The King of Black Fog

The mountain peak towered, and with the heavy rain, Li Changzhou strained his eyes but could not see the summit.

"Do we really have to climb the mountain?" Li Qianxia wailed, then spat out the rainwater with a 'ptoo, ptoo, ptoo'.

"Remember," Yang Qinglan said, "we haven't competed for a week, treat all our opponents as if they are stronger than us."

"Also, remember to use the nicknames from the game."

After the mental preparation, the three of them began to climb.

Li Changzhou looked around; they should now be on the western side of the mountain, steep and fierce, with hardly any vegetation.

As they slowly ascended, the path turned into a zigzag.

Their clothes were completely soaked, as heavy as a mountain, and the cold did not cease its assault, stubbornly burrowing deeper, trying to reach their bones.

"Watch your step!" After walking for about twenty minutes, Li Qianxia turned back and shouted loudly.

Not only was the rain heavy, but the wind was also picking up.

What lay ahead was no longer "flat ground" but a cliff face that went almost straight up and down, with only a path as narrow as one's shoulders, winding and clinging to the sheer rock face.

On this path, rainwater rushed down like a stream; a slight misstep, and one could easily slip to the bottom of the cliff.

Li Changzhou grabbed his right arm and, with a swish, squeezed out a large handful of water from his sleeve.

He walked at the back of the group, putting himself in the enemy's shoes, thinking about where an enemy might appear from and what kind of attack they would use.

"Ah!"

Amidst the wind, a cry of alarm. Li Changzhou instinctively reached out, grabbing Yang Qinglan as she slid toward the cliff.

"What happened?" Li Qianxia turned around.

"It's okay," Li Changzhou said, gripping harder and hoisting Yang Qinglan onto his back.

Yang Qinglan's beautiful face was pale and numb, her hair wet against her forehead.

With her 4 points of Strength and 5 points of Constitution, carrying a waterlogged jacket in the howling wind made even walking difficult, let alone on the steep, rain-washed mountain path.

"So, sorry," Yang Qinglan said tremblingly, her breath visible as white mist.

"Different roles, no need to be sorry," Li Changzhou said, his footsteps still steady even while carrying another person.

And he wasn't cold at all; his body burned like a furnace, an anomaly that made him anxious, wondering if he was burning fat, eventually becoming just a layer of human skin, or perhaps sacrificing his life span.

The water squeezed from their clothes by Yang Qinglan's chest pressing against Li Changzhou's back splashed down, whipped into mist by the violent wind.

Li Changzhou felt regret inside; he was dressed too warmly to feel anything.

But just carrying Yang Qinglan, being this close to her, already made him feel vibrant. At his age, simply sharing the same air with a pretty girl felt comforting, let alone now.

Yang Qinglan pressed against him; she could not feel Li Changzhou's body heat, but as long as the wind and rain did not drench her front, it was far better than before.

The higher they climbed, the louder the wind howled.

The whistling was terrifying, becoming sharper and more urgent like a countdown.

After another stretch of mountain path, there was a sudden roar, and the strong wind pushed forward like countless hands.

Walking in front, Li Qianxia, with her 6 points of Strength, 8 points of Agility, and 6 points of Constitution, stood still momentarily, adjusting to the wind.

Changzhou was tempted to go ahead to face the wind, but he feared that Qianxia behind him might fall if he couldn't reach her in time.

After adapting for a while, Li Qianxia slowly began to step forward again.

Yang Qinglan had been poking her head out from Changzhou's shoulder to help keep watch, but at this point, the wind made her eyes painfully teary, and combined with the rain, she simply couldn't keep them open.

She rubbed her face on Li Changzhou's shoulder, but it didn't help, and she had to bury her face in his back.

Through the water-saturated clothes, her faint breath, carrying a hint of warmth, blew onto Li Changzhou's skin.

"Lur—"

"Bro, be careful!" Li Qianxia suddenly leapt forward, her body clearly blown back by the wind mid-air.

Li Changzhou looked ahead; a wild boar was charging down the narrow mountain path.

Yang Qinglan heard the sound, lifted her face, just about to use "Attract and Repel," but the combination of heavy rain and gale froze her face, making it impossible to open her eyes.

Below her feet was a smooth stone surface, and on her right, an endless abyss.

As paths cross.

"Control Dopamine"

"Concentration"

The sound of wind and rain disappeared.

The world was left with only the charging boar.

Li Changzhou neither retreated nor jumped, lifting the AK's muzzle.

Famed for its outstanding performance, the AK could still fire normally even if tossed into mud and water, absolutely able to shoot bullets when its master needed it.

The sound was more of a 'dong dong dong' rather than 'bang bang bang,' accompanied by flames, bellowing fiercely in the storm.

All bullets hit, but the boar's charge wasn't affected at all.

