Four Split Personalities

"Slapping oneself to stay alert?"

"That’s not allowed?"

"Sure, sure, sure, I wouldn’t object if you castrated yourself to stay alert either."

"..."

It was at this moment that the system time jumped to AM08:00 sharp.

"Feather Song, double-check for me one last time: since the end of the first phase, there have been no unforeseen incidents, correct?"

Motan stopped joking with the other party and asked the female assassin, who had been in charge of handling intelligence until now, with utmost seriousness.

"Yes."

"Good, you can rest now. Don’t disturb me unless there’s an unexpected variable from the Twin Cities. If you must tell me something, do it through a friend message."

Motan slowly sat down on the chair, pulled the long table a bit closer to himself, and eyed the map in front of him with a grave expression: "For the next while, I must maintain absolute concentration."

’Understood.’

Feather Song quickly responded through a friend message.

The next second——

’To all the members of Eagle Eye Teams one through nine, surveillance squads of Special Observation Zones S0 to S23, and emergency response Teams three through five, from this moment on, I will be your sole point of contact and person-in-charge. I hereby declare that Stage Two of the Requiem plan is officially underway.’

Motan positioned two rows of preselected dialogue boxes at the sides of his field of view and sent messages to all players belonging to the respective teams and to Yu Chen: ’I am Hei Fan and will be commanding you all in real-time from now on.’

’Acknowledged!’

Dozens of identical messages nearly refreshed simultaneously in front of Motan’s eyes, causing him to unconsciously reveal a faint smile.

’In five minutes, except for the emergency response Teams three, four, and five, all other personnel must report the status of mutants in their assigned areas to me every thirty seconds. The details of your coverage areas were already provided to you yesterday, so I won’t elaborate here. Also, if I do not respond to a message, it means everything is as usual, so please continue to report nonstop according to the original plan. If there are any adjustments needed, I will inform everyone immediately.’

’Acknowledged!’

...

Game Time AM08:18

In the Southern Territory of Misha County, 50 meters west of the unnamed saline lake designated as Special Observation Zone S7

"Valcyon, tell me the positions of those mutants!"

A red-bearded old man with the game ID ’Deep Net Emotions’ bellowed upward, his voice robust as he yelled at a Lizardman Ranger who had perched himself on a tree: "Hurry up, hurry up!"

Valcyon swung his stiff neck, answering in an equally loud but weary voice: "Just like twenty seconds ago, wandering by the lake, not a single stir."

"Keep it down! What if you attract those revenant corpses over here!"

The old man exhaled sharply through his whiskers, glaring, and somehow seemed even louder than before.

The Dwarf lad tugged at the old man’s cape, offering a wry smile: "Grandpa Ivar, we’re all covered in Death Dust right now, we shouldn’t be noticed..."

"What do you kids know!"

The old man glared at him, his voice growing louder: "Ever heard of better safe than sorry? That’s why you post-2020 kids have no idea how the older generations fought wars, dammit, Valcyon! Tell me the position of those mutants!!"

"Wandering by the lake, not a stir..."

The weary voice of the Lizardman drifted down from the treetop.

The old man nodded, then clumsily opened his message bar, composed a message, and timed it to send exactly thirty seconds after his last report.

’All is normal in Special Observation Zone S7, enemy soldiers are still loitering by the lake, OVER.’

"Hey, Pas, do you know what ’post-2020’ is?"

The Dwarf lad whispered to the Elf boy beside him: "I can’t understand what Grandpa Ivar is saying."

"You’re not alone."

The latter chuckled dryly, shrugging: "I’m at least a hundred years older than him, and I don’t get it either."

...

Game Time AM08:18

In the Southern Territory of Misha County, in the town ruins designated as Special Observation Zone S11

Covered in a thin layer of Death Dust, ’Grey fertilizer volatilizes and turns black’ quietly tapped the middle-aged Mage lying on his left and whispered, "Brother, trouble you for another Farsight spell."

