A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

Hearing the commotion in the distance, Lorenzo slowly turned his head, looking forward past the brim of his round hat.

A bizarre scene was unfolding. A ghastly white figure with his top hat pulled low and gripping a cane plummeted straight toward the port against the howling wind.

Standing on White Jack's shoulder was a small cloth doll in a western-style dress.

The doll desperately clutched her fluttering skirt, screaming at the top of her lungs, "White Jack, if you want to die, don't drag Mio down with you!"

"Hold your horses, Miss Mio! White Jack is doing great things here!" White Jack shouted.

"A bastard like you deserves to be sent to Siberia to dig potatoes!" Mio flailed her short little limbs, hammering away at his hat.

"If Miss Mio keeps me company, that wouldn't be half bad!" White Jack replied.

Not far away, Guchen took a swig of strong liquor, the corners of his mouth curling up. To him, White Jack's movements were as slow as a crawling turtle. No one else had the slightest interest in dealing with an opponent of this caliber.

"Hah, even small fry like this get to join the fun now?"

Bang. The bullet shot forth like a meteor.

But at that exact moment, White Jack vanished.

[E-Rank Skill: Phantom Shift (Swap positions with a target within a thirty-meter radius.)]

"Fuck?"

Guchen suddenly found himself in midair. The meteor-like silver bullet tore right over his head, sending his cowboy hat flying dozens of meters away and revealing a mop of curly black hair.

He was so terrified he leaked a few drops of piss.

In a split second, White Jack had swapped places with Guchen. He landed on horseback and looked up at Heimeng in the distance.

Heimeng was staring down at her game console, completely ignoring him.

At that moment, Bandage Man, Captain Red, and Cosimo were the closest to White Jack.

Almost simultaneously, Bandage Man unleashed a wave of pitch-black bandages, Captain Red gripped her curved blade with her single remaining arm and lunged forward, and Cosimo partially shifted into his werewolf form, swiping his claws straight at White Jack's head.

"White Jack is angry! To think someone touched my little blue bird and Miss Ember. Your punishment is going flying, you bad guys!"

White Jack watched them approach, then gave his arm a slight twist, pushing his hand forward in a seemingly simple thrust.

Yet that effortless motion triggered an unimaginable reaction.

[B-Rank Skill: Wall of Ten Thousand Armies! (Push forward a giant wall composed of fleshy statues of ancient soldiers, inflicting a massive impact.)]

The clash of spears and shields was deafening.

Boom—!!!

Out of nowhere, a towering golden wall built from dozens of armored soldier statues materialized. With overwhelming, unstoppable momentum, it bulldozed furiously forward!

It felt like a mountain was crashing down on them. Howling gales battered everyone's faces as the air pressure plummeted.

The three Death Crow members had clearly not anticipated this: Captain Red's curved blade was instantly deflected, Cosimo's wolf claws managed only to tear a tiny chunk off the statues, and Bandage Man's bandages were completely repelled.

The three were sent flying backward, blasted over a dozen meters away by the massive wall.

The Wall of Ten Thousand Armies would persist for a short time. While the wall blocked them off, White Jack didn't waste a single second. He leaped down from the horse and charged straight toward the girl in the black hoodie.

Heimeng glanced up from her console at White Jack. "...Annoying."

"She actually called us annoying! It's time to show off those pipes, Miss Mio!" White Jack suddenly shouted.

The cloth doll on his shoulder opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and let out a piercing wail. "Guwawawawa—" A wave of demonic sound, almost physical in its intensity, shot forward.

[Black Melody: Briefly boosts the attributes of a friendly target, or temporarily inflicts mental disruption on a surrounding enemy.]

In the distance, Heimeng froze for a second before violently clutching her ears. Her legs gave out, and she nearly collapsed to the ground.

Seizing her moment of disorientation, White Jack lunged forward. His arms darted out like a nimble snake, wrapping tightly around Heimeng's neck.

At the same time, he pulled the Evil Angel Wrist Blade from his inventory, pressing the sharp tip against the hacker girl's throat.

During his time with Death Crow, Giovanni had chatted with Heimeng quite a bit, so he knew her weakness well:

—Heimeng's esper ability was ridiculously powerful, practically a bug, but the price was a frail physical body—only marginally stronger than an ordinary adult's.

Outside her game space, practically any ability user who managed to get close enough had a chance to kill her.

Keeping the wrist blade against the girl's throat, White Jack looked up, enunciating every word to Sorakagehime in the distance:

"Let my Miss Ember go, or I will kill your lovely little Miss Game Console. Understand?"

"Boring," Sorakagehime murmured, cradling her scabbard.

"Is he serious?" Bandage Man scratched his head.

"Is he an idiot?" Guchen sneered, casually sipping his liquor.

"Hopeless." Captain Red sighed.

"A dead man threatening us. How amusing," Bai smiled.

"Can we all not be so optimistic? Our little sister Heimeng is still in hot water," Cosimo teased.

"Before you threaten us, shouldn't you check what's right above your head?" Black Magic Hand mocked.

