150 Killing Qi Qiuxue
◎Qi Qiuxue's death detected◎
"Congratulations, you guessed it right."
[Qi Qiuxue] passed through the air wall and returned to Qi Qiuxue's front.
She read many emotions on that face that looked exactly like her own: nervousness, confusion, shock, and perhaps a bit of uneasiness.
But Qi Qiuxue hid these very well. No one could notice these tiny details unless they knew her well enough. To outsiders, she was always the calm Qi Qiuxue.
"Aren't you going to explain the situation to me?" Qi Qiuxue looked at herself and said in a deep voice, "Why did an identical version of me appear?"
"I think you've realized this is a fake world." Qi Qiuxue didn't beat around the bush and told her the truth. "Everything you're going through now is a test for you in this dungeon."
"A copy?"
"Yes, it's a derivative of a deadly game. Players chosen by the game must complete various trials in order to successfully pass and survive, gaining the right to fulfill their wish."
"This is the seventh dungeon you've entered," Qi Qiuxue said softly. "You, Li Yiqing, Liu Ge, Wu Shanyue, and Su Wen are all players selected by the game. As a player, everything happening here is new to you, but for me, it's like a reincarnation."
"This is my second time opening a dungeon, and this time, I'm the only player playing the game."
Qi Qiuxue frowned after hearing this. A terrifying thought gradually emerged in her mind: "Could it be that everyone in the first timeline..."
"That's right." Qi Qiuxue knew what she was thinking. "They're all dead."
“…”
If it weren't for the god-level item in Wu Shanyue's hand, this would be an almost unsolvable copy.
The five people on the first timeline also lost their original memories after entering the copy for the first time. They were forcibly brainwashed by their mother, forgetting their original identities, and were forced to become obedient daughters one after another under her suggestion.
They should listen to their mothers, not question, talk back, or resist. Their minds are completely confused and their understanding of the world is distorted.
——About the world: Humanity has never been extinct. After controlling their minds, Mom deliberately hid several people in a facility somewhere in an uninhabited jungle.
——About monsters: In the eyes of Qi Qiuxue and others, those invaders who attacked late at night were all extremely dangerous monsters. Their invasion was for the purpose of destruction and killing. However, the truth was completely contrary to what they saw and heard. The true identities of these invaders were the people who came to rescue them again and again.
——About mother: Mother is not human. Gentle, considerate and beautiful are just illusions created through brainwashing. Its true appearance is a huge, terrifying alien creature with multiple tentacles.
——About the purpose: Mom has always been very interested in the life forms living on this blue planet, and the brainwashing, imprisonment, control of the players, and instructing them to resist and kill other humans can be regarded as a research, or even a whim.
——Regarding the identities of the five players in the dungeon: they are all relatives of a certain leader. After realizing that they had disappeared one after another, the government, the military, and various forces mobilized all their connections and means to conduct a carpet search for them, and finally locked onto this huge facility built in an uninhabited place.
The copy settings are already roughly clear, and what needs to be explained next is the whole story.
"In the first timeline, I too had doubts about all of this many times," Qi Qiuxue continued. "As the player with the highest mental state among all the players, I occasionally managed to briefly break free from my mother's brainwashing."
"But before I could even think too much, the guilt that had been forced upon me from the very beginning would come over me and interrupt my thoughts."
"We missed the best opportunity to kill Mother, and also missed the army's repeated attempts to rescue us. In the chaos, we followed Mother's instructions and fought against her many times, killing batches of humans with the weapons in our hands."
"To avoid causing panic, this rescue operation was conducted in secret. Facing a massive, terrifying alien lifeform, the possibility of successfully rescuing and killing it was extremely slim. However, given the players' special identities, they shouldn't give up unless absolutely necessary."
"But this very strategy resulted in the deaths of wave after wave of carefully trained and highly decorated soldiers. Furthermore, no one could fathom Mother's thoughts and intentions. Fearing the situation would become serious and affect even more, perhaps even all of humanity on Earth, the government changed its strategy after many attempts."
"You're not going to rescue us anymore, but are going to strangle us and mom together, right?" Qi Qiuxue met her gaze.
The person in front of him nodded slowly: "Yeah."
"In addition to various firearms, they also employed more aggressive weapons: bombs, attempting to destroy the monsters, us, and the facility they used as their base. Facing wave after wave of rapid-fire bullets, we were practically helpless."
"At this time, Li Yiqing's other form awakened. She summoned skeletons, blocking fatal attacks for us time and time again. At the same time, her physical condition also weakened due to the punishment that came with repeatedly summoning skeletons."
"Until death." Qi Qiuxue paused here, as if recalling some unpleasant memories. After a moment, she continued, "And at the moment of her death, our memories were finally restored."
"This setting has nothing to do with Mom; it's set by the dungeon," Qi Qiuxue said, slowly explaining another mechanism of the dungeon they were in.
[Current instance: Kill the player.]
Background: You are a direct relative of a certain leader. In an accident, you were kidnapped and imprisoned by an alien creature from another planet. Under its brainwashing, you lost your original memory and were forced to do many things that went against your will.
[System prompt: Your lost memory will be completely restored after a player in the team dies.]
[Mission Objectives: 1. Recover memory. 2. Kill your mother, survive to the last moment, and escape successfully.]
"After Ah Qing's death, even if we all recovered our memories, it was already too late. Without the protection of the skeletons, the others also died one after another. At the critical moment, I took everyone's weapons from their backpacks, and also took away the god-level props that Shanyue obtained from the previous dungeon."
