Chapter 3005: Instant Kill
Someone had cleared the instance!
This was a huge relief for the players present. It seemed that they didn't need to personally kill their own doppelgangers—as long as the corresponding doppelganger was completely dead, the original person could clear the instance!
And this was a newly opened instance. If they didn't care who killed the doppelgangers, they could still get a higher reward for a new instance!
At this moment, everyone had long forgotten their earlier complaints about Xu Huo. They only hoped he would be strong enough, preferably killing all the doppelgangers!
In another doppelganger world, after killing three doppelgangers in a row without any change in the surrounding environment, Xu Huo paused his pursuit. The faster he killed, the faster these doppelgangers hid. His own doppelganger had been hiding very deep, and if it stopped coming out because of this, he might have a hard time clearing the instance.
So when he was attacked again by a doppelganger that leaped out of a container, he let himself fall backward.
This doppelganger didn't disappoint him either, bringing him into another layer of the doppelganger world. The environment around him shifted—one moment it was a garden filled with guests, the next a living room where people were talking. The figures of Wang Can, Wan Yajun, Yao Nan, and Wang Chengren flashed rapidly past him like scenes from a movie, and time also rewound frame by frame. Everything in the estate began to trace backward.
The people who had once appeared in the estate, the events that had happened there, and the changes to the estate itself all rushed past Xu Huo, finally stopping at a certain point in time when people wore ancient clothing.
As he stopped, the faces of some people moving around in the estate began to change, gradually turning into the Wang family employees, players, and restorers he had seen before.
"Who are you!" A man dressed as a servant walked by and spotted Xu Huo in his "strange clothes," immediately shouting loudly.
Xu Huo pointed a finger in the air, and the figure quickly disappeared under the cutting of a materialized object. Without waiting for other figures to be attracted over, he turned and stepped into a spiritual gate, going to the other side of the estate—the small building where Ms. Yao had originally lived.
The small building was shrouded in a mass of black energy, like a bottomless cage, making it impossible to see anything inside from the outside.
But when Xu Huo crossed that boundary, everything inside the small building became clear again. Unlike the outside, it seemed to be at the intersection of time. Some of the furnishings inside were still mired in the past, while others were no different from the estate ten years ago.
The bed placed in the room was also split in two. There was a distinct black line in the middle of the neatly spread bedding, like two doors that had been closed.
Xu Huo stopped at the foot of the bed. The dividing line extended down from the bed, reaching his feet, and then gradually turned into a gently flowing river that soaked over the soles of his shoes.
The water didn't rise any further but spread out, gradually covering everything in the room.
When the entire room, the small building, and even the whole estate were submerged by this layer of black water, only Xu Huo remained in the vast black space.
Treading lightly on the water, he walked aimlessly forward. Before long, he saw a colored glaze flower appear on the black water.
The flower, made of transparent material, was very lifelike, looking as thin as a cicada's wing. But when Xu Huo attacked it with spiritual power, he found that he couldn't even penetrate the first layer of petals.
Xu Huo sat down in front of the flower and examined it carefully.
Although spiritual-type instances might contain certain symbolic items, they wouldn't have a core materialized object like a person would, since the venue was different from a person.
This was already the depths of the doppelganger world, and it was very likely the place where the instance's power was most concentrated. The doppelganger had brought him here to kill his spirit, but he also wanted to know how to easily penetrate another person's spiritual defenses, so he simply sat down and scrutinized it carefully.
Time was hard to grasp in the doppelganger world. Xu Huo, sitting in the black spiritual power space, didn't bother to keep track of time, but to the people outside, every moment felt like an eternity.
After waiting so long, only that one person had cleared the instance. Although they wanted to hitch a ride and clear the instance, they didn't dare to put all their hopes on Xu Huo. And until now, the doppelgangers hadn't appeared again. Even when they shook themselves in front of reflective ornaments, the shadows didn't change, and no doppelganger came to invite them to a meal.
Where had the doppelgangers gone?
The players felt they couldn't just sit and wait. Finally, someone couldn't take it anymore. They took an instrument off their body and pressed it against the tableware.
A powerful energy surged from the instrument, like a heartbeat, repeatedly impacting the surrounding air.
After about half a minute, the doppelganger world connected through the tableware began to ripple, spreading outward layer by layer like water. Then the players could feel the space of the opposite doppelganger world.
The player who had first taken out the instrument stepped in, and then the others followed one after another.
"Should we go?" Xiao Yang asked Wei Mang. He preferred to wait here for Xu Huo, especially since most of them were ordinary people. Following those outer zone players might just make them cannon fodder.
"You'll be safer staying outside," Wei Mang said. "They're probably going deeper into the doppelganger world. The deeper you go, the stronger the spiritual interference."
"You're going in?" Xiao Yang caught his implication.
Wei Mang nodded without saying much more, jumping in just before the passage completely closed.
Xiao Yang turned back to reassure the others, telling them not to wander off or think too much. They should stick together while he went to find some food.
But before he could even leave the dining room, footsteps came from the corridor outside. He and another companion became alert, just about to ambush by the door, when they saw that the person walking in was Xu Huo, who had been gone for a long time!
"Mr. Xu!" Xiao Yang saw his gaze sweep across the dining room, then subtly glance at the instrument he was carrying. With a hint of joy, he stepped forward, "You're back..."
Before he could finish, his eyes met Xu Huo's. In less than a second, Xiao Yang collapsed to the ground.
The companion beside him was startled, then realized that this Xu Huo was problematic. He threw out a defensive instrument, pulling up a barrier in the dining room, and then rushed toward the others: "Run!"
The defensive barrier was useless. "Xu Huo" walked through it as if it were air, his body passing straight through the barrier. He didn't even turn into a shadow; it was as simple as walking through air.
The Enforcement Department member was horrified. Forgetting about the others in the dining room, he fled first.
As "Xu Huo" walked through the dining room, the Wang family employees and restoration staff fell one after another, soon leaving only a floor of corpses.
He didn't chase after those who had run away. Instead, he turned back to the dining table, reached out to touch one of the plates, opened the doppelganger world, and stepped inside.