Reborn, I Became a Male God - Chapter 131-135

Participating was the entire team’s business, so of course the others had to know. Xu Shaohuai called over the remaining three and discussed it together. However, even though the five of them sat together, discounting the two support members, there were only three who could actually go on the field. So the main discussion topic was picking two out of the three to compete.

Time was limited, so they couldn’t deliberate for too long. In the end, they decided on Xu Shaohuai and Jing Ling. With VIP privileges, they didn’t need to rely on luck to enter the draw, nor did they have to buy spots from other players. They just needed to call a waiter to confirm their registration and could participate directly.

At 7:25, last-minute registration closed. All the registered teams had gathered near Area A1, waiting for the draw of the three teams and then to gather and draw their number plates. There were ten participating teams in total, with number plates from one to ten, representing the distance of their entrance from the treasure—from nearest to farthest. Xu Shaohuai, known for his notoriously bad luck in draws, consciously stepped back to let Jing Ling draw instead.

As expected, Jing Ling casually drew number one.

“If you ever need money, you should try buying lottery tickets,” Xu Shaohuai joked for once. However, with his fox mask on—a finely crafted one, far superior to the cheap ones sold on the streets—only his eyes and nose were visible, making it impossible to guess his expression beneath.

Jing Ling also wore a mask—a grotesquely made-up, terrifying clown mask whose smile looked quite chilling. In fact, it wasn’t just the two of them; almost every team present wore masks. After all, the game had only just begun, and nobody wanted to reveal themselves yet, nor give up the half-hour head start.

Once all teams had drawn their number plates, they were guided by the attendants to their respective entrances. At 7:30, the female host’s voice sounded over the broadcast, marking the official start of the game.

At Entrance Nine, as the broadcast sounded, the electronic door before them silently slid open from left to right. The two at the door didn’t even wait for it to fully open; they turned sideways and slipped through the gap like arrows shot from a bow. They weren’t rushing to find the treasure hidden at the center of the maze—they just wanted to get away from this place as quickly as possible. After all, the constant roaring of the tiger was deafening and unnerving.

Their bad luck had them draw number nine—the entrance furthest from the center of the maze and perilously close to the cages holding the wild beasts. It couldn’t have been worse. Who knew how long that furry beast had been starved for? Once it caught the scent of bl00d, it went berserk. A starving wild animal was nothing to mess with. They wanted to avoid it at all costs—run as fast and as far as possible. The one wearing the bloodied clothes took them off and held them in hand while running, dragging them along the wall to leave a jagged, bloody trail behind—an alarming sight.

This served two purposes: to diffuse the scent of bl00d and to leave a marker. Faced with a maze that looked almost identical at every turn, this crude method was also the most effective.

“Damn it, why won’t this beast stop howling!” one of them cursed while running.

“Be grateful it’s making noise. At least you can tell where it is by sound. If it shuts up—that’s when you’re really screwed!” the other snapped back.

Entrance Nine was bad, and Ten was even worse. In such a situation, survival was naturally their top priority. Without their lives, everything else was meaningless. Under these circumstances, their tactics—running while leaving marks—weren’t much different from those next door.

Jing Ling drew the best number, but with such a limited area, the roars of tigers, lions, and wolves echoed non-stop in a three-part harmony that could be heard everywhere. Xu Shaohuai wore the bloodied clothes, but like the others, he held them in his hand from the start, dragging them along the left wall after the door opened.

Since they were farther from the source of the sound, the two didn’t have to rush like those at the rear. Xu Shaohuai was serious enough, but Jing Ling, walking along the wall with his fingertips lightly touching it, moved as leisurely as if taking a casual stroll.

After walking a short distance, Jing Ling suddenly stopped. Xu Shaohuai stopped too and turned back to look at him. “What is it?”

Jing Ling stood before a smooth, white wall, his fingers gently stroking the surface as if searching for something. After a few seconds, his hand stopped moving. “Interesting,” he murmured softly. Where his fingers rested, he felt a narrow gap. Tracing it fully outlined a rectangular shape. He placed both palms on it, gently testing with pressure. When he pressed a spot near the upper left corner—an area usually untouched—a faint sound came from inside the wall. The part under his palms sank inward, forming a two-way rotating door that opened into another path.

Xu Shaohuai was stunned and quickly stepped over, placing a hand on the revolving door and looking at Jing Ling. “How did you know there’d be a door here?”

“I didn’t.” Jing Ling replied. “It’s my first time here—how could I possibly know? But you’ve been here a few times, haven’t you? And you didn’t know either? Could it be newly added?”

Xu Shaohuai nodded. “I’ve never seen it before.”

Jing Ling bent down and passed through the rotating door, standing on the other side. “Captain, I have a theory.”

“What is it?”

“What if the walls move on their own—blocking old paths and opening new ones?”

It wasn’t an unreasonable guess. The organizers had suddenly changed the rules, eliminated the rookies, and forced the teams onto the field—all to prevent the game from becoming boring like before. But realistically, changing the rules alone wouldn’t achieve that. There were ten teams on the field, and even though the area expanded from one to three zones, the space was still limited. With the maze layout, it was entirely possible for teams to avoid both rivals and beasts by sheer luck, take the treasure, and leave. That was far from what the organizers wanted. They clearly had some hidden measures beyond the publicized rules.

Hearing this, Xu Shaohuai frowned so deeply his eyebrows almost touched. “Damn it, how much more trouble can they make!” He obviously thought the theory sounded plausible. “So, which way now?” The marked path would soon reach a three-way junction, and now they had discovered a new route. Without a map, it was hard to tell which way was closer. Knowing he wasn’t great at navigation, he left the choice to Jing Ling.

“Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. The ones behind us definitely won’t let the ones inside get out easily anyway,” Jing Ling replied.

“Alright.”

So instead of hurrying toward the treasure, the two began to leisurely wander around the maze. The roars of wild beasts echoed endlessly, occasionally mixed with human screams of terror. Xu Shaohuai had long stopped dragging the bloodied clothes along the walls, but as they moved forward, they still kept encountering shocking bl00d trails left by others—clearly, they’d all had the same idea at first.

As they went on, Jing Ling’s hand almost never left the wall, and by now, they had found more than a dozen revolving doors—plus a few sensor devices.

The game area was under surveillance, with cameras providing a live broadcast.

In Room 1009, some team members gathered together. The livestream switched to Team One, showing the fox-masked and clown-masked duo on screen. The maze walls were high and smooth, impossible to climb, and the players inside could only see the path they were on. But the broadcast, filmed from overhead, gave viewers a god’s-eye view—not only of the teams but also of what lay beyond the walls.

It had been almost twenty minutes since the game started, and Team One had yet to encounter a single wild beast, earning them the host’s nickname “The Lucky Team.” But their luck was probably about to run out—the injured wolf was silently moving just on the other side of the wall from them. Judging by both sides’ paths, they were on course for a collision at the next corner.

“The fox’s luck ends here,” a man on the sofa said. His voice was hoarse, and a long scar stretched from his brow bone to his ear, like an ugly red centipede crawling across his face, giving him a fierce and frightening look.

Sitting beside him was a blonde woman with sky-blue eyes, a stunning figure, and an alluring charm. She held a gleaming dagger, casually trimming her nails, her expression indifferent. “I get why you want to tear that fox apart, but honestly, a little injured mutt isn’t much of a threat to him. At most, it’ll just be a minor annoyance.”

The scarred man’s face darkened. “The wolf might not be able to handle him, but the weakling kid beside him? That’s another story, isn’t it? Last time in the hunting game, his teammates all survived, sure, but they were severely injured—too crippled to fight alongside him anymore. The four new ones he picked this time? None of them look reliable. And more importantly, their teamwork’s bound to be worse than before. Just wait. When we hit the hunting grounds, I’ll make sure to pay him back with interest!”

He spoke through gritted teeth, but the blonde just chuckled. “Falcon, have you forgotten how you got that scar? If luck hadn’t been on your side, that fox’s slash would’ve sent you straight to the afterlife. You know exactly what kind of man he is. Even if his old teammates are out of commission, there’s no way he’d pick just anyone to fill in. Mark my words—that clown’s definitely not simple!”

As her words fell, the video showed Team One drawing dangerously close to the wolf—just a short distance away from a head-on encounter. But then, the clown who’d been walking with his hand on the wall suddenly stopped, pushed the wall, and revealed a rotating door. He and the fox slipped through, entering another path.

As the wall reset to its original state, the wolf appeared at the far end of their former path—both sides missing each other perfectly.

Chapter 132

“Damn it, what luck!” The scar-faced man was unconvinced and let out a cold snort.

The blonde woman said nothing, but she did put away the dagger in her hand, sliding it into her shoe, her eyes fixed on the screen.

The livestream continued. Under the high-definition camera, the faint twitch of the hungry wolf’s nose was clearly visible — it had tracked its way here by scent. This maze, which looked almost identical everywhere and was impossible to navigate by sight alone, posed no difficulty for a wild beast. They possessed an extremely keen sense of smell, able to detect the scent of bl00d from two kilometers away, let alone within the enclosed space of a cruise ship.

For this hungry wolf, the only problem was that there were too many sources of the bl00d scent. At first, it came from nearly every direction, and later, it spread throughout the entire area. It had been starving for five days, and the overwhelming stench of bl00d in the area was driving it mad. However, the complex terrain and the sudden appearance of barriers made it difficult for it to track its prey. Besides that, there were other beasts posing a threat — tigers and lions — none of them easy to deal with.

It had been running through the maze for a long time before it finally caught a trace of its prey — not far away. It cautiously approached, wanting to seize it in one go, but when it got closer, it discovered there was nothing there. The scent of bl00d mixed with the aura of a living creature had vanished at the very spot it reached. Unwilling to give up, it stuck its head forward and extended a front paw to scratch at the wall.

There was a faint sound, and the part of the wall its paw touched actually started to sink inward slowly.

Inside Room 3001, Yang Xinyao was watching the livestream together with Bai Ningxi and Song Xiuyuan. At first, she had been quite worried about Jing Ling and the others. From the God’s-eye view, the livestream gave close-ups of the three beasts before the game started — their strong builds, sharp fangs, and the ferocity triggered by the scent of bl00d were terrifying beyond the ordinary. It would be fine if one was prepared, but if they happened to meet in a narrow passage at a turn and reacted even a bit too slow, they’d suffer a big loss.

But Jing Ling had good luck, drawing number one and getting assigned to the best entrance. The cameras switched sequentially from one to ten before piecing the images together again. The reactions of each team were visible during this process — those at the front moved relatively calmly, while the last two teams, numbers nine and ten, had it rough. They started the game racing against the beasts that had just been let loose, scrambling for every second. Even though they tried their best, luck wasn’t something within anyone’s control. On the eleventh minute after the game started, Team Nine happened to turn left at a fork in the road and ran straight into a lion. They managed to escape in the end, but both members ended up injured — deep claw marks on their arms and calves. Of course, the lion didn’t get away unscathed either — it got stabbed in the butt, with the standard-issue dagger still stuck in it!

Team Ten didn’t fare much better. They were chased all the way by a tiger. They got lucky with a turn and picked the right path — otherwise, they’d have run right into the hungry wolf on another path, ending up in a deadly encounter with a wolf in front and a tiger behind, giving them a firsthand experience of a heart-pounding, death-defying moment.

