Chapter 123 - Narrative Cage (7)

Chapter 123: Chapter 117 Narrative Cage (7)Li Cheng pulled out his SCAR rifle from the void and pulled the trigger towards the laser array above his head. The copper bullets were either deflected by the metal rods or sliced in two by the high-energy lasers.

At the same time, the gravitational coefficient of the surrounding environment continued to rise, making the heaviness of various body parts more and more apparent—by then, it was no longer possible to reach the other side of the room without stepping on the floor through hopping.

"The sudden surge in gravity happened when the Hook Gun was fired and hit the distant floor tiles. In other words, these floor tiles likely have gravity-sensing functions and must be stepped on in a specific order."

Li Cheng squatted to resist the cerebral hypoxia caused by the high gravity, his gaze catching a certain detail.

On the surface of the first row of ten floor tiles in front of him, there were shallow numeric reliefs that could only be clearly seen from a squatting angle.

Ten floor tiles, ten numbers, 5170106050.

What is this, a phone number or some kind of social media ID?

The brain, starved of blood and oxygen, labored to think, while still fighting the increasingly strong gravity.

Suddenly, Li Cheng thought of something and stepped onto the second tile in the first row.

Seeing that the gravity around him didn’t spike, he stepped onto the third tile in the second row toward the right, then to the third tile in the third row, and the fourth tile in the first row.

5170106050. The sum of all the individual numbers was 25, exactly matching the number of prime numbers between 1-100. If the hundred floor tiles were treated as a number sequence, these numbers represented the count of prime numbers in each column.

Li Cheng maneuvered back and forth among the prime number tiles in the first and third columns, thankful that the tiles were only 1.5 meters in length, which wasn’t too far.

Upon reaching the 83rd tile, he lunged with all his might, coordinating with the Death Curse High-Pressure Water Cannon jetting from the corridor of bones to successfully leap over the last row of floor tiles, reaching the far side.

And at that moment, the lasers had just descended to less than two meters above the ground, just shy of turning Li Cheng,

into a collection of Li Cheng Hero Fragments.

The kind you can exchange for in the store after collecting them.

"Phew."

Li Cheng breathed out a sigh of relief, braving the effects of grayout, and with a somewhat self-satisfied smirk, he mischievously said, "Just a dozen times the gravity and you think you can trap me? Back then, I endured a hellish training under 300 times gravity in the training room."

Ignore this self-aggrandizing claim to be Beijita, ’grayout’ in fact refers to the condition pilots experience during tactical maneuvering, when the perceived gravity on the blood increases, blood pressure drops, blood flows to the lower limbs, causing cerebral hypoxia which leads to a loss of central and peripheral vision.

In other words, temporary blindness. He had relied on his memory to finish the last few steps.

As Li Cheng’s feet stepped onto the non-tile area, the gravitational coefficient of the environment started to drop rapidly, creating a sensation akin to seasickness.

Including the rope tied with a red button in front of him, it too started swinging and swaying.

Li Cheng reached out and grabbed the button, pressing it firmly, but the next moment he realized something.

Actually, with his consistent caution, he shouldn’t have been so hasty to press the button.

At the very least, he should have opened the Nuclear Energy Lighter to use the light to explore the dark area, ensuring there were no hidden dangers before pressing the button.

It could only be said that the hypoxia caused by the high gravity did indeed impact Li Cheng’s brain, making him slow to react and impairing his memory, leading to a careless decision...

With a whoosh—

In front of him, a foul gust of wind suddenly blew through the darkness. A strange creature opened its gaping maw at Li Cheng.

The creature’s size was comparable to that of an elephant, but its body was flatter, with eight leg-like structures as thick as pillars, and its skin was a pale blue without any fur.

Its eyes, mouth, and ears and other organs were all crammed at the front of its face, and on its head grew a thick, long pole, at the end of which was the string with a red button.

If he had to describe it, it was akin to a deep-sea anglerfish, or perhaps the small stools used by actual fishing folk to secure their fishing rods.

"Click!"

The creature, a mix between an anglerfish and a stool, snapped its huge mouth shut but bit into nothing.

Li Cheng narrowly retracted his arm in time, then quickly pulled out a 170 Straight Blade from the Backpack and fiercely chopped it down on the creature’s forehead.

Thud!

The sensation from the chopping blade felt less like cutting through a creature and more like striking into a lump of metal. The impact sent a painful vibration up Li Cheng’s wrist as he looked at the stool-like monster with barely a white mark left on its forehead, a thought flashed through his mind,

"Damn, this thing’s huge and flat with eight legs, it must be a native animal from some high-gravity planet. No wonder its bones are so hard..."

In many fantasy novels, native creatures from high-gravity planets, once they arrive at low-gravity planets, can immediately slaughter left and right due to their formidable physical capabilities.

For example, the American officer who accidentally ended up on Mars in "Alien Battlefield," the Superman who fell onto Earth, or Tang San who crossed into the Douluo Hydrogen Planet...

Cough cough.

His messy thoughts dissipating on their own, Li Cheng regained his focus. As the stool-like monster opened its mouth for another bite, he took out the Nuclear Energy Lighter from his Backpack, adjusted it to the fourth setting of firepower, and pressed down hard.

Boom—

A flamethrower-like blaze engulfed the entirety of the monster’s open mouth.

Unable to withstand this scorching attack, it immediately retreated several steps, rolling on the ground in pain while desperately vomiting out large amounts of mucus, expelling both the flames and the fuel.

Li Cheng didn’t even need to strike again as it frantically scrambled to its feet, using all eight legs to dash into the darkness.

This also fit with Li Cheng’s deduction—the stool monster’s attack pattern was very similar to ambush predators like trapdoor spiders and anglerfish, it lacked a strong desire to fight, and would flee when facing a formidable enemy.

And thanks to the light from the flames, he was also able to clearly see the deep end of the room. There was a sloping passage descending diagonally downwards, which led to an unknown area through a horizontally placed revolving door.

After the stool monster fled, that revolving door could no longer be opened. Among the mucus it spit out was a... pink children’s backpack?

Li Cheng used the 170 Straight Blade to pick up the backpack and found it to be quite new; each zipper hung a rabbit doll, and all the compartments contained only a 5∑ coin and a child’s drawing.

The drawing style was very naive and childlike. On the left was an adult woman with long hair, wearing a bulletproof helmet, holding a machine gun, and smiling. On the right was a little girl, also wearing a helmet and holding a large gun.

Behind the two were piles of indistinguishable corpses.

On the back of the drawing, there was a line, "When Anna grows up, she wants to be like mom, fighting monsters on the battlefield."

"Uh... should I praise the martial valor overflowing on Anna’s planet, where even the kids think of going to battle, or should I say the designer of this Reversal Room is just monstrously cruel? Intentionally setting up such a plot, implying the little girl was eaten by the stool monster, right?"

With a mix of annoyance and tightness, Li Cheng packed up the backpack while leaving behind the 5∑ coin.