Players, Please Board the Train

”Where are you right now?” Xu Huo immediately asked.

”Let me see...” Wan Tingfang’s voice drifted for a moment before she continued, ”Head toward the Stellar Corporation Hotel.”

She gave him an address and reminded Xu Huo to avoid the badly weathered districts as much as possible.

After ending the call, Xu Huo confirmed with Mr. Dong that the Painting Woman had taken Xiao Yuan back before heading toward the place Wan Tingfang had mentioned, leaving a message for Shi Youzhi along the way.

When he arrived, he found that only Wan Tingfang was still there.

”Director Sanyang went in there.” Wan Tingfang raised her item binoculars to observe the dark space. ”No good, I can’t see a thing.”

Xu Huo said there was nothing he could do about that, then asked, ”What’s the situation at the base?”

Wan Tingfang shrugged. ”Who knows? It’s pitch black and impossible to see anything clearly. Can’t tell who’s fighting who, but I’d bet the people in the base will probably hide in the station.”

”I just checked, and it says the Holy Sword Society attacked quite a few places in District 011.” Xu Huo said. ”This should be the work of senior Holy Sword Society players. I don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish, but if this darkness can kill people, the casualty count is going to be massive.”

”Not necessarily.” Wan Tingfang said. ”Didn’t we walk out of there safe and sound? And I circled around inside a few times. It didn’t seem dangerous at all. It just blocks your sight and hearing.””They’re probably being held back by District 011’s players.” Xu Huo pulled up the news in his contacts. ”Take a look, this was just uploaded. The Holy Sword Society is slaughtering ordinary people on a massive scale.”

Wan Tingfang quickly scrolled through the news. Apart from pages upon pages of insults directed at the Holy Sword Society, there was no other valuable information. She shook her head. ”It could also be other players. There are plenty of people who take advantage of chaos to loot. If you ask me, it’s definitely the Phantom Sound Knights. Didn’t they come here to avenge their comrades? Since they can’t beat District 011’s players, they’re taking their anger out on ordinary people.”

”Do you think the Phantom Sound Knights might be working with the Holy Sword Society?” Xu Huo pressed. ”The two sides seem like they coordinated this.”

Wan Tingfang paused for a moment. ”I’ve never heard of that... Hasn’t the Phantom Sound Knights always operated solo?”

”How long has Director Sanyang been in there?” Xu Huo shifted the topic.

Before Wan Tingfang could answer, she suddenly stared into the distance with wide eyes. ”Look!”

Xu Huo turned around and saw something like ash drifting up from the distant part of the city. The heavily weathered buildings seemed to have completely decayed, fragile as paper, gradually dissolving in the direction of the wind.

”What kind of item is this? Does it work on people?” Wan Tingfang’s voice was tense.

Xu Huo had spent nearly an hour inside the Safe House and didn’t know what had happened in between, so he asked, ”Where did the residents in the city go?”

”They’ve already been evacuated.” Wan Tingfang scanned for somewhere to hide as she spoke. ”Most buildings in District 011 have emergency evacuation devices built in. It only took a few trips to haul everyone out. The corpses you saw on the streets were either people wandering around outside or paupers without registered identities... We need to find somewhere to take cover, fast!”

The metal used in District 011’s buildings wasn’t an ordinary type. Since this force could corrode even metal, it could also potentially damage items. Furthermore, its effect was different from the Life Core. It was highly likely a spacetime-type item.

If it really was a spacetime-type item, this accelerated weathering effect could also work on people.

”Hiding anywhere isn’t going to help.” Xu Huo gauged the distance left and right and the weathering speed ahead, then moved to the left. ”Head right, away from the weathering zone.”

”Flight devices are unusable,” Wan Tingfang added. ”All machinery in the city has been affected.”

Xu Huo landed first and moved toward the left side of the city at maximum speed. Wan Tingfang was slightly faster than him and took the lead.

Just as they were about to escape the weathering zone, two figures burst out of the dark area one after another. The one in front wore a hat and a mask, with a sword-shaped badge pinned to his chest. He should be from the Holy Sword Society. The one behind him was a Black Epaulet. The two clashed right in front of Xu Huo and Wan Tingfang. Suddenly, the masked player tossed out a toy-sized door. The object landed in the middle of the road, and both the Black Epaulet chasing him and Xu Huo’s pair found themselves involuntarily stopping in front of the door!

It was no more than three inches tall, yet none of the three could step over it. An invisible barrier appeared in the air with the little door as its boundary, and even item attacks were rendered ineffective!

”This door is mine to open!” Ran Ying’s voice came from behind, and a plastic key was tossed to the ground. The toy door immediately swung open on its own.

After the door opened, the barrier in the air vanished. Xu Huo accelerated and, within seconds, put himself far beyond the weathering’s possible reach. But when he turned around, he was trapped by the masked player using a transparent sphere.

Also trapped were Ran Ying and Wan Tingfang. All three of them were sealed inside these spheres, their feet isolated from the ground. At the slightest movement, the spheres rolled rapidly as if friction didn’t exist.

The rapidly spinning spheres were hard to control, and whenever they bumped into other objects, their spinning speed increased. Still, cracking this item wasn’t difficult. The moment the sphere started rolling, Xu Huo pulled out the Crimson Sword and split it open with one strike. He grabbed the piano wire to cancel out the inertia, then took advantage of the momentum to fly into the air.

Ran Ying and the others also escaped one after another. But unexpectedly, the masked player had put himself inside a sphere as well and was rolling it at high speed.

”Stop him!” Ran Ying and the other Black Epaulet immediately split to both sides. Just as they were about to use their items, the masked player bounced along with his sphere—not jumped, bounced. The sphere flew into mid-air as if it had hit something, then slammed back down toward the ground, its direction impossible to predict.

Xu Huo couldn’t get far either, because he was also trapped within the sphere’s activity range.

After descending from mid-air, the masked player’s speed had already become extremely fast following several bounces.

”The Grudge of Banana Peel!” The Black Epaulet tossed a paper diagram onto the ground. The paper with a banana drawing automatically chased after the direction where the sphere landed, only for the masked player to avoid it by manipulating his sphere’s direction.

”Share and share alike!” Ran Ying observed the sphere’s movement trajectory, then stood near the edge. When the sphere landed close to her again, she activated her item. The next second, the rebounding sphere was intercepted mid-flight. It was another invisible barrier, but judging from the trajectory, the sphere’s movement range had been split in half from the middle.

With the range reduced, Ran Ying could keep up with the sphere’s speed. After several close approaches, the masked player failed to dodge the banana paper on the ground in time and skidded across the road before slamming into a nearby vehicle.

The other Black Epaulet had been waiting for this opportunity. Placing one hand on the car body, the metal vehicle melted like mud and wrapped around the masked player!