Chapter 139: Chapter 139

Jiang Ye had always rolled the Skull for himself.

This time, the Skull result belonged to Zhou Qiming, and he was merely a bystanding witness.

It was precisely this role as a witness that made him realize for the first time—

This... is actually a good-looking skull.

The skull was even smiling.

Its teeth were sparse, grinning with a toothy smile, and its two large eyes looked like hollowed-out holes.

This made the entire skull icon seem one part goofy, and seven parts eerie.

And as this image descended, Jiang Ye suddenly felt his whole body lighten.

It was as if something inside him had been directly erased!

The Skull took effect...

Zhou Qiming—instant death!

At the same time, a familiar win streak notification sounded in Jiang Ye’s mind:

[Ding! Congratulations on winning this duel. You’ve earned a bet reward of 18 million!]

[Ding! Congratulations on completing 40 random matchmaking wins. Please choose your win streak reward!]

Just like that, the 40-win streak was in the bag!

The win came so fast and sudden that Jiang Ye was momentarily caught off guard.

By the end, he wasn’t even sure—

Was this final Skull just a coincidence? A matter of random chance?

Or did the White Decree he engraved take effect?

Thinking it over, he felt it was probably the former.

He truly felt that the White Decree hadn’t activated.

After engraving decrees three times in a row, Jiang Ye faintly sensed—

The reason his White Decree was so hard to engrave

wasn’t because the White Decree itself was difficult.

It was because the Dice of Fate was intrinsically hard to influence.

If he were simply rolling a dice with no special effect,

then engraving a White Decree to determine an ordinary dice result should’ve been much easier.

His gaze fell on the three 40-win reward cards.

Win streak rewards always came as a choice of three.

He’d just randomly picked in the past.

At ten wins he got the Phantom Lantern, twenty wins gave him the Bodhi Enlightenment Fruit.

The best of the thirty-win rewards was the Void Mirror, but he only got the Blood-Spirit Comb and gave it to Wan Xin.

Now the random reward for 40 wins...

Just in time to test the Prophecy effect again.

He’d failed three times already.

This time, his mindset was especially relaxed.

So after focusing his attention, he quickly entered the state.

This time, he felt incredibly clear—

Engraving a decree was already inherently hard.

But the S-tier Comprehension ability, combined with Replica No. 2’s Absolute Focus skill, gave a significant boost to his decree engraving.

Especially Absolute Focus, which allowed him to rapidly lock onto what people called “intent.”

With no outside interference this time, he was even surprised to find—

those tiny white glows he used to engrave the decree weren’t created out of thin air.

They seemed to be condensed from his intent!

This time, he didn’t immediately use the white glows to engrave the decree.

Instead, he focused carefully and attentively felt each glow.

And under the boost from Comprehension, he faintly sensed—

the decree wasn’t about the "words."

It was about the “intent,” about the “thought”!

Before, he’d been hung up on the “form,” even worried whether his chicken-scratch handwriting could clearly express his meaning.

Only now did he realize, what he needed to engrave wasn’t the shape of the words—

but the “thought” itself!

Just like earlier, to affect the outcome of the Dice of Fate, he didn’t need to write the word "Skull" neatly.

He needed to imbue the decree with an overwhelmingly strong intent.

Just like “manifestation”...

Use a belief strong and firm enough to influence the probabilities of reality.

On that basis, he wouldn’t even need to know how to write.

Just like some uneducated people could invent their own symbols that only they could understand.

Jiang Ye didn’t follow the rules and engrave standard characters.

He scribbled like ghost runes, casually sketching a bizarre pattern.

The pattern looked random, but each point was infused with his intense intent—

He wanted to choose the most suitable reward from these three!

A seemingly nonsensical scribble actually formed a White Decree successfully!

A successful decree wouldn’t dissolve into the air like the failed ones before.

Instead, it had a tangible presence, those simple lines pulsing like a heartbeat.

Even though it was a silent existence,

Jiang Ye actually felt like he could hear the heartbeat of the decree!

Just by looking at it, he felt it was synced with his own heartbeat!

That sensation was too mystical!

But in the blink of an eye,

that White Decree, as if it had its own heartbeat, merged into one of the three cards.

Jiang Ye snapped back and picked it without hesitation.

When the card flipped over, it showed the 40-win streak reward he’d chosen—

Threaded Blood Puppet

[Blend your own hair, nails, and blood to create a Blood Puppet Replica.]

[The Blood Puppet Replica possesses full strength of the main body, but has a stiff expression and wooden creaking joints.]

[It can shoot dissection threads from its joints—thin, tough, and hard to detect, with strong attack power.]

