Chapter 1 Try Logging into the Game Plaza?

Li Ang tilted his head, glancing at Wang Congshan. They left the real world, logged into the Game Plaza, and after reuniting at the Immaculate Furnace, joined the crowd of bizarrely dressed players heading toward the Sky Arena.

The instant he stepped into the Sky Arena, Li Ang felt the scenery around him change. A large number of ordinary people and their equipment appeared before his eyes, while the view outside the Sky Arena windows transformed into a turbulent sea.

"Just like the patch notes said, the Sky Arena and the real world are in a superimposed state..."

Li Ang mused silently, looking around. He saw that the ordinary people were wearing uniforms of organizations such as the Global Supernatural Alliance, obviously planning to use the version update mechanism to allow ordinary people to directly obtain player qualifications.

"Private fights are still prohibited in the Sky Arena.

Each floor has been enlarged, allowing hundreds of arena battles to take place simultaneously.

The near-death protection mechanism has been removed, meaning that participants can die at any time in the arena.

At the same time, the higher the level of the arena, the richer the rewards for winning.

Moreover, whether ordinary people or players, those who enter the Sky Arena from the real world will directly return to the real world upon leaving. Those who enter the Sky Arena through the Game Plaza will return to the Game Plaza upon leaving.

In other words, the Sky Arena cannot be used as an efficient teleportation point to the real world."

Li Ang thought casually, and found a seat with Wang Congshan in the Sky Arena.

The version update mentioned that the period from now until the official start of the Si Ming Battle (Battle of Fate) in a month is the so-called "off-season."

The previous arena scores of players in the Sky Arena will be completely reset, and everyone will start from scratch.

Moreover, the arena scores obtained by players during this month will be reset again after the official start of the Si Ming Battle.

In effect, this "off-season" is to allow players to adapt to the new version.

(Rewards obtained from the Sky Arena during the off-season will not be withdrawn.)

"Waiter, please give me this set meal."

Li Ang snapped his fingers, summoning a restaurant waiter in a yellow uniform—

The restaurants in the Game Plaza are still open for business. They have developed an app and a delivery system, and have issued space storage devices shaped like lunch boxes to each delivery person.

The devices themselves have a considerable capacity, and the dishes placed in each compartment are kept warm and fresh.

Moreover, the Sky Arena's spectator seats have "isolation" properties.

Even if you eat food with strong odors, such as river snail rice noodles, stinky mandarin fish, garlic, chives boxes, durian, or fish mint, it will not affect others.

Wang Congshan wasn't hungry, so Li Ang ordered himself a breakfast. While eating, he waited for the arena contestants to enter the stage, "We old Yin City folks, this is how we start the morning. Hey, you have to say, it's really authentic."

Wang Congshan glanced at the stewed giblets Li Ang was holding, her eyes twitching, and said, "Which plane's Yin City people eat this stuff in the morning? I've noticed your tastes are getting heavier and heavier."

"Heavy? I think it's okay."

Li Ang pursed his lips, casually rubbing his fingers together, releasing Swamp Divinity, causing a large bundle of cilantro to grow between his fingers.

Under Wang Congshan's speechless gaze, he chopped the cilantro into sections and threw it into the bowl.

《My Boyfriend of Ten Years is Actually a Hidden Vegetative》?

Wang Congshan's mind inexplicably flashed with the title of this light novel-esque book. She quickly shook her head vigorously, throwing the messy thoughts out of her brain.

"You're not thinking about whether I'm a vegetable, are you?"

Li Ang seemed to notice Wang Congshan's expression, and said seriously, "You can rest assured about that. I just recently bisected myself at the waist, and looked at the cross-section of my abdomen. There are no plant growth rings in there.

So I'm definitely not a vegetable."

Wang Congshan was accustomed to Li Ang's strange remarks, rolled her eyes, and said, "If you were, would you also cut off your head with a knife to prevent top-down suppression?"

"No, no, I can't do that, wouldn't I be like Xing Tian then?"

Li Ang shook his head and said, "Xing Tian is no good, he never thinks before he speaks, can't be around him."

"He'd need to have a brain first."

Wang Congshan habitually complained. Suddenly, a slight commotion arose in front of the spectator seats.

The first challenger had appeared.