The latter nodded silently, after murmuring two lines of incantation inaudibly, he gently touched the forehead of Grey fertilizer volatilizes and turns black, causing a faint glow to cover the slightly darkened eyes of the other.

"Phew, it moved a little bit more towards the village entrance, is there a rabbit there or something..."

Grey fertilizer volatilizes and turns black carefully raised his head and rapidly glanced outside over a low half-wall, smacking his lips, he said: "Tsk tsk, those things are now less than fifteen meters away from us, over three hundred of them, oh my god, seriously thrilling."

Then, he lay back down in place and swiftly edited a message in his friends list to send out.

’The mutants in S11 area are still slowly moving towards the village entrance, but they don’t seem to have detected prey. Bloodthirsty instincts show no sign of activation, over.’

A second later

’Remember to keep a safe distance.’

A message flashed before his eyes.

"Wow, the boss is telling me to stay safe!"

Grey fertilizer volatilizes and turns black exclaimed with stunned surprise, whispering excitedly, "The boss is so cool! I’m so cool!"

...

Game Time AM08:18

In Misha County’s Southern Territory, along a shady path marked as ETC No. 3

Keeping himself in Stealth mode, Vandar• Ray Xiao Mao leaned quietly against a crooked tree, remaining utterly still as if he were a part of the dead landscape, even his breathing was so faint it was barely perceptible.

’Normal.’

’Normal.’

’Normal.’

’Situation, over a hundred mutants here have broke away from the main force, they seem to have dug up a nest of Mika piglets that had not been dead for long.’

’Received, continue monitoring.’

Vandar• Ray Xiao Mao replied one by one to his companions, then watched as a crowd of mutants shuffled slowly by, less than five meters away from him, squeezing out meaningless moans and wails through shriveled vocal cords as they wandered aimlessly.

He silently roared ’You scared the hell out of me’ seven or eight times in his heart, then silently opened the message bar and summarized the intelligence reported by his companions into a message, timing it to be sent exactly thirty seconds after the last one.

’This is Eagle Eye Team Two, six small clusters in ETC No. 3 area are slowly moving north, five of them estimated to need at least fifteen minutes to leave the hatred zone. One is lingering on the clearing twenty meters west of the middle of the path, likely attracted by residual life signs, over.’

...

Game Time AM08:18

Misha County Southern Territory, two hundred meters away from the wasteland marked as S15 Special Observation Area

"Miss Xiao Le."

The orc with a puzzled expression on his face, utterly bored, squatting on a hillock while scratching his backside, wondered, "Are you sure we just stay here like this? Shouldn’t the monitoring area designated by Lord Hei Fan be a bit farther from here? Plus, we’ve been idle for quite a while since the operation started."

The other two women dressed as adventurers also nodded, looking bewilderedly at their ’Messenger,’ who seemed to be daydreaming the whole time.

"Ah, just stay put like this, it was Lord Hei Fan himself who said it. Surely you don’t distrust Lord Hei Fan, do you?"

Dressed in a garish black and white robe with her hair casually tied behind her, the female player ’Yin Yang Master Gu XiaoLe’ nodded earnestly and then said cheerfully, "Maybe there are more girls over here, and Lord Hei Fan, caring for us tenderly, didn’t want to assign us too difficult a task."

The other three looked at each other with shared bewilderment...

At the same time

’Everything’s normal in the S15 Special Observation Zone. Compared to thirty seconds ago, the distribution of mutants has shifted about half a meter to the south. Eleven and a half meters away from the row of stakes used as a reference, judging by this rate of movement, it will take just over ten minutes to close in, given constant direction, over.’

Yin Yang Master Gu XiaoLe hummed a soothing melody as she finished composing the message and sent it without even checking the system time.

A second later

’For the next ten minutes, reporting frequency can temporarily be reduced to once a minute.’

"Wow! I’m so grateful, Lord Hei Fan,"

Yin Yang Master Gu XiaoLe smiled silently, gave another glance at the empty air in front of her, and winked playfully...

"And thank you as well, Inugami, Tai Shang~"

Chapter 422: End