Chapter 1203: Black Side Faction
The female player running at the front bore the brunt of the impact. Even though she used a defense item to block the force, she was still knocked back more than ten meters, landing behind Xu Huo and Da Hu, who were moving slower.
"Is this the little surprise?" Da Hu dodged an attack from a mutant plant as he spoke. "This is way too dense. Can any random wall spawn something this big?"
"What's the significance of the first card?" Xu Huo asked, watching the vine branches lashing toward them. "Can it be triggered anywhere?"
"The first card is naturally concentrated near the entrance," Da Hu said. "What if someone else takes a good card?"
The so-called good cards were tied to rules five and six of the game.
Twelve flower cards could allow a player to enter the nearest correct passage, effectively selecting the right path and skipping the initial phase of trial and error.
Rules five and six stood together, hinting that other number cards might also have effects similar to flower cards that could help players clear the instance.
So the sooner you grabbed a card, the higher the chance of getting a good one.
As Da Hu spoke, he simply touched the passage wall beside him. A giant number "17" appeared—Black Side Faction.
In the passage they were currently in, there were three walls they could reach. One was triggered by Da Hu. The wall visible around the corner ahead was triggered by the first player who had gone ahead. That player had also triggered another maze wall on the opposite side of the passage, spawning a mutant plant. So Xu Huo and the remaining two players could only trigger their first cards after passing the first turn.
The other male player used an item to slice the mutant plant into several pieces and smoothly entered the next passage.
Xu Huo and the other two followed closely, but the next passage wasn't long—only about twenty meters. By the time they entered, the male player's figure had already disappeared around the next corner. Neither he nor Player "10" had touched the other maze wall in this passage.
Xu Huo and the others no longer targeted the remaining maze wall either. When they entered the next long passage, the male player ahead had already touched a maze wall. But he was unlucky—what appeared wasn't a card, but a living wall!
The entire maze wall came to life. The branches and vines that had been pressed together like mud and stone turned into countless tentacles, shooting straight toward the opposite wall at incredible speed. Xu Huo and the others were a step slower and could retreat from the passage, but in the blink of an eye, the entire passage ahead was filled with plants, as if the two maze walls had merged together.
At that moment, the plants on both maze walls were pulsating, like living creatures. It was both shocking and physically unsettling.
The plant activity lasted ten seconds before dispersing, and the player was nowhere to be seen.
"Is he dead?" Da Hu asked.
"Not dead," Xu Huo said. When the maze wall first came to life, he had already reached the edge of the passage's other end. Escaping wasn't difficult.
Just then, a light flashed from around the corner of the passage. Both Da Hu and the female player's expressions darkened. The former said, "Too bad. I didn't see what card he got!"
It was a number card—21, White Side Faction.
Xu Huo didn't say it out loud but instead asked, "Can everyone see each other's cards?"
"Only people who start from the same point can see each other's cards," the female player interjected. "After all five of us who set out together trigger our first cards, any cards triggered later or obtained by killing won't show their face."
"So each player can know at most less than ten cards," Xu Huo said. "The maze starting points must be far apart from each other. At least, when other starting points trigger their first cards, other starting points can't see them."
The female player nodded. "That was the rule for D-rank instances before. I don't know if it's still the same now."
"It definitely hasn't changed," Da Hu said confidently. "The rules are already twisted enough. If they changed, who could still clear the instance?"
"Hard to say," the female player frowned. "Haven't you noticed there are more traps on the maze walls? In the past, at the starting point, there usually weren't this many trap walls. We've only passed three passages, and two of them had traps."
"Let's hurry. We still haven't gotten our first cards," Xu Huo said.
The three continued forward, but this time they slowed down. First, catching up to the person ahead was likely difficult since a fork had appeared. Second, moving slower meant the people ahead couldn't set traps for them.
After two more passages, both Xu Huo and the female player triggered their first cards. Both were number cards. Xu Huo got Black Card 1, and the female player got Black Card 5.
"Great! We're all on the same faction!" Da Hu laughed, then said to the female player, "Since we're walking together, we should at least know each other's names."
"Lin Qian," the female player said with a distant expression.
Xu Huo and Da Hu also introduced themselves, and then the three traveled together.
After White Card 10 and White Card 21 left, they didn't encounter anyone else on this initial stretch. Instead, they hit dead ends twice and had to turn back.
"The game rules seem simple on the surface, but winning smoothly isn't that easy," Lin Qian said. "Although the instance only requires reaching the end, everyone is here for the maze's extra rewards. Those who can reach the end definitely want to win."
"But the players' factions aren't completely fixed. Maybe soon we'll have to randomly change factions."
The rules were clear: if one side's number was less than two-thirds of the other side's number, then some players' factions would randomly change. For example, if the Black Side lost no one but the White Side dropped below 18, then the Black Side would trigger a random faction change. Based on a minimum difference of ten, five players from the Black Side would randomly switch to the White Side to balance the numbers.
"Triggering the second rule isn't actually easy," Xu Huo said. "Even if one side loses no one at all, the other side has to lose a third before a faction change occurs. Under normal circumstances, both sides' numbers should decrease slowly, making the probability of reaching a one-third difference very low."
To clear the instance quickly, players would definitely rush to grab cards. Grabbing cards inevitably led to deaths. At least for a long time, random faction changes wouldn't occur.
"I don't think we need to overthink this," Da Hu said. "Even if you don't worry about it, the player count will eventually drop. By then, no matter which faction, as long as you have more people than the other side, it's fine."
He grinned. "Let's think about how to get more cards."
Xu Huo nodded in agreement.
"Currently, there are two ways to obtain playing cards."
"One: by triggering maze walls."
"Two: by killing other players."
"Besides providing clearance support, playing cards can also be used to access safe passages on maze walls of the corresponding suit."
"Theoretically, the more cards you get, the safer the clearance route and the shorter the clearance time."
A bit stuck on writing, only one chapter today. Everyone rest early.
(Chapter End)