Ruan Yuan wanted to say, Miss, this really isn’t the time to provoke it further.
As expected, upon hearing Gu Jiu’s words, the fish-faced humanoid became even more ferocious. Its claws, resembling those of a lizard, could easily pierce through solid walls. If it managed to catch someone, it could tear off an arm without effort.
Every time its claws lashed out, Gu Jiu countered with a reverse slash of her Lingyuan Blade.
With a metallic clang, the blade sliced off one of its fingers, and the stench of foul, putrid blood permeated the air.
The injured fish-faced creature went into a berserk frenzy, recklessly charging forward without regard for its own injuries. Gu Jiu nearly couldn’t hold her ground, but Lu Ji stepped in just in time, sword in hand, to block one of its attacks and give her a chance to catch her breath.
With a single strike, Lu Ji forced the fish-faced creature to retreat.
The creature was visibly wary of the aura emanating from Lu Ji. It was an oppressive, destructive darkness that instinctively signaled danger to abnormal beings like itself. Unfortunately, the players couldn’t discern its true thoughts from its fishy visage and had no idea that it was already contemplating retreat when it encountered Lu Ji.
In a hoarse voice, it yelled at Gu Jiu, “Give me back the bone.”
Seeing that the creature kept chasing after Gu Jiu, demanding the bone, the players began to speculate.
“Could this guy actually be the ‘Sea God’?” Chen Younian shouted, his eyes blazing with determination.
At this point, he was juggling multiple challenges—working with other players to fight off two mutated male players while also keeping an eye on his bound companion to prevent the fish-faced creature from abducting and turning him into a monster. He was running on fumes and desperately hoped to identify the fish-faced creature and clear the stage to escape this nightmarish world.
“No.”
The answer came from Qi Yuheng, who ruthlessly crushed the players’ fragile hope with his cold logic.
Clutching his aching chest, Ruan Yuan asked in confusion, “If it’s not, then why does it keep chasing after Miss Gu for the bone?”
Qi Yuheng’s reply remained unchanged. “It’s just a follower of the Sea God.”
Or perhaps a fragment of the Sea God.
Although it wasn’t the actual “Sea God,” both Gu Jiu and Qi Yuheng kept a close eye on it. The moment it moved, the two of them noticed immediately.
The fish-faced creature hadn’t truly been captured earlier—it had only pretended to be subdued. A simple nylon rope was far from enough to restrain it.
When they realized the fish-faced creature was showing signs of retreat, Lu Ji strategically pulled back. He acted discreetly, and amidst the chaotic scene, no one noticed his move.
Once the creature retreated, forcing out the “Sea God” would be even harder.
Lu Ji was well aware of this, which was why he hesitated to strike directly. Instead, he acted subtly, doing his best to protect Gu Jiu.
Only the fish-faced creature sensed the subtle shift in the battle and cautiously launched another attack on Gu Jiu.
Gu Jiu practically played cat and mouse with the creature. The hall was spacious enough for her to maneuver, and as she evaded, she carefully observed her surroundings. Shouting toward Ge Guang, she called, “Brother Guang, do you still have any nylon rope?”
“I do! How many do you need?” Ge Guang responded immediately.
“Just one! First, help me loop it around this guy’s neck.”
“Got it, I’ll help you.”
Though Ge Guang was injured, he was not one to shy away from battle. After swallowing a random blood-staunching pill, he joined the fray without hesitation.
When Gu Jiu lured the fish-faced creature closer, Ge Guang was already holding a nylon rope purchased from the Boundless City Tool Shop. Seizing the right moment, he looped the rope around the creature’s neck.
Both hands gripped the rope tightly, veins bulging along his arms. His still-healing wounds split open again, blood sliding down his arm.
The fish-faced creature arched its neck back, its body taut like a drawn bowstring, desperately trying to break free from the restraint.
Gu Jiu delivered a solid kick to its stomach, causing it to cough up blood.
With a loud shout, Ruan Yuan swung his folding fan, knocking the creature to the ground. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Gu Jiu tied it up securely with the rope.
