"What did Lucas use to eliminate the pain? Was it simply because the knife was so fast?"
"No… it has to be something else. He's done too many hidden tasks before. It must be the effect of a certain special reward he obtained."
The broadcast cameras could not remain focused on a single player, no matter how shocking his performance was. Even after the gripping scene involving Lucas concluded, the system quickly switched its feed to show the other contestants.
And yet… it didn't matter.
Because no one was paying attention to the home screen anymore.
Everyone was still talking about Lucas.
> [Player Lucas' popularity has skyrocketed! He now ranks 10th in the finals.]
Even the clownish host, who normally filled the stage with exaggerated gestures and endless chatter, found himself distracted. His eyes moved away from the central feed and locked onto the popularity ranking list.
"Wow! This is the first time I've ever seen such a rapid rise! Player Lucas is getting more and more exciting!!" the host exclaimed, his voice filled with genuine astonishment.
Lucas, meanwhile, paid no attention to the chatter. He calmly walked toward Andrew, one of his nervous teammates, and handed him a sealed crisper box.
"I'll continue cutting," Lucas instructed softly. "You take this to the delivery window."
Andrew froze, as though he had just been handed a live explosive. His hands trembled violently as he accepted the box. His eyes darted toward Lucas, toward this man who had spoken so little since the start of the trial.
Who exactly was he?
Lucas followed every instruction from the team leader to the letter. He rejected anything that was not fresh, discarding any material that was stale or unfit for use. His focus was cold and meticulous.
"You can't have stale liver," Lucas muttered under his breath, as if repeating a sacred rule.
He chose only the strongest, healthiest-looking men and women, carefully selecting those who met the physical requirements. Then, with surgical precision, he extracted what he needed.
Fresh livers, one after another, were placed neatly into the crisper boxes.
And here lay the most terrifying part—
Every single person whose liver was removed by Lucas wore a smile.
> "It really doesn't hurt at all!"
The phrase spread through the group like wildfire. Those who had once trembled at the thought of this grotesque ritual suddenly looked at Lucas with eager eyes.
Once word spread that Lucas' knife technique caused no pain, more people began to volunteer.
"I want to go next! I don't know how many chances I'll ever have to experience something this rare!"
"I don't want to miss this opportunity either!"
The farm, once shrouded in dread, was suddenly filled with laughter and bizarre joy. People lined up eagerly, as though awaiting a privilege rather than an execution.
Not a single liver selected by Lucas was deemed unqualified.
Andrew watched in a daze as Lucas raised the knife again and again, each movement smooth, decisive, and without hesitation. Each time the blade descended, another liver was extracted, and another smiling face was added to the tally.
It was terrifyingly surreal.
Andrew's thoughts became tangled. A sense of dissonance gnawed at him.
> "It feels like… this is actually normal?"
The moment the thought formed, he shivered violently. His mind screamed at him: this is not normal! But the scene unfolding before him blurred the line between horror and acceptance.
---
At exactly eleven o'clock, all operations in the food factory stopped. The team leader arrived, his boots clicking loudly on the floor as he inspected the group's progress.
When he saw the fifty completed and qualified livers, his face lit up.
"Good! Very good!" he declared, clapping his hands together.
"I originally thought you'd need until evening to finish the task. I didn't expect it would be completed already!"
Andrew felt a pang of guilt as the leader praised them. Those fifty livers—he hadn't done a thing. They were all thanks to Lucas.
"You can rest this afternoon," the leader announced cheerfully. "Tomorrow you'll continue working here. Don't worry, I'll handle the task assignment myself."
Andrew's mouth went dry. Rest? Tomorrow he would once again have his liver cut out. The praise felt hollow, almost mocking.
But Lucas, standing beside him, nodded calmly, responding in a pleasant tone as though the words were nothing unusual.
For Lucas, this arrangement was nothing but a blessing.
> "I need the privilege of working in the food factory. It allows me to kill prison guards without being dragged into the confessional. This is the perfect loophole."
---
Midnight.
The system's cold voice echoed throughout the players' minds.
> [System Prompt: The second day of the qualifying round has ended. The following players have been eliminated.]
Player Shen Rong – Overall Score: B+
Player Zhong Junchu – Overall Score: B
Player Shi Bin – Overall Score: A-
Player Wei Jingdan – Overall Score: A
> [Remaining players in the finals: 12/19]
"The number of eliminations increased today," Lucas murmured.
He lay on his bed, gripping a kitchen knife like a comfort object. The houses to his left and right were now empty, their occupants already gone. Yet he could not feel safe.
> "The danger in this copy will only continue to rise in the next few days."
Closing his eyes, Lucas forced himself to remain vigilant. His ears strained for the faintest sound, his mind sharp despite his exhaustion.
At three in the morning, footsteps echoed faintly along the deserted street, instantly waking him.
He rolled silently from his bed and crept to the window.
There, beneath the pale moonlight, marched several prison guards. Each one dragged a small cart behind them. The wheels had been specially treated, their rolling nearly silent.
But it wasn't the guards that caught Lucas' attention.
It was the contents of the carts.
Bodies.
Twisted, mangled, strange. All of them prison guards themselves.
System messages flickered before Lucas' eyes:
> [Modeling…]
[Verne Town Staff: Advanced Danger]
[Verne Town Staff: Advanced Danger]
[Verne Town Staff: Advanced Danger]
[Bodies of Verne Town Staff: No Danger]
[Bodies of Verne Town Staff: No Danger]
The voices of the guards drifted faintly through the night.
"Have all the corpses in the town been collected?"
"Yes. Surveillance is in place. These are all the corpses for today."
"Good. Then let's move quickly. We mustn't miss the time."
The guards disappeared slowly down the street, their carts rattling softly until the sound faded away.
Lucas narrowed his eyes.
> "Everything outside is under surveillance. It's too dangerous to follow them blindly."
He opened the in-game mall, filtering the search by relevance. Only one eligible product appeared.
> [Eligible Item Found: 1]
[Cost: 1,000,000 points. Purchase?]
[Yes.]
> [Item Name: Assassin's League Telescope]
[Type: Plot-related Prop]
[Quality: Excellent]
[Attack Power: None]
[Attribute: None]
[Note: Have you heard of bullets that can turn? The Assassin's League telescope can also turn. As a key prop in the "Assassin's League" copy, its price far exceeds its intrinsic value.]
A sleek pair of curved telescopes materialized in Lucas' hands. He raised them to his eyes.
The moment his vision reached the end of the street, the telescope's sight curved, following the path as the guards turned right.
There, a narrow alley stretched ahead, hemmed in by high stone walls. The guards stopped at the very end, standing before a towering barrier. Branches from trees outside the town draped down from beyond the wall, whispering in the night breeze.
One guard stepped forward and knocked three times.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The wall rippled.
Lucas blinked, thinking his eyes deceived him. But no—it was real.
The surface of the wall shimmered like water. The solid stone became transparent, waves of distortion spreading outward. The branches vanished as the wall faded.
And what replaced it was no longer the outside world.
Instead, there stretched an endless abyss of black.
From that darkness rose a massive structure—a giant square pipe, blacker than night, soaring straight upward until it pierced the heavens.
Lucas' heart pounded as he stared.
> The Town of Verne was not what it seemed. Beyond its walls lay not freedom, but something infinitely stranger and more terrifying.
--------------------
Visit our Patreon for more:
Get membership in patreon to read more chapters
Extra chapters available in patreon
patreon.com/Dragonscribe31
----------------------------------------------------- .