Players, Please Board the Train

At that moment, a shadow suddenly split off from Number 18’s body. It looked like two identical people, one of them holding off Shajia while the other stepped into the air and followed the spiral staircase up toward him.

Simultaneously, a burning hand reached out from the air ahead. Just a single palm, its owner standing more than ten meters away, right arm still in its extended position, but everything below the wrist had vanished into thin air. It looked as though his arm and palm were separated, yet connected through a piercing of space.

Xu Huo waved his hand, and the staircase beneath his feet split in two. As he stepped across with Xiaoxiao to leave, the other half of the staircase also slammed into Number 18. Only Gan Yi’s hand followed them like a shadow.

A hand that seemed both real and unreal, normal attacks apparently couldn’t hit it. But this time it wasn’t like back at the Rose Castle. Beyond the fluctuation of air currents, Xu Huo clearly captured something like a crack passage within the space. He didn’t go for the hand directly either. Instead, borrowing the spatial distortion Gan Yi had created, he thrust his hand in from the side and grabbed him!

Gan Yi, from far away, paled instantly, immediately trying to withdraw his hand. But Xu Huo smiled faintly at him and snapped his ring finger and pinky!

Gan Yi’s face contorted in pain as he forcibly retracted his hand from the space. Looking around, he saw that more than ten spiral staircases had risen in succession. He hurriedly retreated, only to see Zhuang Mengtian stuck between two staircases, crying for help.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he kept backing away.

On the other side, Number 18 and Number 27 were also caught up by Shajia and You Si. The rotating staircases had invisibly opened up the distance between them.

”Illusion!” Number 18 shouted. But the next second, Xu Huo flashed through space and appeared before him.

Their gazes met, and Number 18’s pupils contracted. He immediately activated a defensive item, but a second later he was still struck by the ”Eye of the Dead”!

Number 18 was sent flying more than ten meters back. Though he landed without injury, his defensive item had shattered.

Roughly one against three, and Xu Huo still hadn’t fallen behind. If they kept fighting, it would turn into a life-or-death struggle. Number 18 and Gan Yi were both already prepared for that, but Xu Huo stopped. He turned in place, made only a single stepping motion, and crossed more than ten meters of distance back to Xiaoxiao’s side. With another wave, he used the staircases to separate Number 27 and You Si from their grappling and force them apart.

”Spatial Super Evolution, Mental Super Evolution. Are you really a D-level player?” Number 18 asked doubtfully. ”Even high-level players entering a low-level dungeon aren’t allowed to damage the dungeon.”

”That’s not something you need to worry about.” Xu Huo shot him a glance, then looked over at Zhuang Mengtian, who was down on the ground digging around for her severed hand.

The person bending over froze. After retrieving her hand, she collected even that wristwatch of hers as well.

Xu Huo nodded in satisfaction, then said, ”No need to hurt the mood by fighting. If there’s any grudge, why not wait until after I finish this task?”

Gan Yi and the others all looked grim. Players could be fast, but they couldn’t be utterly impossible to track. Yet just now, when Xu Huo was moving about, it seemed he had vanished from the air for a very brief moment!

Of course it wasn’t a true disappearance. He had used spatial power. Others without spatial abilities simply couldn’t perceive it.

Not to mention that he had also undergone super evolution in the mental direction. Judging by the earlier range and force, given enough time, locking down several players of the same level would be no problem at all.

When Gan Yi first entered the botanical garden, he had discovered something unusual inside. So after joining forces with Zhuang Mengtian, he lent her a small accessory. The purpose was also to trap Xu Huo. Whether it could actually trap him was one thing, but probing his limits was a trivial trick. The result was that Gan Yi never expected him to come out so quickly. And during their clash in District 011, Xu Huo had even fled to the station to avoid his attacks. If Xu Huo had already possessed spatial power at that time, he would have been fully capable of grabbing Gan Yi instead of dodging away.

Gan Yi’s expression warped slightly, a turbulence of something like regret and envy churning within him.

Four players striking at once had yielded not a shred of advantage. Naturally, the other players could have no objections to Xu Huo’s words.

Peace was restored on the plaza.

Xu Huo brought Xiaoxiao back before the large screen. He gave her a Protective Suit. After she put it on, he handed her an Invisibility Cloak along with a bottle of venom and a short sword item. He reassured her, ”I won’t just watch you die, don’t worry.”

Xiaoxiao clutched the things tightly and promised, ”I will definitely choose the yellow ball!”

”A spectacular fight, though unfortunately the two sides’ strength wasn’t equal. A touching friendship. Who knows if there will be betrayal again,” the Host remarked.

The two of them sank into the water. Once they were stable, they touched the yellow balls one after another. The instant the glass door opened, Xu Huo arrived outside. When his figure stopped, nearly half the piranhas in the glass case opposite had been released. This time he didn’t use venom. Instead, he faced the battle head-on.

The other giant fish were manageable, but the giant-toothed octopus was troublesome. Its body was too big, it had too many legs, sprawled out over a great area, and avoiding those legs to move around made things inconvenient.

Xu Huo gradually slowed his pace.

On the other side, after choosing the yellow ball, Xiaoxiao put on the Invisibility Cloak and shrank into a corner. She was lucky, a single man-eating shark was sent in. In a shrinking space, the shark actually lost some of its agility. It couldn’t bite into the corners. Once the venom spread, it desperately retreated to the back.

But as the man-eating shark’s tail swung back and forth, the venom spread outward in all directions, also poisoning the two peach-heart octopuses that came swimming after.

The black venom floating like smoke in the water made the other piranhas give it a wide berth.

Before long, Xiaoxiao swam out, striving to push the current toward Xu Huo’s side. From her perspective, Xu Huo was already wrapped up by octopus legs. The little bit she was doing simply wasn’t enough to bring over sufficient venom.

Seeing the octopus legs stacking thicker and thicker, she abruptly flung off the Invisibility Cloak. She stabbed a short sword into one octopus leg and shouted, ”Come eat me then!”

The short sword only pierced through a single layer of skin. Xiaoxiao was bounced back and slammed into the large screen. She floated there in place for two seconds, then gripped the sword with both hands and went in again.

”There aren’t many good people in this world to begin with. For every one you eat, there’s one less!”

Several octopus legs swam up from below and coiled around her body. Squeezing hard, Xiaoxiao coughed violently, the short sword knocked from her grip. She clawed desperately at the octopus legs, strength quickly leaving her.

【Ding! Congratulations, player Passerby, on successfully clearing the dungeon ”Friendship Lasts Forever.” Because in this dungeon you obtained a pure friendship willing to sacrifice its life for you, and what is especially precious is that it came from the weak, you have received a hidden-tier rating above the S super rating: Double S Rating.】

【Previously, you accumulated two S-level ratings and two A-level ratings. Merged with this dungeon, you may rise from D-level player to C-level player.】

【Please continue your efforts, player Passerby.】

A ghostly arc of light severed the octopus legs. Along with the falling severed limbs, the giant-toothed octopus and the nearby giant piranhas all sank into the depths. Xu Huo pulled the short sword up and carried Xiaoxiao back to the surface.