Chapter 2868: How Do You Plan to Make Amends?
Time quickly arrived at eight in the evening.
Players entered their pre-selected rooms early. To successfully open a spatial gate, Xu Huo had locked onto three rooms with concentrated spatial power in advance, essentially taking a gamble—because once the doors closed, the spatial power might shift, and a place that could open a spatial gate before might not be able to do so later.
After learning that the potion had been brought in from outside by someone Dr. Zhang had arranged, he lost interest in exploring the instance and instead focused on studying the spatial structure of this instance.
The finger cuffs could knock open unstable spatial structures—in other words, places where gates could be opened hadn't reached the point of completely cutting off space. This was a learning opportunity for him.
After all, spatial isolation was far beyond his current level of spatial evolution. If he could learn something new from the structure, it might help him take the next step.
As per the usual routine in the first half of the night, once no one was outside, the instance boss would begin hunting people in the small compartments. The players with the longest stay, like Dark Circles and his group, had tampered with certain players during the day or set traps both inside and outside some compartments to divert the instance boss's attention.
But everyone feared acting too late or being preempted by others, so each of them went all out, eliminating those who had been flagged as problematic and nipping danger in the bud. Within the first few hours of the night, several people had already fallen victim.
When midnight passed and everyone opened their doors, they found far fewer people remaining. Their expressions soured.
With so many forced to break the rules and killed by the instance boss, wouldn't they be in even greater danger?
But now wasn't the time to discuss countermeasures. The crisis in the second half of the night was within the small compartments themselves. With the doors now openable, it became even easier to trick someone into breaking the rules.
After confirming the situation outside, the players retreated back into their compartments, though none dared stray far from the door, in case they needed to escape in an emergency.
The silence lasted less than half an hour before an explosion occurred in front of one compartment. The noise, not too loud but just enough, blasted the door open. Almost the instant the door opened, the player inside fled, clutching an item that could open a spatial gate. But before they could take more than a few steps, the instance boss reaped them, turning them into a pile of dust.
"Tap, tap, tap..." Footsteps sounded again.
Unlike previous days, the footsteps continued into the second half of the night. The instance boss's patrol time had lengthened!
At this point, going out was out of the question. But staying inside meant Dark Circles and his group became the instance boss's primary targets.
Before the next rule-breaker appeared, the footsteps stopped outside the door of a player who had overstayed their welcome. Everyone in the instance held their breath, waiting. No one escaped or resisted. The footsteps paused for just a few seconds before resuming.
The patrol was erratic. The footsteps might be on the west side of the building one second and shift to the east side the next. After two pauses, they abruptly vanished.
The instance fell silent. The players couldn't tell if the instance boss had moved to another space or was lurking in some corner, waiting for someone to come out of their room.
Just as everyone was tense and on edge, someone opened their door and stepped out.
The footsteps were light, not loud enough to count as a disturbance, but daring to come out at this moment still made everyone's hearts race.
Xu Huo was heading to another compartment. His own compartment had become completely sealed off after the door closed—no spatial gate could be opened there anymore, with all four sides locked tight. So he had to find another spot.
Arriving at the compartment door, he knocked politely but softly.
After a few knocks, the Hundred Forest Society player inside gritted their teeth and opened the door, then hurriedly moved to another empty room.
This room was now Xu Huo's. He walked in, closed the door again, and began studying the spatial walls.
Unexpectedly, when he opened a spatial gate, it connected to a player in another layer of space. Their eyes met, and he released his grip to let the gate close.
He repeated this several times. Whether due to frequent spatial interference or a rule violation, a powerful force suddenly appeared in the compartment the next time he opened a spatial gate!
Xu Huo wasted no time diving through the gate, but the dust followed, able to flash to any location in the instance at will. No one could outpace it, so soon, the black substance of "Darkened Heart" surged out again.
Wrapped in the black substance, the dust's movements became slightly more traceable. After several shuttles, Xu Huo coincidentally arrived at the space where the instance boss was lingering. He found a spatial gate and rang the "Little Dog Bell." As the sound rang out, he was already in another layer of space.
The instance boss was successfully lured away, and Xu Huo breathed a slight sigh of relief.
The "Little Dog Bell" would have to be retrieved later. He found another compartment and returned.
The instance boss didn't reappear for the rest of the night, and things remained stable until dawn. But when he went back to look for the bell, it was already gone.
Fast hands.
He didn't have to go looking for the item—the person who picked it up came to him voluntarily. It was a leader from a later-arriving player organization named Xiong Xiaoxin.
She admitted she knew Xu Huo had obtained the item first. She wasn't there to fight over it but wanted to represent the Holy Sword Society and make friends with him.
"Holy Sword Society?" Xu Huo said. "I don't have a good impression of the Holy Sword Society."
Xiong Xiaoxin smiled. "Every organization has good and bad people. Maybe you've only encountered the bad ones, leaving you with a poor impression of the Holy Sword Society."
"But whether it's the Old Holy Sword Society or the New Holy Sword Society, our ultimate goal is to help more players survive in the game, not become lambs for slaughter."
"In fact, given the current number of wormhole points in the game, the number of elite players at ordinary wormhole points far exceeds those at A-level wormhole points. The main reason A-level wormhole points still control the game is that later players can't unite."
"So we welcome players from all sides to join. But the Holy Sword Society's leaders aren't saints—they can't accurately judge a person's moral character. Of course, that can't be forced. But whenever it's our fault, the Holy Sword Society is willing to make amends afterward."
Grudges are strange things. Perhaps two parties start out unrelated, then cross paths by chance, and conflict arises from misunderstandings or other reasons. Even if the root cause is trivial and unnecessary, the conflicts that arise along the way don't change. They can no longer be explained by reason or good and evil—only the established facts remain.
No matter how ridiculous the reason, how much regret there is, or how great the price paid, the facts cannot be altered.
"Members of the Holy Sword Society indiscriminately killed many people in my hometown," Xu Huo said, fixing his gaze on her. "How do you plan to make amends?"