Chapter 16 of the Genesis Ship – 16

Chapter 16 of the Genesis Ship - 16

In the advanced gaming area.

An increasing number of players emerged from the doors on both sides of the corridor.

Some couldn't hide their disappointment, while others came out elated.

The Pigman stood quietly in the middle of the corridor, and when the number of people reached forty-seven, he suddenly pulled out a pocket watch from his chest pocket.

He pressed the watch and raised his voice, "Alright, the game is over!"

Qin Fei secretly glanced at the watch's hands; exactly forty-five minutes had passed since the game began.

The three players who hadn't shown up yet probably wouldn't be returning.

The Pigman extended his hand, pointing at the players on the corridor. "You, you, and you, come line up."

Those were the first ten players to exit.

Lin Ye and Xiao Xiao were numbers fifteen and sixteen, and Qin Fei also spotted Badger and her teammate Cheetah among the crowd, precisely numbers eleven and twelve, neither making it onto the list for the second floor.

The top ten lined up in order along the corridor.

Two blue-clad NPCs entered the corridor, leading the other players away from the advanced gaming area.

The players looked back longingly, wishing they could burn holes into the faces of the remaining ten on the corridor.

Damn it, they wanted to go to the second floor too!

The Pigman stared at the top ten on the corridor for a moment, a peculiar glint flickering in his black-bean eyes behind his back.

Instead of leading the players out of the advanced area, he guided them deeper down the corridor.

When they reached the end of the corridor, the Pigman fished out a key and felt around the wall.

It was then that the players noticed there was actually a highly inconspicuous door at the end of the corridor.

The key slid into the lock, and the door on the wall opened with a click, revealing a staircase leading upwards.

The Pigman waved his hand. "Follow me, everyone."

The group filed up the stairs one by one.

A flurry of system notifications rang in all the players' ears, a constant din.

A significant portion of the audience traffic that the two live broadcasts of the Genesis Ship, C1 and C2, with four hundred players could attract, was now flowing towards these ten individuals.

Everyone wanted to see what the new scene, which was being unlocked early, looked like.

A player at the back of the group took advantage of the Pigman's inattention and opened the chat panel to converse with the viewers.

However, Qin Fei's gaze never left the Pigman.

He felt that something about the Pigman's current state was odd.

The Pigman walked at the front of the group, his eyes roving over the ten players continuously.

He would glance at one, then another, as if selecting merchandise.

And the one he looked at most frequently was Qin Fei.

The upward staircase wasn't too long. After turning a corner, a splendid banquet hall appeared before the players.

Just like last night, a ball was taking place in the banquet hall.

Soft music echoed through the room, and the long dining tables were laden with exquisitely crafted food and wine. The NPCs on the ship seemed to never tire, reveling day and night.

"Aren't we supposed to be fleeing?" muttered a player.

How could they indulge in such debauchery while fleeing?

As the NPCs saw the Pigman leading the animals into the hall, they all turned to look this way.

Qin Fei furrowed his brows.

The gaze of these NPCs towards the players was identical to the Pigman's earlier, carrying an extremely unpleasant sense of prying.

The oppressive feeling brought about by the stares of over a hundred people was not to be ignored. Many players sensed something amiss, and the distance between the ten shortened, until they were tightly huddled together.

Two waiters dressed in black vests approached and bowed to the Pigman. "Mr. Hadsay."

The Pigman pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead, instructing the waiter,

"Take them to the preparation room of the 'Golden Hall.'"

After saying this, he left the players behind and hurriedly walked out of the banquet hall.

The "Golden Hall" mentioned by the Pigman was located even deeper within the banquet hall.

It was a room akin to a VIP suite, more luxuriously decorated than the outside banquet hall. Crystal chandeliers hung layer upon layer, resembling a flower blooming in mid-air.

In the center of the Golden Hall stood a marble round table, surrounded evenly by ten chairs wrapped in red velvet.

When entering the hall, Qin Fei glanced at the open door of the private room and saw a sign that read "VIPs Only, No Trespassing."

