Chapter 617: Seventeenth Hospital Upgrade
The Special Defense Department was experienced in dealing with players. Aside from anesthetics and anesthetic smoke, they also had electric shock guns and characteristic electric nets. The electric nets in particular didn't require direct confrontation with players—they only needed to set up the nets in advance and lure people in.
Of course, dealing with players relied more on traits and props. The Special Defense Department had gone all out this time. Elite players in dark blue uniforms and black leather gloves moved through every small conflict zone, using props in coordination with armed personnel and other players to capture people.
When Xu Huo passed by an office building, a player used "Down to Earth," dragging him to the ground as well, landing him right in the middle of the battlefield.
But the effect of this prop ended there. After casually killing two cannibal players, he took off again and accelerated before the Special Defense Department players could identify him as an enemy.
The Special Defense Department had more accumulated resources than he had imagined, but that wasn't surprising. As long as props could be purchased, the Special Defense Department had plenty of money—buying high-level props wasn't difficult.
Just as the first three minutes were about to end, he was blocked by a large fog zone.
Fog in winter wasn't strange, but after circling a few times and finding he couldn't escape the fog area, he realized he had fallen into a trap. Sensing someone approaching through the fog, he quickly changed position and circled to the side. Looking closely, he saw a team of people in black.
Xu Huo used the Silent Figure and watched as this group, while passing through the fog zone, casually removed their contact lenses to reveal colored irises. He frowned slightly.
There were ten people in total. One of them held a square screen with a faintly glowing "Heavy Fog" icon, and mist continuously seeped out from it—this was likely the prop creating the foggy weather.
They stopped, and the middle-aged man leading them said, "Everyone, remember the purpose of this trip?"
"Get the detox fungus and kill all the Special Defense Department players!" the other nine answered resolutely, clearly ambitious.
"Right," the middle-aged man said with a gloomy expression. "But news just came in—we've been betrayed. The Special Defense Department had already moved the detox fungus. The lab we blew up was just an empty shell, and we lost quite a few of our players!"
The other nine were furious, shouting in unison, "Blood for blood!"
"Good!" the middle-aged man barked. "Our mission has failed, so of course we want revenge. But this is someone else's territory, and we're limited in numbers. We can only concentrate our strength to kill a few important figures!"
He sent the list to everyone's phones. "These are key members of the Special Defense Department. Kill them, and the Special Defense Department won't recover for a short time. As for the other players here, leave them to the random instances!"
At that moment, outside the fog zone, several huge metal boxes simultaneously appeared in the sky above the Special Defense Department headquarters and the surrounding areas.
"How did these things appear!" Minister Fan slammed the table and stood up in the operations meeting room.
"It must be a prop effect," Team Leader Wu said. "We need to intercept them immediately!"
The nearby confidential staff immediately issued orders. Several interceptor missiles shot out, and the boxes exploded in midair!
After the smoke sprayed, the metal was blasted into fragments, but the contents inside the boxes fell intact toward the ground.
Drones transmitted the footage back in real time, and the meeting room saw what had fallen out of the boxes: a mask resembling a ritual artifact, a stone covered in moss, a door, and a long-haired doll.
The moment they saw these items, everyone present knew they were the entrances to random instances.
Random instance entrances came in various forms—some were large areas, a house, a room, or a body of water. These larger ones often sucked in a large number of living people at once. But there were also portal-like instance entrances: an item, a tree, or a stone—whoever touched it would be pulled inside.
The Special Defense Department had conducted experiments. Large-area instance entrances were usually immovable, while small objects could be moved before the instance disappeared.
"Small-entrance instances won't affect that many people," Minister Fan said. "Have the rescue team immediately seal off the instance entrance drop zones. Find out how these boxes were thrown over the headquarters and catch the culprits!"
The Special Defense Department began to act. The middle-aged man in the fog zone signaled the player behind him to put away the prop, then waved for the players to disperse.
But a few seconds later, the surrounding fog still hadn't dissipated. The middle-aged man frowned and turned back. "What's going on?"
The player holding the electronic screen was also confused, but everyone soon realized they might have stepped into the range of another prop effect.
"Split up," the middle-aged man said, choosing a direction first. But as soon as he took a step, his expression changed—the original asphalt road had turned into smooth floor tiles, and as he stepped onto them, he vaguely saw the entrance of a large building through the fog.
Retreating was impossible, because a strange force directly pushed him to the front door, and the other nine arrived at the same time.
They looked at each other in confusion. Finally, the middle-aged man said, "It seems we've stepped into a random instance. Bad luck."
But once inside a random instance, the only way out was to clear it. So, with his approval, one player stepped forward to push the door.
To their surprise, the door wouldn't open.
The ten of them observed the gray, dusty building from the outside. After a moment, they tacitly dispersed to search for entrances around the building, but soon returned empty-handed.
"There are doors and windows, but we can't get in. I checked the second and third floors too—can't see what's inside."
"This is the first time I've seen such a strange instance. Players can't enter the venue!"
"Maybe the venue for this instance is outside?"
"There are no other buildings next to this one. The area we can move around in is about ten meters. No hidden passages or other clues. The venue must be inside the building, but we just can't enter yet."
The players looked at each other. Finally, someone said, "If the instance can't be activated, maybe we can get out."
Getting out was impossible, because the Seventeenth Hospital instance was currently upgrading.
The reason Xu Huo had chosen this location to release the instance was twofold: first, considering the player distribution, and second, because the Seventeenth Hospital had originally been contaminated by Yu Guo's bacteria. Whether it had spread to the entire building was uncertain. Releasing it could cause widespread bacterial contamination, so he had chosen a relatively remote spot. The first thing he did upon entering was to deal with the contaminants inside.
But fate had other plans. Since these ten players had to be detained anyway, he released the signal and activated "Seventeenth Hospital." What he didn't expect was that the hospital not only wasn't unusable due to the contaminants but had actually begun to upgrade.
The original single building rapidly expanded to twice its size, and two new buildings of equal size appeared behind the outpatient building. The three buildings were arranged horizontally, separated by lawns.
[Seventeenth Hospital is about to upgrade. Will the instance holder, Passerby A, fill in the new instance rules?]
(Chapter End)