Players, Please Board the Train

”This doesn’t look like a normal human face,” Long Aotian said, ”face painted red, a wax figure?”

”How would there be wax figures in the Corpse Hotel?”

”Maybe it ran out from the Wax Figure Hall.” Xu Huo wasn’t sure whether the wax figure on the screen was the same one that had run out of the Wax Figure Hall yesterday.

”The wax figures are alive,” Xiao Ling said, ”the plastic mannequins we saw before didn’t have this much attacking power. They can drag a living person away.”

”Should we go find them?” Long Aotian asked.

Xiao Ling answered him with silence.

At that moment the television in the living room turned on by itself and a news broadcast played:

”Citizens please note, an unprecedented large-scale prison break occurred at Baiyun Prison near Museum City. Multiple prisoners remain at large. According to police sources, three serial killers have fled toward the vicinity of Museum City. Citizens should lock doors and windows and avoid going out at night.”

The news replayed several times, and Xu Huo snapped photos of the three wanted criminals.

”There can’t really be three wanted criminals like that,” Long Aotian said, ”the venue just made up an excuse to kill people. Those three faces are obviously pieced together.”No sooner had he finished speaking than the room’s lights flickered, and a red warning icon appeared on the TV screen: ”Alert! Museum City electrical system damaged! Alert! Museum City electrical system damaged! Alert! Museum City electrical system damaged!”

After three warnings, the television and the lights went out together. The hotel, and indeed the whole Museum City, plunged into darkness.

”This program wasn’t on the last two nights.” Xu Huo glanced toward the cemetery and pointed with his chin, ”Did you see this two nights ago?”

Xiao Ling produced a binoculars item, ”Something crawled out from under the graves?”

”Let me see, let me see!” Long Aotian squeezed over and borrowed her item, ”Holy crap! That’s intense!”

The Beheaded Cemetery now looked like a large resurrection show. Skeletons from graves that were dug up and poorly refilled crawled out directly, and some were banging on coffins beneath, the sounds carrying unusually far across the empty grounds.

”Ah...!!!” A shrill scream, like something from a TV drama, came from outside, immediately followed by pleading and wailing. It sounded as though people were running wildly through the hotel.

You didn’t need to be told to know the dungeon’s difficulty had increased. Someone crazily pounded on their door seeking help. The three in the room ignored it. Xiao Ling and Long Aotian stared—one at the door, one at the window—while Xu Huo kept his eyes on the cemetery.

Over ten skeletons had already crawled out; they called comrades over, helped dig up more skeletons, then set off toward the center of Museum City.

Xu Huo raised an eyebrow, planning to track them in real time, when the noise outside drew the players who were hunting them. The lead player burst through the door and made a finger-frame gesture at the three of them: ”Say cheese!”

That froze Xiao Ling and Long Aotian mid-forward lean, while two players following the leader instantly teleported to stand before them, one on each side, slashing at their throats and chests!

”It can’t pierce a paper-thin window!”

”Rowing against the current, no progress but regression!”

Xiao Ling and Long Aotian used items in succession. The knife aimed at the former was blocked by a paper-like membrane, and Long Aotian slid a meter to the side to avoid the strike. Both evaded successfully, and the leader’s trait time expired.

But before they could create distance, the player on the left tossed a contract-like sheet onto the ground: ”Shared-rent rules!”

Black lines suddenly appeared on the floor, dividing the entire room into six sections. The six people standing in the room each occupied one box.

Long Aotian tried to move outside, but his feet couldn’t step out. Xiao Ling had the exact same problem. Before they could react, the three coordinated players opposite them had already started moving!

At that moment Xu Huo, standing behind them, took out a bottle of potion and scattered it into the air, shouting, ”Careful, it’s poisonous!”

The three players reflexively dodged aside. Before they could analyze what it was, one of them was kicked against the wall by Xu Huo, who had suddenly burst out.

”How is this possible?” The player who used the contract item couldn’t hide his surprise at seeing Xu Huo step out of his boxed area. The player who had been kicked up was standing back up, and seeing Xu Huo heading straight at him, instinctively tried to back away, but after two steps he found his back pressed to the wall, and the door three meters away had vanished!

”He’s skilled in illusion!” the lead player recognized the trick. ”Keep retreating—your back is the door!”

That player did try to retreat, but neither he nor his items could open a door. Helpless, he had to return into the room to rescue another teammate, while the lead player intercepted Xu Huo.

The sound of a lighter snapping open and closed kept echoing in the room as Xu Huo repeatedly set fire toward the opposing players.

Even if a Protective Suit might not catch fire easily, nobody wants to be burned. The lead player used speed to dodge the flames. After several attempts he remained unscorched, while the room’s furnishings burned in large patches.

Throughout, the lead player looked for opportunities to close in, but Xu Huo was no slowpoke either. The two kept their distance at about three meters, and with his own speed Xu Huo could dodge the leader’s items as well.

Soon the room became unsuitable for fighting—first because of the flames, and second because both sides needed to avoid each other’s items—so the battlefield shifted into the corridor.

That room had already entered Xu Huo’s Mental World when the leader broke in. Now he opened a portal to go out, and the Mental World’s range expanded accordingly.

But the instant he stepped into the corridor, Xu Huo immediately sensed something wrong with the hotel.

Outside was too dark, a darkness like ink that couldn’t be stirred. The distance his eyes could see shrank drastically—already abnormal. Under normal circumstances his night vision would allow him to see nearly as well as if there were light, but now stepping out felt like treading straight into the Abyss.

”Chisel a wall and borrow light!” the lead player slapped the wall, and thumb-sized holes appeared in sequence along the wall from him to Xu Huo, faint light issuing from them, precisely illuminating the corridor.

It wasn’t that light actually came through; luminous material had been embedded inside.

The other players from that room hadn’t come out yet. Of the ones in front of him, the person least affected by the Mental World caught Xu Huo’s attention for a moment, and Xu Huo said, ”Does your hand hurt?”

The lead player’s eyes didn’t move, but his hand trembled slightly. Then a small black spot appeared on the back of his hand.

He hadn’t come into contact with the potion earlier, but at Xu Huo’s remark, he thought perhaps his hand had been targeted.