Chapter 2070: Paper Beast Attack
"Can't." Xu Huo was resting with his eyes closed, only moving his lips in response.
Fluorescent Powder couldn't vent her frustration, so she turned to the Painting Woman and asked, "Can you go fold in the bathroom?"
The Painting Woman expressed her unwillingness to go and suggested that Fluorescent Powder go instead, or use something to block her ears.
With all the players gathered together, there was no way Fluorescent Powder could seal off her hearing. The reason she couldn't stand it was that her hearing had evolved faster than other players of the same level—it was also her advantage. Unable to win a fight, she had no choice but to stand up and find another spot.
But just as she stood up, she suddenly heard a strange noise from afar, like the sound of fingernails scraping against a hard surface.
"Did you hear that?" She immediately stopped and asked the others.
Xu Huo put away his spatial defense item, released his spiritual realm, and used his vertical pupils to quickly search for the source of the sound. In less than a second, he withdrew his attention, turned around, and headed for the nearest room. "Hide!"
The other players had also placed instruments or items around the castle in advance. One after another, they learned about the situation in the studio. They followed him into the adjacent entertainment room, closed the door, and reinforced the walls and floor with defense items and instruments. Then they heard dense footsteps outside. The next moment, a sharp claw tore through the wall horizontally, ripping the door panel along with it. Accompanied by a low roar, a massive beast's head squeezed into the doorway, pressing against the space barrier and peering inside intently.
Through the cracks torn in the wall, everyone could see that there were many more such enormous and ferocious item mutant beasts. They were emerging from the paintings in droves!
"They probably can't see us, right?" Fluorescent Powder said nervously.
They had added a layer of visual obstruction while using their defense items, but now all the beasts that had come out of the paintings were gathered around the room, refusing to leave. It was hard to say whether they were tracking their prey through sight.
"Crack!" The first beast to approach sniffed the air, then opened its massive jaws and bit down on the outer defense barrier. It actually bit it and even cracked the barrier!
"This is a B-grade defense item. Do all the animals from the paintings have this kind of strength?" The player whose defense layer was breached gave way, and another player stepped in to replace him.
"One alone might not have this ability, but if there are many, it's hard to say." Xu Huo looked around the room. The walls were almost completely torn apart, and the painting beasts seemed to have locked onto this spot, either clawing or biting, stubbornly attacking the defense barrier.
"It's like stacking items," the slightly older man said. "Maybe under the Puppet Maker's control, their power increases even further."
"I can't figure out why all these things from the paintings came out tonight. Is it trying to make me break the rules? The instance description didn't mention this." Fluorescent Powder couldn't help complaining.
"Maybe the castle owner just doesn't want to make that many puppets," the sweet-looking girl said. "This is a fixed instance. The holder was probably a player too. If he doesn't want to give up the instance holding rights, he has to keep opening the door to welcome players. Using this method to reduce the number of players is normal. Just exploiting a loophole in the game."
"You seem to know a lot about it?" Xu Huo glanced at her. "Do you hold an instance?"
"If I had an instance, would I still be here?" the sweet girl said. "Wouldn't it be more fun to guard an instance and kill people? Anyway, I'm already a B-grade player."
"That makes some sense," Fluorescent Powder chimed in. "So we have to hold out until morning?"
Items and instruments have a certain time limit for use, but fortunately, there were enough of them to take turns using them.
These beasts were now chasing them to kill, and the only thing players could do was defend. If they fought back, they might be punished and end up with a puppet missing an arm or leg the next day.
Among them, the only one who had fought these items was the Painting Woman. Her puppet hadn't appeared yet, which suggested she probably wasn't a ticket player, but had just stumbled in by chance.
Being able to fight and defeat items meant she was definitely strong. Since items effective against people were almost useless against these animals transformed from paintings, when push came to shove, the clearance players would have a free laborer.
Fluorescent Powder stepped back and handed the Painting Woman a bag of snacks with a big smile. "Sis, if those things break in later, you've got to protect me."
The Painting Woman indicated that it was no problem.
The floor of this room soon couldn't hold up. Xu Huo and the others, along with the item mutant beasts, all fell to the first floor. This wasn't a big problem for the players. They maintained their formation as they landed on the collapsed floor, not giving the item beasts any opportunity.
After thirty minutes of attack and defense, the item beasts finally began to lose momentum. Some of them, probably getting bored, started wandering around the castle. Several, after knocking over or tearing apart display puppets, turned back into paper scraps and fell to the ground.
Everyone was speechless at the sight, only thinking that the castle owner really cherished the puppets he made.
In fact, the item beasts left after an hour, but everyone held out on the first floor until dawn.
Except for the few beasts that had touched the puppets, the rest returned to the studio on the second floor. After the defense barrier was removed, the Painting Woman was the first to rush over and pick up the paintings. Beaming, she said to Xu Huo, "I want to make paper beasts this fierce in the future!"
The Painting Woman could control paper, so the form of paper could somewhat affect her combat power. She had made some little paper frogs and other small trinkets before, and she was quite happy using them.
"How are these made?" She crouched on the ground to study them for a while but couldn't figure it out, so she turned back to ask Xu Huo.
"Next time I run into the Paper Servant Master, I'll ask for you." Xu Huo didn't know, but he figured the Puppet Maker definitely wouldn't come out to give pointers.
The Painting Woman knew who the Paper Servant Master was, but she didn't like him much, so she said, "Ask him secretly. Don't say it was me asking."
Xu Huo smiled and rolled up the painting before handing it to her. "Put it back in the studio."
"You know the Paper Servant Master?" The sweet girl sized him up. "Are you close?"
"Not really close," Xu Huo said, relying on the Paper Servant Master's natural friendliness. "But he'd visit my grave if I died."
"That's still considered not close?" Fluorescent Powder laughed. "All my relatives are dead. Forget visiting graves—I don't even have anyone to build me a tomb."
"The Paper Servant Master is very famous. There aren't many super players in the game who can mass-produce such popular items like he does," the glasses-wearing player joined the conversation. "But while many have heard of him, few have actually seen him."
"Is that so?" Xu Huo didn't respond to his probing and instead said, "Shouldn't we go find today's puppet?" (Chapter End)