Chapter 47: Real-World Combat

"Cousin, where are you?"

In the afternoon, right after stepping off the bus, Li Wenna called Murong Xun.

Having already told her group leader that she would be staying with a relative, she didn't need to follow the teachers and classmates to the hotel. By this time, the others had already left, leaving her completely by herself.

"Just walk toward the exit. I'm waiting for you at the entrance."

Since she was his aunt's only daughter, Murong Xun attached great importance to her visit and had driven over in advance to pick her up.

"Cousin!"

The moment she reached the exit, she spotted the tall young man among the crowd, and a smile of undisguised joy bloomed on Li Wenna's face.

Although this wasn't her first time in the city, she was still thrilled to see her cousin waiting for her.

Li Wenna was only seventeen this year, even younger than Murong Xun. She was a high school junior in their county town, planning to test into a university in the city after taking the national college entrance examination next year. However, because of their relative seniority in the family, she had been called "older sister" since childhood, so she was long used to it.

"Oh, bro, I've missed you to death!"

Without another word, Li Wenna lunged forward and threw her arms around him in a hug.

The young girl, leaving her parents' side for the very first time, seemed rather high-spirited, much like a fledgling bird finally taking flight on its own.

Murong Xun firmly caught her flying tackle, his body not swaying an inch.

After exchanging greetings, he helped her with her luggage.

"How are we getting there? Should we hail a taxi?"

Li Wenna looked around, finding novelty in everything she saw.

She wasn't actually unfamiliar with her surroundings, but this was the first time she was free from her mother's endless nagging, making everything feel entirely different.

"I drove here. It's not far ahead, let's go."

Murong Xun said, taking the lead.

Having turned eighteen, he had obtained his driver's license long ago. It was just that he rarely drove in his daily life, so the car mostly sat around gathering dust.

"You're already driving!"

Li Wenna was filled with envy.

Compared to the treatment her cousin received, she felt she was truly pitiful, kept under her parents' thumb with not an ounce of freedom.

After bringing Li Wenna home, instead of going to an expensive restaurant for a grand feast, Murong Xun cooked a meal for her himself, which had Li Wenna raving endlessly about how delicious it was.

With his transcendent culinary skills, whipping up a good meal was naturally a breeze for Murong Xun.

Since it was getting quite late, Murong Xun didn't suggest taking Li Wenna out for entertainment, and they simply rested for their first night.

Early the next morning, he drove her to meet up with her classmates.

Today, Li Wenna and her group were visiting the exchange school to get acquainted with the campus and take a tour.

Murong Xun's appearance utterly dazzled Li Wenna's classmates, saving her a great deal of face. Afterward, once she was done with her schedule, he picked her up and drove her around the city for sightseeing.

Anyway, since he was currently on a break, he had nothing else to do.

Accompanying Li Wenna on her outings was also a way for him to relax and wander around!

This routine continued for four whole days, and Li Wenna was having the time of her life.

Free from her parents' constraints, with endless delicious food every day, touring schools with entirely different environments, and getting to visit various amusement parks and scenic spots afterward, she became so enchanted she almost forgot about returning home.

Until this very night.

Murong Xun snapped his eyes open and checked the time: it was already half-past one in the morning.

He quietly got up, glanced at Li Wenna's tightly shut bedroom door, carefully pulled it closed, picked up his wooden saber, and stepped outside.

He had heard the commotion of a battle.

Moreover, he could sense fluctuations of energy.

For such disturbances to happen in the real world, it could only mean one thing: Players.

In the public park where Murong Xun usually exercised, two figures were currently locked in fierce combat.

"Damn it, Gongsun Yuan, do you really think I'm afraid of you?"

The man who had been driven on the defensive shouted in anger.

"I'm giving the Special Security Bureau face, yet you're still pressing on relentlessly?"

"You took a life, so you must face justice!"

The youth in white was unrelenting.

"Are you out of your mind?"

The man found it incredible.

"Don't you know why I killed them? If it weren't for an idiotic busybody like you casually blabbing about the Demon Tower and getting overheard, would I have been driven to silence witnesses? Oh, now that I've dealt with the people, you're going to deal with me? Tell me, if I hadn't taken action, would you rather have been executed by the Demon Tower yourself than kill anyone?"

"You..."

Gongsun Yuan was at a loss for words.

The truth was, he had wanted to silence those witnesses himself, so that no one else would ever find out about any of this.

Now that his inner thoughts had been laid bare, he instantly grew furious out of embarrassment.

He was a member of the Special Security Bureau, tasked precisely with managing these Players. How could he allow any incriminating evidence to fall into someone else's hands?

"Wang Qing, you're asking for death!"

"Hmph!"

Realizing the other party genuinely intended to take his life, Wang Qing stopped blindly dodging and began a real counterattack.

Though the Demon Tower had sealed their personal spaces, there were certain things it could not suppress.

When the two truly exchanged blows, the commotion was immense—especially since they were consuming Paradise Coins regardless of cost to unlock their energy, which drastically amplified the destructive scale.

This was sheer money-burning behavior. Unlocking energy was billed by the second, draining funds every single moment. Without substantial capital, no one could sustain it.

Although they lacked weapon and equipment support, possessing energy allowed them to unleash skills, placing their combat power on an entirely different level than before.

