# Chapter 2385: It Came for You
Hua Sisi had never been to that small space before, so she hadn't seen the prop fish. She first expressed doubt: "Could it be that instance prop that escaped?"
"Not likely." Xu Huo furrowed his brows and warned everyone, "Be careful."
The timing of the fish's appearance and disappearance earlier had been somewhat strange. He had seen tentacles devour people on the 49th floor, but he never expected that tentacles would be followed by a fish, and that fish hadn't attacked him... It seemed more like it had appeared here by chance.
"It's out again!" the round-faced player shouted. This time, the fish emerged from the side of a wall. As its mouth appeared, the tentacles inside instantly extended over ten meters, wrapping around both the round-faced player and Hua Sisi beside him. The two had been able to run just moments ago, but once caught, they were instantly frozen stiff, their bodies rigid as the tentacles lifted them and smashed them around the room!
Xu Huo activated the "Time Ring," and when he found it ineffective, he immediately drew upon the time power of the surrounding space. Under the impact of the time power, the wildly flailing tentacles momentarily froze. Seizing the opportunity, he grabbed the nearby sofa and hurled it at Hua Sisi and the other person!
The moment the time power dissipated, the sofa crashed into the two of them. Even though the tentacles reacted quickly, this brief interference bought them some space. At the very least, the two regained their senses and immediately used their life-saving props to escape.
Both instinctively fled toward the room's exit, one ahead of the other. Hua Sisi, who was behind, was quickly caught again by the pursuing tentacles. But the tentacles didn't give relentless chase—after slamming the door with a loud crack and whipping against the wall across the corridor, they retreated back into the room.
Or rather, they were forced to retreat.
Xu Huo quickly glanced outside the door. The walls, which could only be scratched by high-level prop attacks, now showed visible cracks from the tentacles' strikes. Such power—he couldn't imagine what would happen if someone without prop protection took a hit. Would they be cut in half directly?
The tentacles in the room were retracting back into the fish's mouth, and the prop fish was visibly swelling. After flickering and swimming around the room, it actually swallowed Hua Sisi whole!
Xu Huo made several attempts to pull her out but failed. Seeing that she had already disappeared, he had no choice but to turn and run outside.
The Painting Woman ran faster than him, practically turning into a shadow as she darted past him, completely unlike her earlier enthusiastic self who had been eager to find the instance prop.
"Run, run!" Shi Shuai was no slouch either. He had been hiding in the corner of the room, and now that the doorway was clear, he bolted for it without a second thought.
Xu Huo grabbed him, letting Shi Shuai pull him along as well, while asking loudly, "What is that?!"
"How would I know!" Shi Shuai said hurriedly. "I'm not an information broker!"
The two exited the room one after another. Just as the door was closing, Xu Huo saw the tentacles in the fish's mouth actually turn around and wrap around the prop fish itself. This caused the prop fish to shake violently, then convulse as if vomiting uncontrollably. First, it spat out Hua Sisi, then large clumps of tentacles.
Those tentacles no longer bothered chasing the players. Instead, they turned back and wrapped themselves entirely around the prop fish!
What would happen next was unknown to anyone, because Hua Sisi, once she escaped, slammed the door completely shut!
The round-faced player and Shi Shuai, who had left first, were already out of sight. The Painting Woman kept waving at Xu Huo from the end of the corridor, and Xu Huo didn't waste any more time. He immediately said, "Split up!"
"Be careful!" Hua Sisi ran off in the opposite direction without a second word.
Those tentacles might have been coming for him, but that fish... Xu Huo followed the Painting Woman and asked her which direction Shi Shuai had fled.
The spatial power in the area had become extremely unstable due to the appearance of the tentacles and the prop fish. Many players had escaped, and once the distance between left and right stretched out, it became difficult to accurately lock onto a target.
The Painting Woman pointed upstairs.
Xu Huo didn't hesitate and chose to go upstairs as well.
The Painting Woman stayed close beside him, speaking to him with mouth movements: "Shouldn't we find a place to hide?"
"No hiding." Xu Huo said. "Where can we hide? This building is only so big."
"I think that thing is hard to deal with," the Painting Woman added. "Even the fish that ate it got tangled up. It couldn't even be contained inside the fish's belly."
"You know those are two separate props?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.
The Painting Woman nodded. "I feel like the thing inside the fish's belly counters me."
The two climbed floor after floor without sensing any changes in the surrounding space. Only then did Xu Huo have the energy to press further: "Reason?"
The Painting Woman was impervious to both water and fire, and ordinary props were ineffective against her. What kind of prop could counter her?
The Painting Woman couldn't figure it out for the moment, only instinctively wanting to hide.
Xu Huo hadn't sensed any time power from the tentacles, nor had it seemed to use it when freezing players. Poison didn't seem to be the case either. Considering it could freely shuttle through small spaces, perhaps it had a unique way of using spatial power, which was why it could instantly immobilize players.
If it was spatial power, then it was normal for the Painting Woman to feel fear. Especially since these tentacles were different from the Water Cube space—they were alive, with active pursuit capabilities.
As if to verify his thoughts, the next second, the space fluctuated, and a massive fish head appeared from above the stairs!
The prop fish was even bigger than before. Its head alone nearly filled the entire stairwell. The tentacles in its mouth struggled, sometimes short, sometimes long, as if trying to pull it out of the space together. But before they could get close to Xu Huo and the Painting Woman, the prop fish swung its head and crashed into the wall beside it!
It didn't actually hit the wall. The moment it touched the surface, that spot became a spatial entrance and exit. Before the fish's body had fully emerged from the other space, it disappeared again!
By the time Xu Huo and the Painting Woman climbed two more floors, the fish reappeared in the stairwell, then bit into the tentacles and drilled into the fluctuating space once more!
"It came for you." The Painting Woman even had time to tap her communicator, adding an exaggerated expression, "It really likes you!"
Xu Huo shot her a look amidst the chaos. "You think this is liking?"
The Painting Woman pursed her lips and smiled.
Xu Huo knew he had probably been marked for revenge. Given this relentless behavior, this prop also had basic thinking ability. Like a person, it held grudges. And it just so happened that the Fish Feast Building, to avoid the influence of time power—or perhaps coincidentally at the moment when rooms were refreshing—had disrupted the surrounding space, allowing it to escape from the small space. Unfortunately, the first person it saw when it came out was him. It probably mistook him for a player from the Fish Feast Building, and with old grudges unresolved, it had chased him all the way from the 49th floor to the 23rd.
And the appearance of that prop fish was also very coincidental, as if it were helping. But the prop fish itself could freely enter and exit spaces. Whether it was trapping the tentacles or increasing their mobility was hard to say.
Just as he was thinking about how to temporarily shake off these two props, he suddenly saw someone crouching beside a restroom, picking up a fallen feather.
"Shi Shuai!" he called out.