Chapter 2592: Giant Head Mask and Silver-White Threads
The spatial defense barrier instantly sprang open, but it only blocked the sound of the wind for a moment. The next second, the object flying toward him appeared inside the barrier. The blade in Xu Huo's hand rang out in response, making two consecutive horizontal and vertical cuts, followed by the sound of something hitting the floor with a thud.
The place where he stood was a room covered with dust cloths, still quite spacious. A few meters away was a floor-to-ceiling window, with a large sunshade tightly drawn, only letting in a faint glimmer of light through the gaps at the top. Although there was no electric lighting, under this weak illumination, the room wasn't completely dark. For him, seeing things was even less of a problem. What had fallen to the ground was undoubtedly a ghost-face head mask cut into several pieces.
Using the tip of his blade to poke and examine it, he saw that the inside of the head mask hadn't grown any "blood vessels." It looked like just an ordinary head mask.
However, since the personal panel wasn't sealed off, Xu Huo took out a small box and had the Painting Woman put the head mask inside, while he went to deal with three more head masks that appeared one after another from different places.
The head masks moved quickly, often appearing suddenly from within space, making them not so easy to guard against. But Xu Huo could detect the faint fluctuations of spatial power when they appeared. Combined with the spatial defense barriers he could activate continuously, the mechanical suit, and the spiritual power materialized objects along with the Black Blade, harvesting them wasn't a problem.
Just by walking out of this theater backstage, the Painting Woman had already collected over a dozen head masks. However, after a while, she noticed that the number of head masks was decreasing. It wasn't that they had come alive and run away, but that they were simply disappearing from the box.
So Xu Huo simply started throwing the head masks directly into the luggage compartment.
This made the Painting Woman quite angry. She had actually liked the job of collecting head masks because she wanted to use the broken pieces to make a patchwork cloak for fun.
In the theater's front seating area, several headless bodies lay slumped. Judging by the wounds on their necks, it looked as if some force had directly pulled their heads off their necks. This was somewhat different from the situation outside the restricted zone.
Outside the restricted zone, the head masks basically didn't directly remove heads. Instead, they controlled the people wearing the masks and then transferred targets when those people were killed. The head masks inside the restricted zone... were much stronger.
The head masks showed little interest in the Painting Woman, so the task of looting the bodies was left to her.
Among the several people who died in the theater, two were players, and the rest were ordinary residents of Xia City.
The Painting Woman stripped all their terminals along with any props and instruments from their bodies, stuffed them into her own backpack, and then picked up the box of food to follow behind Xu Huo.
In the restricted zone, things could change at any moment, so it was best to carry food with you.
Xu Huo was under attack with every step he took. Those head masks seemed to be able to generate infinitely—kill one, and another would appear, suddenly popping out from any place or any angle. Just as he was smoothly killing his way to the theater exit, a large demon-head mask suddenly descended from above, covering an area of nearly ten meters. At the same time, silver-white threads shot out from inside the mask!
Xu Huo's brow furrowed slightly. He suddenly crouched low and dashed to the middle of the theater in one swift move, simultaneously releasing an instrument barrier behind him. A compressed metal protective shield expanded behind his back. Although it successfully blocked the silver-white threads, fine cracks appeared on the metal surface the moment they were hit!
This scene made his eyelids twitch, but the next second, those silver-white threads changed direction and headed straight for the Painting Woman.
The Painting Woman was just about to leap forward to collect that giant head mask. Seeing the threads coming for her, she didn't hesitate to swap out her paper toys. Although some paper props were mixed in among them, none were of a high grade. With the Painting Woman's abilities, she could easily manage one-on-one defense. But the paper props were pierced through in a second, offering almost no resistance to the silver-white threads.
The Painting Woman had already dropped the box in her hands. Instead of dodging these threads, she directly manipulated those pierced paper props, making them tightly wrap around the threads and then forcefully pull downward, changing the direction of the threads' movement.
But at that moment, another thread stabbed down from above her head. The Painting Woman tilted her head up and took it directly on her face. The immense impact slammed her face-first onto the ground.
Of course, the silver-white thread couldn't pierce through her head, but landing on the back of her head made her expression darken. She grabbed the silver-white thread stuck to her face and yanked it downward with all her might, pulling the giant head mask floating on the theater ceiling down by two meters!
On the other side, Xu Huo, who was also constantly under attack from the silver-white threads, seized the opportunity to leap up. The Black Blade slashed fiercely at the giant head mask—he used all his strength in this strike. But the blade seemed to sink into flowing water. Not only did a subtle buoyancy lift the blade, but the sharp edge also failed to leave any mark on the head mask.
Quickly pulling back from the rolled-up head mask, Xu Huo landed on a chair back and found himself already surrounded by silver-white threads. These threads all came out from under the giant head mask, but after the previous attacks, they had covered the theater's stage, seats, and aisles, now forming a chaotic, tangled net!
The moment he stood on the chair back, all the threads began to retract toward the head mask, like countless cutting blades slicing the entire theater into pieces!
Xu Huo waved his hand downward. The gravity triggered by the bone ring slammed everything around him hard into the ground. With a series of cracking and shattering sounds, the seats collapsed, the floor split open, and even the stage along with the backstage rest area completely caved in. Although the silver-white threads also stuck to the ground along with the giant head mask, they could still move slowly under such immense pressure.
Sensing that some threads had entered the underground area of the theater, Xu Huo turned around, grabbed the Painting Woman by one foot, and pulled her out from under the threads. He opened a portal and transferred them outside the theater. The miraculously preserved box came out with them as well.
The moment they landed, the theater behind them completely collapsed. A few barely noticeable silver-white threads shot up from the middle of the theater toward the sky, then quickly retracted, after which there was no more movement.
The giant head mask had disappeared.
But that didn't mean the crisis was over, because more ghost-face head masks flew out from the surrounding buildings.
Glancing at the things floating around that looked like human heads, Xu Huo flicked the Black Blade in his hand and said coldly, "I'd like to see just how many head masks there are here!"
The Painting Woman was also wearing a mechanical suit. To avoid looking too strange, she had covered her head with several layers of transparent helmets. They weren't particularly good props, but layering them one over another made her head look bigger, making it less convenient for a ghost-face head mask to swallow her whole. She carried one large and one small backpack. The box she had been holding was now supported by a paper flying bird. With her freed hands, she held one long and one short prop sword, charging forward as if entering an uninhabited land.