Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 214: Familiar Faces and Wolves

So that was it.

George understood. Leon, Thomas, and the other mid-mission additions only had six months — which meant lying flat and dragging their feet was never a realistic option. Running out the clock working was the only rational play.

Which also meant Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue — as first-lineup players — had given up significantly more by taking that path. They'd had privileges that mid-additions simply didn't have, including being able to directly initiate Plot Kills and Impeachments. That went away when they force-exited.

Whatever their department superiors had offered in compensation must have made it worth the cost.

Leon went downstairs to work — purposeful, no time to waste. That was right. In a Pioneering Mission, every minute counted. George was the frontline player who'd established the camp foundation; Leon and Thomas were better than him at internal management and organized labor. Different strengths, different roles. No reason to demand that a generalist do specialists' jobs.

Each person handles their own piece.

He was wondering what Leon's and Thomas's specific assignments were when a ripple of grey mist arrived, and out of it stepped a man you could use as a door: one meter ninety centimeters, wall of muscle, the presence of an immovable gate spirit. Thomas.

His childhood classmate. Looking impressive.

And then—

Clang.At that, Thomas apparently decided the script required him to be near-death instead. He collapsed onto the rooftop despite every physical indicator suggesting robust health, looking like a man for whom breathing required considerable effort.

The acting was a bit much.

George noted this internally, went over, pulled him up, completed the recognition scene, and then did the loyalty performance — same result as Leon.

Then Thomas activated a Two-Star Conspiracy Card and traded George a One-Star Resource Card for free.

"Brother — your name's like thunder in Internal Affairs these days. Impressive. Truly. After everything that happened with the mission before this one, which I'll go ahead and apologize for — consider that card a peace offering."

Thomas grinned with the complete ease of someone who'd never been awkward in his life.

"It's nothing. I didn't understand at the time. I do now. Thomas — you're genuinely capable. I've been using you as my personal benchmark when I'm pushing myself."

George grinned back.

"Ha, benchmark? I'm honored, truthfully."

Thomas kept his posture carefully unassuming. "Li brother, let me be direct: I was originally going to be placed in another Pioneering branch, but Night Owl was concerned you might have trouble holding your position and pulled me over here."

"Naturally I'm fully backing you — but let's be honest about the economics. Take your former teammates Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue: each of them walked out with compensation no lower than 1,000 standard Gold Coins. Don't be surprised. Higher risk, higher the price — Leon probably covered most of this."

"So Night Owl's commitment to me is also not below 1,000 coins. But I don't want coins. I want a Universal Gold Card, to enhance my codename. Li brother — give me a straight answer."

Bold.

George considered for a moment, then asked something unrelated. "How do you compare to Leon? Or more specifically: that Four-Star Rat King from last month — could you have taken it alone?"

Thomas smiled pleasantly. "I've never fought Leon, and I wouldn't presume. I'll say one thing instead: twenty years ago, I came out of the Rookie Mission rated 'mud.' A forgettable small mercenary. Since then, I've completed no fewer than fifty missions across every category, and in the end, I found my way back to the Lord track."

"I'm affiliated with Internal Affairs, but I'm not Night Owl's personal inner circle. You'd know what that means — she hand-selects people like you, Hathaway, Leon, Clyde. Whether I can beat Leon or kill a Four-Star on my own is beside the point. I'll never be a Seed Player."

"That said — I'm not complaining. I understand the structure. We all make our own choices within what we know. Night Owl isn't infallible, and I don't think she's wrong for how she runs things. She's a mentor, and you're all her doctoral students — your interests are already intertwined, even if you can't see the full shape of it yet."

"What I'm saying is: I'm someone who climbed out of the mud, and I trust interests over sentiment. If you think I'm not worth a Universal Gold Card — totally fine. You can expel me right now and I won't hold it against you. Business that doesn't close is still a fair handshake. Fair?"

George listened to all of this and looked at Thomas differently. He briefly considered activating the Tracker Title, then decided not to bother. Some things you didn't need to read minds to evaluate — you just talked about interests.

"Then tell me: over the next six months, what do you actually bring to this table? You understand that using a Universal Gold Card rather than selling it raises the difficulty by thirty percent?"

"I know. But five months from now — at the start of month seven — there will be a monster siege. Your full mission cycle will have three of them. With me here, I can hold the first one."

"That's a lot of confidence."

"Yes. I'm City Builder Thomas. Brother — I know you're strong and I know you walk the Scout path. But against a wave of mutant creatures, can you maneuver through all of it? You need someone who walks the fortification path."

"That's a fair point. Can you give me the intelligence on the siege itself?"

"No — this is my first Pioneering Mission. But I have exactly that confidence."

