Chapter 2607: Can't Exactly Wait Until Then
Xu Huo wasn't surprised by his persistence, but added, "It's only the second day. We can hold out for the remaining time, but can you stay awake without sleeping?"
Old Mr. Xi looked at him. "You haven't thought of a way to get out early?"
Xu Huo smiled. "You overestimate me."
The old man stared at the floating hoods around them and said with some difficulty, "Even a metal body can't handle going this many days without sleep. Maybe we should just hide in the sewers, wear protective suits, and tough it out for a few days."
That was what he had been doing before. If the Painting Woman hadn't chased him out, he could have hidden for two more days.
Xu Huo didn't comment. If there was truly no other option, hiding underground was feasible. But they had to consider those silver-white filaments that could transform from roots into sharp lines. Previously, their attacks had been concentrated on the surface, but it was hard to say they wouldn't penetrate deeper if their range expanded. Hiding underground would make it much harder to avoid them.
Moreover, he felt the Night Parade groups weren't that mechanical. They didn't follow a fixed pattern. Even after being shattered by the massive explosion, they could immediately form new groups... It was likely the bell sounds they heard after the explosion weren't the only ones. The Night Parade performers flying in other directions had also evolved into new Night Parade groups.
Xu Huo monitored the outside world through the players near the writer Jing Shi. Following the horror-themed Night Parade group in Lan Shui Wu, two more cities had seen Night Parade groups appear—one with a religious theme and one with a doll theme.
They had already witnessed the killing method of the religious theme. It would continuously harvest heads in relatively open, crowded areas. But when the religious Night Parade group appeared, it displayed a complexity and unpredictability that was the complete opposite of its previous crude brutality. When the group appeared, a certain religious chant would echo through the city. The parade didn't kill or take nearby onlookers during its march. However, after the parade ended, some of those who had heard the chant would be affected, voluntarily stepping forward to accept the hoods. Some who put on the hoods would even attack others in suicidal attempts to transfer the hoods.
Not only was it impossible to guard against, but the range of influence was also enormous, making specific prevention extremely difficult. The city where the religious-themed Night Parade had appeared was now under a mandatory city-wide silence order.
The doll-themed Night Parade group was far bloodier. Its members would quickly disperse after appearing, engage in a certain amount of bloody slaughter within a certain range and time, and then return to the group. They wore cute doll costumes, but almost every one of them returned stained with blood.
From the current situation, these Night Parade groups would appear in different cities in a crisscrossing pattern. The time of appearance, the number of members, how long they operated, the specific kill count... all of this was uncertain information. The only thing that was certain was that every Night Parade group emerged from the Instance Forbidden Zones. The local governments and players' blockades of the Forbidden Zone entrances and exits were essentially useless.
"It seems the outside isn't much better than the Forbidden Zone space," Xu Huo said.
If they went out and still stayed in the Instance venue, they would still face the risk of being attacked by Night Parade groups or being trapped again if the Forbidden Zone expanded. The only way out was to leave Zone 001 and completely cut ties with the district.
The sunlight was getting a bit glaring. The prolonged mental strain was wearing Old Mr. Xi down. He wanted to find a place underground to rest. But just as he was about to crawl into a sewer, a hood flew up from below to block him. Watching him scramble down in a panic, only to be yanked back out by the device like a startled monkey, Xu Huo and the Painting Woman laughed without restraint.
Xu Huo controlled the device to knock away the two hoods and caught the old man mid-air. "Now you know I wasn't joking."
Although Old Mr. Xi was very unwilling to admit it, his abilities were simply insufficient to solve the current predicament. He threw his hands up in surrender. "Just knock me out. If I'm unconscious, I won't know anything, and I can still get some sleep."
But Xu Huo shook his head. "I have great respect for you."
In other words, he absolutely would not forcibly stuff him into a Container Item.
The old man looked at him with a complicated expression. "You sure hold a grudge."
"Tit for tat," Xu Huo said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "The temperature is getting a bit high. Let's find some shade to walk in."
There was a relatively open shopping mall nearby where they could move around more easily, so the three of them headed there.
With hoods appearing from time to time, getting any real rest was almost impossible. It was just that Xu Huo and the Painting Woman had high defensive capabilities, so they weren't as miserable.
With their help, Old Mr. Xi had it much easier. He even found time to study the Water Cube Barrier on Xu Huo.
"Your device is very high-level," he said, using his instrument to scan the barrier's data. "Based on its defensive grade, it's very likely a Super Device."
"Is there any way to deconstruct this barrier?" Xu Huo asked.
The old man gave him a "are you kidding me" look. "The creation of Super Devices is a technological chasm for the vast majority of Wormhole Points and districts. We can't even find the door, and you want to deconstruct it?"
"It's still a barrier formed by Space Power," Xu Huo said. "I've already reached the point where I can construct visible polyhedrons using Space Power. But because of this device's lockdown, I can't use my Space Power."
"If Space Devices operate on the same principle for using Space Power, then this barrier should be deconstructible."
Old Mr. Xi was surprised by his evolutionary strength and praised him with a rare compliment—"It's uncommon to see someone so powerful in both directions of Super Evolution"—before saying, "Your thinking isn't wrong, but your understanding of the magnitude of space-time power is flawed."
"Not only do different people have different conceptions and control over Space Power due to their different evolutionary paths, but even if you were on the same foundation, stacking space bodies hundreds of thousands of times would already make you a formidable opponent among players. But that's only among players. The barrier of a Super Device is likely based on countless further layers of stacking on top of that foundation. It may seem as thin as a single layer, even invisible to the naked eye, but in reality, it has already entered another dimension."
"You've probably seen the Dimension Train crossing multiple spaces, right? Did those spaces that looked pieced together have such obvious Space Power fluctuations?"
"No, they didn't. That's because their basic units and arrangement methods are completely different from the Space Power controlled by players. It's absolutely impossible for human power to achieve."
"But someone told me that this device could be deconstructed through evolutionary power," Xu Huo said.
Old Mr. Xi paused for a moment, then looked at him with a complicated gaze. "Maybe that person thinks you have the potential to become a Super Player."
"In all my years, the only thing I've never been able to understand is Super Players."
"The abilities of ordinary players all have traces to follow. But Super Players—some of them can easily destroy an entire city without even using a prop."
The words were flattering, but Xu Huo's eyes darkened. "Can't exactly wait until then to solve this problem, can we?"