Chapter 142: Chapter 142

"Aren’t you afraid there’s an Administrator hidden in that tombstone? One strike and you’ll be erased?"

The aged voice spoke again, calm and unhurried, almost sounding well-meaning.

Jiang Ye was only probing to begin with—he hadn’t actually planned to strike the tombstone.

Hearing that, his brows lifted slightly, and he politely replied, "Oh, thanks for the heads-up."

With that, he took out the Madman Mask and put it on.

But now, standing before the tombstone again, he showed no intention of striking it directly.

The voice in his head spoke again, saying—

"Really willing, huh..."

"Looks like you went through a lot of trouble to save me..."

Jiang Ye was full of question marks listening to that.

He bluntly and speechlessly snapped, "Do I even f***ing know who you are?"

"What kind of ghost thing is getting all sentimental here??"

Still, he couldn't help but guess—

This unusual Madman Mask snatched from Guan He might’ve been crafted using some kind of synthesis item?

It could’ve taken three to five, maybe even ten normal Madman Masks to synthesize one at this elite tier.

And those synthesis items were apparently extremely rare.

To use one just to make a Madman Mask... what a waste.

Was that why Guan He and her Symbiotic Reincarnated Eerie were so desperate and determined to kill in Apartment 4444?

Just as he was thinking that, the voice in his head responded again.

Maybe because his "Who the f*** are you" came off too strongly.

This time, the voice finally gave a definite reply.

But its phrasing had that same cryptic flair as when Jiang Ye tossed the Dice of Fate at Zhou Qiming.

"Maybe, I’m your past life..."

What kind of bullsh*t??

Jiang Ye was instantly full of question marks and disbelief.

The voice seemed to know he wouldn’t believe it.

So it changed tune: "At the very least, we’re the same kind..."

Jiang Ye had already met a Light-type same kind.

But right now, he was absolutely certain—

In this entire Graveyard, other than him, it was filled with Dark-type Beings!

That overwhelming dark aura was everywhere!

"Same kind? Heh? Light and dark can be the same kind?"

That self-proclaimed “same kind” actually mimicked his tone and let out a “heh”:

Jiang Ye was surprised by that mocking laugh.

Normally, Dark-type Beings had a primal fear of light.

Only Yang Wenchao could somewhat suppress that fear.

And according to Yang Wenchao, there were two reasons—

One, his inner strength had overcome fear so many times that he was numb to it, even used to it.

The second reason: he used to be light.

This mysterious voice, clearly another Dark-type Being...

Yet when he spoke of light, there was no fear in his tone at all!

He even brought up that “past life” stuff...

Jiang Ye’s heart filled with doubt and alarm.

At the same time, he suddenly noticed—

The lingering Confusion Incense around him was beginning to change.

He saw the Confusion Incense transform into an eerie black mist, wrapping around him.

He’d seen the Dark Spirit Barrier before, so he immediately went on full alert, tightening his grip on the Entropy Scythe.

But soon, the voice in his head calmly said:

"Relax. I just set up a simple defense to keep our conversation from being overheard."

Jiang Ye wasn’t the least bit comforted, his expression only grew more grave.

"Light isn’t your primary ability, is it?"

"It’s not even your second or third..."

"Then which number is it? Should I keep guessing?"

Jiang Ye’s expression barely changed, but his pupils trembled slightly!

Which number ability...

This ghost thing—did it know his secret?!

That he had the X-tier ability Infinite Replication??

No! That wasn’t right!

This guy had gone out of his way to set up a defensive measure just to reveal his secret.

Which meant the so-called “secret” he was sharing should be unfiltered.

But if he really knew everything about Jiang Ye,

Then he wouldn’t be asking “which number ability”—he’d be asking “which number replica”!

The secret he knew was only that Jiang Ye had multiple abilities.

But not necessarily that he had the X-tier ability Infinite Replication!

Jiang Ye thought it through and quickly steadied himself, calming down.

Of course, his face remained unreadable.

That aged voice then leisurely tried to reassure him again:

"Relax. There’s no need to be tense with me..."