It seemed that apart from the animals and humans on the ship, there was also a clear and distinct hierarchy among the NPCs themselves.

Because there were precisely ten chairs in the room, the leading player assumed the waiters would arrange for everyone to sit down. Subconsciously, he headed toward the chair closest to the door.

"Hey! What are you doing?!"

Upon seeing this, the waiter's demeanor changed from courteous and polite to extremely fierce as he scolded them.

As the NPC raged, they harshly slapped away the player's hand that had touched the back of the chair.

"Hiss—"

The player felt pain, their hand now a bright red.

"This chair is for adults, not something you can casually touch."

The waiter NPC looked at the players with disdain, leading them further inside.

It turned out that within the private room, there was an even smaller chamber.

This room appeared to be a storage room accompanying the private room. It was cramped and narrow inside. After the NPC led the players into the storeroom, they turned around and left, closing the door from the outside.

The sound of the lock clicking echoed from behind the door.

The players' eyes met in the storeroom, their expressions grave.

If before ascending the stairs, they had still harbored fantasies that the pig-man Hadsay genuinely wanted to lead them on a tour of the ship,

Now, everyone realized that things seemed to be taking a turn for the worse.

"You tell me," a player pressed their ear against the door, trying to discern any sounds from outside, "what do they want by bringing us here? Could it be..."

They weighed their words carefully, but ultimately couldn't resist asking bluntly:

"I see this private room like a dining hall, with plates and cutlery on the table. Could they want to eat us?"

Given that the players and NPCs on this ship were respectively playing animals and humans, under such starkly contrasting identities, it was easy to make such speculations.

Silence fell over the storeroom; no one could answer this question.

Mi Yang drew in a soft breath.

"It shouldn't come to that, right?"

The audience on the screen whispered amongst themselves.

"Weren't they shown last night? The animals on the ship are used as fish feed."

Qin Fei, however, wasn't so optimistic.

Indeed, they had witnessed firsthand the animals on the ship being thrown into a meat grinder, ground into mush, and then tossed into the sea to feed the fish.

But what kind of animals were those?

Those were the ones eliminated during the day's game.

To put it bluntly, they were subpar rejects.

But these ten players were different.

These ten were the cream of the crop among the animals.

Eliminated players could only be used to make fish food, but who knew if they might have the honor of gracing the "human" dining plate.

Qin Fei leaned against the wall of the storeroom.

The players in front began fiddling with the lock, attempting to open it, but no matter how they tried, the lock didn't budge.

There were more than one players among these ten with physical talent, their strength extraordinary, capable of bending steel pipes from the mall barehanded, yet they were helpless against this door.

The players went from initially being full of energy to completely deflated.

A group of them slumped down inside the storeroom.

This feeling of helplessness, of being unable to do anything, was more terrifying than facing danger head-on.

Mi Yang felt suffocated. "How long are we going to be locked up here?"

Just after Mi Yang said this, footsteps sounded outside the storeroom.

The players inside immediately stood up.

Soon, the door opened, and several figures appeared before the players.

Leading them was Mr. Pig-Man Hadsay.

The false human mask on his face had been removed, revealing a massive pig head atop his well-dressed, obese body, exposed to the air.

Following closely behind the pig-man were several NPCs, also wearing animal heads.

Snake, lion, tiger, coyote, crocodile...

Qin Fei counted; there were nine in total.

"Has Miss Jasmine not come?" the lion turned to ask the pig-man.

Mr. Halders smiled ambiguously. "She doesn't want to come and says that what we're doing goes against the will of the gods and will incur divine retribution."

The lion furrowed his brow, seemingly wanting to say something, but in the end, only sighed. "Ignorant herbivores!"

The words exchanged between the lion and the pig were incomprehensible to the other players present, except for Qin Fei.

The players showed little interest in these two enigmatic individuals.

At this moment, everyone's attention was entirely focused on the crocodile and the coyote.

As the Pigman and the Lion conversed, the Coyote had been making his way toward the players step by step.

"Fantastic," the Coyote said, his eyes gleaming with greed.