Worried one nylon rope might not suffice, Ge Guang added several more.
During this time, the player surnamed Wang was wailing non-stop, pleading for them not to hurt his “beloved Sister Shu.” When he saw the scene, he screamed again, “Don’t hurt Sister Shu! Let her go…”
Ruan Yuan smacked her across the face with her fan, scolding, “Open your dog eyes wide! This is a fish-faced monster, not your Sister Shu!”
Unfortunately, the players who had eaten the Sea God’s sashimi lacked normal reasoning. To them, the fish-faced creature was their “lover.”
After subduing the fish-faced creature, Ruan Yuan stayed to guard it while Ge Guang, Gu Jiu, and Lu Ji went to assist Chen Younian and the others.
The two mutated male players were incredibly strong, leaving many players injured and out of commission. The only ones still fighting were Chen Younian, Qi Yuheng, and Lu Haidi, all of whom bore wounds themselves.
Once Gu Jiu and her group joined the fray, the battle quickly turned in their favor.
When the six of them finally subdued and restrained the two male players again, they were all battered, bruised, and gasping for breath, barely able to stay on their feet.
This was the most intense battle Gu Jiu had ever experienced in her time as a player in the Multiverse Game. She was utterly exhausted. Yet, the more tired she felt, the clearer her mind became.
She began pondering where the “Sea God” might be hiding.
Even the mermaid doll didn’t know its location, a testament to how well-concealed it was. Finding it wouldn’t be easy.
Qi Yuheng approached, supported by his puppet companion. “Gu Jiu, where do you think it’s hiding?”
Gu Jiu didn’t answer. Her eyes were locked on the newly restrained fish-faced creature and the two mutated male players. Suddenly, a suffocating sense of foreboding washed over her, leaving her momentarily paralyzed.
“Gu Jiu?”
“Run!” Gu Jiu gritted her teeth, her voice trembling slightly. “Get out of the villa!”
“??”
Lu Ji immediately supported her and led her toward the villa’s main door. The other players scrambled to follow.
But it was too late. Just as Gu Jiu and her group reached the entrance, the villa’s door vanished, replaced by a grayish-white stone wall. The wall began to twist and writhe, shifting visibly before their eyes.
The players, still reeling from the earlier battle, were stunned.
“What… what’s going on?”
Panicked, they glanced around and discovered that not only the main door but the entire villa was transforming. All the doors and windows had disappeared, replaced by the same writhing, grayish-white walls. Even the staircase twisted out of existence.
As the villa continued to morph, the luxurious crystal chandelier above them went out, plunging their surroundings into darkness.
Forced to rely on high-powered flashlights, the players illuminated their surroundings.
Under the bright light, they could clearly see the changes around them. The villa’s decor was completely gone, leaving them trapped in a sealed space surrounded by grayish-white, writhing stone walls that seemed disturbingly alive.
Lu Haidi, ever straightforward, blurted out, “Hey, don’t you think these writhing walls feel a lot like… internal organs?”
Everyone else: “….” Please, just stop talking!
At that moment, a pitiful wail pierced the air, sending shivers down everyone’s spines. They turned abruptly to see the player surnamed Wang crying hysterically again.
“Sister Shu is gone! She was swallowed by the wall!”
Everyone turned to the spot where the fish-faced creature had been, only to find it gone. There wasn’t a trace of it left. Coupled with the panicked words of the Wang player, the realization sent chills down their spines.
Not just the fish-faced creature, but the two mutated players had also disappeared—or rather, been devoured.
The players quickly regrouped, standing back-to-back as they warily watched the writhing grayish-white walls.
Before long, they noticed that the walls were visibly closing in, shrinking their space. It seemed as if the walls intended to crush them—or worse, devour them just like the fish-faced creature.
Someone cracked under the pressure, yelling, “What is this thing?”