"Oh? Someone's already prepared the Sky Arena entry procedures so quickly?"

Li Ang cleanly finished his breakfast, put the bowl and spoon back into his Sodium Ring, rubbed his palms, and looked down the stage.

The first contestant wasn't a player, but an ordinary person.

A white man, thirty-odd years old, with a sturdy build, slicked-back blond hair, wearing a multi-functional tactical suit, equipped with standard modern-day individual soldier equipment, assault rifle, pistol, grenades, flashbangs, etc.

"Judging from the uniform, he should be an employee of the European Heavy Industries Group. He was probably a soldier or mercenary before."

Li Ang thought casually. What the world doesn't lack now are professional soldiers who participate in wars for money.

Large organizations like the European Heavy Industries Group have enough resources to train a large number of elite soldiers in a short period of time—or rather, cannon fodder in transcendental warfare.

This professional soldier named Swick, with the help of his team members, quickly prepared and stepped onto the arena.

However, the Sky Arena did not directly arrange an opponent for him, but instead projected the words "Searching for Matching Target."

"Hmm..."

Li Ang narrowed his eyes.

At the same time, there were other players applying to participate. But the Sky Arena did not match them with Swick.

"It seems that after the version update, the Sky Arena is more inclined to match parties with similar strengths together.

To protect those players with strong status, or ordinary people who want to change their destiny through the Sky Arena.

It also prevents the arena from becoming one-sided in the early levels."

Li Ang nodded.

Before long, the platform Swick was standing on reacted. A bizarre-looking creature resembling a cheetah with deer antlers growing from its sides slowly emerged in front of Swick.

At the same time, the name of the matched opponent, [Halifax], was also projected above the stage.

"Not an Earth human player..."

Wang Congshan frowned slightly. Although her strength was far inferior to Li Ang sitting next to her, she had seen a lot of the world under the guidance of Li Ang and the Special Affairs Bureau, so her vision was still good.

This strange cheetah-like creature didn't climb onto the arena from below,

but directly appeared on the stage out of thin air.

"A combat puppet created by the Sky Arena itself?

Or, as the patch notes say, a creature from another world also participating in the Sky Arena arena?"

Wang Congshan felt a faint sense of unease in her heart.

The crowd of spectators around the stage also realized this, and their faces didn't look good.

Swick on the stage looked solemn, holding his assault rifle at the ready.

When the countdown floating in the sky reached zero, he unhesitatingly activated the analysis equipment on his tactical helmet, scanning the body structure of the bizarre cheetah-like creature.

At the same time, he raised his rifle and opened fire on the opponent.

Da da da.

The muzzle of the assault rifle spat out red flames, and a series of bullets hit the arena floor tiles.

The cheetah-like creature moved at high speed on the arena, nimbly dodging all the bullets, quickly approaching the human soldier.

Swick decisively stopped the ineffective firing,

raised his hand, and detached two grenades and a metal round box from his tactical suit.

He threw the grenades at the cheetah and pulled the pin on the round metal object, throwing it in front of himself.

The cheetah-like creature charged head-on, ignoring the flames, heat, and shock waves produced by the grenade explosion, but suddenly stopped when it was about to approach Swick—

The metal round box thrown by Swick launched metal wires, weaving into a circle of conductive electric net around Swick, isolating the inside and outside.

This item was obviously an invention of the European Heavy Industries Group.

Swick stayed inside the electric net, swiftly detaching several parts from his tactical suit and modifying the assault rifle on the spot.

After observing the electric net for a few seconds, the cheetah-like creature quickly made a decision.

It suddenly turned around, its two hind legs gripping the ground, its claws chiseling out a large piece of brick, and smashing it towards the electric net.

Although the metal wires constituting the electric net were tough, they inevitably deformed and bent under the impact of the stone.

Seeing this, Swick immediately pressed a button on his tactical suit, canceling the electric net power in advance, causing the metal wires to retract back into the metal box.

While avoiding the stone's impact, he raised the modified firearm and pulled the trigger at the cheetah.

Pfft!

The assault rifle emitted a stream of extremely cold gas, enveloping the cheetah, causing the words "Hit" to immediately appear above the latter's head.

