“Ahhhhh, four cats! No, wait, including Kitty Baby, that makes five! Can I apply to the game to keep one of the copied kitties? They’re both cool and cute, and that overwhelming aura of dominance is absolutely incredible. They’re just too adorable!”
“Exactly, exactly! So cute! I’ve already stopped thinking of this livestream as a horror game. As long as there’s my darling sweetie baby, I’m happy. Now it’s happiness multiplied several times over.”
“Fuck, I want to know how the Level 5 streamer gets out of the game. Is Xiao Hei going to lead him out?”
“Probably not. Although Top-Tier Arenas are rarely seen, quite a few viewers on the forums have made posts discussing the storyline. He probably triggered the storyline and entered the most brutal branch of this dungeon, the Christmas Arcade. As long as someone cooperates with someone inside from the outside, they can get out. Originally, he could have cooperated with another player, but unfortunately, that player also got dragged into the game, so he couldn’t coordinate with his owner from outside. So, when his owner was about to die, the kitten was tricked by the game into entering this dungeon. I get the feeling the system is playing a huge game of chess. Is it trying to drag all the veteran players from the high-level dungeons into a Top-Tier Arena and kill them?”
“That could be possible too. I saw someone summarize this instance. It seems that the people who entered this time are all guild leaders and the like, because they’ve all heard other players address them as guild leaders or vice guild leaders.”
“But why would the system do that? What does playing games inside the instance have to do with players forming guilds outside? Why is the game taking this so seriously? Can’t the game take a joke?”
“But the game has been running for too long, and more and more players have been pulled in. There might be more high-level players than we imagine, while very few players enter Top-Level instances. Maybe it deliberately pulled them in.”
“Could it be because we’re nearing the end of the year, and the game needs to meet its KPI?”
“That KPI theory is fucking hilarious, but also ridiculously plausible.”
The excited livestream chat did absolutely nothing to encourage Yan Jiyun. Xiao Hei No. 2, who had just been tamed, stood behind him, while he had to face two cats that were identical to him in size, appearance, and every other aspect.
These two were different from the previous two. There was a viciousness in their eyes that the earlier ones had lacked.
It seemed that the moment they appeared, they already knew exactly who their target was.
This time, Yan Jiyun didn’t attack first. He still didn’t know how strong these two cats were.
Turning back into a human right now wasn’t realistic either. He might be able to catch one, but that didn’t mean he could catch both at the same time. Besides, he was currently standing in front of a milk tea shop, and he didn’t have any handy tools with which to tie them up. He could only rely on his cat body to defeat them.
First, he needed to see what the situation was like, whether all the copies had the same personalities or whether there were differences between individuals.
Aside from the one that had been beaten silly by Yan Jiyun just moments ago and was standing off to the side, the other two began yowling loudly, while Yan Jiyun remained completely silent.
The meows of the two black cats in front of him gradually grew quieter, while the distance between them and Yan Jiyun steadily decreased.
All of Yan Jiyun’s attention was focused on them. The cat on the right was a little more hot-tempered. It pounced at Yan Jiyun, and the moment its right forepaw lifted slightly, Yan Jiyun’s eyes caught the movement.
Cats had extremely fast reaction speeds, usually around 0.1 seconds. The instant it extended its paw, Yan Jiyun’s own paw shot up and smacked the black cat on the right directly in the face. Caught completely off guard, the black cat staggered and fell to the ground.
The black cat on the left seized the opportunity and pounced at Yan Jiyun. Its movements were indeed nimble, but Yan Jiyun wasn’t unprepared. As it lunged, he lowered his body and twisted around, pinning the attacking black cat to the ground. He quickly raised his paw and slapped the black cat across the face several times, leaving it dizzy and dazed, unable to even react for quite some time.
The two black cats, who had seemed so imposing just moments ago, were instantly pinned to the ground by Yan Jiyun. They probably hadn’t expected the opening to go like this themselves. It was completely different from the memories they had received.
If they could speak, Yan Jiyun would probably tell them that memories could sometimes deceive. Copying and pasting wasn’t necessarily useful. At the very least, it couldn’t perfectly replicate a person’s soul.
The two black cats refused to admit defeat. After getting back up, they continued baring their teeth at Yan Jiyun. But Yan Jiyun had already taken down three of them in succession, and his momentum was now overwhelming. The two black cats’ morale was suppressed, and they repeatedly backed away under the pressure of his presence.
Seeing that they no longer posed a threat, Yan Jiyun relaxed his stance. Standing before the two black cats, he didn’t even need to growl. A single look and gesture from him was enough to make them submit again.