"The item is called Restart. It allows the user to return to the very beginning of the dungeon and intervene in its progress through their own actions. However, it's important to note that the user cannot return to the original timeline. The restarted timeline will have two identical versions of themselves. In game terms, they're version 1.0 and version 2.0 of the user."
"It's important to note that since this item has the ability to almost reverse the situation, its use is bound to come with many restrictions."
"1. After use, the game difficulty is upgraded to S level."
"2. Normally, there shouldn't be two identical people in the same timeline. Therefore, before version 1.0 recognizes the true identity of version 2.0, 2.0 cannot reveal its own identity, whether it's face or voice."
"3. Before version 1.0 recognizes you, you must not reveal your identity, the details of the dungeon, or the method for restoring your memory, nor relay the answers to NPCs. Otherwise, the system will determine you have failed, and the game will automatically end. In other words, any hints I give you must be made without the system's knowledge."
"4. No player can be taken away by humans, otherwise the game ends."
"5. You can't kill your mother before the player regains their memory, otherwise the game ends."
"6. The accidental death of a player will no longer be considered a method for restoring the memories of other players. This time, the only way to restore memories is to voluntarily die."
Restrictions one after another almost blocked all the players' paths of survival, but even in such difficult circumstances, [Qi Qiuxue], who had a chance to start over, still did it.
She took the initiative to release clues to the army, giving them one hope after another, making them understand that the players were not rebelling, but were bewitched by the enemy, and all their actions were not voluntary.
No one was willing to believe the words of this strange masked person at first, but in a hurry, it is better to have news than to have no solution. In order to verify what she said, an experienced special forces soldier put on protective equipment, prepared blood bags, sneaked into the facility, and checked the situation inside.
She saw a terrifying monster and several victims who seemed to be brainwashed and called the monster "Mom". Then she was attacked by her mother and her body was thrown into the wilderness.
Fortunately, because she had taken protective measures in advance, she did not die during the exploration. When her teammates pulled her "body" into a safe range where her mother could not monitor her, the special forces soldier slowly opened her eyes.
The second time, a group of people sneaked into the room where several people lived according to Qi Qiuxue's instructions, and tried to use mind control drugs to knock them out and rescue them from the facility. However, the people who were undergoing brainwashing were not affected by the drugs at all. In addition, the monsters suddenly arrived, so everyone could only retreat temporarily.
But during these rescue operations, the information provided by Qi Qiuxue was almost error-free, which made the government and the army gradually trust her more.
"But considering my suspicious identity, they still strapped a miniature explosive to my hand. The detonation time is ten days. Although it's short, it's enough for me."
"After that, I also continuously leaked relevant information to them many times, delaying their change of strategy to kill everyone, and intervening in their chances of successfully rescuing you, trying to balance everything."
"At the same time, I've repeatedly aroused your suspicion, fear, and anxiety through countless attacks, taunts, and injuries. Even now, I've successfully traveled outside the map using a mechanism that doesn't belong to this timeline. However, you in this timeline can't cross the wall of air before you, no matter what you try."
"It's frustrating, isn't it?" Qi Qiuxue smiled, calmly gazing into the eyes of the person standing before her. "But I want you to experience this feeling of defeat repeatedly, and to become more courageous as you face difficulties and setbacks."
"I want you to never stop thinking," she said, then suddenly added, "Mom actually lied that day. She was never attacked by humans from beginning to end. She kept pretending to be injured just for today."
"Alien creatures like her can't stay on Earth for too long. They need to hibernate every once in a while. The hour after hibernation is when they are at their weakest, and that's the best time for us to kill them. But we must note that the only weapons that can kill them are the weapons in our hands."
"The reason I chose to launch a fatal attack on you and Qing today, pushing everything towards greater progress, is because while Mom is dormant, she will temporarily lose her ability to monitor the players."
"I see. It seems her hibernation is almost over." Qi Qiuxue glanced at the sky, then suddenly raised her lips in relief. "But I shouldn't worry about this, because it's you who will carry out the assassination plan."
"I'm from this timeline, and I'm the player in your plan who needs to die voluntarily, right?" Her voice was light and relaxed.
[Qi Qiuxue] said nothing, but just raised the corners of his lips along with her. Many times, silence is actually a kind of consent.
So Qi Qiuxue slowly raised the bone knife in her hand, and this time she pointed the tip of the knife towards herself.
"You must succeed in saving everyone." Before committing suicide, she opened her mouth to warn the person in front of her.
"Don't worry." [Qi Qiuxue] nodded and watched with her own eyes as the bone knife pierced into Qi Qiuxue's body. Then Qi Qiuxue fell in front of her, turned into a wisp of light smoke, and merged into her body.
At this point, there is only one Qi Qiuxue left on this timeline.
Qi Qiuxue recalled the system prompt that sounded in her mind when the first timeline failed -
[The current instance name is: Kill Player.]
[The death of player Li Yiqing has been detected.]
[The system modified the copy name to: Kill Li Yiqing.]
And now——
[Qi Qiuxue uses the god-level item to restart the instance.]
[Pray for Qiuxue to successfully complete Mission 1, restoring the memories of all players.]
[Qi Qiuxue's death detected.]
[The system modified the copy name to: Kill Qi Qiuxue.]
【Author’s words】
Here we come!
Special thanks to Mancao's Shenshui Hehe, who hugged and gave me a big bite. Thanks also to all the treasures for their overlord tickets and nutrient solution, and for leaving comments and reading~
Love you guys! [starry eyes][kiss]
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