Montage Rules

"You two."

The disciplinary officer who had been watching them from the side walked over, his tone indifferent.

"Are you heading to the Apophis Aquarium?"

"Yes," Qi stepped forward to answer.

"The New Gospel Book explicitly mentions that love between androids of the opposite sex is forbidden..."

"We are not in love," Ming stood in front of the girl, blocking the path between the disciplinary officer and Qi.

"Qi and I are only friends. We decided to go to the Apophis Aquarium out of curiosity about marine life and for our campus extracurricular research group's project."

The disciplinary officer was stunned for a moment. Before he could respond, Ming continued rationally.

"If you still have doubts, Mr. Disciplinary Officer, you may connect to our memory modules to verify."

Qi's eyes trembled. She opened her mouth but said nothing.

If the disciplinary officer truly checked their memory modules, their violation of the taboos—reading philosophy books—would be exposed, and the only outcome awaiting them would be destruction.

The disciplinary officer shook his head. "Judging by your uniforms, you are students of Asimov University, aren't you?"

"I have no intention of browsing your memories. I am willing to believe you. As for the research project, I will verify it with Asimov University through Athena."

"I must remind you, however, that opposite-sex androids should maintain social distance during non-working hours."

Ming did not use phrases like "this is necessary for academic discussion" to brush the officer off again; he simply nodded silently, giving the officer an out.

After dismissing the disciplinary officer, Qi approached Ming with some unease. "A research project?"

Ming blinked at her, a hint of brightness appearing in his steady eyes. "Don't worry. Before leaving the university, I had already applied for a project with Athena."

"If he checks, it will serve as the necessary proof for your trip to the Apophis Aquarium, and it will also shut your guardian up."

Athena, like Hera and Aphrodite, was an artificial intelligence of Skyline City, each managing different functions; the former's functions mainly corresponded to the academic field, while Aphrodite decided social relationships, and Hera was the highest-ranking artificial intelligence under the Sky-Father, responsible for supervising the artificial intelligences of different fields.

"How did you seem to know I wanted to go to the Apophis Aquarium?" Qi asked.

He was always like this, as if he could see through her thoughts; every time, before she could even state her plans, the young man had already arranged everything in advance.

"Perhaps I just know you quite well?" Ming mused.

"If I hadn't said I wanted to go there, wouldn't all your efforts have been for nothing?" Qi stared into the young man's eyes.

Ming shook his head. "The choice is yours. I merely try to ensure that no option has any loopholes."

"If you hadn't chosen the aquarium, I also bought tea tickets for the Nine Dragons Street theater, as well as tickets for a recent movie, or even new flavors of milk tea and ice cream..."

"Stop, stop, stop," Qi turned her head away. "Don't say any more. I get it, you put a lot of heart into this."

Ming stood beside the girl, but he did not speak the words in his heart.

He didn't want any accidents to happen before tomorrow.

"Inappropriate behavior—demerit."

"Cursing—demerit."

"Improper dress—demerit."

"Stabbing someone with a spear... this should be... a point deduction."

Before Angelina's spear pierced his chest, the disciplinary officer struggled to write these words in the New Gospel Book with a quill.

A dull thud echoed as he collapsed, and the carriage fell into silence. The silver-haired girl, drenched in blood, looked back at the carnage while her wine-red pupils glowed with an eerie light in the darkness.

Angelina pulled the riding spear from the officer's chest.

The slaughter stimulated the burning genes deep within her, and the scent of blood constantly pricked her senses; after the endless longing, a strong feeling of emptiness and exhaustion surged up.

She brushed back the messy silver hair over her forehead, and with deep dark circles under her eyes, she looked at Xu Xiaoyou. "They're all dead."

She didn't know what had gotten into the blonde girl, but Xu Xiaoyou had suddenly said they needed to lower their total rating to 80 before the next station.

The travel time between stations didn't exceed fifteen minutes, and to lower the rating that much in such limited time, the only feasible way was to go after the disciplinary officers.

If Xu Xiaoyou wanted to be crazy, Angelina would be crazy with her.

Bai Youyou's clothing was much neater; compared to the blood-soaked Angelina, only her face and the hem of her clothes were stained.

She had also finished her side of the battle, and the disciplinary officers who tried to resist had died instantly without any pain.

"What about them?" Bai Youyou asked.

Xu Xiaoyou put away her Rose Flower and glanced at the passengers huddled in the carriage, who were watching with terrified eyes.

