Chapter 1223: "Well" Shaped Lines
The few people nearby were all stunned, instinctively wanting to distance themselves from the bearded man who had already turned into a corpse. But at that moment, Xu Huo warned, "Don't move!"
Under normal circumstances, people form certain conditioned reflexes to others' words. For example, when someone shouts "Don't move," many people will instinctively pause their actions—this can also become a point to exploit in games where life and death are at stake. If someone yells "Incoming projectile!" at you, whether or not the projectile is real, you will instinctively be on guard or dodge.
Of course, there are also those who excel in this regard, possessing a high degree of self-judgment unaffected by habit or common sense. Therefore, when Xu Huo shouted, the big-bellied man, who was not disturbed by his words, did not pause at all. But just as he stood up and stepped back, a string of blood beads burst from his waist and abdomen, and then he was cut in half without even realizing it!
Mu Yan and the glasses-wearing man, who were also preparing to retreat but had been reflexively stopped by Xu Huo's shout, froze in place after reacting to this scene. Then they both looked at the person still sitting motionless on the ground.
"What's going on?" Mu Yan tilted her head slightly, not daring to move too much. "I didn't feel anything at all!"
Xu Huo's face darkened. He had only realized when the bearded man died that someone had already tampered with their surroundings. If he hadn't been paying attention, he wouldn't have noticed, but once he focused, he discovered four silk threads around him, two horizontal and two vertical, forming a "well" shape that trapped him in the middle. The bearded man had been unlucky—he happened to be just outside one of the lines, and when he nodded, that line precisely sliced through his throat. The others were exactly within the opening of this "well."
The bearded man's nodding motion was actually not very large, but that line seemed to possess an indescribable smoothness, inexplicably allowing a person's entire neck to pass through it.
That was not an ordinary prop. Upon closer inspection, Xu Huo found it very similar to space rays, but even thinner and harder to detect than his own space rays, while also possessing greater lethality.
When using cube space, he could create blade-like objects with space rays. Although the colorless and formless blades created by space rays could easily cut through human bodies, they might not necessarily penetrate defensive props, and space props were even more effective at countering them. The reason was his insufficient advancement in spatial evolution. If he wanted to increase lethality without improving his evolutionary power, the best way was to pair it with suitable props. However, such props were not easy to find. Perhaps Mr. Kang had such props back then, but with his suicide, whether such props existed or what they were like remained unknown.
At the very least, at this moment, Xu Huo did not have the ability to create space blades out of thin air that could pierce high-level defensive props.
But the line that had killed two people in front of him did not cause the cube space to assimilate, nor did it reach a level where he could directly perceive it—perhaps because the line was still some distance away from him, so he hadn't noticed it in time. But whether it was space rays or something else, what now appeared before him was an unknown entity.
Many thoughts suddenly flashed through his mind. After a brief pause, Xu Huo projected his spiritual power into reality, allowing Mu Yan and the glasses-wearing man to see the rays interspersed around them.
Upon discovering those lines thinner than a hair, the glasses-wearing man took out a small prop to test. When he saw the prop smoothly cut in half while the line remained completely still, he exclaimed in shock, "What the hell is this?"
"Not clear yet." Xu Huo still hadn't moved from his spot, only saying, "I don't know if there are other lines besides these visible ones that we can't see."
Now the glasses-wearing man dared not move either, while Mu Yan's face changed color several times before she finally said, "Could this be super evolution power?"
"I've heard people say that after super evolution, some can treat everything in the world as lines—space and time can all become lines in their eyes. Manipulating evolutionary power means manipulating time lines or space lines. As long as they want, besides using these lines to move objects through the air or change the time state of objects, they can even kill people..."
"But that's only something the top-tier super evolvers can do. Our luck can't be that bad, right..."
"But aren't we facing it right now?" The glasses-wearing man looked at Xu Huo: "How do we get out?"
Xu Huo showed a troubled expression. "I can't do anything either. I don't even know what this thing is."
"But can't you see it?" The glasses-wearing man grew anxious.
"My prop can only serve an auxiliary effect." Xu Huo said, "Besides helping us see these few lines, it can't do anything else. At best, we can gamble on luck and hope there are only these four lines."
Mu Yan had also stayed with Xu Huo the previous night and knew a bit about the situation. The person who attacked them the day before and deliberately led them into a trap was a player who used lines. Now tonight, they encountered another line user... Although the two types of lines might be different, it couldn't be such a coincidence that their methods were identical!
"I'll try using a prop!" She gritted her teeth and took out a white paper figure.
The white paper figure came to life as soon as it hit the ground. It first moved its body in place, then took a step forward, and was quickly cut in half.
The proportions of this paper figure weren't quite right, so when the ray cut through its pelvis area, it didn't sever its hands. Its lower half stood outside the ray, while the upper half's hands scraped the ground, turned its body, then leaped forcefully and landed back on its own legs. It then used its hands to support the legs, effectively reconnecting the upper and lower halves, and continued walking forward.
Mu Yan breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this. "This is a prop made by a paper servant master. If it can pass through, it proves there's no problem."
After speaking, she first bent down and tried to move out from under the ray.
In fact, she succeeded, following the white paper figure and smoothly exiting the "well" shape.
"I'll try too." The glasses-wearing man first used a prop to test his surroundings, and only after confirming safety did he step over to Mu Yan's position, then imitated her by crouching and crawling out from under the line.
"No problem, you should come out quickly too!" Mu Yan said to Xu Huo.
However, just as Xu Huo stood up, the four lines that had seemed frozen in the air suddenly rose and converged—as if they were targeting him specifically!
Xu Huo wasn't sure whether this was a space-time ray or how strong the ray actually was. So, although he had an A-level defensive prop and the sub-class stone "Eternal Time" that could protect him from time-based powers, he couldn't guarantee they could withstand a ray turned into a weapon. Therefore, his first choice was to dodge.