Qi Yang stood at the threshold of the overgrown, weed-choked dormitory, pondering his next move.
Based on his unexpected elimination of three players in that small room, he could safely deduce that the opposing trio lived somewhere nearby, whereas the person who had taken out his own three teammates must have been stationed quite a distance away.
“Should I keep hunting these three down, or go after that strongest one on the other side?”
…
Qi Yang scratched his head, genuinely unsure of what to do next.
He held up his hand and flashed a peace sign, causing a sleek black virtual keyboard to materialize in front of him.
“Leave it to fate.”
Finding the dice emoji in his sticker menu, he closed his eyes and tapped the screen.
Bang!
System notification: Player [Peanut for Me] has defeated player [Sudden Drop in Temperature].
Qi Yang found himself inexplicably respawned back at the starting point, opening his eyes to the familiar wooden bed board.
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m going to hunt him down and grind him to dust today.”
Qi Yang was beyond exasperated. What he hated most in this game were ambushers who didn’t know how to fight head-on—it was the most despicable tactic of all. Of course, if he were the one doing the ambushing, he’d choose to forgive himself.
Sitting up from the bed board, Qi Yang found himself back in the familiar, gloomy female dormitory. He had barely managed to finish off the NPC just to get outside, only for his character to instantly vanish.
Qi Yang could only let out a burst of helpless rage. “What on earth is wrong with me today? My luck is this abysmal!”
Lifting his gaze, he inspected the peeling plaster on the dormitory ceiling. The room still lingered with the sweet, metallic scent of blood. That supply crate should still be under the bed; he had simply been reset to the spawn point.
“I’ll slaughter his teammates one more time, and then wipe him out.”
Qi Yang re-centered himself. “Since my pheromones are already exposed, I might as well use them again.”
The noise from outside quickly reached Qi Yang’s ears—a truly textbook example of a loud conspiracy.
The leader’s voice was deep and robust. It was presumably the same guy whose weapon Qi Yang had confiscated earlier, accompanied by two very slender figures who looked like paid gaming companions.
If you’re too bad at the game to play without paid companions, why didn’t you just go bribe the enemy team instead?
System notification: Player [Peanut for Me] has defeated player [Sweetie]. Player [Peanut for Me] has defeated player [Don’t Hit Me, I’ll Cry]. Player [Peanut for Me] has defeated player [Older Brother Will Fly You].
Qi Yang looked indifferent, but in reality, he was completely out of options. “My teammates… deliver themselves faster than food couriers. Anyone not in the know would think the delivery guys all went out of business…”
Qi Yang listened as the commotion outside grew even louder.
“You two still haven’t managed to find that…”
The booming voice hesitated, as if the speaker couldn’t remember who their remaining teammate was.
“That… Peanut for Me…”
“Right, exactly. I hired paid companions, and they’re performing worse than an ordinary player?”
The boss-type player first went on a lengthy rant, but since the game had to go on, he herded them inside. “The two of you, stick close to me. I brought you along to protect me, not to feed kills to the enemy.”
The companion beside him fawned eagerly. “Of course, Boss. That last part was just a slip-up. Don’t be angry, don’t be angry. Getting mad is bad for your health.”
The boss couldn’t take it anymore. “You, talk to me normally. Stop squeezing your vocal cords and pretending to sound like a woman.”
“And you, you play worse than I do playing with my feet! How can you even call yourself a professional game companion?”
The weaker-looking companion beside them shrank back timidly. “S-sorry… Boss…”
“Lift your chin up when you talk! Why are you always mumbling and stuttering?”
“Uhm… Boss, in the room on our back left… there’s someone…”
Qi Yang was startled. He hadn’t made any noise at all; how on earth had they discovered him?
The voices of the trio lowered significantly. Qi Yang wasn’t an omega with hyper-developed auditory senses, so he couldn’t catch their whispered words. He could only track them by their steadily approaching footsteps—they had reached the doorway.
Sitting up on the bed, Qi Yang calculated the best way to send them packing.
Just as he was deep in thought, a butterfly fluttered in through the window.
