Chapter 2369: The Item's True Form
"Could it be that we don't have enough quantity?" the little girl asked. "I still have a lot of bombs here, but I need others to throw them with me."
"Now all the window openings are blocked off. Throwing them would be difficult. If we break those threads, they'll probably come back in full force soon," Ai Jiangping said.
"Those threads look alive," Shi Shuai suggested. "How about we try poisoning them?"
Tang Xian thought he was being ridiculous. "I've never heard of an object being poisoned."
"Can't poison them, then try something else." Shi Shuai said as he pulled out a bucket of potion, grinning slyly. "This is good stuff. There's no one in the world who isn't afraid of it."
When the lid was opened, a subtle pungent smell wafted out. Zuo Lei, who was closest, seemed to recognize what it was. Her expression changed as she quickly moved to stop him, but before her hand could reach, Shi Shuai tipped the bucket over.
The liquid poured out with a hissing corrosive sound. It did cause some threads to break and melt, but it also made the remaining sentient-like threads retract rapidly, then writhe wildly in the air!
The next moment, it was a rare scene of sulfuric acid raining down in the game. The stuff sizzled wherever it splashed, even against the defensive barriers. The group had to retreat, but as more threads corroded and snapped, the tangled clumps that had been bound together unraveled and surged toward them without mercy!
"Look at what you've done!" Tang Xian berated Shi Shuai.
The middle-aged man feigned innocence with a playful gesture. "I didn't mean to."
"I'm going to kill you!" Tang Xian couldn't take it anymore. As he stepped back, he collided with the little girl, who was also dodging. Her defensive barrier was somewhat special—it had an offensive property—and it shattered his barrier on contact. Two drops of the potion splashed onto Tang Xian's arm, instantly melting two holes into his skin.
"Why do I keep running into people like this?"
The others wanted to ask the same thing. The culprit, Shi Shuai, ran faster than anyone, leaving the rest behind as shields. The little girl, who seemed a bit scatterbrained, was also remarkably quick, always dodging behind someone else whenever attacked, accompanied by high-pitched screams.
Xu Huo used a defensive item and brought the Painting Woman along, dodging both the white threads and the players around him. No one wanted to be a shield. In such a cramped space, the players were openly and covertly fighting each other.
Avoiding Shi Shuai, who was knocked back by Tang Xian, Xu Huo watched him fall to the ground before saying, "There's no way forward or backward. Let's seal off both sides."
Zuo Lei used a large defensive barrier, covering everyone at once. However, this also meant they were completely trapped in the corridor by the white threads.
"Well, this isn't much better than before," Tang Xian said, leaning against the wall as he coldly glanced at Shi Shuai and the little girl.
"Might as well just blow it up," the little girl suggested, no longer screaming.
"Save it. Do you want to bury us all with you?" Zuo Lei interrupted her impatiently. "And can you stop shrieking? Haven't you gotten used to this yet?"
"Aren't you afraid when danger strikes?" the little girl didn't think she was wrong. "Everyone has different ways of venting emotions. Mine is healthy."
Zuo Lei couldn't be bothered to argue with her.
The little girl said nothing more and huddled in a corner, counting her bombs.
The Painting Woman patted Xu Huo's arm. On the communicator, she wrote that she would go into the window opening to check.
Xu Huo shook his head slightly. There was no need. Their goal wasn't to destroy the sealed item. If this place only had an entrance and no exit, it would suggest someone was secretly killing players. If too many players went missing, outsiders wouldn't see the Fish Feast as a player hunting ground, but a private one. Since the Fish Feast had existed for so long without such issues being exposed, it meant there were internal rules.
Just like this sealed item.
But since they hadn't found an exit outside, the window opening needed to be checked too.
He took out several miniature recorders, applied some glue to them, and stuffed them directly into the window opening in front of him.
This window opening, sealed behind a defensive barrier, had been closed all along. He only opened it for a moment, but he was lucky—no threads surged out at that instant.
After tossing the items inside, he watched the received footage outside.
Large swaths of white threads almost completely obscured the picture, but the good news was that the inside was better than the outside. Apart from the area near the window opening being crowded, the threads inside hung loosely, looking like a drying yard.
"Isn't this a spider's den?" Shi Shuai leaned in to look. "It must be a spider item!"
The space inside the window opening was also large. For now, nothing other than the threads was visible. The recorders didn't capture the item itself, but they did spot a door not far away.
Zuo Lei roughly estimated the position. "That's exactly where we came from. I don't remember there being an entrance or exit there."
"Doesn't that mean it's the entrance or exit connecting to the outside?" Shi Shuai clapped his hands. "Getting in is just a bit troublesome."
"Whether it's an entrance or exit remains to be seen," Tang Xian, who had earlier suggested going in, now disagreed with taking the risk. "That might not be a spatial portal. It could be a trap. If they wanted us to get out, why seal the door? I think it's more likely a maintenance passage in the Fish Feast Building."
Meaning it might only be accessible to staff, mainly for checking the item's condition.
"There's something here," the little girl pointed to a corner of the screen.
Xu Huo enlarged the image and found an area completely covered by threads with several abnormal creases, suggesting something large was underneath.
The miniature recorder adjusted its angle, and soon everyone could roughly make out the object's outline.
"Is that... a piano?" Ai Jiangping said uncertainly.
"Not a piano. It should be a loom," Xu Huo said. "A very old one."
"A loom?" The little girl had never seen one and couldn't imagine it. "Aren't looms all mechanical? I've seen them in my dad's factory—huge, fully automatic, needing only one robot for full management..."
The others didn't want to hear more. Many items born in the game came from the cultural history of various zones. An antique loom was nothing special.
"This loom is pretty impressive," Shi Shuai voiced what others were thinking. "Why don't we just steal it? Kill two birds with one stone?"
An item sitting there unattended, even if it had an owner—as long as they stashed it in the luggage compartment, over time, its original holder would eventually die. Then they'd get a good item for free.
Everyone was tempted.