# Chapter 2019: Under High Pressure
"Unless everyone on this train is wiped out and we all die, your chances of survival are the highest." The fortune-telling female player winked at Xu Huo.
Xu Huo didn't respond. It was unlikely everyone would be wiped out. Although the districts he had visited rarely dealt with Stellar Pharmaceuticals, based on the information Dr. Deng had revealed, different companies under Stellar Pharmaceuticals didn't share information with each other. That meant the experiment on this train might not have been notified to the Game Government Base in advance. If something went wrong with the train, the Orbital Supply Department would eventually come to clean up the mess.
Of course, that was one of the better scenarios. In a worse case, as other players had said, the experiment might not end until Stellar Pharmaceuticals came to retrieve the Xenomorph.
"Let's wait." Xu Huo closed his eyes and said calmly.
"Rest easy. I'll keep watch." The fortune-telling female player smiled.
Car Eleven fell into silence again. Before long, players from other cars also began taking turns resting.
Less than two hours later, it was already ten in the morning of the next day, but the sky above the tracks remained dark. Suddenly, Car Eight became noisy. A player had screamed in terror. Others in the same car thought he had been infected, so they used props to restrain him. Just as they were about to search him for the Xenomorph, he woke up and said he was fine—he had only had a nightmare.
The players checked the car and his protective suit, confirming everything was intact before relaxing.
"Scared by a dream? Might as well go home and drink milk." In such a suppressed environment, facing an unknown enemy, players with unstable emotions became even more irritable. Their words were inevitably harsh, which angered the player who had just woken from his nightmare. He stared at the one mocking him. "Do you want to die?"
The tall man across from him showed no weakness. "Go ahead and try!"
The two looked ready to fight, but the man in the white suit stepped in to stop them. "We'd better not fall into chaos. The Xenomorph hasn't appeared yet. There's no need to consume each other."
The tall man didn't appreciate the intervention. "Who do you think you are? Who gave you the right to give orders here?"
As he spoke, he secretly made a move. But the man in the white suit was no pushover. He blocked the prop and pushed the tall man back a step, warning him, "We're only facing an animal. Surely you can control yourself better than a beast."
The exchange revealed the difference in their strength. The tall man restrained his temper, silently stepping back to concede.
The car returned to its previous calm. The man in the white suit asked the player about the details of his nightmare in detail.
The content of the nightmare was related to personal experience, so even with his questions, no useful information could be gleaned. The matter was dropped, and everyone returned to their own cars.
However, less than half an hour later, Car Three erupted in chaos. Two players inexplicably started fighting. If not for the quick reactions of those nearby, the car might have been torn apart. After being separated, both claimed the other had attacked first, forcing them to defend themselves.
The players weren't judges and couldn't settle the dispute. Fearing they would damage the car, they separated the two into different cars to calm things down.
But a third conflict soon broke out, this time more serious. A player in Car Four suddenly erupted, killing a female player at lightning speed. The female player, already severely injured, had her defense barrier broken and couldn't react in time. The man, attacking without warning, stabbed through her abdomen and slashed horizontally, nearly cutting her in two!
She couldn't be saved. What infuriated everyone was that during the fight, they had not only damaged other players' props used to seal the windows but also torn off a window panel—the top and sides of the train were connected, and if the damage was too extensive, the entire car could be scrapped.
With everyone working together, the killer was quickly subdued. The man in the white suit stopped others from acting rashly and asked first, "Why did you kill her?"
Hatred burst from the killer's eyes. "She deserved to die!"
Even the slowest among them realized something was wrong.
"Why?" The high-ponytail player checked her instruments. "They were both affected by spiritual interference, but the instruments didn't react!"
Almost every player carried an instrument or prop capable of sensing spiritual power. Some could simply detect it, while others had anti-interference capabilities. But none of these props or instruments had reacted, yet the players had clearly been affected. Otherwise, there was no way so many people would have lost control in succession.
"Could the instruments and props be malfunctioning?" someone speculated, growing more fearful. "Will other props stop working too?"
This speculation wasn't unreasonable. It was obvious that tickets couldn't be used on the tracks—at least, the players' tickets couldn't. Otherwise, how had the train staff evacuated? The props and instruments players relied on all depended on the stable functioning of the game world. If this stable external environment lost control or was constrained, the props and instruments would be nothing but junk!
Many players immediately tested their props. Only after confirming that other props still worked did they relax.
"Could this space be special, capable of interfering specifically with spiritual instruments?" another person suggested. "Aren't there dangerous districts in the game filled with spiritual interference everywhere?"
Those were usually districts where the environment had mutated during evolution. Anyone entering would be affected, including but not limited to auditory and visual hallucinations. In severe cases, delusions could occur. Under such circumstances, it was normal for related instruments and props to malfunction.
"Since the window is broken, we should reinforce it from the outside," the red-headband player from Car Ten stepped forward and said. "Wrap both the inside and outside so we don't end up without a place to stand if something unexpected happens."
Other players agreed. They arranged for several robots to go outside and seal the windows with ordered metal panels, leaving a palm-wide gap for observation.
Soon, all the cars occupied by players—except Car Eleven, which Xu Huo had insisted remain unsealed—were sealed from the outside. Although others didn't understand what he was doing, they were happy to have two people outside keeping watch.
"Haven't you sensed anything?" the fortune-telling female player asked.
"No change." Xu Huo said. Due to the aftereffects, his spiritual power wasn't very focused after boarding, but he could still feel the gradually increasing spiritual power in the space.
Calling it "increasing," in his opinion, it was nowhere near enough to affect advanced players. It would be difficult to even give someone a nightmare, let alone stimulate a player into going berserk and losing control. The earlier incidents might not have been entirely related to spiritual interference. The players' own mental issues might have been more significant.
The man in the white suit, however, was interesting. He wasn't a Mental Super Evolver, yet he was overly concerned with the mental state changes of those players.
A brand new year has begun. Wishing everyone health and happiness from now on! (*￣︶￣)