Chapter 181 "All the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: the day that is coming shall burn them up, it shall leave them no branch."
Four years ago, at the Italian border.
The sky looked like a gray sea. The sunlight failed to penetrate the thick clouds. The dim sand and the gloomy sky contrasted with each other, making the world look as dark as ink, as if all colors had been taken away by God.
Lorenzo, wearing a tattered military uniform, stood in the center of the wilderness. From his sleeves to his trouser legs, his entire body was stained with a brutal blood color, and dark red liquid continued to flow from the wounds on his arms.
Look around you and take in the view.
The sand dunes are filled with cold, black guns, bloody corpses, and distorted, frozen faces. Looking further into the distance, there is an untouchable horizon.
Lorenzo raised his face and looked towards the sky. His eyes, as blue as the sea, had never been so dim.
After a long silence, he stretched out his right hand and took out a tattered book from his coat pocket.
Lorenzo lowered his eyelids, stroked the words in the book with his fingers, and read in a muddy and hoarse voice:
“I know that my Redeemer lives, He is the living Lord. When I was lost in the valley, He led me in the path of righteousness. I know that my Redeemer lives, He is the living Lord. When I was alone in the wilderness, He accompanied me as my lamp.”
After a moment, the gray clouds suddenly dissipated, and after the clouds and mist were parted, a huge sun appeared in the sky.
The young man raised his head high, his slightly narrowed eyes sparkling in the afterglow of the setting sun.
Half an hour ago, in a ward in New York.
Lorenzo lifted his heavy eyelids, opened his bloodshot eyes, and his gaze fell on the boy wrapped in bandages on the hospital bed.
The boy's arm, which had not yet been completely covered by the bandages, revealed a patch of charcoal-like dark blue skin, with the whiteness of bones and the hideousness of blood.
Lorenzo watched this scene, his face twitching violently, his deep eyes hidden under his hair, a violent dark red flashed across the depths of his pupils, completely replacing the original azure blue.
He gasped deeply, over and over again, his whole body trembling like a wild beast, like a survivor who had just escaped from a chaotic swamp, greedily fighting for air with his mouth and nose.
After a long time, he opened the Bible and murmured in a gloomy voice:
"I know that my Redeemer lives, He is the living Lord. When I am lost in the valley, He leads me in the path of righteousness. When I am alone in the wilderness, He is my companion and my lamp."
As the words fell, Lorenzo raised his eyes and turned to look out the window. What came into his sight was a sky so gloomy that it seemed to be able to squeeze out black water.
He gritted his teeth and repeated:
"I know that my Redeemer lives, He is the ever-living Lord. When I was lost in the valley, He led me along the path of righteousness. I know that my Redeemer lives, He is the ever-living Lord. When I was alone in the wilderness, He accompanied me as my lamp!"
However, nothing has changed and everything is as cruel as usual.
“When I was lost in the valley, He led me in the path of righteousness—!!!”
Lorenzo bent down, holding his head that was about to be torn apart, and roared wildly like a wild beast. The violent tinnitus destroyed every nerve in his body.
“When I was alone in the wilderness, He accompanied me as my lamp—!!!”
After a while, medical staff rushed to the ward after hearing the noise. Cosimo was the only one left in the ward. The window of the ward was open, and the strong wind before the rainstorm blew in.
Moscow, Russia.
It was raining heavily, with big raindrops hitting the repeatedly changing traffic lights, the LED screens on tall buildings, the shop signs, the cold asphalt road, the dim street lights, and the dark-toned bronze sculptures.
Lorenzo arrived at the Arbat Street.
This is one of the oldest existing streets in the Russian capital and is known as the "Elf of Moscow". Arbat Street was built in 1493 and has a history of more than 500 years.
On both sides of the road, a sea of flowers in purple and green swayed wildly in the rain.
Lorenzo did not hold an umbrella, letting the rain soak his body. He put his hands in the pockets of his black windbreaker and walked slowly to the end of the street. The dark scarlet in his eyes was particularly dazzling in the rain.
I came to the tavern at the end of the street, opened the door and walked in.
The sinner named "Andre" was drinking in the museum, partying all day with his three old friends, celebrating the victory of the Arctic copy, as if it was a great thing.
Half an hour ago, Gu Qiu hacked into the official database and brought Lorenzo detailed information about these players.
He also hacked into Moscow's defense system, paralyzing all surveillance in the area.
Lorenzo wrote down their names: Andrea, Kalev, Binonchi, Macmin - they were the ones who fought in the Arctic, pushed the seriously injured Cosimo, and fed him into the mouth of the three-headed dog...
