Chapter 2933: Ting City Instance
"Right, the important matter!" Team Leader Wu quickly mentioned the encrypted information and Sima Xiao'er, who might or might not have actually appeared. Sima Xiao'er was also stunned, because this was the command center. To ensure accurate message transmission, various monitoring and jamming devices had long been prepared. If someone had used something to influence Team Leader Wu, the instruments would have shown some reaction.
Sima Xiao'er immediately took out his own device, checked it, and found everything normal.
"Team Leader, are you too tired and hallucinating? Or do you just not like the look of me and want to teach me a lesson?"
Team Leader Wu rolled his eyes. "What kind of time is this for you to make jokes like that!"
Sima Xiao'er immediately straightened up. "Let's find the others first. There's safety in numbers."
Team Leader Wu nodded, and the two headed outside.
In the outer hall, Yan Jiayu and Zhou Ning and the others were eating. They had just returned from outside. Aside from Yan Jiayu, the others had sustained minor injuries.
Also present were players from the Ting City Special Defense Department. They didn't have many people, so they could only take turns coming back to eat and rest.
Team Leader Wu quickly explained the situation to Yan Jiayu and the others. After hearing it, Yan Jiayu put down her bowl. "It happened just a few minutes ago. I was already back by then, and I didn't sense any fluctuations in spiritual power."
"This is too abnormal. I'll take a look around."
With Xu Huo gone, Yan Jiayu was the strongest in Ting City. Personal perception might not be as sensitive as instruments, but instruments were easily tampered with and could sometimes be misleading. So trusting instruments was less reliable than trusting a player's judgment.
Yan Jiayu made a circuit of the residence, found nothing unusual, and asked the others. Everything was normal as well—meaning only Team Leader Wu had experienced the hallucination.
"Team Leader Wu, let's run a check." Yan Jiayu brought out her own examination device. "This one is better than the Ting City branch's."
Team Leader Wu, also worried that something was wrong with him, cooperated fully with the examination. But the final result showed he had no issues—normal mental state, healthy psychology, just a bit overworked.
"Something's off." Yan Jiayu stroked her chin.
Team Leader Wu tensed up. "What's off?"
"Anyone working in the Special Defense Department has some psychological issues. And you're a team leader. Under that kind of pressure, how could you be this healthy?" Yan Jiayu said seriously.
Team Leader Wu couldn't tell if she was being serious or joking.
But Yan Jiayu was dead serious. The next second, the carved and filigreed metal rod was in her hand. She leaped out the window, the metal rod whistling as it swung!
"Bang!"
Under the deafening impact, the player hidden in the darkness staggered back several steps and slammed into the courtyard gate. He immediately spoke up: "Don't attack! I'm from Ting City!"
Yan Jiayu stared at him. "Don't move a single finger, or next time I'll smash your head in!"
The other party indeed froze. But after seeing Team Leader Wu and the others come out behind her, he breathed a slight sigh of relief. "I'm here to deliver a message. Xu Huo killed a lot of people on Locust Tree Street."
"What?!"
"What?"
The Special Defense Department and Yan Jiayu's group exclaimed in unison.
"I saw it with my own eyes!" The newcomer raised his hand as if swearing an oath. "It seems he got into a conflict with the Special Defense Department headquarters. They were fighting on Locust Tree Street, and the headquarters players used ordinary people as shields, causing Xu Huo to accidentally kill many."
"He seemed to have been triggered, suddenly going berserk. He not only killed all the headquarters players but also slaughtered the residents of Locust Tree Street. I barely escaped quietly. I couldn't reach anyone else from the Special Defense Department, so I came here to try my luck. You need to report this immediately and send people to stop Xu Huo! He's gone mad!"
"You're lying." Zhou Ning scrutinized him. "Xu Huo was in Combat Zone 21 three minutes ago."
"He's that strong. What's so strange about using an item to teleport back and forth? Can you even contact him now?" The newcomer grew agitated. "I've long heard that Xu Huo has schizophrenia. Are you really expecting a mentally ill person to protect you—"
Before he could finish, Yan Jiayu's metal rod swung out again, sending the man and the courtyard gate crashing into the street outside.
"Not a hallucination." She frowned, about to say something, when suddenly a blaze of fire shot up not far away, accompanied by screams and cries for help.
Yan Jiayu vanished in an instant. She arrived at the scene, catching two people who had fallen from a window on an upper floor and setting them down on the ground. She stopped a person fleeing from the other end of the street. "What happened?"
"It's Xu Huo! He killed people and set fires!" The escapee was just an ordinary person. After shouting this, he pushed her away and ran.
Yan Jiayu immediately rushed to the scene of the incident, but only saw the fire spreading. There was no sign of any player.
But by now, many people were shouting things like "Xu Huo has gone crazy" or "Xu Huo killed someone." She stopped several more people, and they all claimed to have seen it with their own eyes—because they had seen videos of Xu Huo on online platforms!
Zhou Ning and the others arrived shortly after. They also sensed that something was seriously wrong. Not only would Xu Huo never do such a thing, but even if someone had disguised themselves as him, there would still be traces. This person was like a shadow, existing only in the words of others.
Team Leader Wu's attempts to contact headquarters were fruitless. Yan Jiayu looked at the fighter jets flying in the sky. She originally planned to go up and find someone to contact the outside, but unexpectedly, a teleportation item ejected her mid-flight. Before her eyes, the fighter jets were struck by some force, exploding one after another!
Locking onto the source of the power, Yan Jiayu immediately changed direction. Her figure flickered several times across the Ting City skyline before abruptly stopping at the city's edge.
She had lost them.
She scanned her surroundings, confirmed there was no trace of the attacker, then turned back toward the street where the fire had broken out.
The Special Defense Department had already extinguished the blaze. But what unsettled them was that more and more people were claiming to have seen Xu Huo committing crimes. And this news seemed to have spread to every household in Ting City in an extremely short time!
"How is it? Can we get out?" Team Leader Wu asked his subordinates.
Five players returned from different directions. "Teleportation items were interrupted midway. We tried feeling around the city's edge. Even when we tried to walk out, we'd inexplicably turn back. We couldn't get far at all!"
"Are we trapped in an instance?" Team Leader Wu speculated. "Or has a new instance been born?"
"It doesn't seem like an already-formed instance. After all, with so many players here, none of us received an instance notification. But we really can't get out. Maybe it really is a new instance." Zhou Ning looked at Sima Xiao'er. "Try using a ticket."
Sima Xiao'er handed the task to a D-level player. The player used a ticket but remained standing in place.
"So we really are in an instance," Yan Jiayu said, puzzled. "Why is this instance related to Xu Huo? Was it born because of him?"