Chapter 58: Blade-Killing Card

The card presented an eerie, dark red hue, its edges resembling sharp sawteeth. Inscribed upon it were three symbols formed from a deep brown that looked like congealed blood scabs—the grim, distorted silhouette of a skull making a throat-slitting gesture.

Grade B Item: Blade-Execution Card
Effect: Can be used to post a Grade B bounty mission at the Blade-Execution Hall. The target must be within the specified range on the card, with a time limit of 72 hours.
The poster must provide the target ID. The card vanishes upon activation.
Restriction: Only Grade B or lower assassins may accept the contract.
If the mission succeeds, the assassin claims the reward directly; if it fails or times out, the card automatically becomes void.

This was his greatest secret, and his ultimate, most desperate trump card!
He had never been able to bring himself to use it, because the price of hiring a Grade B assassin was far beyond anything he could ever afford. The sole value of this card lay in exchanging it for a Grade B assassin to work for him once.
He had not even dared to study closely how to activate it; merely sensing the chilling murderous intent radiating from it made his blood run cold.
Yet now, the fires of jealousy and bitter humiliation had completely incinerated his reason.

"The Doomsday Zealot must die!"

He picked up the ice-cold Blade-Execution Card, its jagged edges nearly slicing his fingertips. He stared fixedly at the card, as though he could see through it to the assassin sanctuary hidden beneath the shadows of the gaming world—the Blade-Execution Hall.
An entity existing independently of players, the trading hub, or even the official store, lingering in the dark on the very fringes of the rules.

"With blood as the conduit, with grievance as the pact," he whispered hoarsely. A stream of information regarding the card's activation automatically surfaced in his mind, as if the card itself were guiding him.
"Target ID: Doomsday Zealot! Target's Server: China-888!"

As he conveyed his intent and locked his mental focus, the dark red Blade-Execution Card suddenly grew searing hot. The jagged skull pattern seemed to come to life, two crimson lights flickering within its hollow eye sockets.

"Mission content: Completely terminate the target player—Doomsday Zealot! Take her life! All items on the target belong to the executor! Mission time limit: 72 hours!"

He practically roared the final sentence.

Hum—!

The card erupted with a blinding blood-red light, instantly enveloping the entire cramped space of the tent and casting the Shadow Merchant's face—distorted by terror and excitement—in the likeness of a malicious ghost. The howling wind and sand outside the tent seemed to freeze at this exact moment.

The crimson light flashed for several seconds, resembling some ongoing ritual.
Then, the radiance contracted instantly, withdrawing entirely back into the card. That Grade B Blade-Execution Card faded and turned gray at a visible rate, ultimately crumbling into a tiny pinch of rust-scented dust that sifted through his fingers.

"Go... go kill her..." The Shadow Merchant watched the falling dust, his body trembling slightly from exhaustion and lingering dread, yet his eyes burned with a morbid, ecstatic madness and the frenzy of release.

With the disappearance of the card, he clearly sensed a cold, pure, emotionless murderous intent—like an invisible arrow—following some unspeakable, mystical connection, piercing through the barriers of space to shoot straight toward the unfathomable, gloomy halls of the Blade-Execution Hall.

He knew the bounty had been successfully placed.
A Grade B assassin, walking on the edge of darkness and existing solely for their mission target, had now accepted the contract.
And had locked onto the Doomsday Zealot, far away in the grassland region.

Su Liu hugged Little Tuanzi and returned to the warm, brightly lit space. Just as she finished organizing the newly unboxed supplies and placing them into the Silver Secret Casket in the corner, Chen Shi's characteristic, bouncy voice rang directly in her mind:

"Ding-dong! Big Sis Liu! Surprise time~ It's detected that your 'anti-hustle' leisure time has accumulated to 101 hours! You've exceeded the target, hitting the trigger threshold of '95 hours plus 5 bonus hours', which means you can redeem a ten-consecutive-draw right now! What do you think, want to test your luck? The atmosphere is just right, the space is quiet, and Tuanzi is adorable—it's simply a divinely ordained auspicious hour for opening boxes!"

Su Liu's eyes lit up as she looked at the neatly sorted supplies and Little Tuanzi, who was snuggling close to her and curiously pawing at a newly opened bottle of mineral water.
101 hours! This meant not only fulfilling today's 10-hour leisure requirement perfectly, but also instantly redeeming a ten-consecutive-draw!
The temptation of the mystery boxes—especially with the rich harvest from the previous ten-draw still fresh in her memory—made her heart beat a little faster.

"Draw! I must draw!" Su Liu responded to Chen Shi in her mind without the slightest hesitation, the corners of her mouth curling upward uncontrollably. "Use 95 hours to trade me a ten-consecutive-draw!"

"You got it! Big Sis Liu is so generous! Ten-draw initiating, starlight shining, mystery box miracles descending~!"

Following Chen Shi's excited announcement, the scene before Su Liu's eyes instantly shifted.
The small space seemed like a reflection cast into a river of stars; the four walls and ceiling rapidly peeled away and faded. The workbench in the corner, the Silver Secret Casket, and Little Tuanzi—who was attempting to twist open a mineral water bottle cap—were all gently "pushed" to the periphery of her perception by an invisible curtain of starlight.
Replacing them was a deep, boundless expanse of stars unfolding before her eyes, countless points of light drifting slowly like fireflies.

A massive virtual light screen condensed in the center of the sea of stars. Upon the screen were no longer the usual player panel UIs, but countless spinning, colorful, translucent bubbles.
Inside each bubble seemed to be wrapped vague lights and shadows of various shapes emitting different energy fluctuations—whether it was the flowing light of a weapon's edge, the pure hue of a potion, materials shimmering with metallic luster, or scrolls shrouded in mysterious runes... A intense sense of anticipation and uncertainty instantly filled the entire starlit space.

"Swish-clatter—Boom!" The massive, silver-blue mystery box machine itself condensed behind the light screen like a descending deity, emitting a deep roar. The figure of the sprite Chen Shi, accompanied by crisp silver-bell sounds, waved a magic wand and leapt nimbly down from the top of the box, circling around excitedly before landing on Su Liu's shoulder.

"Here it comes, here it comes! Seeds of the stars, heed my command! Wealth password, gather the European luck!"

At Chen Shi's crisp command, the spinning bubbles on the light screen suddenly accelerated, transforming into a dazzling meteor shower that rushed with a sharp whistling sound into the feeding slot at the top of the giant mystery box machine.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Without a single gap, ten dense eruption sounds carrying a strange sense of rhythm exploded consecutively! It was like a simultaneous salute of celebratory cannons.

Ten cubic boxes of identical size and brilliant radiance, wrapped in cocoons of varying light intensity, were spewed from the bottom of the mystery box machine, floating neatly before the star curtain.
White, green, blue, purple... The four colors of brilliance intertwined and flickered. Although this time it failed to trigger the purple-light climax representing a higher tier, the deep blue treasured glow occupied an absolute majority, and two deep purple radiances stood out like cranes among chickens, instantly capturing Su Liu's undivided attention!

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!... A series of crisp, melodious system notification sounds, resembling falling gold coins, echoed consecutively in Su Liu's mind. Beneath the floating boxes, the light screen rapidly scrolled through lines of illuminated reward information: