Chapter 3148: What a Coincidence
The few people not far away were in no better shape. Upstairs was stabbing his own eyes, Fu Kuan was strangling himself, and Juno was seriously injured and unconscious, with a medical kit automatically working to stitch up the wound on her chest.
Temporary protection from the instrument didn't mean they were safe. The relatively weaker Gene and Fu Kuan already had dazed expressions, drool dripping from the corners of their mouths. If this went on for long, their spirits would be killed, just like those who died in the Wisteria Instance.
Fortunately, the "Gravitational Field" weakened the surrounding spiritual power. However, Xu Huo couldn't get too close to them. He pulled out Gene's ring-shaped instrument and, after several attempts, finally opened a passage in one direction.
Shutting down the "Gravitational Field," he brought all of them out.
The place they arrived at this time was the real kitchen.
"Ugh!"
"Cough!"
As soon as they got out, several people collapsed on the ground, some vomiting, others coughing up blood, tears and snot covering their faces, fragile as newborn infants.
They still had some memory of trying to commit suicide, then being completely immersed in it, unable to extricate themselves, as if the only thing left in life was to end themselves, with no desire or instinct to survive!
"Why is there a place like this in Mr. Carmen's instance venue..." Gene found it hard to believe. "Has his mental evolution gone out of control?"
This was the most reasonable explanation. Mental evolvers all had some issues. Otherwise, how could a figure like Carmen Field create such a place... a place that completely stripped people of any will to live!
"It might also be that the venue is too special..." Upstairs lay paralyzed on the ground. "It can't be that the famous Carmen Field's inner world is so full of despair and loneliness..."
The air fell silent. Although they hadn't seen Carmen's figure, everyone had been affected by the emotional interference. Intuition told them that was Carmen Field's spiritual realm, but it was not only hard to believe, but even harder to accept.
"That's Carmen Field, after all..." Gene was puzzled. "Even if he went to fight in the non-ticket zones, it wouldn't be surprising. What could make him... so pessimistic."
"Mr. Carmen... couldn't he have committed suicide?" Juno had woken up, speaking weakly.
"How is that possible!" A similarly weak rebuttal came from various parts of the kitchen.
"I'm not saying he actively committed suicide. It's very possible that his mental evolution went wrong, ultimately leading to this result," Juno speculated.
That wasn't impossible, but it was different from the heroic ending people imagined, and even harder to accept. Gene said, "I've seen many mental evolvers. Even if they end up with drastic personality changes or go crazy, it's never like this."
Despair itself was an emotion that only clear-minded, rational people possessed.
"Maybe he encountered some difficult problem," Xu Huo said. When suppressed by the spiritual realm, he had only felt anger. After coming out and calming down for a while, his rationality returned, and he began to think about those two sentences Carmen Field had spoken.
Carmen Field was no ordinary super player. From his life story, it was clear he didn't have some grand blueprint for building a career or bringing glory to his family. At his level, being able to glimpse the core of the game world, people often felt despair when they realized how utterly insignificant they were. What could make a super player harbor such thoughts?
Was it that the ideal he pursued could never be achieved? Or that he had foreseen fate but could never change it?
"The opponent is not human"... Could this refer to fate? After the game world had developed to this point, it was hard to say it was still completely under human control, just like human genes—you never knew when a change might occur.
"Unable to defeat oneself"... Was this in a literal sense, or a psychological one?
Game, fate—these two words repeatedly alternated in Xu Huo's mind, gradually converging into a vague shadow. Despair, to some extent, was surrender. Carmen Field was researching Dr. Wu. Dr. Wu's wife and daughter's deaths were already an established fact, and he hadn't resigned himself to it. Could Carmen Field have foreseen and judged his failure first?
No, that wasn't right. Dr. Wu could use curved time. His future could be rewritten, just like Xu Huo's fight with Jin Feixue, where he used his trait to predict the opponent's moves in advance and adjusted his response strategy... With curved time intervening, the predicted future wasn't necessarily the real future. If Carmen Field truly understood Dr. Wu, he would never make such a judgment in this regard.
"Are you okay?" Fu Kuan's voice interrupted Xu Huo's chaotic thoughts. He wiped under his nose—there was blood.
"It's nothing." He leaned back in his chair. "Suffered a mental attack. A little nosebleed is normal."
The people present respected him. Withstanding the Battle Angel's spiritual interference and still managing to escape unscathed from Carmen Field's mental control, at this level, he was probably not far off from a super player.
Space, spirit—he seemed to carry the shadow of Carmen Field.
"Oh, what a coincidence." A malicious voice sounded. The earlier escapees, Carter and his group, had actually run into them again.
"Is the instance venue that small?" Gene rolled his eyes, stood up, and walked to the front to block Carter and his group. "These people are under the protection of my Anderson family. If you don't want a feud between families, you'd better back off!"
Levin Carter laughed loudly. "Not just them, even you—if you die in a super instance venue, no one outside will say anything. You can only blame your bad luck for running into me again!"
"Really?" A voice cut in.
"Of course it's true..." Levin Carter stopped mid-sentence, realizing it was Xu Huo sitting in the corner who had asked. His expression immediately tightened.
Unfortunately, Xu Huo didn't give him time to react. He tossed the ring-shaped instrument outward, and a space passage opened before them.
"Go ahead. There's something good in there." He was referring to the black space.
Levin Carter's face changed. "You really think we're unprepared..."
Before he finished speaking, a few faint "clicks" sounded. The instruments they wore either cracked or suddenly failed. Xu Huo didn't use mental control to command them either. He walked straight up to them and, one kick at a time, sent the two young masters standing in front tumbling into the spiritual venue.
As for the players who came with them, the Kaleidoscope Thread had already sealed off their escape route. A few time rays locked onto them for an instant, and they died helplessly under the power of space.
The bodies hit the ground, and the space passage closed. Xu Huo caught the ring-shaped instrument, spun it around in his hand, and tossed it back to Gene. "Your instrument is pretty good."
Gene's mouth twitched. The instrument was his. Those two who went inside were dead—how was that going to be settled?