Chapter 849 - 719: Paper Men

The Joker of the Wild Laughter Troupe is enigmatic and unfathomable, having mastered possession rebirth and reshaping flesh bodies long ago. Over the years, it’s unclear how many bodies, identities, and even player aptitudes have been changed.

In a strict sense, Li Cheng had personally killed Joker once, but he didn’t expect the opponent to turn into a cockroach and survive.

"What is this, the Avengers?"

Li Cheng scanned the phantoms before him and smirked.

"Defeated subordinates, still thinking they can overturn the heavens."

Gray Rain squinted, a sinister expression in his eyes, gripping the Skull Shattering Hammer tightly, making it creak, "This will be a massacre, kekeke."

...Kekeke, don’t you think you seem like a second-rate villain?

The same urge to ridicule appeared in the hearts of all spectators, and Li Cheng on the field directly turned his head and asked.

"Really?"

Gray Rain was quick to adapt, immediately changing his tone, lowering it, "You and I on the same stage, who could be our match? Don’t worry, we won’t lose. The reward for this mission is very high; once this battle is over, we’ll retire and open a flower shop back home."

???

Not only becoming a third-rate villain, but also raising a bunch of death flags for himself?

Li Cheng’s eyelid twitched, just about to say something when the paper army ahead began to charge headlong.

The ground trembled, dust rose, and Li Cheng lifted his feet off the ground, inserting the Skill Mobile USB into himself, while a phantom of the Red Dragon appeared overhead, opening its mouth to the extreme, spewing scorching flames.

Fierce fire rapidly spread across the brick ground, burning the front row of paper men to ashes, scattering in the wind.

Zing—

The paper men in the rear halted momentarily, then resumed their stride. The Dragon Breath only charred their outer layers without burning through.

Upon closer inspection, the rear paper men’s front armor was much thicker, with papers folding autonomously, forming a hollow, porous structure to resist ablation.

Hmm?

Can they adapt to external attacks and evolve collaboratively?

The paper army trampled over the scattered ashes, rushing forward when a loud roar was heard, Gray Rain exited the Mustard Seed Concealment state, and his body expanded rapidly.

The so-called Tiger Tank weighed only 57 tons, which was nothing to Gray Rain. She flew up and kicked an entire row of paper bodies, pulling and tearing the paper elephant into two halves with her hands.

"Roar!"

A lion-tiger-shaped Evil God minion from the Frog God World leapt on the heads of its companions, launching an ambush from behind, biting Gray Rain’s nape.

The sharp fangs scraped the nano-coating, sparking with explosions.

Gray Rain’s face twisted into a grim smile, his trapezius, latissimus dorsi, and rhomboid muscles all tensed, clamping the paper beast in mid-air, ignoring its desperate struggles, squeezing it into a shower of paper scraps.

"Is this still a human? Wait, it seems not..."

Maxwell’s temporary teammate was dumbfounded. Such brutal and ferocious combat tactics were only seen in pure close combat Extraordinaries,

those whose veins carried more steroids than blood, whose overexcited deltoids might crush their heads like pimples.

This was just the beginning,

Gray Rain shook her palm, the liquid metal in her palm dripped down, connecting to the handle of the Skull Shattering Power Hammer. With her expanded form contrasting, the small and exquisite Skull Shattering Hammer was used as a golf club, sweeping aside a large swath.

Until...

Whoosh—

A paper beast predicted the swing path of the club, arching its back to dodge, sliding to scratch at Gray Rain’s ankle.

Before the sharp claws could touch, Li Cheng’s Wolf Mad Demon Axe swung down fiercely, severing the paper beast in half.

More paper beasts pounced simultaneously, seemingly predicting Li Cheng’s moves, dodging in various directions with great effort.

The Knight Never Dies Unarmed skill activated, dual-handed axe mastery rose to Grandmaster level, and Li Cheng spun the Wolf Mad Demon Axe single-handedly, striking after motion yet faster, slaying several paper beasts,

like having eyes on the back of his head, blocking a sneak attack from behind, palm facing diagonally backward, releasing Riding the Tide, Wind, and Waves.

A gale far exceeding Level 8 gushed out,

blowing away the surrounding paper beasts, and the recoil lifted Li Cheng, suspending him in mid-air.

The Floating Engine Fragment at his waist glowed softly, and Li Cheng’s figure disappeared, reappearing on the other side of the Beast Fighting Arena the next instant.

"It’s that move..."

