Chapter 851 - 721: Six Desires

The rift was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, falling freely all the way down until they saw a faint light below.

The power of the floating engine increased, and Li Cheng and Gray Rain landed smoothly, the ground beneath feeling unusually bouncy.

Below was not the ground, but a mango-flavored jelly glowing with yellow luminescence, over ten meters in diameter. Packed inside were fruit chunks larger than humans.

The entire jelly floated on a milk river, carrying Li Cheng and Gray Rain downstream, everything in sight was food.

Literally growing with breads (baguettes, croissants, toast, bagels, etc.) were baobab trees;

Chocolate cicadas sucking nectar on the tree bark, clusters of sausage flowers by the roadside, and banana fish swimming and frolicking in the milk river.

"What the hell are these,"

Gray Rain casually grabbed a handful of spaghetti vine hanging down from above, sniffed it, confirming it was indeed real food, "Is this the set of ’Food Captive’ or ’Heavenly Food’?"

"Neither,"

Li Cheng swiped a finger across the screen, pondering, "This is the Six Desires Heaven and Earth Hell."

"What is Six Desires Heaven?" Gray Rain asked curiously as she didn’t understand, "From the name, it sounds a bit dodgy. Is it like those New Pujing, Kaya Poker Baccarat, Treasure Golden City segments?"

"What do you watch online all day? If you keep this up, I really will have to put you on the underage green browsing mode."

Li Cheng rolled his eyes, casually said, "Six Desire Heavens is a Buddhist term, six heavens within the Desire Realm.

According to the LAN strategy guide, this place can satisfy almost all human desires, designed to erode the will of players."

He showed the screen to Gray Rain, as the guide clearly stated,

"Humans have three major desires: appetite, sex, and sleep. Among these, appetite is paramount because it fulfills the survival needs of humans... Be extremely cautious, do not eat any food in the Six Desires Heaven and Earth Hell, no matter how hungry or thirsty...

The milk river turned a bend, tumbling over a slightly high cliff, misty water vapor enveloping, and both Li Cheng and Gray Rain immediately sensed something wrong.

The aroma of food suddenly intensified, almost like tentacles creeping into their nostrils, arousing their appetite.

When things are abnormal, something must be afoot. Gray Rain instantly plugged her nose with her index finger, and Li Cheng also closed his respiratory tract, evaluating his body’s condition.

The hypothalamus secretes agouti-related protein (AgRP) and neuropeptide Y, the stomach secrets ghrelin, strongly triggering appetite, causing the stomach to gurgle involuntarily.

"The Six Desires Heaven and Earth Hell continuously stimulates the desires of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and thought. If you can’t control yourself, you’ll be detained here..."

While reading the guide, Gray Rain paused, noticing something by the riverside, she nudged Li Cheng’s shoulder with her elbow, and said in a muffled voice, "Look over there."

By the river, a nine-person squad was laid slanted beneath a banyan tree.

The banyan tree’s branches and leaves were lush, producing repeatedly hamburgers, rou jia mo, tacos, and an array of foods,

The nine-person squad, recorded in the LAN, averaged Level 26, considered pillars of their respective guilds,

Yet at this moment they were powerless, letting the branches hang low, feeding them food right into their mouths.

The Six Desire Heavens’ food carried its own magic power, and the people uncontrollably opened and closed their jaws, chewing and swallowing, their stomachs bulging high, limbs swelling and fattening into Michelin tire humans.

The weaker players had entirely lost consciousness, with goofy smiles across their faces. That banyan tree was particularly considerate, when the players became thirsty, the branches would actively secrete Coke, Sprite, and other drinks, stuffing them into their mouths to drink.

As for the team captain, he retained a final trace of clarity, desperately looking at Li Cheng with pleading eyes.

"Got it."

Li Cheng understood, rummaging through the three-dimensional warehouse, grabbing something, and throwing it across the river, scattering it on the players’ chests.

They were digestive pills, from Jiangzhong brand.

???

Are you freaking kidding me?

If his mouth were free, that captain would’ve likely started ranting, but could only blink with more sincerity.

Sure, Li Cheng reversed his hand to grab a rocket launcher, weighing it, feeling it wasn’t powerful enough, he summoned a Forbidden Army War Car, leveling the high cannon.

Boom!

High-explosive shells blasted in the center of the nine players, sharp fragments tearing open the auto-triggered magic shields, slicing through unguarded skin and muscles, intestines stuffed with mush spilling all over the place.

Four players died on the spot, and the remaining were wiped out by follow-up shelling, respawning at the top level anew.

"They should be thankful to us."

Li Cheng remarked emotionally, typing on his phone and posting in a forum, "I suggest all players descending from [Killing Sin Hell] to [Six Desires Heaven and Earth Hell] store cyanide capsules in their teeth, if they can’t resist the temptations, they should consume the capsules and wait for resurrection..."

Halfway through typing, he reconsidered, deleted the original text, and retyped,

"The food of the Six Desire Heavens fills the esophagus and stomach, blocking cyanide absorption. Here I recommend a campus wear collection that will surely turn heads."

The attached image was a bomb vest,

uh, indeed campus wear, definitely explosive.

"Intermediate level players, when not deliberately tense, don’t have high natural bodily defenses. Installing a locator in the vest, when it detects staying in one place for too long, it triggers the bomb automatically, it can still blast through the body."

While talking, Li Cheng stopped, decisively using [Assembly Puppet], opened his skull, and tweezed around his brain.

Agouti-related protein and neuropeptide Y secreted in his brain had already exceeded the safety threshold.

To know, appetite is largely triggered by aroma, he’d already blocked his olfaction in advance, even closed skin pores, switching to internal breathing.

"Vision, touch. Seeing colorful food, feeling touch sensation, experiencing rising steam, all get influenced by Six Desire Heavens on a rules level."

Li Cheng covered his eyes with cloth, inserting a monitoring camera in his forehead, only then did he feel slightly better.

By contrast, Gray Rain was somewhat more relaxed—after all, she was a nanomachine life form, restricting electrical signals could suppress desire.

However, due to the scarcity of players entering Six Desire Heavens, many areas were unexplored, not even having a base station, soon the phone lost signal.

Thump, thump thump.

A dull sound came from downstream, Li Cheng and Gray Rain exchanged glances, silently readying their weapons for confrontation.

The sound grew closer, and under the jelly’s luminescence, they saw a bizarre creature walking up along the riverbank against the current...

Its upper body was clad in a brown burlap sack, with a figure curvy both front and back, supposedly a human female,

two long legs were exposed outside the sack, high red heels tapping on the crispy ground, as if she couldn’t see the path, slowly stepping forward.

Li Cheng’s head-mounted camera focused, whirring the motor, "White Horse Tombstone?"

"???"

Gray Rain was astonished, "The face isn’t even visible, how did you recognize it."

"By looking at the legs and feet."

Li Cheng answered matter-of-factly, "Static features such as bone ratio/skin texture/moles/scars/hair,

dynamic features such as walking rhythm/knee joint angle/full body gait,

White Horse Tombstone, being a Close Combat Transcendent, has quite distinct static and dynamic characteristics."

Are they really that obvious?

Gray Rain’s expression was peculiar, recalling how the Toy Factory’s Smart Core first met Li Cheng, transforming into a graceful big sister, and she wasn’t wearing shoes...