The witch's mood plummeted, like the Titanic sinking, sinking...

The North Wind God alone was difficult to deal with enough. That woman could summon missiles, artillery, heavy machine guns, autocannons, and other modern firearms out of thin air.

As well as some near-future, terrifyingly powerful individual weapons.

Dealing with her would inevitably cause a huge disturbance, attracting those ubiquitous deformed creatures.

And Balalaika was the strongest in the entire GRU parapsychology department.

During the Sky Arena and the Corridor of Realms, the Syndicate members exchanged information about the opponents they encountered. The witch still remembered Tai Hao's evaluation of Balalaika.

"That woman? Uh, she's pretty strong. Although I beat her in a one-on-one fight, neither of us was really serious. Her true strength is definitely more than eighteenth place. If any of you—except for 失控 (Shi Kong, meaning 'out of control')—encounter her alone, it's best to run away as fast as you can, or call for help..."

As the chief disciple of the Syndicate, Tai Hao rarely gave outsiders such a high evaluation, which made a particularly deep impression on the witch and others.

*Click.*

The sound of a magazine being loaded came from behind.

Balalaika's eyes were half-closed, seemingly listless. She had a cigarette in her mouth, and her hands held a Stechkin Aps automatic pistol, the muzzle pointing at the witch's back.

Clearly, that automatic pistol seemed ordinary in spirit sense detection, without any extraordinary power fluctuations, and did not trigger any early warning from protective equipment.

But the witch's heart was ringing alarm bells, her body hair standing on end, and a feeling of being targeted by a carnivorous predator arose spontaneously.

She would die.

If she was hit by that gun, she would die.

"..."

The witch's movements froze in place, and the pendant on her wrist, emitting a faint light, gradually dimmed.

She slowly raised her hands, indicating that she had no hostility, while looking at the North Wind God in the distance, she said expressionlessly, "I have an automatically triggered warning device on me.

If I am under a fatal threat, and I lose my free, independent, and conscious will, it will instantly and forcibly awaken me, making me automatically surrender and quit the game.

So no matter what you want to do, you can't threaten me, or I'll just quit."

"Is that so? Then why don't you just quit?"

Balalaika grinned and casually released the Aps—the black automatic pistol did not fall to the ground, but floated in the air, the muzzle still pointing at the witch, "Don't worry, if we wanted to kill you, we would have done it already."

The witch's face darkened, and she said sternly, "Then what do you want?"

Balalaika gave the North Wind God in the distance a look. The latter put away the sci-fi-style near-future sniper rifle in his hand, lightly stepped on the broken stone steps, and glided down to the witch, shining a flashlight on the belt around the witch's waist.

23:29:33

The countdown on the three people's belts was exactly the same.

"As expected, it's the same..."

Balalaika murmured, took a puff of her cigarette, the fire at the tip flickering with her breathing.

The witch subconsciously asked, "What?"

"Time."

Balalaika pointed to her own belt and said lightly, "This thing is indeed a life-saving tool to protect players from the creatures of the script world, and it is also a speed limiter for the slaughter game to drive players to kill each other."

Seeming to notice the expression on the witch's face, Balalaika slowly said in a magnetic, lazy voice, "The creatures of the script world I'm talking about are not the donkey-headed men and horses you see, but other, stronger things.

Compared to those things, the donkey-headed men and horses are just mindless, weak ants..."

Balalaika chuckled, looked down at the witch's gloomy expression, and said casually, "You should be trying to contact the other members of the Syndicate now, right?

Sorry, these floors of the building can absorb most forms of free energy.

Short-range communication is fine,

But long-distance communication is impossible.

We've already tried it.

So don't think about having your companions come to save you.

Also...."

Balalaika looked at the witch, who was a head shorter than her, and smiled, "You don't have to worry about me and my companions snatching the crystal powder in your belt for now."

The witch said expressionlessly, "What do you mean?

According to you, isn't the powder in the belt able to protect players from certain monsters?

Each person only has enough powder for 24 hours, forcing player groups to kill each other from the very beginning, snatching powder to buy themselves time.

Or are you planning to hold me hostage? Use me to force the other members of the Syndicate to surrender and hand over their powder?

You're going to be disappointed.

Players can freely choose to surrender and quit in this stage, and the others won't surrender for my sake..."

"You're wrong."

Balalaika shook her head and pointed to the huge number 37 on the wall next to her, "This is the thirty-seventh floor of the building, and we escaped from a certain pipe on the thirty-ninth floor.

In other words, this building has at least forty floors of actual space, each of which is vast and difficult to communicate in.

In this situation, with the players so scattered, there's definitely no way to find other players in a very short time and obtain the powder to maintain the identity verification emitter.

300 players, 24 hours each, living here for 168 hours, and ultimately 50 will win.

A simple math calculation will reveal that even if all the time powder is combined, it's not enough for 50 people to survive for 168 hours.

If we try to guess the intent of the slaughter game by working backward, we can get a possibility..."

The witch's mind raced, and she immediately reacted, "One, there simply isn't enough powder. Even if players kill each other, they will inevitably run out of all the powder they find after four to five days, and then be attacked.

At that time, most of the survivors will be hunted down.

Two, there isn't enough powder, but players can obtain protection by occasionally adding powder. During the time when there is no powder to replenish, they need to hide and avoid danger.

Three, in addition to killing each other, players can also obtain a small amount of powder replenishment from the script world through other means, so that they can survive for seven days..."

"That's right, you're really smart."

Balalaika nodded, "The first and second possibilities are unlikely. If you've seen the so-called 'security guards' on the 39th floor slaughtering the deformed constructs,

You'll know that even the top fifty players will have a hard time surviving in the encirclement of the security guards.

Therefore, the third possibility is the most likely.

Some places on this map contain the crystal powder that maintains the device, as well as information that can let us understand the world view setting of the map itself.

In other words, as long as we can find supplies, we have no necessary reason to eliminate you and obtain the powder on your body—you are a good helper in battle, and also a Syndicate hostage.

No matter what, Shi Kong and Tai Hao won't turn a blind eye to your death, and may even form an alliance with us to jointly deal with the crowded European Heavy Industries Group—

The latter must have also guessed what I'm thinking, and at this time they have already started to form gangs and look for certain instruments and devices in the floors.

You still have value to us."

"Heh."

The witch curled her lips, just as she was about to say something sarcastic, she heard a thunderous explosion from the far distance.

*Boom!!!*

A blazing sword of flames, hundreds of meters long, pierced through the metal roof of the firmament,

Shining an incomparably dazzling light into the 37th floor, which had been dim for who knows how long.

*Whirring sound.*

After one strike, the blazing sword of flames slowly disappeared, and the fiery red molten steel melted by the blazing sword fell dripping down, like a crimson waterfall.

Through the cracked seams of the firmament, one could see the dark and dim space above the roof.

Michael's Sword of Flames...

The witch took a deep breath. Just now, with her eyesight, she couldn't recognize the exact length of this sword of flames, and guess which floor Michael was on,

And where she was, facing what, when she swung this sword.

"No matter how many times I see it, it's still spectacular...."

Balalaika looked at the rapidly cooling fiery red molten steel, sighed, then waved her hand, motioning for the witch and the North Wind God to follow her and walk in the opposite direction of the Sword of Flames.

"Hmm?"

The witch glanced at the crack in the firmament behind her, shifted her attention from the floating gun pointing at her, and looked at Balalaika and asked, "Aren't you looking for someone to form an alliance with? Go find Michael!"

"The emissaries of God who walk among men will not care about the views of mortals."

Balalaika said lightly, "How could the emissaries of God ally themselves with mortals?"