"After all, in my eyes, there’s no such thing as strength or weakness—only life and death..."

"So what if you’re powerful? So what if you’ve got a bunch of abilities?"

"I once possessed over a dozen SSS-tier abilities, and more than a dozen ninth-tier Glyph Pattern Abilities..."

"I’ve even experienced absurd things you wouldn’t believe—multiple souls in one body, light and dark fused as one..."

"I once stood at the pinnacle of the entire Doomsday Apartment, above the Moon Phase Clock..."

"I looked across the whole Doomsday Apartment and found no equal opponent..."

"Only when you walk that path yourself will you understand—there is no strength or weakness, only life and death..."

"Only then will you grasp the sorrow in Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu’s hearts—what does uniting the world mean? Being above all others? In the end, it’s just a mound of dirt in the ground..."

"Only in the moment of death did I realize... heh, none of it mattered!"

"If the world really is just a game..."

"Then the only true currency is time!"

"Without time, the game ends..."

That voice—whether touched by some memory or already a bit unhinged—

Had started out sounding normal.

But the longer he talked, the more he sounded like a madman rambling to himself.

His tone wasn’t even particularly hysterical.

But it absolutely resembled those patients in psychiatric wards who talk to themselves all day.

And yes, Jiang Ye had dealt with mental patients before.

This second half of the voice’s ramble matched them perfectly.

If this were real life, Jiang Ye would’ve stayed far away.

But in this bizarre Doomsday Apartment...

He actually listened to that possibly-insane voice.

If what this thing said was true...

Jiang Ye sharply picked up on something:

"According to you, you once stood atop the Moon Phase Clock, unmatched in the entire Doomsday Apartment..."

"But then, you still died?"

"Don’t tell me—you actually lived through the grand cycle of the Doomsday Apartment?"

"So, this entire Doomsday Apartment really does go through destruction and rebirth?!"

Just then, the voice in his head seemed to snap out of its crazed state.

It returned to a slow, heavy rhythm, with a calm and peaceful tone:

"Do you want to know? Do you want to survive?"

"Then go kill the Apartment 4444 Administrator first..."

"I still have plenty of information I can share with you."

This ghost thing... trying to bait him with promises?

Jiang Ye wasn’t falling for it, and was about to reply coldly.

But then the voice continued:

"Also... aren’t you looking for the Raven Egg?"

"The Raven Egg will be yours..."

The voice was growing weaker. Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on NoveIꜰire.net

In the end, it was practically incoherent, broken up into just a few words:

"Kill him... kill... him... kill..."

Right after, the black mist surrounding Jiang Ye slowly dispersed.

Everything returned to normal—the underground Graveyard looked the same as before.

What frustrated Jiang Ye was—

He had no idea where the owner of that voice in his head actually was.

With no way to lock onto the source, he couldn’t even toss a Dice of Fate just to test the waters.

That made him wonder—

Could that mysterious voice belong to someone also in a state like Existence Denied?

Neither dead nor alive, neither truly living nor fully gone?

Could it be another Observer?

Or something else like an Observer-type special existence?

Thoughts spun through Jiang Ye’s mind, but he couldn’t come to any clear conclusion.

So with a shift of his gaze, he returned the Entropy Scythe and Madman Mask to the Replica Shared Space.

Meanwhile, over on Replica No. 2’s end, after gathering some intel from Lin Jing and Ouyang, he left the Duel Space.

Although Lin Jing and Ouyang didn’t know—

Whether killing the Administrator would offer hidden benefits to clearing a Personal Instance.

After all, when players in the game usually fought Apartment Administrators, they’d already cleared their instances.

Still, Jiang Ye had made up his mind—

First, go take out the Administrator of Apartment 1010.

Then, continue assigning more replicas to assist the main body in the Personal Instance.

The reason Replica No. 2 was specifically tasked with killing the Administrator in 1010 was mainly because—

The mission from the White-Clad Woman had originally been accepted by Replica No. 2.

So having him complete it now reduced the chance of errors.

As for the Vow mission triggered when killing an Administrator...

He could just use Replica Fusion to fuse in Li Zhi, and it would still work.

