Chapter 645: The Sudden Reversal
This couldn't be blamed on the Painting Woman. Anyone daring enough to come to Jing City wasn't afraid of death; they just hadn't had time to react when caught. But hey, there was still one left.
He remained expressionless and silent. The Painting Woman nervously touched the medal on her chest, then voluntarily pulled out a small handkerchief and walked behind him to wipe the water off his head.
The "Oxygen Supply" squeaked under her rubbing, but since it was raining, no amount of wiping would help. Yet she worked diligently, wringing out the soaked handkerchief and starting again.
A love of labor was worth praising.
Xu Huo gave her a handful of candy and told her to go play nearby.
"World Within the Painting" lay before him. Xu Huo rested his elbows on his knees, turning the cube in his hand as he said to the person in the painting, "This kind of conversation isn't convenient."
As he finished speaking, a patch of black-and-white checkered squares extended from under his feet, quickly connecting him to the painting frame. The squares rose around them and sealed off the top, forming an enclosed spatial environment.
The stone beneath Xu Huo transformed into a chair. Code Name A also emerged from the boundless black space and sat down across from him.
The moment they met face to face, A shot his hand out like lightning toward Xu Huo's throat. But when he stood up, his clothes and pants were stuck to the chair. The chair was fixed in place, so naturally, he was pinned down as well.
"Don't be impatient. Let's talk first." Xu Huo gestured for him to calm down.
Code Name A sat back down with a calm expression. "It seems I won't be leaving here alive today. How did you do it? How did you make a player lose their abilities?"
"Just an item." Xu Huo said flatly. "That's not remarkable. It can't compare to this thing."
He raised the cube in his hand.
A glanced at the item. "No matter how powerful it is, it's ended up in your hands."
"It seems you know that even if the item is taken, the black rain won't stop." Xu Huo said. "It looks like whether the black rain stops or not doesn't have much to do with whether the item comes into contact with a large amount of water."
A said nothing and simply closed his eyes.
Xu Huo smiled silently and continued, "But for the item to take effect, it can't be completely unrelated. So it must be within the rainfall area?"
"It has to come into contact with the rain?"
A still had no reaction. Xu Huo changed the subject. "Such an important item should have been held by one of your players, making it easier to carry and escape with. But your escape plan doesn't seem set up that way."
"Players and Xenomorphs split into two groups. If the players guarding the mission fail, they become bait, drawing the Special Defense Department's attention to make it easier for the Xenomorphs to take the item away. If you hadn't been discovered, the Xenomorphs could have covered for you instead."
"But that's not the safest method. You have too few people, and forcing a second attack isn't very wise."
A opened his eyes at this point. "If you hadn't shown up here, no one would have discovered us."
No one would have found the secret of the depression, making it easy to transfer the item later. Making the black rain fall across all of Jing City wasn't an impossible task.
Xu Huo didn't change his view because of A's statement. "That sounds reasonable, but going completely undiscovered is the most impossible thing of all."
"Even if the Special Defense Department didn't notice Wenshan, you and the Xenomorphs entering the headquarters' range would definitely attract attention. This place is full of surveillance. Tracking your movements wouldn't be hard, and the Xenomorphs are even more conspicuous."
"No matter what you do, ensuring the item can be successfully recovered is the most important thing."
He observed A's subtle expressions. "It's not that you don't want to—it's that you can't. This high-level item can't be held by any one of you."
A laughed, his expression as if to say, "Guess all you want."
Xu Huo knew he was on the right track. "This item is clearly inseparable from water. The toxic rain can't come from nowhere; there has to be a source. But since there are no spatial items in Jing City, the rain can't be coming from another space. So it must be transferred from one place to another."
He turned the cube in his hand, then suddenly stopped. His sharp gaze pierced into Code Name A's eyes. "The item in my hand isn't complete."
No matter how well-trained a person is, they can't fully control their reactions. Xu Huo stood up and smiled. "Thank you for your answer."
A's expression finally changed. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but the black-and-white checkered space quickly faded. As the black rain fell from the sky again, he reappeared inside the painting frame, roaring at Xu Huo with unwilling resentment.
Xu Huo withdrew his gaze and tossed the cube to the Painting Woman. "Try throwing it onto the rain clouds."
Since killing the item holder wasn't an option, the only remaining solution was to throw the item away.
"When the thing was buried in the depression, the water's surface gravity was clearly chaotic. Since it could attract the rain, it might also be able to divert it." Xu Huo looked at the twisted face of the oil painting man and said, "Give it a try. If it doesn't work, I'll find a way to send it back to your home."
The Painting Woman made a small basket out of paper, lifted it, and soared into the air. She quickly passed through the not-too-high rain cloud layer. Strangely, the moment she crossed the clouds, the heavy rain stopped abruptly, as if a spigot had been turned off mid-air. A few seconds later, the accumulated black rainwater on the ground began to flow backward into the sky!
Xu Huo couldn't help but be surprised. After a moment, he turned to face the painting frame. "This reversal is really unexpected."
The oil painting man's expression froze. Clearly, he hadn't anticipated this outcome either. But then his face fell. "It's over..."
In a small country neighboring Country X, Country Y had established a temporary base beside a natural lake.
Before the base was completed, they had paid a considerable price. They had to defend against player attacks from the small country while also collecting large amounts of Xenomorph blood from around the world. After arduous efforts, they transported it here and spent a month successfully polluting the lake. As long as things went smoothly in Jing City, this single lake would be enough to throw Country X into chaos!
But before they could see the surge of Xenomorphs in Country X or the internal turmoil, the rain that had fallen for less than a night suddenly reversed. It surged back like a tidal wave, instantly washing away the temporary base!
Thousands of unsuspecting staff members in the base, including some players, were contaminated by the black rain carrying Xenomorph toxins. Cries of agony erupted everywhere.
The Country Y leader in the distant safe zone hurriedly contacted the person in charge of the operation, only to be told that the person in charge was already dead—his neck broken by the black water falling from the sky.
The Country Y high command fell silent. Before using the black rain item, they had known it was a double-edged sword. But they never expected the sword to be drawn for less than a night before stabbing back into themselves. And with the situation reversed, the item couldn't be recovered either.
Thus, before the sky fully brightened, Country Y conducted an emergency evacuation. The military entered the base to clean up the evidence. The dense gunfire lasted for several minutes before stopping. By the time the planes left the base, only a towering blaze remained.
(Chapter End)