Chapter 2133: The Stolen Declaration
According to normal procedures, when an outer zone player causes trouble in Zone 008, unless they insist on stubbornly fighting head-on or are restricted by instance conditions, they should use their ticket to flee before the local player organizations and government enforcement teams mobilize. That was what the players who had surrounded Xu Huo thought when he left the underground laboratory. But who could have predicted that not only would he not leave, he actually wanted to blow this matter up!
"Kill him!" A player from Cos Biology gave the order, and several advanced players flew into the air, unleashing various traits and items in succession.
The "Dimensional Fog" had already descended, and the "Harmonious Atmosphere" effect had not yet expired, which was enough to intercept most traits and items. With four or five A-grade defense items layered on himself, Xu Huo completely ignored their attacks. After receiving no answer to his question, he repeated his previous words:
"It seems you still don't know. Then I'll go ask someone who should know."
The moment he finished speaking, he vanished from his spot. The people from Cos Biology only sensed him moving to a distance, but when they tried to pursue, they suddenly found that his trace had completely disappeared!
"Warn the others. The attacker is carrying a high-grade temporal-spatial item. Ordinary temporal-spatial items cannot interfere with him!" The player who had issued the order earlier said to those around him. "Report to the family. Event level is A. Defend as if the opponent possesses a super item!"
"Understood!" The players gathered near Cos Biology responded in unison, then vanished as well.
Leaving aside the impact this had on the Tian Clan, Cos Biology, and Qing City, Xu Huo rushed to a nearby large city at top speed. He first used the "Mini Mushroom Cloud" to blow up one of the Tian Clan's laboratories, then grabbed a doctor in charge of the experiments and asked the same question again.
"What Block Fairy Tale City?" This doctor specialized in mutant plant research and knew nothing about the outside situation. But Xu Huo didn't really need an answer. After repeating "Then I'll go ask someone who should know," he released the man and headed straight for the station city, landing in front of the Tian Clan's Haiyun Technology. Once again, he repeated his question about Old Lady Bai.
This time, the Tian Clan reacted quickly, probably because their core members lived here. The moment he appeared, he was surrounded by over a dozen A-grade players. Without wasting words, they first blocked any possibility of him using a teleportation item to escape. Xu Huo had no intention of leaving anyway. He twisted the time ring on his hand, holding back a small portion of them, and while dodging attacks, announced to the Tian Clan members and the arriving city government enforcement team in full view of everyone, "I'll come ask again tonight. I hope someone can answer my question by then."
"Boom!" An instrument exploded in midair, and the smaller weapons it split into covered nearly a thousand meters. But before the second large-scale explosion could begin, Xu Huo was already out of sight!
Appearing at the other end of Zone 008 in a single second, Xu Huo raised his hand to sweep away the tracking items on him, then shredded several falling instruments with Space Ray. After that, he changed his gear. But he didn't stop there. He used a space teleportation item to hop between nearby cities—he wasn't sure if he had truly shaken off the A-grade players' tracking, so he couldn't afford to pause. However, just as he was changing cities for the twentieth time, the game prompt automatically appeared:
[Player Passerby A has met the trigger conditions for the instance "The Stolen Declaration." Default participation in this B-grade instance.]
Xu Huo stopped moving. He looked up at the projection floating in the distance that read "Stellar Corporation Branch—Double-Bright Bird Pharmaceuticals," and his expression darkened slightly. It seemed his luck wasn't good enough.
Since entering the game, he had already used two instance tickets below his player level. Within twelve natural months, low-level tickets could only be used twice. Without being able to buy a return ticket for Zone 008, he had no choice but to use a B-grade ticket to board the train. If he was lucky, he might encounter an instance like "Puppet" that required special conditions to trigger, avoiding complete passivity. He hadn't expected to trigger an instance in the city where he got off the train, but instead in the Double-Bright Bird administrative district, which spanned nearly half the zone. For a moment, he even wondered if the instance corresponding to the ticket was actually fixed.
Still, triggering an instance wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
After confirming no one was following him, he used his pass to enter the game government library and read the instance introduction in a relatively safe environment.
The introduction wasn't long. The gist was that Zone 008 had recently experienced a series of bizarre murders. The locations of these murders were not fixed, and the victims varied in age, identity, occupation, and gender, with completely different life experiences. Some of them might never have even met before they died. Yet they were all killed in the same way, and they had all been interrogated before death.
The killer had extensive counter-investigation experience. Based on the case files, the first murder likely occurred six months ago. Over the past six months, nearly fifty people had died one after another, at least eight per month. However, during the commission of these crimes, the killer left no traces. Massive surveillance reviews failed to identify a suspect matching the conditions. Even before the thirtieth victim was killed, neither the city government nor the player organizations or civilian groups interested in the case could figure out why these people had become targets. That changed with the thirtieth victim.
The thirtieth victim was an ordinary evolved human. After the game appeared, many ordinary people in various zones also took potions to seek health and longevity. Reduced illness and robust physiques were standard for ordinary people in Zone 008. While they couldn't evolve quickly or undergo super evolution like players, some might develop specific evolutionary traits—for example, taking an evolution agent might make their hearing sharper than average, or their muscles more outstanding.
The thirtieth victim had an exceptionally tenacious life force. When discovered, he had already stopped breathing. The arriving enforcement team, treating a dead horse as a living one, administered emergency aid. Unexpectedly, they actually revived him—though he only remained conscious for a few seconds before falling into a deep coma. But those few seconds brought a breakthrough to the entire case, because he uttered the word "declaration."
At the time, players curious about the case were also nearby, so the key information from the thirtieth victim couldn't be kept secret. It quickly spread within the circles following the case. Combined with the fact that all nearly fifty victims showed signs of being forced to confess, those familiar with the case generally believed that what the killer was looking for was the "declaration." What kind of "declaration" was unclear, because the next twenty or so victims weren't as lucky—they couldn't be saved by the arriving enforcement team.
That was the entire instance introduction. The instance had no time limit, and the clearance task had two parts. (Chapter End)