Chapter 1 Head... It Hurts!

It hurt a lot!

It felt like a hundred electric drills were excavating his skull and pouring hot chili oil inside!

Yi Xuehui disciple, member of the *Zhuifeng Zhe* program's seventh group, a podcaster with tens of millions of fans on Youguan, Lv21,

Ju Tianfu opened his groggy eyes.

The dim vision gradually cleared, eyelids fluttering, as he made out his surroundings.

This seemed to be a closed... "space."

A cold light source from above pierced through the large amount of tiny dust particles floating in the air, creating the Tyndall effect, forming beams of light as thin as silk.

With the light, Ju Tianfu could see dark red, blood vessel-like pipes everywhere in the space.

Like spiderwebs, they were randomly piled, woven, and hung down,

covering the entire area, appearing cluttered and bloated, with no vertical, flat ceiling, walls, or floor visible.

As time passed, his chaotic consciousness gradually cleared, and Ju Tianfu slowly recalled the memories before his consciousness was interrupted.

The overwhelming insect swarm that swept over them...

His companions fighting desperately, retreating as they fought...

The hideous insect hive lord that suddenly descended from the pipes above...

The hypnotic gas filling the entire pipe...

The light above flickered, interrupting Ju Tianfu's thoughts. He turned his eyes upward and realized that the light source was not an electric lamp,

but firefly-like creatures the size of fists, with swollen and fat abdomens.

Using their four pairs of legs with barbs, they hooked onto the crevices in the flesh-and-blood dome, extending their straw-like mouthparts to suck the nutrients from the pipes, providing energy to the luminous organs in their abdomens.

Wait...

Ju Tianfu seemed to realize something and tried to turn his head, but found that his head was firmly fixed in a container, unable to move.

He also couldn't feel the sensation of his face, body, or limbs.

It was as if he had been given an extremely high dose of anesthesia.

Only the corner of his eye could vaguely see

a dozen or so tubes hanging down from above, probably fixed to the back of his head.

"..."

Ju Tianfu took a deep breath, trying his best to banish the fantasy of fireflies sucking his brains, and activated his consciousness to open the player panel.

His heart sank abruptly.

In the personal panel, attributes such as Strength, Agility, and Constitution had all turned gray.

The Intelligence, Perception, and Charisma attributes had dark red "-8" and "-7" symbols behind them.

Many skills in the skill bar were also displayed as [Current conditions for use are not met, unavailable].

Injected with various potions, weakening his will and body, making it impossible to use skills...

Ju Tianfu's breathing hitched, but he did not despair. He still had one last trump card—the Xuanming divinity that did not require spiritual power...

*Squeak*—

A strange sound rang out from the side and behind. Ju Tianfu immediately closed his eyes, feigning unconsciousness.

*Squeak, squeak*.

The sound gradually approached, like a flatbed cart carrying something heavy, moving towards him.

"You're awake."

A slightly hoarse, vague, low, and cold voice echoed in the room, "Not bad, you are the one with the best quality among this group of people."

Ju Tianfu remained in a state of unconsciousness.

The voice said coldly, "Don't bother with meaningless pretense. The container holding you monitors your physiological condition at all times. Unless you knock yourself unconscious, the light on the container will remain on.

Human."

Ju Tianfu slowly opened his eyes. Standing in front of him was a hideous creature nearly three meters tall.

Red and black, thorn-covered armor,

A nearly half-meter-long horn with barbs,

Chimney-like organs spewing heat,

Six muscular arms with dense and neatly arranged muscle lines, comparable to a hydraulic power system,

And sharp bone knives, flesh-eating beetle guns, and acid cannons placed in the grooves on its sides and back...

One of the pinnacles of the insect hive's biological evolution technology, the insect hive lord, Cerberus.

Even standing on the enemy's side, the insect hive lord was indeed a biological weapon exuding a strange beauty of slaughter.

Even from a distance, Ju Tianfu could still feel the sea-like blood energy surging within the creature's body.

"You can speak human languages."

Ju Tianfu looked at the other party calmly and said faintly.

"That's right."

A deep voice came from Cerberus's throat, "For the purpose of maximizing resource utilization efficiency, I temporarily learned human languages."

Resource utilization efficiency...

Ju Tianfu's heart sank, but he saw Cerberus take a step to the left—behind the insect hive lord was indeed a flatbed cart. On the cart were five mummy coffin-like objects.

Each coffin was made of flesh and blood, nearly two meters high, with a large number of flesh and blood tubes inserted into the top. All the coffins were facing away from Ju Tianfu.

Cerberus stretched out an arm and turned the cart around, allowing Ju Tianfu to see the front of the coffins clearly.

!!

His pupils suddenly dilated. Ju Tianfu clearly saw Long Xiang Baobian, Cheng Ying, Twilight Knight, Li Tang Jianxue, and Tsuchimikado Komitsu lying in each coffin, only their unconscious faces visible.

"We let you wake up, so you better not think about leaving here by withdrawing from the competition and teleporting away."

Cerberus said calmly, "They are still unconscious and unable to make a decision to surrender and withdraw from the competition.

If you leave,

we will digest and convert them.

You may not care about the others, but him..."

Cerberus pointed to Long Xiang Baobian and said hoarsely, "Based on the observation and analysis of his expressions, actions, and language during the previous battle,

you and him, as well as those players who escaped by chance, should be companions."

"..."

Ju Tianfu was expressionless, but he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Escaped by chance, which meant that Bai Haozheng, Qi Mian Xuantian, and Juzi had not been captured by the insect hive...

There was still hope.

Ju Tianfu asked calmly, "What do you want?"

"Knowledge, skills, materials, equipment, props... or rather, everything."

Cerberus said in a low voice, "Cooperate, and you can leave the Lost World safely."

Is an agreement completely formulated by Party A and only binding on Party B really trustworthy?

Ju Tianfu resisted the urge to question and glanced at the player panel imperceptibly.

He had used a large amount of Xuanming divinity in the previous battle, and his current remaining divinity was [].

However, it was slowly increasing at a considerable rate.

What was going on?

Ju Tianfu was puzzled. A few hours ago, the divinity capacity he observed was only decreasing and not increasing. The only increase was when he believed in himself. How could he now recover his divinity?

And who were these people providing him with divinity?

He couldn't expose his confusion in front of the waiting insect hive lord. Ju Tianfu took a deep breath and said calmly, "Okay, but I have two questions."

"Speak."

"The current time, and,"

A cold and rational light flashed in the depths of Ju Tianfu's eyes, "Am I the first player you offered a deal to among this group of people?"