Chapter 2613: Are You Still Mentally Stable?
Xu Huo followed the people from Zone 001 to a temporary safe house near Xia City. To avoid gathering crowds that might attract the Night Parade, the temporary safe houses were located near the city's edge and were fairly scattered. The people staying here were mainly government dispatch staff and some players who were injured and couldn't be transferred in time. As for other city residents, they took shelter nearby and were not allowed to leave the city.
Realizing that location items couldn't completely evade those hoods, the safe houses used lightweight metal tents open on all sides, providing a wide field of vision and making it easier for people to take cover.
"Given the emergency and limited conditions, we have to share tents with multiple people," the white-haired elder personally led Xu Huo and the Painting Woman to a safe house. The tent was low, and several players were already waiting inside. When they saw the newcomers, they immediately stood up and saluted the elder.
The elder waved his hand, simply instructing them to take care of the two friends from another zone, then apologized to Xu Huo and left.
Though he said "take care," the main duty of these people was actually to protect Xu Huo and the Painting Woman, fending off attacks from the instance hoods while also guarding against assaults from others with ulterior motives.
Inside Xu Huo's body, the Water Cube and the space power threads had reached a balance. When he passed through that spatial passage, the time power hadn't affected him too much either. The earlier shock had caused some internal injuries—he seemed to have coughed up quite a bit of blood—but after his evolution rate increased, his recovery was fast, making it hardly worth mentioning.
He opened his personal panel, first replied to Bai Kou's message, then asked what the most likely consequences would be if someone was stabbed or parasitized by space power.
Bai Kou hadn't left. "In the vast majority of cases, instant death. But there's a tiny chance of super evolution. However, this kind of super evolution might come with aftereffects. It's hard to say what exactly those aftereffects would be, and it doesn't necessarily mean a long life. It's far inferior to a natural secondary evolution."
"If you absolutely have no talent for secondary evolution and really want to take a gamble, you could give it a try."
A typical example of being stabbed by space power was right beside him. What about Nie Xuan? Without a second stroke of luck, he'd probably have lost his life. His body had also undergone changes, meaning he had to be ready for potential complications at any time.
When passing through that spatial passage, the Water Cube barrier hadn't been broken. Simply put, if the barrier had failed, he wouldn't have come out unscathed. But the Water Cube had trapped a thread of space power inside. It was hard to say whether it had triggered some kind of program. The so-called "losing the future" seemed to reveal its true meaning only now. Not only was the Water Cube's defensive function completely paralyzed, but he couldn't use space power either, and he had to constantly be wary of this time bomb inside him.
"You wouldn't do something that stupid, would you?" After a while, Bai Kou sent another message.
Xu Huo didn't reply again. Not answering was actually a kind of admission. Forcibly following the Night Parade and trying to break out of the restricted zone space had indeed been reckless on his part. He hadn't expected the Night Parade to leave so quickly, and that space had genuinely affected his control over time power... After this exchange, he realized space power wasn't as one-dimensional as he'd thought, and time power wasn't absolutely invincible either.
Suddenly, a handful of snacks appeared in front of him. The Painting Woman raised her communicator and asked, "Are you unhappy?"
"A little," Xu Huo picked one and stuffed it into his mouth. "I came here to solve problems, but instead, they're snowballing bigger and bigger."
"Then go ask that writer," the Painting Woman said. "I think she really likes answering other people's questions."
Xu Huo smiled. "I'll deal with that later. I wonder if that old man has been pulled out yet."
No sooner had he spoken than his communicator rang. It was Old Mr. Xi. The little old man's figure projected onto the open ground in front of him, his expression sour. "You could get out, why didn't you take me? Now I've lost a few years of my life for nothing."
He'd been forcibly pressed into a container item by a rescue player and brought out, and now he was locked up with others.
"If you'd followed, you'd be dead," Xu Huo said. "That wasn't an ordinary spatial passage. The entire Night Parade was disintegrated on the spot."
"Disintegrated to what extent? Probably down to molecules invisible to the naked eye. Hmm, you didn't see the scene. At first, it was all scattered and quite beautiful. Compared to that, a space storm seems especially crude and loses the true essence of returning to nature."
The old man fell silent, then said after a moment, "Are you still mentally stable?"
"What do you think?" Xu Huo countered.
The old man cut off the communication in silence.
Xu Huo tossed his communicator back into the luggage compartment, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the night sky. His hearing was sharp. Even at the edge of the city, he could hear screams and cries for help from time to time in the distance. Because of an irregular A-level instance, eight cities with populations in the millions were gradually sliding into hell.
The players from Zone 001 were very busy. Wounded kept arriving at the safe house, receiving simple treatment before quickly leaving again to rejoin the rescue efforts.
Xu Huo's side also received three consecutive groups of visitors, all coming to ask about information related to the instance. They recorded every detail, big and small. Without asking, he knew their plan to send players following the Night Parade out had failed. Everyone's anxiety carried a hint of dejection.
And at this point, only less than two days had passed inside the instance restricted zone.
The time in the Night Parade instance was based on the restricted zone space. All ticket players would enter the restricted zone sooner or later. Even if seven days had passed elsewhere in the instance venue, it wouldn't end. This would be a protracted battle lasting nearly a month.
By the time dawn was about to break, the white-haired elder returned to the safe house. During his conversation with Xu Huo, he shared the latest developments on the Night Parade. The three players they'd sent with super devices hadn't survived. Although the people and devices had successfully followed the parade out of the restricted zone space, when they were retrieved, either they had merged with the Night Parade suit to become a brand-new item, or they had been reduced to a skeleton.
Zone 001's super defense devices had been completely ineffective. All three had died while passing through that spatial passage.
The Night Parade's suits had some defensive capability within the spatial passage. This might have been due to the items' own power or the instance's rules. The key point was that the Night Parade passed through the spatial passage in an extremely short time—possibly as instantaneous as moving within the restricted zone space. Xu Huo's trip had a certain chance of being a situation where time power and space power interfered with each other.
Zone 001's super devices had actually taken effect. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a difference between a complete corpse and a skeleton among the three players. But constrained by space power or instance power, passing through that passage left them only with death. Of course, it was also possible that the super devices they carried were far less effective than the Water Cube.