Xu Fang dumped a bucket of gasoline over Gussy’s head. “The compound’s fallen. We’ll hit a gas station in a bit.”

As Gussy absorbed the energy from the bucket, it recalled the memories Xu Fang had given it.

Xu Fang’s memories were simply too vast. After quickly skimming past ten thousand years of them, Gussy reached the part about the “Narrator” and felt conflicted.

“So I’m the protagonist in the Narrator’s story?” Gussy asked gravely.

“One of the protagonists. The Narrator writes ensemble stories.”

“That’s terrifying. Everything that happened to me was described by the Narrator. A few minor details are different, but the main events are exactly the same.”

“Minor details? Wasn’t it exactly the same?”

Gussy held both hands in the flames and looked up at Xu Fang. “For example, while that guy Feng Cai was taking me to the generator area, he talked a lot about his sister and kept asking if I could save her. When I said yes, he got down on his knees and kowtowed to me.

“And that blue glowing-dot guy was really crafty. The moment he realized the chains hadn’t killed me, he ran. I chased him for a long time, and he only tried to fight me up close after he realized he couldn’t get away. Naturally, I took him out in the end… There are lots of little things like that which the Narrator didn’t include. But I guess that’s to be expected. Fiction always involves some artistic license, and a few reasonable cuts and changes are understandable.”

Xu Fang carefully reviewed Gussy’s memories. Sure enough, they differed somewhat from the Narrator’s account.

“Also, the Narrator’s writing schedule doesn’t match the passage of time in the real world. When the Narrator posted five chapters in a row, I’d only just arrived at the compound. The real events hadn’t even happened yet when the Narrator wrote that part of the story.” Gussy looked solemn. “The Narrator is directing our future, too…”

“The Narrator likes writing ensemble stories. He won’t focus on just one character for long. He’ll switch to someone else soon enough.”

“Hard to say.” Gussy couldn’t shake the fact that it had become a character in the Narrator’s story.

Xu Fang hadn’t read the original story all the way through, but according to Luo Xiaoming, Yoriko, Ye Zhi, the Nun, Ji Shuyu, and others were all popular characters. They’d also been central to the story’s direction in the first few volumes, practically protagonists.

Yet in the Immortal World, none of those popular characters had survived. Instead, Xu Fang—the “extra”—had managed to break through. It was clear the Narrator was a very unconventional person.

“Xu Fang, let me see the Nun’s eyes.”

Xu Fang took out the Eye of Truth and handed it to Gussy. Gussy held it up to its eye socket and examined it from every angle, but couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so it had to give it back.

“Did you see a field of mist?”

Gussy shook its head. “I can’t sense anything. To me, it’s just an ordinary piece of meat.”

As they talked, Gussy drained every last bit of energy from the bucket. It picked up the chains and wrapped them around itself like clothes. “That’s much better. I’m still below one percent, but at least I can fly now. Shall we head to the gas station?”

“Wait a moment.” Xu Fang said, “Our bodies are made of the same ‘substance.’ Let me see if I can enter yours.”

“Uh… can I say no?”

“Come here.”

Ignoring Gussy’s protests, Xu Fang forcibly entered its body. He placed a hand on Gussy’s shoulder and merged his own substance, along with the substance he carried, into Gussy’s body.

Energy composites could merge with each other. Xu Fang had often used this method to replenish his energy quickly, but he’d never tried it with a conscious body before.

Since it was their first time, the process was clumsy. It took a while before they finally became one.

Gussy blinked. Its left eye had become the Eye of Truth.

It worked.

Xu Fang opened his eyes and looked around. He could see through Gussy’s eyes. With a thought, Xu Fang fired a beam of energy that blew the empty bucket by his feet in half. He reached down to pick up the pieces, but Gussy quickly took control of the body away from him.

So both he and Gussy could control their shared body.

“Are you going to stay in there forever? I’m begging you.” Gussy’s voice echoed in his mind.

“That’s enough. I was just testing it.” He’d gotten the result he wanted, so Xu Fang didn’t linger. He separated from Gussy’s body.

Gussy drew its neck in sulkily. It felt insulted, but the other party was its original self, so there wasn’t much it could say.

After Gussy leveled up, its attack power hadn’t increased, but its maximum HP had risen dramatically. As long as Xu Fang hid inside Gussy’s body, he could make a leisurely escape even if they encountered a medium-sized squadron of fighter jets like the one the Immortals had faced back then—and might even take them out one by one.

…

The YG Industrial Park was now engulfed in flames. After government troops attacked, the compound descended into chaos. Some people fought back, some fled, and others took advantage of the confusion to loot. All order had completely collapsed, and bodies lay everywhere.

Smoke and flames filled the distance and the surrounding area. Various screams rang out from time to time.

“Was the Narrator responsible for this tragedy, too?”

“At least this time, the Narrator was on the side of justice. He punished some of the evil people, though his methods were a little rough.”

Gussy said, “I hope this is just the darkness before dawn.”

Xu Fang and Gussy met no resistance and reached the gas station with ease. It had become a sea of fire, and the air shimmered in the intense heat.

Gussy stood in the middle of the inferno and casually beckoned. White points of light from the surrounding flames surged into its body.

The energy was so dense that a whirlwind of glowing specks formed around Gussy.

Xu Fang watched from the side and realized Gussy had gained much finer control over energy. With his D-rank energy perception, Xu Fang couldn’t manage anything like that.

The fire at the gas station gradually died down. Gussy opened its eyes, still wanting more, only to find that there were hardly any glowing specks left.