They now knew that they couldn’t beat Yan Jiyun, and they wanted to run.
Yet their minds contained only one thought: defeat their opponent. The contradiction was that they were completely incapable of doing so, while at the same time, they felt somewhat inclined to get close to the black cat that looked exactly like them.
As the two black cats watched Yan Jiyun approach, one suddenly let out a questioning meow.
Yan Jiyun looked left and right, then stepped ahead of them. Seeing that they were still hesitating, he turned back and glanced at them, signaling for all three to follow.
To make a group of underlings submit to him, he couldn’t just overpower them through sheer strength. He also had to be better than them at finding food!
When he’d come this way earlier, he’d already spotted a shop selling canned cat food, with all kinds of advertisements plastered outside. There were no staff members guarding it either. After fighting twice, he was hungry too. If they didn’t fill their stomachs now, when would they?
Fighting really took a lot of energy and stamina.
Who would’ve thought that the first thing Yan Jiyun would do after gaining a group of underlings was take them out for canned food?
They arrived at the pet shop as planned. Along the way, they also saw quite a few corpses. Faced with fresh human flesh, the black cats wanted to go over and sniff, but Yan Jiyun stopped them all. There was no way he could watch his own clones eat human flesh. He’d probably never want to eat meat again for the entire next year!
The four cats rushed into the shop. Yan Jiyun hid behind a cabinet at the counter and turned back into a human. Unexpectedly, he received looks of surprise and admiration from the three cats.
Rows upon rows of canned food lined the walls.
Yan Jiyun realized that he’d achieved food freedom in a Top-Level instance.
He opened three cans of main-course cat food, choosing the most expensive brand.
Once opened, the three cans were placed side by side in front of the three black cats. One of them tried to stand at an angle, but Yan Jiyun pushed it back into the center.
Yan Jiyun said, “No. 3, get in line. Otherwise, I’ll confiscate your food.”
The pet supply store contained plenty of interesting things besides food.
He picked three collars in different colors from the shelves and put them around the necks of the black cats while they ate.
No. 2 got white, No. 3 got green, and No. 4 got yellow.
He then picked a red one for the original (?) Xiao Hei. That way, he’d be able to tell which was which and wouldn’t accidentally lose track of them at a glance.
The store was fully stocked with all kinds of supplies. Yan Jiyun also ate a can himself. Nobody was being neglected.
Cats were very intelligent. They knew that whoever was stronger was the boss. Of course, there were always some that refused to submit. In that case, you just fed them. Once they’d eaten their fill, they’d submit, because the boss could catch prey while they couldn’t. At least for now, they couldn’t find any prey in this shopping mall.
Through his own efforts, Yan Jiyun had completely changed the allegiance of the black-cat villains. Now he no longer needed to worry about these cats turning against him. All of them were within his field of supervision. The moment anything seemed wrong, he’d beat them back into submission. Once he’d bitten them hard enough, they knew to be afraid. Xiao Hei No. 2, the one with white collar he’d bitten earlier, was still somewhat afraid of him.
If he didn’t possess a human soul inside, perhaps he too would have submitted to the instincts of nature like these little voidlings. Thankfully, he still possessed human intelligence.
Seeing the three cats completely tamed and docile, Yan Jiyun immediately led them back toward the arcade.
However, on the way back to the arcade, No. 3 and No. 4 — might as well call them by their collar color, so Xiao Lv and Xiao Huang — hid when they heard voices, while Little White continued following Yan Jiyun. It probably felt that Yan Jiyun was safer. (in case you don’t know: Lv is Lü. No. 2 is now Xiao Bai)
There really were voices nearby, and the cats’ ears were exceptionally sensitive.
Yan Jiyun guessed that they were probably copies. They were searching for the original players. He didn’t know how many copies would be created for each player.
He had three cats copied from him. Would everyone else have three copies made of them as well?
If they kept multiplying like this, no matter how strong the players were, they wouldn’t be able to win.
Yan Jiyun didn’t want to run into any copies. He scooped up Xiao Bai and hid beneath a cosmetics counter.
He heard two familiar voices.
“Qi Feng isn’t on the fourth floor of Building D? Let’s go find him.”
“Sure. We’ll meet up with him and figure out what to do next.”
The two people were Chu Mo and Wen Ye, and they were heading in the same direction as Yan Jiyun.
But Chu Mo and Wen Ye had already known where Qi Feng had gone. They hadn’t chosen to look for him just moments ago.
These two definitely weren’t the real Chu Mo and Wen Ye. They were copies that had just been created.
