Chapter 1458: Puppet People
"Modified humans?" Xu Huo frowned slightly. Humans undergoing modification was usually done when they had mobility issues, which wasn't uncommon in the game. Some players who had lost limbs or even the ability to move would make this choice when their bodies couldn't recover. Since they were human, entering an instance required a ticket, so puppet people couldn't stay in the instance forever.
"How many puppet people are there?" He quickly grasped the key point.
"I saw two." Yan Jiayu raised her thumb. "They all look pretty similar, probably had plastic surgery. But they're also a bit different from normal people—their emotions feel weakened, like robots."
"Ordinary people definitely wouldn't voluntarily turn themselves into this kind of freak. They were probably modified by someone else."
"I've run into a modification maniac before, but that guy liked modifying robots. This is my first time seeing real people being modified."
"Old Xu, this opponent is a bit tricky."
Living people are much harder to deal with than robots.
"What, thinking about backing out?" Xu Huo turned his head to look at her.
Yan Jiayu chuckled. "If I wanted to leave, I wouldn't be lying here in the rain... From my observation, the ones coming in and out here are just hired thugs, not the truly dangerous ones. The only thing to consider is cleanup. There are a lot of powerful players in the game, and we can't let anyone catch our trail."
Xu Huo had no objections, and she continued, "There are three puppets outside. They should have mutual sensing devices on them. If you destroy one, the others will sense it, including the ones in the mine. It's best to take them all out at once."
"We can use them to lure the puppet people out." Xu Huo said. "Just need a bit of spacing."
"That works too." Yan Jiayu thought for a moment. "That way, the puppet people won't get scared and refuse to come out."
After finalizing the plan, they split up. Xu Huo, being more mobile, targeted the farthest puppet, while Yan Jiayu handled the other two that were clustered together.
Even slightly cheaper robots couldn't match a player's agility, let alone these puppets. Even if they sensed someone approaching, they didn't have enough reaction time. Xu Huo used "Cake Slice" to split one in half from a distance, then delivered another strike when its independently moving arm raised a weapon. After getting close, he stomped flat the puppet's hand, which was still spinning wildly and shooting poison needles.
There was no gem in the puppet's chest cavity; structurally, it was closer to a robot.
Over on Yan Jiayu's side, she was already done. The two of them each put on two or three layers of protective suits, used a fake scent to mask their own odor, and even stuck camouflage props to the soles of their shoes before surrounding the first puppet person who came out to investigate.
The puppet person used a sensing prop. The moment Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu entered the edge of its perception range, it immediately activated five props in succession.
One obscured vision—nighttime didn't affect some players much, but the light released by the airborne prop was too dazzling, forcing people to close their eyes.
Then came a nearly solid barrier. Although Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu couldn't see for an instant, they could still feel that the barrier pushing out from the center was an arc-shaped one, expanding outward from the mine entrance. But before they could move to destroy it, the barrier suddenly disappeared on its own. In the blink of an eye, it had bypassed them and appeared behind them!
With their retreat cut off, an identical barrier appeared in front of them, as if trying to trap them inside a ring.
Also entering this shrinking ring were three freely moving props. A spinning orb hovering high in the air continuously spewed poison smoke. A small bomb in the middle exploded, scattering a powdery substance that was all clinging particles. Those things automatically attached to the protective suits, corroding and destroying them, quickly dissolving the first layer.
Aiding the poison smoke and corrosive particles was a combat prop—a whirring mechanical steel blade that indiscriminately attacked everything within the ring space, using the ring barrier to accelerate its speed.
"Boom!" This situation lasted about five seconds before it ended with a single stab through the ring barrier. Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu flanked the puppet person from left and right, one handling the upper half and the other the lower, violently destroying its defensive props and protective suit, and directly chopped it into three pieces.
The moment it fell, Yan Jiayu slapped down a prop pocket that could automatically contract, directly scooping up the corpse and tossing it into her luggage compartment. Then she caught up with Xu Huo.
This mine had only one opening, and the entrance wasn't large, but the tunnels inside were quite spacious. The mining was probably already finished, as there wasn't much activity from people or puppets inside. When they encountered Li Kun's corpse at a fork in the tunnel, they were ambushed a second time.
The second puppet person fully utilized the narrowness of the tunnel, luring them into a dead end before blasting the entrance shut. Using the mine's natural advantage to trap them, it immediately used a prop to seal off the area buried by the rocks.
"Take this!" Yan Jiayu hoisted a toy cannon and fired it forward. A small-scale shockwave blasted through the rocks, sending the props behind them and the puppet person crashing into the wall on the opposite side.
Da Mao pounced forward, biting off the puppet person's head, then flung the corpse into another tunnel.
There was someone else in there.
To guard against any unexpected situations, this fight had to be finished quickly. In the darkness, Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu exchanged a glance and followed at top speed.
The relatively narrow tunnel wasn't suitable for fighting, but this condition was the same for both sides. The puppet person was equally restricted. After poison smoke, corrosive particles, and small explosive props all failed, the puppet person, seeing an opening as Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu closed in, actually used a large bomb!
No matter how specially reinforced the tunnel was, it couldn't withstand that kind of explosion. As cracking sounds mixed with the blast, Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu escaped the tunnel from different directions. But the other tunnels were also affected. While using defensive props to protect themselves, they moved as far away from the explosion site as possible, only stopping when they were close to the mine entrance.
Fortunately, the explosion didn't completely collapse the mine. Another tunnel was still passable.
"Go!" Yan Jiayu tossed a small puppet at the tunnel entrance. The puppet was only knee-high to an adult. It rolled a few meters before jumping up and sprinting down the tunnel, dodging three small traps in succession. But when it jumped onto a piece of rubble, it triggered a prop trap, and a sudden gust of wind shredded it to pieces.
Xu Huo sent the combat robot he had acquired earlier to lead the way. The robot had a detector on it that could preemptively detect and eliminate some small-scale props. As for the larger-scale props, they would have to adapt on the fly.
However, this tunnel wasn't just filled with props set by the puppet person.
(End of Chapter)