Chapter 3081: Red Light
"Inspection Department?" Ding Xiang and the others were somewhat surprised.
The Inspection Department was a well-known but relatively invisible department in Zone 025. Their scope of duty covered all personnel within the government departments. Simply put, they were specifically responsible for reviewing whether government personnel had violated laws or regulations.
Their work locations and permanent staff were kept confidential, and not many people knew about them—this might be difficult to achieve in ordinary districts, but it wasn't a difficult task in technologically advanced districts. They could even move their entire office building away at any time.
"Didn't they say that Inspection Department personnel were secretly selected from other departments?" Na Wei said. "Maintaining a hidden identity while keeping their original jobs, monitoring their colleagues anytime, anywhere—you actually know someone from the Inspection Department?"
"By chance," Old Duan said. "He was a friend I once knew..."
He paused there, then changed his words: "But it could also be someone who looks similar. After all, the corpse was somewhat deformed."
The others fell silent for a moment, some things not suitable for open discussion.
"Let's continue," Xu Huo broke the silence. "While it's still cool."
The group didn't say much more and continued walking in the same direction as before.
Over the next day, aside from experiencing a random arena match, they didn't encounter any other players, nor did they find the so-called "supply points." Fortunately, they had managed to get some food and water from the arena match. The sky was half-lit, and the temperature was quite suitable, making the journey less uncomfortable than before.
"We all have around five thousand points now," Shuang Tou said during a break. "If it really takes ten thousand points to cross zones, we probably won't last much longer."
Unless they kept circling around the Wasteland Zone.
But the probability of that should be quite small—if they couldn't find the right direction, how could they accurately find the wrong one?
"Who knows where we've ended up? Maybe we're just going in circles," Ai Xin Cheng said, not optimistic.
"Earlier, didn't we run into that white-haired guy's team? They can't be going in circles either," Shuang Tou pointed at the points above their heads. "Besides, our scores are slowly rising. If we were on the wrong path, there wouldn't be so many people continuously watching us."
That reasoning had some merit, so they decided to go with that assumption.
The good weather didn't last long before darkness set in. Once the wind and snow started, the environment became extremely harsh. However, what lifted their spirits was the appearance of dark undulations on the horizon.
"There are mountains! Could we be close to the cross-zone area?" The group felt a surge of energy and pushed forward with all their might. When they arrived, they found it was just a stretch of low hills, equally bare with no plants growing, just more scattered gravel. After crossing these hills, the area ahead, though not as flat as the ground they had just traversed, only had a few more undulations. Further away, even farther, there was still no change.
Their emotions fluctuated greatly, so they found a sheltered spot to rest.
At night, the eight of them took turns keeping watch. Late into the night, Ding Xiang and Ai Xin Cheng went out to relieve themselves but unexpectedly ran into players lying in ambush nearby. The two immediately sent out a warning. By the time Xu Huo and the others rushed over, the six players had quickly retreated, unwilling to engage.
Fortunately, Ding Xiang and the other woman weren't injured.
Looking at the jumping point numbers, Old Duan said, "Around five thousand. Looks like they've set their sights on us."
Xu Huo recognized one of them—it was Ice Shovel, who had come to the island with him. This guy was still alive.
"I ran into this guy before when I was moving with Old Gao and the others," Ding Xiang recognized Ice Shovel. "He's pretty good-looking. Some viewers even bet heavily that they didn't want him to die."
Old Gao and Scarface had previously joined the white-haired man's team, but when they set out, those two weren't in the group. Whether they were kicked out or left voluntarily wasn't clear, but there was no deep bond, so there was no need to care about their whereabouts.
"His points are higher than everyone else's," Wood said. "If someone really has their eye on him, supporting him might also mean suppressing others."
That was the advantage of appearance. Although simulants could be crafted to perfectly match human aesthetic standards in appearance and physique, they weren't real people—their thinking was fixed. How could they compare to the unpredictability of a real person?
Especially a real person with outstanding looks.
Shuang Tou touched his own face. "Forget it, I'm not the type to live off my looks."
"But they're too bold. Being this close, they still dared to come and provoke us."
With the players' perception, and in such an open area, the ones who attacked Ding Xiang and the others couldn't have been unaware that Xu Huo and his group were nearby. What was the point of coming up, taking a swing, and then running away?
"Could they be trying to drain our energy?" Na Wei said hesitantly.
It was initially just an unreliable guess, but they didn't expect that to actually be their plan. After that, every half hour to an hour, they would come again, each time provoking them and then using instruments to escape. Ding Xiang and the others couldn't manage to keep them there.
"Are they sick?" Ding Xiang found it baffling. "If we can't sleep well, can they sleep well?"
"Be careful. I'm worried they have some backup plan," Lang Ya said.
This group indeed had ulterior motives, as two other teams of players were lurking nearby. They would probably change shifts after dawn.
The white-haired man's group was in another direction. After Xu Huo led Ding Xiang and the others to move a certain distance, he sent a signal. The other side quickly replied, and not long after, they appeared in their field of vision.
From a distance, Xu Huo waved at them.
The white-haired man also raised his hand.
The two teams continued forward like that.
After discovering the white-haired man's group, Ice Shovel's team restrained themselves. The other two teams didn't show themselves at all, but they didn't leave completely either, following at a moderate distance nearby.
The white-haired man's group also noticed their presence and signaled Xu Huo, asking if they should make a move to eliminate these people. Their points would be about right.
Not having enough points might also be one of the reasons they couldn't find the cross-zone location. It wouldn't hurt to try.
"There's a storm ahead!" Shuang Tou shouted.
Everyone looked up and saw five tornadoes connecting heaven and earth rapidly moving toward them. It was almost dawn, and even from a great distance, they could see the large swaths of gravel being swept up, all concentrated in the wind columns. As the storm's color gradually darkened, the danger was self-evident.
Charging straight through was definitely out of the question. They would have to go around, but the other three teams were blocking them on the left and right. To get past, they might have to confront them.
But at that moment, Xu Huo caught a flash of red light in one of the tornadoes. Then, the wind column moved in the direction the red light was fading, breaking away from the storm on its own!
The others also noticed this strange phenomenon. Their gazes followed it, only to see the wind suddenly disappear after moving a few hundred meters!
Vanishing out of thin air—this wasn't anything new in the Wasteland Zone. It meant a Chaos Space had appeared!
Before the group could turn and run, the second and third tornadoes followed suit, dissipating, as if another space was devouring this one.
In the span of a breath, the chaotic spatial force swept over everyone. It didn't reach visible speed and was much gentler than the previous space tsunami, merely sweeping them in different directions. In the panic, no one could look out for anyone else. Players began disappearing from the space one by one.