Chapter 1037: Tomorrow's Venue Tragedy
Xu Huo turned his head back. "Isn't going all out the way to respect an opponent?"
This round still looked like the suit-wearing man would lose. Judging by his overflowing confidence, he probably didn't lose often. When friends played together, they might not go easy, but they wouldn't deliberately set traps for each other. So when faced with a trap, his proud skills might be limited, and his expression turned somewhat ugly—whether because he was about to lose to a newcomer and couldn't save face, or because he realized his friends had been holding back all along, causing him embarrassment.
After two more rounds, the suit-wearing man conceded outright and even took out the prop he had lost to hand to Xu Huo, saying amiably, "I admit defeat willingly. I never knew billiards could be played like this."
"My surname is Wei, Wei Chengzhang. This is your first time in District 002. How about we become friends?"
Xu Huo used the name Xu Zhi as usual and asked him and Wei Yu, "Are you brothers?"
"Cousins." Wei Chengzhang introduced the others to him. Wei Yu was his cousin. The player with a mole on the end of his eyebrow had come with someone called Young Master Hong. Only one went by the codename Lao Qi, and the mixed-race player He Ji was friends with Wei Yu.
Among them, only Lao Qi was a B-rank player, but both Lao Qi and Wei Yu were Super Evolvers.
Just from the personnel allocation, either this Wei family wasn't as powerful as the Dong family, or Wei Chengzhang and Young Master Hong weren't core family members. Take Dong Jingxuan, for example—though he basically had nothing to do with the family's core business, his father was an important member, so traveling far came with a standard ten-person entourage.
However, the fact that they were downstairs rather than at Tomorrow's Venue was quite telling.
After mutual introductions, Wei Chengzhang invited Xu Huo to play other games, but at that moment, Dong Jingxuan contacted him. Knowing he hadn't left District 002, he sounded relieved. "I thought you'd run off. Those two came back empty-handed, and Dong Qifeng's face was pretty sour."
"I'm still in the building." Xu Huo said succinctly, "Playing billiards with someone."
"Playing without calling me? That's not very nice of you!" Dong Jingxuan shouted.
"Isn't this a good chance to watch the show?" Xu Huo chuckled, then added, "If you're free, you can come down and play with me."
Dong Jingxuan, probably genuinely bored, immediately asked for the location and rushed down in a flurry, followed by Brother Lei and four other players.
Xu Huo had changed his face, so he raised his hand and called out to him.
Dong Jingxuan charged in headfirst, but Brother Lei stopped him. "Young Master Xuan, verify his identity first."
Xu Huo tossed the "Small Tunnel" over. Brother Lei caught it before handing it to Dong Jingxuan.
Dong Jingxuan confirmed it was the little item won from Dong Qifeng and stepped forward with a smile. "How's the score?"
Wei Chengzhang and Young Master Hong clearly knew Dong Jingxuan. They exchanged glances before coming over to greet him.
Dong Jingxuan might not be qualified as a family heir, but he had the basic common sense of a scion from a prestigious family. He recognized these two, though from his expression, they weren't on the same side. After greeting them, he asked Xu Huo, "How did you end up playing together?"
Xu Huo moved the B-rank prop in his hand. "There's a bet."
Dong Jingxuan grinned. "I'm not great at billiards, but I can up the stakes. I'll cover Mr. Xu's bets too!"
Wei Chengzhang and the others were somewhat surprised. Wei Chengzhang said, "Young Master Xuan's friend has excellent skills. We all lost."
Dong Jingxuan asked Xu Huo if he'd played before while pulling out bets, but he didn't notice that after greeting Wei Chengzhang and the others, several players on this floor were subtly moving closer.
Brother Lei noticed first, so he and the other four players who came with him instinctively formed a protective circle around Dong Jingxuan. Then Wei Yu, Lao Qi, and He Ji spread out to the periphery of Wei Chengzhang and Young Master Hong, shielding them.
The change came suddenly. Before Dong Jingxuan could place the prop on the table, all the lights in the hall went out. The few emergency lamps were shattered in the first instant. Swift sounds of combat erupted from different places. Someone immediately used a lighting prop, but the light only flickered for a moment before being extinguished again—in that brief flash, Young Master Hong, who had been standing behind Xu Huo and to the side of Dong Jingxuan, fell to the ground, decapitated!
Of course, from the moment the lights went out to the first flash of light, more than one person died. But most of the dead seemed to be the scions from Snow City. The bystanders in between and the players tasked with protecting them suffered few losses!
Someone immediately realized this was a targeted assassination and shouted, "Get out now!"
"We're leaving too!" Brother Lei turned to grab Dong Jingxuan, but Dong Jingxuan, who understood that Young Master Hong had died because he was standing right in front of him, immediately asked Xu Huo, who had just pulled him aside, "Can we get out?"
"We can't." Xu Huo said quickly. "Head for the corner."
He turned and moved. Dong Jingxuan, seeing how certain he was, hesitated for a moment before following—after all, their position was closer to the corner, and the door was still dozens of meters away. Even if they had to break through a wall, reaching the edge first and then acting wouldn't be too late!
In a crisis, Brother Lei certainly wouldn't let him act freely. He was about to use a prop to pull him over when he suddenly sensed unusual movement from the ceiling. He immediately called his companions to dodge toward the edge of the room while accelerating to drag Dong Jingxuan along!
As they moved to the wall, the floor of Tomorrow's Venue above suddenly collapsed. Heavy, massive metal panels, combined with the weight of the people above, buried the nearby indoor entertainment venue in the blink of an eye. Many were killed instantly upon being hit. Those slightly luckier got wedged in the gaps between metal tables and chairs, but that wouldn't last long either, because people from upstairs kept tumbling down. So many players couldn't all stay airborne; a considerable number chose to land by borrowing force or even use the lower floor as a springboard to return to Tomorrow's Venue... This led to some of those trapped in the gaps being trampled to death or crushed by building debris.
Of course, aside from the few who had reached the door first or happened to be in the collapse's dead zones, almost everyone in the center of the room or running toward the door was killed instantly, including some players.
Naturally, some quick reactors entered the game or used props to block the damage, but compared to the dead, their numbers were few.
However, this gruesome scene was quickly buried. As players from Tomorrow's Venue descended, a new round of slaughter began.
"No loud voices!" someone shouted from a corner. The commands that had been filling the room in conjunction with prop use abruptly ceased. This rendered some props unusable, and several people wearing the same Snow City player uniforms suddenly turned traitor, beginning to butcher their own companions!
(Chapter End)