Chapter Thirty-Seven: Mistake

"Murder! Someone's been murdered!"

The virtual projection flickered and vanished. Yoda lay motionless on the stage, drenched in blood, sparking panic among the audience. They had no idea what had actually transpired, but the players hidden among the crowd were well aware.

[Bel Ami Instance: Weilong strikes, brutally killing the old man (Trending)]
[Weilong is killing again. Is there a hidden secret behind a normal world that requires 100,000 to enter? (Trending)]

From the moment Chen Lai killed Yoda, the players within the "Bel Ami" instance received the news firsthand via the Deep Sea Forum. Chen Lai was a top-tier player, and a significant number of others followed his actions upon entering an instance to gain insights into the scenario. Some had tracked him for two weeks, noticing that like other veteran players, he had focused on establishing an identity, with little apparent exploration progress—but today, he had finally bared his fangs.

He had committed murder, and in public. This meant his social standing within the instance was ruined; whether he wanted to or not, he had to evacuate. And before evacuating, he would surely take everything he had discovered with him. A top-ranked player like him wouldn't resort to murder unless there was something valuable to gain.

Start the blockade!

Players who had been enjoying the pleasures of Paris just moments ago immediately shifted into work mode. There were three evacuation points in the "Bel Ami" instance: Parc Monceau, the Church of the Holy Trinity, and the Boulevard de Courcelles.

Players reading the posts puffed on cigars and oiled their firearms in their safehouses. There were fewer than a thousand players in this instance, and only a few hundred were planning to intercept Chen Lai—a much weaker force compared to the situation in the previous instance. This was partly due to the high entry fee. Ever since Chen Lai triggered the "Lord of the Mysteries" event, the Great Vortex had expanded rapidly, and the required preparation cost to enter now reached 150,000. It wasn't a small sum, and with no obvious rewards in this instance, paying such an amount was a gamble that could easily lead to a loss.

Players were driven by profit. Faced with such high risks and unclear returns, most chose to wait and see, leaving only professional profiteers to take the risk.

Chen Lai had also noticed the forum posts, but he was more concerned with how to transport the Beyonder characteristic in his possession and the secret that Zhang Long had promised to share that afternoon. Since his first contact with Klein, Chen Lai had looted over a million in spoils. Aside from today's battle, he had faced little danger, earning a tidy sum by leveraging unique information gaps and Toji Fushiguro.

*It's already time to leave,* Chen Lai thought.

Even as he pondered, his hands moved with practiced efficiency. He slipped into a locker room, donned a random fencer's outfit, swapped his headgear for a long, thick hat, and added a pair of glasses to successfully disguise himself.

He opened the suitcase originally meant for his fencing gear and placed the Beyonder characteristic inside. It was a crude method, but he had no better options at the moment. Once done, he slid his "Old Artist" sword into its sheath, pulled the "Hermit" Tarot card from his pocket to glance at it one last time, and tucked it into a small, hidden pouch inside his clothing—this was his entire fortune, and he was ready to evacuate with it all.

Just then, Fierce Tiger sent him a message: Zhang Long had returned from the countryside with a shocking secret—a potion formula. There was something even more outrageous regarding the gods of this world, but Zhang Long insisted on waiting until they were all gathered to speak, lest he be struck down by divine punishment the moment he revealed it.

The message made Chen Lai hesitate. The afternoon intelligence-sharing meeting they had scheduled had hit a snag. If he evacuated now, he would walk away with over a million, enough to pay off his debts. If he met up, there was risk involved, but the secret regarding the gods was tempting.

After a moment of inner conflict, Chen Lai chose to evacuate. He had earned enough money; there was no need to invite unnecessary danger.

He sent a message to Zhang Long, regardless of whether he would see it: "I'm leaving. I can't wait for that secret; you talk to Fierce Tiger."

He then messaged Fierce Tiger: "I'm in trouble. I plan to evacuate from Parc Monceau. You tell Zhang Long."

Unexpectedly, Fierce Tiger replied almost instantly: "OK, we're leaving too. We'll meet at the park."

...

A week earlier, after the first information-sharing meeting, Zhang Long had found another ritual related to the mystical side among the discarded drafts at the newspaper office. Compared to the abstract ritual he had given Chen Lai, this one was much simpler. It required telling a joke with an obvious error and then invoking a name:

*Pointer that stirs the hands of time,*
*Shadow that wanders the threads of fate,*
*Incarnation of trickery and pranks.*

After much deliberation, Zhang Long sent this name to Chen Lai and Fierce Tiger via private message and waited for their response. Under the gaslight, he waited for about half an hour. Chen Lai replied with "Safe," while Fierce Tiger sent a question mark.

He proceeded with the ritual. Afterward, nothing changed; everything seemed, just as Chen Lai had said, perfectly safe.

But entering the second week, Zhang Long began to sense something wrong. Everything around him started to blur. He felt as if he were losing control of his actions, and more importantly, the player private messaging system had stopped working entirely. As a veteran player and a student of the Vinegar Academy, he understood what was happening. When a world encountered a power deeper than high-dimensional projections, this abstract force would gradually affect the projection, then the mind, and finally, the player themselves back in the Deep Sea aquarium.

The name he had invoked had invited a great disaster. But why had Chen Lai replied that it was safe?

A moment later, the realization struck him. The name had been invoked the instant he sent it through the private message system. It was "He" who had sent the message to him, not Chen Lai. The corruption had already begun, and it was becoming irreversible.

"I voluntarily abandon my equipment and lose my way."

Zhang Long chose to log out before the corruption could affect his physical body. The moment he departed, his flesh was taken over. Amon, from the world of *Lord of the Mysteries*, wiped his monocle and moved it from his left eye to his right.

The god of this planet was not very strong, and it was currently resisting Amon's power and corruption. As an Angel of the Path of Error, a mythical creature forged in the "involution" of the *Lord of the Mysteries* world, how could he fear the god of such a tiny planet? His energy had originally been focused on tracking the scent of the Sefirah Castle, and he had no interest in this planet. But by chance, he had detected the aura of the Sefirah Castle here—it was exactly that Tarot card held by Chen Lai.

With his plan organized, Amon had spent a week "taming" the "Virgin Mary" of this planet. Then, he manipulated Zhang Long's body to contact Fierce Tiger, tricking him into inviting Chen Lai to "share intelligence."