# Chapter 636: Cannot Leave
How could the location chosen for the Special Defense Department headquarters not have a reservoir? Not only did it have one, but two new ones had been built specifically to prepare for emergency water shortages during special periods. But under the current circumstances, the water in the reservoirs might not be usable.
"What's the exact location?" Xu Huo didn't care whether the reservoir was contaminated or not.
Nie Xuan simply told him the locations of all the reservoirs and added, "The southwest reservoir is the largest. If fully filled, it can hold at least twenty thousand tons, but it's only half full right now. Do you need water? The control valves for the reservoir haven't been damaged, so water can still be pumped in now."
"No need, half is about enough." Xu Huo lit a cigarette, his gaze fixed on the rain curtain outside, his tone calm. "Whether it works or not depends on luck."
"Then I wish you good luck," Nie Xuan said. "Currently, the Special Defense Department can't spare any manpower to help you. In fact, we're short on people. If things don't work out and you have time, come by and lend a hand."
The call ended. Xu Huo put out the cigarette he had just lit and put on the "Oxygen Supply" again.
"You asked about the reservoir—do you plan to put antidote in it?" Zheng Liang could only think of that possibility. "Will diluted antidote still be effective?"
"We'll only know if it works by trying," Xu Huo said. "Since you have nothing better to do, help me with something."
"Do you have access to the black market?" He handed Zheng Liang a slip of paper. "Get me a set of identification documents. Everything I need is written on there."
Zheng Liang took it and looked it over. His expression shifted, and then he looked at Xu Huo with a complicated gaze. Seeing that Xu Huo had no intention of continuing the conversation, he gritted his teeth and said, "I'll get it done for you!"
Xu Huo nodded, leaped down from the building, and upon landing, he shot forward like an arrow, tearing through the rain curtain and disappearing into the distance.
On the other side, after hanging up on Xu Huo, Nie Xuan began to encircle the Y country players' stronghold.
According to the information provided by David Pierce, they had three strongholds in total. The one closest to the Special Defense Department headquarters wasn't actually occupied by Y country nationals but by a local player who had been turned. The Y country players only showed up there when distributing missions.
Nie Xuan estimated that there would definitely be plenty of people there tonight. Even if they couldn't catch the big fish, they could at least scoop up a couple of small ones.
Sure enough, before the Special Defense Department players could even charge in, the players inside the room broke out from four different directions. Each of them was dressed identically, and even their builds were similar!
When the first wave of pursuing players caught up to one of them and tried to grab him, they were shocked to find that he vanished right before their eyes!
It wasn't the sudden disappearance of entering an instance, but something indescribably strange—first becoming semi-transparent, then completely disappearing a few seconds later.
"Don't worry about him." Nie Xuan leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the real-time video feed. "The instruments didn't detect a living person passing through. Whether it's a person or a mutant, treat them all the same and capture them all. Even if you fail, it doesn't matter. Quickly activate the second plan."
Players' methods were impossible to guard against. There was no point in agonizing over exactly how they escaped or attacked, because any method was possible. Catching them was what counted!
The four players who escaped didn't manage to lure away all the Special Defense Department players. After three of them disappeared, the fourth was caught in an electric net and fled into an instance.
After the first targeted operation failed, the players still surrounding the residential area, along with those who had turned back from the pursuit, quickly adjusted their positions, forming a three-layer encirclement around the neighborhood.
The Y country players trapped inside the residential area had tried several times to slip out from inconspicuous spots, but all exits were tightly sealed by the Special Defense Department—literally sealed. The main gate, the underground garage entrance, the fences outside the neighborhood—all were lined with electric nets and anesthetic nets. In addition to the players, there were also a large number of armed police officers providing firepower support, not to mention the snipers lying in ambush in the distance.
Breaking through the encirclement was already difficult, and even if they got out, there were snipers waiting outside. There was no way to escape!
"Mr. Lin, I think we should just hide in an instance." A middle-aged man with a square face crouched behind the curtains, furtively watching the situation outside. "The Special Defense Department doesn't know our exact situation yet, so they haven't forced their way in. But if we wait any longer, who knows what will happen. The one leading the team is Nie Xuan. Among all the group leaders and team leaders in the Special Defense Department, he's the harshest on players. Anyone who causes trouble, he basically kills them on the spot!"
"Shut up!" The man called Mr. Lin wasn't a pure X country national; he was mixed-race. Although his eye color was different, his facial features were consistent with X country people. As long as he used colored contact lenses, he looked no different from a native X country person.
At this moment, he was fiddling with his phone in irritation, his fingers constantly pressing on it. But if you looked closely, you could see he wasn't pressing the phone screen but a plastic cartoon doll attached to the side.
The signals in this area had already been cut off, so information couldn't flow. He was using a prop to communicate with the other players, but now even that prop seemed to have malfunctioned. The signals he sent out received no response.
Pacing anxiously inside the room, restless for twenty seconds, he suddenly grabbed the square-faced man. "Break out from different directions. Don't get caught, and don't enter an instance!"
The square-faced man looked both miserable and terrified. He barely managed to nod, and the next second, Mr. Lin kicked him out the door.
The Special Defense Department players were already outside the door. Although the square-faced man was prepared, the moment he stepped out, he stepped onto a prop that had been set up in advance: "I am innocent!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, the square-faced man involuntarily raised both hands above his head, his arms locked in place and unable to move!
The Special Defense Department didn't give him a chance to escape through the window either. Several anesthetic darts shot out from different directions, and the man fell into the hallway without even a groan.
Seeing the legs being dragged away from the doorway, Mr. Lin cursed "Worthless!" and grabbed a glass cup from the table, hurling it toward the door: "Stay away from fragile items!"
The glass cup exploded on impact, and at the same time, all the glass items on that floor exploded as well. Glass shards flew everywhere like bullets. Mr. Lin jumped out the window but was met with a blinding golden light!
"Bathed in radiance!"
Along with the golden light, a player charged at him like a cannonball, slamming Mr. Lin directly into the wall of the building!
But Mr. Lin wasn't injured. His body was wrapped in an air cushion, making him look like an inflated loaf of bread. Stuck in the wall, he still managed to bounce the player pinning him down away.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" A hail of bullets swept across the dent in the wall, but Mr. Lin had already pulled the plug on his air cushion, flying out like a balloon in a completely erratic trajectory!
"Friendly connection!" A player appeared on the ground of the residential area and threw a rope into the sky. The rope extended upward with a mind of its own and precisely connected to Mr. Lin's shoe.
(Chapter End)