Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes.

Chapter 317, Section 64: Beyond Saving

A piercing scream came from inside the museum, startling the armed police officers stationed at the entrance. They instinctively wanted to open the door and rush in to check.

The police officers stationed here are not the only ones; there are also staff members inside, as well as some museum maintenance workers.

But some people are faster than them.

"Get out of the way!"

Hayato shouted, and before anyone knew it, he was already on the motorcycle. As he twisted the throttle, the fiery chariot beneath him roared to life.

The engine started up, and the ferocious tiger head on the front of the car seemed to come alive, its eyes burning with orange-red flames.

Boom!

Before the guards could even open the door, Hayato had already driven his tank and smashed through the museum's doors. Sparks flew everywhere, and a huge hole appeared before them, accompanied by a wave of heat. Hayato had already turned into a streak of fire and disappeared into the museum.

"Follow me!" Oshima shouted to Ludu without hesitation, and the two rushed into the museum following the two still-burning tire tracks on the ground.

The armed police officers at the door looked at each other, considering the extraordinary battle that might occur inside. They decided that their lives were more important, so they reported what had just happened and quickly retreated a distance.

Based on their limited experience with the extraordinary, they feared the building would collapse.

As for the colleagues inside, let us observe a moment of silence.

They charged headlong through the dusty, acrid hallway until they reached the Egyptian sculpture hall.

Several corpses lay scattered on the ground, their deaths gruesome. At the entrance of the exhibition hall, in front of the display case of the world-famous Rosetta Stone, stood a small figure.

His hand was pressed against the glass, as if drawing some kind of power.

Hayato didn't bother with any nonsense. After confirming the target, excitement flashed in his eyes, and he immediately slammed on the accelerator.

The blazing chariot roared furiously as it charged straight toward the prime suspect.

However, right in the path of his charge,
Swish swish!

Without warning, a large amount of viscous, grayish-white gelatinous substance began to gush out from the cracks in the floor in front of him, the walls on both sides, and even the ceiling.

They are like living swamps, spreading and piling up rapidly, resembling both liquid and solid.

With every inch Hayato's chariot advanced, its tires and body became increasingly entangled and coated with this disgusting grayish-white substance.

The speed plummeted, as if it had sunk into a quagmire.

In just over ten meters of sprinting distance, he was abruptly stopped in his tracks. The front of his car was only a few dozen centimeters away from that figure, but he could not move forward an inch further.

The tires spun futilely, and the flames attached to the car body were suppressed by the ever-increasing gray matter.

"I don't know who you are." The figure slowly turned around, revealing a face that was none other than Jack, who had disappeared from the hospital some time ago.

But at this moment, his eyes were completely black, devoid of any human emotion.

“But I can give you a chance. Leave Britain and I will no longer pursue your offenses against the new gods.”

"God? I just gave a guy who calls himself a god a set of Japanese yakitori not long ago. Want to try some?" Hayato hated guys who were even more arrogant than him. He pushed the chariot to its limits, the tires burning in the slime, emitting a burnt smell. Flames gathered on the tiger head on the front of the chariot, and it breathed flames at Jack.

At the same time, a red halo appeared around Jack.

A dozen meters away, Oshima's figure gradually turned into a faint phantom, and finally disappeared completely from the spot.

Meanwhile, Ludu, who was standing next to her, also entered her battle form.

The plate of spaghetti on her head suddenly swelled and deformed, turning into two enormous arms woven from noodles.

This arm granted her amazing climbing ability, allowing her to scale walls and pillars like a spider, approaching the center of the battlefield from the air.

Before she could even feel happy for two seconds, two, four, six, seven, or eight arms of roughly the same size emerged from the grayish-white substance seeping from the ceiling.
"Hmph, numbers are the most meaningless advantage! French pasta cream fist!" Lu Du refused to admit defeat and started fighting the gray-white matter by swinging his spaghetti arm.

In the center of the battlefield, Jack seemed to have not expected the enemy to attack so decisively.

Flames rushed towards him, and his body's defenses seemed extremely weak. His skin was instantly charred and curled, emitting a sizzling sound and a burnt smell similar to roasted suckling pig, and his face turned extremely ugly as a result.

"You asked for this!" Jack's voice became shrill with anger.

With his roar, the entire British Museum began to shake violently.

Like a colossal beast awakening, the exhibition hall trembled violently. The precious statues, coffins, and porcelains that bore witness to thousands of years of history began to topple from their pedestals and crash to the ground, making a heartbreaking cracking sound that shattered the scholars' hearts.