After all, the space wasn’t that big. They might have been far apart at first, but as time went on, it was inevitable that they would encounter the beasts. Most teams had already come into contact with the beasts in one way or another — either crashing into them unexpectedly or spotting them from a distance. Only Jing Ling and Xu Shaohuai had gone the whole time without even seeing a shadow of a beast — that luck was really something else.

Moreover, Jing Ling’s style had been strange from the start. After discovering the rotating door at the beginning of the game, he seemed obsessed with finding various little mechanisms.

The livestream had video only, no audio, and the three of them couldn’t read lips, so they had no idea what Jing Ling and Xu Shaohuai were saying in the video. Seeing how the two seemed completely uninterested in the treasure and were acting like they weren’t taking the game seriously, Yang Xinyao and the others didn’t worry too much. After all, with their VIP privilege of entering the hunting ground three hours early, this half-hour was just a bonus. Whether they got the treasure or not didn’t really matter — the most important thing was that they stayed safe.

But later on, when Team Three got the treasure and tried to leave the maze, things changed. They could only see what was in front of them, but the viewers could see the whole picture. Walls moved without warning, blocking the original paths and creating new ones. These constant changes kept Team Three wandering around the maze, unable to get out.

Only then did Yang Xinyao and the others realize this game wasn’t as simple as it looked. But judging by Jing Ling’s earlier performance, they still weren’t too worried. There had been several times when he seemed about to run into a beast, but he always managed to turn and head in another direction, narrowly avoiding danger.

Some might think it was just good luck, but if you thought about it carefully, you’d realize something was off. Once or twice could be coincidence, but dodging every single time wasn’t something luck could explain. After all, if someone really had such heaven-defying luck, they’d be better off buying a lottery ticket and making easy money — why risk their life in this place?

When Jing Ling and the others ran into the hungry wolf again, Yang Xinyao and the others felt their hearts leap into their throats. This time was different from before — they were on the same path as the hungry wolf, and they would see each other as soon as they turned the corner. There was no fork in the road to dodge it. They all thought there was no way to avoid it this time and that they’d have to face the wolf head-on.

But to their surprise, Jing Ling found a rotating door on the wall and, against all odds, managed to dodge the beast perfectly once again.

“This luck is really something else!” Yang Xinyao exclaimed.

But before she could even finish relaxing, they saw the hungry wolf stop in front of the rotating door, claw at it, and slowly open it.

“Holy sh1t! Damn the organizers!” She was so pissed off by this turn of events that she swore outright.

Jing Ling had been using the top left corner — above head height — as the leverage point to open the rotating door. If you didn’t know about it, the chances of accidentally triggering it were very low. But unexpectedly, there was also a leverage point around knee height. This was clearly set up for the beasts! It was obvious at a glance what the organizers were playing at!

The starving wolf was startled by the door that suddenly swung open. Its entire body jerked back a few steps, leaning against the wall behind it, lowering itself slightly into an attack stance. By nature, it was cunning and cautious. In this kind of situation, it would suspect a trap and wouldn’t step in lightly.

But after the door opened, the scent of its prey, which had been fading, suddenly became clear again. It could no longer care about anything else and charged straight ahead.

The prey’s scent was not far ahead!

It broke into a wild sprint and gave chase.

Yet the same thing happened again. The prey’s scent suddenly weakened and appeared on the other side of a wall.

It had once been the wolf king of a pack and possessed a certain level of intelligence. After being captured, it had played many games with humans and had become even smarter. With the earlier incident in mind, it tried stretching out its paw to swipe around randomly. When it touched a certain spot, it heard a soft click — the door opened.

It passed through the revolving door and continued tracking its prey.

“Hm?”

After passing through the third revolving door and walking a few more steps, Jing Ling suddenly stopped.

“What is it?” Xu Shaohuai looked at him.

“I discovered something interesting,” Jing Ling replied. “That wolf has caught up.”

Xu Shaohuai frowned slightly at his words. “The maze’s layout is complicated. It shouldn’t be this fast!”

“That’s exactly why I said it’s interesting. Just like us, it took a shortcut,” Jing Ling said as he turned and retraced a few steps. Then he crouched down, feeling along the outline of the door.

The difference between humans and animals partly lay in intelligence. Jing Ling knew a pressure point on the revolving door, and by comparing and guessing, he quickly found another one — at the lower left corner, about knee height.

The soft sounds of running, panting, and the distinctive scent of a wolf all reached his ears and nose. Jing Ling casually closed the door seam, thought for a moment, then looked up and called out to Xu Shaohuai beside him. “Captain.”

Xu Shaohuai looked at him.

“Got a gift for you.”

Under the jester mask, Jing Ling grinned wickedly. With a push from the other side, he suddenly shoved the revolving door open — and slammed it shut again in an instant.

Just from Jing Ling’s tone, Xu Shaohuai sensed something was off. Sure enough, the next second, the revolving door opened, and a dark shadow lunged out.

He instinctively stepped back a few paces, gripping his dagger, ready to strike at any moment. But there was no need for him to act at all.

Jing Ling opened the door fast and slammed it shut even faster. The shadow hadn’t even fully emerged before it was forcefully caught in the door.

It was a wolf — or more precisely, a wolf’s head.

The door clamped down on it, its body on the other side, its head stuck here. It struggled desperately, kicking at the revolving door, producing a screeching sound.

Jing Ling gripped the door edge with one hand and pressed his knee against it. No matter how hard the wolf struggled, it was useless.

“Want to pet the doggy, Captain?” Jing Ling asked.

