Atop a high-rise building in Yin City, a slim man in casual clothing sat on the steps at the edge of the rooftop. His legs dangled over the side, his hands propped up his chin, and his back was slightly bent. His entire body swayed gently with the boisterous night breeze, as if he might fall at any moment.

He was Ji Jiu, Lv12, one of the players involved in this mission and a leader within the Datura Organization in Yin City.

Despite being a leader, Ji Jiu rarely handled related matters. Just four and a half months prior, he was merely a young man, fresh out of college and plunged into despair by the death of a family member. Consequently, Datura's affairs were largely managed by others.

"Mao Ziqiang, the person in charge of the southern district, was captured by the Special Affairs Bureau on an airplane three minutes ago. Kong Fang, the city's external liaison, who had received advance warning and was preparing to escape by speedboat, was intercepted by authorities at sea two minutes ago. Within Yin City, all four gathering places and seven underground strongholds have been successively swept clean by the Mobile Detachment."

The speaker was not Ji Jiu, but a man's head placed beside him. "Yin City's strongholds are done for," the head stated.

The talking head, named Zhi Jue, Lv12, was also a player and member of Datura on this mission.

"Losing the strongholds was part of the plan, merely sacrificing a pawn to save the chariot," Ji Jiu said indifferently. "I'd be more surprised if the Mobile Detachment *didn't* take action after such a significant incident."

"Hehe," Zhi Jue cackled. "They won't pry anything from them; those people are completely ignorant of the plan. By the time they discover the truth, I reckon the Bishop will have already undone the seals on the Demon Prison..."

CLANG—

A slender steel nail embedded itself deeply into the cement floor right before Zhi Jue's lips, spraying stone fragments onto his face.

"Shut up."

Ji Jiu maintained his precarious pose, his emotionless eyes quietly gazing at the bustling city lights. "The wind has ears. Focus on the task."

"..."

Zhi Jue licked his lips. He neither retorted nor grew angry; instead, he closed his eyes, held his breath, and concentrated.

Suddenly, without any warning, a colossal, perfectly round black sphere materialized in the distant southwestern sky of the city. It was nearly a kilometer high and extremely conspicuous.

"Found a team," Zhi Jue suddenly opened his eyes, his mouth twisting into a peculiar grin. "You were clever to guess that my fragmented body parts could still count as part of a player. Hanging my scattered pieces on drones, suspending them high in the air, and flying them in different directions across the city allowed us to use the technique's parameters from the mission briefing to detect other players' locations."

"Alas, we were too far from the Locator's position when the mission started; we definitely couldn't have reached it in time. If we had the Locator, we wouldn't have to go to such lengths to..."

CLANG—

Several steel nails embedded themselves in the ground around Zhi Jue's head, completely encircling him and cutting off his rambling.

Expressionless, Ji Jiu slowly stood up. Amidst Zhi Jue's protests, he grabbed the head by its hair, lifted it, and sprinted towards the black sphere, hurtling across the high-rise rooftops.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Ash was driving with his companions, racing towards the Locator's position.

"Found it."

Chuyin, seated in the back of the vehicle, was fixated on her computer screen.

Using SkyNet, she quickly located the surveillance cameras around the Locator's area and shouted to Ash in the front, "The Locator is in the corridor on the fifth floor of the Rehabilitation Hospital's inpatient building!"

On Chuyin's computer screen, a smooth, shiny silver circular metal mirror floated silently in mid-air in the corridor.

Patients, their families, and medical staff moved through the Rehabilitation Hospital's corridor, yet no one noticed the mirror.

"Ordinary people can't see the Locator item," Chuyin said hurriedly, breathing a sigh of relief. "No players have found it yet. We'll probably be the first ones there."

"Understood."

Ash floored the gas pedal, drifting the vehicle around a crossroads and into the street where the Rehabilitation Hospital was located.

The next second, everything changed color.

Sitting in the driver's seat, Ash was astonished to find that his surroundings—the streets, pedestrians, vehicles, buildings, plants, the sky—had all lost their color, turning a monotonous gray and white.

In his shock, the vehicle he was driving collided with an ordinary van to his left, crushing part of its front. Metal parts flew off and landed on the road behind them.

However, the ordinary-looking person driving the now gray-and-white van continued as if nothing had happened, their hands still calmly on the steering wheel.

The van, after separating from Ash's vehicle, quickly healed itself. The scattered metal parts flew back at great speed, adhering to the dented front like flowing sand, restoring the van to its original condition.

This must be... the Isolation Technique mentioned in the mission briefing.

Ash's expression changed drastically. The appearance of the Isolation Technique meant other players were now within one thousand meters of him.

Moreover, judging by the direction the Ball Technique was moving, the other team of players was steadily closing the distance.

"It's an ambush!" Ash roared. At the same moment, on the hospital corridor surveillance footage Chuyin was watching, a giant, dark-green Lepidopteran larva (caterpillar), its body covered in dense spikes, slowly crawled out from a blind spot.

It was as large as an adult human, its front half reared up like a snake as it writhed forward.

Chuyin's pupils dilated. She clearly saw a wristwatch, identical to the one on her own wrist, fastened to the caterpillar's chubby tail end.

It was a player...

The ordinary people in the corridor showed no surprise at the caterpillar's appearance. They continued their activities, ignoring it as it slowly approached the shiny silver mirror and plucked it from mid-air.

On Chuyin's wristwatch, the golden, diamond-shaped symbol representing the Locator vanished instantly. The next second, the System's prompt sounded in all players' ears:

[Special item Lunar Phase Locator has been acquired by player Gulu Lugu.]

"That's an insect player!" Chuyin shouted. "We're about one thousand five hundred meters from the hospital now! This Isolation Technique wasn't triggered by the insect; it must be its teammate!"

Being a step behind put them at a disadvantage. Ash had driven as fast as possible, but they were still too late. Not only had they failed to secure the special item, but they had also ended up dangerously close to an enemy team.

But he was, after all, a member of the Mobile Detachment. Realizing that the special item had been snatched by another player—an inhuman insect, no less—he made an instant decision: eliminate both the insect and its rapidly approaching teammates.