Chapter 2197: The "Goddess's" Assistance
The one who came was Red Windmill, and he even brought a food cart.
"Seeing how rushed you were, you probably haven't had dinner yet. Coincidentally, I ordered a lot, so how about we eat together?" Red Windmill said with a full smile.
Xu Huo pointed to the table beside him, indicating for him to come in.
Red Windmill set the food on the table and poured a glass of wine. "You're injured. Can you drink?"
Broken hands and feet were trivial matters for players, let alone having a couple of drinks, but Xu Huo still declined.
Red Windmill said half-jokingly, "Don't worry, I definitely didn't tamper with it."
Xu Huo pushed the wheelchair and slowly walked to the dining table. Only after sitting down did he say, "It doesn't matter if you did."
Red Windmill gave a dry laugh. After some small talk, he got back to the main topic. They still wanted Xu Huo to enter the instance with them because some players couldn't wait any longer. If they delayed too long in the instance, they would face high-risk random instances upon exiting, which was even more terrifying than mental-type instances.
"Entering the instance is very risky," Red Windmill raised the stakes. "We discussed it. Besides the two A-class items, you can also propose other conditions. Whatever we can agree to, we will."
Xu Huo took a sip of water before saying, "If it were you, would you agree?"
Red Windmill smiled. "Definitely not. Forget it, I'm just here running an errand for them. Whether it works out or not, it's not my fault."
"Don't you need to clear it?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.
"Of course I do," Red Windmill poured himself another glass of wine and downed it in one gulp before continuing, "But the longer you stay here, the more afraid you become to enter instances. Killing or being killed is common. Seeing it a lot makes it easier to accept, but dying inexplicably, or even not knowing what you'll encounter before death—that's what's truly terrifying."
"It's not that scary," Xu Huo recalled the things in the Interrogation Hall and added, "The Goddess should have a physical form. At the very least, there will be an Instance Authorization in her instance venue. With so many advanced players working together, destroying an instance isn't absolutely impossible."
"If it were any other instance, maybe, but this is a mental-type instance. There's a good chance the blade will cut down your own people." Red Windmill seemed very pessimistic. After a few more gulps of wine, he began rambling about his tragic experiences, even mentioning his unborn child, saying he might never see it again...
Xu Huo seemed to be listening. His eating slowed down, and eventually, he put down his chopsticks, quietly staring at the person in front of him.
With a "creak," the room door opened from the outside. Two players entered, walked straight to Xu Huo, and said to Red Windmill, "Is it about time?"
Red Windmill sized up Xu Huo and said hesitantly, "Looks like he's been stabilized by the trait, but it's a bit strange. The mental interference from the Holy Land Temple is stronger than in the satellite cities. You can feel it even standing outside the gate. He went in and out without being affected. Logically, his mental strength shouldn't be weak. How did he lose focus so quickly?"
"Probably just pretending. With so many players, and him being injured, he doesn't even dare to take the train or leave this district. He's clearly not that strong. I was worried he'd hold us back. If we weren't desperate... forget it, forget it. Let's go. We need to hurry. If the trait wears off, there'll be more trouble."
The two grabbed Xu Huo to leave, but unexpectedly, when they reached the door, they found it wouldn't open.
"What's going on?" Red Windmill asked from behind.
The player in front let go of Xu Huo and used both hands to pull the door handle, but the door was as if welded shut, not budging an inch.
Red Windmill glanced suspiciously at Xu Huo and urged, "Just break the door down."
The player in front was about to comply, but in the next second, the entire room, starting from the door, began to dissolve toward the floor and walls. It was as if the matter suddenly melted or powdered, instantly turning into swirling clouds of dust, then quickly re-condensing...
But the re-condensed room horrified the three players, who turned pale and stepped back. Because the floor, walls, and ceiling had all transformed into patterns almost identical to those on the temple gate. Even more terrifying than the gate's patterns, eyes kept rolling out from within—not simple eye patterns, but living, moving eyeballs!
"How is this possible!" Red Windmill and the other two shouted in unison. "This is fake! This is fake! We were clearly in the hotel. How did we get to the temple!"
How?
Xu Huo had the same thought at that moment. Originally, he had only intended to mimic the temple's decorative style to buy some time. Based on his mental strength, it wasn't enough to instantly trap three advanced players in an illusion from which they couldn't escape. But as soon as the eye patterns appeared, the mental power in the room seemed to surge instantly, as if an external force had poured in and stacked on top of his own mental power, allowing him to control the room more freely and doubling the effect.
This surprised him, but only for a moment. He quickly refocused.
"Someone's messing with us!" Red Windmill reacted quickly. He didn't believe the instance venue had suddenly malfunctioned. He immediately targeted Xu Huo, recklessly trying to kill him. But in the next second, he was swallowed by the wall that surged up.
Seeing him disappear, the other two players abandoned the idea of taking Xu Huo and pulled out items to escape.
But the instance boss in this district was too strong. She could sense the subtle changes in Xu Huo's mental world and assisted him in achieving his goal. At the same time, the eyes' interference was overwhelmingly powerful. The two players had their senses completely blocked almost as soon as they took out their items. Not only did they drop the items, but they also ran straight into the wall, letting themselves be devoured by the writhing eyes as if they felt nothing.
Xu Huo expended very little effort to deal with the three. He didn't even need to dispose of the bodies. When the room returned to normal, everything was spotless.
The instance had helped him—this realization made him want to laugh.
Having been through so many instances, the vast majority were fraught with danger, or accompanied by helpless despair. Apart from the Puppet Maker instance, he had never encountered such a "friendly" instance boss. Not only did it not attack players, but it actively helped.
And this was outside the instance venue, and it was a non-human.
At first, it wanted to kill him, and now it was helping him. For the time being, Xu Huo really didn't know what this "Goddess" was up to. But since she hadn't appeared again to communicate, there was no use in him worrying.
If she had a purpose, she would surely show herself.
Killing the chicken to scare the monkeys was quite effective. The fact that Red Windmill and his two companions went in and never came out successfully made the other players more reasonable. No one disturbed him for the rest of the night.
(Chapter End)