"Hmm?" Euphy smiled. "I don't believe you."
"You will believe soon," the man from Mysterious Country said, shaking his head and walking toward the English Gentleman who was watching him.
"Sir, may I ask if you are..." Before the English Gentleman could ask, the man from Mysterious Country leaned in and whispered, "Butler Walter... there are Card Assassins here. Keep your voice down."
The smile on the English Gentleman's face remained unchanged as he stepped back and moved aside. The man from Mysterious Country tactfully walked over as well. "At the twelve o'clock and one o'clock positions, there are two assassins disguised as waiters. On the other side of the hall, there are three more disguised as waiters."
"Assault rifles are hidden in the banquet hall, along with thirteen assassins disguised as guests. We must keep quiet about this."
The English Gentleman nodded slightly, apparently having no doubts about the words of the man from Mysterious Country. "Indeed, these waiters stand unnaturally stiff. Their right hands are unnaturally close to their pockets, and their faces are heavily made up... It seems this place has already been infiltrated."
"They plan to launch an attack at eight o'clock, aiming to kill Miss Euphie and Miss Karen, and shoot all the guests in the banquet," the man from Mysterious Country said. "We now have only four minutes left."
"At this banquet, all the guests are intimately connected with the Ranpelrouge Family. It's a community that should stand together..." the English Gentleman said mildly. "I can't believe they've actually hired Card Assassins..."
"So, who are you then?"
"I am an assassin from the Fairy Palace," the man from Mysterious Country said with a smile, "specifically here to protect Miss Karen and Miss Euphie. Be aware, we have only six minutes left."
"I will take care of the three assassins over there. When I make my move, you immediately deal with the two in front. Then I will rush out to grab the assault rifle hidden under the wine table... There's no time left. Let's start."
Without waiting for the English Gentleman to respond, the man from Mysterious Country immediately walked toward the other side of the inner hall. He pondered for three seconds, then quickly turned and beckoned a man in black, who was standing in the hall, to come over.
As the man from Mysterious Country reached the other side of the inner hall, standing in the passage between the banquet hall and the inner hall, he suddenly turned and pulled out a silenced pistol!
Three shots!
All headshots!
Meanwhile, the English Gentleman and the man in black also quickly dealt with the two assassins disguised as waiters!
The sounds from the inner hall naturally reached the banquet hall. The rapid crackle of gunpowder was an unmistakable signal. Although it was unknown why the events had been triggered prematurely, the assassins hidden among the guests also sprang into action!
Amidst a flurry of gunfire, the assassin near the table with the Wine Cup Pyramid quickly squatted down to grab the assault rifle they had prepared, only to find the table collapsing with a loud BANG! The Wine Cup Pyramid crashed down onto his head.
The man from Mysterious Country calmly picked up the assault rifle, released the safety, switched to full auto, and opened fire. RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! He sprayed the assassins in the hall. Since the assassins had started shooting at the guests, all the guests were now lying on the ground; only the assassins remained standing.
However, this man from Mysterious Country, with his weapon on full auto, amazingly managed to hit an assassin's head with every single shot. Before his magazine was even empty, all the assassins who had suddenly emerged in the banquet hall lay dead!
Ren Suo watched the video on G Site, Mysterious Country's largest online platform for same-sex connections. When he saw this scene, the whole screen was flooded with:
"Terrifying indeed!" "Terrifying indeed!" "Terrifying indeed!"
Using an automatic rifle to achieve the precision of a sniper, hitting single targets with each shot, would be considered an almost unbelievable cheat even in a mainstream movie produced by the Pacific Federation; if released, it would undoubtedly be heavily criticized by viewers.
What followed was almost entirely this man from Mysterious Country entering Transcendence Mode, embarking on a killing spree from the ninth floor down to the first. The English Gentleman and the man in black behind him became mere bystanders, their faces aghast as if they had seen a ghost, watching the assassin hit his targets with every shot.
BOOM—
The ninth floor turned to ash in a massive explosion. By this time, Euphy Lampeluji, the man from Mysterious Country, and the guests had already reached the main hall on the first floor.
In the main hall on the first floor, the assassins also received news that all the Hidden Ones had been wiped out. They planned to trap them on the first floor, sending men to break in through the windows on the second and third floors for a pincer attack.
However, the marksmanship and movement technique of the man from Mysterious Country were terrifying. Any assassin who dared show his face was instantly met with a headshot. The man from Mysterious Country advanced, continuously firing, single-handedly suppressing over forty assassins on the first floor. Someone pulled the pin on a fragmentation hand grenade, intending to throw it into the stairwell, but as soon as the grenade left his hand, the man from Mysterious Country shot it mid-air!
BOOM—
This terrifying dynamic vision and marksmanship, combined with the wail of sirens and the thrum of propellers from outside, became the final straw that broke the assassins' resolve. Screaming, all but a few covering the retreat immediately fled the Black Thorn Building by any means available.
"It's safe now," the man from Mysterious Country said, lowering his rifle. He smiled, took a cigarette from his pocket, and began to puff away contentedly.
"Miss, outside there are still..."
"It's alright."
