Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo dodged the red threads several times but couldn’t avoid them. The line moved through the air like a snake, naturally seeking its target, seemingly without any need for the woman in red to control it.

“No man I’ve set my sights on has ever gotten away.” As she spoke, a miniature pistol slid into the woman in red’s hand, and she fired at Captain Wang and Player 3973, who were charging at her.

“Bang!” What came out of the gun wasn’t bullets, but colorful confetti. The pieces scattered and instantly expanded, swelling to the size of a palm before bursting. The splattered powder was highly adhesive, coating their protective shields.

“Don’t take off your shields!” Captain Wang shouted, but two players had already done so. Unsurprisingly, the powder was toxic. Just from the act of removing his shield, one player with a wound was rapidly infected, while inhaling the powder caused poisoning in the others.

The remaining team members used cleaning solution on the powder. The woman in red smirked and raised her gun, but before she could pull the trigger, the gadget gun oddly slipped from her grip.

She looked back and saw a wallet on the ground. Her red lips curved into a smile, and she released the red threads in her hand. The flying lines shot out at lightning speed and wrapped around the charging Xu Huo!

In less than a second, however, all the red threads slid off. Breaking free, Xu Huo stared into her eyes and commanded, “Freeze!”

The woman in red, who was about to take a step, found her feet unable to move. She tossed a ring-shaped item at her feet. The second floor’s flooring, along with the chunks of concrete that had collapsed from above, melted into a large hole, taking her with it as she fell!

Xu Huo rushed to the edge of the hole and threw a grenade down, but after the explosion, the woman was nowhere to be seen.

A moment later, he sensed someone moving laterally across the second floor toward the third, so he grabbed the ceiling and vaulted up.“Woo! Woo! Woo!” As soon as he got up, he was faced with layer upon layer of overlapping mirrors. Each mirror reflected his figure—some synchronized with his movements, others moving on their own, even stepping out of the mirror right before his eyes.

“You like playing with mirrors so much? Let me give you a taste of your own game!” Xu Huo stepped forward, grabbed one of the mirrors, and gave it a hard spin.

One mirror, two mirrors, three… As the first mirror began to rotate, more mirrors started spinning on their own. At first, only his figure flickered in the reflections, but as more mirrors joined in, some began to reflect the woman in red.

Their faces twisted and rotated together in the mirrors. Soon, the woman in red replaced Xu Huo entirely. More and more of her figures emerged, and some stepped out of the mirrors, surging toward the original.

Seconds later, all the mirrors vanished. Xu Huo, who had never moved from his starting position, flashed in front of the woman in red and slashed a knife across her neck!

The woman in red, of course, wasn’t about to just take it. She dodged the fatal blow, gracefully landing a few meters away, and smiled at Xu Huo. “Looks like it’s an item that affects mental state. My mirrors have always been invincible—I didn’t expect them to be broken this way.”

“Still, it’s a good learning experience. Your skills are decent, and you use your items well, but your combat instincts are lacking. If you had used that move with your sword earlier, you might have actually killed me.”

“Is that so?” Xu Huo turned around, a faint smile appearing on his face beneath the oxygen supply shield.

The woman in red’s expression shifted. She wiped her neck, and her palm came away stained with black blood.

Poison!

She shot Xu Huo a venomous glare and, instead of continuing the fight, turned and jumped out the window, climbing up the wall toward the upper floors.

Intense gunfire erupted from outside, but it quickly died down. Clearly, the SDF members ambushing outside hadn’t managed to take her out.

“Why didn’t you kill her?” Captain Wang came up from below. “That move of yours should have finished her off.”

Xu Huo put his items away. “I have my reasons for what I do.”

Two more groups of SDF members had already arrived from behind. He glanced downstairs before saying, “For now, the mirror maze shouldn’t reappear. I’m guessing the item sealing the building is tied to that woman too. Since she’s injured, she might change her plans.”

Captain Wang blocked his path. “You want to go alone?”

The only reason Xu Huo had been stalling on the lower floors was to buy time. Now that his goal was achieved, even if Painting Woman hadn’t successfully rescued the child, she should have killed a few of their people. It was time to go up and wrap things up.

Before Captain Wang could react, the man in front of him suddenly vanished. The next moment, his figure appeared at the stairwell entrance, and he said, “Do whatever you think is best.”

Captain Wang was speechless, but Player 3973 called out from below, “Captain! Checked with Group Two—someone stole 3304’s uniform. The one upstairs isn’t an SDF player!”

Captain Wang was stunned. “Then who is he? Besides the players from the safe area, who else can fight like that?”

Players’ items and characteristics were incredibly versatile. Some seemingly insignificant items could affect even high-level players. If the opponent lacked proper defensive items, they would likely fall for it. Of course, it wasn’t a killing move, but rather the clever application of an item.

In many cases, items alone weren’t very lethal. The key to improving a player’s strength was how they combined them. This required not only extensive practice but also a certain talent, because in real combat, you couldn’t just follow a pre-simulated script. The creativity with which an item was used depended entirely on the player.

The way 3304 had just fought the woman in red, using item after item in quick succession, was astonishing. Someone with that kind of skill was among the elite of the elite, usually tasked with protecting the nation’s core figures.

“I’m eighty percent sure that’s Xu Huo!” Player 3973 said excitedly. “I remember that door he used against Double Snake back then. One against ten—there’s no one else it could be.”

Captain Wang’s tense nerves relaxed. “Wasn’t he still at headquarters?”

“He rushed over, didn’t he? The guy they caught is his little brother… even if it’s from his stepmother, they’re still blood-related,” Player 3973 said. “By the time we get up there, he’s probably already killed a few.”

Captain Wang kicked him. “Hurry up. We can’t let him steal all the glory!”

The third group of the SDF regrouped and prepared to head upstairs. Xu Huo had already reached the eighth floor. As he came up, he sensed people moving down from another direction, but there weren’t many, so he didn’t stop.

However, the moment he set foot on the eighth floor, the space behind the stairwell turned gray and hazy. Then, he heard the crying of a child and a woman.

Turning past the elevator hallway, he saw several masked players standing in the open office area of the empty building. Among them was the woman in red from earlier. Kneeling before them were Tongtong and Painting Woman, their eyes covered and mouths gagged.