# Chapter 144: Under Siege
Within just two minutes of the appearance of a player suspected of possessing a Super Item, almost all media in Country X was reporting on the incident. However, due to different sources from various channels, the information was quite mixed. In the end, the Hai City Command Center deployed military drones still in the confidential stage to track and film this life-and-death chase.
This was what Xu Huo had requested—to make the information about the Super Item as public as possible.
Both Jing City and Hai City could guess what he was trying to do, publicly revealing this pursuit while worrying for him at the same time.
On the Painting Woman's side, amid the back-and-forth chase, three players had followed her all the way to the vicinity of Pearl Hotel.
The Painting Woman was extremely annoyed by the harassment. While using paper scraps to cut open the blood bags hidden in her clothes to create the appearance of injury, she simultaneously manipulated large amounts of paper to fly into the skyscrapers to rescue people.
"Facing so many enemy players, and she's still rescuing people!" an Outer Zone Player exclaimed in amazement upon seeing this.
Someone else sneered, "What's the use of saving those ordinary people? Women have long hair but short vision—a Super Item shouldn't fall into a woman's hands!"
"This just shows how powerful the Super Item is!" another person said excitedly. "She's just a Low-Level Player and she can already control an entire city. If I were to use it..."
"Bullshit! You don't stand a chance!"
Those Outer Zone Players attacked each other while simultaneously besieging the Painting Woman. They soon cut off her path forward, and the three players who had been chasing her since she appeared joined forces to force her into Pearl Hotel. One of them threw a palm-sized black iron block high into the air. When the iron block flew above the hotel, the corresponding three-meter-diameter section of the hotel roof suddenly caved in, as if crushed by gravity, penetrating through the glass dome on the 29th floor and more than twenty layers of flooring all the way down to the first floor!
"Gravity Compression Nine-Chain Bomb!" With the opponent's shout, the iron block split into eight identical pieces that scattered across the hotel roof, creating similarly sized holes in the same manner.
The Painting Woman sat on her paper, dodging left and right, avoiding the collapsing floors as she ascended to the top floor. However, she didn't expect that just as she reached the top, the remaining two iron blocks suddenly stood upright, blocking her from front and back, clearly intending to crush her just like the hotel!
The Painting Woman wasn't in mortal danger, but if she were hit, she would definitely revert to her painting form—wouldn't that expose everything?
For a moment she panicked, but before she could figure out a way to escape, a semi-transparent square box suddenly appeared beside the iron blocks. The box lid opened and trapped the iron blocks inside.
Seeing that box, the Painting Woman instinctively felt fear. She quickly retreated, but watched as it slowly flew toward the roof of a nearby building of similar height to the hotel. Standing there was a middle-aged man wearing a bathrobe. He reached out to take the box and said with a smile, "So the golden egg is a beautiful woman. Our Holy Sword Society rarely has female members. Why don't you come with me?"
"That's Golden Disciple of the Holy Sword Society!" someone spotted the Holy Sword token tattoo on the man's chest. "I heard the Holy Sword Society sent three Golden Disciples this time! All of them are A-Class Players! If one has appeared, the other two must be nearby!"
The three players who had been chasing the Painting Woman appeared on another building. The eyebrowless man who had lost his prop said, "I've never had any conflict with the Holy Sword Society. We're all competing for the Super Item by our own abilities. What's the meaning of this?"
The middle-aged man looked him over. "I remember you. The infamous Cannibal Player known as 'Human Tongue'."
The eyebrowless man grinned, revealing black teeth. "The Holy Sword Society always holds itself high and mighty. You're joining this commotion too?"
"The Holy Sword Society cherishes talent and welcomes players from any region to join," the middle-aged man said.
"Fine then. You take the person, I take the item," the eyebrowless man said, malice inherent in his eyes. "Your Holy Sword Society only sent three people. I also have three."
The implication was that if a fight broke out, neither side would come out ahead.
The middle-aged man didn't respond, but at that moment, the other two Golden Disciples of the Holy Sword Society appeared, flanking the eyebrowless man and his two companions from both sides.
The eyebrowless man's expression darkened. He was about to speak again when his peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of a person with red light in their eyes standing on a nearby rooftop. Catching a glimpse of her pulling a pocket watch from her pocket, his expression changed: "Dou Shengnan of the Eerie Sound Knights! Retreat!"
The three of them vanished from the rooftop instantly, and the three Golden Disciples of the Holy Sword Society no longer looked as relaxed as before.
"Lawrence Li has a little errand runner. Hasn't he come looking for you?" the first Holy Sword Society Golden Disciple to appear said.
Dou Shengnan's expression was wooden, only her eyeballs moving slightly. In the direction she was looking, a half-grown boy with faint green gas swirling around his body was grabbing balloons and landing on a nearby rooftop. His eyes were vacant as he faced Dou Shengnan's position. "Don't you dare run. Can't even beat a blind man?"
Dou Shengnan frowned slightly, shifting her gaze to the distant Painting Woman. "Hand over the Super Item."
The current situation was that the Painting Woman at Pearl Hotel was right in the middle of the encirclement of these five people: three A-Class Players from the Holy Sword Society; Dou Shengnan from the Eerie Sound Knights, whose mere presence made the eyebrowless man who dared to challenge the Holy Sword Society's three members immediately retreat; and the young boy who could go head-to-head with Dou Shengnan.
The five stood on four different buildings, watching each other warily, none making a move.
"The Outer Zone Players near Pearl Hotel are retreating outward," someone reported in the Hai City Command Center, where everyone's hearts were in their throats watching this scene.
Those Outer Zone Players were all formidable, yet they were pulling back—a testament to how powerful these five individuals were.
When Xu Huo had called, he only instructed them to go as far as destroying Pearl Hotel. He hadn't mentioned whether there were any subsequent plans.
The Command Center assumed that the Painting Woman was the player they had been communicating with. She had gone through great trouble to lure people to Pearl Hotel, presumably to use thermal weapons to eliminate some Advanced Players. But watching now, their hearts were pounding with uncertainty:
Could these players really be dealt with using artillery?
"Estimate the timing. Do everything possible to create an opportunity for her to escape!" the elderly man from Jing City ordered.
"The preset time has arrived!"
The top floor of Pearl Hotel was a transparent glass dome, but most of the glass had now shattered. The Painting Woman stood in the center of the rooftop, able to see others clearly and be clearly seen by them.
Sharp paper blades floated around her like knives, wrapping around the entire rooftop as she guarded against the five players while secretly checking her watch.
When the time jumped to 7:31, accompanied by explosions from below the hotel and artillery shells coming from all directions, a smile couldn't help but appear on her face. She raised both hands high and flipped off the five players watching her intently!
"She wants to enter the game." The three Holy Sword Society members made the first move, brushing aside the dense hail of bullets as they flashed onto the rooftop of Pearl Hotel. But before they could act, large amounts of toxic gas surged in from upwind. The half-grown boy, carried aloft by balloons into the air, said with a grin, "So many of you bullying one person—shameless, aren't you?"