.

Youli Longbai’s lips were pale, and he had no time to answer. Ignoring the approaching Invisible Assassin behind him, he directly initiated the lock-picking game on the lock. As the three rollers’ patterns locked into place, a wooden board appeared beneath him.

“Objective: Complete the ‘Klotski’ puzzle within thirty seconds by moving twenty wooden blocks of various sizes to help ‘Cao Cao’ escape from the predicament.”

Seeing this prompt, Youli Longbai’s expression remained unchanged. He focused intently on the complex wooden board before him, and after a moment, began rapidly moving the blocks with his fingertips!

An invisible killing intent swiftly approached from behind!

One second, two seconds, three seconds… When the timer had just reached the fifth second, Youli Longbai completed the movement of the last wooden block, and the dungeon door automatically sprung open!

Without thinking, Youli Longbai lunged to the side. Simultaneously, a flash of blade light shot out from the dungeon at extreme speed, chopping toward the emptiness behind Youli Longbai!

Clang—!

Clang—!!

Under the [Absolute Invisibility] ability, Lin Qiye couldn’t see the Invisible Assassin’s form or the trajectory of the blade. This blind swing hit the hilt of the katana, while at the same time, the edge of the katana left a hideous bloody gash on his body.

As a damage notification floated above Lin Qiye’s head, his health bar instantly emptied by one-third. Under the [True Damage] skill, each of the Invisible Assassin’s strikes could ignore total health and deal percentage-based damage.

The Invisible Assassin’s form was also outlined. Without thinking, Lin Qiye swung his blade again!

When the second resonating sound rang out, the Invisible Assassin was already flying backward, spraying blood!

The Invisible Assassin’s health bar instantly emptied.

In less than two seconds, Lin Qiye and the Invisible Assassin had each exchanged a strike. The difference was that the Invisible Assassin’s strike didn’t kill Lin Qiye, while Lin Qiye’s strike directly killed the Invisible Assassin, who was as fragile as paper.

“Brother Qiye, are you okay?” Youli Longbai immediately asked.

“I’m fine… This guy’s skills somewhat counter mine, but in a one-on-one situation, he can’t kill me,” Lin Qiye said with a wave of his hand.

To prepare for the next [Group Photo] and [Support], the two quickly returned to the venue. At the same time, Shen Qingzhu descended from the air.

“Did you deal with those two?”

“No,” Shen Qingzhu shook his head.

“I circled the venue as you said and didn’t find any exposed sound equipment or wiring on the surface, but I found the main power switch. I crushed it to pieces, but not long after, it restored itself.

“Later those two security guards found me. The bald one’s invincibility skill is very troublesome. Fearing you two might encounter unexpected problems, I didn’t fight them to the death but flew away to temporarily shake them off.

Shen Qingzhu paused for a moment, then continued: “Also, there’s something I think you both should see.”

“What is it?”

Shen Qingzhu took the two of them flying to the top of the gymnasium. Seeing the surrounding city ruins, Lin Qiye and Youli Longbai frowned simultaneously.

“The background of this game… is indeed not as simple as it appears on the surface,” Youli Longbai remarked thoughtfully.

“Judging from the marks on the ground, this city must have undergone carpet bombing by missiles,” Lin Qiye carefully examined the surroundings and slowly said,

“There are no ordinary civilian corpses in the ruins, so they must have been evacuated in advance. These tank and fighter jet wreckages are mostly around the perimeter of the gymnasium, so the target must have been this place.”

Shen Qingzhu nodded, “I flew to higher ground and saw that the nearby cities were also mostly destroyed, though differently from here—they look like they suffered nuclear strikes.”

“Missile bombardment and nuclear strikes… could it be a world war?” Youli Longbai asked in surprise.

“If it were a world war, why would those tanks and planes surround this place?” Lin Qiye pondered for a moment, then continued, “I also found some things in the laboratory ruins underground.”

Lin Qiye took out a file from his pocket. The surface of the file was covered in cracks, and in its upper right corner, a photo of a young girl first caught everyone’s eye.

“Is that… Ai Meimei?” Shen Qingzhu immediately recognized the girl. Although she looked much younger than now, her features were still very similar.

Lin Qiye nodded, “Beneath this gymnasium was once a secret research facility dedicated to studying the conversion of human emotions into energy, and Ai Meimei was once one of their test subjects.

According to the records in this file, Ai Meimei performed exceptionally well in the experiments. Due to her excellent adaptability to the drugs and her ability to manipulate emotions, the facility even launched a new project based on her…

The specific content of the project isn’t clearly recorded in this file, but what can be confirmed is that the project was called… ‘The Second Pure Land.'”

Hearing these four words, Shen Qingzhu suddenly froze and turned to look at Youli Longbai beside him.

Youli Longbai stood bewildered.

“The Second… Pure Land?”

“That’s right,” Lin Qiye’s expression was somewhat complex. “Laboratory, drugs, Pure Land… these things should be very familiar to you.

The true background of this game isn’t just a simple fanatical concert. Essentially, it’s a continuation of the ‘Human Circle’ [Pure Land]… and also a continuation of you, the first artificial god who escaped from [Pure Land].”