“It’s the Sea God,” Gu Jiu answered calmly. “We’re inside its body right now. Do you remember the black markings on the villa’s exterior walls?” she asked Ruan Yuan, Lu Haidi, and the others.
“I remember,” Ruan Yuan nodded.
Lu Haidi and Ge Guang, who had inspected the black marks on the walls with her before, also nodded. They hadn’t been able to determine what the markings were back then.
Gu Jiu continued, “From a distance, didn’t they look like veins?”
The group fell silent, exchanging uneasy glances.
Ruan Yuan hesitated before replying, “Miss Gu, while they did look a bit like veins, surely they’re not… right?”
“You’re correct,” Gu Jiu nodded. “I didn’t think so either at first. The material was hard, and when chipped, the fragments resembled dried blood. It was off-putting. But when the villa started transforming, I finally understood. The Sea God had disguised itself as the villa all along, and those black markings were its veins.”
Qi Yuheng, leaning heavily on his puppet companion, looked visibly distressed. His face twisted with discomfort and anger as he gritted out, “Gu Jiu’s right. We’re inside the Sea God’s body. The villa is the Sea God’s body. We’ve been living inside it this whole time…”
He paused briefly, struggling to hold back, before finally losing the battle and vomiting.
For someone as fastidious as Qi Yuheng, the revelation that he’d been living in a monster’s body for days, only to now be swallowed into its belly, was an almost unbearable blow.
The group was stunned. The elusive Sea God they’d been searching for had been with them all along. Worse yet, they had unknowingly taken up residence within its body.
The realization that the Sea God had gone to such lengths to recover its strength, sacrificing its disguise as a villa, left the players deeply unsettled.
Their unease turned to panic as the space around them shrank further. The Sea God was clearly preparing to crush them, killing them within its constricting walls.
“What… what do we do now?” someone asked, their face a mask of despair.
“Afraid of what?” Chen Younian snapped, dragging his noisy companion—a thin, wiry player—closer. Annoyed by his constant wailing, he knocked him out cold with a chop to the neck before saying, “Don’t we still have the Love Stone?”
At his words, the panicked players regained some composure and hurriedly retrieved the Love Stone.
The Love Stone, a defensive item from the game shop, was a grayish-white stone that bore an uncanny resemblance to the surrounding walls. Its color and texture were so similar, it seemed to share the same origin.
Gu Jiu held the Love Stone in her hand, a faint, enigmatic smile tugging at her lips.
Ruan Yuan, noticing her expression, asked cautiously, “Miss Gu, is something wrong?”
Even after discovering the villa was alive, Gu Jiu had remained unusually calm. Her composure seemed to steady both Ruan Yuan and Lu Haidi, who instinctively gathered near her. They weren’t as scared as they might have been otherwise.
They believed that Gu Jiu would lead them through this crisis and help them clear the stage.
Gu Jiu didn’t answer. She casually tossed the Love Stone at the writhing grayish-white wall. Instantly, the wall stopped moving, ceasing its inward pressure.
However, only the section directly in front of her halted. The other parts of the wall continued writhing and pressing inward. Seeing this, the players hurriedly threw their Love Stones one after another.
The stones formed a circle, and finally, the walls stopped their relentless advance.
Even so, they remained trapped inside the Sea God’s body, a sealed space with no visible exit.
Ge Guang scratched his head with a grimace. “How are we supposed to get out of here?”
Gu Jiu walked forward, knocking on the grayish-white wall. It was incredibly hard. She drew her dagger and struck it, only to find she couldn’t even chip off a fragment.
The other players tried using their sharpest weapons, but the results were the same. The sheer toughness of the material left them silently unnerved.
Gu Jiu then pulled out the four mermaid dolls she had been hiding in her pocket.
The other players, unsure of what she was doing, turned their attention to her.
“We’re trapped inside the Sea God’s body. It’s your turn to shine.” She addressed the mermaid dolls. “I’m sure you want to regain your strength and stop being mute little dolls, don’t you?”
The mermaid dolls wriggled unhappily at being held like that.
