79. Imperial Broadcast 2.0

After swiftly dispatching the three mercenaries, Chen Shang bent down and searched their bodies for a moment, finding a walkie-talkie. If he guessed correctly, this device was used to communicate with the other teams. Moreover, they had already reported their situation to the rest, so reinforcements would arrive soon.

Chen Shang took out the Book of Curses from his belt and brought the walkie-talkie to his lips.

What he intended to do next was perfectly obvious. He would recite the scriptures from the Book of Curses in the arena and transmit his voice through the walkie-talkie to the ears of the other contestants, causing them to lose their minds.

But if he really did so, the audience watching the competition might also hear his chanting, which could result in a massive outbreak of mental contamination.

Chen Shang had to avoid that at all costs.

When the production team originally designed this Easter egg item, they had discussed a crucial problem: If a Book of Curses ever fell into the hands of an antisocial NPC, and that NPC charged into the broadcast station to begin chanting, wouldn’t the entire city of Night Hub be wiped out by him?

Thus, the Book of Curses was given a new feature: anyone reciting it would suffer intense mental backlash, and the more listeners there were, the stronger the psychic recoil.

Take the Master of Puppets, for example. At the time, his live channel probably had ten or twenty thousand viewers. When he was chanting, he was already experiencing “ecstatic” hallucinations before his eyes. And that was with the innate resistance to mental contamination afforded by his mechanical nature.

If Chen Shang dared recite the scripture on the city’s most-watched program, he’d probably hit zero sanity before uttering the first syllable, reduced to a complete wreck.

To ensure he wouldn’t be undone by his own plan, Chen Shang pulled out his phone and sent a text: “Begin the operation.”

“Look, dear viewers! Our ‘Fox Greatsword Glasses Team’ has not left after defeating an enemy squad, but is instead lingering and plotting something! What could they possibly—zzzzz—what’s happening—the signal—”

Flavii’s voice suddenly broke up, stuttering as if under interference. Immediately, the live broadcast also began to flicker and distort, with obvious delays.

Click—

Abruptly, the broadcast was forcibly switched. In its place appeared a video shot from an odd angle.

The video seemed to be filmed inside an abandoned factory in the White Chapel district. Over a dozen contestants, dressed as mercenary assassins, appeared to be waiting for someone. Soon, a slick-haired man in a blue suit arrived with two bodyguards.

The audience was instantly baffled. Weren’t they watching the Grand Arena’s qualifiers? Why had the screen suddenly switched to this inexplicable video?

—Was this some kind of embedded advertisement?

In Night Hub City, advertisers would go to almost any lengths to attract customers; even murder scenes in commercials were nothing unusual.

The next moment, however, the slick-haired man began to speak, leaving every viewer stunned:

“Contestants of Group Ten, I am a negotiator from the Xu Corporation. I have summoned you here for one purpose: to demand that you forfeit.”

“……”

“……”

The audience stared at their television screens, dumbfounded, unable to react for a long time.

The footage appeared to be carefully edited, showcasing only the most shocking sequences. Especially when the video showed the slick-haired man opening fire on contestants attempting to escape—at that point, the viewers could no longer contain themselves.

Within Group Ten, there happened to be a team sponsored by the Xu Corporation, making the corporation’s motive for eliminating the competition all too clear.

Instantly, a tidal wave of outrage erupted on Tweeblog:

“Damn it, Xu Corporation is rigging the contest!?”

“Don’t you tycoons have your own competitions? Get lost already!”

“Xu Corporation, get out of the Grand Arena!”

Meanwhile, the PR executives of Xu Corporation were leisurely enjoying coffee in their office. With all their careful arrangements, this qualifier was in the bag.

Suddenly, an employee burst in, pale-faced and panicked. “Something’s gone wrong with the Grand Arena broadcast!”

“What?” The executive snatched the tablet from the employee’s hands, only to spit coffee all over him in shock.

……

Back in the arena, Chen Shang glanced down at his phone and received a reply from Black Calyce: “I’ve hacked into the broadcast station for you. Tweeblog is in total chaos now, zzzhahahahaha~”

Watching as the entropy points before him shot up by fifty in the blink of an eye, Chen Shang nodded in satisfaction.

