Chapter 2679: Split Up
Xu Huo and his group's progress was not smooth. No matter which direction they headed, every so often, the people around them would come up to block their way. Although most of them weren't trying to kill them, they still attempted various methods to communicate with these puppet people. However, these individuals were like fixed characters, only able to spit out predetermined lines. Even when threatened with death, they couldn't say or write anything more.
After several attempts, Xu Huo tried to teleport a shop owner who was active near the storefront to a distant location. Yet, this puppet person was directly stopped while crossing the street. The Spiritual Gate spatial passage was blocked, and the puppet person simply halted at the roadside.
"Puppet people have their own range of activity. Could it be the same for us?" Dai He said. "Is it that those puppet people are stopping us because we've stepped out of their fixed range?"
They already knew that puppet people could swap roles with each other. Although they didn't know the specific mechanism, when new people came in, the original puppet people's positions might be replaced.
"Do we need to find substitutes for those puppet people to break free?" Qi Cong suddenly had a wild idea.
The people present gave him a strange look. Did he even hear what he was saying? Break free? What did he think this instance was? Or did he think the Box Carrier was some kind of great benefactor?
Besides, everyone had seen what happened to the puppet people who were killed earlier. Once dead, they died along with the props, with no possibility of escape!
Qi Cong, however, didn't care about that and just said, "If that's the case, then Little Fish might be able to break free too."
That was also a concern for Xu Huo. If Yan Jiayu had also been stuffed into a puppet suit, it would be troublesome.
"Although we can still move around in the circus city, the puppet people probably can only act along predetermined paths. The circus city is too large; we can't keep searching bit by bit," he said.
"What do you plan to do?" Qi Cong immediately asked, but then added, "As long as you don't use me as bait!"
"You're not even worthy of being bait." Xu Huo pointed at a giant balloon floating in the sky not far away. "There's a warehouse storing balloons about a kilometer away. Release some of them. First, find a way to notify Yan Jiayu that we're here. If she still has the ability to move, she'll find a way to come to us."
"Sunflowers are the signal. All of you, put on sunflower decorations."
Dai He and the others were there to help find the person anyway, and they couldn't easily escape on their own, so they cooperated with Xu Huo very actively.
"The longer we take, the more disadvantageous it is for us," Xu Huo continued. "You guys go to the warehouse to release the balloons. I'll go find the combat puppets. There are two dessert towers near the warehouse. If you get separated, wait near the dessert towers. Within that range, I can find you. Don't wander too far. Just because there are no jamming devices in the current instance field doesn't mean there can't be any interference."
Dai He and the others didn't waste words. "Mr. Xu, be careful in everything."
Xu Huo nodded, took the Painting Woman, and headed straight for an item transfer station a kilometer away.
The circus city, as an instance field, was different from other instance fields. Besides the dazzling array of shops, it lacked almost all the basic conditions a city needed.
For example, the streets. The streets were staggered at different heights, with many connecting points having steps. The left and right sides were also deliberately offset. Such connected streets were neither aesthetically pleasing nor convenient for traffic, and they served little purpose for the entire city.
Furthermore, the city seemed to produce no household waste. There were no specialized garbage transport systems, no residential pipelines, and no urban underground pipelines. Although food-selling shops could be seen everywhere, there was no dedicated vegetable market. Apart from what was needed for entertainment and amusement, everything else was hidden from the city.
Needless to say, there were no public service facilities like schools or hospitals.
However, the city's electrical circuits were very complete. Even the small decorations in the corners were connected to electricity. Besides food and toy shops, there were specialized clothing stores, performance venues, and prop vehicles. The dessert tower they had agreed upon earlier was a ten-meter-tall tower built from desserts, piled high with various fake sweets and drinks, with a fake fountain made of colored paper.
It wasn't that there was no water, but the water supply was centralized. Each street had only one relatively hidden water access point, convenient for the puppet people who needed water for their performance props.
The item transfer station Xu Huo found was essentially a warehouse, storing discarded and broken puppet suits collected from around the city, as well as some machines in need of repair—the combat puppets were responsible not only for city security but also for repairing these broken items.
At that moment, inside the transfer station, two combat puppets were busy. One was organizing machines and puppet suits, handling heavy machinery, while the other was sewing up torn puppet suits and hanging them up. Although the sewn-up puppet suits weren't inflated, they seemed to have life again, hanging limply on the wall and swaying on their own, trying to break free from the thumbtacks. If one struggled too violently, the sewing combat puppet would come over, cut the stitches, tear the puppet apart, and then sew it back up again.
Generally, puppets sewn a second time would behave much better. But if they still didn't obey after the second sewing, the combat puppet would toss them aside.
Then, the other combat puppet would stuff the abandoned puppet into a machine. When it came out again, the puppet had turned into colorful fragments, which were then collected into a large box. That box was filled with such colorful fragments.
In fact, it wasn't just the box; the entire city was filled with these colorful fragments floating everywhere.
After watching for a while, Xu Huo gestured to the Painting Woman on the other side. Her frog head nodded, and then she lunged into the transfer station, directly attacking the back of one combat puppet. Her intention was to grab the puppet's head, but unexpectedly, even before she got close, a defensive barrier sprang up from the combat puppet's body.
However, this space barrier only appeared for an instant before being pierced by a Spiritual Power materialized object. The Painting Woman's hand then tore through the barrier on the puppet's head, first gouging out its eyes, then cutting off its ears, which were disguised as sensors.
"Boom!" Although the Painting Woman was fast enough, she was still knocked back by the sudden burst of air pressure from the combat puppet's body. She didn't linger, turned around, and went to snatch the puppets hanging on the wall. Quick as a flash, she grabbed a few, then provocatively tore two apart in front of the combat puppet before running out of the transfer station.
Combat puppets weren't human; their behavior patterns were supported by instruments. Therefore, after determining that the Painting Woman didn't pose a significant threat, the puppet whose "eyes" had been destroyed chased after her alone. The other puppet, after completing its inspection, returned to its original position, ready to continue working.
But its movements froze midway. The conflict of instrument interference caused its head to repeatedly turn left and right. At the same time, a black Spiritual Power materialized object wrapped around its entire body.