The clanging and banging spread from one exhibition hall to another, leaving almost no one unscathed.

More and more, an endless stream of grayish-white matter surged out from every corner and direction, rapidly expanding and piling up like proliferating cancerous tissue, gradually revealing grooves and folds resembling the human cerebral cortex.

Hayato and his vehicle were engulfed and crushed by these living, solid, grayish-white matter, which completely blocked the vehicle's flamethrowers, rendering them unable to move.

Just then, the countdown to Oshima finally ended.

Click - boom!

The dome of the exhibition hall shattered with a crash, and a figure descended from the sky like a god, making a grand entrance with immense force.

The massive impact of the island crashed down, slamming heavily onto the spot where Jack was standing.

puff!

Whether Jack was fearless or simply didn't have time to react, he was instantly crushed into a messy pile of mud, like an insect.

Gululu.

This did not achieve any results.

Before Oshima could even see the results of the battle, the grayish-white swamps that filled the surrounding area were enraged and immediately condensed into dozens of huge arms, grabbing at him from all directions!
"Get back!" Oshima shouted, channeling the collective power of gratitude within him, and punched the thickest gray arm that was coming at him.

hum!
A beam of light rippled out from where his two fists met. The thick gray arm seemed to have encountered its absolute nemesis. The moment it made contact, it dissolved and dissipated as quickly as foam meeting flames. Even the gray matter surrounding Hayato, which was being squeezed, seemed to be scalded and suddenly contracted and dispersed.

"Gods, Chosen Ones! Are you alright?!" At this moment, Ludu, who had finally broken free from the entanglement and stumbled over, looked ashamed. Her noodle-like arms were covered in slime and were incomplete, making her look rather disheveled.

Ludu's combat experience was all taught by Nobi and Taki, but he basically had no opportunity for actual combat.

In my nervousness just now, I completely forgot everything and used a move I created based on the anime I watched, which surprisingly worked.

“This person is not his true form. My abilities can restrain him, but I can’t hold out for long!” Oshima assessed the situation and said urgently, “The museum has already fallen. You should evacuate first and wait for the chairman and the others to provide support.”

Hayato glanced at the motorcycle, which was still entangled in slime and unable to move nimbly, and then looked at Ludu, who clearly lacked combat experience, and nodded decisively: "You hold them off!"

After saying that, he revved the engine again with all his might, the scorching flames forcefully blasting away the slime all over his body, clearing a small area, and shouted to Ludu, "Get in the car!"

Ludu hurriedly jumped into the back seat, and Hayato drove the tank towards the gradually closing museum.

"Your power... truly has a nauseating smell," a voice slowly rang out.

Oshima turned his head, his eyes widening in surprise, his lips slightly parted.

Jack's mangled remains, which should have been biologically dead beyond any doubt, were being dragged and pieced together like marionettes by several grayish-white substances, swaying precariously above the Rosetta Stone. His skull was cracked, revealing a faintly pulsating brain, and his entire body was soaked in blood, exuding an eerie aura.

"You have no right to call me disgusting." Oshima twisted his fist, certain that the other party's power must have come from an illegitimate source, otherwise it wouldn't have been so restrained by his power of gratitude.

The last person he restrained so much was Ashiya Dōman.

He tensed his calves, pushed off the ground, and leaped into the air, throwing another punch at the eerie Jack in mid-air.

Blah blah blah!

Countless gray-white particles piled up and merged one after another, forming thick walls that fearlessly blocked the island's path.

Although they would quickly dissolve upon contact with the power of gratitude, there were simply too many of them, one after another, managing to delay the great island's arduous attack.

"Too late," Jack sneered from mid-air.

The grayish-white material extending from the ceiling lifted the shattered skull of Jack's remains, removed the still faintly pulsating brain, and then—

It slammed down forcefully onto the Rosetta Stone below.

Bang!

The brain that crashed onto the stone tablet spread rapidly like bacteria, with countless gray-white nerve tendrils and fleshy fibers growing wildly, enveloping the ancient stone tablet's surface as if trying to forcibly integrate it into itself.

Meanwhile, Oshima was now completely besieged by an endless, grayish-white ocean.

He dared not unleash all the power of gratitude he had painstakingly collected at once, as he had done with Ashiya Dōman last time. Because, judging from the game's hints, there was more than one ritual; if he exhausted all his trump cards now, he would have no chance of winning against the real Ripper later, essentially exiting the game prematurely.