With Black Calyce’s skills, breaking into the Grand Arena’s live broadcast posed little challenge. He had specially edited the “Xu Corporation’s Surrender Negotiation Footage” she’d sent him into a five-minute director’s cut, intending for her to hack it into the competition’s channel so all the spectators could witness the true face of the corporate elite.

At the same time, he could use the disruption caused by the forced broadcast switch to activate the Book of Curses, ensuring that no viewers would be affected by its power.

“Block your ears!” Chen Shang instructed his two teammates, then activated the communicator he’d taken from the mercenaries.

“Hello, is this Team Six? What’s your situation over there?” came a voice from the other side.

Chen Shang didn’t reply. Instead, he opened the first page of the Book of Curses and began to recite.

The yellowed pages were covered in obscure, twisted script, the letters writhing like corpse-eating maggots.

“In His name… let the gospel of the new world’s paradise resound, the heaven that shall descend, a paradise flowing with corpse oil and pus that shall shroud the earth…”

As he spoke the first sentence, Chen Shang felt the world before his eyes split into three shifting phantoms. He heard faint whispers in his ears, and his legs grew weak beneath him.

Fortunately, with the help of a sedative agent, he managed to maintain enough clarity to continue reading the scripture.

After about five minutes, his phone beeped with a new message:

“From Four-Leaf: They’re about to retake control of the broadcast station. I’m logging out—!”

Seeing the message, Chen Shang decisively bit through his tongue. The surge of pain snapped him instantly back to reality, and the hallucinations evaporated like mist.

Though Black Calyce’s skills were formidable, the tech department at Radiant Bird Corporation wasn’t to be underestimated. Five minutes was about the limit she could buy him.

Chen Shang shook his head, tossed the communicator to the ground, stomped it to pieces, and waved to his teammates to follow him out.

“What on earth were you just doing?” asked Sword Guy.

“I saw the look in your eyes—that was terrifying. You looked as if you were high,” added White Fox, her ears twitching nervously.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Chen Shang replied, snapping his fingers before darting into nearby cover.

Meanwhile, control of the Grand Arena broadcast was finally restored, and the host Flavii’s comical floral head reappeared before the viewers:

“Dear audience, welcome back to the Grand Arena! We just had a small technical hiccup, but now let’s return to the competition!”

Though his tone was bright and cheerful, Flavii was inwardly fuming. Earlier, the PR director of Xu Corporation had called the organizers dozens of times, and even Flavii himself had been inexplicably berated.

The organizers were helpless in the face of such aggressive questioning. That footage had nothing to do with them—if anything, it was Xu Corporation playing the villain while making the first accusation.

At that moment, pillars of dazzling light descended all across the arena, marking the location of every contestant.

“Oh! Wonderful! The first wave of positioning beams is live!” Flavii’s floral head shook wildly, petals trembling in excitement. “Let the slaughter begin! May the blood flow, may the viewers savor the sweet and heady scent of carnage!”

……

Location of the Fist Deity Team

Torreson Jr. Alisa finished relieving himself and returned, pulling up his pants, only to find his two teammates standing stock-still, dazed and vacant-eyed, as if bewitched.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you two?” Torreson asked in his gruff voice. “Xu Corporation didn’t hire you to stand around daydreaming!”

No sooner had he spoken than his two teammates turned their heads in perfect unison, staring at him with the empty gaze of the dead.

“Hehehe…” The female soldier’s mouth twisted into a chilling grin, a trickle of drool running down her chin. “Mr. Atron, I see Mr. Atron… hehehe… his twenty-fifth pair of eyes and thirteenth mouth are smiling at me…”

She raised her pistol to her temple and pulled the trigger.

Bang—

Her brains splattered over the male mercenary beside her, making him shudder.

The next moment, the male mercenary flung himself to her side and began to wail in the most theatrical voice: “Father! If you die, how can I go on living!”

“Huh? Isn’t she your coworker? She’s five years younger than you—and she’s a woman…” Torreson was completely thrown off.

“I don’t care, she’s my father! Aaaargh, I can’t go on either!” The male mercenary thrashed on the ground in a tantrum, then seized a nearby submachine gun and shoved the barrel into his mouth.

“Damn it! No!” Torreson lunged to stop him, but another gunshot rang out at his ear.

Both of his teammates had just killed themselves, in the most ludicrous fashion.

“What the hell is going on?” Torreson slapped his mechanical palm to his forehead, an inexplicable unease gnawing at him.