[The Blood Puppet Replica can create numerous Threaded Replicas.]

[Each Threaded Replica is linked by threads to the Blood Puppet Replica; if the thread is cut, control is lost.]

[Each Threaded Replica has 10% of the Blood Puppet Replica’s combat power and is controlled by it.]

[Each Threaded Replica consumes 10 strands of hair from the user.]

[If more than 100 Threaded Replicas are created at once, the user’s hair will harden and stink. Hair must be treated with corpse oil promptly to avoid weakening the Blood Puppet Replica.]

Jiang Ye didn’t know if this Threaded Blood Puppet was the best reward for a 40-win streak,

but just from the description, it was definitely the most suitable for him!

Jiang Ye’s current strength didn’t lack powerful items.

What he lacked was the number of replicas!

And this Threaded Blood Puppet not only gave him a Blood Puppet Replica by default—

it could also continue producing Threaded Replicas!

And as long as they were Jiang Ye’s replicas, they would fall under the influence of his Infinite Replication ability!

So replica skills could be used on the Threaded Replicas too!

Though the Threaded Replicas weren’t strong and didn’t boost much power even when fused,

Jiang Ye had another more practical skill besides Replica Fusion—Replica Substitution!

Cheap Threaded Replicas were perfect as cannon fodder for Replica Substitution!

Also, even though the item description said the Threaded Replicas had to stay connected to the Blood Puppet Replica with threads,

and would go out of control if the threads were cut,

there was no doubt this only meant losing control from the Blood Puppet Replica.

With Infinite Replication, Jiang Ye should still be able to control those mindless Threaded Replicas!

So Jiang Ye could fully choose to sever the thread connections himself,

and scatter them across different Apartments.

That way, he could later use Replica Swap to freely move across Apartments without loss!

Of course, a single Threaded Replica was still too weak.

If it moved alone, it could easily get killed by some clueless player.

And there was also the issue that making one cost him 10 strands of hair...

Ten hairs didn’t sound like much,

but over time, with more and more Threaded Replicas, he was definitely on track to go bald!

But whatever, Jiang Ye wasn’t that vain about his looks anymore.

He was pretty satisfied with this win streak reward.

After storing it in the Replica Shared Space, he didn’t continue matchmaking duels and returned straight to the Card Booth Space.

Everyone inside was still the same group.

Jiang Ye swept his gaze around and feigned surprise: “Huh? Where’s your boss?”

As he said this, he was also a bit curious—

Would these guys have forgotten Zhou Qiming already?

But clearly, the Skull effect from the Dice of Fate wasn’t that kind of ultimate erasure death.

These players all still remembered Zhou Qiming.

Especially that hot-headed young man from before, who looked at him blankly:

“You guys... your duel’s already over?” Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs novel(ꜰ)ire.net

Jiang Ye nodded, “Of course it’s over. I even got the 40-win reward.”

The five who had obviously followed Zhou Qiming earlier looked at each other.

A calm, composed young man guessed, “Maybe... the boss is still comprehending something...”

But before he could finish that thought, Ouyang suddenly swallowed and said,

“Look at the Apartment 4444 ranking and member list...”

"H-his name… Zhou Qiming’s name… is gone!"

As he spoke, Ouyang’s eyes widened, staring at Jiang Ye with a mix of terror and disbelief.

The five who had followed Zhou Qiming also looked equally stunned.

But soon, someone reflexively guessed, "Isn’t it just that his name disappeared? Maybe the boss is…"

But this time, the speculation halted halfway through.

Obviously, they had also remembered—

Apartment 4444 was under lockdown!

It was impossible for any player to leave across Apartments!

All eyes suddenly whipped toward Jiang Ye!

Jiang Ye blinked innocently.

That hot-headed young man from earlier suddenly slapped the table and declared,

"Impossible! Death in the Duel Space is all virtual! There’s no way the boss actually died!"

"I bet he has some item that lets him cross Apartments without using the Rooftop Teleportation Array!"

"Or… maybe the Duoe Organization needed him for something!"

"Either way, it was just a duel! He couldn’t have really died!"

"And even if he did die, he could resurrect!"

"In fact, after he resurrects, he might be even stronger!"

When the hot-headed youth started speaking, he sounded flustered, but the more he spoke, the more convinced he became, as if only he saw the truth.

However, both Ouyang and Lin Jing, as well as the composed youth among the five, all had strange expressions.

Especially Lin Jing and Ouyang—the way they subtly looked at Jiang Ye was as if they’d seen a ghost!

Far away in the Doomsday Apartment shrouded in mist,

a number of veteran players watching from within the Duoe Organization also exchanged baffled glances.