Qi Yang was slightly surprised. He was on the third floor; this little butterfly had some serious skills to fly up this high.
Before Qi Yang could examine the butterfly’s specific features more closely, he watched in astonishment as it morphed into a human figure. A tall man standing 185 centimeters materialized before him, sporting jet-black hair, pale skin, and a dark tactical outfit, a slight smile playing on his lips.
The man held a pistol in his hand, while Qi Yang remained entirely transfixed by the magical process of a butterfly transforming into a person.
Qi Yang knew that certain animal-type glands, when developed to an advanced level, could trigger such transformations. But finding someone who had reached this level of mastery—and stumbling across them by pure luck—was practically unheard of, yet he had managed to run right into one today.
In truth, the newcomer moved with incredible speed. The moment he transformed into a butterfly, he had already readied his weapon from his system inventory.
Now, pressing the cold barrel of a gun directly against Qi Yang’s temple, the man said in a clear, low voice, “Open the door and take them out.”
Qi Yang was utterly bewildered. Why would this person want him to eliminate his own teammates?
“What are you even thinking? If you throw the match like this, I can report you for griefing!”
Qi Yang voiced his inner thoughts to this inexplicable individual: “Are you insane? You’ve got a gun pointed at my head, and you’re telling me to wipe out your own team?”
“Be a good boy and turn around. They’re about to open the door.”
The man kept his finger ready on the trigger, prepared to send Qi Yang straight back to the spawn point—which meant winding right back up in this very room.
With no other choice, Qi Yang could only turn around obediently.
Click. The door unlocked.
The three figures outside didn’t charge in blindly; instead, they lingered at the threshold, waiting for the right moment to deliver a fatal blow to Qi Yang.
The black-haired man called out toward the doorway, “Come on in. I’ve got him pinned down. Didn’t you want revenge? Here’s your chance on a silver platter.”
The boss strutted in arrogantly. While an opponent’s strength was annoying, having a strong teammate was reassuring. “Hahaha, you actually got caught? How dare you try to ambush me—I’m sending you straight to see your ancestors!”
The three of them sauntered into the room unhurriedly. When the leader saw Qi Yang pinned down with a gun to his head, completely unable to move, he burst into cackling laughter.
The man dressed in loud, flashy pink chimed in to echo the boss, “Oh my. No matter how strong you are, didn’t our teammate catch you anyway? Just surrender.”
Qi Yang gritted his teeth, enduring the man’s disgustingly affected voice. Even though he was being held hostage, he couldn’t hold back his tongue any longer and flipped on his mic. “Not to be rude, but you’re a grown man wearing something that flashy, acting all neither-fish-nor-fowl. Can’t you talk like a normal person?”
The pink-clad man pointed a finger at Qi Yang. “Hey! Why are you discriminating against people? Look at your situation right now. What makes you think you can still run your mouth…”
Qi Yang had reached his absolute limit and decided to take the self-termination route.
The black-haired man’s gun remained pressed against the back of Qi Yang’s head as his body leaned in close to Qi Yang’s ear. “If you don’t kill them now, you won’t get another chance.”
Qi Yang’s heart skipped a beat. His ears were a sensitive zone; as the man spoke, a puff of warm air brushed against his earlobe, sending a sharp tingle down his spine.
Moving quickly, he unleashed a burst of pheromones. The heavy, intoxicating scent of datura instantly saturated the air.
Aside from the black-haired man and the timid, stuttering companion who remained standing, the other two players collapsed to the ground instantly.
Bang! Their health bars plummeted by half. While not instantly fatal, they lay flat on the floor in rigid defeat, looking as lifeless as corpses.
In the eyes of game players, this status meant their screens had gone black and they were completely immobilized.
Taking off their gaming headsets allowed them to move around in real life, but wearing them and returning to the game left them locked in that black-screen state, restricted to viewing panel stats only.
The timid companion watched the scene unfold, terrified to make a single move. He had originally hoped to coast to victory behind this powerful teammate.