Xu Shaohuai was silent for two seconds before gritting his teeth. “You little bastard, making fun of me!”

Jing Ling let out a couple of unkind chuckles, then lowered his voice to get to the point. “I remember you said before — any team that makes it to the final hunting ground will be our enemy, right? So now, should I kill this thing on the spot, or let it go and have it fight with our enemies instead? Relax, I can avoid it completely if I want to.”

Normally, he wouldn’t easily kill a wild animal, but this wolf was different. Trapped here, who knew how many games it had been part of? It had definitely eaten humans. Of course, those people knew the risks but still joined the game for money — their lives weren’t the same as ordinary people’s.

Even if they deserved to die, the wolf wasn’t really at fault. Letting it go now didn’t mean anything because it couldn’t escape this cage. Its only options were to kill or be killed. It should have lived freely in the wild, not been used here for human amusement.

When freedom was gone, wasn’t death also a kind of release?

“How did you come up with that idea?” Xu Shaohuai truly hadn’t expected Jing Ling to think like this — planning to take out potential enemies even before the game officially began.

Jing Ling reached out and patted the wolf’s head, just like petting a dog. His expression couldn’t be seen under the jester mask, and his voice remained calm.

“I just have better awareness than most. Stepping onto this boat means giving up your identity as an ordinary person for the time being — giving up the protection of morals and law, and following the law of the jungle.”

Chapter 133

The law of the jungle—survival of the fittest, the weak falling prey to the strong. What seems cruel to ordinary people is the basic rule for survival here. From the moment you step onto the cruise ship, life and death become an uncertainty. If you survive until the end of the game, you can take away wealth beyond ordinary imagination. But if you die along the way, your corpse might be thrown to the beasts they raise for a hearty meal, or simply tossed into the sea, where fish and shrimp will strip the flesh, and the bones will sink to the bottom.

This obviously doesn’t align with the values of the general public—but so what? This is the path they chose themselves. Glory and riches, or death without a trace, may be decided in a single moment of thought. And those who come here—how complicated are their identities? Mercenaries, drug lords, fugitives, gamblers… all for money, goods, missions, territory… things far beyond what ordinary people can imagine.

People like Xu Shaohuai and his group, who came from a military background on a national mission, are among the rare few. Their true identities will never and dare not be exposed; all their activities are conducted under the guise of mercenaries. Not just this mission, but every special mission takes this form. Whether glory or sacrifice, only a very few will ever know. They will never become widely admired or celebrated heroes.

“Indeed, the law of the jungle.” Xu Shaohuai smiled at the words, stepped forward to stand beside Jing Ling, and reached out to pat the wolf’s head. The wolf, which had been struggling non-stop, suddenly calmed down. Though no expression could be seen on its face, its eyes seemed to reveal a trace of despair.

“Let’s give them a big gift. No matter how weak an enemy is, it’s still an enemy. You never know if it’ll strike a fatal blow when you’re off guard.”

“Alright.”

What is it like, as a wolf, to suddenly understand what two-legged creatures are saying? Ah Yi felt like its whole wolf self was falling apart. This terrifying two-legged creature had tricked it, trapped it, and was now openly discussing whether to release or kill it—right in front of its face! But then again, it was strange. The two two-legged creatures looked almost the same, so why could it only understand the scrawny one’s words? No, no, this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that!

A wolf can be killed but not humiliated!

This two-legged creature was too much!

“Awoo—” Let me go! It roared in fury, struggling hard to escape. Only that way could it survive!

But it was useless. The two-legged creature’s claws were too strong. Once they locked on, it was like the weight of a mountain—no matter how hard it struggled, it couldn’t shake them off. This feeling of being completely at another’s mercy filled the wolf with despair. And this was the second time it had experienced this. The first was in the vast forest, when it watched its pack slaughtered before its eyes. It was wounded, captured, stuffed into a cage it couldn’t bite open, and taken from its birthplace to a strange new world. The last time it saw the outside world and the blue sky, it also saw an endless lake.

It stopped struggling. Not just because struggling was useless, but because it was heart-weary. It was a wolf king. The forest was its home. It should survive by its sharp claws and teeth, hunting prey, and eventually dying in battle. Not like this—locked in a cage, even if released, into a place with no sunlight, no trees, no earth. None of this was what it wanted.

Suddenly, the two-legged creature crouched down, and that strong hand gently stroked its head in a surprisingly soft way. His voice sounded by its ear, low and quiet, “I’ll give you a choice—life or death. You choose for yourself.”

Its eyes widened sharply.

After asking Xu Shaohuai’s opinion, Jing Ling ultimately handed the choice over to the wolf. Whether it wanted to go on living like this, or to die, was up to it. Jing Ling spoke in a low voice, and as he patted the wolf’s head, he crouched down, lowered his head, and with a clown mask on his face, completely avoided the surveillance cameras overhead.

—I don’t want to go on, but before I die, there’s still something I must do.

It carried wounds on its back. The bl00d had originally clotted, but its recent struggles reopened the wound, staining its fur red. This was a fresh wound—it couldn’t have been from a previous game. The one who hurt it was right here in this labyrinth.

What it wanted to do… was to bite that person to death.

Or… be killed by that person.

“Alright. Remember this—the two doors you just passed are shortcuts here, and wherever my scent lingers is where a door is. Go, take your revenge.” After Jing Ling finished speaking, he gripped the wolf’s head with one hand and shoved it forcefully to the other side of the door, slamming the revolving door shut. They were once again separated—wolf on one side, them on the other.

“Let’s go, it’s time to look for the treasure.” He said this to Xu Shaohuai, turning around and striding forward as he spoke.

