Chapter 1497: Handling
The venue was filled with screams. Some players tried to leave their seats but were forcibly locked in place—the "Please Sit" trait's duration hadn't passed yet, though at this point, whether the trait restriction existed or not didn't matter, because these people with broken legs didn't dare casually enter the station.
"If you want to enter the game, you can leave now," Xu Huo reminded them.
"What the hell do you want?!" someone roared. "This is Zone 026's business. What does it have to do with you?!"
"That's not for you to decide." Xu Huo leaned back in his chair, a ledger appearing in his hand. He read the first name on it, "Zhou Yong."
Naturally, no one below dared to answer. His sharp gaze swept toward the Underground Palace boss, who was kneeling up front, his legs weak and trembling.
The boss swallowed hard, beads of sweat dripping onto the floor. He feared the players of Bai City, but he feared Xu Huo behind him even more. After struggling for only a moment, he pointed at a man in a jacket sitting in the back row. "It's him!"
Seeing the boss betray him without hesitation, the jacket-wearing man, Zhou Yong, who had repeatedly warned him with his eyes earlier, erupted in fury. If the occasion weren't so dire, he would have killed the boss to vent his anger first. But facing Xu Huo, he only had one thought—run!
With space teleportation items unusable and both legs injured, even if he used items to move, he couldn't get far. Besides, his reaction speed and movement weren't fast enough.
He barely moved two or three meters before Zhou Yong's head rolled to the ground.
As the corpse hit the floor, nearby players confirmed they had seen a bloodstained thin line flash through the air for an instant—likely the same type of item that had severed the legs of everyone in the Eagle Organization. Those who had already figured it out exchanged glances. So Xu Huo had already placed items around them, and worse, these invisible items could be reused repeatedly, without him even needing to lift a finger!
Players who had originally intended to flee calmed down. They couldn't see the items arranged in the hall, and they weren't sure they could dodge Xu Huo's attacks if they made a move. Fortunately, for now, he was only targeting the Eagle Organization.
Of course, a few guilty individuals quietly tried to incite their companions and slip away.
Up above, Xu Huo continued reading names. Each time he read one, the Underground Palace boss identified the person, and then one by one, heads fell.
In just two minutes, aside from two who risked escaping into the station, twenty members of the Eagle Organization had been killed.
These were all people directly involved in the transactions within the Eagle Organization, with transaction records to prove it.
"Is that all?" Xu Huo looked at the boss.
The boss hurriedly nodded. "Everyone who handled the deals is in the ledger. I don't know if the others knew or not..."
"Killing everyone who knew would be too unreasonable," Xu Huo said flatly. But the next second, he killed the white-haired old man along with the four players sitting to his left and right.
This sudden, seemingly baseless killing startled the others in the hall, especially the Eagle Organization members. Panic spread across their faces as they feared becoming the next to die.
"I wasn't involved in human trafficking!" someone defended themselves. "Is it wrong to just mind my own business?"
Xu Huo raised a hand to signal them to calm down. "When nearly a third of a player organization's members are participants, the management definitely knows. Knowing but failing to restrain them means they're all birds of a feather—not worth regretting their deaths."
"As for the rest of you, you can decide on a new leader yourselves."
He then looked at the boss again. The boss's obese body trembled, and he quickly pointed out several more players scattered around the venue. They weren't all from the same player faction.
These people had thought they might escape, but suddenly the situation took a sharp turn. Fearing Xu Huo would repeat his trick, they frantically tried to retreat into the game—only to find they couldn't open their personal panels!
Without their personal panels, they couldn't take out their tickets. Panic-stricken, they didn't even have time to cry out before they were dealt with.
Two exceptions remained. Instead of running, their first reaction was to defend themselves, claiming they knew nothing about human trafficking and that the boss, who had a grudge against them, was framing them.
"I didn't, absolutely not..." The boss shook his head like a rattle, but before he could finish, one player's head flew off. And before his expression could relax, the next head to roll was his own.
Xu Huo offered no further explanation. But the fact that one player pointed out by the boss survived while the boss died made the truth obvious—naturally, no one else had the ability to judge whether Xu Huo was right or wrong. Even if he had killed everyone, what could they do? The fact that he left one alive showed he had some sense of reason.
At this point, Xu Huo had mostly finished what he needed to handle. He dispelled the spiritual realm, stood up, and said, "Someone who knows about Central City, step forward."
A few minutes later, a player emerged from the hall—the very one Xu Huo had spared. He climbed up to the tower beside the hall and said to the man with his back to him, "What do you want to do to Central City?"
Xu Huo was holding a map taken from the luggage compartment of one of the killed players. The dimensions and scale were slightly off, but the general directions matched, and the location of Central City was marked on it.
What he was most concerned about was Central City's water supply.
This player honestly told him everything he knew.
Central City did control the water source for the entire 01 Settlement. The 01 Settlement was in a bad location—there were no accumulated surface water sources nearby. It was said that other settlements had some small pits and puddles, but here, there was nothing. The underground river was extremely deep, and only Central City had drilled through the underground rock layers to supply water to other cities.
Each city had a water usage limit, barely enough to ensure everyone had a tight supply. Bai City had once proposed paying more to buy water, but Central City had refused.
According to what Bai City had learned, Central City had a B-rank player stationed there, along with a considerable number of C-rank players. It had the most players and the strongest strength. One city had once tried to seize the water source, but it was wiped off the map overnight.
"Central City is very dangerous," the player added. With a B-rank player stationed there, that alone was enough to make other cities back off and willingly accept the chokehold.
"Has no one ever seen that B-rank player?" Xu Huo asked.
"Dealing with ordinary players doesn't require a B-rank player to show up," the other replied. Even among C-rank players, there could be a huge gap in strength. Look at them—the Eagle Organization had C-rank players too, but they hadn't made a single ripple in the hall. He didn't believe those people hadn't tried to resist. They must have found their items and traits ineffective and could only wait to die.
(Chapter End)