Yet he couldn’t make sense of the man’s actions at all. He held a gun to someone’s head for ages without doing anything, just standing there chatting idly.
Qi Yang’s patience finally ran out. This guy’s pheromones didn’t work on him, he was holding a gun to his head, and he kept demanding that Qi Yang kill his own teammates.
“Your gameplay style is a bit wild, bro.”
In response to Qi Yang’s praise, the man simply replied, “Thanks for the compliment.”
Qi Yang wasn’t going to let it slide either. Since nobody in the game knew who he was anyway, he felt completely unrestrained. “You’ve got some nerve. You didn’t even give me a gun, so how am I supposed to take them out?”
Since Qi Yang had just respawned, he didn’t have any weapons on hand. Did the guy behind him expect him to do it bare-handed? Was he supposed to take them down the same way he dealt with that dormitory warden?
Unexpectedly, the man actually began to ponder the problem. “My oversight…”
The scent of oncidium orchids began to diffuse through the air. Sensing the alpha pheromones pressing down from behind him, Qi Yang felt his knees weaken.
The remaining player who hadn’t collapsed yet couldn’t withstand the crushing pressure of the man’s pheromones. Dropping heavily to his knees in agony, sweat streaming down his forehead, he clawed desperately at his chest as if struggling to pull in air.
The game mechanics didn’t impose hard caps on pheromone suppression, meaning anyone could be subdued by sheer pheromonic dominance.
Moments after the pheromones spread, a swarm of butterflies fluttered up to the third floor. Among the fluttering cloud of wings was a pitch-black firearm.
The moment the butterflies dropped the weapon right in front of Qi Yang, the oppressive pheromones vanished instantly with a soft pop.
“Uhm… aren’t… aren’t you our teammate?”
Qi Yang finally turned his full attention to sizing up the blonde young man who had accurately pinpointed his location.
“I have to hand it to you, your nose is incredible. Were you born a bloodhound?”
The man behind him didn’t make any move, quietly watching Qi Yang converse with the newcomer, keeping the gun steadily pressed against the back of Qi Yang’s head for so long that Qi Yang had almost forgotten it was there.
The blonde youth spoke up, his voice tinged with slight nervousness. “I… I have an… animal-type gland…”
“What a lucky streak today! I run into two animal-morph types in a row. But I’m kind of curious—why didn’t you pass out?”
“Because… I stuffed tissues up my nose.” He couldn’t smell the pheromones directly, but his teammate’s overwhelming pressure had still nearly knocked him out cold.
“Hey, relax, why are you stuttering? Come on, say a full sentence. I don’t bite. Look, I’ve still got your teammate’s gun pointed at my head, what’s there to be scared of? Let’s just chat a bit.”
“You say that, black-haired bro?” Qi Yang turned his head deliberately to look at him. The microsecond their eyes met, Qi Yang lunged to wrench the gun out of the man’s grip. But the man’s strength was too immense; the pistol felt as though it had been welded to his hand.
When he couldn’t pry it away, Qi Yang resorted to biting down on his hand with all his might. Blood welled up at the corner of Qi Yang’s mouth—he had bitten him hard enough to draw blood.
Exerting his strength, the man shoved Qi Yang hard to the floor. Sweat beaded on the man’s forehead, a testament to how viciously Qi Yang had attacked him.
Yet the man remained completely unhurried in his tone, as if unruffled by the sudden assault, and crouched down close to Qi Yang.
“Dangerous moves there. I was going to hand you three free kills, but since you didn’t want them, don’t blame me.”
Bang!
A bullet grazed Qi Yang’s cheek, a burning trail of pain radiating from the scratch all across his skin. If he hadn’t reacted with lightning speed and jerked his head aside just in time, the only thing waiting for him would have been another system notification.
The gunshot rang right in his ear, accompanied by a sharp, ringing pitch that echoed straight into his brain. The dizzying discomfort almost brought Qi Yang to his knees.
Enduring the dizziness from the ringing in his ears, Qi Yang summoned his native datura flora and shoved it straight into the man’s mouth.