Free Web NovelWhenever players harbored hostile intent toward one another, spatial isolation would occur. So how had this thing managed to instantly knock his HP into the red?!
“The Siren’s Bone.” Bai Liu had no intention of hiding it. He openly lifted his shirt just enough for Mu Shicheng to glimpse the fish bone coiled around his waist. Before Bai Liu even noticed, the bone had already tightened several times around him, wrapping firmly around his waist and covering every inch of exposed skin.
Bai Liu answered candidly, “You should’ve already seen this item in my reward list.”
That was precisely why he didn’t bother concealing it. The system had already “displayed” the item publicly. Besides, with the existence of the [Live Stream] and the [Forum] Wang Shun had mentioned, the moment Bai Liu used the item in-game, everyone would learn about it sooner or later. There was no point hiding its abilities from outsiders.
His personal skill, however, was unique. That, at least, could remain hidden. It was a decent trump card, and Bai Liu intended to keep it secret for as long as possible.
That said, Bai Liu himself still didn’t fully understand the exact functions of the item. He needed to experiment with it. But testing it inside a game was far too risky—if it failed against a monster, he could die on the spot. The safest option was ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) to determine its functions outside the game first and only use it properly after entering one.
Experimentation required a subject. Bai Liu considered the trapped, half-dead Mu Ke an ideal candidate—especially given how obedient he currently was.
Originally, Bai Liu hadn’t intended to test it on Mu Shicheng. But Mu Shicheng’s hands had been too restless, and he’d touched it directly. That incident, however, made Bai Liu realize something important: the Fish Bone Whip could attack people even inside the system lobby. In other words, it truly possessed the ability to tear through space.
“Supposedly, it can rip through time and space. I’m planning to test it on Mu Ke.” Bai Liu glanced at Mu Ke’s small TV screen and casually raised the whip, preparing to strike.
Wang Shun immediately panicked again, utterly unable to keep up with Bai Liu’s train of thought. “Wait! Bai Liu, what are you doing?! What if you kill Mu Ke with one hit?!”
Mu Shicheng, meanwhile, instantly understood what Bai Liu intended and sneered. “So you’re trying to save him? How charitable.”
“No.” Bai Liu smiled faintly. “Not exactly saving him. I’m planning to make a deal.”
He pulled the Siren’s Bone from his waist, loosened his wrist with two light flicks, inhaled deeply, then brought the whip crashing down toward Mu Ke’s small television.
The moment he exerted force, Bai Liu felt as though his entire left arm weighed a thousand jin. The Siren’s Bone slammed against an invisible barrier before the screen and rebounded immediately. Yet despite the seemingly light strike, the ocean floor inside Mu Ke’s television trembled violently, and the screen flickered like a signal on the verge of collapse.
At the instant the whip landed, everything around Bai Liu shattered like glass. Mu Shicheng and Wang Shun blurred into distorted shadows, like figures on a malfunctioning television screen, their forms twisting and fading away.
Darkness swallowed Bai Liu whole.
Yet within that darkness, the sound of crashing waves from Mu Ke’s television became startlingly clear—as though Bai Liu himself stood beneath the sea. Alongside them came Mu Ke’s frantic sobbing, his hysterical cries thick with tears and mucus.
Mu Ke seemed to sense that someone had arrived beneath the sea, and he immediately began screaming for help.
“Someone save me!!” Mu Ke knelt weakly inside the damaged air bubble on the seabed, sobbing on the verge of collapse. “I’ll do anything!! Please save me!”
Bai Liu tried to swing the whip again, but the system abruptly issued a warning:
[System Warning: Using this item places an extreme burden on Bai Liu. Player Bai Liu’s physical strength can no longer sustain another use. Forced activation will reduce stamina below zero, resulting in compulsory repatriation and removal from the game.]
Bai Liu immediately abandoned the attempt.
[Am I currently in the same dimension as Mu Ke?]
[System: Calculating... Due to a certain attack, the dimensions of player Bai Liu and player Mu Ke have partially overlapped. Player Bai Liu currently exists within the crack between the two torn dimensions. Only sound may be transmitted; visuals cannot. Basic transactions may barely be conducted.]
“Sound...” Bai Liu murmured thoughtfully. Then he softly called out, “Mu Ke.”
Mu Ke instantly let out another wail, scrambling desperately inside the bubble on all fours like a stray dog.
“I’m here! Who are you?! Please save me!”
“I am a wanderer,” Bai Liu replied quietly.
Looking at Mu Ke’s tear- and snot-covered face on the television screen, Bai Liu found it difficult to associate him with the arrogant young Shàoyé who had once driven him out.
