The body of the Ironblood Leader slowly collapsed. Gao Fan's entire body trembled as a zombie-like roar tore from the depths of his throat.
It sounded like a release of pressure, or perhaps a hissing cat.
He brought the blade down again and again, like a butcher chopping ribs, forcefully severing the spine!
Trembling, he dropped to his knees, struck by an overwhelming urge to vomit, yet nothing ca up.
He instinctively reached out and covered his mouth. But a second later, he realized what was on his blood-drenched hand... and finally threw up.
The violent retching jarred him, and before he knew it, his face was covered in tears.
Through blurred eyes, he cast a single glance at Wen Yu's severed head before looking away.
Gao Fan knelt on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
anwhile, Ming Po simply leaned against the kitchen doorfra with a relaxed posture, looking for all the world like a student waiting outside a classroom for a friend to walk ho with.
Gao Fan definitely needed to vent.
His hatred was incredibly intense.
Without a doubt, this was exactly what he had hoped for. And what Ming Po had just given him was the justice he had long desired.
"It's a bit delayed... but hopefully not too late?"
Ming Po raised an eyebrow, tilting his head to look at the adult trapped in a child's body. "If you do this, won't your Title undergo a Skew?"
"...It's not an action taken during a ga."
Gao Fan slowly shook his head, his voice hoarse. "I'll clean this place up later."
"I wouldn't mind lending a hand."
Ming Po smiled warmly. "Speaking of which, I'm actually quite good at taking care of people."
...Co to think of it, after he passed away, how was his tenant supposed to take care of himself?
The guy would probably just end up ordering takeout.
Hopefully, he'd rember to hire a cleaning service. If the apartnt ended up turning into a pigsty, Ming Po would have to spend a Ti Chip to trigger the Night of Deadly Resurrection just to go back and beat him up.
However...
Not an action taken during a ga?
"I see."
Ming Po looked thoughtful. 'It seems the rule for granting Titles is to judge by deeds, not intentions.'
'Is that how I got a Domain of Virtue Title in my first playthrough?'
"So... even Deceivers of the World in the Domain of Virtue might not actually be good people. They could just as easily be cowards or hypocrites."
Gao Fan's voice was still raspy, but his spirit had improved significantly.
He wiped his hands on the Ironblood Leader's clothes, getting rid of as much blood as possible, before rubbing his eyes.
"It's not necessarily that he was unwilling to betray his teammates... the price just might not have been high enough."
Gao Fan spoke slowly, pushing himself up from the floor.
He clearly hadn't adapted to the fact that he had just killed soone. This alone proved that despite experiencing many Gas of Deception, he had never participated in a death ga where players slaughtered each other.
Moreover, from what they had said, ordinary Deceivers of the World didn't have that ominous countdown tir in their hos. They could even wait a month or two before participating in another ga...
Just as Ink had said from the very beginning, they truly had a lot of freedom.
Though it might be a bit lonely, that loneliness would be diluted if they banded together with other Deceivers of the World.
"You are a genius, Brother Xiao."
Gao Fan spoke with genuine sincerity.
Yet, Ming Po could hear a trace of lancholy in his voice.
"To obtain a Title of that level proves you achieved an 'Excellent' or higher rating in a Day's False Gold level ga.
"And to be able to wield that power... to kill another Deceiver of the World without a shred of hesitation, also proves you can adapt to this cruel ga."
'He is so much stronger than ,' Gao Fan sighed inwardly.
"There are no outsiders here anymore."
Ming Po said lazily, "So there's no need to keep acting... I've honestly only been through a few gas, so there are a lot of rules I don't understand.
"For instance... what did you an by 'performance'? Do the instances have a scoring system?"
"They do."
Gao Fan nodded, speaking with absolute certainty. "It's not a secret. If you ask a Host, they'll usually tell you.
"Every ga has a predetermined completion rate. This completion rate is normally invisible to Deceivers of the World, but the Hosts can see it clearly. For Deceivers of the World, the easiest way to judge their own completion rate is by looking at the clear reward.
"You have to get at least 80% of the total reward to be considered 'Excellent'. For example, I usually participate in multiplayer Adventures where the reward ranges from '1 hour to 1 day'. While in reality, I typically only get 2 to 5 hours... at least it's relatively safe.
"But if you want to obtain a Title from that ga, you have to earn a reward of at least 20 hours."
"I see," Ming Po understood. "An MVP reward, right?"
"Not entirely. If other Deceivers of the World also get the maximum reward, they'll get Titles too. Conversely, even if you are the sole survivor, if your completion rate is too low and you only get the minimum reward, you won't get a Title.
"Brother Xiao... your original Title probably hasn't evolved yet, has it?"
Gao Fan had obviously figured out that this "Brother Xiao" hadn't even evolved his initial Title. In other words, wielding a base-level "Hour's Red Copper" Title, he had challenged a "Day's False Gold" level instance and even managed to secure the highest reward.
This was the equivalent of a newbie using unupgraded starting gear—he probably didn't even know where the NPC to upgrade equipnt was—and doing a blind, first-ti solo run against an over-leveled, high-difficulty boss. That made him an absolute master among masters.
anwhile, Gao Fan and his team were "bot-type players" who wore fully upgraded gear just to farm lower-level instances and slowly grind for resources.
They weren't even on the sa playing field!
Now that he had co over to PvP them, it was completely reasonable for him to absolutely crush them.
Being able to switch sides and follow a boss like this could only be described as incredibly lucky.
Although Gao Fan had worried that he might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire... that didn't matter anymore.
No matter how bad things got, it couldn't be worse than before!
"True."
The terrifying "Brother Xiao" slowly nodded, admitting in his gravelly, Batman-esque voice, "I hadn't finished the evolution quest for my original Title before I got this new one..."
'I knew it.'
Gao Fan's eyes lit up.
"Then, Brother Xiao, what you need to do right now is evolve this Title as soon as possible, or at least complete the evolution quest first."
He explained eagerly, "Titles can generally evolve one or two tis... the hallmark being the addition of a prefix or suffix to the Title na. Every ti it evolves, you gain an extra attribute and jump up a tier.
"The Titles we hold are all 'Hour's Red Copper' tier that have evolved once. That's why he beca so terrified when he heard your Title. Because it ans that although we're all at the Day's False Gold rank, we aren't anywhere near the sa level."
So that was it.
Ming Po nodded in understanding.
That made perfect sense.
It was like playing ranked in League of Legends. In a Diamond lobby, one guy's match history is a mix of wins and losses, while another guy has a page entirely full of wins where he was MVP every ga... Obviously, the true skill level between those two players is separated by at least two entire tiers.
That Ironblood Leader had instantly cowered the mont he looked up his match history.
After all, the three of them... were kind of just coasting.
If Deceivers of the World at the "Day's False Gold" rank could only participate in gas with a maximum reward of "1 day" or more... then the minimum entry requirents for those experts at the Moon or Year level would only be even steeper.
A single ga's gains or losses in Ti Chips would easily range in the hundreds or even thousands of days.
If there could only be one ultimate victor, it would undoubtedly erge from among those highest-tier Deceivers of the World. Because a Day's False Gold Deceiver of the World could play a hundred low-tier matches and still not earn as much as a single high-tier match.
In other words...
These three people had basically given up.
Instead of trying to advance to a higher tier, they had been matchmaking downwards to pick on the small fry. And once inside, they didn't kill, they didn't compete; they just scavenged for scraps and leeched resources...
"...Saying this might sound a bit like a humblebrag," Ming Po couldn't help but say, "but I feel like what you guys are doing is basically slow suicide."
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