One player wrapped in a gust of black wind successfully fled, vanishing from sight in the blink of an eye.
Naturally, the other four were not about to be outdone and fled in different directions. However, as one of them ran, he suddenly raised his hand and flicked a tiny glint of silver light toward someone behind him.
This was a silver needle condensed from his own power.
Due to the urgency of the situation, the target was completely off guard, and his ankle was instantly pierced by the silver light.
Seeing his strike hit home, the attacking player gave a sinister laugh.
“Hehehe!”
“Xingcheng, my good brother, stay behind and buy me some time! As for your wife and daughter, don't worry—I'll take real good care of them!”
The moment the words left his mouth, his figure vanished into the darkness ahead.
Guo Xingcheng, whose ankle had just been pierced, cried out in pain and stumbled, crashing to the ground.
Blood poured continuously from the hole in his ankle. Before long, a thick scent of blood filled the dark mine shaft.
Seeing this, Fang Tang did not rush to pursue the other players. Instead, she leisurely reached her hand toward Guo Xingcheng, who was sprawled on the ground.
Watching this unfold, Zuo Lin'an frowned slightly.
But after a moment's thought, he didn't step forward to stop her.
Surely... nothing unexpected would happen, right?
Yet at that very moment, the unexpected occurred.
【Player Guo Xingcheng has used a special talent】
【Initial Talent: Lifespan Kill (Special)】
【Sacrifice five years of lifespan to randomly execute any target within a ten-meter radius.】
【Sacrifice ten years of lifespan to execute a designated target within a ten-meter radius.】
【Cooldown: 1 hour.】
【Sacrificed lifespan will not be restored after leaving the dungeon.】
【Talent triggered successfully. The player has sacrificed five years of lifespan. The specter Fang Tang has been randomly targeted for execution and is executed on the spot.】
In the next instant, Fang Tang's specter body suddenly exploded, turning into a cloud of blood mist.
The blood mist then condensed into a streak of crimson light, shooting down one of the mine shafts and vanishing from sight.
Because she was a Human-Specter Symbiont, the blood mist would return to Fang Tang's living body.
Zuo Lin'an was momentarily stunned by the sight.
This...
Well, then.
He really hadn't expected this player named Guo Xingcheng to be both so unlucky and so fortunate.
His bad luck was that he had been backstabbed, and seemingly by someone he knew; otherwise, the attacker wouldn't have mentioned “good brother” or taking care of his wife and daughter before leaving.
But their relationship was definitely not a good one.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have pretended to be strangers when the dungeon first started.
Yet Guo Xingcheng was also very lucky.
First, although he knew the attacker, he had clearly never revealed his talent to him, which led the other party to make a fatal miscalculation.
If that man had known about the 【Lifespan Kill】 talent, he would never have dared to backstab Guo Xingcheng. In fact, he would have done everything to curry favor with him.
Second, when he triggered his talent just now, he had chosen to sacrifice five years of his lifespan.
Meaning a random execution.
At the time, he knew the other players had already fled far away—definitely well beyond ten meters. In his eyes, the specter Fang Tang was the only entity within his ten-meter radius.
That was why he chose the option that sacrificed less lifespan.
But what he didn't know was that Zuo Lin'an was also within that ten-meter radius, merely concealed.
To Guo Xingcheng, even though it was a random selection, the probability of executing the specter Fang Tang in front of him should have been a hundred percent.
In reality, however, it was only fifty percent.
Had it targeted Zuo Lin'an, the execution effect would have failed due to his gold hairpin specter item.
Yet, by some miracle, the random selection landed on Fang Tang.
His luck was indeed quite good.
Speaking of which, the cooldown for this talent was actually only one hour!
Which meant...
As long as Guo Xingcheng didn't care about his own lifespan, let alone One-Star or Two-Star dungeons, he would have an extremely high probability of clearing even a Three-Star Daily Dungeon.
However, while the cooldown was short, the side effect was immense.
After all, the lifespan deducted by using this talent would not be restored upon leaving the dungeon.
Normally, no matter how badly players ravaged their own bodies inside a dungeon, everything would be restored to its original state as long as they cleared it.
For example, back in the Wuxia World, who was that again...?
Ah, right.
His name was Zhang Tinglei, known as the Heavenly Master of Divine Punishment.
At the time, after being heavily injured in a sneak attack by General Zhong Cheng, he had used a secret art to consume his lifespan to barely maintain his strength.
And that kind of damage had been fully restored after clearing the dungeon.
However, Guo Xingcheng's situation was entirely different from Zhang Tinglei's.
This was a talent.
Five years?
Ten years...
The cooldown seemed short, but the actual cost was astronomical.
How many five- or ten-year periods did an ordinary person even have in their lifetime?
Zuo Lin'an sighed inwardly, then silently pulled out his phone to check the time.
It was 1:53 AM.
Only seven minutes left until 2:00 AM.
So... would he need to make a move when the hour struck?
Only after confirming that the specter had been executed and that he was temporarily safe did Guo Xingcheng let out a sigh of relief.
He slowly shifted his position to lean against the stone wall. Then, tearing a strip of cloth from his clothes, he tightly bound the wound on his ankle.
Right at that moment, Zuo Lin'an, still hiding in the shadows, suddenly noticed someone approaching.
Was that... Su Menglan?
Only then did he remember that Su Menglan was also in this dungeon.
Speaking of which, hadn't he met up with Li Zhuang and the others earlier?
Why wasn't he here just now?
Within less than half a minute, Su Menglan appeared.
A small glow emanated from his fingertip, dispelling the surrounding darkness.
The moment the two saw each other, they both froze.
In the end, it was Guo Xingcheng who spoke first.
“So it's you.”
He hesitated for a brief moment before continuing.
“The ones who wanted to drive you away earlier were Li Zhuang and Shu Laiyun. It had nothing to do with me.”
At the time, he had to rely on those two to find the exit, which was why he hadn't spoken up when they kicked Su Menglan out.
Su Menglan's face darkened slightly, likely at the mention of Shu Laiyun.
Hidden off to the side, Zuo Lin'an finally understood.
So he had been driven away.
Because Zuo Lin'an had been focusing entirely on Zhao Lin's side earlier, he had neglected Su Menglan and missed the scene where he was kicked out.
Still, it wasn't a major issue.
Su Menglan's gaze swept over the other man's injured ankle.
“You don't need to panic. I have no intention of taking revenge on you.”
When he had suddenly appeared earlier, Shu Laiyun was caught off guard and hadn't had time to use 【Homogeneity】, which was how his true identity was exposed.
Once his identity was compromised, Shu Laiyun threw caution to the wind. Perhaps because they were in a specter dungeon, his courage had grown significantly.
He had directly teamed up with Li Zhuang and rallied the other players to drive Su Menglan away.
After all, players couldn't kill each other in a specter dungeon.
And even if they wanted to cripple him, they couldn't.
After all, those people didn't know that he had already lost all of his Gu insects.
Out of mutual wariness, Su Menglan had ultimately chosen to leave on his own.
Rate on N.U.