His furry head sat atop a collar of an impeccably straight shirt, giving him an odd 3D animated appearance.

None of the players dared to underestimate him, however.

"Hey!" On the other side of the door, Hadsay was still talking to the Lion and Tiger.

Seeing the Coyote approach, he craned his neck and said, "Don't touch that cat; it's mine!"

The Coyote had been staring at Qin Fei, but upon hearing these words, he reluctantly turned his head.

He didn't seem too interested in Mi Yang, so he bypassed him and set his sights on the Monkey player.

The Monkey's body hair stood on end.

The previous person's guess was correct, the Monkey thought.

The intense desire in the wolf's eyes across from him was undoubtedly the look of a predator eyeing its prey!

"Gulp!" The sound of swallowing saliva was unusually loud.

The Coyote gave the Monkey no time to react.

His mouth opened wide, revealing suspiciously bloody bits of flesh between his teeth. His hot breath hit the Monkey's face as he lunged forward with his mouth wide open, aiming to bite into the Monkey!

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

The Monkey cursed wildly in his heart!

These beasts dressed in human clothing, yet their method of eating was so primitive.

The Monkey had assumed that if a player caught their attention, they might be taken out and cooked.

At the very least, they would be sliced into sashimi and placed on a plate, right?

But the NPC across from him actually just bit down!

The Monkey was prepared, sidestepping and jumping away while grabbing a steel pipe from the store and smashing it over the Coyote's head!

Bang!

The steel pipe made intimate contact with the Coyote's skull.

The Coyote let out a pained cry as the Monkey pulled his companion, Duck, and took a few steps to the side.

However, he soon realized that the Coyote was completely unharmed!

Although the Coyote displayed a look of pain on his face, he quickly straightened up and continued walking toward the Monkey as if nothing had happened.

What the hell is going on?!

The Monkey's eyes suddenly widened.

Then his hand tightened:

Beside him, Duck's eyes were even wider than the Monkey's, staring dumbfoundedly at him.

"What's wrong?" Just as the Monkey asked this question, he felt a warmth on his cheek.

He raised his hand in a daze, touching the top of his head, and brought his palm to his eyes, seeing blood smeared all over it.

—The blow from the steel pipe that the Monkey had aimed at the Coyote seemed to have transferred to his own head.

Though it didn't hurt, the wound was real.

What the hell? What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?!

All the players in the storeroom were stunned.

The Monkey had dodged quickly, but not everyone possessed his strength and good luck.

Behind the Coyote, the Crocodile Man could no longer hold back.

A gurgling sound emerged from the depths of his throat as he leaped forward at a speed far exceeding that of an ordinary human, sinking his teeth fiercely into a player's neck!

The player didn't even have time to scream. His eyes bulged as his entire head was ripped off from his neck.

The major artery was severed, and warm blood spurted out, splattering the opposite wall and ceiling with a continuous trail of bloodstains.

"Fucking hell!"

The players in the storeroom didn't scream, but the audience on the other side of the screen erupted in wild shouts.

Their cries were excited, frenzied, and even filled with longing.

Some timid spirits covered their eyes with both hands at this sight, appearing quite timid, but in reality, the eyes peering through the gaps between their fingers still revealed a gleeful light.

The live-streaming world was this cruel.

Unless like Qin Fei, Mi Yang, or the Dawn Squad, who attracted a group of die-hard fans based on the unique traits of the players themselves, there would truly be viewers who genuinely cared about the streamers.

Otherwise, no matter how many people watched the live stream online, when a player died, no viewer would sigh with regret.

The storeroom was deathly silent.

The players retreated to one corner of the room, facing the NPCs in a straight line.

"Don't be afraid, my dear little creatures."

The Pigman seemed to have become addicted to being the host. Even at this moment, he didn't forget to maintain order:

"Struggling is futile. The status of humans and animals is determined by the gods. As long as you are on this ship, it's destined that you cannot harm humans beyond your level!"

He had a fat pig head, yet he still had the audacity to call himself human.

