83: Chapter 83 Script? The Shadows and the Fixed Match Script

A host wearing silver-white battle armor stood in front of the camera, with the smoke-filled Abyss Front behind him. The emblem of the Gate of the Underworld was inlaid on his shoulder pauldrons, and the sword intent patterns on his breastplate flowed slowly under the drive of magic power.

"Today! We aren't talking about data! We aren't talking about specs! We are going straight—to the battlefield! A legendary-ranked powerhouse will use this season's strongest transformation card—the Tier 8 SS-rank, Heavenly Sword Absolute Blade, Beast God Armament—to challenge a Tier 9 Abyss monster head-on right before your eyes!"

The camera pulled back.

At the canyon entrance on the other side of the battlefield, a giant Abyss monster over thirty meters tall was squeezing out of a rift. Tier 9. Dark purple scales. Six twisted appendages. At the end of each appendage, it gripped a giant bone blade condensed from Abyss magic power.

The live chat went crazy.

[Holy crap!! Tier 9!! Live-streaming a fight against a Tier 9!!]

[That's the Abyss rift near the Canglan Strait!! I recognize it!! A Tier 8 squad died there just last month!!]

[Can the Beast God Armament even fight a Tier 9?! A Tier 8 card fighting a Tier 9?! Is this for real?!]

[Real or fake, they've already won on sheer spectacle.]

Zhao Dahai stared at the screen, his face as pale as paper.

"...Are they really going this big? Tier 9? Using a Tier 8 card to solo a Tier 9 head-on?"

Lin Xiao furrowed her brows. "It's too deliberate. The movement pattern of that Tier 9 monster is wrong; it isn't attacking, just waiting in place. It's like it's being fixed in that position by something."

"It's staged." Su Bai tossed his empty milk tea cup into the trash can. "They're just actors."

Although his master had only told him a few words, Su Bai quickly deduced something from them.

Especially since the other party had suddenly started a battlefield livestream on the release day...

If this isn't acting, I don't know what is!

You have to know that battles between Tier 9s usually destroy the heavens and the earth. Usually, let alone livestreaming, normal people would explode just by looking at it. Now they're livestreaming, heh.

"What did you say?"

"That Tier 9 monster is cooperating with the performance. The Gate of the Underworld has a deal with the Abyss side."

Su Bai stood up and walked to the folding table, watching the host in silver-white armor on the holographic screen passionately introducing the technical parameters of the Beast God Armament. "They need a stage that's shocking enough. A Tier 9 actor, a Tier 8 card, a legendary powerhouse. Once this play is finished, the orders for the Beast God Armament will be backed up until next year."

Zhao Dahai's jaw nearly hit the floor. "Making a deal with the Abyss?! That's trea—"

"Isn't that exactly what Li Chengyuan did?" Su Bai's tone was very calm. "The underlying framework for that Beast God Armament from the Gate of the Underworld was originally reverse-engineered with the help of the Abyss side. They've had trading channels for a long time. Isn't it natural to arrange a fixed match?"

Lin Xiao moved her gaze from the screen and looked at Su Bai. "How did you figure that out?"

"A message Master sent this morning." Su Bai turned the phone screen toward her. "The Truth Sanctuary detected major activity from the Abyss side today. Qi Yuan investigated, and the Gate of the Underworld has recently had secret magical communications with the Abyss—the frequency is very low, but they are definitely in contact."

Lin Xiao stared at the two messages from Li Qingyue on the screen, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

Zhao Dahai leaned in to finish reading, his face turning even whiter. "So the Abyss helped the Gate of the Underworld reverse-engineer your circuits, and now they're helping them with a live combat demo... What is this, a bundled sale?"

"It's not that cheap." Su Bai took back his phone. "The Abyss never helps for free. Look at what happened to Li Chengyuan for colluding with the Abyss—his entire family was raided, he was thrown into prison, and even his son is locked up with him. The Abyss is just using the Gate of the Underworld as a disposable tool. Once the value of this performance is squeezed dry, they'll turn around and swallow them whole."

"Then what now—"

"Now we just wait to see when the Gate of the Underworld realizes they've been sold out."

Su Bai's tone was very calm. It was like he was stating a weather forecast that was bound to come true.

Su Bai sat back down on the folding chair and pulled a second milk tea from his pocket—he had bought three in the morning, and this was the second one. "So let them act however they want. Anyway, once the fixed match is over, people who use the Beast God Armament will realize it only has basic attacks, and they'll naturally come looking for us."

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know. Just wait."

—

Beneath the Convention Center. The sewers.

Dark purple Abyss tumors clung to the pipe walls, pulsing slowly.

Two shadows stood in the sewage. They didn't cause any ripples. Their mode of existence wasn't material—it was probability. When they didn't want to be perceived, they were just a mathematical formula lurking between the shadow plane and the material plane.

Two pairs of eyes lit up from the black mist. Each pair had thirteen pupils arranged in an asymmetrical spiral.

[Target location confirmed. Convention Center side door, a temporary exhibition booth converted from a utility room. Guards: Zero.]

The first shadow's voice didn't travel through the air. It vibrated directly in the brain.

[Status of Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan.]

[Confirmed to be in closed-door cultivation. She is refining that Tier 9 Kyubey Card. It will take at least forty-eight more hours to complete the refinement. Her combat power will double by then.]

