Chapter 2215: Played for Fools
However, as soon as he finished speaking, he noticed the nearby players beginning to disappear one by one—they were being swallowed into the instance!
Frowning slightly, he was about to take out a teleportation item, but the moment he took a step and his foot touched the ground, he felt the surrounding atmosphere change. Although the street-side buildings looked exactly the same, he sensed that he had already entered the instance.
He stopped in his tracks, raised his hand, and looked around. As expected, his spiritual realm was greatly suppressed. The range he could perceive was only about two to three hundred meters. Within this range, there was not a single ordinary person, only a handful of scattered players.
"What's going on! Why have all the people in Holy Land City disappeared!" Some players stopped in place, while others had already returned from the edge of the city. "We can't get out. Outside the city is a thick fog. No matter which direction we go, we always end up back in Holy Land City. We must have entered the instance!"
Immediately, some players began cursing loudly, because those suddenly dragged into the instance were not only clearance players but also players who had failed to clear the instance before and were stranded here.
Before coming to Holy Land City, Xu Huo had heard clearance players say that entering the Holy Land Temple was required to start the instance. During the few days he spent at the temple, he indeed saw people entering the instance grounds from the temple—both local and outer zone players assumed this mental-type instance was a closed-area instance. Unlike the B-rank instances that used districts as their grounds, players who failed to clear should have been trapped inside the instance grounds until death. Yet here, quite a few failed players had been released, which was already somewhat inexplicable.
But now he understood. No wonder the "Goddess" could oversee Holy Land City and its satellite cities. No wonder failed players could also leave the temple. It turned out this was never a closed-area instance at all. Holy Land City, and even the entire district, was the instance range!
The players who had turned back from the city exit also realized this and immediately went to verify the situation with the stranded players.
However, as former clearance failures, these stranded players also couldn't figure out what was going on with the instance. Because when they entered from the temple, their range of activity was limited to within the temple. No one could step outside.
"This is bad. Could it be that everyone sees a different instance ground?" A ticket player mobilized a few people he had met to find more players. "This could be beneficial to us. I've heard that non-clearance players aren't targeted by the instance. If we travel with them, the clearance difficulty should drop significantly."
Xu Huo was not far from these people and happened to run into them head-on. Seeing that he was heading out of the city, the returning player proactively struck up a conversation and told him about the situation outside.
"Are you a ticket player or a stranded player?"
Xu Huo, now wearing a different face, looked like he was out of the loop. "I just got here. Don't you have to enter the Holy Land Temple to start the instance?"
The ticket player immediately explained the whole situation to him. "Looks like we've all been tricked. Saying we had to get stamps from the satellite cities to enter the Holy Land Temple was probably a process to deepen psychological suggestion. You're lucky enough to have just arrived and entered the instance without even stepping into a single Questioning Hall. Your situation might be a bit better than mine."
"Now we're going to find the stranded players from before. This instance won't target non-ticket players."
Xu Huo followed behind the group and asked in confusion, "Since they're stranded players, how can they still be pulled into the instance?"
The three stranded players traveling with them also didn't know the reason. One of them speculated, "Maybe the instance has changed. Before, players all entered from the Holy Land Temple. Today, something went wrong, and the instance randomly swallowed people. About ten minutes ago, the temple also swallowed quite a few local players... I hope it's not an instance upgrade."
This last sentence was like a bucket of cold water poured on everyone. The failed players from before had inexplicably left the temple, thinking it was a special feature of the instance. Of course, if this "special feature" continued, it would be fine—after a certain time, the instance would release them. But now, things were uncertain.
"The city doesn't seem to have changed. Either our minds have been affected, or we've entered a duplicate space, and the people around us have disappeared." Xu Huo looked left and right.
"If the entire district is the instance ground, it's probably a mental effect." The leading ticket player said, "Anyway, I can't leave the city. Either way, it's about the same. Although we've stepped into the instance, the clearance requirement is to survive fourteen days in the Holy Land Temple, so we still need to go there."
Xu Huo nodded, and the group continued toward the Holy Land Temple. Along the way, they contacted other players who had entered. By the time they reached the temple, they had gathered twenty-three people.
The ticket player who had spoken to Xu Huo was called Zhong Zhi. He quickened his pace and rushed toward the dozen or so players already gathered at the temple entrance, asking them what had happened and why they weren't going inside.
"There are a lot of local players inside." The yellow-haired man was also there. Unlike the others who were still simmering with anger at being toyed with, he had quickly perked up and took the initiative to answer, "Those local players should have been killed already!"
"What!" Zhong Zhi was shocked. The live broadcast earlier had been seen clearly by both players and believers. Aside from those who were suddenly pulled into the instance during the clash between the Divine Envoy and the Holy Maiden, most of the other players had died and were piled up in the temple. Especially those killed by Xu Huo—they had been chopped into pieces. Yet now they were walking around the temple alive and well!
Several of the later-arriving players had already gone to the entrance to look. Indeed, the two groups of players were still confronting each other.
"Am I hallucinating, or am I seeing ghosts?" A female player patted her forehead and described what she had seen to the person next to her. Only after receiving the same confirmation did she relax. "I was afraid I was seeing something different."
"Hey, do you think it's possible for there to be ghosts in a mental-type instance?" The yellow-haired man said in a gloomy tone. "I mean, aren't ghosts supposed to be a kind of mental entity? What if they manifest in a place where mental power is concentrated?"
"If that were the case, this instance probably wouldn't be able to hold them all." The A-rank player sneered. "Haven't you figured it out yet? We've been played for fools!"
"That bastard Xu didn't kill anyone at all! He used an illusion to put on a show, making us come out to draw fire and be cannon fodder!"
The yellow-haired man slapped his thigh and sighed repeatedly. "So that's how it is... But what's he trying to achieve? He's not from this district."
"That's hard to say." Another person said, "Don't you think he's way too strong? Maybe even this person is fake—an illusion created by the Goddess to divert attention."
"No way," the yellow-haired man began to doubt himself again. "I feel like he should be a real person."
"His items aren't fake," the A-rank player interrupted everyone's over-analysis. "He might be from this district. Look how smoothly he killed the Divine Envoy, and no Divine Envoys have appeared in the temple. He's a player on the Holy Maiden's side."
He said, looking around at everyone, "The instance randomly grabbed people. He must have come in too."