37: Chapter 37 Seoul, the Rogue's Empty City Stratagem

The smoke of the Battle of Gaoyang had not yet dissipated when the troops received new orders: advance south at full speed.

The target: Seoul.

Jack drove a captured Willys Jeep.

Brother Bao sat in the passenger seat looking at the map.

Dai Dai was curled up in the back seat, tightly clutching the Red Fuji apple she had protected so well.

It was meant for the Company Commander, and also for this city.

The Jeep sped down the highway, its wheels kicking up mud.

But as they got closer to Seoul, the atmosphere inside the car became somewhat eerie.

It was too quiet.

Logically, at this critical juncture, the road should have been jammed with refugees fleeing south, or with retreating ROK Army units.

But now, on the road, there was nothing except a few trucks abandoned by the roadside.

Not even a single crow.

This dead silence was more unnerving than continuous gunfire.

"Something is wrong," Brother Bao put down the map, his brow furrowed deeply.

"The road conditions are too smooth. Ridgway is an old fox; he would definitely blow up bridges, destroy roads, and lay mines when retreating. But this road... it's completely clean."

Jack tightened his grip on the steering wheel: "Maybe they ran too hastily and didn't have time?"

"Impossible," Brother Bao shook his head.

"This is a major retreat involving hundreds of thousands of people, not a few hundred people on a picnic. This cleanliness looks like it was deliberately cleared, or..."

He didn't say the second half of the sentence.

Or perhaps, a much larger trap was waiting for them there.

The Jeep rounded the foot of a mountain, and the outline of Seoul finally appeared in view.

The ancient city walls, the scattered houses, and the distant bell tower.

But in the dawn light, the city looked like a giant tomb, with no cooking smoke rising.

The streets were deserted, with only a few damaged Taegeukgi flags weakly flapping against their poles in the cold wind.

"Stop the vehicle," Brother Bao suddenly shouted.

Jack slammed on the brakes, and the Jeep halted five hundred meters from the city gate.

"What is it?" Dai Dai poked her head out.

"Look at that," Brother Bao pointed toward the sky above the city.

Following his finger, Jack felt a chill run down his scalp.

The sky above Seoul was not the usual blue sky and white clouds, nor was it the smoke of war.

The air there displayed a bizarre distortion, like the static screen of an old television set with a poor signal.

Occasionally, a streak of purple current flashed through the clouds.

That color absolutely did not belong to this era; it was a neon purple with a strong sci-fi hue.

"A system bug?" Jack asked subconsciously.

"No," Brother Bao's voice deepened.

"This is data tampering. Someone is forcibly modifying the underlying logic of this instance."

Just then, all players received a red system warning:

[Warning: Illegal data intrusion detected.]

[Warning: Historical progress obstructed.]

[Current area danger level: Cannot be assessed.]

They were given no time to react.

The purple currents above Seoul suddenly converged, and the sky seemed to be forcibly torn open.

A huge roar came from the rift; it wasn't the sound of a propeller plane, but the shriek of some high-frequency turbine engine.

A cluster of black dots plummeted from the rift.

They were not parachutes.

The black dots suddenly decelerated mid-air, blue tail flames erupting from their backs, hovering steadily in the air.

Jack grabbed his binoculars.

When he clearly saw what those things were, the binoculars almost fell to the ground.

Those were not US soldiers from this era.

They wore fully enclosed exoskeleton armor, and the streamlined helmets flashed with the red light of tactical visors.

What they held were not carbines, but futuristic heavy energy weapons.

Moreover, above each person's head floated a bright red ID, arrogantly suspended in the air:

"Ghost Captain"

"Thor's Hammer"

"Wing of Freedom"

These were absolutely not units from a historical instance.

These were paid skins and god-tier equipment from the neighboring game, 'super captain'!

"Damn it..." Jack squeezed out a word through gritted teeth.

"These bastards can't play fair, they're cheating?"

This wasn't just cheating; this was forcibly injecting server data from another game directly into theirs.

In the sky, the giant mech called 'Ghost Captain' hovered above the top of the Seoul Bell Tower.

Its voice, processed through an amplifier, echoed throughout the dead city, making the Jeep's glass vibrate.

"Chinese Boy Scouts."

The voice was filled with mechanical coldness and arrogance, and it even used broken Chinese.

"The game is over. This is not where you belong. If you don't want your data wiped, kneel now, and perhaps God will forgive you."

As his words fell, he raised the weapon in his hand and casually fired a shot toward the ground.

A blinding laser beam instantly pierced a stone tablet at the city gate.

The thick granite was cut open like tofu, the cut surface still melting and dripping.

A player who refused to believe it tried to fight back, raising his Mosin-Nagant rifle and firing a shot.

The bullet struck the 'Ghost Captain,' but it didn't even cause the slightest ripple in the blue energy shield; it was simply deflected.

This was dimensional crushing.

Using World War II fire sticks to fight super soldiers from a sci-fi movie.

Despair.

This despair was a hundred times deeper than facing a heavy tank.

Against a tank, you at least knew it was something within the rules of physics, something that could be destroyed by explosives.

But how do you fight against these unreasonable data monsters?

The public chat channel instantly exploded.

[How are we supposed to play this? This is cheating!]

[Where is Su Yun? Where is the planner? Come out and explain!]

[This is the fair competition you talked about? The other side has Gundams!]

Jack's fingers gripping the steering wheel turned white. He looked at the condescending 'Ghost Captain,' and the recently established belief in victory was being slowly eroded by this absurd reality.

"Brother Bao..." Dai Dai clutched the apple in her arms tightly.

"Are we... not getting into the city anymore?"

Brother Bao didn't speak.

He stared intently at the rift in the sky, seemingly calculating something, but in the end, he just let his hand drop listlessly.

"The data overflow is too much. Invulnerability, invincibility, flight. This is something tactics can never compensate for."

Just as all players on the server fell into chaos and anger, with some even preparing to forcibly log out, that familiar, calm, almost cold voice suddenly cut through all the noise, sounding in everyone's ears.

It was Su Yun.

"What are you panicking about?"

Su Yun's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a strange sense of stability, cold and sharp like the snow at Chosin Lake, yet real.

"Mr. Smith finds history too boring and wants to add some sci-fi seasoning for us."

In the sky, those arrogant 'Super Soldiers' were preparing to begin the slaughter.

"Since they want to play God's game..."

A hint of mocking laughter emerged from Su Yun's voice.

"Then we'll let them see what it means for mortals to execute gods."

[Server-wide Announcement: Pain Feedback System Restriction Lifted.]

[Server-wide Announcement: Pain Synchronization Rate Increased to... 200%.]

Jack looked up sharply.

Pain rate increased?

What did that mean?

Did they think we weren't dying painfully enough?

But the next second, he saw the 'Ghost Captain' in the sky suddenly shudder all over, letting out a pig-like scream of agony.

That wasn't a game character sound effect; that was the real wail of a pampered player on the other side of the microphone.

Su Yun had reversed the pain feedback system through that data rift and injected it into the opponent's connection port.

"Don't rush," Su Yun's voice echoed coldly over Seoul.

"Close the door and beat the dog."