Chapter 2051: The Importance of Shadows
The second round of player combat did not last too long. After about ten minutes, both sides were forced to stop due to excessive casualties, and the subsequent withdrawal was equally formal and orderly.
First, the strategist teams from both sides led personnel to retrieve their own wounded. Accompanying medical staff treated the severely injured first, stabilizing their lives before using vehicles to transport the remaining people back in batches.
Next came the cleanup of the battlefield. The bodies of fallen comrades were naturally collected, followed by the remains of machinery and wild boars. They took as much as they could carry, whether for reconstruction or for consumption.
These people were clearly battle-hardened, and both sides adhered to the rules. During the cleanup, they did not interfere with each other. Once they finished gathering their own, they withdrew. Although they took separate paths, both headed in the same direction—toward Ye City.
Ye City lay to the northwest of the station, making it the closest city to the station. Another slightly nearer city was to the northeast, in a different direction with some distance in between. However, after Xu Huo got off the train, the instance information had not been activated, suggesting he would need to go to a nearby city to trigger it.
The ticket contained no further details, so he decided to head to Xi City in the northeast first.
Traveling was no issue for him now. It didn't take long to reach the vicinity of Xi City. Here, the Painting Woman could also emerge, and the two entered the city together.
Under Dimension had no detailed information on Xi City, only that most of the people gathered here worshipped a deity called "Shadow Eater." The teachings of the sect derived from this god were few but extremely exclusionary. The most famous doctrine was that outsiders must not step on their shadows, because shadows were offerings to the Shadow Eater God, equivalent to their own lives. If an outsider stepped on their shadow, it would both defile the offering to the god and tarnish the believer's faith. Therefore, anyone who stepped on their shadow had to die—men, women, old, or young, no exceptions.
Of course, if it were only that, it wouldn't be called exclusionary. They not only forbade others from stepping on their own shadows but also prohibited anyone from stepping on the shadows of non-sect members. If discovered, they would go out of their way to kill both the stepper and the one whose shadow was stepped on.
In simple terms, if someone stepped on the shadow of a Shadow Eater sect member, the stepper had to die. If someone stepped on the shadow of a non-sect member, the stepper had to die, and the person whose shadow was stepped on also had to die. The core principle was self-worship—anyone they disliked had to die.
Just as Xu Huo and the Painting Woman approached the city, someone proactively came up to sell them umbrellas.
"Sir, madam, buy an umbrella! This umbrella can protect your shadow from outside interference, so you can walk safely anywhere in the city," the seller said with a full smile, though he kept his distance.
Xu Huo wasn't interested, but the Painting Woman was intrigued. She reached out to take the umbrella, but every time she stepped forward, the seller stepped back. Finally, under his hint, they noticed two masked individuals not far away staring at them.
At that moment, another player appeared in the passageway. They had likely used a teleportation item, emerging in a random spot. Even though the vendors near the passage kept their distance, the player still unfortunately brushed the edge of someone's shadow.
Before the player could react, the person whose shadow was stepped on immediately dropped their belongings and fled into the distance. But unexpectedly, not only the two masked individuals who seemed to be monitoring others, but also the nearby street vendors, drew their concealed weapons—crossbows and pistols, clearly outdated products, but enough to kill an ordinary person.
The fleeing vendor was pierced through the back of the head by a crossbow bolt. The vendor who successfully killed him didn't bother with business anymore. He quickly packed up his things, took a token from the masked individuals, and hurried back into the city.
The player who had stepped on someone's shadow was slightly confused. The people around didn't dare to attack him, but the obviously hostile atmosphere was palpable even to a blind man.
The player didn't linger and quickly vanished into the city.
No one chased him. The two masked individuals merely watched him leave before resuming their surveillance of the vendors along the main road into the city.
Xu Huo bought an umbrella. The Painting Woman thought it was ugly and refused it. The two entered Xi City one after the other.
The city was still very bustling. Although flying vehicles weren't everywhere, some shops had them on display, but the prices were exorbitant, and hardly anyone in the city was seen using them.
Flyers for the Shadow Eater sect were plastered everywhere on the streets. Some shop doorways bore the sect's emblem, indicating they were owned by sect members or protected by the sect. Pedestrians on the streets carefully kept their distance. Even though it wasn't raining, the vast majority of people carried umbrellas.
The purpose of the umbrellas was presumably to both cover their shadows and maintain distance from others. Not only locals, but also people who clearly looked like outsiders carried umbrellas. The Painting Woman, as an outsider without an umbrella, became someone everyone avoided.
There were also movies and TV shows promoting the Shadow Eater sect, free lectures for outsiders, big welcome packages for new converts, rewards for reporting shadow-stepping incidents, and generous bonuses for personally killing a shadow-stepper, which also granted automatic membership in the sect.
"No wonder those people outside the city were so eager to kill," said the player who had entered the city before Xu Huo and the Painting Woman. He happened to be nearby and, seeing the Painting Woman glance behind him, smiled. "It seems even outer zone players aren't spared."
With that, he nodded to Xu Huo and the Painting Woman, then vanished from the spot. The three players who had surrounded him found nothing and quickly turned away.
The Painting Woman looked at them, then at the content on the bulletin board. She pulled out her communicator and asked Xu Huo, "Is stepping on shadows fun?"
"Stepping on shadows isn't fun," Xu Huo said calmly, ignoring the faint gazes around them. "But making the Shadow Eater sect members step on each other's shadows—that should be quite interesting."
The two needed to find the instance entrances, so they continued forward. This district had random instances, and they needed to go to the official sales point to see what instances were nearby.
The local government members had clearly also joined the Shadow Eater sect. Every instance manual bore their emblem. Outer zone players were treated as one-time customers, so the manual's price was exorbitant.
Xu Huo bought one and found that Xi City alone had nearly ten known instance entrances.
That's right—known instance entrances. There were records of locals disappearing from these spots. Local players had marked the entrances after discovery but hadn't entered, so it was unclear what instances they led to—whether ticket instances or random instances was hard to say.
"Do we have to check every single one?" the Painting Woman asked.