# Chapter 69: The Fierce Little Girl
Xu Huo kicked away the hand that was about to touch the toy gun, controlling the strings to thread through the buttonhole and snatch the gun into his own hand.
Although a claimed item couldn't be used directly, holding it in his own hand meant others couldn't use it either!
Ma Yu knelt on one knee, knowing the item was lost. If not for the defensive item he was still wearing, he wouldn't have lasted this long. These players were smarter than he'd imagined—fighting alone had been a grave miscalculation!
Just as he was planning to escape, Huang Junjie, who had been fighting another Holy Sword Society player, suddenly crashed through a wall hole!
Ma Yu lunged at Huang Junjie, his bulging, vein-covered arm striking like a massive snake toward his throat!
Huang Junjie, focused on the enemy in front of him, didn't notice the ambush in time. He narrowly dodged the attack, but several bloody scratches appeared on his throat. He swung his bamboo blade to block the opponent's strike while searching for Xu Huo's figure: This long-haired man was his opponent—had he gotten free? Had he failed?
The thought flashed through his mind, and then he saw a shadow quickly dart past him, slamming the pursuing player into the wall!
The two went into an empty room next door. With his view blocked, he couldn't see what happened there, but he immediately heard a "crack," followed by the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground.
Huang Junjie's heart relaxed slightly. Two-on-two had become two-on-one.
Ma Yu had clearly heard it too. He immediately distanced himself from Huang Junjie, grabbed a whistle, and blew hard!
A high-frequency sound beyond normal human hearing range pierced through the entire building. Then Liu Jia's voice came quickly through the earpiece: "The woman on the crane tower is coming down."
Huang Junjie paused. The situation, which had just been turning in their favor, suddenly worsened.
"Kill him first!" Xu Huo rushed past him. Before the words faded, he was already in front of Ma Yu, a dark gleam flashing in his hand.
Seeing the dagger again, Ma Yu sneered, "Ordinary blades are useless against me..."
His unfinished words suddenly changed pitch because the dagger, originally aimed at his abdomen, abruptly shifted upward at the last moment, thrusting toward his chin!
Ma Yu jerked his head back in a narrow escape, but his chin unavoidably took a cut. Then a knee slammed into his abdomen, embedding his entire body into the wall!
The man stuck in the wall spat blood, but Xu Huo didn't release the pressure from his legs, pinning him firmly. Huang Junjie seized Ma Yu's right hand while Xu Huo held down his left—one slash to the throat!
Even with evolution, even wearing defensive items, the human body remained fragile, especially the throat.
As blood sprayed out, Xu Huo had already retreated to the ground. When the game prompt notified him to collect the player's remains, he knew the man was dead.
"Tap!" A crisp clicking sound rang out on the balcony. A woman in high heels landed lightly, flicked her long hair, and took a deep breath. "Such a heavy smell of blood. Looks like that sissy Ma Yu is dead."
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First floor.
From the moment Xu Huo's speech had been cut off and intermittent sounds came from upstairs, Zhou Ning and the others knew the second floor battle was intense.
Hu Wenhu and Tian Yun had retrieved Zhou Xiao. Although he had suffered some physical pain, his life wasn't in danger.
"Sis, I know I was wrong. I won't disobey you again," Zhou Xiao said tearfully. He had been weak since birth, and even after becoming a player, he remained weak. When he left the Initial Examination Train, he had no ticket, no traits, no potions—surviving at all was sheer luck.
Zhou Ning had promised to find him a ticket and forbade him from contacting other players on his own. But he didn't want to live under his sister's protection, so he had gone to trade for a ticket while she was in an instance. He was cheated as soon as he stepped out, losing his potions. If not for that female player named Cao Yan wanting to brainwash him, he probably wouldn't have survived until now.
"We'll talk about this later." Zhou Ning suppressed her anger and said to Hu Wenhu and the others, "As we discussed before, we'll split up."
"Can we release the person inside?" Yan Jiayu, crouching nearby, pointed at the hair cocoon on the ground.
"I'm worried we won't be able to control him if he gets out. He doesn't seem like an ordinary player," Zhou Ning said. Drawing from her experience dealing with Zhao Sheng, she had used four strands of hair to weave a snake, binding it in three layers and stuffing its mouth and nose. If it suffocated to death, that would be even better.
"It doesn't matter." Yan Jiayu swung her stone club, tapping it against her palm. "If you don't mind the mess, I can kill him first."
"Those hairs can't be used again anyway. Do as you please." Zhou Ning's original hair couldn't reach this length or growth rate—that was thanks to the hair growth potion. But its effect only lasted two to three hours. Once the time was up, the hair would automatically break off.
Yan Jiayu nodded. Her seemingly slender and frail arm swung the stone club, viciously striking the lower half of the hair cocoon—where the young master's knees should be. Accompanied by the crunching sound of breaking bones, the cocoon actually caved in, and a strange gurgling sound came from inside!
Zhou Ning was nearly stunned senseless by that blow. The feedback from her hair strands was faint, but when Yan Jiayu struck, it felt like she herself had been hit with a dull blow—her head throbbing with a dull ache!
Seeing Yan Jiayu raise her hand again, Zhou Ning quickly cut off the hair and retreated. The hair snake, now reduced to ordinary strands, lost its binding power. The young master trapped inside struggled to tear open the cocoon, revealing a mouth that roared, "I'll cut you into a thousand—"
Before he could finish, the back of his head cracked with a crisp sound. The blow sent him sprawling face-first to the ground, blood seeping through the hair.
"Is he dead?" Hu Wenhu and the others were all frightened by Yan Jiayu's ferocity. This little girl looked young, thin and small, quite cute in appearance, and spoke straightforwardly—who would have thought she'd be such a ruthless fighter!
"Not yet." Yan Jiayu swung her stone club, walked over, and delivered another blow to the young master's head. Then she said, "Now he's really dead."
She shook her head and sighed, "Dishonest people must be punished. I hope he can repent for his sins after death."
No one knew what to say.
At that moment, faint voices came from a distance. "What the hell is this? The door's completely blocked!"
This building wasn't finished yet, with no doors or windows sealed. The interior was a grid layout. Following Xu Huo's earlier advice, Zhou Ning had used hair to block some of the door and window openings. If the Holy Sword Society sent too many people, they would need to split them up.
Yan Jiayu listened carefully and said, "I'll take care of these two over here."
"I'll go too," Yuan Yao quickly added, then said to the Painting Woman, "Just stay here and don't move."
The Painting Woman obediently nodded.
Then Yan Jiayu and Yuan Yao went to the left side of the first floor. Zhou Ning moved nearby to stall the player coming from behind, while Tian Yun and Hu Wenhu went to find the remaining player.
After they split up, only Zhou Xiao and the Painting Woman remained, guarding the bodies of the severely injured and unconscious Zhao Sheng and the young master.
"Don't be afraid. If someone comes, I'll protect you," Zhou Xiao whispered to the Painting Woman.
The Painting Woman nodded. In the darkness, starting from her shoes and moving upward, she slowly curled like paper being rolled. Within a few seconds, she transformed into a tall woman wearing high heels and a red long dress.