The cheetah's movement speed visibly slowed down. Its eyes flickered, as if assessing the current situation, and then it unhesitatingly chose to surrender and withdraw from the competition. Its figure directly disappeared from the arena,

leaving only Swick standing in place.

"Hmm?"

Li Ang frowned slightly.

The Sky Arena after the version update still used the original rules of calculating scores based on the number and intensity of attacks landed.

The cheetah-like creature was only hit once, losing one point, which was far from enough to lose the match.

But it directly chose to surrender and withdraw.

"Is it really a creature from another world also participating in the Sky Arena?"

Li Ang said silently, "If it were a puppet created by the Sky Arena, it would fight to the death and do everything possible to kill its opponent.

This creature named [Halifax] so simply and decisively chose to surrender,

is nothing more than recognizing that it could not defeat Swick, giving up early to reduce losses—anyway, this is only the first level of the Sky Arena, even if you surrender casually, there will be no loss..."

Swick on the stage looked at the spot where his opponent disappeared, his expression slightly dazed. Under the greetings of his European Heavy Industries Group companions, he walked off the stage thoughtfully.

Such scenes were constantly happening on the first level of the Sky Arena.

A large number of low-level players and ordinary soldiers signed up to participate in the arena competition.

Most of them were matched with "companions" from Earth.

Only a few people were matched with puppets created by the Sky Arena, or creatures that obviously did not belong to Earth.

Soon, the first death occurred.

An elite soldier belonging to the Sun Island Abnormal Affairs Investigation Bureau was directly grabbed by the neck by a disheveled demon, and before he could even surrender, his head was torn off, killing him on the spot.

The Sky Arena has a surrender option. As long as you surrender, you can avoid all subsequent damage.

But if you are subjected to control effects, and your mind is not clear enough to make a surrender decision, then you will be at the mercy of others.

The audience silently watched the elite soldier's corpse fall on the arena, while the demon disappeared.

As more and more people poured into the arena, casualties gradually increased, but no organization chose to stop immediately.

On Arena No. 9, a mercenary from the French Foreign Legion injected himself with werewolf serum, transforming into a sturdy werewolf.

But this did not prevent him from having his limbs torn off by a two-meter-tall giant rat demon beast.

On Arena No. 14, a soldier from the Israeli IZO company was paralyzed by a carnivorous plant with needles all over his body before he could inject himself with gene serum, and turned into a puddle of blood on the spot.

On Arena No. 36, a psionic from the Voodoo Black Witch Group was burned to ashes by a player from Fenghuo.

...

Li Ang shook his head as he watched the deaths constantly appearing on the arena, and said to Wang Congshan, "For these organizations, the lives of elite soldiers are currently far less valuable than player qualifications.

An elite soldier can be quickly trained by investing in relatively 'cheap' costs such as training grounds, training equipment, teaching personnel, and gene serums.

And player qualifications, and the special resources given each time you advance in the Sky Arena, are difficult to obtain through conventional means."

"..."

Wang Congshan pursed her lips slightly, without speaking.

"The era and environment determine moral standards.

If I'm not mistaken, human society on Earth in the future will be even more divided than it is now."

Li Ang continued, "In the old era, human physiology, psychology, population distribution, race, culture, country, economy, society, etc., were all directly or indirectly dominated by geographical environment and natural conditions.

Now that we have the Gates, humans are directly or indirectly dominated by the Gate worlds.

Forces that possess high-level Gates and colonizable worlds can maintain isolation and maintain relatively high moral standards.

And forces that possess low-level Gates, or no Gates, will experience a straight-line decline in moral levels.

They will be like African warlords, kidnapping ordinary people, injecting them with gene serums, forcing them to become warriors, entering the Sky Arena to challenge, and obtain player qualifications.

Or mass-produce clone technology and synthetic beast technology to create their own military camps.

Because not doing so means losing an advantage in competition with other forces, being at a disadvantage, and even being directly eliminated.

Life is quickly going to be worthless."

Li Ang stood up from his seat with some disinterest, looking out through the windows of the Sky Arena.

He saw warships and vessels from different countries anchored on the undulating sea.

In the distance, there were more cargo ships, fully loaded with supplies and personnel, approaching the island where the Sky Arena was located.

[I fell asleep at my desk yesterday... I'm really sorry.]