Chapter 1544: The Revelry of Ants
He was clearly not the only one who had entered; voices of other players soon came from not far away, and Xu Huo, upon raising his eyes to see a tracker right in front of him, struck first!
"Boom!" The black blade slammed against the opponent's defense barrier with a loud noise, and Xu Huo was also rebounded by the force. The man seemed unwilling to engage in close combat, using a prop to send Xu Huo to the end of the corridor before reaching for the button on his chest. After trying to press it twice, the man's expression turned grim.
Xu Huo pierced through the defense barrier in front of him, straightened up, and spun the black blade in his hand, staring at the man and saying, "This is most likely an instance space; the ticket can't get us out. I wonder if your space device still supports you moving back and forth between different spaces."
He had roughly guessed the effect of the space devices these four used. At best, they were similar to tickets, allowing movement between different spaces. Seeing how easily they came and went, they were probably mass-produced devices. A single district might not have just one space; people from higher wormhole points might have already figured out how to utilize such spaces, like when Dr. Wu hid the Perfect Evolution Potion in the Sun Museum—existing simultaneously with reality but, due to different spaces, not interfering with each other even when overlapping.
If they used devices to freely move back and forth in such spaces, they could indeed be considered "gods" who grasped the game's rules when facing players. Crossing spaces, even Spatial Super Evolvers couldn't do anything to them. They didn't even need to use props to easily avoid player attacks and could appear anywhere at any time.
However, he figured such things wouldn't be inexhaustible; otherwise, there would have been more than four of them.
After saying this, Xu Huo smiled slightly, layering his spiritual power and space power to launch an attack in the spacious corridor. In just a few seconds, he had shuttled back and forth over a dozen times, striking the player from different directions and angles, until he broke through the defense barrier and shredded the protective suit.
The opponent carried quite a few devices but lacked combat experience. After failing another attempt at spiritual interference, a materialized object pierced his heart. The intense pain caused a slight distortion in the man's expression. A moment later, a hint of contempt appeared on his face—for Xu Huo, and for players in general. He said:
"The revelry of ants."
As he died, all the devices he carried emitted low-frequency hums of varying tones, then showed cracks or released faint streams of air.
Xu Huo moved over and casually picked one up. The game panel couldn't read any information, and there were signs of self-destruction inside the device.
"The revelry of ants?" A player who had been watching the fight from the corner of the corridor laughed and said, "If I were you, I'd chop him into pieces to vent my anger."
Xu Huo took over the deceased player's belongings. His item slot didn't have many decent props; most were devices. Although the devices were high-level, that didn't mean they could be used. They seemed to be controlled by receiving biological signals. These little gadgets basically broke down one after another when taken out, perfectly ensuring no one could benefit from them.
After testing a few, he stopped and found some food and a few energy weapons in the luggage compartment. He wasn't sure if the weapons would break when taken out, but at first glance, there wasn't much of value—not even a few ores, let alone identification documents or other information.
The long-ponytail player who had spoken walked over, gestured to Xu Huo, and then rummaged through the corpse. "No extra information, but the protective suit he's wearing is an experimental one, usually only issued to large medical or biological research labs. Of course, you can buy them yourself."
"Did you only run into this one?"
The long-ponytail player had briefly crossed paths with Xu Huo in Xiaoyue City before; both had watched the "begging scene" from a distance. But now Xu Huo had changed his appearance, so the other didn't recognize him.
It didn't matter—they had only met briefly.
"There must be more than one," the long-ponytail player adjusted his tone. "These people look like they're conducting some shady experiments. They wouldn't act alone."
The ancient castle suppressed spiritual power. To be cautious, Xu Huo didn't observe beyond this corridor. But judging by the location, aside from the one who disappeared, the other two might not have come along.
"Indeed," the long-ponytail player nodded. "These people might be connected to the xenomorph invasion of Zone 017. They deserve to die."
He didn't bother to delve into why Xu Huo had tangled with this player, who might be an experimenter. Instead, he looked at both ends of the corridor. "We're unlucky. We might have entered the Box Carrier's instance."
Top hat, briefcase, black coat, blue eyes—such a striking outfit could only belong to the Box Carrier.
"Is this really an instance?" Xu Huo asked. "I didn't receive any instance notification when I entered."
"Anyway, the ticket can't get us out," the long-ponytail player said. "Maybe Super Players' instances have special features."
Whether it was an instance wasn't certain yet, but the player Xu Huo killed had two tickets. If he could leave, there was no reason not to.
"Are there places in the game that restrict tickets like instances do?"
"That I don't know. But Super Players are on a level we can't reach. Maybe the Box Carrier brought this from another wormhole point." The long-ponytail player shrugged. "The game has been around for so long; there are always loopholes to exploit."
He pointed in a direction and asked Xu Huo if he wanted to go forward. After getting a response, he added, "I didn't expect watching Super Players fight would be so risky. They haven't even started fighting up close, and they've already cleared out us cannon fodder."
"Who's the other Super Player?" Xu Huo asked.
"Lawrence Li. You can tell it's him from the space rays," the long-ponytail player thought of an adjective. "Very distinctive."
The two walked on the crimson carpet. The thick, soft velvet minimized their footsteps. Just as they reached the end of the corridor, a figure appeared in the shadows. When they saw it, both of them felt a twitch in their eyelids.
Standing in the darkness was an incredibly lifelike dummy. It had no heartbeat or breathing, allowing one to immediately confirm it wasn't alive. But its extremely realistic hands, feet, and face gave the impression that it was a person.
A faint, strange, and alluring fragrance wafted from the dummy.
Xu Huo and the long-ponytail player both had grim expressions. Standing before them was a modified corpse. Judging by its form and muscle state, it was undoubtedly a player in life.
"I've long heard that the Box Carrier likes making puppets and often robs the Game Government for rare metal materials. I didn't expect... living people are also materials."
This was not a good sign.