Their memories overlapped with those of the Chu Mo and Wen Ye from earlier. This conversation was almost exactly the same as the one they’d had before.
[Sweet Christmas] was far too terrifying. The copies could reproduce even the original’s memories from just a moment earlier. There was practically no way to guard against them!
If Yan Jiyun hadn’t noticed the difference and had recklessly gone over to acknowledge Chu Mo, wouldn’t he have been deceived by them?
Cold sweat broke out across Yan Jiyun’s back.
Aside from the three cats belonging to him, there were 29 other copies like this.
From what he could tell, the copies of human players appeared based on the number of players currently online. As for why he had three copies, that was still unclear. Perhaps it was simply the game’s twisted sense of humor.
Fake Qi Feng hadn’t even been dealt with yet, and now there was another problem. It was truly terrifying.
Yan Jiyun felt his fear of the game growing. That fear, originating from deep within him, manifested itself in his mental pollution value, which dropped another two points.
[Current Sanity Value: 97]
If a lower Sanity Value meant that he was more heavily contaminated, then once it fell below a certain threshold, a person would go insane.
Yan Jiyun suspected that many players had probably been driven insane by the copies. With several versions of themselves around, they couldn’t tell which one was the real one, nor could they tell their teammates or other players apart. After being killed, they would be replaced by a copy. Eventually, no one in the entire dungeon would know who was who, and everyone would ultimately be buried here. Even if only one player remained toward the end, that player would probably still be driven insane by a group of copies.
A Top-Level instance really was something else!
Yan Jiyun noticed that Xiao Lv and Xiao Huang had followed those two people. He didn’t go out to stop them. It was actually better not to appear in a group, since that way they wouldn’t become targets for the copies.
Having them follow those two was actually advantageous to him.
Although they were all his copies, each cat had a different scent.
For example, Chu Mo and Wen Ye had Xiao Hei’s scent on them, while these two copies had Xiao Lv and Xiao Huang’s scents. That meant he could identify them at a glance. No matter how good the copies were at fooling everyone, or how similar their memories were to those of the originals, they couldn’t escape a cat’s nose. If it was them, it was them. If it wasn’t, it wasn’t.
Xiao Lv and Xiao Huang didn’t appear at the same time, either. Xiao Lv rushed forward first and rubbed against the lower legs of Fake Chu Mo and Fake Wen Ye, layering its scent onto them.
The two cats were extremely vigilant. They could sense the malice coming from the two men. After rubbing against them once, they immediately ran away instead of lingering nearby.
Yan Jiyun had been worried that Xiao Lv might get caught by the copies. Clearly, although they lacked the memories of a human soul, they had inherited his cautious nature and wouldn’t casually get close to a copy.
It seemed that Xiao Lv and Xiao Huang had also inherited the same idea he and Xiao Hei had: mark the copies with their scent.
Yan Jiyun now needed to return to Building D to look for Qi Feng. These two copies knew which one was the real Qi Feng, and they were currently going after him. If Qi Feng came out of his mission without being on guard, wouldn’t he be easily ambushed by the two of them?
Yan Jiyun was getting restless. He followed Fake Chu Mo and Fake Wen Ye toward Building D.
There were still plenty of questions that hadn’t been resolved. Of course, even the original players couldn’t solve them, so there was even less Yan Jiyun could do.
He had entered the Top-Level instance save Qi Feng. At first, he’d thought that once he rescued him, he could return to the instance he’d originally been in. Now, it seemed that was impossible. His copies had already appeared and partially merged into [Sweet Christmas]. They probably had to wait until the instance ended before they could leave.
There was less than a day left.
If he could hold out until then, it would be a victory.
Fake Chu Mo and Fake Wen Ye were eager to kill the players. After arriving at the arcade, they searched around inside.
Yan Jiyun took the opportunity to put on a staff uniform that someone had discarded at the front desk. Like an NPC, he began making his rounds. He glanced at the machine Qi Feng had been using earlier and saw that the game screen displayed the English word for victory.
Had Qi Feng gotten out of the game? What about Xiao Hei?
Excellent. Neither Qi Feng nor Xiao Hei was inside the game machine anymore. It seemed Xiao Hei must have helped Qi Feng.
At this point, the only real players in the arcade should be him and the three black cats.
Yan Jiyun pretended to lower his head and repair the game machine. He discovered that the game credits he’d inserted earlier were still there. After Xiao Hei went inside, Qi Feng had only consumed one round’s worth of time before getting out. Not a second had been wasted.
The three black cats weren’t circling around him, which went a long way toward protecting his identity.