[Forty-eight hours. That's enough.]

[What about Li Qingyue?]

[The Truth Sanctuary received an urgent battle report this morning. A large-scale collapse of the Abyss rift in the Western Theater. She personally led a team to seal the rift. She is currently tied up at the Canglan Strait.]

[In other words—]

[No high-tier powerhouse can arrive within thirty seconds.]

Both shadows fell silent simultaneously.

Then, from the depths of the black mist, came an extremely harsh sound, like metal scraping against glass. That was the laughter of the Shadow Demon.

[Shadow One. Do you know what I'm looking forward to most?]

[What?]

[The expression of that Tier 1 Card Creator. When he discovers that everyone around him is too late to save him. What expression will appear on that face?]

[You want to see it?]

[Of course. Killing a genius, and killing a desperate genius. They are two completely different experiences.]

[Your taste is as terrible as ever.]

[Likewise.]

The black mist contracted violently. Shadow Two extended a gray-white arm with reversed joints and an incorrect number of knuckles, pulling a strangely shaped dagger from the void. Law patterns that didn't belong to any elemental system flowed on the blade of the dagger.

[Shadow One. That fixed match being livestreamed above—that Tier 9 Venerable, we arranged that, right?]

[Yes. But he's not just an actor; that one is quite an incredible existence, haha.]

[What do you mean?]

[You think we would really cooperate with humans to perform such a boring play?]

Shadow Two's movements paused for a moment. Thirteen pupils turned to look at Shadow One simultaneously.

[...What did you do?]

[Nothing. Just changed the script a little.]

A row of jagged teeth appeared in Shadow One's black mist. That was a smile. At least in the Shadow Demon's cognition, that was a smile.

[The Gate of the Underworld wanted an actor. We gave them one. But what they don't know is—that Tier 9 monster has twelve coordinate beacons tied to it.]

A tiny, almost invisible black thread extended from the black mist. The end of the thread was connected to an Abyss rune on the Shadow Demon's fingertip. The rune was flashing at an extremely fast frequency. Each time it flashed, a new batch of signals was transmitted back from the depths of the Abyss.

[It's eight now. Four are already waiting at the far end of the transmission channel. Once all twelve are activated—the transmission channel will open twelve exits at once. By then, the main force of monsters pouring out of the Abyss rift will be enough to flatten half the city in ten minutes.]

Shadow Two's thirteen pupils contracted sharply.

[You mean—]

[Yes. The fixed match script is just a smokescreen. Our goal was never to help humans sell cards from the beginning.]

Shadow One raised that reversed arm and pointed overhead. That direction was the Convention Center. It was the main hall packed with people. It was the promotional video of the silver-white battle armor still looping on the holographic projection tower.

[Humans like to perform in front of the camera. Then let them perform. When they discover that the Tier 9 monster in the lens is no longer cooperating with the performance—]

In the darkness, all of Shadow One's teeth were revealed. Every single one was growing backward.

[—this city will have already been surrounded by us.]

Shadow Two stared at Shadow One for a long time.

Then a similar smile split open in the black mist as well.

[So. Killing that Card Creator—]

[Is just a side task. During the chaos, no one will notice what happened in a utility room at a side door. You and I, two Tier 9 Shadow Demons, killing a Card Creator apprentice who isn't even Tier 2. One frame is enough.]

[Then whose does his soul belong to?]

[To the Abyss Will, that's the intention from above. Do not research, do not interrogate, do not leave any room for error. Crush him directly, along with that cat.]

[Pity. I really wanted to see his desperate expression.]

[It's just one frame; there won't be time to see it.]

Shadow One retracted the dagger into the void, and the black mist began to slowly permeate upward. Passing through the concrete layer of the pipe wall, passing through the magic shielding array of the basement, passing through one layer after another of barrier nodes that had been corroded into cracks by the Abyss tumors in advance.

[How much longer?]

[Countdown to the fixed match—three minutes. After the twelve beacons of the transmission channel are all activated, we will receive the signal. By then, the livestream on the surface will fall into chaos. We will strike during the chaos.]

[What about that Sword Saint using the Beast God Armament? Will he get in the way?]

[Sword Saint Lu Changsheng? He can't even notice how many Abyss beacons are buried beneath his own feet. He's currently thinking about how to look cool in front of the camera later. Not worth worrying about.]

[What about that Tier 7 female swordswoman who just got the Magical Girl deck?]

[Not worth mentioning.]

Shadow Two was silent for a beat.

[There is one more variable. The combat power of Su Bai himself.]

[His Magical Girl transformation is indeed troublesome. Time Stop—data shows it can be used at most twice in a row. His Level 19 magic pool can't support a third time.] Shadow One's tone had no fluctuations. [So we won't give him a chance to transform. Before he activates the soul gem, pierce his heart directly from behind. He won't even be able to touch the hourglass.]

[Are you sure?]

[I'm never sure. I only calculate probabilities. The probability is ninety-nine point seven percent.]

[What is the remaining zero point three percent?]

Shadow One did not answer. Because right at this moment, a violent tremor came from overhead. It wasn't fireworks. It was the actual Earth's crust trembling. The pipe walls of the sewer began to crack, and the dark purple Abyss tumors suddenly writhed crazily—they had smelled the scent of their own kind.

Twelve beacons.

All activated.

[It has begun.] Shadow One said.