In a sense, Bai Liu had become a “poor wanderer” because of Mu Ke’s whim. freёwebnovel.com
And now, Mu Ke was desperately begging that same wanderer for salvation, while the wanderer himself intended to use a terrifying transaction to seize the last valuable thing Mu Ke still possessed.
A rather amusing cycle.
“I can save you, but not for free. I’m poor as well,” Bai Liu said honestly. “You’ll need to make a deal with me. In return, I’ll give you points to save your life. But you must give me something in exchange.”
“Okay! I’ll give you anything!! Please save me!!” Mu Ke cried, reaching helplessly toward a nonexistent god. “Are you a god? Or the system? Where are you?! What do you want?! Money? Anything else?! I don’t have anything with me right now, wu wu wu... please don’t abandon me! I want to live!”
“I’m not a god. Objectively speaking, I’m probably not a very benevolent existence for you either,” Bai Liu assessed himself with complete rationality.
He held no especially intense hatred toward this little Shàoyé—merely the ordinary level of dislike he reserved for people. But Bai Liu’s “ordinary dislike” was already something rather frightening.
“To you,” Bai Liu concluded matter-of-factly, “I’d probably qualify as a devil.”
“A devil...” Mu Ke flinched.
For a brief instant, his eyes went blank. Then, in the next moment, they blazed with desperate determination.
“Then do you want my soul? As long as you save me, I’m willing to offer it to you.”
The words I want your Siren’s Amulet stopped on Bai Liu’s lips.
His brows lifted slightly in surprise, intrigued by the entirely new proposal Mu Ke had offered.
Bai Liu did need the [Siren’s Amulet]. But at the same time, he also needed a test subject for the strange skill [Old Wallet]. One of the descriptions attached to [Old Wallet] stated that it could trade souls...
“Deal.”
Smiling faintly, Bai Liu withdrew two hundred points from his wrinkled wallet and handed them to Mu Ke through the television screen. The coin against his chest glowed briefly before the points vanished.
[System: Player Bai Liu has used 200 points to purchase player Mu Ke’s soul.]
[System Notification: Player Mu Ke has received a 200-point transfer.]
The moment Mu Ke saw the amount, he nearly burst into tears again.
“You really are a devil! I already sold you my soul, and you’re still this stingy?! Only two hundred points?! That’s nowhere near enough to buy items!”
“I am very stingy. I’m a poor wanderer, after all,” Bai Liu replied shamelessly. “But two hundred points, together with your damaged air bubble, should be enough to keep you alive—provided you follow my instructions. Open the system shop and buy alcohol. Yes, alcohol. And stop crying already. You’re louder than I am, didi.”
***
By the time Mu Ke successfully cleared the game, a brand-new coin had appeared inside Bai Liu’s wallet.
It resembled a Polaroid photograph. Printed on the front was Mu Ke’s gloomy smiling face, with [200 points] marked in the corner. On the back were the words:
[Soul Coin]
When Bai Liu scanned it through the system manager, an explanation appeared:
[Item: Player Mu Ke’s Soul Coin]
[Usage: You possess soul-debt ownership over player Mu Ke. You hold complete authority over player Mu Ke, including domination, regulation, cultivation, and obliteration.]
Domination. Regulation. Cultivation. Obliteration.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes.
Wasn’t that exactly the same authority the system possessed over players?
So this was what “soul-debt ownership” meant.
In other words, the system itself possessed soul-debt ownership over every player. Taking the thought one step further—didn’t that mean that the moment players entered this game, they had already sold their souls to the system?
Interesting.
Bai Liu asked:
[So from now on, am I essentially Mu Ke’s system? Between me and the official system, who holds greater authority over him?]
[System: Calculating... In the event of conflicting commands issued by the system and player Bai Liu to player Mu Ke, priority shall be given to the system due to player Bai Liu’s current insufficient strength.]
Tsk.
So in the end, it all came down to strength.
Did that mean that if he became strong enough in the future, he could even wrest control of Mu Ke away from the system itself? Perhaps someday, he might even seize authority over the system altogether.
For now, though, such thoughts were meaningless.
Bai Liu’s stamina had already bottomed out. The moment he stepped out of that pitch-black dimensional crack, dizziness overwhelmed him so violently that his knees nearly buckled beneath him.
Wang Shun hurried forward to support him.
“What happened to you just now? You swung the whip and then suddenly froze.”
Mu Shicheng, meanwhile, stared at Bai Liu thoughtfully.
“How did you do it? Mu Ke cleared the game using the exact same method you used before.”
