Chapter 1644: Come Play in the Instance Dungeon
Liao Jie daring to bring people to Brown Skin City meant he had definitely scouted out the situation there. He knew Cong Yu was a key figure—though not the strongest in Brown Skin City, he was the spiritual glue holding the city's people together. Without him, Brown Skin City couldn't have retained so many players.
So it didn't matter if the others ran away; Liao Jie absolutely would not let Cong Yu escape.
Cong Yu clearly understood this as well, which was why he told his companions to leave first while he stayed behind to draw Liao Jie and his men. At least until Liao Jie caught or killed him, they wouldn't return to the building to deal with the children and injured players, giving his companions who had entered the game time to return to Zone 013.
Cong Yu wasn't seriously injured, but under the siege of several players, he fled with great difficulty, getting hurt multiple times along the way. Twice he nearly died from Liao Jie's props.
However, with the interference of Tong Qi and Chi Xian, who had already arrived, he managed to escape the city.
Tong Qi and Chi Xian knew the situation at the abandoned building and cursed a few times before contacting Xu Huo through their communication props.
Among the players from Hope City, aside from one B-rank player, there were seven C-rank players, with the rest being D-rank and E-rank players.
To high-level players, D-rank and E-rank players might not amount to much, but in a small place like Zone 013, these people gathering together could form a terrifying force.
"Fighting these people is easy, but we have to consider the aftermath," Chi Xian said. "There are only three of us. We might not be able to rescue the Brown Skin City people from those players' watch in a short time. Once the Hope City people escape into the game, they'll definitely come back in force—it's treating the symptoms, not the root cause. Especially that B-rank player."
"I understand," Xu Huo said. "For now, don't try to snatch the children. Try to lure the people out of Brown Skin City instead. There's a giant red tree not far from the city's entrance—stop there and don't go any further, but try to bring the Hope City players over."
Chi Xian and Tong Qi exchanged a glance. The former spoke into the communication prop, "Do you have a plan?"
"You're right. Let the small fry run, but don't let the high-level players escape," Xu Huo paused, then added, "I'll have Cong Yu contact the Brown Skin City players later. Cooperating with the local players will be more convenient."
With that, the communication prop cut off. Tong Qi curiously asked his companion, "A B-rank player—we might not be able to beat him, but he should be able to escape, right?"
"Think outside the box," Chi Xian patted his shoulder. "Old Xu might have restriction props or even an instance dungeon up his sleeve."
Tong Qi opened his mouth, momentarily at a loss for words. Two seconds later, he gave a thumbs up. "He's really something."
That was just Chi Xian's guess, and they didn't dwell on it. The immediate priority was luring away the C-rank players from the abandoned building, but they weren't feeling much urgency either. Saving Brown Skin City was a spur-of-the-moment decision, not something worth risking their lives over.
"Got any good ideas?" Tong Qi asked Chi Xian. "It's not easy for the two of us to lure people out either."
Chi Xian pulled out a jar of fungi collected from Zone 013, scooped out the brown mushrooms growing inside, and smeared them on Tong Qi's protective suit. "They might not be interested in players from other zones, but they'll definitely make a move on Brown Skin City players."
Tong Qi was startled. "Is this stuff poisonous or not?"
"Don't worry. Even if you eat it, it's just a couple of shots of antidote." Chi Xian said with confidence.
Tong Qi hesitated, then reached out and grabbed a handful, smearing it on himself as well.
While they were busy changing their appearances, Xu Huo had already intercepted Cong Yu, Liao Jie, two other C-rank players, and four D-rank players.
Chi Xian and Tong Qi had contacted him once when they entered Brown Skin City. He had originally planned to use an instance dungeon to catch all the Hope City players in one net, but he hadn't expected to run into Cong Yu and the others before even entering the city.
From the ordinary people of Hope City, he learned that the city only had one B-rank player. In a district like Zone 013, a single B-rank player could almost determine the entire region's situation. So he told the Hope City people to stay put and proactively approached them, bringing them all into the "Seventeenth Hospital."
The "Seventeenth Hospital" had been upgraded to a D-rank random instance dungeon due to the influence of Rain Decisive Hand's germs. The last time it was used was to track the Fresh Flower City clones to E19-023, with the same purpose as now—to trap players and prevent them from escaping with their tickets.
Since the Hope City B-rank player had already entered the hospital, Xu Huo's original plan was half complete.
At this moment, he was in the dean's office on the top floor.
Cong Yu was the first to enter the hospital. With Liao Jie and his six men chasing him, he didn't have time to read the hospital rules posted on the first floor and rushed upstairs without looking back.
Liao Jie and the others who entered later read the instance dungeon rules on the first floor.
"This is a mental-type instance dungeon," said the D-rank player standing at the back, his face pale. The person next to him had already seen the hospital rules, and the opening line—"Patients are advised not to read"—made him immediately look away.
Even if not every player had been in a mental-type instance dungeon, anyone who knew about them would find them troublesome. In other instance dungeons, all power had a traceable pattern, but mental-type instance dungeons could produce many unexpected variables because the human brain was hard to control—whether from external interference or self-control.
In just half a minute, the hospital's outpatient hall had grown many grotesque toxic fungi. A nurse staggered out of the break room, raised her bruised, ugly arm with rough stitching marks, pointed at the hospital rules, and said haltingly, "The hospital... does not allow... bringing... sharp objects."
She was referring to the prop in Liao Jie's hand.
Liao Jie didn't move. The player behind him stepped forward and cleaved the nurse's head in two. Split in half with her internal organs spilling onto the floor, the nurse crawled on the ground with her hands and feet, her separated mouth opening and closing—she might have been calling for help, but she could no longer make any sound.
That didn't stop the hospital staff from rushing out to help. Nurses and security guards, all looking like living corpses, moved awkwardly as they tried to restrain Liao Jie and the others.
Liao Jie wasn't about to surrender. He kicked them away one by one. After using his prop to sense the situation inside the building, he stepped onto the stairs, ordering the others to hold off the hospital staff while he went after Cong Yu alone.
Logically, a B-rank player's mental strength should have increased with their evolution. But as he turned the corner on the stairs, he could no longer hear any sounds from the first floor. He couldn't help stopping to go back and check, but what he saw was an empty outpatient hall.