Unfazed, Gu Jiu tossed them to the ground. From her inventory, she retrieved two chairs, pulling Lu Ji to sit down beside her. “Alright, go do your work.”
Her tone was dismissive, as though ordering servants, and thoroughly infuriating.
The proud mermaid dolls were livid. They rushed back to her, clutching at her boots.
Gu Jiu looked down at them with a raised brow. “What? Don’t tell me you can’t handle it even now?”
The mermaid dolls grew angrier, their hair floating with their rising frustration as they reached out toward her.
Gu Jiu chuckled. “You want the bone? What are you going to do with it?”
Though skeptical, Gu Jiu didn’t withhold the Sea God’s bone. She retrieved the gray bone from her inventory.
As soon as the bone appeared, the players felt an immediate shift in the space around them. The walls, which had been kept at bay by the Love Stones, began writhing again, seemingly trying to break through the defensive barrier.
This sent a ripple of panic through the group. Someone shouted, “Gu Jiu, put it away quickly!”
Gu Jiu ignored the frantic players and handed the gray bone to the mermaid dolls.
The dolls lunged at it, their mouths snapping open to reveal rows of sharp, shark-like teeth. They gnawed on the bone with a loud crunching sound. To the players’ astonishment, the once indestructible bone seemed as fragile as tofu in the dolls’ mouths.
Within seconds, the gray bone was entirely consumed.
After devouring the bone, the mermaid dolls turned their fierce gazes toward the grayish-white wall and began tearing into it with their teeth, gnawing without hesitation.
The players thought they heard a miserable wail echo through the space. Instinctively, they looked up, but there was nothing to see. They refocused on the mermaid dolls’ actions.
The dolls demonstrated astonishing combat power, biting through the impossibly tough gray walls as if they were paper. In no time, they had created a large hole. From outside, the sound of ocean waves could be faintly heard.
Is this even real?
The players were in a daze, unable to believe what they were seeing. It wasn’t until the sound of crashing waves grew clearer that they followed Gu Jiu through the hole. Their expressions were a mix of confusion and disbelief, as though asking, ‘Where am I? What just happened?’
As they stepped outside, the sound of the sea was unmistakable. Mingled with it was a piercing, anguished scream.
The group turned to look and saw that the villa by the sea had disappeared. In its place was a massive creature—a colossal fish monster, towering as high as a three-story building. It lay sprawled across the rocks, thrashing wildly, while the mermaid dolls gnawed at its body.
The fish monster was so large that every slap of its tail sent rocks flying. Fearing they might get caught in the chaos, the players quickly retreated to a safe distance, watching the scene unfold.
To their astonishment, the four mermaid dolls demonstrated extraordinary combat power. Despite their small size, they managed to devour the enormous fish monster entirely. These doll-like beings, impossibly, consumed something as massive as a three-story building.
Ruan Yuan murmured, “These mermaid dolls are terrifying… I can’t believe I actually fought them before.”
The other players recoiled slightly, recalling their initial reactions to the mermaid dolls. They silently thanked their luck that the dolls hadn’t decided to eat them back then.
Gu Jiu, however, remained unimpressed. “They only managed this because they ate the fish monster’s bone and got a power boost. Otherwise, with how useless they were earlier, do you think they’d stand a chance?”
The group collectively fell silent. Miss Gu, could you please stop provoking them? They seem to hold grudges, and they’re glaring at you.
Ruan Yuan, impressed by Gu Jiu’s knack for attracting hostility, cleared her throat and asked curiously, “That bone—they found it earlier, right? Why didn’t they eat it then? Why wait until now?”
This question puzzled the other players as well. If eating the Sea God’s bone boosted their power, why hadn’t the mermaid dolls devoured it earlier when they first found it?
“It’s simple,” Gu Jiu replied, seated comfortably on the chair Lu Ji had brought over. “They couldn’t eat it back then.”
“Why not?”