After Li Zhi Replica and Comprehension Replica unfused, Jiang Ye discovered another bug!

The Comprehension Replica who had become an Observer, had gained an SSS-tier Ability called Lofty Ambition, which clearly originated from Li Zhi’s ability getting upgraded.

Back then, Jiang Ye had been entirely focused on the wonder that was the Observer.

So much so that he overlooked one crucial detail—

At that time, the Observer in the Existence Denied state wasn’t in a fused state at all!

Li Zhi and Fu Xi weren’t merged into the Observer at all.

That Observer was completely unmerged.

The Observer still had the SSS-tier Ability Lofty Ambition!

Which meant that this ability didn’t come from fusing with Li Zhi.

It belonged directly to the Observer—a permanently effective ability, no fusion needed!

Later, Jiang Ye also noticed—

On Li Zhi Replica’s panel, Lofty Ambition was still just SS-tier, not upgraded!

That was seriously bizarre!

But thinking more about it, it wasn’t hard to understand the trick.

Actually, Jiang Ye had encountered this kind of thing before when leveling up.

For example, when Replica No. 1 fused with Replica No. 3 to grind for XP,

he used all of No. 3’s abilities, but when the fusion ended, the level-up was attributed to No. 1.

All benefits from Replica Fusion were automatically assigned to the fused-into replica.

If Replica A fused with Li Zhi, then any rewards from completing the Vow mission post-fusion wouldn’t go to Li Zhi, but to Replica A.

Even more specifically—

If Replica A, while fused with Li Zhi, completed an SSS-tier Vow,

Then the final reward—Lofty Ambition as an SSS-tier Ability—would go to Replica A, not Li Zhi!

That might seem ordinary at first glance.

But on closer look, it was a total bug!

Because by this logic...

Jiang Ye could have all his replicas complete an SSS-tier mission, and they’d all get Lofty Ambition as an SSS-tier Ability!

Even that might be fine...

But here’s the problem—

What if Jiang Ye, at 0:00, fused a massive number of Lofty Ambition SSS-tier replicas together?

Hundreds, even thousands fused at once...

Would it still just be the base version of Lofty Ambition?

But honestly, Jiang Ye wasn’t confident either...

He didn’t know how many SSS-tier Lofty Ambitions it would take to evolve into an X-tier Ability.

Or maybe abilities could indeed grow stronger, but just never surpass the SSS-tier threshold?

That mysterious voice earlier had bragged about having more than a dozen SSS-tier Abilities,

yet never mentioned anything about X-tier Abilities.

Even the White-Clad Woman had always assumed Jiang Ye’s ability was just SSS-tier...

So maybe this X-tier stuff didn’t belong to the Doomsday Apartment at all?

When that mysterious voice said Jiang Ye was “the same kind,”

Jiang Ye, like him, had experienced the grand reincarnation cycle of the Doomsday Apartment.

But was that really the case?

Jiang Ye didn’t know.

Still, his situation was definitely unusual.

While pondering that, Replica No. 2 immediately used Replica Swap and returned to Apartment 1010.

Left behind in 1010 was the Blackened Replica.

Once Jiang Ye swapped in, he habitually checked the apartment’s Chat Group.

Previously, due to the Mutual Aid Group going independent, the whole chat had gone dead quiet.

The only posts were from the occasional solo player trying to join the group.

But now, the group was lively again.

Players were chatting harmoniously, constantly sharing insights and experiences.

By this point, there wasn’t much time left before Day One ended.

It looked like most classmates had earned enough Rent.

Some were resting, others were still grinding.

Those still grinding were either doing Errands for money,

or training in the Training Room or Dojo,

hoping to boost attributes through workouts, or comprehend new skills via meditation.

From the chat messages, it was clear—

Xiao Likun had become a hot commodity among low-ability, no-skill players.

Apparently, he’d used his Comprehension Ability to help an E-tier player comprehend an E-tier skill.

So now, tons of classmates were seeking him out for skill guidance.

On the surface, the whole chat seemed very harmonious.

But Jiang Ye quickly and sharply picked up—