Neither of them held back. Since both wanted the other dead, they fought with lethal intent immediately, skipping any slow probing and plunging straight into a white-hot phase from the very beginning.

After all, every extra second dragged on was money literally going up in flames!

Engaged in fierce combat, the two failed to notice that under the cover of night, a figure was quietly creeping closer.

Mostly, it was because the two of them were simply far too focused.

Seeing the massive destruction each punch and kick wreaked on the surroundings, Murong Xun didn't dare to get too close.

By this point, he was already starting to regret his actions. He shouldn't have given in to curiosity; how wonderful it would have been to just stay soundly asleep at home! Now, even if he wanted to leave, he didn't dare. If he made any noise and was discovered by the two of them, he feared the pair might simply eliminate him first.

Though he wasn't clear on their exact strength, one thing was certain: both of their physical stats far exceeded his. His current 5.0 attribute level simply couldn't produce destruction of this magnitude.

In truth, both Wang Qing and Gongsun Yuan were Tier 3 experts. And what was the standard for Tier 3? One's physical attributes had to exceed fifty points to reach it. Individuals of this caliber existed in the real world like walking nuclear warheads.

Wang Qing had invited Gongsun Yuan here to discuss a cooperation, specifically choosing this deserted park. Never had he expected to find a couple of wild lovers seeking thrills here. Initially, the couple had hidden too secretly, and the two Players hadn't observed closely enough to notice them—until Gongsun Yuan spoke without restraint, bringing up the matter of the Demon Tower Paradise. Only after receiving a warning from the Tower did they realize someone else was lingering nearby.

Left with no choice, Wang Qing had taken action to eliminate the witnesses, but he never anticipated that Gongsun Yuan—whose cooperation had fallen through—would use this incident as a pretext to attack him.

Besides, in his view, killing a couple of ordinary people genuinely wasn't that big of a deal.

To reach Tier 3, he had lost count of how many people he had killed, and Gongsun Yuan was undoubtedly the same. When the alternative to killing the other party was dying themselves, they had no other choice.

Given this, Wang Qing viewed Gongsun Yuan's current righteous stance as the epitome of hypocrisy: wanting to whore and yet longing to set up a monument to chastity.

Though lacking weapons and equipment, their bare physical attributes alone were terrifyingly powerful.

Yet Wang Qing was at a slight disadvantage.

He belonged to a class resembling a Demon Warrior, meaning he relied heavily on skill amplification. In contrast, Gongsun Yuan was a pure close-combat fighter. As a swordsman who used his hands as blades, his combat power suffered far less suppression than Wang Qing's.

"Gongsun Yuan, I admit I played a losing hand this time. I'll go to the Special Security Bureau myself to confess and take my punishment, how about that?"

Wang Qing's spirit faltered; in his eyes, a meaningless fight was completely unnecessary!

Win or lose, the outcome was a bloodbath of losses.

"Hmph! It's too late for regrets now! Why didn't you think twice about being so decisive when you were murdering those people?"

Gongsun Yuan's expression was icy. Under no circumstances could this matter leak out; otherwise, how would his peers in the Special Security Bureau view him?

Now, as long as the witnesses were dead, he would be the hero who struck down a rogue Player, and he would even secure a reward from the Bureau.

The Special Security Bureau specialized in dealing with Players, with each agent managing a designated sector. They were rewarded for suppressing and executing unruly Players.

"Damn it, whose fault was this whole mess in the first place? Have you got no self-awareness at all?!"

Wang Qing cursed in fury.

"If you want my life so badly, then come and take it!"

Realizing the other party was dead-set on killing him, Wang Qing stopped arguing, and a bloody aura began to swirl around his body.

"Hmph, you forget, your Blood Fiend True Body is countered by me!"

Gongsun Yuan sneered, a layer of cyan aura emerging over his own skin.

One red and one cyan figure entangled, turning into streaks of light, colliding, separating, and colliding once more!

Far off in the distance, even Murong Xun's dynamic vision could barely keep up with their movements, allowing him to only roughly distinguish their positions.

And this was still under the restriction placed upon them. Otherwise, fully armed, it was hard to imagine just how terrifying their true strength could be.

Even judging by the display before him, Murong Xun knew he lacked the capacity to withstand even a single blow from either of them.

He had no idea that the four members of the Mythical Squad he had previously encountered wouldn't even be worth mentioning compared to these two.

The Mythical Squad members had merely relied on the uniqueness of divine arts to pit Tier 2 against Tier 3.

Yet the very word "counter" illustrated the disparity in status between the two sides, not to mention the peak powerhouses dwelling within Tier 3 itself.

While Wang Qing and Gongsun Yuan weren't at the absolute apex of Tier 3, they undoubtedly belonged to the upper-middle tier, far surpassing the strength of Tier 2 by a wide margin.

For someone like Murong Xun, who hadn't even reached Tier 1 yet, lingering too close meant that merely touching the shockwaves of their battle posed a mortal danger.

Watching the two flare into genuine rage and engage in a life-or-death struggle, Murong Xun wanted to retreat. Yet, after a moment of thought, he stayed. Wealth is sought in the jaws of danger—what if an opportunity arose?

Even so, for safety's sake, he prepared himself: the moment things went south, he would immediately spend coins to unlock his state and flee far away.

After all, no matter how important benefits were, nothing could ever compare to preserving his own precious life!