The black sedan, pushed to its limits, sped down the streets, drifting sharply through each intersection. Although it didn't cause any car accidents, the panic-stricken screams of pedestrians and the frightened, angry shouts from other drivers were just as prevalent.

Liu Wu Dai's face was taut. She didn't even need to think about it; at this very moment, the Special Affairs Bureau had to be using the Skynet System to track their vehicle's real-time position. Even if they abandoned the car and fled, they would be captured by the omnipresent surveillance cameras. Perhaps even now, Mobile Detachments at various Special Affairs Bureau bases were already geared up, determined to capture them and bring them to justice.

Sigh, stay calm, stay calm.

Liu Wu Dai resisted the urge to slam the steering wheel with a BANG! and took a deep breath. Glancing at Li Ang in the rearview mirror, she said in a low voice, "The Special Affairs Bureau is already preparing for our full-scale capture. We need to switch vehicles, change our appearances, and assume new identities."

"What's your plan?" Li Ang raised an eyebrow. In his inventory, he had a Ducati V4 motorcycle that had been heavily modified (guaranteed unrecognizable), the Origin of Life, and various disguise props.

If necessary, he could just duck into a sewer, public restroom, or a small grove of trees, and emerge as a completely different person—height, weight, hairstyle, pupil color, arm and leg length, even gait, all completely changed. Not even ten Skynet Systems could find him. He could then calmly ride his motorcycle and easily evade pursuit.

He asked Liu Wu Dai in return, curious to see what kind of backup plan this wealthy young lady, whom he hadn't seen in a long time, had up her sleeve.

If it weren't for their conflict with the Special Affairs Bureau, Liu Wu Dai could have directly used the helicopter on her company's rooftop or called a friend to deploy a news helicopter or a tourist company's sightseeing helicopter, allowing her to survey the city from above and track enemies.

But there were no 'if onlys' now.

Now, if Liu Wu Dai dared to take to the skies in a helicopter, the Mobile Detachment would dare to shoot her down. After all, Players were durable and had plenty of life-saving skills and emergency first-aid measures.

Fortunately, aside from helicopters, the Liu Family had also established seven or eight emergency shelters in various corners of the city. Some of these shelters were underground, some in office buildings, some far out in the suburbs, and some even near Special Affairs Bureau bases. Ever since learning the secrets of the Killing Game, the Liu Family, being a financial conglomerate, naturally prioritized the family's survival.

Even a cunning rabbit has three burrows, so it was only logical for the Liu Family, with their manpower, resources, and wealth, to construct numerous shelters. In fact, Liu Wu Dai had privately established even more secret safe houses than the family had.

She sharply turned the steering wheel, driving the car into the underground parking lot of a nearby shopping mall. Simultaneously, she took out a tablet, tapped it a few times to disable all surveillance cameras in and around the parking lot, then crushed the tablet and stored it in her inventory.

Both the mall above ground and the underground parking lot had been purchased in a friend's name and designed from the outset with the potential to serve as safe havens; all nearby surveillance cameras could be disabled with a single command.

Currently, a significant portion of the surveillance data used by the Special Affairs Bureau's Skynet System came from civilian cameras, and this area happened to be one of the Bureau's blind spots.

Liu Wu Dai parked the car, turned, and pulled out a box from beneath the front passenger seat. From it, she took out disguise items: she put on a wig, applied a flesh-colored gel-like substance to her face to alter her features, slipped on a jacket, and changed into a pair of uncomfortable height-increasing shoes. (The ill-fitting shoes would passively alter her gait, preventing gait-recognition software from identifying her.) In no time, she had transformed her appearance into that of a plain, Japanese-styled country girl who was actually quite pretty on closer inspection.

Li Ang didn't dawdle. He gave Miss Chai a subtle signal, then with an almost imperceptible touch to the back of the Qinge Armor's gauntlet, had Miss Chai merge into his body. After stowing away the Qinge Armor, he took disguise props from his inventory and, like Liu Wu Dai, completely changed his appearance. He transformed into a tall, rich, and handsome young man with a commanding presence—

Too bad Liu Wu Dai was here; otherwise, using the Biological Template, he could have created an even better disguise.

Her transformation complete, Liu Wu Dai got out of the sedan and into a smaller, red Mini Cooper she had previously stashed in the parking lot. With Li Ang beside her, she drove out, using the surveillance blind spot created by her tablet hacking to merge into the traffic flow.

"We can't stay in one place for too long," Liu Wu Dai said softly. "First, the Mobile Detachment could discover us at any moment. Second, because..."

Li Ang finished her sentence, "Because Gulu Lugu and his group have a Lunar Phase Locator. If they're cunning enough, they could evade the Special Affairs Bureau's pursuit while anonymously tipping off the Bureau about other Players' exact locations, using the Bureau to eliminate all hostile Players."