“Haha, twenty-five percent… Feels great.” Gussy grinned. “Now I’m confident I could take a thermobaric bomb head-on.”

The energy density changed, but its volume didn’t? What exactly is this so-called energy-meme composite? That’s worth looking into someday…

Xu Fang thought for a moment. “That’s only a quantitative change. You’re still not much of a match for modern weapons. Can’t you get any stronger?”

“Don’t make leveling up sound as easy as eating or drinking. It took everything I had to reach this level. (-_-)”

“Fair enough. It’s hard to level up without guidance.”

Gussy stretched. “Where are we going now? Organization K’s lair?”

“There are other authors keeping an eye on us, so we shouldn’t make any rash moves for now,” Xu Fang said. “But there are at least a few places we can go.”

Before long, they reached the area outside the compound where the neural pulse net had been set up. This was where Gussy had nearly come to grief.

Gussy remembered that the device looked a bit like a signal tower, with blue arcs of electricity flickering across it. It had obviously been no ordinary machine. But after taking a neural attack back then, Gussy had gone berserk and hadn’t even thought about studying the strange device.

Xu Fang looked at the ruins in front of him. “No leftovers to scavenge.”

Before evacuating, Organization K had taken all the important items with them. Anything they couldn’t take, they destroyed on the spot. They’d never share their technology with anyone.

“There should still be a chance. Why not check that website and go intercept them?” Gussy suggested.

Xu Fang shook his head. “My Destruction Vision advises against it.”

The bodies had been taken away, too. Faint patches of brown blood stained the uneven, charred earth. The broken earth walls and craters of varying depths showed how fierce the battle had been.

“I killed a lot of people here. Hmph… I feel kind of awful.” Gussy’s voice sank. “Was it 112? Or 118? I can’t remember anymore.”

“This is only the beginning. There’ll be more deaths in the future,” Xu Fang said. “If we want to establish new rules, we’re bound to hurt some people’s interests.”

“New rules? Good. I shall gladly oblige.” The sadness vanished in an instant, replaced by anticipation. When it came to causing trouble, nothing beat watching its original self in action.

Three hours later, Xu Fang and Gussy landed at a wastewater dump near the Myanmar border.

Swarm upon swarm of tiny black bees formed a tornado, their faint buzzing building into a violent rumble.

At the center of the dump was a pool of water so foul it gleamed black. The concentration of E. coli had far surpassed that of Bharata’s mother river.

Gussy stood barefoot in soft mud fermented from who-knew-what, its brow furrowed. Even without a sense of smell, it could feel the stench all around.

Xu Fang stood at the edge of the pool and peered inside.

The pool was bottomless. There was clearly no way to get whatever was inside without going in.

Gussy waved a hand in front of Xu Fang’s eyes. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Obviously, the thing you lost.”

Gussy’s heart lurched, but it still pretended not to know. “What did I lose? Your Highness, I have no idea.”

Xu Fang slowly raised his right hand.

Gussy said, “Want to play rock-paper-scissors? I accept your challenge!”

The next moment, both of their hands came down.

“Haha, I won. I’m rock.” Gussy tilted its head at Xu Fang’s hand sign. “But why does your ‘scissors’ only have one finger?”

Xu Fang glanced at Gussy and pointed at the foul pool again. “Quit fooling around. Get down there and bring the thing up.”

“Huh? Why me?”

“If not you, then who? Me?”

Ten minutes later, Gussy hauled an aluminum alloy case out of the pool, cursing under its breath.

Xu Fang opened the case and entered the passcode with the ease of someone opening his own belongings.

“These are some things Organization K didn’t have time to take when they evacuated, but didn’t want to destroy either. They sealed them up and dumped them here.” Xu Fang opened the case and took out a garment that looked like a raincoat.

“They sure know how to pick a place.” Gussy took the chains out of its stomach and wrapped them around itself again. It had worried they’d never come clean, so it had stowed its gear away ahead of time.

Organization K may have realized the Invisibility Cloak was unusual, but they hadn’t discovered what it could do. So they’d just sealed it away instead of taking it with them.

With this stealth artifact, Xu Fang could go wherever he wanted across more than ninety-nine percent of the land surface.

【Item: Invisibility Cloak Lv. 2

Effect: Grants optical invisibility when activated. Total usage time cannot exceed two hours per day; there is no limit on the number of activations. Status refreshes once every 24 points.】

Xu Fang put on the cloak and activated its invisibility field. He vanished in an instant before Gussy’s eyes. Only sonic detection devices or certain special perspectives could reveal him while he was invisible.

“How did you find it?” Gussy watched Xu Fang through its energy vision.

Xu Fang dropped out of invisibility and replied casually, “I looked it up online.”

Gussy said, “All I can say is, that website’s search function is incredibly useful.”

Besides the Invisibility Cloak, the case also contained biological specimens. Some were animals, some were human, and some were impossible to identify as either.

There were also several sealed microbial culture dishes.

These might have been useful for Organization K’s research, but they were worthless to Xu Fang. He glanced inside the case and noticed the GPS signal device blinking. Organization K had probably already learned that the case had been opened.

Xu Fang checked the culture dishes with his Destruction Vision. After confirming there was no problem, he set fire to every specimen inside and burned them to ash. He was thorough and left not a single trace behind.

“You’re not keeping them to sell?”

“There are plenty of ways to make money. I don’t need to make this kind of money.”

“You’re so righteous. I love it.” Gussy asked, “Where to next?”

“It’s about time we paid a visit to S City.”