He had already walked through the entire area once, the map now memorized in his mind, including all the traps and shortcuts. Though he didn’t know which team had the treasure, he had a general idea of where the people and beasts were. At worst, he would just search them one by one.

“Sigh, why didn’t he kill that wolf? Why did he let it go?” Yang Xinyao hadn’t expected Jing Ling to release the wolf and couldn’t figure it out, so she turned to ask the two people beside her.

Bai Ningxi shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Her gaze then landed on Song Xiuyuan. He had taken the knife off his back, but never let go of it, holding it in his arms. Whenever the camera switched to another team, he would lower his head and carefully wipe the blade. Sensing her gaze, he turned his head and also shook his head. “I don’t know either.”

The environment they grew up in was different from Xu Shaohuai and Jing Ling’s. They couldn’t immediately think of the idea of using a borrowed knife to kill, to eliminate or weaken enemies in advance. Though it sounded simple, behind it lay cruel and bloody reality.

“Didn’t he learn from Li… that whatever? Maybe he turned the wolf to his side?” Bai Ningxi suddenly thought of this. At the same time, he was well aware this was someone else’s turf, and what could or couldn’t be said. The latter half of this sentence, he wrote down on paper, showed it to the other two, and then soaked it in water, using two fingers to completely destroy the writing.

Hearing this, Yang Xinyao gave him a glare. “Useless!” Could a wolf even lead him the way and help snatch things? Even if it could, he definitely wouldn’t do it. Exposing his ability early would be of no benefit to their team.

The camera soon switched to another team.

Team Three’s two members were walking in the southeast part of the maze. Drawing a number near the front meant their luck wasn’t bad—but that was before the game started. Not long after the game began, they ran into a hungry wolf in the maze. Before they even had a chance to see clearly around the corner, a black shadow pounced at them. The shark in front instinctively raised his hand to block, and a sharp pain shot through his arm.

A wolf had lunged and bitten into his arm. If he hadn’t blocked, it might have been his neck.

“Ah—” He screamed miserably, his face twisting in a mix of pain and rage. Gritting his teeth, he swung his arm wide and slammed the wolf biting him against the wall. The wolf loosened its jaws from the pain, landed steadily on the ground, crouched low, and assumed an attack stance. Its whole body shot forward like an arrow from a bowstring.

The shark hastily dodged, simultaneously swinging his dagger at it. He couldn’t avoid it completely—the wolf’s claws tore through his clothes, leaving deep bloody scratches on his shoulder. The wolf didn’t escape unscathed either; his dagger stabbed it in the back. Though it didn’t hit any vital organs, it was enough to give it a taste of pain.

After a brief clash, the wolf gave up on them and ran off.

But this was only the start of their bad luck, not the end. Soon after, they ran into a lion and a tiger. Both members of the team got injured—not fatally, but still seriously.

Fortunately, after facing off against the beasts, their luck finally improved a little. They only encountered two other teams afterward—both in as bad a shape as they were, also injured. With both sides wary of each other, they didn’t dare make a move, and things ended peacefully.

“Damn it, we haven’t even seen a shadow of the treasure since the game started, and we’re all banged up. This trip is a total loss!” The shark leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. His injured arm was roughly bandaged with strips cut from his clothes. Though the bleeding had barely stopped, the cloth was already soaked with bl00d and had turned black after coagulating—its original color completely indistinguishable.

The place they stopped at was a straight passage, each of them responsible for watching one end. His teammate stood beside him, also breathing heavily. “This maze is seriously cursed today! The previous ones weren’t this hard. Now with two extra zones, the difficulty’s multiplied several times. Are they messing with us?!”

As he spoke, his gaze unconsciously fell on the wall opposite. A jagged, wavy bloodstain of varying thickness stretched from one end of the wall to the other—a clear sign someone had passed and marked the way. Of course, with the game going on this long, it was harder to find a path no one had walked. But what really caught his attention was that a section of the bloodstain was missing, like something had wiped it clean without a trace. The missing part was about the width of the space between two walls!

Earlier, they’d been too busy trying to survive their streak of bad luck to notice these details. Now that they finally had a breather, they realized something was wrong.

“Shark, I think there’s something off about this maze!” As he spoke, he walked over and carefully felt around the spot where the bloodstain broke off. Sure enough, though these walls looked identical and fooled the eye, they couldn’t deceive touch—especially when you knew what to look for. The moment his hand touched it, he felt a faint seam.

He felt one side, then the other, and after tracing along the seam, he had his answer. This was a doorframe. The missing section of the bloodstain was behind the door. He pressed his palm against the door and pushed. As expected, the door didn’t budge. He paused, then realized—if it opened that easily, he would have noticed when making marks on the wall earlier. It wouldn’t have taken until now. So he tried pushing at different spots, feeling his way around.

The shark saw this and came over to help.

When they pressed a spot in the upper left corner near the top, a soft sound echoed, and the door slowly opened.

They were caught up in the excitement of discovering a hidden mechanism and let their guard down. But just then, a black shadow burst out from behind the door, heading straight for the shark. He instinctively raised his hand to block, but with his injured arm, he wasn’t as quick as usual. That slight delay cost him—he failed to block the incoming shadow.

History repeated itself, but this time luck wasn’t on his side. The next second, a sharp pain exploded at his neck, and a foul, indescribable stench filled his nose.

“Ah—” He screamed as his body was knocked back a few steps, his back slamming hard against the wall with a loud bang.

Chapter 134

Many times, when facing death, people are able to unleash tremendous power. The Shark was exactly like this at the moment. He hadn’t expected the wolf to be behind the door and failed to dodge in time, ending up with its jaws locked onto his throat.

He had to break free immediately, or his life would end here!

