Chapter 114: Madness, Wild Imagination, and the Better Part of Valor

Although Saya has lost the ability to consume humans at will, her perception of life energy remains, particularly her uncanny accuracy in judging the strength of male beings.

"Nen," to put it simply, is the act of guiding and releasing a living being's life energy and applying that energy to oneself or others. Therefore, to Saya, a Nen user is as glaringly obvious as a bonfire in the middle of a dark wilderness at night. In the world of *Hunter x Hunter*, Saya acts as a human radar.

Upon entering this instance, Saya instantly sensed the power distribution of the more than 600 participants. She decisively distanced herself from Hisoka and Illumi, silently falling to the back of the pack. There, she initiated her transformation and consumed every exhausted, failed examinee—as well as other players—along the way. Perhaps the Mainframe’s side mission description, "There is no necessity; only going all-out to survive is the fundamental truth," refers to a bug-like existence such as Saya.

Unfortunately, while devouring her two-hundredth victim, she triggered a special effect of the consumption ability, granting her the power of Nen. Though she did not know what the Water Divination test was and could not determine her Nen type, her instincts told her that she could create life—or, more accurately, reproduce.

"Shiro," that large white dog, is less of a Nen beast and more of her offspring, merely possessing a mimetic exterior that is difficult to see through. In essence, Shiro and Saya are both tentacles—tentacles that have inherited a portion of the characteristics of *Shub-Niggurath*. The edge of the island, now being eroded by rotting flesh, is Shiro's handiwork.

Much like Hao Ren’s now-vanished "Knight Does Not Die with Bare Hands," Saya has found a roundabout way to use her transformation skill—which is currently on cooldown—through her materialized Nen beast.

"Fine, if you want to eat, then eat." After being pestered, rubbed against, and licked by her Nen beast for so long, Saya could not resist her "child" and let it have its way.

The three brothers’ final thoughts in this world were: *My neck... it hurts so much...*

Shiro, having not eaten since devouring Yano, was finally able to feast to his heart's content. Dissolving a living body into nutritional fluid did not suit his dining habits; it was far more satisfying to tear bloody chunks of flesh from a living body and swallow them whole. It was a completely savage feeding—flesh and blood splattering everywhere. If this were in a theater, it would certainly be a restricted, 20+ rated scene, absolutely off-limits to children.

"No! No! I must endure. I am not yet a match for the top-tier combatants of this world, and this body is too fragile. I must endure..." Watching Shiro eat, Saya’s own desire to consume grew even more intense. Hisoka, Killua, Kuwabara, Yusuke, Riehl, Netero, the Black Flame Dragon—they all looked so delicious. She wondered what their flesh tasted like. She truly... wanted...

Saya’s wide eyes were bloodshot, and her lips twitched, muttering strange syllables as if in prayer or a whisper. A key-shaped silver light flashed on her chest, and her entire body began to tremble slightly, clearly suppressing something. The pure, innocent aura she once possessed had vanished, replaced by the madness that now filled her.

A Saya who has lost her "beloved" has no hope left. However, the Mainframe’s promise—"Make yourself strong, earn LP points, and keep summoning; one day you will meet Uki Kaiba again"—gave Saya a glimmer of light in the darkness. As long as she had enough LP points and the right range of summoning scrolls—for someone with short hair, male, and so on—the chance of summoning Uki was not low.

But is it really that simple?

One of the ironclad rules for summoned beings in the Mainframe space is that two of the same summoned entity cannot exist simultaneously. A creature can only be summoned again after its data has returned to the Mainframe space upon its death. In other words, if someone were to hold onto Uki and refuse to let go... Heh.

Audiences accustomed to mecha battles and campus supernatural powers were finally ready for something more bizarre. Whenever the Dextro galaxy broadcasted an instance featuring Saya, it always carried the subtitle: "Viewers with weak mental fortitude, please do not click."

Ten meters directly beneath where Saya stood, in an abrupt, square-shaped hollow, Makoto Ito—who had not been shown on camera for a long time—was desperately gnashing his teeth. The "Eye of Reconnaissance" in his hand projected the hellish scene above in its entirety.

Item: *Eye of Reconnaissance*, a pair of child-and-parent eyes with a permanent invisibility effect. The child eye requires a drop of blood to activate and can conduct reconnaissance for up to 10 minutes at a fixed location with a 100-meter radius. The parent eye projects what the child eye sees. Once the child eye withers, the parent eye can be recharged for 10 LP, and after 10 minutes, it will generate a new child eye.

Makoto was filled with regret for ever having felt something for Saya. "What is the Mainframe thinking!? How dare you let such a dangerous thing appear!? Are you not afraid of losing control?!" Although Makoto did not know which work Saya’s abilities originated from, his experience playing StarCraft, primarily as the Zerg, led him to jump to wild conclusions.

"This wriggling rot, the spraying fluids, the dancing tentacles—how does this not look like a Zerg Hive!? And that beast tearing apart corpses, that has to be a Zergling variant! Maybe it's an elite unit!?"

"Could it be that this woman is the Zerg Queen, Kerrigan? Where are her wings? And what’s with this innocent Japanese schoolgirl appearance? Did she dislike her Western art style and get plastic surgery in the Mainframe space?"

Kneeling on the ground, incoherent, Makoto suffered quite a blow to his sanity, even tossing his pickaxe and the parent eye aside. After a long while, "No! Such a character must not be allowed to continue living!" Makoto stood up, retrieved the parent eye and pickaxe, stared firmly at Saya in the projection, and then... began digging toward the inland.

"Of the thirty-six stratagems, running away is best!" Makoto was truly worthy of his title; setbacks helped him grow rapidly, and he had learned to avoid disaster (even if that setback had caused him to die once before). "My tunneling skills are the best in the world! If I can't fight, can't I just hide!?" Makoto’s current strategic goal aligned with that of Hao Ren on the other side of the island.

As Makoto swung his stone pickaxe, the solid rock turned into standard, small blocks, which then vanished with a wave of his hand, almost as if...

*Minecraft.*

Yes, it was *Minecraft*.

Skill: *Minecraft* LV2 (105/2000). In the eyes of Steve, the sun is square, the moon is square, and the earth is square. Building houses with bare hands, breaking walls with fists, mining in the deep sea, extracting sugar from sugarcane—everything in the world can exist on Steve’s crafting list in the form of materials and blocks. Activating S/M mode (Steve's Minecraft Mode) grants Steve’s crafting, gathering, and building abilities. Currently, Steve can craft basic tools below the Stone material tier (material tiers from low to high: Wood, Stone, Copper, Iron, Silver, Gold, Diamond), use basic tools for resource gathering and self-defense, and build floating modules, ignoring the laws of physics. Activating and deactivating S/M mode costs 2 LP each, with no consumption while the skill is active. In S/M mode, all crafting, gathering, and building actions increase skill proficiency. This skill cannot be leveled up using LP points.