The door of the tavern was pushed open, and heavy rain poured in, sweeping across Lorenzo's back. His black windbreaker fluttered in the strong wind, and the depths of his dark red pupils seemed to be flowing with molten lava.
"Which bastard didn't you see us..." Mark Ming finished speaking. When he saw the face of the visitor, his tone was suddenly shocked, "...It's you."
"It's me." Lorenzo took two or three steps forward, grabbed his neck, and pressed him against the wall.
"I have reporters nearby, and there are cameras in the pub. If you kill us, then you..."
“Puff——”
Mark Ming's voice suddenly stopped. His head was torn off by Lorenzo. His headless body slowly slid down the wall like a kite with a broken string, and he collapsed on the ground.
The violent blood carved a groove on the wall.
There was complete silence.
Lorenzo twisted Mark Ming's head and turned around expressionlessly. He tilted his head, and the scarlet in the depths of his pupils kept throbbing, as if a beast from hell was about to burst out from its ovaries.
“Bang!”
The next second, Mark Ming's head exploded like a tomato crushed by a steamroller, spurting out violent blood, completely dyeing Lorenzo's gloomy face red.
"Makmin!" Karev yelled.
"For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that is coming shall burn them up, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch."
Lorenzo rushed to Karev's side.
He stretched out his blood-red right hand, and gray characters with the words "despair" and "fear" surged out, instantly bursting Karev's brain, and blood and brain matter gushed out like mud.
"How is this possible? This man is the captain of the law enforcement team. Hey, we are players! We are players! What on earth are you going to do to us?! Shouldn't you protect..." Binonchi's voice stopped abruptly.
“The remembrance of the righteous is praised, but the name of the wicked shall rot.”
Lorenzo's right arm pierced through Binonchi's chest, and five fingers glowing with dark light tightly grasped his heart, instantly crushing the beating red life.
“Huff—”
Blood foam splattered, staining Lorenzo's black windbreaker.
Blood kept flowing out from between his right fingers and splashed onto the ground.
Andre, the leader of the four, was so frightened that he collapsed on the ground, trembling all over and not daring to move, like a squeezed doll.
"Those rumors are true... You are a monster, you are a monster!" He screamed hysterically, his shrinking pupils reflecting this man who looked like the King of Hell.
Lorenzo pushed away Binonci, who had lost his heart, and slowly raised his ghostly head, staring at Andre with cold eyes.
“The wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”
He approached Andre step by step, the dark red deep in his pupils became more and more conspicuous. In the end, the whites of his eyes were covered with darkness, like a demon that had been soaked in a sulfur spring.
After a while, Andre's chest was split in half.
Lorenzo released a sequence of skills to keep him awake, then picked up a knife and slowly cut out his internal organs, as delicately and calmly as a nobleman peeling an apple.
The two shared a quiet moment.
After a moment, Lorenzo suddenly raised Andre's right hand and whispered in his ear: "...You used this hand to push my brother into hell, right?"
Andre's throat had been cut open by Lorenzo. He could not utter a word. He just opened his bloody mouth and wailed silently with empty eyes.
Later, Lorenzo broke his fingers one by one.
The rain is still falling.
The blood fell even more violently than the rain.
After a while, the tavern fell into silence. There were only four broken corpses on the ground. The flesh and blood of four Russian players and their organs were scattered all over the ground. The scene was extremely hideous.
"Isn't it too easy for them to die... They deserve a more painful death."
Lorenzo felt quite empty, with a dull light in his eyes. He released emotional characters casually, crushing the remains of these people together, leaving no residue.
The four people's bodies were never found.
At this moment, the door of the pub was pushed open again, and a young man in a black hoodie walked into the pub.
"Oh, it seems I'm a step too slow." He took off his hood, and his black hair was wet by the rain.
In an instant, Lorenzo's figure disappeared, and his right hand had already grabbed the boy's neck. He raised his bloody cheek, and this familiar face was reflected in his pupils.
"...Anson Deer?" Lorenzo was stunned at first, then he laughed crazily: "What's wrong? Why don't you release your chess pieces? If you were a second later, I might have really killed you."
"Fuck, your hands are so dirty! Brother, I'm a germaphobe, let go quickly." Anson Lu's tone was quite disgusted.
Lorenzo let go of Anson Deer's neck and sat on the chair. He looked directly at him with his dark red eyes and asked almost word by word, "So, what are you doing here?"
"It seems that you are still sane. I almost wanted to knock you out and take you away."
"Answer my question!" Lorenzo's voice dropped.