He drew a dagger from the sheath at his waist and stabbed it hard into the wolf’s abdomen, twisting it after thrusting it in. The dagger had a bl00d groove; hot, foul-smelling bl00d flowed along the blade, staining his hand and soaking through his sleeve as it ran down his wrist. There was also a barbed hook on the back of the dagger. He stabbed deep, and when he pulled it out, the intestines followed.

He thought the wolf would release him in pain, but it didn’t. As if knowing this was a life-for-a-life trade, it held on stubbornly, its sharp teeth puncturing his skin and sawing through flesh and vessels like serrated blades. It had bitten down on the side of his neck where the carotid artery was. The severed artery spurted bl00d straight into its mouth!

The warm, fresh bl00d flowing from its prey was proof of glory! No matter how much pain it suffered, it showed no fear. To die in battle was its dignity as a wolf!

“Help me!” The Shark’s face twisted in a fearsome grimace from the mix of pain and fury.

All this happened in just a few seconds. His teammate reacted to his shout and rushed over to help. Two people, two daggers—within moments, the wolf was stabbed like a sieve, bl00d gushing from countless wounds. The bl00d drenched them both, pooled on the ground, and spread outward. Bl00d splattered onto the walls when they pulled out their knives, mixing with the bl00d gushing from the Shark’s carotid artery, turning this tiny space into a hellish scene.

About two minutes later, the wolf, its bl00d and organs spilled everywhere, finally died. But even in death, it did not release its bite.

The Shark’s dagger slipped from his hand and clattered softly to the ground, still stained with bl00d. Then his entire body slid down the wall as he collapsed, gasping for breath. The mutilated wolf carcass still hung on him, but he no longer cared. The massive bl00d loss, the high mental strain, and the fierce struggle just now had drained every ounce of his strength.

He knew he wasn’t going to survive. With such wounds, immediate medical attention might have given him a slim chance, but there was no such opportunity. The cruise ship’s medical resources weren’t for people like them, and one of the maze game’s rules was that the doors wouldn’t open until the game was over.

“Nick…” he called to his teammate.

Nick’s face twisted in grief. He obviously knew how this would end. He half-knelt beside the Shark, leaning closer to hear him speak. “Say it! Say it! I’m listening!”

“I’ve got a deposit at Morton Bank. The bank card is hidden in the wall of Garnier’s cabin. The password is my birthday. You guys split half of the money… send the rest back for me…” The Shark spoke with difficulty. Knowing he had little time left, he tried to only mention the important matters. But even after cutting it short, he still couldn’t finish what he wanted to say before his strength gave out. His eyes closed, and his head suddenly drooped.

“Shark! Shark!” They say real men don’t easily shed tears, but at this moment—watching his comrade of many years die before his eyes—Nick’s eyes reddened instantly, and tears streamed down uncontrollably. He cried out his teammate’s name, holding his corpse in a grief that words couldn’t describe.

After a long time, he finally let go of the Shark’s body. His expression shifted from sorrow to madness. His eyes fell on the wolf’s carcass, filled with a ferocity and viciousness beyond words. He gripped his dagger tightly and stabbed the wolf over and over again. The already mangled corpse was now slashed into an even worse mess. He hacked off its limbs, severed its head, and placed them beside his comrade, as if it were a ritual of offering.

So far, half an hour had passed since the game began. Only now had the truly bloody prelude started. Those in the maze who heard Nick’s shout could guess what had happened. Though losing an enemy should have been a cause for joy, they couldn’t help but feel sympathy. They all lived on the edge, licking bl00d off knives every day. No one knew when their own life would end. The enemy who died today might be their own fate tomorrow.

Outside the screen, the real revelry was just beginning.

“Fawn, you’re out.” On the giant screen, after one member of Team Three died, a silver-haired old man watching the live broadcast smiled and said.

“It’s just a little bet, Giles. I never expected a lottery-drawn team to win anyway. But I do have high hopes for Joe. He’s been lucky enough to draw the Fox’s team. This is the fourth time, and he’s survived the last three hunts. A mere game of hide and seek isn’t going to trip him up,” Fawn replied. He sat beside Giles. The two were about the same age, though Fawn was small, silver-haired, and nondescript—just a skinny old man in ordinary clothes. Giles, on the other hand, was the exact opposite: tall, dark-skinned, with a shaved head, a thick gold chain around his neck, and gem-encrusted rings on all ten fingers—clearly not a good man.

The Joe they mentioned sat in the far corner, noticeably younger than the two. He had carefully styled golden hair, gold-rimmed glasses, and wore a flawlessly tailored tuxedo. Sitting on a tiger-skin sofa, gently swirling a glass of red wine, he smiled and said, “As you said, I’ve just been lucky. After last year’s game ended, I thought the Fox wouldn’t return. He’d made enough money, and his teammates were crippled—hard to fight alone. I didn’t expect him to find new teammates in less than a year and come back with a ticket.”

“Speaking of his new teammates, I didn’t think much of them at first. Despite their best efforts to disguise it, you could tell they were amateurs—so weak a breeze could blow them over. But now it seems the Fox is still the Fox. He must have his reasons for picking them. I can’t tell much about the other three, but the one beside him is truly fascinating!” said another person in the room.

“If it weren’t for the fact that the lottery boxes were handled by our people, I’d suspect cheating. Not only did they draw the VIP room no one had picked for years, but they also got four consecutive rooms on the third floor. That kind of luck is unreal. And just before the game started, they even got first in the draw.”

They’d also discussed what happened later in the maze. At first, they thought it was just luck—especially with past extreme examples. But when he went through the revolving door and then turned back precisely to trap the stalking wolf between the doors, no one believed it was mere luck anymore. In that seemingly identical maze, he must have mapped it in his head after just one walk-through. He knew exactly where the revolving doors and traps were. He even seemed to have heightened senses—either hearing or smell, sharp enough to rival a beast’s—allowing him to detect other creatures from afar and avoid them entirely.

