Chapter 2939: Strange Sleep
After waiting in place for a while, no new people appeared, and the player who had ambushed him had also run out of his perception range. Xu Huo felt that continuing to waste time like this was not a solution, so he put the people from E25 into a container item and continued forward.
After moving forward several times, he finally found a newcomer—or more accurately, a new corpse.
The corpse had already been half-eaten by a beast. After scaring the beast away, he went forward to examine it and found that the wounds on the neck were very messy, as if it had been slashed many times in a row. It was unclear whether the attacker lacked strength or focus, as the neck bones hadn't been completely severed.
There was a number on the back of the corpse—it was a player. However, most of the items on the body had already been looted. Xu Huo picked up an item that the beast had bitten out from the corpse, and his personal panel confirmed it was a B-grade item.
A player holding a high-grade item shouldn't have been careless enough to be hacked to death. Could it be that they hadn't woken up from their sleep?
Glancing at the mask lying nearby, Xu Huo picked it up and placed it in his luggage compartment. Just as he was about to continue, another figure flashed past not far away.
"Still using this trick." He frowned and immediately teleported over. However, upon arrival, it was the same as before—no trace of anyone having been there, and this time, there was no barrier or anything similar around.
Was there no barrier? Or had it disappeared?
His spatial evolution level was already very high, and he had some understanding of hyperdimensional space power. If there were different spatial faults in the forest, as long as they appeared or existed, he should be able to sense them. But from the current situation, it felt as if the place was empty, with only him present.
So many people had entered, yet he couldn't find anyone. Compared to those bloody, murder-filled instances, this one was a different kind of strangeness.
But he didn't have much time. Xu Huo took out the pale purple sub-class stone, thought for a moment, and then went to the nearest cluster of purple vines. Removing the glove from his right hand, he revealed his almost transparent index finger. Channeling the hyperdimensional space power in his finger, he touched the nearby vine flowers.
In an instant, this patch of purple vines, along with a large area of the forest, completely vaporized, as if they had never existed. In the blink of an eye, a hollow pit several kilometers long appeared in the originally dense forest.
This was the effect of a light touch of hyperdimensional space power—it was even more powerful than when used on a person.
Without wasting time, he quickly rushed to the next place where purple vines grew.
After continuously destroying several dense patches of purple vines, Xu Huo discovered a few more corpses. They had likely been killed in their sleep—one had a knife in the chest, another had their head smashed into a pulp. And they were all players.
Although the ordinary people dragged into this place didn't know the content of the instance and seemed to be at an absolute disadvantage, unexpectedly, here they had become genuine hunters as well.
After destroying a few more patches of purple vines and expanding the open area, Xu Huo encountered the player who had ambushed him earlier. They weren't heading in the same direction, so running into each other again was surprising enough. What was even more surprising was that this person was actually asleep in the forest, and beside him, two people who had appeared from nowhere were walking toward him with short knives.
Putting his glove back on, Xu Huo activated his spatial power and grabbed the two people.
The two masked individuals were just ordinary people. Suddenly finding themselves in front of a player, their legs gave way, and they knelt on the ground.
"No need to be nervous. I just want to ask you a few questions," Xu Huo said.
The two had originally been asleep when they entered, but luckily, they woke up not long after. After waking up, they didn't dare wander around and could only find a place to hide. However, they soon discovered that beasts were tracking them by scent, forcing them to flee. Not far into their escape, they found someone sleeping on a tree branch.
He was genuinely sleeping—they could even hear snoring. The mutated beast had also been attracted by the snoring and changed direction.
The two, who were fleeing for their lives, shouted warnings, but the person showed no awareness, not even waking up when the beast started gnawing on him.
Watching helplessly as the beast bit through his throat, the two seized the opportunity to escape.
After that, they traveled together through the forest. Strangely enough, they couldn't control their sleep at all. Even when they weren't tired, they would suddenly black out while walking or in the middle of a conversation, closing their eyes and losing consciousness, only to wake up after a period of time.
To avoid sleeping out in the open and being discovered by beasts or others, they mostly hid in small animal burrows. When they wanted to change locations, they would move quickly right after waking up. Just now, they had come across a sleeping player and were about to boldly approach him, only to find that there was someone awake.
The two were already carrying quite a few items, clearly not their first time doing this.
Xu Huo brought them back and told them to wake up the person who was sleeping soundly.
The two looked troubled. "Even a mutated beast tearing at them couldn't wake them up. I'm afraid even if we stabbed them with a knife, they wouldn't wake..."
Xu Huo tossed out a syringe.
Hesitantly, the two gave the person an injection. After a while, the man woke up. The first thing he saw was Xu Huo, and his face immediately twitched. He hurriedly said, "Brother, let me explain. I really got lost. I didn't mean to not come back to find you."
Xu Huo raised his hand to stop him. "Tell me about your experience."
Given his pace, and since they weren't heading in the same direction, how could he have ended up ahead?
The man was also confused. "My directional instruments were all out of order, so I could only make marks as I went. I thought I hadn't gone far, but when I tried to go back, all the marks behind me were gone. I'm sure I didn't go the wrong way, but the marks disappeared, so someone must have been following me. I temporarily changed direction, planning to go back when it was safe. But when I got near here, I suddenly lost consciousness. I thought I had been attacked by someone else..."
He looked at the two people beside him. They didn't seem like the type.
"You fell asleep on your own," Xu Huo said.
"How is that possible?" The man didn't believe it at all. "I wasn't tired, and I was still on the move..."
Xu Huo gestured for him to talk to the two who had been planning to take advantage of him.
A sleeping player was a lamb to the slaughter, but an awake player was more terrifying than a beast. The two's faces also twitched, just like the man's when he saw Xu Huo.
However, the man didn't dare kill them either, so he could only seek Xu Huo's opinion.
Xu Huo took out several small flying devices and had them head in different directions.
Although he hadn't "fallen asleep" yet, to be safe, he put on a metal suit, activated several range-specific and mobile defense instruments, arranged two combat robots, and carried a portable location item.