Anson Deer shrugged and said slowly:
"I know you asked Gu Qiu to hack all the surveillance cameras in this area, but the people hired by Andre saw you walk into the tavern and probably took photos as evidence."
"And then?" Lorenzo poured himself a glass of red wine.
"The fact that you killed four players will soon be exposed." Anson Lu paused, "Besides, your current state will be seen by the whole world."
"Yeah, so what?"
Anson Lu held his forehead and sighed, "Brother, you represent the law enforcement team. What is the law enforcement team? It directly symbolizes the reputation of the officials of various countries. It is the only organization that people can trust unconditionally. But it collapsed completely because of your fault."
"It doesn't matter." Lorenzo said coldly.
"It doesn't matter?" Anson Lu was incredulous. "The world will be in chaos. You will be executed by the law enforcement team, and the people who execute you will be your familiar teammates."
"...So what?" Lorenzo narrowed his dark red eyes, his voice still contemptuous, and his messy long hair danced wildly in the wind.
"Cosimo is not dead, so there is no need for you to give up on yourself. There is still a long time to come."
"You can see that I'm going crazy. If I delay this any longer, my mental state will only deteriorate further."
"In the Chinese national team, there is a player with the sequence name 'Bamboo Shadow Therapist'."
"What on earth do you want to say?!"
"She can help you." Anson Lu covered his ears and said with a headache: "I am very familiar with the people of the Chinese national team. I can guarantee that she will provide you with mental treatment without leaking your information."
"No, I can no longer trust myself, nor can I trust the human species."
Lorenzo lowered his head, his dark red pupils hidden under his messy long hair.
"This sequence of the Pope has given me an extraordinary perception of human emotions. You can't imagine how despicable a race humans are in my eyes. They kill each other and scheme against each other. They are fragile, stupid, dirty, and greedy. It's simply disgusting."
Anson Deer pointed at himself and asked shamelessly, "What about me?"
"I can't see through you. I can't feel too many emotions from you. You are special, but you are just a special example. There are many scums like these four Russian players in this world. I can't tolerate their existence."
"Oh, what about your brother?" Anson Lu stared at Lorenzo and said almost word by word: "Don't tell me that in your eyes, he is also a so-called 'despicable human being'."
Lorenzo was silent for a long time and took a sip of red wine: "Existence like him will only be abandoned by humans, because humans simply cannot tolerate such noble existences. They are not worthy."
"I understand." Anson Deer smiled. "No matter what, I need your help to kill the snow dragon."
"It's too late." Lorenzo sneered, "Once this gets out, I will be abandoned by the authorities. They will treat me as a 'David Kench' and eliminate me."
"It's not too late, everything can still be salvaged."
"Recover, how to recover?"
"Gu Qiu blacked out all the nearby surveillance cameras," Anseng Lu said. "Then, the spies that Andre arranged were able to confirm that you walked into the tavern, but they also saw me walk in."
"so?"
"I killed the man, that's all."
"You're crazy," Lorenzo said without thinking.
"I'm not crazy. We have to hurry up, or we'll be too late." Anson Lu turned his head and looked at the other end of the street. "The reporters hired by Andre are already approaching the tavern."
Lorenzo stared at Anson Deer in a daze. After a long silence, he asked:
“Is it worth it?”
"It's worth it." Anson Lu twisted his stiff neck with his hands. "Let me say it again. If what you did were exposed at this point in time, what kind of chaos would the world be in?"
"Then what about you?" The dark red in Lorenzo's eyes gradually faded away.
"I don't care. I don't represent the official team. I'm just playing my own game." Anson Lu said calmly:
"Come on, it's just killing a few people, it's not worth mentioning. It's not like you, if your reputation collapses, it will be very difficult for people to trust the authorities again.
The world is in such a mess. If even the government loses its credibility, then the Earth will really start to go berserk. We don’t even need that snow dragon. Humanity is enough to destroy itself.”
Lorenzo lowered his voice and said slowly: "If you do this, you will go from being the world's number one player to an out-of-control monster in the hearts of the people."
"Then what? It has no impact on me. At most I will just move to a new place." Anson Lu closed the door of the tavern. "I only care about the people around me. I don't care what others think of me. This is the difference between us."
"you……"
"There's no time. Let's put on a show." Anson Deer approached him and teased:
"At least act more realistically, at least not worse than when you were on TV. That 'Serial Interview' show really made me sick. Your hypocritical face is so fucking disgusting."
"You're still as hopelessly weird as ever."
"We in Hell Lighthouse are like this. We are all weirdos."