“I heard he placed two bets—five million in the hunting ground and another million on this game. Both times he bet on himself to win. Seems pretty confident!”

“Isn’t it normal for a truly capable man to be confident? I’m really looking forward to what surprises those other three can bring!”

This was the top luxury suite on the cruise ship, reserved for the game’s organizers. There were seven people in the room, all over fifty. While most of the world worked themselves to the bone in nine-to-five jobs just to survive, these men held wealth they could never finish spending. When the thrill of money became numb, they sought new pleasures—the oldest, most primal kind: bloody and brutal games.

“It’s dead.” The cries from the southeast direction and the heavy scent of bl00d told Jing Ling the wolf was dead. Once the king of the forest pack, it had ended up a prisoner for human amusement. It died in battle, not even uttering a whimper—that was its final pride.

Jing Ling spoke softly, almost to himself. But Xu Shaohuai still heard and replied, “For it, this might be a kind of release.” They continued walking as they spoke. Jing Ling stepped forward another ten steps and pressed a spot in the upper left corner. With a soft click, a revolving door opened. He and Xu Shaohuai stepped through in succession and saw two people ahead, walking with their backs to them.

The two quickly noticed them. Apparently unaware of the revolving door’s existence, they were visibly startled to see someone suddenly appear behind them.

“What do you want?” asked the man wearing a tiger mask in international language.

They all wore number tags on their chests—a white background with a black circle and the number 9 inside. It was the rather unfortunate Team Nine. To intensify the conflict between teams, the maze’s treasure was made conspicuous and impossible to hide on one’s person.

Jing Ling gave them a glance and knew they weren’t his target. Still, he walked toward them. When there were less than two meters between them, he said in international language, “Let me through.”

Team Nine had assumed he was looking for trouble. They already had their daggers in hand and had taken defensive stances. But even as he walked up to them, he made no move. Then they heard those two words. Still, they didn’t lower their guard. What they believed wouldn’t change easily. As soon as he entered striking range, they attacked without hesitation, aiming straight for vital points.

In this place, you couldn’t show your enemy a shred of mercy—that was their creed.

Unfortunately, their attack was stopped midway. Jing Ling didn’t even glance at them. He raised his dagger and blocked the thrust perfectly with the blade. He parried one attacker, while Xu Shaohuai dealt with the other.

They hadn’t come here to provoke a fight. They were heading for another revolving door on the other side of the path. Right in front of Team Nine, they pushed open the door and entered another corridor. Afterward, Jing Ling searched three more times before finally finding the target carrying the treasure.

Chapter 135

The black circle with a white number 2 marked them as Team Two. Both wore plain white face masks—just two holes at the eyes, with no eyebrows, nose, or mouth, and a deathly pale color that looked rather creepy. One of them held the treasure they had taken from the center of the maze—a doll about sixty centimeters tall, with fluffy golden curls, dressed in a pink princess gown adorned with small round pearls along the hem. It looked completely out of place in this bloody and brutal game. With its large size and conspicuous appearance, there was no way to hide it once they carried it.

At the start of the game, the organizers hadn’t revealed what the treasure was. They’d only given one clue: it was located in the center of the maze and would be instantly recognizable.
None of the teams thought too much about it then. Given the style of the maze, anything that wasn’t a human or a beast had to be the treasure.

Team Two had fairly good luck. After the entrance opened, they navigated the maze by instinct—of course, marking their path as they went. They hit countless dead ends, doubled back again and again, until they finally reached the center of the maze—a square area roughly four square meters in size. In the middle stood a cylindrical pedestal, on top of which sat a luxurious doll. It really was just like the clue said—instantly recognizable.

But the treasure looked so bizarre that the two of them hesitated at the entrance, unsure whether it was really the prize. They hesitated for almost a full minute, even circling the area once more. After confirming there was nothing else, they finally went back and took the doll.

With the treasure in hand, and a marked path behind them, they thought they could simply retrace their steps back to the entrance. Victory in this game seemed almost guaranteed—the only worry was whether they’d encounter other teams on the way back. As for the beasts? They were low-intelligence animals—not nearly as threatening as other humans.

But plans never keep up with changes.
It was as if their good luck had run out.
Not far into their return trip, they came face to face with a lion.
Luckily, the lion was already wounded, a dagger stabbed into its rump.

At first sight, the lion lunged straight at them.
They were used to walking the edge of death, reacting swiftly and working together like seasoned partners—one drew its attention while the other looked for a chance to strike.
After several exchanges, though the lion gained a bit of an upper hand, it was further injured—its back covered with wounds that bled steadily, soaking its fur and dripping onto the ground in scattered red dots.

Though not as smart as a human, the lion’s instincts told it this fight wasn’t worth it.
It realized these two weren’t easy prey and decided to retreat.
Team Two didn’t pursue.
After all, their goal wasn’t hunting—it was getting the treasure out of the maze.

Barely a few minutes after that encounter, they ran into Team Five.
They might’ve drawn a mediocre lot, but their strength was formidable.
These opponents weren’t fools—one look at the doll in their hands and they knew it was the treasure. But unlike the lion, they didn’t charge recklessly.
Instead, they stood at a safe distance, staring at them with ill intent, waiting for an opportunity.

There was only one path—forward or back.
In this situation, there was no way Team Two would turn their backs on an enemy.
Walking backward wasn’t an option either—who knew if more enemies would appear behind them?

So the two sides stood there in a standoff for two minutes. No one spoke first.
But obviously, this couldn’t last forever—after all, there were more teams in the game.

