Chapter 2372: Close Your Eyes and Still Fight
Of course, this player wasn't a pushover either. Forced through the spatial gate, he was already prepared. The moment they met, several cold lights sliced toward Xu Huo and his group from different directions.
The props didn't have a clear trajectory, indiscriminately attacking everyone in the corridor, including the player's own companions behind him. He himself let out a strange laugh, spread his arms wide, and suddenly clapped them together!
This clapping-like motion struck Xu Huo's defense barrier. The barrier remained intact, but his attack power penetrated through without obstruction, directly targeting Xu Huo's ears!
If caught off guard by this double ear strike, one might even lose their life. Xu Huo had enough defense props. The "Space Sphere" instantly pushed the opponent's attack along with the outer defense barrier away, and then the materialized objects turned into countless thin blades and swords, twisting toward the man in front of him!
"Buzz!" The player dodged and retreated while pressing a watch on his arm. A powerful interference force burst forth, immediately dulling the sharpness of the materialized objects around him, turning them into harmless black shadows.
It was normal for players to carry anti-mental interference devices. Xu Huo didn't rely entirely on mental power either. As the opponent retreated, the Black Blade directly swept across the corridor, slashing horizontally at everyone ahead!
One by one, players were forced to the side of the corridor by the Black Blade's edge. Some had defense barriers that withstood the attack, so there were no casualties. With this strike, the melee officially began.
The first to act was the young girl at the back. She threw bombs forward as if they cost nothing. After two exploded, someone batted the flying bombs back, which hit a defense barrier and fell.
"I threw so many bombs—did I not think someone would bat them back?" Clearly, this blockade barrier was her creation, designed to prevent backlash from her own bombs.
"Break it!" A player from the opposite side stepped forward, making a scissor motion with two fingers toward the barrier. The next second, the barrier vanished, and the player disappeared from his spot, flashing to the girl's side, his right hand scissoring toward her neck.
His speed was indeed fast. From a distance, he not only cut through the girl's defense barrier but also injured her neck. If his fingers hadn't failed to close completely, the girl might not have survived.
"Truly insidious!" the girl said as she retreated, making way for the Painting Woman to block the attacker.
The Painting Woman did nothing else but clip an instrument between the player's two fingers and twist it hard.
He followed her movement to dodge, then turned to attack the round-faced player nearby.
Xu Huo, fighting two other players ahead, took a moment to look back and said, "His finger scissors have a distance limit. He probably can't activate his defense barrier while using them. Next time he uses them, seize the chance to kill him!"
Many defense barriers couldn't balance defense and attack. While protecting the player, they also prevented the player from attacking while keeping the barrier intact. So the next time that player used his finger scissors, with two people coordinating, they could find an opportunity to kill him!
"You sure have leisure time, seeing that from so far away." The buzz-cut man charged hard, the props covering his arm pressing directly onto Xu Huo's Black Blade, pushing him with brute force into the wall. Using auxiliary props, he increased his strength repeatedly, as if trying to pin him down there.
"I'll help you!" Shi Shuai, who had been dodging through the crowd, shouted from afar and threw an iron can into the corridor. A blinding flash followed—even without looking directly, everyone in the corridor felt their eyes sting. The entire corridor plunged into a sea of white. Except for Shi Shuai, everyone suffered indiscriminate attacks.
But this didn't affect the players' fighting. Close your eyes and still fight.
So before their vision and eyes recovered, everyone in the corridor shut their eyelids. However, this inevitably led to missing opponents' attacks or mistaking teammates for enemies and enemies for teammates. In high-efficiency combat, reaction time was short, and judgment time even shorter, forcing everyone to rely on instinct.
Perhaps seeing that they were heading toward mutual destruction, another group of players soon joined in, starting a three-way melee.
Three factions, about twenty people crammed into a corridor, occasionally colliding with each other. Some large-scale props were completely useless. After nearly ten minutes of close combat, realizing that staying here was pointless, some players began to retreat.
The first to withdraw were the latecomers, because their entry position was unfavorable, landing right in the buzz-cut player's main territory. The disheveled player, after repeatedly attacking the round-faced player's group and being intercepted by Xu Huo, directly switched targets, causing heavy losses to that group.
Gradually, some players gathered around the buzz-cut man also slipped away silently.
Xu Huo's side had few people to begin with. Only one round-faced player had run off. Shi Shuai was slacking off but would occasionally throw out one or two mutual-destruction props. As for the Painting Woman and the young girl, both were the type that grew stronger the more they fought.
By the end, neither side could clearly take down the other, but giving up felt somewhat unwilling, so they kept dragging it out.
The buzz-cut man kept verbally attacking Xu Huo, trying to make him retreat first.
"You want face, and I want face too. I definitely won't retreat first. If you want to leave, you go," Xu Huo said. The Black Blade in his hand was barely visible as a shadow, steadily suppressing the buzz-cut man.
The buzz-cut man gradually faltered. Xu Huo was nearly flawless. Though his props count wasn't high, every necessary spot was protected. Breaking through his defense barrier was hard enough, and even if breached, he still had the flowing metal suit as a backup. Trading injuries mostly meant big injuries for small ones. Not to mention the opponent's concentration in battle—ordinary players' focus and reaction speed would drop over time, but not this guy!
After another parry, the buzz-cut man prepared to flee. But just as he turned, someone spoke behind him:
"Leaving just like that?"
The buzz-cut man swung a props backhand, but it hit a spatial barrier. Not only did it fail to force Xu Huo back, but he was also kicked into the wall!
The Black Blade pressed against his neck against the wall, and black shadows had crawled onto his body at some point, wrapping around his neck and binding his hands and feet.
"Don't move," Xu Huo warned him. "Be careful—even move a finger, and you'll lose an arm."
The buzz-cut man looked up at him. "What do you want?"
"Back to the topic you brought up when we first met," Xu Huo said. "What's the deal with the mermaid mask?"