The man from Mysterious Country turned his head and saw Euphy Lampeluji stepping out of the stairwell towards him. He smiled. "Now do you believe me?"
Euphy Lampeluji bowed deeply. "I am profoundly grateful for your assistance, sir." Instantly, countless on-screen comments like 'Pause successful!', 'Pause successful!', 'Glaucoma doesn't need pausing!', and 'Why pause for such flat boobs, lmao!' flashed across the screen. Ren Suo frowned, his face darkening as he immediately blocked the on-screen comments.
"Although I don't know why you helped, the Ranpelrouge Family will definitely repay you," Euphy Lampeluji stated. She then asked, "May I ask who you are, sir? And do you require any assistance from the Ranpelrouge Family?"
"You have won the friendship of Ranpelrouge. In the name of the Family Head of the Ranpelrouge Family, I promise you any request, even if it costs us everything Ranpelrouge possesses."
The English Gentleman beside her moved his mouth slightly but ultimately said nothing. Euphy's stance served not only to express gratitude to this man from Mysterious Country but also to signal to the guests who had shared their ordeal that the Ranpelrouge Family would never forget its friends and benefactors.
However, the man from Mysterious Country just smiled faintly, turned his head, and waved towards the space behind Euphy. "Come here, come here."
Everyone looked and saw Karen Lanpelucci, clutching her teddy bear like a little princess, hurrying over on her short legs clad in white tights, then shyly hiding behind her sister. Euphy smiled and said, "Karen, thank this... uncle."
"Thank you, Uncle," Karen said crisply.
The man from Mysterious Country reached out and gently patted Karen's small head. "My only request is her."
The faces of everyone present changed dramatically, even Euphy, who had been smiling moments before.
Even without the on-screen comments enabled, Ren Suo knew that a flurry of remarks like 'Death penalty at minimum!', 'Already called the police!', and 'This assassin isn't so cold after all!' must be flying across the screen at that moment.
"You must all protect her well," the man from Mysterious Country said with a faint smile. "She is hope."
The man from Mysterious Country withdrew his hand and took the cigarette dangling from his lips. "My mission here is complete. I must return to the Fairy Palace now. If fate allows, we shall meet again."
"Sir, the police are all around outside. If you go out..." the English Gentleman began to advise, but in the next second, his eyes, along with everyone else's, widened in shock.
With a flick of his wrist, the cigarette traced a parabola, landing perfectly in the circular trash bin in the hall. As the cigarette touched the disposal area at the top of the bin, the man from Mysterious Country's body gradually became transparent.
The police officers who had just entered, along with the Ranpelrouge contingent, watched in utter horror as the man from Mysterious Country literally vanished into thin air. The only proof of his existence was the cigarette still smoldering, emitting white smoke in the trash bin; otherwise, there was no trace of him!
The video ended abruptly at that point. Ren Suo opened the comment section. There were no pinned comments, only popular ones. The top comment was written in red:
"'Assassin's Bloody Banquet' PV released today! Expected to meet everyone next year. Stay tuned!"
It was a very ordinary comment, yet it astonishingly had... 1,234,567... three million likes!
The peak online user count on G Site was only between a few hundred thousand and a million. How could a video released less than twelve hours ago have three million likes?
The second most popular comment pointed this out: "The Black Thorn Building incident is already common knowledge in Fog City, it just hasn't hit the papers yet. But there are many witnesses—including me! I saw an explosion on the ninth floor of the Black Thorn Building last night, and I recognized one of the guests inside; he's a professor from my university! Still trying to pass this off as a movie PV?"
"Can't the website take this video down?"
"You can find this video on any online video platform now, even internationally. What's real can't be faked, and what's fake can't be real."
"Shocking! Could it be our country's mysterious organization, the Northwest Kunlun Fairy Palace?"
"Even if it's a Fairy Palace, it has to be our Changbai Mountain Fairy Palace!"
"Why not our All-Family-Prosperity Fairy Palace?"
"Foreign countries have organizations that assassinate the wealthy in cities? That's terrifying..."
Ren Suo checked other websites and found the video was indeed everywhere. Some users had even identified everyone in the video by matching them to past news photos, proving their real-life identities. They even posted current photos of the Black Thorn Building—the bombed-out ninth floor still smoldering with black smoke.
Seeing this, Ren Suo was beginning to sense that this was indeed a real video.
Everyone was enjoying the spectacle. Unlike a movie, which is fake, this video was real! Witnessing the brazen attack by the assassin organization and the unparalleled display by a man claiming to be from the Fairy Palace, most citizens of Mysterious Country watched with the detached interest of spectators at a show.
But Ren Suo was different. He knew this was the outcome he had personally orchestrated!
This ending—where the assassins were repelled and all important figures were safe—had taken him several hours to achieve!
"Game, reality, Minor World..." Ren Suo muttered softly. He returned to the living room and looked at the strange, circular game console. He pondered for a moment, then picked up the controller and pressed a button. The console immediately whirred to life.
"Welcome back! Endless Fun in the Minor World!"
"You have an unopened Treasure Box. Go to the Content Preservation Vault?"