Chapter 180: Game of Life
None of those who planned to ambush him had expected him to appear in such a swaggering manner, even carrying a mocking tone of "everyone here is trash." They all swarmed forward.
However, the monster before them clearly possessed a nimbleness disproportionate to its size. Before the attacks reached it, it had already "flown" into the air.
Without any superfluous words, or rather, there wasn't even time to utter a complete sentence, the ranged Ability Users present once again organized a powerful offensive. Infrasound, fire, toxins—all types of attacks were unleashed.
But apart from the penetrating infrasound attacks, the other ranged attacks could only leave marks on the monster's outer shell.
"Infrasound is highly lethal to biological entities, but for a clone that's entirely an energy body, it's largely meaningless apart from slightly accelerating its energy loss."
"Though the effect is cool, it's useless." He continued to adhere to the villain's principle of dying from too much talking. "Its shell is made of various construction debris; it can just roll around on the ground and replenish as much as it wants. Your attacks are meaningless."
As soon as he finished speaking, he was immediately proven wrong. He felt the clone's outer shell loosen slightly, and it seemed someone was causing damage from within.
"Magnetic field?" Bai Mo quickly reacted, as the "stirring" elements were all metal products like rebar. He began to compete with the opponent's magnetic force using his own psychokinesis, constantly fixing the position of the rebar inside.
In the tug-of-war, both sides were like pulling an invisible rope, in a back-and-forth stalemate.
The materials forming its shell were replaced again and again, but the core clone remained unshaken.
After several rounds of probing calculations, Bai Mo discovered that the Ability User grappling with him using a magnetic field was essentially constructing a uniform magnetic field with variable size and direction through their Spirit Hub, but could only generate one magnetic field at a time, preventing superposition.
"This cumbersome body is still too slow." Because it constantly had to maintain a tens-of-tons heavy turtle shell, the clone's speed was suppressed to only a quarter of its original, but even so, it could still rival a sports car at full throttle.
Its massive weight, coupled with relatively high speed, made the monster a huge killing machine just by its sheer existence. If Bai Mo hadn't been completely devoid of killing intent, merely crashing around playfully, many of the Ability Users intending to encircle and kill him would have already been forced out of the fight.
It was just as he had initially described: like fighting a BOSS. The adventurers had strong output and were numerous, while the monster had high attack, high defense, an extremely long health bar, and was coincidentally a simpleton (it was simply messing around).
The battle thus devolved into a bizarre stalemate. And because of Bai Mo's full-map taunt, the ordinary people still in Orleans largely figured out what was happening outside and shared the information in various forms with others.
With the rapid spread of the internet, soon half of the United States learned that such a spectacle was unfolding in Orleans, Arizona. The relevant information gradually became clear—after the monster carried out the sensational "Hundred-Man Kill" in Orleans, it engaged in a major battle with the Robber Hoods who rushed to encircle it.
Many enthusiastic and righteous Ability Users, upon learning of the situation, indignantly headed to Orleans, intending to contribute to the encirclement. However, the United States government remained uncharacteristically silent on the matter, merely sending a few random soldiers from the action team to watch the show.
Over the next three days, Bai Mo's main body floated above the Pacific Ocean, while he allocated a thread to focus on playing the game, using a big meat shield to experience more interesting abilities in the United States.
The clone went from facing an encirclement of over twenty people at first, to over seventy on the second day, and over one hundred and fifty on the third. But the number of high-tier Ability Users truly qualified to join the fray remained largely unchanged; most of those who came were full of empty passion, believing themselves to be capable.
Only upon arriving at the scene did these individuals realize that the battle in the core zone was not something they could participate in at all; it was completely different from the broadcasts they had watched of the martial arts tournament.
The broadcast at the time, to accommodate the needs of most viewers, slowed the camera speed to one-fifth of the original, allowing everyone to clearly see the most thrilling duels, not just light and shadow effects. But this also gave some narrow-minded people the illusion that it was "nothing special."
A truly intense battle was not on the same speed level; without the qualification to participate, one couldn't even join, because both allies and enemies had instantaneous speeds starting in the triple digits.
In the high-intensity endurance battle, over a dozen high-tier Ability Users were forced to divide into three shifts, giving everyone some rest. After all, unlike the clone, which was entirely an energy mass with eight threads rotating control, their muscles would fatigue and their minds would be exhausted.
"What kind of monster is it?! Even a machine, running at such high intensity for three consecutive days, should have overheated and triggered an alarm," an Ability User said helplessly after finishing a round, letting a comrade take over for rest.
"Don't be disheartened, its output has also decreased significantly. We have more reserves who can come up, and we'll wear it down soon enough."
Three days of high-intensity output had also nearly depleted the clone's Spirit Energy. Although Bai Mo had used it carefully, rarely initiating active attacks, the continuous regeneration of its shell had mostly exhausted the Spirit Energy. In three days, nearly one-fifth of Orleans' buildings were disassembled by psychokinesis to serve as defensive material, only to be shattered into smaller fragments by various attacks.
"Game over..." After receiving another wave of attacks, the clone casually discarded its already incomplete outer shell, revealing its essence as a ball of light, then began to self-disintegrate, scattering countless motes of light.
The numerous "players" who had toiled for three days were moved to tears upon seeing this scene. By the late stage of the battle, what psychologically sustained their perseverance was no longer a sense of justice, but rather the obsessive-compulsive need to clear the level. They had been led astray by Bai Mo, treating this bitter struggle as a BOSS-farming script.
However, as the light cluster disintegrated to its end, it wickedly left behind a parting message: "To be continued...", leaving them feeling as if they had swallowed a fly.
After letting the energy-depleted clone dissipate on its own, Bai Mo, who had been immersed in the game for three days, finally floated back to Tianqing with his luggage, ready to embrace the brand new Huaxia Federation.
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