However, Fake Chu Mo and Fake Wen Ye still walked straight toward him with uncanny precision.
He had never exposed himself in front of the other players, so these two shouldn’t know that he was a player. Even so, Yan Jiyun became nervous.
He knew how strong Chu Mo was, while Wen Ye was even taller, stronger, and probably more powerful than Chu Mo. If he got into a fight with these two, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
Fake Chu Mo suddenly sat down in front of the game machine and ordered Yan Jiyun around.
“Isn’t this machine supposed to be working normally? Why does it have a repair sign on it? I haven’t played a game in ages. Turn it on and let me play for a while.”
Yan Jiyun said, “I’m sorry, sir, but this machine is currently under maintenance and can’t be used yet.”
Fake Chu Mo sneered. “I don’t believe you.”
He directly picked up the gun propped up beside the machine and skillfully pressed the start button.
“Kid, you look pretty free. Why don’t you play a round with me?”
Yan Jiyun thought that the copy really had inherited Chu Mo’s penchant for mischief, except that the copy had magnified the “evil” part of that mischievousness a hundredfold.
However, just as he was about to refuse the copy’s request like an NPC and leave, he heard an even more infuriating system notification.
[Congratulations, Player! You have triggered the arcade game “City of Sin.” Successfully escaping from the game will reward you with an offensive item. Would you like to enter?]
So this game was called City of Sin.
Yan Jiyun glanced at the remaining number of game credits. He could still play another 31 rounds.
Play? Why wouldn’t he?
Playing a game with a copy sounded interesting.
Yan Jiyun suddenly raised his head and smiled at Fake Chu Mo and Fake Wen Ye. “Sure. Let’s play together.”
The moment he finished speaking, the two copies, Xiao Bai hiding nearby, and Yan Jiyun were all pulled into the game City of Sin.
Yan Jiyun wasn’t afraid of entering the game. If Qi Feng could get out, he could get out too.
There was another thing he could rely on: Xiao Bai had entered with him.
The copies could inherit the original’s memories, but would they also inherit the memories of the copies created before them? If they could, then Little White might inherit Xiao Hei’s memories, allowing him to escape City of Sin quickly.
Yan Jiyun was experimenting.
He was also gambling.
Since the name of the game was <Destiny>, he might as well bet on whether he’d managed to defy his so-called “destiny” this time.
City of Sin, as the name suggested, was a city filled with crime and violence. Everyone here could be a killer, and everyone could also be an ordinary civilian. The only difference was whether you had a gun or not.
Yan Jiyun was pulled into the game. He guessed that the game had started.
Because people around him were already holding guns and firing wildly.
He guessed that entering City of Sin had to be triggered by a copy. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be much point in being pulled inside.
Here, the copies weren’t his only enemies. Everyone in the game holding a gun was his enemy.
His task was to find the copies and kill them.
The setting of City of Sin was a desert region, somewhat resembling the Middle East in the real world.
The city was made up of small, one-story houses built from mud, and the cover was also made of mud.
It was hot and dry here. Even if one weren’t shot to death, one could potentially die of dehydration or heatstroke.
Someone was killed around 50 meters away from him, and a submachine gun dropped onto the ground.
Yan Jiyun pressed his back against a mud wall. There was only one piece of cover between his position and the gun, making him an easy target.
He could only move fast.
He couldn’t afford to slow down!
Rat-a-tat-tat.
The sounds of submachine guns firing into mud walls and people collapsing filled the area.
Being outside the game and being inside it felt completely different. Here, there was only the scent of “death.”
In the upper-right corner of his vision was a timer labeled “Countdown to Escape City of Sin.”
It was a 3 minute countdown, with 2 min and 45 secs remaining.
Yan Jiyun couldn’t get out of his cover at all. His wall was being shredded thinner and thinner by machine-gun fire, while dry mud sprayed directly onto his face and into his mouth.
Fuck, he can’t get out!
Just when he thought he was going to die here, the NPCs opposite him began dropping one after another.
The gunfire was still going.
But this time, the targets were the enemies on the opposite side. His teammates were taking them out with a single shot each.
Yan Jiyun immediately seized the opportunity and sprinted toward the two-o’clock position, 50 meters away.
As he ran, the corners of his mouth lifted.
He knew it.
His best teammate had arrived!
![The Return of The Lord God[quick wear]](https://i2.wp.com/knoxt.space/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/007S8ZIlly1ghl04hyuxyj30hs0owwgu.jpg?resize=85,105 "The Return of The Lord God[quick wear]")
chimia de goiaba On WAYCAC Chapter 101 (end)