Unless he is 100% certain that what is in front of him is the core, and that destroying it will end everything.

"The people are so immersed in this false glory that they even feel they have gained a share of arrogance. How ridiculous."

"The gates of knowledge are opened with a false sense of justice as a favor, and then blocked by an invisible threshold, which is truly pathetic."

"Let me engrave wisdom into their minds and transform those poor, foolish people so that they, like me, can see the truth of the world."

"I will dissect the mind of the wise man to see how it differs from that of ordinary people. Does knowledge bring either admirable selflessness or hateful arrogance?"

"Since you insist on getting involved, then try and see if you can stop me."

"Dissect this hopeless Britain!"

Jack's intermittent whispers could be faintly heard amidst the writhing sounds of the gray matter.

Oshima's heart sank little by little.

He was naturally unaffected by such a few words; his only concern was how to leave this place.

Once he is out of the state, he will be immediately teleported back to the location where he initially used his ability.

That place has long since been completely swallowed up by gray matter.

If the Mercy Crystal teleportation had refreshed, that would be fine, but the problem is that he just used it not long ago and it's still on cooldown.

As the five-minute time limit expired, Oshima did not choose to renew the subscription. Instead, he retained his gratitude energy, and his figure blurred instantly, disappearing from the spot.

The next instant, he appeared at the spot where he had first used his ability.

"Woo!"

Almost instantly upon its appearance, the island was enveloped and squeezed by the viscous, cold, and malevolent substance, the immense pressure making it nearly impossible for it to breathe.

He struggled to gather the power of gratitude, but in his non-transformed state, the efficiency was extremely low, and he was simply unable to break free from this all-encompassing restraint instantly.

He had already sent a private message to Hayato. All he had to do now was hold on and wait for his companions to come to his rescue.

In desperation, he subconsciously checked the items in his system inventory. It would have been better if he hadn't looked; what he saw only brought him despair: there was only one item—a portable flush toilet.

This was a reward I got after clearing the "Pact with the Underworld" event; I haven't used it at all.

When you are desperate, you will try any possible means!

Ignoring how absurd the thing was, Oshima almost instinctively pulled it out and frantically slammed the button that was probably for pumping water.

Buzz. Splash!
A magical scene happened,

The portable toilet seemed to actually work, instantly generating an incredibly powerful suction force that identified the surrounding semi-liquid, semi-solid grayish-white matter as feces, continuously sucking it into the toilet and flushing it into some unknown dimensional space.

The pressure on Oshima suddenly eased, and he was finally able to catch his breath!

But this obviously won't last long. There's only one toilet, which might have a limit, while the surrounding gray and white matter is almost endless.

Just as he was pondering a solution, the familiar roar of an engine came from not far away again.

boom!
Hayato returned, driving his Flame Chariot back.

If he were alone, it would be very difficult for him to break into the scene that restrains him.

So this time, Uesugi Hitomi stood at the front of his car.

Her cat form allowed her to stand firmly. She straightened up and made a gesture with her paws that resembled that of the Holy Fire Meow Cult, continuously gathering the power of the Heart of Ice.

"Meow meow!"

Click, click!
As she cast her spell, frost surged forward, and the large amount of grayish-white matter rushing towards her was quickly frozen into hard ice blocks, which were then mercilessly shattered by Hayato's berserk chariot.

"Get in!" Hayato swerved and stopped beside Oshima, shouting loudly.

Oshima didn't dare to delay for a moment. He only had time to close and put away the portable toilet that was still diligently absorbing gray matter, and then jumped onto Hayato's chariot.

"Hold on tight!"

Hayato tightened the throttle again, and the tank roared as it sped along the path that had just been cleared and was gradually being restored.

Behind him, the grayish-white substance kept closing, and pairs of disgusting arms waved.

"Don't pull it!"

A fierce column of fire erupted from the back of Hayato's motorcycle, scorching those things to a crisp.

冯！
The motorcycle finally made it through the short passage and successfully reached the outside world.

Once he left that place, Hayato's speed exploded, instantly creating a hundred-meter gap before he stopped.

Meanwhile, Nobi and Iwasaki had arrived, looking up at Hayato's back.

Oshima wiped the sticky substance from his face, panting as he turned around.
The British Museum has vanished.

Instead, there was an enormous brain, so large that it would make an ordinary person feel nauseous at first glance, with a surface full of grooves and constantly writhing.

(End of this chapter)