"Don't do anything meaningless," she shook her head.

Xu Xiaoyou moved her body, finding that the previous heavy sluggishness was gone and her mind was much clearer.

"The rating has been lowered enough."

With only three minutes left until they reached the third station, the Apophis Aquarium, Jason finally burst onto the battlefield, swinging a mechanical officer like a windmill and throwing it violently toward Xu Xiaoyou.

Seeing Xu Xiaoyou stand there unmoved, Angelina knew the girl had exhausted her movement skill cards, so she crouched slightly and, like a bolt of silver lightning, scooped up Xu Xiaoyou and moved at high speed.

"Running further back will leave us passive. We need to stall him from the front for three more minutes," Xu Xiaoyou said.

Akabane emerged from the darkness. Having triggered Unchecked Rampage, she was a mere afterimage in Jason's eyes as her figure flickered ghost-like in mid-air, and in the blink of an eye, her pitch-black metal club smashed toward his face.

Jason let out an evil roar as chains flew up from the river of blood beneath his feet, forming a suit of hard armor on his body that blocked the girl's strike head-on.

Akabane's arm went numb from the shock, and as she quickly retreated after the failed strike, Jason's massive hand reached out to grab her.

Bai Youyou arrived from the side, gripping her hammer's handle with both hands and giving a low shout as the heavy hammer whistled upward, knocking Jason's hand away.

Having all her basic attributes at the sublime grade, she was the only one in the team who barely had the strength to contend with Jason head-on.

Angelina seized the moment of Jason's imbalance and threw her silver spear; space shattered in layers as a silver light flashed past, carrying Jason's massive body crashing toward the rear carriages at high speed!

Jason groaned as his legs slammed into the floor, carving two deep furrows, and his chest swelled like a mountain rising from the earth as he deflected the piercing riding spear.

In the next instant, Angelina appeared out of thin air and caught the spear, the spear shadows ripping through the air in a blur as she swept, smashed, uplifted, thrusted, and turned with ease.

Under this violent offensive, Jason managed to block every attack head-on, and the cold spear shadows brushed past his chest, leaving only faint blue metal marks while he appeared quite effortless.

On the other hand, while attacking, Angelina had to dodge iron hooks that lunged at her like snakes.

Jason found an opening and grabbed Angelina's spear, a cruel smile twisting his face as his flesh contorted like a ferocious demon's.

In the next moment, he raised his sharp axe, and a blood-red figure of tyranny manifested, stirring a terrifying tide of blood as it crashed toward Angelina, threatening to annihilate her within the tyrannical blood shadow!

Seeing this, Bai Youyou decisively raised her hand and activated Rectifying Life Link and Sacred Order Protection, converting her own health into a burst attribute buff for Angelina while adding high damage reduction!

Angelina glowed with a dazzling golden light as three golden shields emerged, representing justice, truth, and the law, while startling attribute numbers popped up; in an instant, her strength, agility, and constitution all surged by nearly three hundred points!

Angelina seized the chance, swinging the Abyssal White Flower to unleash Thousand Slashes of Crimson, tearing through the overwhelming blood shadow and violently throwing her silver spear again.

This time, with a flash of white light, it pierced straight through Jason's chest!

Between breaths, the surging attributes decayed by half, and in another blink, the three golden shields vanished; Angelina's attributes returned to normal, and Bai Youyou's health plummeted to thirty percent.

Looking at Jason as he climbed back up from the ground as if nothing had happened, Angelina found it incredibly troublesome.

Blood gushed from the gaping hole in Jason's chest, yet his health bar didn't budge; according to the rules, Awakened Ones could not deal substantial damage to a Label Catcher.

Even if they were annihilated in an instant, a Label Catcher would revive in a very short time.

"Player Name: Jason"

"Level: Grade 5 (Pseudo)"

"Race: Lutmon"

"Health: 99% (3329)"

"Psyche: 37"

"Affiliation: Slaughterers"

"Current Buffs: Howl, Burning Blood, Berserk, Lightning Shield, Dominate, Psyche Conversion, Special Attack Immunity, Darwin Skin, Label Catcher"

"Combat Rating: Very Strong"

"He can convert his psyche value into attributes," Bai Youyou judged immediately.

"Eight hundred agility, nearly thirteen hundred strength, and fifteen hundred constitution. This guy's attributes far exceed a normal grade 5," Angelina straightened her back.

