Chapter 2697: Poison
It was no longer suitable to play music. Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu walked half a circle on the fourth floor. There were simply too many rooms, and time didn't allow them to carefully pick and choose.
"Are you lucky?" Xu Huo asked Yan Jiayu. "How about you just pick one at random and open it."
Yan Jiayu was a bit troubled. "Sometimes I think I'm pretty lucky, but other times I'm really unlucky."
Her luck being good was reflected in how she often entered all sorts of interesting random instances, but she always managed to get out alive. Her bad luck was that even so, she could still run into super instances.
"My luck has never been very good," Xu Huo said. "I tend to draw the short straw."
Yan Jiayu nodded. "I had a feeling something was off about you. I'll do it."
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe..." She used the simplest method to select a room and, under Xu Huo's protection, opened the door.
Behind the door was a study. It was empty, with no suspicious living props. The already blazing fireplace made the air warm, instantly relaxing their minds and bodies.
Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu both stopped at the doorway simultaneously and, without hesitation, stepped back and closed the door.
"Can't afford to provoke this. This castle really is full of traps everywhere..." But before they could finish speaking, the ground vanished beneath their feet.
They fell for a full half minute before hitting the ground. The surrounding layout looked no different from the third floor, but both Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu knew this wasn't the third floor they had just walked through.
Mirror spaces appeared at both ends of the corridor. Their reflections were multiplied and overlapped within the mirrors, making the corridor seem endless.
However, Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu stood still with solemn expressions. If it were just a mirror space, that would be one thing, but the figures reflected on their left and right actually started moving on their own, as if multiple people who looked exactly like them were trapped in different spaces, searching for an exit.
Someone had discovered them!
A pair of Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu saw them and ran towards them. Blocked by the mirrors, they pounded on the spatial barriers, shouting and screaming at them. They couldn't hear the sounds, but they could see their terrified and panicked faces—the Yan Jiayu appearing in the mirror wasn't wearing the kangaroo suit but maintained her original appearance.
"Damn, seeing so many versions of myself standing in front of me, I'm almost starting to not recognize my own face." Yan Jiayu stared at the mirrors. "But they look a bit different from the current me."
"Different how?" Xu Huo asked.
"This should be what I looked like when I first came in," Yan Jiayu said seriously. "Although I have strong recovery abilities, I've become a lot thinner after tearing my body apart multiple times. You're different too. The you in the mirror doesn't have dark circles under your eyes."
Xu Huo wiped under his eyes. It had only been a day or two; how could a player have dark circles with their physical constitution?
Not wiping anything off his face, he realized he might have been affected without knowing it. It was just that these toxins hadn't had a major impact on his body, so he hadn't noticed at all under such high mental tension.
"Is everything okay?" Yan Jiayu understood a bit. She knew Xu Huo had a very powerful antidote, so she had made a joke.
"Fine for now," Xu Huo said. He didn't know what poison he had been hit with. If it required a massive amount of fungal threads to detoxify, he would need to take out the Nuwa Stone to let the King Fungus continuously reproduce.
But for now, his body didn't feel anything. It shouldn't be a major problem in the short term.
In that moment, the mirrors on both sides silently closed in on them. The two immediately chose a door and entered, but the moment they stepped inside, the entire room, including the corridor behind them, suddenly shattered into countless mirror shards. All the shards reflected their figures. The next second, they were sucked into different mirror shards!
What could be seen within the shattered mirror shards were still countless more shards. The difference was that this time, Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu could only see themselves—they had been separated into different spaces!
Xu Huo tried to break the space with the Black Blade, but aside from smashing the surrounding mirrors into even smaller pieces, it was useless. However, the space device could be used. He released several Space Tangents, repeatedly plowing through the mirror shards. After dozens of attempts, a crack finally appeared on the mirror that wasn't repaired in time.
Throwing the "Soaked Seaweed" in to clear the path, the mirror shards began to rapidly shatter from the crack. As the fragments fell, a pitch-black space appeared behind them.
There wasn't a single glimmer of light, and perception was difficult to extend.
Xu Huo immediately retreated back into the mirror space and opened a path from another direction. This time, behind the crack was a castle room. But as soon as he entered the room, the entire space twisted again, instantly transforming into a dark and terrifying forest path. The tree canopy rustled, as if something was approaching from afar.
He didn't need to observe carefully. Soon, a massive creature appeared above the treetops. A head leaned down from the tree and spat a thick cloud of black gas at him.
The mechanical suit covered his mouth and nose in time. Xu Huo passed through the Spiritual Gate to a high altitude, directly facing the giant monster's swinging front paw. He sliced around its wrist, then used Time Power to freeze its body. Next, he moved behind the giant monster and plunged the blade into the back of its neck!
The blade passed through metal objects, making a crunching sound. The next second, the giant monster roared, directly breaking free from the Time Power's control and turning to attack him!
Xu Huo was genuinely startled. He aimed for the monster's eye and slashed horizontally across it. The monster's eyeball was damaged, but he was also swatted away by a paw, crashing heavily into the forest.
Vines surged from afar, instantly forming several wave-like high walls. He used a defense device to brace himself for a moment before quickly returning to the air. This time, the giant monster emerged from the forest. Black liquid flowed over its scale-like, armor-like skin, and even the wounded areas slowly showed bloodstains—it seemed to be a living animal!
Looking at this mutant species, which seemed to have been magnified dozens of times, Xu Huo was both surprised and not. Indeed, after entering the game for so long, he hadn't seen a mutant animal of this size, but that didn't mean such mutant animals didn't exist. They just hadn't appeared in the zones where players frequently visited.
Although it was still alive, this thing's body had been modified. The wound on the back of its neck revealed metal bones inside... After putting some distance between them, he once again tried to interfere with Time Resonance.
"Roar!" The giant beast let out a wild howl, swinging its paws madly, smashing the entire forest. In an instant, the vast woodland was leveled. Broken wood and grass clippings flew up with the giant paws, creating chaos in the sky and on the ground.
Xu Huo dodged these flying debris, circled around the giant monster for a look, and finally fixed his gaze on its neck.
Although its body had been modified, it could still bleed, meaning its internal circulation was still functioning. Poison should be effective.
He reached back into the side pocket of his backpack, pulled out a syringe, controlled a Materialized Object to open a small cut beside its throat, and injected it.
Thanks to reader CYBER for the tip! This book now has fifteen Alliance Leaders! O(∩_∩)O