Both sides were just about to make a move when something unexpected happened.
A seam silently opened in the wall between them.
They instinctively stepped back on guard, thinking it was a trap, but the wall merely shifted to block the path they were on and revealed a new route.

The whole process took only about three seconds.
By the time Team Five reacted, the road was already blocked.
They knew Team Two and the treasure were just on the other side, but they couldn’t get to them. A few seconds earlier, they might’ve had a chance to snatch it.

Neither of the two members of Team Five were exactly civilized.
They immediately started cursing across the wall—in their native language at first, then, realizing the other side might not understand, switching to an international language.
Soon, curses came back at them from the other side, a mix of both languages.

After two minutes of this exchange of insults through the wall, Team Two decided they’d had enough.
They took the treasure and turned back to look for another route.
At the same time, they began thinking about the problem they’d just discovered—the maze paths weren’t fixed.

This was different from what they’d expected.
Finding a way out of a complicated maze was already hard enough, but now with the paths constantly changing, it became even more difficult.
They had no idea when the routes would suddenly shift, possibly forcing them to backtrack even if they were on the right path.

So much for the advantage of entering the hunting grounds thirty minutes early!

They roamed the maze for nearly twenty minutes, still unable to find the exit, though they did witness several changes in the maze’s layout with their own eyes.
While testing how the path changes worked, they accidentally discovered rotating doors on the walls.
They found five in total and marked each one.
Although none of them led out of the maze, they did help them avoid enemy teams twice.

After using a rotating door to shake off another team, they leaned against a wall, catching their breath.
One of them cursed, “Damn it, how the hell do we get out of this freak show?! I’m sick of this sh1t!”
As he spoke, he threw the doll hard onto the ground.
Still feeling unsatisfied, he stomped on it a few times, grinding its neck against the floor with his foot.

Even among regular people, few grown men liked this kind of toy—let alone desperadoes like them. All they cared about was money.
Anything that could be exchanged for cash was a treasure—anything that couldn’t was trash.

“All right, let’s move.”
His teammate waited for him to finish venting, then bent down to pick up the doll and tucked it under his arm, ready to move on. But before he could take a step, a familiar soft sound came from a few meters ahead, followed by a section of wall sliding out.

Apparently, they weren’t the only ones who’d discovered the rotating doors.
Someone else was coming through from the other side.

In theory, they had the advantage—they knew someone was there, but the other party didn’t know about them.
They could rush to the door for a surprise attack.
Whether it was a human or a beast, they’d have over a fifty percent chance of hitting the target.

But the distance was awkward—neither near nor far.
If they rushed and didn’t make it in time, they might collide head-on with the enemy.
Who would get stabbed then was anyone’s guess.

In the end, Team Two decided to let it go.
No sneak attack, no retreat—they’d just wait where they were for whoever came through.

The door turned at a ninety-degree angle from the wall, and two people walked through from the other side. About the same height, though one looked slimmer. They wore a fox mask and a clown mask.

As soon as they entered, the clown-masked one glanced over and spoke as if talking to himself—but loud enough for them to hear, “What a pity. I opened the door this slow on purpose, and you still didn’t take the chance to ambush me.”

They knew we were here! Team Two was startled, but quickly realized why.
They had been talking just now—and their complaints hadn’t exactly been quiet.
The sound would’ve carried through the wall.

“Here to snatch this?”

Jing Ling spoke, watching as the other man took the doll from under his arm and casually tossed it into the air. They stood a few meters apart. If the other side had been ordinary people, Jing Ling would’ve rushed forward to snatch it. But clearly, they weren’t. The casual toss of the doll showed how confident they were—the one holding it stayed in the back while the other stood guard in front.

Such a coordinated move wasn’t something most people could deal with. But Jing Ling wasn’t most people. Rushing forward might trigger their defenses, but he still had a knife.

“Of course.”
As Jing Ling spoke, the doll reached the peak of its arc, and he lunged forward.
At the same time, he used the motion of his charge to conceal the throw of his dagger.

His move was extremely subtle. The two on the other side didn’t notice at all, maintaining their formation—the front one guarding, the back one reaching out to catch the doll.

But before his hand touched the doll, the dagger struck first.
It sliced through the doll’s body with ease, lodging in up to the hilt and dragging the doll backward, finally pinning it hard against the wall behind them.

Jing Ling charged ahead, clashing with the front guard.
He was unarmed, his dagger thrown, while the opponent attacked with a weapon.
Jing Ling dodged the strike with a sidestep, dropped low, and swept his leg.
The opponent stepped back just in time.

Seeing him move, Xu Shaohuai followed close behind.

The man who had tried to catch the doll froze for a moment, but when he realized what was happening, Jing Ling was already upon them. They didn’t fight alone—they instinctively moved to assist each other. But Xu Shaohuai had caught up too, his dagger aiming straight for a vital spot.

The other had no choice but to abandon his teammate and defend himself.
He dodged Xu Shaohuai’s attack, then countered with a thrust toward Xu Shaohuai’s chest.

In the narrow maze corridor, the two teams clashed directly.
Xu Shaohuai’s fight was evenly matched—neither side could gain the upper hand.

But it was different for Jing Ling. His opponent had sharp reflexes and excellent combat skills—a true veteran of life-and-death battles. Against most, a draw would’ve been likely.
But this was Jing Ling. Beneath his seemingly slender frame hid an inhuman strength.

After only a few exchanges, the opponent was already struggling.
At this rate, Jing Ling would soon finish the fight and then go help Xu Shaohuai.
Once they got the so-called treasure, the maze wouldn’t be a problem for Jing Ling at all.

Victory was within reach.