Chapter 208 - 207: You Lost

Chapter 208: Chapter 207: You Lost

In Feng Ling’s vision, she could see the man in the wheelchair saying something to the Gu Insect Master, but she couldn’t hear their voices.

After confirming the apartment’s location, she called Han Xu. She instructed the truck driver to take her to the apartment where the Alien Species was, while she continued tracking her other target.

The Alien Species finished their conversation. The Gu Insect Master left the apartment, leaving the man in the wheelchair alone.

Feng Ling’s gaze was about to follow the red mist away when the man in the wheelchair suddenly looked up, right at her!

Feng Ling was startled.

’Is it my imagination?’

’Why do I have this feeling that I’ve been seen?’

The middle-aged man’s lips curled into a faint, mocking smile, his gaze fixed on her vantage point.

Feng Ling immediately realized it wasn’t her imagination.

He could truly see her, looking straight at her from several kilometers away, through a jungle of steel and concrete!

The Eye of Horus.

Feng Ling’s heart pounded in her chest.

’This middle-aged man must possess the Eye of Horus. That’s why he could detect my spying. And that means... if I kill him, I can get the Eye of Horus for myself!’

The man’s mouth opened and closed, as if he were speaking to her.

Feng Ling couldn’t hear him but knew he’d said two words.

She was filled with doubt. ’If he knows his position is exposed, why hasn’t he left? And what’s the point of talking to me? Is he just being mysterious? Trying to stall for time?’

After a moment of thought, though she was reluctant to let the man out of her sight, she ultimately followed the red mist away from the apartment, continuing her pursuit of the Gu Insect Master.

At the same time, she called Han Xu to hand off the pursuit of the Alien Species. He was responsible for the city’s security; she believed he could handle a minor task like this.

Feng Ling said into the phone, "His position has changed. He was at Wan Jia Apartment just now, but he’s left and crossed the street. He’s on a street now, I don’t know the name, but I can see an ATM and a pharmacy nearby."

Han Xu had his subordinates search for ATMs and pharmacies near Wan Jia Apartment. Through cross-referencing, they quickly identified the street name.

"The nearest patrol team will take five minutes to get there. Is the Alien Species moving alone?" Han Xu asked over the phone.

"Yes, he’s alone. No vehicle. He probably won’t get far in five minutes. However, his Card is Gu Insect Master, which allows him to control any living creature with threadworms. Your men should attack from a distance and maintain a safe perimeter," Feng Ling advised.

"Understood. I’ll notify the patrol team," Han Xu said, immediately making the arrangements.

The brief and efficient call ended.

A few minutes later, the truck arrived at the apartment building.

Feng Ling got out of the truck, told everyone to stay inside, and entered the building alone.

Following her memory from the surveillance, she quickly found the apartment the Alien Species had entered.

The door was unlocked, and the lights were on inside.

The moment she opened the door, she saw the middle-aged man in the wheelchair facing the entrance, positioned as if he had been awaiting her arrival.

The man’s eyes were closed, his face devoid of life.

Feng Ling walked over, placed her hand on his neck, and felt no pulse.

Dead.

But no Card had materialized.

Feng Ling scoffed. ’Looks like he knew he couldn’t escape, so he logged off.’

’Decisive, wasn’t he?’

’With his physical condition, escaping would have certainly been difficult.’

’Still, it’s strange. A member of the Star Association shouldn’t be so down on their luck that they’d have to use a disabled person as their login account, right?’

Huangfu Miaomiao had once complained to Feng Ling about the issue with game accounts—

When players first register an account, their first character roll is free. The character’s gender will match the player’s, and their age will be similar, but all other conditions are completely random.

And as everyone knows, among the more than eight billion people in the world, beautiful, tall, and healthy "premium" humans are a minority.

In other words, the first character a player rolls is highly unlikely to be satisfactory.

For example, Huangfu Miaomiao had rolled a young girl with cancer.

If you had enough points, you could, of course, roll a second time, a third time... until you got one you were satisfied with. But Huangfu Miaomiao had no points, so she had to log in with that account.

From a human standpoint, Huangfu Miaomiao was a heinous criminal.

From a player’s standpoint, Huangfu Miaomiao just had a bad start.

’As high-level players, why would members of the Star Association choose a bad start?’

Pondering this, Feng Ling reached out and lifted the blanket from the man’s legs.

Beneath the blanket was his lower body, clad in shorts. His legs were covered in scars and oval-shaped bloody marks. The wounds were concave, as if chunks of flesh had been gouged out.

Feng Ling studied them for a moment, a sudden understanding dawning on her. She tossed the blanket aside, rolled up the man’s sleeves, and sure enough, found similar oval-shaped wounds.

There was obviously less flesh on his arms than on his legs, so there were fewer wounds, but they looked just as gruesome.

She went ahead and unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his chest. His torso was similarly pockmarked, with not an inch of untarnished flesh.

Feng Ling thought for a moment, then took out a string of eyes she had collected. She detached one and tried to fit it into one of the hollowed-out wounds on the corpse—

The size and shape were a perfect match.

Feng Ling knew that the more incredible the ability, the greater the price.

Take Su Yuqing’s doppelgangers, for instance. They were miraculous, but creating them also left him extremely weak.

As for the middle-aged man before her, every time he used his ability, he probably had to carve a fresh piece of flesh from his own body. By placing that flesh on the hollow of someone’s collarbone, he could grow an eye that was linked to his consciousness.

This was the price required to create an Eye of Horus.

Feng Ling couldn’t help but think: ’This Card is meant for me. It belongs to the Nest. No matter how much flesh is carved from my body, I can’t die.’

’Too bad he logged off.’

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Feeling a bit frustrated, Feng Ling answered it.

Huangfu Miaomiao asked over the phone, "What’s the situation up there?"

"Nothing." Feng Ling sighed. "The guy logged off and took my Card with him."

"Oh... Well, as long as you weren’t in any danger. You were up there for a while, we were all worried."

"I know. I’m coming down now."

Feng Ling hung up. As she turned to leave, she saw a piece of paper with writing on it on the floor. She casually picked it up and left the apartment.

She returned to the truck. The moment Xu Yiming saw her, he anxiously expressed his concern. "I saw you go upstairs, but there wasn’t a sound after that. I couldn’t help but have Miao Miao call you. I didn’t mess anything up, did I?"

Feng Ling was his pillar of support; he’d get anxious if he didn’t see her for a minute.

"It’s fine," Feng Ling said, casually tossing the paper she had picked up to the side.

Seeing it, Huangfu Miaomiao leaned over. "What’s this?"

She picked up the paper Feng Ling had discarded and carefully read the words written on it. "You... lost... Huh? Who wrote this?"

A corner of Feng Ling’s mouth lifted. "The Alien Species upstairs who logged off wrote it. He probably figured out I wanted to snatch his Card, and since I didn’t get it, he’s taunting me for losing."

Huangfu Miaomiao’s eyes went wide. "He dared to taunt you?!"

"It’s not really a taunt," Feng Ling said with a small smile. "To be precise, you’d call this a psychological victory."

’He was forced to log off, but he’s still trying to talk tough.’

’It’d be nice to catch one alive. Maybe I could interrogate him.’

Feng Ling called Han Xu. "Did you get him?"