"Hmm... Are you saying there's something above Lord White Jack's head?"

Playing dumb, White Jack looked up. Hovering in midair was a pixelated game panel, the kind you would only ever see in a video game.

Glowing on the panel were lines of brightly colored, pixelated text.

[Participants for this game: 1. Heimeng; 2. White Jack.]

[Entering the game space in one second. The randomly generated game background this time is—"Volcano!"]

[One...]

"Heimeng, do not underestimate him," Lorenzo said suddenly.

[Zero.]

In a flash, both White Jack and Heimeng vanished from the spot.

A moment later, when White Jack regained his bearings, he opened his eyes to a world woven of black and gray.

Scorching pixelated magma flowed across a gridded floor. The black mosaic blocks forming the crater walls were constantly crumbling away.

White Jack was plummeting straight down, on the verge of plunging into the magma. Fortunately, in the very next second, his top hat began spinning at high speed, hovering him in midair with his feet barely an inch away from the boiling lava.

Blistering heat billowed upward.

"White Jack, you despicable bastard! You said there was no danger, but Lady Mio was about to take a magma bath!" Mio shouted, waving her arms.

"Hold your horses, Miss Mio. White Jack has it all under control," White Jack hummed.

Far across the gap, Heimeng stood on the only safe piece of floating rock, watching White Jack expressionlessly.

"I am angry," she said.

"You know, Uncle White Jack is quite angry too. But I'm angry because... you actually thought a place like this could trap me."

As he spoke, White Jack suddenly extended his right hand. He clenched it tightly into a fist, not leaving a single gap between his fingers.

Right at that moment, a small paper figurine materialized within his palm, silently chanting:

"God is Dead."

[God is Dead (Breaks the influence of a domain-type or rule-based ability on you, allowing you to escape from it.)]

Within a few short seconds, the entire world shattered. Every pixel block lost its color, crumpling like a wadded-up sheet of white paper.

"This is..."

Heimeng's expression shifted slightly. She looked left and right, murmuring in a daze.

From far away, White Jack waved at her from midair before vanishing entirely.

...

...

At the same time, back at the port.

In just that short span of time, Guchen, Bandage Man, and Cosimo had already sat down on the ground.

Bandage Man pulled out a deck of playing cards, using his bandages to quickly shuffle and deal hands to the other two.

"It's boring just waiting around. Let's make a bet—how badly is little sister Heimeng going to mangle him?" Guchen took his cards, glanced at them, and immediately shook his head with a sigh.

Bandage Man thought for a moment. "Hmm... He probably won't have a head left, right?"

"Then I bet he'll be missing his lower half," Cosimo said nonchalantly.

"You guys are really bored. I bet he'll only have one hand left." Black Magic Hand crossed his arms, watching them deal.

"You little boys just love to compete." Captain Red shrugged. "Then I bet he won't even have a single hand left. After all, I'm down to just one hand myself."

Saying that, she tilted her head slightly, self-deprecatingly waving her lone left arm.

The atmosphere among the Death Crow members was incredibly relaxed, but their leader, Lorenzo, remained silent. After a moment, he slowly walked over from the far edge of the port.

The next second, a spatial rift built out of pixels tore open nearby. White Jack and Heimeng emerged from within.

Yet the sight that greeted everyone completely shattered their expectations.

White Jack was strangling Heimeng from behind, both arms locked around her neck. The tip of his Evil Angel Wrist Blade was still pressed tight against her skin, drawing a bead of crimson blood.

Sorakagehime was stunned. She never would have thought Heimeng could lose to a character like this inside her own game space.

If anything, it was way too bizarre. From the moment the two entered the game space to the moment they broke out, less than five seconds had passed.

"Heh heh heh..." White Jack lowered his face. "I don't think you want to see her die. After all, if you lose this omnipotent little hacker, you lose your main source of intel. Am I wrong?"

He paused. "This seemingly harmless internet addict is the most vital support member in all of Death Crow. Don't try anything funny, or I'll slice her throat open."

The expressions of the Death Crow members darkened. Cosimo frowned, while Black Magic Hand fought the urge to raise his arms, leaving a spread of magic throwing knives hovering in midair, eerie blue flames dancing along their edges.

A deathly silence blanketed the port.

The one playing White Jack right now was Ke Mingqing himself, not the Theater Puppet. He knew there were no do-overs. If he died here, he would truly be dead.

Ke Mingqing stared at the crowd, thinking, 'It's fine... Even if this fails, I can rely on Allegory of the Cave to temporarily hide out in that cave.'

Lorenzo remained quiet for a moment. "What do you want?"

Heimeng's face was grim. It was as if she had never expected there to be a day she'd be captured and used as a hostage to threaten the others... but she had already used up all her chances to cast [Attack Miss] in reality. With her domain rendered useless, she had absolutely no way out for the time being.

"What I want is simple. A one-for-one trade," White Jack said in a low voice. "I hand her over to you, and you give Miss Ember back to me..."

He trailed off, suddenly resting a hand on Heimeng's shoulder and holding up a single finger. "And if you can't do that, I'll butcher her. Understand?"

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