Chapter 48: S-level Talent, Substitution

Chapter 48: S-level Talent, Substitution

Blood dripped onto the floor, each drop encased in dust like glistening crimson pearls. Ji Yan clutched his nose and mouth, but it was futile—black blood seeped relentlessly through his fingers. He stared at his hands, stained dark.

"Wasn't the black blood supposed to block the Curse?"

"Why...?"

Ji Yan whipped his head around to glare at the imprisoned Eccentric Residents. They stared back in shock, equally bewildered. Blood now streamed from his eyes and ears as his legs wobbled, strength draining away. Then, as if struck by sudden realization, he turned to Long Yuan, who was also sealing the coffin.

Long Yuan’s hands, once coated in black blood, were now bare, allowing the Curse to corrode them freely. He observed his blackened fingers, then met Ji Yan’s narrowed gaze with a twisted smile. "Seems I overestimated you."

"You’re not as troublesome as I thought. Frankly, I’m curious—how did you even find this Basement?"

Ji Yan coughed up thick blood, his icy glare fixed on Long Yuan’s mocking grin. "Your Talent... it was never Phoenix Rebirth, was it?"

"Did you actually believe that offhand lie?"

Long Yuan’s expression turned cold. "I’ve never shared the cake with anyone, Ji Yan. Consider this my final lesson before you exit this Instance: in the Supernatural Game, the most terrifying thing isn’t the Supernatural Entities—it’s human nature."

As he finished speaking, Ji Yan vomited a torrent of blood and collapsed. Blood gushed from all seven orifices until his life force drained entirely...

"A rookie who survived less than ten days thought he could outplay me?"

Long Yuan snatched the two Coffin Nails from Ji Yan’s lifeless hands, clutching all four now. A sinister smile curled his lips.

The Eccentric Residents behind him couldn’t hold back. "You’re killing each other at a time like this?"

"Greed is human nature. No matter how noble the words, given the chance, they’ll slaughter each other without hesitation."

Ignoring them, Long Yuan returned to the Black Coffin.

"Last Main Plot, I stumbled. This time, I won’t repeat the mistake."

He drove the Coffin Nails into the lid one by one. Three were sealed. As he positioned the fourth— A chilling presence surged behind him.

He spun around to face Ji Yan’s horrifying visage, blood streaming from every orifice.

Long Yuan’s face paled in shock. In that split second, a Paper-Cut Figure darted from Ji Yan’s body and latched onto the back of his neck.

As it adhered, the character for "Curse" materialized.

"Warning! You’ve been afflicted by the Supernatural Artifact [Three-Word Paper-Cut Figure]’s Curse—‘Sin.’"

"Curse Effect: For 20 minutes, you’ll enter [Absolute Silence]. All in-game actions are disabled. You cannot move, access the Toolbar, use equipment, or activate Talents."

A Curse?!

Long Yuan’s expression twisted in horror.

Wait—why wasn’t he dead?!

His body felt as if it had been filled with lead. Long Yuan collapsed to the ground, completely immobilized. Just as the Warning Panel had stated, he couldn’t open his Toolbar or use any equipment to save himself.

All he could do was speak weakly and move his gaze!

"You… you were clearly cursed by the Black Coffin…"

Long Yuan stared wide-eyed at Ji Yan, who was now lively and unharmed.

Ji Yan wiped the blood from his eyes and shrugged his shoulder, causing a second Paper-Cut Figure to leap out from it.

The figure was marked with the word ‘Avoid’.

The figure burned, turning into wisps of ash.

[Disaster Avoidance Paper-Cut Figure] Effect—When the host suffers a fatal blow, it can redirect the calamity, negating one instance of death.

Seeing these two Paper-Cut Figures, Long Yuan’s eyelids twitched. "Three-Word Paper-Cut Figures!"

"That’s the Legendary Supernatural Artifact from Room 801! Why do you have it?!"

Ji Yan dusted off the back of his hand and raised an eyebrow. "I didn’t expect you to recognize it?"

Long Yuan’s face twisted as if he had swallowed a fly.

How could he not recognize it?

Xu Xin from Room 801—Miss Xu—had always been a target he had been trying to win over, precisely because of the Three-Word Paper-Cut Figures in her possession.

Yet, no matter how much he interacted with her or completed daily Missions for her, he had never managed to obtain this Supernatural Artifact.

Now, seeing this set of [Legendary]-quality artifacts in Ji Yan’s hands, he felt an overwhelming sense of humiliation—as if the aloof goddess he had painstakingly pursued for so long had been effortlessly claimed by someone else in mere days!

Shame, confusion, and fury surged within him.

"I never stored these Paper-Cut Figures in my Toolbar," Ji Yan said casually. "I kept them ready, just waiting for you to stab me in the back so they’d trigger automatically."

Long Yuan’s gaze turned icy, like stagnant water. "You knew what I was planning from the start?"

Ji Yan’s expression remained indifferent, but a faint smile curled at the corner of his lips. "Here’s a secret you’ll find even harder to accept."

"Not only did I know what you were planning—I also know your real Talent."

"[Substitution], an S-level Talent. The activation method is by touching another Player, turning them into a 'scapegoat.' For the next 10 minutes, any damage you suffer can be transferred to the scapegoat. However, you can only designate up to two targets. After the Talent ends, the cooldown is 60 minutes."

"Am I right?"

As Ji Yan recited his Talent word for word, Long Yuan’s mind went blank.

What followed was sheer horror—terror!

How could he possibly know his Talent?

His S-level Talent had always been Long Yuan’s most deeply buried secret. He had never breathed a word of it to anyone.

"You… what is your Talent?!" Long Yuan’s mind raced with a dreadful realization.

Ji Yan smirked. "Guess?"

The reason he could analyze Long Yuan’s Talent was because Long Yuan had given him the opportunity.

When Long Yuan handed him the Coffin Nail, he had made a deliberate motion to grasp Ji Yan’s hand.

Though Long Yuan had acted naturally, to Ji Yan, the gesture was far too intentional!

And just like that, his [Omniscient Understanding] activated flawlessly, dissecting Long Yuan’s Talent without missing a single detail.

Long Yuan had deliberately shaken his hand to trigger his own Talent, intending to make Ji Yan his second [scapegoat].

But he never could have imagined—

The trap he had set to ensure Ji Yan's certain death had instead become a pitfall for himself.

He would never have imagined that Ji Yan's Talent was the Bug F-grade—something even more outrageous than his own S-level Talent!

"Miss Xu's Three-Word Paper-Cut Figures truly live up to their [Legendary] quality," Ji Yan remarked as he dusted himself off.

He was quite satisfied with his performance of feigning death, especially since he had managed to fool even a seasoned schemer like Long Yuan.

Behind him, the Eccentric Residents, who had witnessed one twist after another, could no longer stay seated and began urging impatiently.

"Time is truly running out!"

"How long are you two going to keep scheming against each other?"

"If you don't seal the coffin now, this apartment will collapse completely!"

Faced with their demands, Ji Yan nodded and replied, "Indeed, time is running out."

With that, he took out the Hammer, picked up the last Coffin Nail from the ground, and walked toward the Black Coffin.

Long Yuan could only watch helplessly, roaring in frustration and fury, "Ji Yan!!"

Then, under the gaze of many, Ji Yan raised the Hammer in his hand.

But the next moment, both humans and specters were left dumbstruck.

Ji Yan wasn’t sealing the coffin—he was prying out the Coffin Nail instead...

He was reopening it!