Chapter 2393: Breakthrough
"Will this cause trouble for you?" the Painting Woman asked again about this matter.
"It won't be much trouble," Xu Huo said. "Anyway, we've already run off, and we've disguised ourselves..."
Before he could finish speaking, several employees wearing shark masks suddenly appeared ahead. They locked onto the two of them and charged over, simultaneously attempting to seal off the corridor with instruments.
Unfortunately, the connection to the game couldn't be severed here. Since items could still be used, there were many ways to break through the blockade barrier. But with pursuers behind them, they had no time to open a new room and could only continue along the corridor and up the stairs.
There was clearly more than one group chasing them. After running only a short distance, they were intercepted by two groups coming from different directions ahead, forcing them to head upstairs.
Running made typing difficult, but the Painting Woman still seized every opportunity to figure out how they had been discovered. The Fish Feast certainly wouldn't answer her, so she could only ask Xu Huo.
"Maybe our aura is just too outstanding," Xu Huo said, stabbing through the blockade barrier ahead with a single strike. He released his Spiritual Realm to send the two players closing in on him away, then used his Materialized Object to force back the three behind them, successfully bringing the Painting Woman to the fifty-sixth floor.
The number of players chasing them didn't decrease, but as they ascended, they happened to encounter someone opening a door to come out. The door was wide open, clearly indicating the room inside was safe. Seeing them approaching from afar, the player about to exit retreated back into the room but didn't close the door.
Without a second thought, Xu Huo rushed inside. As soon as the door closed, the pursuers outside were completely cut off.
The room contained not only the buzz-cut player who had been about to leave but also the unkempt man they had seen before, along with five others.
"You're really something. It hasn't been long, and you're already being hunted by the Fish Feast people," the buzz-cut player said, clearly recognizing Xu Huo. He kept his distance and pointed at the Painting Woman. "This woman has a stupid look on her face—she's way too easy to recognize."
Their disguises naturally had no flaws, but the Painting Woman wasn't a real person, so her emotional expressions fundamentally differed from a human's. With careful observation, one could notice she had almost no emotional fluctuations—her facial expressions were all faked. Details like her gaze, however, were difficult to fake. Over time or after repeated encounters, it became easy to see through.
"I'll pretend to be blind next time," Xu Huo said, turning to the Painting Woman.
The Painting Woman glared angrily at the buzz-cut man.
"You spared me once, so I'm repaying that favor now," the buzz-cut man said. He was the player Xu Huo had captured in their previous encounter and the one who had told Xu Huo about the Mermaid Game.
"Did you go to the Mermaid Game? You're not being hunted because you lost and refused to pay up, are you?" he speculated maliciously.
"It could also be that I won too much," Xu Huo said helplessly. "The boss of Fish Feast doesn't really play by the rules."
That fish was clearly not his item. On the contrary, he had been thrown into crisis because of the Fish Feast management's reckless actions. Not only did the Fish Feast boss not compensate him, but they were even hunting him down. Did he want to go to that meeting room? Did he want to know that woman surnamed Zhai was called the "Archon"?
That was somewhat unreasonable.
After hearing his patched-together account, the buzz-cut man and the others in the room couldn't help but show admiration. It wasn't that they admired Xu Huo's ability to stir up trouble, but rather his audacity to believe that the Fish Feast people absolutely had to follow the rules.
"Shouldn't they?" Xu Huo countered. "They open their doors for business but don't even follow basic rules. Is this place a hunting ground where the big fish eat the small, or a gambling table where the house takes all?"
The buzz-cut player rubbed his chin. "What you say makes sense, but talking tough won't cut it. You need real strength, or else who's going to reason with you?"
Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. "When there are more people, reasoning becomes easier, doesn't it?"
The buzz-cut player looked at him incredulously. "What makes you think I'll go reason with you?"
Xu Huo smiled instead. "What makes you think I'm asking you to act with me?"
The buzz-cut player choked for a moment before saying, "From the way you were talking so boldly, I thought you were planning something big. Turns out it's just hot air."
Xu Huo didn't say more. By himself, even with the few people in front of him or more players, it wouldn't be enough. The Fish Feast could restrict any player by cutting off game channels. The only way to throw the Fish Feast Building into chaos was to release those Instance items locked in the small spaces.
Of course, not all Instance items possessed intelligence. But from the tentacle item, it was clear that even in the zoo where game channels had been cut off, it could still move freely. That meant it—or similarly naturally born items with some intelligence—didn't need the game as a medium to function.
Similarly, it couldn't be ruled out that even when game channels were cut off, they might still be within the game's control range. For example, near train tracks, some chaotic spatial sea areas, and artificially created Non-Game Area Simulators seemed to have escaped the game—tickets couldn't be used, items couldn't be used either—but in reality, the boundary between what could and couldn't be done wasn't entirely clear.
However, whether naturally born intelligent items differed from other similar items, or whether areas seemingly detached from the game were just conditionally restricting players, it didn't matter. As long as beings like the Painting Woman, the tentacle item, and the item fish could indeed operate normally when game channels were artificially cut off, that was enough.
"Do you know of any small doors nearby that have Instance items locked inside?" Xu Huo asked. "Preferably ones that can move freely?"
The buzz-cut player had already heard about the tentacle item and couldn't help saying, "Your idea isn't bad, but even if there are, they're locked in small spaces. Unless you use a directional cross-space instrument, it's hard for them to directly enter the Fish Feast."
"I doubt you're the first to have this idea. The Fish Feast would have prepared defenses in advance. Maybe the game channels for those small spaces with such items have already been blocked. Even tickets can't be used, naturally cutting off any possibility of players using various means to bring them into the Fish Feast Building."
"Makes sense," Xu Huo nodded. The tentacle item had been released because Ms. Zhai and her people forcibly swapped rooms, causing the space to collapse. The reason they could move in and out of the zoo, where game channels were blocked, was because of the item fish that could shuttle through space.
It was uncertain whether that fish was a being similar to the tentacle item or if its spatial attributes allowed it to avoid being trapped. But the existence of that fish was indeed a breakthrough—though he didn't know where it had gone now.
Just then, Xu Huo saw on his communicator that someone was reporting a strange fish shuttling through space on the sixty-ninth floor.