"Fine. Deal. Contingent on your actually performing at that siege — delivering value worth at least one Universal Gold Card. If you do, I'll pay. Even if you die holding the line, I'll still pay in full. My word on it."

"Then I believe you. And I work for real — point me at anything. Let me handle the wall construction too. City Builder Thomas, yes — but also the one who goes absolutely mad for this kind of work."

The Conspiracy Card expired. Thomas went downstairs. Chewing sounds from the fourth floor shortly after — not necessarily from true hunger, but eating large quantities of this world's food to build up magical radiation contamination in the body was the most effective way to prevent a Critical NG. The same trick Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue had exploited in reverse.

George stayed on the rooftop and waited. All new arrivals seemed to be phasing in within the same window — nobody with real goals would waste time.

Another grey mist drifted in and dispersed. Three people appeared this time.

George recognized Penny immediately among them. Same disheveled energy as always — she'd cut her hair to a blunt crop, covered in road dust, with the look of someone who'd been somewhere rough. If you ignored the freckles, there was actually something close to martial bearing about her.

But wait — their arrival state was completely wrong. Leon and Thomas had both come in fully equipped, visibly healthy, and had to perform weakness. These three looked like actual refugees.

The new Liang Yuzhi had sunken eyes, skin on bones, no more energy than a leaf on the wind, dressed only in a torn blanket, feet bare with chilblains covering both lower legs and the tops of her feet. She looked like she'd just arrived from Siberia.

The new Li Yue was, if anything, worse — maybe forty kilograms on a frame of 170 centimeters, looking like a stick figure assembled from sorghum stalks. She wore nothing. Half her scalp was missing, raw and bleeding — clearly ripped away by something with force. Her eyes were hollow and empty. Every visible surface of her body was covered in serious wounds, as if she'd been through something catastrophic in the immediate past.

Compared to those two, Penny was practically vibrant — at least she had visible muscle tone and that characteristic cannot-be-crushed glint in her eyes.

George honestly wasn't sure how to react. You'd put yourself through that much to set an opening character state?

He moved immediately, stripped off his outer layer and started putting it on the new Li Yue. This was, in the script, his younger sister. There was a baseline of decency to maintain.

As he was doing this, an alarm sounded in his head — not an actual alarm, just the kind of reading you develop from experience.

Because the arrival state of that new Liang Yuzhi and new Li Yue said exactly one thing to anyone who knew how to read it: these two had just come from a high-difficulty mission. They'd been emergency-redirected here because his team needed reinforcement.

No normal means could produce that condition in eight to ten days.

There would be interests to negotiate. Again.

He thought about the scoreboard. Top five were all elite-tier, scores clustered tightly. Hathaway was third at 71. George at sixth with 58, plus Little John at 50 — combined 179, tied for first with the Tactics Department total.

Night Owl had apparently felt real urgency about that. Her department was actually in striking range, and she needed it held.

If that math was right, the new Liang Yuzhi and new Li Yue were possibly at Hathaway and Ron's tier of capability.

Were they allowed to join mid-mission? Obviously — Hathaway and Ron had joined mid-mission too. The difference was that players of that caliber normally only entered as Seed Players. Joining mid-run was beneath their usual style.

Unless the situation called for it.

George finished putting clothes on the new Li Yue. She maintained the hollow, vacant stare. Living dead performance, carried flawlessly.

He couldn't find a description for that level of commitment. Genuinely airtight. Perfect logic, no crack to insert a response into. Nothing he could say or do factored in at all.

Completely stuck.

"Cousin! Cousin — go heat some water!"

George called for backup. Let the friendly forces handle this.

Leon came up, saw the new Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue — and visibly almost broke. His hands actually trembled for a fraction of a second. Which meant he recognized them and hadn't known they'd be placed here.

No point analyzing it further. George looked to Penny.

"Xuanxuan. Of all people. Apologies, I shouldn't impose — but this is my sister Li Yue. What did she go through to end up like this?"

"Of course."

The woman now playing Zhao Xuanxuan blinked, letting a brief spark of unconcealed interest show through. Then she took the chance, supporting Li Yue together with the new Liang Yuzhi, and guided them toward the fifth floor.

Those few lines of dialogue seemed to have constituted formal provisional camp admission.

Several notifications appeared — same structure as Thomas's. No Monthly Main Task yet, but required minimum fourteen working hours daily. No need to worry about them lying flat.

What George was actually worried about was something else entirely.

Leon came back up to the rooftop, clearly weighing whether to activate a Conspiracy Card and say something. He decided against it. Not willing to risk it. He just gave George a quiet, concerned look — then went back to work.

Whatever those two women were, the look on Leon's face confirmed it: their background was something else.