Chapter 1937: Confidence Comes from Strength
The sharp alarm not only startled the nearby residents but also alerted Manager Dian and his group, who were enjoying themselves. They immediately realized something was wrong at their factory. Manager Dian's face changed drastically as he quickly directed a player to check on the situation, while he himself hurried back with another person.
By the time they returned, the factory's players were already fighting with the Rebel Army players. The mutated evolvers had been killed, and many workers were also dead or injured. But that wasn't the most critical issue—the most critical was that the people imprisoned underground in the factory had escaped, most of them young men and women. In addition, several boxes emitting cold air had been scattered around.
Nearby armed aircraft and inspectors had already received the news and were arriving one after another. However, this couldn't reverse Manager Dian's breakdown when he saw the boxes casually thrown on the ground. He clutched his head and shouted, "Quick! Quick! Pack those boxes up and send them out..."
Before he could finish speaking, several flashes of blade light sliced through the boxes and their contents in half!
What rolled out of the boxes were fresh human organs.
"The East District people have never treated us West District people as human. They set up factories under the guise of toy processing, but in reality, they want to drain the healthy organs of us West District people!" A masked Rebel Army member stood on top of the factory, pressing a jamming device that destroyed all the aircraft above the factory. Accompanied by the sound of heavy objects crashing to the ground, he scattered countless leaflets. "Look at the prices on these—this is the income from the West District organs sold by the factory!"
"We live in the worst places, eat the worst food, trampled into the mud and gutters by the East District people, yet we become tools for their profit! Become their mobile organ banks!"
The masked Rebel Army member pounded his chest. "Ask yourself—can you honestly say that your missing siblings haven't turned into empty shells? Can you say that you, your children, will escape the East District people's poison? Rebellion is the only way out!"
As his words ended, this Rebel Army member was shot in the head from a distance by an arriving East District player, his body tumbling from the rooftop.
Although a batch of aircraft had been destroyed, the East District players were fast. Even without the support of armed robots and inspectors, they quickly controlled the situation. A few Rebel Army players barely held on for a while before disappearing with shouts of "The will never dies!" But then an explosion occurred inside the factory. The large factory building, covering a considerable area, was leveled, and even the players who had come to support were caught in the blast. Aircraft, armed robots, and the like were directly thrown into the air. The inspectors, who had focused on sealing off the perimeter due to their limited abilities, didn't fare any better, suffering heavy casualties. In contrast, the ordinary people who had fled early suffered few injuries.
However, the shockwave from the explosion inevitably destroyed many nearby civilian homes, leaving the already impoverished people without even a place to stay.
Unlike the anger of the East District players and the hatred of the inspectors, the ordinary civilians wailed, momentarily unsure whether to hate the Rebel Army or the East District people.
Xu Huo was far from the factory. He heard the explosion but it didn't affect his location. However, some of the scattered leaflets, blown by the blast wave, drifted his way.
He reached out and caught one.
Black text on white paper listed nearly a hundred sales terms: different ages, different genders, different health conditions, different body parts—for saving lives, for experiments, for collections, for viewing...
Xu Huo crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it aside, then said to the mute girl, "Let's go back."
That night, the entire Inspection Department was in turmoil. Since the Inspection Headquarters was located in the East District, players were rarely dispatched to the West District unless necessary. So when the frozen processing plant incident occurred, the players who arrived were either from nearby factories or East District players on rotation in the West District—not many in number. If it hadn't been for the factory being involved, they wouldn't have shown up at all. They just didn't expect the Rebel Army to pull off something this big—what did it matter if kidnapping and organ trafficking were exposed? What angered and shocked them more was how the Rebel Army had uncovered this information and how they dared to openly challenge the East District.
Thus, after the incident, all four nearby branches were held accountable, with their team leaders dragged out for reprimands. After the East District players inspected the factory, the Inspection Department had to handle the cleanup.
The Inspection Department didn't care about ordinary civilian homes, but since the East District's factory was damaged, they had to take responsibility.
Xu Huo was also called over to sweep up.
After meeting up with Lin Guang, he learned that Wang Kai was already dead.
It turned out that because of Captain Jiang's death, Li Song had privately applied to headquarters for a identity verification of Wang Kai. His credentials were registered and seemed fine, but when the East District players arrived at the branch to question him separately, Wang Kai couldn't hold back and made a move.
Making a move exposed his identity.
"Really dead?" Xu Huo found it hard to believe.
"I saw the corpse with my own eyes. How could it be fake?" Lin Guang shook his head. "What are these outer zone players after? I'm not a player, but I know a bit about instance clearance. Instances probably wouldn't directly tell them to kill people. And what's the point of killing ordinary people? If they've got the skills, fight players... In the end, it's people like us who suffer."
"Look at this scene—who knows if there are more outer zone players involved."
Xu Huo hesitated for a moment before saying, "Can the Rebel Army really trust outer zone players? Wouldn't they just use them as pawns?"
"Maybe they've already negotiated terms?" Lin Guang shrugged.
"Less talking!" someone shouted at them from a distance.
Lin Guang quickly separated from Xu Huo.
Xu Huo worked while thinking about Wang Kai's death.
Wang Kai might not necessarily have been involved in a B-rank instance, but if it was a B-rank instance, it would fully demonstrate that the East District's control over the West District wasn't as laissez-faire as it appeared on the surface. High-level players might not be able to escape an instance, but escaping an Inspection Department branch wouldn't be a problem. Considering that B-rank instance player identities were tightly arranged by the game, the East District, aware of this, would have correspondingly raised their player deployment. At the very least, when deciding to test or capture a player, they would ensure a positive outcome. Yet for questioning Wang Kai, the East District only arranged one player.
Confidence comes from strength. Either the East District had a large number of powerful players, requiring only one person to identify outer zone players, or the East District had specialized means of controlling players. Items were generally hard to mass-produce, leaving instruments as the remaining option.
Agor was a tech company. Having enough spatial instruments to restrict player movement wasn't an inconceivable thing.
Xu Huo stopped moving and looked toward the Shadow Wall. The towering red light occupied almost his entire field of vision, carrying a hazy allure under the night rain. Was this wall really just meant to separate the East and West Districts?