The entire 119th floor of the Apartment fell into a strange silence for a while before suddenly erupting into a flurry of discussions—

"This—this guy… what kind of trick did he use? Why does it feel like he’s some kind of scammy mystic?"

"Yeah, I think so too… it can’t really be the Dice of Fate! He must’ve faked the dice effect somehow!"

"But that final moment—did anyone actually see how Zhou Qiming died?"

"The key is Jiang Ye said he rolled the dice for Zhou Qiming, and Zhou Qiming clearly panicked! What was he panicking about?"

"Too damn creepy! I didn’t understand this duel at all!"

"What’s so hard to understand? That Jiang Ye was just playing mystic tricks to cover up his real methods!"

All the players watching assumed Jiang Ye was just being theatrical.

Yet at the same time, they were genuinely shocked and curious about how he’d managed to win in the end.

Obviously, the regular spectators had no idea that Zhou Qiming had actually died.

But inside the Duoe Organization, they knew.

Within the internal Duoe player chat group,

the eerie silence lasted even longer than it had among the spectators.

By the time the public had already debated it thoroughly,

someone in the group finally broke the silence—

Xing Xiu: 【So… did Zhou Qiming actually die?】

Wu Ying: 【S-seems like it… yeah?】

Zi Sang Haoyun: 【N-no way, right? Deaths in the Duel Space are virtual, aren’t they?】

Qi Bai: 【Yeah! There’s never been a case before!】

Xu Chen: 【Exactly! Even if it was a real-world death triggered by a duel, wouldn’t that require the so-called “Ultimate Erasure” level? If this was Ultimate Erasure, we wouldn’t even remember Zhou Qiming!】

Wu Ying: 【Right! So it definitely couldn’t be a death caused by a virtual duel!】

Wu Ying: 【It must’ve been something else—he just happened to die in reality! Didn’t he offend a Light-type Player? Maybe that Light-type Player just smashed his Duel Machine and killed him through it!】

Xing Xiu: 【Right! That makes sense! That’s gotta be it!】

Qi Bai: 【Still gives me the creeps… Boss, can we get a clear answer? @Duoe】

The chat was filled with the usual talkative players,

but this time, even more lurkers were quietly paying attention.

After all, this incident really was too bizarre!

And just as Qi Bai tagged Duoe,

a response appeared shortly after:

Duoe (Group Owner): 【Cause of Zhou Qiming’s death is under investigation. Until we have results, no one is to match against Jiang Ye again. @everyone】

The moment this message dropped, all members let out a sigh of relief.

Especially Wu Ying—he had specifically been tasked to match with Jiang Ye earlier.

And honestly, all he’d done was queue up and surrender…

Now that he didn’t have to match Jiang Ye anymore, he was more than happy.

At the same time, thinking of how strange Jiang Ye was,

Wu Ying used his Phantasm Parasitism ability to switch into Jiang Ye’s appearance.

Then, in that form, he leisurely studied Jiang Ye’s Data Panel.

Muttering to himself: This guy’s panel looks average as hell, yet somehow he’s so creepy.

On the rooftop of the Doomsday Apartment, shrouded in mist—

stood a colossal Moon Phase Clock.

Its structure was an enormous black disc, massive in size.

On the front of the disc—

at its center—was etched a mysterious dark sigil.

It resembled a mysterious raven.

Raven feathers extended outward from the center.

At the outer rim, where the feathers pointed,

various moon phase symbols were engraved, representing the waxing and waning of the moon.

Each feather and moon phase was not a simple drawing, but intricate and exquisite.

Viewed from the front, the Moon Phase Clock appeared as a grand, ancient, mysterious black clock,

emitting the dark-type aura most loved by Apartment players.

And also… a strangely serene, warm feeling of time standing still.

from the back side of the clock,

a completely different scene unfolded!

The entire rear of the clock was bound in thick, blood-red chains.

They were tangled, twisted, and tightly wound, covering the entire back.

It even seemed as if blood truly flowed through those chains.

The chains extended from the back of the clock,

snaking across the rooftop floor, all pointing to a blood-red abyss.

That crimson abyss looked like a fallen Blood Moon, lying at the rooftop’s edge.

And the ends of the chains disappeared straight into it,

as if drawing sustenance from the abyss,

feeding it back into the Moon Phase Clock.

At the same time, faint ticking sounds echoed from within the clock.

From the front, the “tick-tock” might sound like a regular clock chime.

it felt like the sound of blood dripping.

Mysterious, eerie, and enough to chill your spine.

At that moment, several silhouettes hovered silently at the edge of the blood-red abyss,

gazing solemnly at the back of the Moon Phase Clock.