Chapter 2625: The Execution Squad
"Smack!" A pebble struck Xu Huo's palm. He turned around, following the direction from which the stone had come, and saw an airship approaching. A man stood by the open door of the airship, holding a toy gun, and gestured for him to move aside.
Xu Huo stood still. The woman who had just narrowly escaped death turned around in panic and ran back. At the same time, about five hundred meters from the intersection, another man who had also crossed the street was hit in the head by a pebble, but this stone came from a different direction.
Another airship flew out from the side of another building and fired two more shots at the corpse on the ground.
Suddenly, someone died in the street, causing the already sparse crowd to quicken their pace. No one stopped to watch, and no one came forward to help, as if this was nothing unusual.
Xu Huo released his spiritual realm. Besides his location, the same thing was happening at several other intersections. With this long street running through the city as the center line, ordinary people on both sides were being shot and killed by pebbles as they tried to cross the street. Some managed to escape and then hid in the buildings along the street. As long as they didn't try to cross to the other side, the people on the airships wouldn't chase after them to kill them.
It seemed that both the killers and the victims understood exactly what was going on.
Casually tossing the pebble aside, Xu Huo stepped into the opposite street, found a shop, and went in to buy a map.
Although it was impossible to buy a precise map of this country here, he could buy maps of the other two countries.
The instance he was participating in this time had two trigger points. One was in the country he was currently in—Eternal Tower—with the trigger location being a place called Expedition Canyon. This location was not very clearly marked on the map he had originally purchased. Considering that the maps on the Under Dimension might have update delays, he planned to buy a map nearby. He didn't expect this district to restrict the flow of information, even covering up the destruction and construction of cities.
The other instance trigger point was in the neighboring country, the Duchy of Moonhorn, at the New Grass Sacrificial Garden. However, these two countries occupied two-thirds of the district's area, with vast territories. Due to the ongoing war at the border, defensive barriers were constantly deployed, along with armed defense lines. Some space teleportation items might not be able to pass through smoothly.
Xu Huo carefully examined the map and then searched using the terminal freely distributed by Yunguan City. The location of the New Grass Sacrificial Garden roughly matched up, but it was very far from him. Moreover, the two countries were currently at war at the border, making travel back and forth inconvenient.
After hesitating, he decided to go to Expedition Canyon first.
After purchasing some items that the Painting Woman liked, he prepared to leave the city. As he passed through the city center, the city gradually began to boil with excitement. The residents, no longer as listless as before, took to the streets one after another, spontaneously gathering on both sides of the road. They raised the flags of the Eternal Tower Nation and the Execution Squad, cheering and looking forward with anticipation.
Xu Huo noticed that the shooting airships hovering in the sky had also stopped. They were paired up, positioned on either side of the central street, also waiting for something.
Soon, a flying car appeared at the end of the street. The silver badge of the Execution Squad on the car body reflected brightly, but that wasn't the main focus. The focus was on the corpses hanging under the car body as it flew low.
It was a man covered in blood, almost completely naked. His body, long devoid of life, had become very stiff. His arms were tied up, but there was no extra swaying. Surrounding aircraft would deliberately fly close and spray water on the corpse, causing the already coagulated blood on the body to flow again, dripping all the way down.
Behind this car, there were about twenty more similar aircraft, each with a corpse hanging underneath. Regardless of gender, all were exposed naked to the public's view. This was a form of humiliation and a show of force.
The crowd cheered, shouting the names of the Execution Squad members, crazily calling them heroes. Some fanatical fans even threw themselves under the aircraft, just to get a glance from the Execution Squad members.
"The people here are all sick," said a player from another zone who was also watching from a distance.
It was indeed abnormal. Third-class residents could only work underground and weren't even allowed to come to the surface. The city-wide known killing game forced people to hide carefully in their homes, and those who participated in it didn't even care about their lives. Yet when the Execution Squad returned to the city, these people who had just been hiding cautiously all came out. They ignored the hanging corpses and fervently cheered for the Execution Squad players, fanatical as if their souls had been swapped.
"Those should be the anti-government alliance members," said another player squeezed in the crowd. "I heard they just attacked the political and legal conference. How long has it been, and they're already being hung out for public display."
His tone carried some emotion. Indeed, in a place where people were used for shooting games, the government was unlikely to be clean. And the main targets of these anti-government alliance members were government officials, which easily swayed people's stance. Moreover, exposing corpses for public display was hardly a just act anywhere.
"Let's go, this has nothing to do with us." The two players traveling together withdrew from the crowd.
This was already the city center. When the convoy arrived, all the windows were lowered. The Execution Squad members inside the cars had almost all removed their black face masks, revealing their true faces. A dark-skinned, burly man in the lead car flipped onto the roof and shouted loudly, "These are all the lackeys of the anti-government alliance. Just half an hour ago, they attacked the political and legal conference, kidnapped key government officials, and tried to prevent the passage of the new human rights draft. But they failed! Being hung and paraded through the streets is their fate!"
"Anyone who tries to subvert the nation will only meet this end!"
"No matter what banner the anti-government alliance waves, if they dare to stick their heads out of their rat holes, the Execution Squad will cut off their heads and dig up their rat holes!"
"The Execution Squad members who participated in this mission, those above three stars are all here," the dark-skinned burly man showed a ferocious grin to the crowd. "We are the ones who killed these dogs. If the anti-government alliance wants revenge, come ahead! We're waiting!"
Under the cold stares of the dark-skinned burly man and the Execution Squad members, the crowd erupted in a new round of cheers. If not for the players maintaining order, these people would have uncontrollably flooded the convoy.
However, right in the midst of this high-spirited and seemingly perfect moment, a short figure suddenly crawled out of a manhole, pushed through the crowded people, and rushed towards the center of the street. After being stopped by a player, she let out a heart-wrenching wail towards the corpse hanging under the car.
The gut-wrenching scream didn't attract much attention. Her voice was drowned out by the cheers. The player blocking her was about to take her away, but the dark-skinned burly man stopped this action. He jumped from the car to the ground, strode forward, grabbed the short woman by the hair, and dragged her under the convoy. Pointing at the corpse she was trying to embrace, he asked, "Who is this person?"