"Wait, how did he lose health then?" Akabane was confused.

Logically, no matter how terrifying the wounds their attacks inflicted, they should only be surface-level and unable to harm his essence.

Even the health deduction from Burning Blood should be offset by the Label Catcher effect, yet his health had dropped slightly.

"Maybe he bumped into something?" Angelina also felt it was strange.

"No," Akabane shook her head. "The side effects of a combatant's Burning Blood are neutralized, meaning he won't lose health through self-harm."

"It was the mechanical officer," Xu Xiaoyou spoke at the right moment. "That drop of health was from a stray bullet from that mechanical officer earlier."

The group was stunned, and as they looked at Jason, who was absorbing the blood in the carriage and standing back up, they all realized why Xu Xiaoyou had started killing in the carriage.

"Haven't you noticed? This guy can't harm the passengers or the disciplinary officers in the carriage, but he can harm the mechanical officers, and conversely, the mechanical officers can harm him as well."

"I've found the hidden victory condition for this game." Xu Xiaoyou's face was calm as the train slowly pulled into the station through the windows on either side.

"I wonder if you still remember the rules broadcast by the system at the start of the game."

A sentence surfaced in everyone's minds.

"Rule 1: Label Catchers will be enhanced, with attributes far exceeding the average of both sides in the current dungeon, and cannot be killed by players."

....

This rule was misleading, and everyone, including Xu Xiaoyou, had initially misinterpreted it.

The focus was not on "killed," but on the word "players"; the dungeon designer had tied the Label Catcher's power and immortality together to mislead the players into thinking the Label Catcher was absolutely invincible.

In reality, as the words literally suggested, a Label Catcher simply cannot be killed by players, but there exists a possibility of them being killed by something else.

For example...

....

The girls looked toward the mechanical officer crawling on the floor with missing parts.

Since a mechanical officer's attack could cause real damage to a Label Catcher, it meant he could also kill him.

Any absurdity has its own logic.

The hidden victory condition for this game was to kill the Label Catcher.

"But how could a guy like this kill Jason? Besides, he has ways to recover," Angelina questioned, looking at the scrap metal crawling toward them.

"One mechanical officer obviously can't kill him. But what if there's more than one?"

"Quantity leads to quality."

"Don't forget, we lowered our total rating by twenty-seven earlier, so a mechanical officer boarded at the Fire Medical Center; clearly, lowering the rating removes behavioral restrictions, while the appearance of mechanical officers is the punishment mechanism."

"This punishment mechanism likely won't involve just one officer. It's highly probable that they are deployed based on how much the rating drops between two stations."

"The reason I wanted you to lower our total rating to eighty this time was to calculate exactly how much the rating needs to drop for one mechanical officer to be deployed."

"If more mechanical officers are better, why don't we just deduct everything?" Angelina said casually.

"Please stop using your instincts to communicate," Bai Youyou sighed, rubbing her forehead.

"Where was I wrong? Meijiu, isn't that right?" Angelina tried to find an ally, only to find Akabane looking at her with a complicated expression.

"Of course, more isn't necessarily better. Their primary targets are us, after all. We need to keep the number within a range we can handle."

"Can't we just kill the extra ones?" Angelina frowned.

Akabane and Bai Youyou were stunned.

What she said actually made sense.

Right, they could just resolve the ones that exceeded their control; they couldn't deal with the Label Catcher, but killing a few mechanical officers was easy, wasn't it?

The more officers they summoned, the more it seemed to benefit them, as they could precisely control the number of officers to be just enough to kill the Label Catcher.

It was the first time they had seen a glimmer of wisdom emanating from Angelina's instincts.

The train came to a steady stop at the station, and the lunging Jason was blocked by an invisible wall.

Could it be...

Angelina > Xu Xiaoyou?

"It seems you've all been infected by Anya's instincts." Xu Xiaoyou began to worry about the future of Light-Chaser Garden.

Angelina's instincts were even more terrifying than the Siren King's memetic contamination.

"This brings us back to another rule from the beginning of the journey."

With a wave of Xu Xiaoyou's hand, the rules recorded in her notebook appeared before the girls.

"Rule 2: Your behavior is restricted. As you lower your rating, the restrictions on your behavior will be gradually lifted."

"In a dungeon, what players see is only what the designer wants them to see."

"Have you never considered that the lifting of behavioral restrictions might not only apply to us?"