The audience member Bai Jixiong gasped, the slow-motion replay of the light-speed elbow strike in the London battle, just like the 25-year Northeast Rain Sister, the 24-year Manbo, and the 23-year Nine-Turned Large Intestine, became a yearly must-watch on the forum.

Li Cheng turned around, gazing at the Paper Mountain formed by countless folds of paper, pierced through front and back. Through the tunnel, you could see the paper army in disarray in the distance.

"Wait, the power doesn’t seem right?!"

Don Juan’s eyes widened, a single light-speed elbow strike could topple the skyscrapers along its path, the ensuing heatwave could melt street cars, and roast all living things.

But in the arena below, apart from some burned-away paper, the remaining papermen and paper beasts were merely overturned.

"..."

Li Cheng’s gaze locked onto the former president of the Mercury Alloy Guild, the Lv30 [Mithril].

He possessed spiritual abilities of the mind prophecy system, capable of foreseeing remote sensing, acquiring information, and even predicting the future.

Mithril predicted remote sensing, helping the papermen and paper beasts dodge Gray Rain’s attacks, and at this moment, it was he who predicted Li Cheng’s use of a light-speed elbow strike and formulated a response.

As for the response, it was,

"Vacuum."

The farmer uncle, sitting next to Mike and others, exhaled a puff of dense smoke, and said deeply: "Pifu’s light-speed collision is not really accelerating himself to light-speed — doing so would blow himself and Earth apart together.

Instead, it’s akin to a curvature engine, with himself at the center, holding up a curvature bubble, laterally moving at the speed of light in space.

Such terrifying physical destruction effects, one-tenth comes from the collision of the curvature bubble itself.

The remaining nine-tenths come from the overlapping air Mach stems stretched open during the expansion and movement of the curvature bubble.

The papermen below, unlike the ordinary UK citizens in the Battle of London, don’t need to breathe,

They had already evacuated the nearby air, causing Pifu’s light-speed collision to lack the medium needed to amplify its power, possessing only the killing force of the collision itself."

The analysis was well-founded, and Maxwell couldn’t help but ask: "Uncle, who are you?"

"Just an ordinary passing NPC, don’t mind me."

...

Li Cheng wasn’t listening to the chatter from the audience, his gaze shifted, looking at the Joker beside Mithril.

The latter’s lips curled slightly, seemingly smiling yet not, holding a paper tape vacuum cleaner in his hand.

So that’s it, the paper not only shaped appearances, but could also replicate players’ skill items.

The vacuum environment did not affect Li Cheng’s movements, while dodging the swatting hands of the paper giant, he took out a display screen,

The screen’s light bulbs pieced together a line of text,

[Once guarding the nation, now waiting for guests — Veterans’ Japanese cuisine, new shop opening, craftsman spirit, 10% off for grilled sushi and skewers on opening, posting to receive a signature dish]

This line of text was completely baffling, full of contradictions. Only a handful of people, including Maxwell and Gray Rain, realized that this was a test.

If the Joker was the original Joker, upon seeing this ad font, he would undoubtedly be unable to resist, even if he had to cancel the vacuum or write a letter on the ground with blood,

he would have to ridicule what the heck is veterans’ Japanese cuisine, which country’s veterans are these,

"Shenfeng Special Agent Team,

Comrades sacrifice, I retreat,

Alive till ninety."

and so forth.

But the Joker had zero reaction, indirectly proving that this batch of papermen, just like the previous BETA and Sitting Angels, had no self-awareness.

That made it simple, Li Cheng signaled with a glance,

Gray Rain instantly understood, first unleashing [Destructive Light] from his chest to repel the paper, then activated the floating engine fragment to ascend, leaving the ground to approach Li Cheng, shielding him from various attacks.

A blitzkrieg without a decisive target would waste spiritual power in vain, papermen are neither water-soluble not fire-penetrable,

The only viable solution was a large-scale instant kill, exceeding the reaction limits of Mithril and other papermen.

Li Cheng flew higher and higher, his arms reached into the void and pulled out the Furnace of Eight Trigrams, pouring in a full ton of Heavenly Sinking Wood Resin gifted by the Hephaestus Tree-man into the furnace core.

The wood, heavier than steel, rapidly melted in the furnace core, the entire Furnace of Eight Trigrams glowed with a green light, then, "Boom!"

Wisps of smoke hovered from the furnace mouth, several bricks at the center of the arena cracked, a fragile green sprout quietly grew from the cracks.

The surrounding papermen instinctively craned their necks to look down, in an instant, the green sprout expanded by a thousandfold, sending its roots sprawling like countless giant snakes and poisonous serpents, either devouring or piercing all papermen.