The bullets hitting it barely scratched the pig's skin.

Half a month since the game started, guns had already begun to malfunction.

Li Changzhou's heart remained equally unperturbed.

He kept firing until the wild boar charged at his face; suddenly, he pressed down the barrel of the gun, turning it into a makeshift bayonet and pushing it forwards.

"Bang!"

Li Changzhou seemed to be wrestling with a car, continuously pushed backward.

With 8 points of strength, 9 points of constitution, and a perfectly rational adjustment of force absorption, he managed to hold his ground and wasn't knocked away.

Li Qianxia landed behind the wild boar, her wrist straining as she thrust the steel gun forward.

The storm and gale roared by her ears; the pig's body dented, but its skin stubbornly blocked the spearhead, like a fishing net capturing a fish.

The next moment, the wild boar, pushing Li Changzhou, moved beyond the reach of the gun.

Under the heavy rain, Li Qianxia couldn't even find the mark she had just made on the pig's rear.

"Qing Lan!" she cried out urgently.

Her voice was as light as cooking smoke amidst the storm.

Yang Qinglan couldn't hear her, but she finally managed to control her eyelids' instinct and struggled to open her eyes as if wanting to see the world from darkness.

Her eyes turned blue.

"Luh—"

Gravity shifted, pulling the wild boar to the right; its hooves left the ground, hovering over a sheer cliff.

Watching the wild boar flying out, Li Changzhou didn't sigh in relief but thought about how to personally kill the wild boar, retrieve its identity card, and seize its skills.

'No way out.' His rationality informed him.

However, at that moment, the wildly frightened wild boar, frantically flailing its hooves, swam back toward the cliff wall as if it was swimming.

Li Qianxia stared in disbelief, and Yang Qinglan, squinting her eyes, was also shocked by the scene before her.

Li Changzhou stepped forward, twisted his hips, and his right leg, filled with strength, swept across.

"Bang!"

The wild boar was kicked, its 140-kilogram body slammed heavily against the cliff wall, making a muffled noise.

Li Changzhou took another step forward, thrusting the AK fiercely, inserting it into the crease of the pig's snout.

Like a series of "boom boom boom" muffled thunder sounds, the body of the wild boar convulsed as if it was truly being electrocuted.

Blood flowed from the thick pig's snout.

Two black identity cards popped out from the top of the boar's head, sticking to the stone surface with the help of rainwater.

Li Qianxia wiped the rain from her face, simultaneously hiding her surprise as she walked over.

"This boar is too cunning!" she shouted.

Yang Qinglan had buried her face back into Li Changzhou's back, her delicate pale face still experiencing bursts of needle-like pain.

Under the current conditions, a normal person could hardly survive.

Li Qianxia picked up two identity cards, one of the wild boar's, and another of a human's; she couldn't tell if it was left from the previous game round unexchanged or from a person just killed in this round.

This impervious-to-blades-and-spears wild boar, by charging, guarded this narrow cliff passage as if one man could indeed hold the pass against ten thousand.

"Give it to me," Li Changzhou said.

Li Qianxia initially intended to keep the identity cards, but since Li Changzhou wanted them, she gave them to him without a second thought.

Rain continued to fall on Li Changzhou's eyebrows and eyelashes, almost forming a curtain of water under which his eyes looked cold as he scanned the two identity cards.

[Nickname: Lu]

[Name: Wild Boar]

[Value: 0]

[Instinct: Stubborn Skin]

[Skill: "Flying" (F grade), "Night Vision" (F grade), "Enhanced Smell" (F grade), "Quick Digestion" (E grade), "Unlearned", "Unlearned"]

This was the identity card with the most skills Li Changzhou had ever seen.

These skills had some use, but they still weren't worth wasting precious game coins; clearly, the wild boar's intelligence wasn't high, learning whatever it saw.

[Nickname: Student Dog]

[Name: He Dong]

[Value: 0]

[Instinct: Healing]

[Skill: "Vision Enhancement" (F grade), "Isolation of Breath" (D grade), "Unlearned", "Unlearned", "Unlearned", "Unlearned"]

Black mist reached out, grabbing two clusters of blue flame text, then pinched them out.

The extinguished flames reappeared on Li Changzhou's white card.

[Skill: "Concentration" (E grade), "Control Dopamine" (B grade), "Skin Enhancement" (C grade), "Healing" (C grade), "Unlearned", "Unlearned"]

[C grade Skin Enhancement: When activated, the concept of skin becomes tough to a certain extent, consuming 3 points of constitution every ten minutes]

[C grade Healing: After consuming food, the speed of wound healing increases to a certain extent]

Li Changzhou stored the two black identity cards into his backpack slot.

From taking over to clarifying and depriving skills, and then to storing them, it all took two seconds, with the humanoid black mist taking 1.23 seconds to deprive skills.