"..." Liu Wu Dai nodded silently, stopping the car at a red light in observance of traffic laws. She murmured, "I've never seen the Special Affairs Bureau this frantic. Whatever anomaly has occurred in Yin City, it must be extremely critical."

"Who knows." Li Ang narrowed his eyes and glanced at his watch. "The first barrier contraction is coming soon. Be ready. We'll keep circling near the barrier's edge until I lock onto Gulu Lugu and his group's position. That's when we strike back..."

John Joyce imperceptibly glanced at his wristwatch, turned over, and adjusted the newspapers covering him, trying to get a little warmer. He was currently huddled in a makeshift shelter of cardboard boxes and newspapers beneath a bridge in Yin City, along with six or seven other homeless individuals. The hum of cars passing overhead made it difficult to sleep.

He was a Caucasian man in his early thirties, though his disheveled hair and grimy face made his features almost unrecognizable. His wretched appearance made it difficult to imagine John Joyce's illustrious past. He was an American with one-quarter Great Britain ancestry; both his parents were highly educated intellectuals.

In high school, he had been an athletic star, the prince charming in countless girls' dreams. In college, he attended an Ivy League school, thrived on campus, and was on track to become an outstanding lawyer working at his uncle's law firm after graduation.

Until the day the CIA came to his university to recruit... John Joyce, who should have become a distinguished lawyer, was instead recruited as an intelligence officer because he had hooked up with a female CIA employee in a bar the night before.

He underwent CIA training, passed numerous tests, and was on the verge of being sent abroad to make his mark as a legendary agent. Then, due to an entanglement with his superior's ex-wife, he was dispatched to the godforsaken backwaters of Africa. There, he performed a menial clerical job at the U.S. Embassy Foreign Affairs Office, all the while having to be careful not to contract any diseases.

If it hadn't been for the Killing Game, this half-baked intelligence officer would likely have languished in a low-level position at the Foreign Affairs Office for another ten years. He would have waited for a chance to return to the States, hastily marry some woman back home, and rely on alcohol to get through his midlife crisis and domestic trivialities, all while reminiscing late at night about the series of mishaps that had derailed his once-glamorous life.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the Killing Game selected him, allowing him, at the age of thirty-three, to embark on a new, extraordinarily exciting life.

He became a Player. Adhering to the principle of caution, he continued to work at the Foreign Affairs Office, collecting relevant information, while simultaneously resolving supernatural incidents in Africa to raise his Player level.

The first to notice his unusual activities wasn't the Foreign Affairs Office or the CIA, but a multinational corporation from the United States called the Prometheus Laboratory Company. The Prometheus Laboratory Company, possessing formidable strength and an unfathomable background in the United States, poached John Joyce directly from the Foreign Affairs Office. They hired him with generous benefits and sent him to their base in Yin City as a member of their strategy team, tasked with assisting in the collection of data related to the Killing Game and, in his spare time, cooperating with research institutions on various experiments.

As a semi-competent intelligence officer, John Joyce keenly sensed that something was amiss. The Prometheus Laboratory Company was definitely not as harmless as it appeared on the surface. Their depth of involvement in the Killing Game was likely no less than that of any other major organization.

An hour ago, he had received a mission notification from the Killing Game. He found another teammate, Martin (a colleague who also worked for the company), and the two of them used their special Player abilities to easily leave the employee building. They also took a small batch of supplies and equipment from the company warehouse without authorization. After all, this mission forbade seeking outside help, and the company was desperate to collect mission data; as long as they completed the mission, these 'indiscretions' would be overlooked.

As John Joyce and Martin had anticipated, having 'borrowed' abundant supplies and equipment from the company, they naturally held an absolute advantage in this mission. Even if they didn't hunt down many other Players, self-preservation, at least, should have been guaranteed.

But who could have predicted that, half an hour ago, an unknown Player, using an arm attached to a drone, would trigger the Ball Technique mentioned in the mission briefing and pinpoint their location? And that Player's teammate—an unassuming, slender young man—had descended from the sky and slammed his fist onto the hood of John and Martin's SUV, disabling the vehicle, which was as heavy as an armored car, with a single blow.

Before John could retaliate, the young Eastern man—who was carrying what looked like his teammate's severed head—used some sort of skill through the car window, riddling Martin's head with steel spikes until it resembled a hornet's nest.

John, after an arduous struggle, barely managed to escape their pursuit. He fled all the way to the underside of this bridge, where he disguised himself as an ordinary homeless man, silently praying his pursuers wouldn't find him too quickly.

According to the earlier System broadcast, the System would announce Player deaths. This meant that Martin, whose head had been riddled with holes like a candied hawthorn skewer, was not actually dead yet... He had been "saved"...