However, no one cared about such details now.

All the players looked pale.

The information Hadsay provided, along with the monkey player's encounter earlier, explained everything.

Players couldn't attack NPCs.

On this cruise ship, any damage inflicted by a player on an NPC would be transferred back to the player in its entirety.

This was a truly desperate situation. The two players with combat talents who were ready to fight the NPCs fell silent.

In the confined space, only the sound of heavy breathing could be heard—the players were trying to suppress their panic.

The crocodile lay on the ground, tearing into the player's corpse.

The Pigman glanced at him with some disdain. "Senior Arnold is really lacking in refinement."

He had meticulously prepared such an elegant dining environment, but this savage creature knew nothing but devouring raw flesh.

"Damn, damn, damn."

In the corner of the room, the duck was supporting the injured monkey, applying medicine to the top of his head.

"I've never been in such a bizarre instance before!" The duck felt like he was going crazy.

Players couldn't beat up NPCs; if they did, they'd hurt themselves.

What kind of rule was this?

Wasn't it the same as telling the players directly, "Go die"?

The monkey was gulping down health potions. Although he was injured, his emotions were much more stable than the duck's.

Standing at the back of the crowd, his eyes were fixed on Qin Fei.

Could it be that from the moment they stepped onto the second floor, the players were doomed to die?

No, the monkey didn't believe it.

A death trap for all ten players, and these were the ten players who had performed best in the instance.

This was completely contrary to the usual design logic of the instances.

"If players can't hit NPCs, what about NPCs?" The monkey muttered to himself.

Could NPCs beat up other NPCs?

The monkey poured all his hopes into the truth he had conjured up in his mind.

At the same time, the object of the monkey's conjecture was also silently anxious.

Actually, Qin Fei had thought about the question the monkey was pondering.

Although he didn't know why, the identities of people and animals on this ship were reversed.

But since players couldn't attack NPCs now, could Qin Fei find another way?

Qin Fei happened to have an NPC with him.

The Ghost Baby hadn't signed a master-servant contract with Qin Fei and was still an illegal resident.

Moreover, Qin Fei had the Black Crystal Ring, which could summon NPCs.

But the problem was that there were simply too many enemies.

Since the players were useless, all the pressure fell on the two NPCs on Qin Fei's side.

Qin Fei squinted his eyes.

Furthermore, the Ghost Baby wasn't adept at fighting non-ghost-type NPCs.

If Qin Fei sent out the Ghost Baby and the summon from the Black Crystal Ring, the nine NPCs on the other side would almost certainly defeat the two on his side.

This wouldn't work.

He had to find a way to make use of the players around him.

Only by breaking the NPCs apart and defeating them one by one would there be a chance to win this game.

It wasn't a big problem that players couldn't attack NPCs.

Aside from direct attacks, there were many other ways to distract the NPCs.

"Ghost Baby, Ghost Baby!" Qin Fei made a buzzing sound that only he could hear, "Come out quickly!"

...

The monkey's heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was about to jump out of his throat.

