A subtle atmosphere hung over the entertainment hall.
On the 3D projection, the light representing Participant Number 023 was slowly moving across the game map.
The guests gathered in small groups, most of their gazes fixed on that specific area as they whispered and pointed.
Some even crowded around the consoles, pulling up the real-time feed of Number 023 to study his every movement frame by frame.
“Look at his positioning; he avoided the zombie horde in advance again.”
“In that ambush just now, he didn't waste a single bullet. Every shot was a precision hit.”
“There’s definitely something wrong with Number 023.”
Conversations like these rose and fell throughout the hall.
No one noticed a nondescript man quietly sitting down in a sofa chair in the corner.
His name was Locke. He had an ordinary face and was completely unremarkable in a crowd.
His presence was very low, but that was exactly where his value lay.
Locke glanced around.
Most people’s attention was on Number 023.
Good.
He leaned back into the sofa and picked up a nearby helmet. His movements were natural, like those of an ordinary guest wanting to watch the match.
The moment he put on the helmet, his consciousness began to submerge.
When he opened his eyes again, Locke was standing in a virtual space.
This was the spectator seat.
His consciousness floated within this virtual space, surrounded by hovering light screens. Each screen displayed a different game scene.
Ruins, streets, buildings, active participants, and those wandering zombies.
He could move as he pleased. With a single thought, he could instantly teleport to any participant and observe their actions from any angle.
The participants were completely unaware of his existence and could not sense anything unusual.
Locke tried to approach a participant who was advancing rapidly.
The participant’s face was inches away; Locke could even see the beads of sweat on the man’s forehead.
The man was warily scanning his surroundings, his gaze passing right through Locke to focus on the distance.
This was the spectator seat—pure observation, no interference possible.
Of course, if one was willing to spend money, there was another mode.
Locke looked at the flashing prompt at the edge of his vision.
【Become a VIP to personally enter the arena and experience the Killing Competition. Click here for details.】
He gave a cold snort. Why did he have to spend money everywhere he went?
Only by paying could one be dropped into the game to participate in the slaughter as a VIP player.
VIP status was divided into several tiers. The most basic VIP players didn't have much of an advantage; to experience true joy in the game, one had to keep throwing money into it.
Locke wasn't here to play; he had a mission.
He began to move.
First, he shuttled between various participants, pretending to be an ordinary spectator.
Occasionally, he would stop for a few seconds in front of a light screen to watch the wandering zombies. His actions were natural and casual, no different from those who were truly there to watch.
Holy crap, why is someone over there taking off their pants?!
Good god, in a lethal game of slaughter where one could die at any moment, there were actually streakers?
Locke felt like his eyes were being assaulted.
Gradually, he began to deviate from the normal spectator trajectory.
His consciousness began to sink into the depths of the game.
This wasn't depth in a physical sense, but a more abstract penetration.
It was like being inside a computer system, diving from one folder into another, moving from surface-level programs into the base code.
Locke’s special ability lay here.
His ability was called Programmer. Under the intensive training of the Order Alliance, he had learned to digitize his consciousness.
He could invade virtual worlds in the form of a data stream. This mission to investigate the Killing Competition game was a perfect match for his professional skills.
He closed his eyes, and his consciousness turned into a wisp of light smoke, seeping bit by bit into the game scenes.
Data began to surge toward him.
At first, it was just scattered fragments, drifting past like snowflakes.
Then there were more, becoming denser, until they turned into a torrent. Countless pieces of information frantically washed over his perception.
Dizziness.
Nausea.
Locke gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay conscious.
This was the price.
Without special protective equipment, he was breaking in purely through mental strength.
Any single mistake could lead to his consciousness being lost forever in this ocean of data.
But he couldn't stop. He had to go deeper and trace the source.
The Alliance had spent an enormous amount to give him this chance to investigate. He absolutely could not fail; he had to produce results.
The data streams were like countless rivers, converging from all directions and branching out again.
Locke needed to find their source—the place where everything was truly controlled.
He didn't know how much time had passed.
Locke suddenly felt a strange sense of floating.
His consciousness began to drift; he couldn't hear or see, and all his senses were rapidly vanishing. Only a pure sense of existence remained, drifting in the void.
Then, a speck of light flashed, like a firefly in the dark.
The light speck expanded rapidly, turning into an orb of light that grew brighter and more dazzling until his entire field of vision was filled with light.
Lines began to emerge within the white light, branching, intersecting, and merging. It was as if an invisible hand were drawing, sketching the shapes of various objects stroke by stroke.
Locke opened his eyes.
He saw it.
This was a... laboratory?
The walls were silver-white, made of an unknown material as smooth as a mirror, covered in numerous indicator lights.
The lab benches were filled with various instruments he didn't recognize—some humming, others flashing with blue light.
People in white researcher coats walked back and forth, holding various devices and speaking in low voices.
Locke’s heart raced. He hadn't expected that tracking the backend of the Killing Competition would lead to a place like this.
He forced himself to calm down. Now he needed to record everything—memorize everything here and send it back to the Alliance.
Everyone had their own specialty. What he couldn't understand could be sent back in its original form for the Alliance’s specialists to analyze.
His consciousness quietly spread out like an invisible net, exploring the entire laboratory.
More information flooded into his mind.
He didn't know which instruments or data were the most important, so he could only record everything. Even though his consciousness was starting to feel bloated, he couldn't stop.
Just then, his gaze fell upon the very center of the laboratory.
There was a strange chamber there.
It was cylindrical, over five meters in diameter and very tall. It had a white outer shell, its surface carved with countless complex patterns.
Those patterns didn't look like decorations; they seemed more like runes, faintly shimmering with light.
Several researchers were standing next to the chamber, talking in low voices.
A young researcher, holding a tablet-like device, said, “The experimental subject is ready. Shall we begin a new experiment?”
The man at the front, who looked like a supervisor, nodded.
“Begin.”
The researchers nearby immediately sprang into action.
One of them walked to a corner and opened a special container.
Inside the container was a floating mass.
Locke looked at the object.
It was illusory and translucent, without a solid form. It looked like a ball of light slowly writhing, with no fixed shape.
What kind of experimental subject is this?
Locke didn't understand it, so he just recorded it.
He watched as two researchers carefully moved the mass into the chamber.
The chamber door slowly opened.
Locke instinctively looked inside.
Inside the chamber, a massive white light orb was suspended.
The orb emitted a soft white glow, hovering in mid-air and rotating slowly.
The light wasn't blinding, yet it was difficult to look at directly.
And surrounding the light orb were chains.
Countless thick, pitch-black chains extended from all sides of the chamber, tightly binding the light orb.
Some were wrapped around the surface, some pierced through the orb itself, and others seemed to grow from within the orb, extending outward to lock into the chamber walls.
The chains were vibrating slightly, like living things, restraining something that was desperately trying to break free.
Locke stared blankly at the light orb bound by chains, forgetting to think for a moment.
This might be the true secret behind the Killing Competition.
Rate on N.U.
