Chapter 2479: Fighting Beneath the Train
"It's too early to give up now," the female player with the brow tattoo said. "This is just the beginning. If we shrink back when facing local players, won't they look down on us?"
The others in the group more or less felt the same way, but of course, the more important thing was clearing the instance. After all, compared to the dangerous will delivery, Xu Huo's task of returning a gift didn't seem to have much potential for clearing.
Xu Huo didn't say much more. He turned to the two Wan family members and said, "Be careful."
The two Wan family members nodded. In fact, they hadn't relaxed at all since the attack ended, and were even more vigilant and cautious than during the attack itself.
Xu Huo hesitated briefly, lowered his voice to say a few words to the Painting Woman, then called Bubble Bean to go to the dining car together.
Once they reached the dining car, Bubble Bean said, "You deliberately called me out? What's the problem?"
"I haven't spotted anything yet, but it doesn't hurt to try," Xu Huo replied.
"No matter whether those people outside are targeting Ling Ling's group or the old lady's party, coming out alone like this probably won't help much," Bubble Bean added.
"Not necessarily." The players who had ambushed them earlier occasionally disappeared from his perception range, but they had been following the train all along. It didn't seem like they wanted to kill Ling Ling and the others or steal the will—if they were afraid of damaging the train, they could have stopped it or simply thrown them off the train. That wouldn't have been difficult.
This kind of hovering at a distance must have a reason.
"Please enjoy," the steward said, placing a drink in front of Xu Huo.
Xu Huo only glanced down before immediately grabbing the steward's wrist. "What did you put in my drink?"
The steward was about to explain with an apologetic smile when he caught Bubble Bean pulling out a prop out of the corner of his eye. He immediately broke free, sliding toward the front carriage door in one second. Sensing the unusual energy fluctuations on the door, he abruptly stopped and leaped straight out the window.
"Trying to run!" Bubble Bean loosened his fingers, and a net shot out, pulling the person midair back in.
As the player disguised as the steward landed back inside the car, he threw out a sphere. When the sphere exploded, a powerful force sent Bubble Bean, who was about to close in, flying along with all the tables and chairs in the dining car. Then the player took out a prop with two vertical lines and pressed it. The two lines turned into a triangle, and the entire train came to a sudden halt as if it had slammed on the brakes. As Bubble Bean and the others were thrown forward by inertia, the steward had already turned into a smoke-like shadow and vanished over a hundred meters away.
In a few flashes, the steward had already run over a thousand meters. Seeing that no one from the train was pursuing him, he slowed down and finally stopped on a large tree, watching the train from a distance.
"Why did you ambush me?" A voice suddenly appeared behind him. The steward's expression changed drastically. As he turned, he leaped down from the tree, and a transparent bubble enveloped him, carrying him through the gaps in the trees toward the distance.
How could Xu Huo let him get away? Under the "Weight of Life," both he and the flying steward were forcibly pressed to the ground. As the "Holy Light of Justice" flared up, a brass-colored shuttle spun into the air, breaking through three layers of the steward's defense barriers at incredible speed and, by coincidence, shattering the jamming device he was wearing.
In just a few seconds of combat, the steward fell through a spiritual gate on the ground and was teleported back within five hundred meters of the spiritual realm.
After blocking the crisscrossing tangents, the steward used a prop to create distance underground from Xu Huo. But when he surfaced again, the several layers of defense barriers Xu Huo had activated sent him flying backward, and behind him was the cutting line of the pre-arranged instrument "Between Two Points."
"Between Two Points" was a spatial instrument. Once two points were set, a space ray would appear between them, and the intensity of this ray was comparable to Xue Lang's cutting rays. So it effortlessly sliced through two layers of the steward's defense screens and cut through a physical defense prop.
"Gentle as Water!" Just as he was about to hit the space ray, the steward reached one hand behind him. The moment his hand was about to touch the ray, the sharp ray seemed to lose its power and became soft and weak, allowing him to dodge the attack by ducking under it!
Watching his movement, Xu Huo raised an eyebrow slightly. He pulled out the "Seal Door" hammer and aimed it at the steward's back from a distance.
"Bang!" The hammer struck with a loud noise. The steward's heart was pierced, and his fast-moving figure stumbled before finally disappearing into the woods.
Putting away the hammer, Xu Huo raised his hand, and the shuttle that had been circling in the air flew back. This was an A-grade prop he had obtained from clearing "Hidden Friend." It was a freely controllable attack prop with high speed, capable of moving in the direction the holder pointed. It had powerful attack capabilities and could be controlled remotely, eliminating the need for spatial manipulation.
Testing it out, the effect wasn't bad.
He stored it in his prop slot, glanced in the direction where the steward had disappeared, then turned and stepped into the spiritual gate to get back on the train.
"Didn't catch him?" Bubble Bean was waiting for him.
"He entered the station," Xu Huo said flatly. "The next attack probably won't come so soon. Let's head back first."
The two returned to the carriage where the old lady and Ling Ling were. They learned that they too had been attacked. Ling Ling was greatly puzzled. "There are so many players delivering gifts for the Wan family. Why were you attacked?"
Could there be something wrong with the return gift?
"The return gift is fine," Xu Huo said bluntly. "That return gift was picked at random from a pile of gift boxes. Completely random."
"Then..." Ling Ling's gaze shifted to the old lady.
"If it were them, that guy just now should have attacked them," Bubble Bean said, pointing at the two Wan family members. Then he plopped down opposite them. "You're locals. You should know the reason. Those players seemed to be picking their targets at random."
"We're very sorry. We don't know what's going on," one of them said. "The return gift was originally a trivial matter. Not only has it delayed your instance clearance, but it's also brought you danger. We feel terrible about it. Why don't you give us the return gift? We happen to be going the same way."
The script had been flipped. Bubble Bean looked at Xu Huo, who just smiled. "It was just an accident. There probably won't be a next time."
Unfortunately, he was wrong. There was not only a next time but even a third. Over the next four stations, they were attacked twice more, each time on the train. Getting off the train, no one approached them.
And the attackers were clearly targeting the three of them—the out-of-zone players. The two Wan family members and the old lady were only caught in the crossfire.
"We already split up from Ling Ling and her group midway, and we're still being attacked. Are we being targeted too?" Bubble Bean was baffled. "Isn't the frequency and number of attacks a bit ridiculous?"
"We've been targeted ever since we left Mao Guo Town," Xu Huo said.