Chapter 2937: A-Class Random Instance
When Xu Huo entered the city, he could still see many robots busy at work. They went from house to house, injecting the potions they carried into the residents' bodies, waking them up before guiding them downstairs to the centralized teleportation points. However, this process was too slow. While the robots were busy, many people were still silently disappearing.
He quickly swept through several city districts, transferring everyone to the same street. Instead of having the robots wake them, he directly teleported them out through spatial transport, letting the players waiting outside handle them.
Only after emptying the city did he stop and roughly survey the surrounding situation.
Just from the scenery alone, the dense purple flower vines could be called stunning. Especially since the air was filled with purple-pink pollen, giving everything a romantic, transcendent hue, as if it were a paradise from someone's imagination.
This pollen had a top-tier sleep-inducing effect but carried no other toxins. A simple protective barrier was enough to allow free movement in areas with high pollen concentration.
Xu Huo walked along the empty street to a wisteria vine wrapped around an ancient tree in the park.
This wisteria had almost completely covered the ancient tree. The originally apricot-yellow old tree had turned into a massive purple cloud. When the wind occasionally passed through, this enormous purple cloud would sway, scattering pollen profusely like a giant purple-pink ribbon.
He casually pulled off a cluster of flowers. Seeing no prompt to enter the instance, he casually tucked the flower into his pocket and continued forward.
After wandering through several places without being able to enter the instance space, he was about to ask Xiang Yao about the situation when a shadow suddenly flashed past a nearby green belt.
Almost instantly, Xu Huo released his spiritual realm to capture that person. However, to his surprise, his spiritual gate hit a wall outside the green belt—it was separated by space.
He quickly walked over and swept his hand forward. His fingertips soon touched a barrier as smooth as water. The moment he made contact, the scenery around him changed. The original city streets and green belts vanished, replaced by a primeval forest that blotted out the sky and sun. Overly thick giant trees were everywhere, and various vine plants covered every possible foothold, weaving the forest together like a net.
Of course, the purple vines were also visible here. In the areas where they grew, no other vine plants sprouted besides the trees and weeds. Unlike other places where vines intertwined, these stood out conspicuously among the dense, evolved vegetation.
"Slap!" A mask fell into his hand out of thin air, and the instance prompt sounded:
[Detected that player Passerby A has entered the range of the A-Class Random Instance "Hunting." Default participation in this instance.]
[Instance Introduction: The human world, like the animal world, follows the basic rule of the strong preying on the weak. When stepping into the forest, no one knows whether they are the prey or the hunter. The identities of prey and hunter often switch. Hunters can kill prey, and prey can counter-kill hunters.]
[Clearance Task: Complete one hundred hunts without losing any prey.]
[Instance Time: Unlimited.]
[Instance Hint: Pay attention to the pattern on the instance mask and wear it at all times.]
Xu Huo flipped the mask in his hand to the front. The pattern showed three hunting rifles arranged side by side. So his assigned initial identity was the hunter?
Although it was an A-Class Random Instance, since all the A-Class players from Hehai City had been transferred away, among the players who entered from Hehai City, there shouldn't be many who met the standards for this hunt. Ordinary people were even less likely.
This instance was very likely similar to Little Pink Hat's instance, capable of connecting to different spatial worlds. Naturally, the players entering weren't from the same district either.
But so many people had gone missing from Hehai City. For ordinary people to move around in such a forest was extremely difficult. And they didn't even know if they had entered awake or asleep. If they were asleep...
Xu Huo made a mark on the ground, then put on the mask. He used spatial tangent to clear the obstructing vines ahead and continued forward.
Before he had gone far, a player hiding in an old tree descended from the sky. After Xu Huo sent the person flying with a wave of his hand, he noticed that one of the two hunting rifles on the opponent's mask had disappeared.
The man was clearly not very strong. After just one exchange, he knew he had chosen the wrong target. While spitting blood, he hurriedly tried to escape. Xu Huo grabbed him and pulled him back. "Why are you running so fast?"
"Don't kill me, don't kill me!" The other person immediately knelt on the spot after being dragged back. "Spare my life! I can tell you all the clues I know!"
"That's not urgent," Xu Huo said, leaning down to look at the other person through the hunting rifle mask. "Have you found any traces of people other than players?"
"You're asking about the ordinary people dragged into the instance, right?" The man quickly said, "I know about that. I saw quite a few people being rounded up by some players when I came over!"
"Big brother, you might have just entered and don't know yet. Almost everyone who came in was given a mask with three hunting rifles. If a hunting rifle mask fails to kill someone, one of the guns on the mask disappears. When all three are gone, the mask turns blank, marking that person as prey. Only then does killing them count for the hunter."
"Killing someone who still has the hunting rifle pattern on their mask doesn't count toward the hunting tally..."
He carefully added this last part.
"You should have said that earlier. It would be a shame to be killed unjustly." Xu Huo grabbed his shoulder and pulled him up. "Take me to find those people."
"As long as you don't kill me, anything is fine." The man made a "please" gesture. "This way, sir."
Xu Huo didn't waste time. He directly led the man to the direction he mentioned. After several consecutive movements, he finally found the place. By then, on a deliberately cleared open space, more than twenty corpses were already lying on the ground.
Some of them still had patterns on their masks. A third of the masks had turned white. The remaining dozen or so survivors were being forced by the players to attack.
"Take the knife and cut me!" At the roar from the burly man in front of her, the middle-aged woman holding a knife with both hands trembled and directly threw the knife away. Covering her head, she shouted, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"
"Looks like someone's asking for trouble!" The player said to his companion, "Go catch a mutant. If they don't want a quick death, they can be food for the mutants!"
The second half was directed at the ordinary people present. Clearly, those who had previously refused to "voluntarily" become prey had been killed the same way. Now, to secure their "prey," these players were using even more brutal methods to intimidate the remaining survivors.
Unfortunately, the player ordered to find the mutant didn't take two steps before falling straight to the ground.
"Who's there!" The few players sensed Xu Huo's approach and immediately distanced themselves, ready to fight. But the next second, their heads flew off, silently disappearing into the dense grass and forest.