The crocodile on the floor was still tearing at the player's corpse. The man who had merely been decapitated earlier was now mangled beyond recognition, his entrails, blood, and bones scattered across the floor. Many of the players in the room couldn't bear to look and closed their eyes. The pig-man Hadsay, the lion, and the coyote, however, were enjoying the spectacle immensely. The thick scent of blood harshly stimulated the senses of these bipedal beasts. Several NPCs' eyes were nearly bloodshot. However, the crocodile's crude dining etiquette offended the pig-man Hadsay. To accommodate the pig-man's mood, everyone could only suppress their surging appetites. They waited for the crocodile to finish its meal before Hadsay would bring them a true, refined dinner, just like the human nobility. "I wonder, who will end up eating my head?" The duck began to find humor in his dire situation, letting loose. He felt that unless a bodhisattva appeared, no one could save them now. In the instance, rules were above everything. Rules were sacred, supreme, and impossible to defy. Even if other players stormed the second floor right now, they couldn't save them; they'd only add more dishes to the feast. "Shh—" The monkey hushed, "Don't speak." The monkey had been staring at that cat for several minutes. He noticed that since earlier, the cat had been looking at the door. "There's something off about that door," the monkey bit his lip, psyching himself up. This was what the monkey thought. Although the pig-man seemed to know the cat's special identity, since this cat had mingled among the players, its stance must differ from those NPCs on the other side. Therefore, it would surely do something to disrupt the situation. In the storeroom, the crocodile finally devoured the player down to almost nothing. His dining speed was truly alarming. The pig-man clapped his hands at the air, and the door to the golden hall's private room opened. Two rows of waiters dressed in black entered in succession. Behind the waiters, two NPCs wearing white chef uniforms pushed carts laden with various kitchen utensils. —It's now or never!! Qin Fei had prepared half a minute ago. Every inch of his body was primed and ready. When the chef NPC pushed the dining cart into the private room, Qin Fei suddenly bellowed! "Run!!!" The moment his words fell, Qin Fei shot out like an arrow released from a bow! Mi Yang had already received instructions from Qin Fei and followed closely behind, charging forward. The NPCs by the door reacted swiftly upon seeing this, reaching out to close the door. But the two closest NPCs stumbled over some unseen obstacle and tumbled to the ground one after another. As if he had anticipated this scene, Qin Fei leaped over the two fallen NPCs with a couple of hurdles, directly stepping over their faces, and dashed out of the golden hall. The door to the private room was wide open, and the ball outside continued. In the bustling banquet hall, two figures flashed into the crowd like a whirlwind. To most efficiently charge out of the banquet hall, Qin Fei chose a particularly tricky escape route. From the moment he burst out of the private room door, he focused on the two long tables in the center of the banquet hall, laden with food. With both hands pushing off, his long legs stepped onto the tabletop. The ghost infant cleared the path ahead for him. An extremely bizarre scene unfolded in the live broadcast. The tall, leggy gray cat sprinted for his life. A meter ahead of him, the tables filled with food and wine glasses seemed to have suffered an unprecedented disaster. Clattering and crashing, everything on the table was swept to the ground. The unexpected turn of events stunned the dancing NPCs in the hall. Wine bottles and cakes flew around like bombs as the NPCs screamed and retreated to the sides. For a moment, no one dared to stop them. The pig-man's roar echoed from the private room, accompanied by even more chaotic sounds. The other players also caught on and started rushing out. While running, Qin Fei glanced back with the corner of his eye. This move of his was somewhat unscrupulous. If Qin Fei truly wanted to save all the players, he would have communicated with everyone much earlier. But Qin Fei didn't. Qin Fei knew deeply that when he and Mi Yang took the lead and the other players lagged behind, those people would become the primary targets of the NPCs' attacks. Qin Fei intended to exploit this time difference.

He had the ghostly infant open the banquet hall door in advance, and now, the corridor leading to the outside world is wide open before Qin Fei.

With a leap from the long dining table, Qin Fei soared directly to the outside of the banquet hall. Before his feet touched the ground, he turned his head to take a final glance behind him.

Following closely behind him was Mi Yang.

A bit further on, there are monkeys and ducks.

Huh? Qin Fei felt a bit surprised.

The monkeys and ducks were following too closely; unless those two could run at Olympic speeds, by the measure of distance, they were essentially setting off right after Qin Fei.

These two fellows, their reaction speeds are truly impressive, Qin Fei marveled inwardly.

At the same time, he felt a bit guilty.

Given the swiftness of their response, it is evident that their minds are equally quick in processing information.

So, will they be able to discern the subtle intentions of Qin Fei?

Qin Fei silently lowered his eyes, turned his head, and made up his mind to keep a distance from these two people in the subsequent instances.

However, the moment this thought emerged in Qin Fei's mind, he heard someone calling out from behind.

"Mr. Cat! Mr. Cat!"

The voice was quite unfamiliar, clearly not emanating from Mi Yang.

"Mr. Cat, please, take me with you when you run, we can do anything for you!" the person exclaimed with fervor!