Players, Please Board the Train

The scent of blood filling the air kicked off the brawl. The Burly Man turned and floored the player who had ambushed him with a single punch. The two tangled together, and the first to get caught in the crossfire were the several players nearby.

In a situation where it was nearly impossible to keep their eyes open and they could barely hear anything, even operating items became difficult. The Female Player near the front door was jostled and stumbled. She immediately activated the scattered cloth strips on the floor to attack indiscriminately. The soft cloth strips shot through the carriage like flying arrows, embedding themselves into the tables, chairs, and glass windows.

The glass windows, of course, weren’t that easy to break, but even a small mark left on them was enough to make the others’ hearts pound with fear. So, the Blonde Man tossed out a water sphere. As the sphere rolled forward, those wildly flying cloth-strip arrows were involuntarily drawn into it.

”Who?!” the Female Player roared, but her voice was completely drowned out by the thunder. Raising her hand, she threw out something resembling a hair tie and was about to control it when the Blonde Man darted forward, pressed down her hand, and the two became entangled in a struggle.

No one was guarding the front door anymore. Skinny Monkey, who had been carefully avoiding others, seized this moment to feel his way to the front door and slipped out quietly.

Xu Huo stepped forward, but a player who had been eyeing him for a while took the chance to ambush him from behind. Even though he couldn’t see, he could still sense a force rapidly swelling behind him.

Dodging backward while turning his head, he forced his eyes open to see what was behind him. It was a paper beast, crudely shaped, but a single swipe of its claw could slice a seat clean in half!

The Crimson Sword instantly appeared in his hand. Xu Huo swung it in a slash, cutting the paper beast in half at the waist. However, after being split, it didn’t lose its vitality. Instead, it instantly re-fused, its fake eyes turning to look at him. Simultaneously, the player controlling the paper beast also advanced. With a flick of his hands in the air, his ten fingers danced, and several nearby tables and chairs all flew up, smashing toward Xu Huo!

The carriage was only so big. Despite Xu Huo’s best efforts to dodge, he couldn’t avoid being cornered into a tight spot. Circling around the other players, he was just about to head to the connecting carriage through the front door when, unexpectedly, the player chasing him suddenly stiffened. Immediately after, the tables and chairs crashed to the floor, and the paper beast reverted from a living creature back into a sheet of paper.

He could vaguely make out a bloody hand protruding from the other’s chest and abdomen. In the next second, a flash of lightning illuminated the scene, and two more players fell in pools of blood. Startled, Xu Huo’s first reaction was to yank open the front door and duck outside. The moment the door closed, a pair of blood-red eyes abruptly appeared on the other side of the glass window, staring at him with a monstrous intensity and forcefully pulling the door open!In that split second, Xu Huo aimed the Note Launcher at the door crack and shot two Skin-Burrowing Worms out. The bloody hand wedged by the door immediately withdrew. When another flash of lightning flickered in the distance moments later, those blood-red eyes had already vanished.

Clutching the carriage door tightly, Xu Huo’s mind was anything but calm. That couldn’t possibly have been a player just now. Could it have been a Mutant near the railway tracks?

Before he could ponder further, Skinny Monkey emerged from the carriage ahead, still carrying the Black Leather Suitcase. Seeing Xu Huo gripping the door, he glanced at the commotion inside the carriage, curled his lip, and again tried to knock him out using the same method.

After his Super Evolution, Xu Huo’s perception of his surroundings had greatly improved. Even without hearing or seeing, he could capture Skinny Monkey’s movements. Dodging the attack, he spun around and kicked him out.

Skinny Monkey flew and crashed into the restroom. Xu Huo strode over, picked up the leather suitcase, and immediately received a game prompt:

[This item possesses life signs and cannot be placed in the luggage compartment.]

Just then, the door to the carriage ahead was flung open. The player who had exchanged glances with Xu Huo earlier took in the scene before him and immediately launched a sweeping leg attack!

The opponent was incredibly fast. After blocking and parrying a couple of moves, the suitcase in Xu Huo’s hand was kicked away. The man caught the suitcase first, retreated into the carriage ahead, and clearly had no intention of continuing the entanglement.

Since the door was closed, Xu Huo wasn’t going to go looking for trouble. He stood still by the carriage door.

Skinny Monkey came out of the restroom. Seeing the man standing with his eyes closed before the carriage door, he didn’t dare to act rashly. He just cast a regretful glance toward the carriage ahead, then leaned against the wall outside the restroom to wait.

Two hours wasn’t long, but for players with keen hearing, it was an absolute disaster. For the first hour, they could still fight in a chaotic melee. After casualties began to appear, both stamina and items couldn’t keep up. Coupled with the incessant interference of the thunder, they automatically called a truce midway, quietly waiting for the Thunderstorm Zone to pass.

The thunderstorm arrived fiercely but passed quickly. As the edge of the cloud layer revealed a sliver of daylight, it took less than ten seconds for the train to completely leave the Thunderstorm Zone.

Xu Huo removed his headphones and returned to the carriage. With a sweeping glance at the scene inside, he saw four were dead. The player who had controlled the paper beast still had a bloody hole in his chest and abdomen.

”Who did this? That’s too cruel,” Skinny Monkey said, sidling up as if nothing had happened. But seeing everyone else’s hands were quite clean, he curled his lip. ”Dare to do it but not dare to admit it, huh?”

Right now, everyone else’s heads were still buzzing. They couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. Even if they heard clearly, they wouldn’t care. Whether it was a player from the same carriage who killed, or someone killed and then used cleaning solution to cover their tracks, it didn’t matter. Once on this train, everyone was an enemy, regardless of Black Player or Red Player.

The number of people in Xu Huo’s carriage matched up, and there were no Skin-Burrowing Worm corpses on the floor either. He walked a few steps to the rear door and opened the door to the carriage behind.

”Such a heavy smell of blood…” Skinny Monkey was right behind him, waving a hand to fan away the odor. But upon seeing the carriage floor littered with corpses, his expression changed. He walked in, turned over the piled-up bodies, and felt the neck of one of them.

A large hole was broken in one of the glass windows. All sixteen bodies from this carriage were laid out here. The fresh blood had soaked through the carpet, leaving a damp footprint with every step.

The howling wind outside the window brought a moment of silence to those present. Then the Baby-Faced Man spoke. ”This person is too formidable.”

Players weren’t afraid of killing each other, but slaughtering an entire carriage of players in one go was on a completely different level from them. Daring to kill so many people just while passing through a thunderstorm zone… how many would they kill after lights out?

”Was it a Player-Eater?” the Female Player asked, her face pale.

”Not a Player-Eater,” the Blonde Man said. ”Although almost all of them died from chest punctures, the plucked-out internal organs are still here.”

”Not eating people doesn’t mean they won’t kill,” the Female Player countered. ”Among the players I’ve seen, only Player-Eaters are this brutal.”

”For everyone’s good, maybe we should check Player Numbers,” the Middle-aged Woman suggested, barely maintaining her composure, her eyes shifting among the players.

”Number colors can be concealed,” the Female Player said, somewhat agitated. ”Besides, what does it matter if we find out who the Player-Eater is?”

If that person was among them, a few people would definitely die first when they were exposed.

”It could also be a Mutant that came in from outside,” Xu Huo spoke up at this point.