Chapter 1016: You're Just Unlucky
Xu Huo watched the players who followed his suggestion and thought the effect of the "Narrator's Charm" trait was quite impressive. Even the lip-piercing player and his group, who had intended to reduce the number of competitors, could be persuaded. He had only used a very simple reason—under normal circumstances, such an unconvincing argument wouldn't be enough to make over a dozen players back down. It was surprisingly simple, even without leaving a trace.
But since everyone guessed that the small slips of paper would appear at irregular intervals, the next step was naturally to search room by room.
This time, everyone moved together, ensuring that each person was under the watch of at least two pairs of eyes. However, unexpectedly, they searched from the first floor to the fifth floor without finding anything.
"Could it be that the small slips only appear when a player is alone?" said the player Xu Huo had seen reading an old magazine when he arrived. "If everyone stays together and no slips appear, then no one can clear the instance, right?"
"How could that be?" Xu Huo smiled. "Everyone has to go back to their rooms at night. What if the slips are precisely delivered to a player's room?"
The man fell silent.
Since they couldn't find the slips, the players naturally wouldn't stay together any longer. After all, the slips might appear in their own rooms, so they might as well rely on luck.
Xu Huo also went downstairs. Although he wasn't a ticket player, he still had to follow the instance rules once inside. Additionally, he could become one of the targets for other players.
"We were just eating together, who would have thought someone would die so quickly?" Chi Minghong sighed and then added, "But those who got the slips are really cowardly, only daring to pick on the weak."
Xu Huo turned to look at her. "That's not necessarily true."
"What did you notice?" Chi Minghong became interested.
"Wasn't that female player who just died testing you when she was cooking?" Xu Huo said.
"Testing me?" Chi Minghong recalled. "She only mentioned two people. Do you mean she was the one who got the slip and was choosing a target between those two?"
"Not necessarily," Xu Huo said. "She came after you, right?"
Chi Minghong nodded. "There were only four people when I arrived."
"The local zone player, the one with lip piercings, the male player with spots on his face who was talking to you just now, and the female player who died last night."
The male player with spots was the one Xu Huo had seen flipping through an old magazine.
"When she chatted, she only talked to you. It was clear she thought only you had the information she wanted to find out," Xu Huo said. "Players don't know each other. She fabricated the news that two players were a couple, spoke very vaguely, and only asked about those who arrived before you—also those who arrived before her..."
"She was confirming the order in which the players arrived at the villa!" Chi Minghong reacted quickly. "She only didn't know about those who came before her; she knew all the ones after."
"But what's the use of finding that out?"
"It might be related to the content on the slips," Xu Huo speculated. "Perhaps the slips are a death list, and the order follows the sequence of players entering the villa."
"Then the one who killed her must be among the three players who arrived before me?" Chi Minghong paused, then said, "That's not right either. If the killings follow the order, the first to die shouldn't have been the female player last night. When I arrived, she was coming down from upstairs, later than the other three."
"There might be other possibilities, but at least it's certain that the content of the slips is related to the order of player entry," Xu Huo said. Of course, there was something he didn't mention—the death of the long-haired female player was different from the one last night. If the killer was the one who got the slip, the victim should have been arranged as a "sacrifice" after death, but the sacrifice scene was faked.
The player wearing the hat wasn't her killer, but whether he was the first to act last night was hard to say.
Of course, it could also be a simple attempt to muddy the waters.
"Following the order is fine too." Chi Minghong twisted her fingers. "At least I'm at the front. Waiting around knowing nothing is too boring."
"Don't worry, everyone will get their turn at least once—either as the killer or the killed." Xu Huo smiled faintly. "What's the rush?"
But he didn't expect things to happen so quickly. He had only been back in his room for half an hour when someone threw an item in through the outer window. Seeing the ball that landed on the floor and sprayed out an unknown gas, he put on a gas mask, moved to the window, and directly dragged the person climbing in into the room!
Both sides had used silencing items, so no sound was made when the person entered. The attacker had come prepared and naturally anticipated the possibility of the knockout gas failing. With a raise of his hand, a cylindrical item wrapped around his arm and extended toward Xu Huo's arm.
Using "Magic Escape" to shed the item, and then blocking two attacks with "Inviolable Domain," Xu Huo passed through space to appear behind the attacker. He grabbed the opponent's raised right hand and twisted it until it broke. Hearing a scream, he quickly withdrew and stepped back, maintaining a safe distance before pulling out "Forced Levitation."
The opposing player cradled his injured right hand and scattered a handful of blades into the air with his left. Under the enhancement of his trait, these blades swirled around Xu Huo like a storm. The duration of "Inviolable Domain" was three seconds, and reactivating it would inevitably leave a gap. So Xu Huo used "Three Hundred and Sixty Defenses" as a supplement while simultaneously using "Divine Slap" to strike the opponent who was repositioning!
The opponent used an item to deflect the force but still retreated three or four meters. Seeming to realize Xu Huo's difficulty, he swung a chain with one hand. "Hell Cage!"
As the words fell, dozens of chains materialized in the room out of nowhere, rising from the floor, slanting upward, and connecting to the ceiling. They quickly sealed off Xu Huo's movement space and carried a strange force that made his limbs involuntarily yield to the chains' entanglement.
Xu Huo's eyes darkened, but he chose not to destroy the item. After confirming that "Magic Escape" was useless, he only used "Inviolable Domain" to protect his body, allowing the opponent to attack.
The opposing player—the man who had been rummaging through the living room but had barely spoken—realized that even after restraining Xu Huo, he couldn't break through his defense, and began to retreat.
But at that moment, Xu Huo spoke. "Don't worry. No third person will know what happened here."
The male player's brows furrowed. He turned and ran toward the window, but the previously unobstructed window seemed to be sealed by an invisible wall. The rebound sent him stumbling back!
Realizing the window was impassable, he turned and ran for the door. But when he opened it, the door still led to the same room—and there was still a trapped Xu Huo inside!
"What's going on..." He looked back and forth in shock, then, refusing to believe it, rushed into the next room. Opening the door, it was the same room again!
"This is an illusion!" The male player gritted his teeth and attacked every corner of the room with his items, but the room seemed like an indestructible space. Not only could he not escape, he couldn't even leave a scratch on the walls.
"Playing the fool to catch the tiger—falling into your trap is just my bad luck!"