Players, Please Board the Train

”Shèngnán.” The blond man spoke up, ”How’s the situation on your end?”

The short-haired woman in the projection was exactly the hypnotic player Wang Chaoqing had seen in the skyscraper. Her pupils retained a faint red glow as she nodded somewhat woodenly, ”The small torpedoes have been deployed. Five just detonated.”

”This means the Super Item has reached Harbor City.” The blond man’s expression remained unchanged, ”Can you estimate the direction?”

”In three directions.” The short-haired woman said, ”There’s a high probability they’re decoys.”

”But I just captured a player from Zone 004 who said he saw Laurence Li, not in these three decoy directions.”

She provided the location.

When the blond man heard the name ”Laurence Li,” an exaggerated smile spread across his face, his eyes nearly narrowing into slits. ”Laurence Li, who never rises early without profit, has appeared. Where he is, the good stuff must be there too.”

”Shèngnán, stand by.” He cut off the communication after speaking, then turned and gestured to the tattooed burly man.

The tattooed burly man let out a strange laugh, clapped his hands together, and the next second, an armored vehicle moving far beyond its normal speed smashed through walls, piercing through several barriers before carving out a wide passage through the massive aquarium. Several sports cars waiting on the street then drove in one after another, picking up the group and heading straight toward the southwest direction of Harbor City!

Meanwhile, in a large amusement park in the southwest direction of Harbor City, Nie Xuan quickly used his clothes to bind his heavily bleeding thigh, chugged two bottles of healing potion, then dragged his severely injured body step by step toward the amusement park exit.He was covered in blood, with over twenty wounds on his body—this was the result of his bloody battle against two players from other zones.

When truly facing the enemy, Nie Xuan felt a mix of fury and regret.

He realized all his previous assumptions had been completely wrong.

When the Super Item announcement was issued and he was transferred to Capital City, his first thought had been to organize players for guerrilla warfare to create confusion, then take advantage of the chaos to enter a dungeon.

Since he didn’t actually possess a real Super Item, and Zone 014 had no exceptionally powerful players—unable to either fight foreign players head-on or fake a robbery and murder scenario—escaping Zone 014 was their only option.

The Special Affairs Department’s plan to redirect blame onto foreign players was completely unusable. Achieving ”the holder desperately fighting then escaping into a dungeon” was already the best possible outcome, as it could at least divert some attention in the short term and buy the country some buffer time.

Yet among the seventeen like-minded players he contacted, fifteen died within the first half hour of implementing the plan. The remaining one had fled separately from him, and this was with the Special Affairs Department also deploying over ten ”holders” to scatter and draw fire.

Those foreign players were like sharks smelling blood, appearing from who knows where, not even attempting to interrogate them about the Super Item’s whereabouts—just killing directly!

Watching his companions get slaughtered one after another like chickens and ducks made him understand one fact:

Absolute disparity in strength cannot be compensated for by any clever tactics!

Footsteps approached from behind—deliberately made audible by the other party. He turned around, bringing his thumbs, index, and middle fingers together, gently rubbing them. The black leather covers on his fingers gradually turned magma-red.

A player emerged from the woods, looking at him with vicious eyes. ”You’ve got some skill, actually killing two of my people.”

Nie Xuan said coldly, ”It’s kill or be killed. No need for pointless talk.”

”Ha!” The other laughed, ”You still think you have strength to fight? At best you’ve got a C-grade item. If not for your teammates taking hits for you, you wouldn’t have survived this long.”

As he spoke, five or six figures flashed out from the woods, surrounding him and cutting off all possible escape routes.

Seeing they followed the man’s commands, Nie Xuan sighed deeply. ”Went through all this trouble without attracting a single high-level player from the Phantom Sound Knights, just a bunch of small fry.”

And now he hadn’t even managed to deceive these small fry!

He abandoned his defensive combat stance, straightened his back, scanned the group and said, ”Those you killed were just E-grade players—no items, no potions. You’ve paid a significant cost too, yet will gain nothing from this. What a waste of effort.”

These words struck directly at the players’ concerns. One said, ”Big bro, this kid’s got some nerve looking down on us like this!”

The player speaking with Nie Xuan flushed with anger. ”Quite the tough talker. After dealing with you, we’ll naturally reclaim our losses!”

He swung the long knife in his hand, leaping forward to slash at Nie Xuan. The latter had no strength left to fight back and was about to use his train ticket to escape when suddenly a gigantic poster descended from the sky, blocking the knife for him!

Yet among the seventeen like-minded players he contacted, fifteen died within the first half hour of implementing the plan. The remaining one had fled separately from him, and this was with the Special Affairs Department also deploying over ten ”holders” to disperse and draw fire.

The surrounding players, thinking this was Nie Xuan’s item, exchanged glances and shouted, ”Kill him!”

All six simultaneously attacked Nie Xuan, but at that moment, countless posters suddenly flew in from all directions, swirling around them like snowflakes. Taking advantage of the players’ distraction, the posters stuck to their faces or wrapped around their limbs, dragging them away!

Nie Xuan looked around in shocked confusion but found no trace of anyone else. Without time to ponder who was helping him, he quickly fled the scene while the players were still entangled.

Though the posters could temporarily disrupt vision, they were after all just paper. The players quickly realized this and, understanding the paper posed no lethal threat, chased after Nie Xuan.

Catching up to Nie Xuan required minimal effort, but as they approached, the torn posters flew after them too, persistently trying to enter their mouths, ear canals, and eyes. One player, extremely annoyed, angrily shouted, ”Goddammit, if you’ve got guts, try cutting me with paper!”

Instantly, all the flipping paper pieces in the air froze, hovering motionless as if time had stopped. Only three pieces with the characters ”good”, ”master”, and ”idea” flew forward to form the phrase: ”Good idea”.

”Fuck me...!” Before the player’s curse finished, all the paper pieces gained a gleaming surface, then descended like a storm of blades!

From a distance, these flying paper pieces resembled more of a washing machine drum, enveloping several people in continuous attacks. As they moved, the paper followed. The more the players cut the paper, the more blades appeared!

Watching this scene, a thought flashed through Nie Xuan’s mind.

”This is the Super Item.”

The words didn’t come from him. Startled, he turned to see a man in a wheelchair appearing three meters away from him!