Gu Jiu explained, “The mermaids were originally the Sea God of these waters. But their power was stolen by the fish monster, which took their place. In their current form, they were too weak to harm the fish monster, which had become the new Sea God. The bone contained the power of the Sea God, but it was sealed. The mermaid dolls didn’t have the strength to break the seal, let alone devour it.”
She paused briefly before continuing, “It wasn’t until we were trapped inside the fish monster’s body and used the Love Stones to stop it from digesting us that the conditions became favorable. The residual power of the Sea God within the mermaid dolls resonated with the sealed power in the bone, allowing them to consume it and reclaim their strength.”
The lengthy explanation left her mouth dry.
Lu Ji, ever attentive, handed her a glass of water. After drinking most of it, she looked up at him with a smile that made his heart race and the tips of his ears burn.
Meanwhile, the battle had reached its conclusion.
The fish monster was completely devoured, not a single fragment left behind.
After finishing their feast, the mermaid dolls turned their gaze toward the group. In the darkness, their expressions were icy and filled with venomous malice.
The players froze, their hearts skipping a beat. They were suddenly reminded that the mermaids in this world were vengeful and petty creatures. Could it be that they were planning to turn on their saviors now?
As the thought crossed their minds, Gu Jiu stood up and sneered. “What’s this? Are you thinking of repaying kindness with betrayal?”
The four mermaid dolls continued to glare coldly at them. Then, suddenly, they grinned.
Their bodies began to change. They shed their restrictive doll forms, growing into powerful beings over two meters tall. These were true merfolk—human torsos with fish tails, their features eerily human-like but still retaining distinct fish-like traits. An aura of predatory dominance radiated from them, marking them as apex hunters of the ocean.
The transformation left the group in awe.
The four merfolk—two males and two females—were overwhelming in their presence, exuding raw power and an unyielding aura of strength.
The players’ expressions changed drastically. Could the real boss of this game world not be the fish-faced monster, but these four merfolk?
At that moment, one of the male merfolk, particularly robust and imposing, spoke in a deep, arrogant voice:
“You, stay. I will allow you to serve the Sea God.”
He pointed at Gu Jiu, his expression full of conceit.
The other three merfolk exchanged malicious glances, their eyes brimming with schadenfreude. It wasn’t hard to guess that any human left behind would meet a grim fate.
Gu Jiu sighed softly, her tone gentle yet laden with mockery.
“I’ve said it before—you’re all incredibly foolish. But I never thought you’d be this stupid. No wonder a fish-faced nobody managed to steal your power and status, leaving only the four of you behind.”
Her words struck a nerve. The merfolk, clearly humiliated, bristled with rage. One of them nearly lashed out with its tail but restrained itself at the last second.
Gu Jiu continued, “Did you really think we’d help you unconditionally?”
The players had indeed been sent here by the game system to complete a task, but nowhere did it specify they had to assist the locals without question. Setting aside whatever rewards the system would give, these NPCs didn’t even express gratitude—let alone the audacity to try and retaliate against their saviors. What kind of logic was that?
The four merfolk’s expressions shifted. Their haughty demeanor faltered, replaced with cautious vigilance.
They had suffered countless losses at Gu Jiu’s hands and knew she was both cunning and unpredictable. They didn’t dare risk provoking her further.
“Well then,” Gu Jiu said with a bright, seemingly innocent smile, “are you sure you really want me to stay?”
The leader of the merfolk scowled deeply. After a tense pause, he finally grumbled reluctantly, “Forget it. You may leave. But if you ever appear before us again, we’ll make sure you become a slave to serve the Sea God.”
“Oh, I’m so scared,” Gu Jiu replied with mock sincerity, though her tone carried none of the intended reverence. Inwardly, she mused, Who knows if I’ll ever return to this world anyway?
At that moment, the players noticed a familiar pulling sensation—the unmistakable signal that the stage had been cleared.
They had completed the mission at last.
Yet one question lingered in their minds: why had the mission only been considered complete after the merfolk allowed Gu Jiu to leave?
With their heads buzzing with unanswered questions, the players exited the game world, marking the end of this task.