Chapter 279: First Kill
In the following time, the two of them visited the remaining game points. Ten game points in total, which matched the amusement park's guide.
"Which one of these game points is fake?" Yan Jiayu's gaze shifted from the map to the person beside her. "None of them look fake to me."
"The location of Black Maple Valley overlaps with one of the game points," Xu Huo said. "But the map markings are too vague. Let's enter the valley first and see."
The location of Black Maple Valley was quite clever.
The main environment of the entire Rabbit Bear Amusement Park consisted of primeval forests and grasslands. Black Maple Valley was situated in a mountain range. From a nearby game point, one could buy a simple map of the mountains, which showed roughly seven peaks.
The entrance ahead was flanked by two mountains, and beyond it lay a lake with rivers on both sides. The lake was quite large, with an old, dilapidated castle on it. According to the plush dolls, this was a high-risk structure, and generally no one went inside.
Of course, some players had entered before, but it was broken, gloomy, and had no plush dolls, so it wasn't considered a game location.
The two of them hid in the forest not far from the entrance, watching the canyon mouth where people were constantly coming and going.
"There's only one entrance. Should we go over the top?" Yan Jiayu suggested.
"We already exposed our props when we escaped. If those six people are waiting for us here, they'll definitely be on guard," Xu Huo said. He glanced at the plush dolls mingling among the crowd and proposed returning to the previous game point.
The two re-entered the game, successfully killed two plush dolls, and crawled inside. Then, using children's sewing needles and thread sold at the stalls, they sewed the plush dolls back up. After that, they swaggered into the canyon behind the others.
Outside the castle in the canyon, a surprising number of players had gathered, waiting bored for the quiz game to begin. The players had already searched the castle, but since the atmosphere inside was indeed unpleasant, most people had taken a quick look around and then come back out.
On the lawn in front of the castle, plush dolls were peddling candy and toys back and forth. Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu wove through the plush dolls and easily entered the castle.
The castle's structure was divided into front and back sections, connected by a straight bridge spanning the lake. However, the middle of the bridge was broken. The building in the back was even more dilapidated, with some walls and roofs broken open, allowing an unobstructed view of the interior.
Connecting the two buildings, besides the straight bridge, was an elevated structure resembling an arch bridge at the top. At its center was a small, lighthouse-like building. The arch bridge's starting points were on the roofs of both buildings. The bridge arches leading from the front building had all broken off and fallen. The lighthouse-like structure was supported only by the rear bridge arch, looking as if it could collapse at any moment.
"This place is really run-down," Yan Jiayu whispered, but suddenly noticed someone walking toward them from across the broken bridge. It was the twins.
"Split up," Xu Huo said, turning back into the front building.
The two separated, one left and one right. The twins chasing them also split up after entering the castle, each following one of them.
Xu Huo sped up and entered the second floor. Seeing his movements, which were clearly abnormal compared to other plush dolls, one of the twins, the tall one, smirked. He directly pulled an air tangent in mid-air, sending it to trail Xu Huo in his stead.
Xu Huo glanced back, then suddenly accelerated and ran down the corridor.
"Don't think you can run!" The tall man immediately controlled the air tangent to speed up, but unexpectedly, two people turned the corner ahead and collided directly with the air tangent.
Having been in the amusement park for a while, people naturally started ignoring the NPC plush dolls. So when a plush doll ran past them, Jin Chao and Peng Ru didn't pay it any mind. It was only after being hit by something out of thin air that they reacted quickly, first retreating to maintain distance.
"Get lost!" The tall man, annoyed by their interference, controlled the air tangent to try and knock them away. But at that moment, Peng Ru had already pulled out a palm-length laser pointer. When activated, the laser beam was like an extended laser sword, slashing diagonally forward!
The tall man barely dodged the laser pointer's attack, only to be surrounded by several paper airplanes Jin Chao had thrown in quick succession. He flipped and jumped onto the wall for leverage, but one paper airplane flew straight into the wall. Upon impact, it exploded like a grenade!
A series of explosions followed. Stone chips flew in the corridor, and the air tangent was also shattered. The tall man scanned the smoke and dust for the plush doll's figure but found nothing. After a moment's hesitation, he quickly erected multiple air tangents in front of him, sealing off Jin Chao and Peng Ru, then turned and ran for the stairs.
"Stop him!" Jin Chao and Peng Ru gave chase simultaneously. But before they could break through the air tangents, a semi-transparent barrier flew in from behind them, pierced through the air tangents, and diagonally sliced off the tall man's head.
The head fell, blood splattered. Jin Chao and Peng Ru immediately turned around in a defensive stance, only to see a plush doll walk out from the corner and pull off its head.
"It's you!" Even after seeing Xu Huo's real face, the two didn't relax. They asked, "Did you lure this player here?"
"He wanted to kill me and steal my stuff. He chased me all the way here," Xu Huo said, setting the plush doll head aside. He took a body bag from his luggage compartment, quickly walked over, bagged the head and body together, and then stored it in his compartment.
The twins' traits were very effective when used in tandem, but fighting alone... the air tangent could trap people, and ordinary props were ineffective against it, making it seem very strong. However, its ineffectiveness also meant that for some props, it was still just air. A sword could pass through the tangent, and he had previously been able to control his strings through it, proving it couldn't completely block prop effects. Therefore, long-range attack props could still affect the player.
Peng Ru looked a bit disgusted. "If you put a corpse in there, can your luggage compartment still be used?"
Hers was only for daily necessities and food.
"The luggage compartment has an automatic cleaning function," Xu Huo said without looking up.
Peng Ru's lips moved, but she said nothing more. Seeing that things had come to this, Jin Chao asked, "Does he have any companions? To avoid being targeted, let's leave here first."
Xu Huo poured a bottle of cleaning agent on the floor, cleaned up most of the blood on the ground and himself, then followed the two into another corridor.
"Why haven't we seen Miss Yan?" The three found a relatively secluded room to stop in. Peng Ru said, "This castle is quite strange. I think it's better to move in a group."
"She went to the other side," Xu Huo said. "This building has a partition in the middle. To find her, we'd have to go back downstairs. I'm probably being watched, so it's not convenient for me to look for her."
"We don't need to go downstairs." Jin Chao walked to the left wall of the room, reached out, and pressed on a decorative painting. A small door popped open on the wall, which was covered in dense square patterns.