Lorenzo laughed unhappily. He covered his face and laughed crazily and suppressedly for a long time. Then he took off his bloodstained gloves. "So... how are you going to act?"
"Uh..." Anson Lu curled his lips, "Actually, I'm really not good at this. How can I act it out? How about the former chess player going berserk and being killed by the captain of the law enforcement team?"
Before he finished speaking, he had already unfolded the chess domain. The domain, surging like the tide, spread out, covering the central area of Arbat Street, and the nearby residents were in a sensation.
Lorenzo stared blankly at the unfolding chess field, which was a symbol of the old chess players. Once the chess field appeared on Arbat Street, Anson Deer would be inseparable from this incident.
Anson Deer had no intention of leaving himself any way out.
"Anson Deer..." Lorenzo said hoarsely.
"how?"
"Thanks," he said. "I owe you one."
"Let's save these polite remarks for later." Anson Lu put his hands in his pockets. "Also, when it comes to acting, I'm not much worse than you. At least it's easy for me to pretend to be a bad guy."
After saying this, he raised his brown eyes, with brutality and coldness written deep in his pupils, like a man-eating beast.
"I'll let you get hurt a little, Brother Pope, but don't blame me afterwards."
One day later, New York, Law Enforcement Building, top floor ward.
A blond boy in a hospital gown was lying on the bed, his curly hair was so messy and unsightly.
Cosimo slowly raised his eyelids, sat up, and looked at the TV with his deep blue eyes. His bewildered face was immediately reflected on the dark TV screen.
He turned his head and looked at the clear sky outside the window.
Messy fragments of memory flooded into my mind like a flood.
He tried to move his legs, but there was no response from his legs. They were like two pillars that had nothing to do with him. It was disgusting.
"Well, as expected, I am no longer a player..." Cosimo lowered his head, and his blue eyes suddenly dimmed.
Without the "Cyber Assault" sequence, he would return to being an ordinary person, and his legs would also return to their state before he became a player - disabled.
It was not easy... before I was able to run again.
A line of tears flowed from the corners of Cosimo's red eyes. He gritted his teeth and wiped away the tears with both hands.
But the more I thought about this, the more I couldn't stop my tears from flowing.
"Hey, little brat."
The sudden sound frightened Cosimo so much that he trembled. He suddenly raised his head and looked at the uninvited guest in a daze.
I saw a young boy in school uniform standing against the wall.
"Long time no see." Anson Lu smiled at him.
"Anson Deer?!" Cosimo exclaimed.
"Don't be so loud!" Anson Lu quickly gestured to silence him. "Brother, I had a hard time getting in. The security in your law enforcement building is very strict."
"No, what are you doing here?" Cosimo stared at Anson Deer. For some reason, his tears flowed even more violently. He pursed his lips and said, "Are you here to laugh at me? Okay, you win."
Anson Lu held his forehead with his hand and said with a headache: "Come on, big brother, although I am a bad person, I am not so bad that I would come to New York to laugh at you, right?"
Cosimo wiped his tears and pounded his unresponsive legs. "Look, I can't stand up anymore. I'll be useless from now on. We probably can't fight monsters together anymore."
"Stand up."
"What?"
"This thing is for you," Anson Deer pulled his right hand out of his pocket and threw a black card to Cosimo.
"What?" Cosimo took the card and asked in confusion, "What is this?"
Anson Lu raised the corner of his mouth and said proudly: "This thing is called a 'sequence card'. It can allow idiots who have lost their player qualifications to regain their player qualifications."
Cosimo stood there, stunned and unable to utter a word.
"Little brat, you can handle the rest by yourself. I'm busy moving these two days, so I'll leave first." Anson Lu said, "Be more careful next time. Being kind is a good thing, but you have to know who you are with."
After saying that, Anson Deer disappeared from the spot, as if he had used the travel scroll mechanism to return to his original city.
Cosimo stared at the card blankly. Lines of text gradually appeared on the black card.
[Serial card has been used.]
【Player name: Cosimo. 】
[Sequence name: Cyber Strike.]
【Welcome back to the Evolution Game, I wish you a happy game. 】
At this moment, a familiar voice came from the corridor.
"Cosimo, are you awake?"
Lorenzo, wearing a white windbreaker and holding a bouquet of flowers, pushed open the door. The moment his eyes met Cosimo, his face changed drastically and he walked towards the bed in two steps.
Cosimo's face twitched slightly and tears kept flowing from the corners of his eyes.
He stared at Lorenzo's face, and now he cried even harder, sobbing like a child without any concealment.
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