Chapter 655: People of the Same Stripe
"Click!" The golden-haired buzz-cut man pulled the safety and pressed the gun against Tong Tong's head. "Xu Huo, I've been waiting for you for a long time."
Xu Huo looked at the lineup across from him, then gave the buzz-cut man a strange look. "I'm curious—how did you manage to capture a player?"
"You're a veteran player yourself. Don't you know it's actually not that hard to trap a player? Your country's Special Defense Department can do it, so why wouldn't we be able to?" The buzz-cut man didn't waste words. "I only have one goal: the Detox Fungus. Give me the Detox Fungus, and both of these people can live."
"Hold on," Xu Huo raised his hand, speaking unhurriedly. "You don't actually think I carry Detox Fungus on me, do you? Since you have channels to learn about the Detox Fungus, you should know it's very difficult to cultivate. If the environment isn't right, it will naturally die."
The buzz-cut man let out a laugh. "Trying to stall for time?"
As he spoke, he raised the gun and shot the Painting Woman's head clean off. Brain matter and blood splattered everywhere.
Xu Huo felt like applauding him. "You killed my person. What makes you think I'd still give you the Detox Fungus?"
"Then it depends on whether you care about your little brother." The buzz-cut man pressed down hard on the child's head. "I know you two don't share the same mother. Before I took him, I left a note for your father. I wonder if he's now hoping his eldest son will save his youngest son."
Xu Huo didn't show the reaction the other man wanted. Instead, he asked, "Are all the players from your Y Country mute except for you? No one else talks?"
The buzz-cut man narrowed his eyes. "I'll give you three seconds. One, two—"
"Don't bother counting." Xu Huo lifted his chin. "Look at what's under your feet."
The buzz-cut man's gaze shifted downward. The floor beneath them had started to sink without him noticing, descending step by step until it gradually transformed into a spiraling staircase passage.
But he was unlucky—he hadn't landed on the stairs. He was right in the center. As the ground gave way beneath him, he plummeted rapidly.
After the buzz-cut man fell, the opened staircase quickly retracted. In less than a second, the floor was restored to its original state. Xu Huo ignored the "Tong Tong" kneeling motionless on the ground and turned his head toward a certain spot on this floor. "Come out."
Another buzz-cut man appeared where his gaze landed. The man stepped out from behind a door, applauding. "I didn't expect you to defeat Tracy so quickly."
"You didn't see her?"
"It must have taken quite some effort, right?"
"Not really. The fact that my friend can be here means you've met her. Has Tong Tong already been taken away by her?"
"You can see through my illusion. Looks like we're people of the same stripe." The buzz-cut man's expression darkened.
"That's not quite right either." Xu Huo smiled. "You created yourself and your companions in the illusion, but you clearly don't have enough control. So aside from you, no one else can speak. Also, if that red-dressed woman really did meet up with you, then you and the others would absolutely never dare to share a room with her."
"A-Class Contaminant!" The buzz-cut man immediately realized.
"That's right. I hope she lives a little longer and returns to her own country. Then you'll understand what it means to be helpless." Xu Huo said. "Unless you can buy a Super Antidote from an Artificer, those contaminants will spread through your country like a plague."
His voice sent chills down the spine. "But even if you manage to get an antidote, how many people will be infected before that? And how many people can a few doses of antidote save? In the player era, people are the foundation. Without enough people, the supply of players won't keep up."
"By then, you'll truly regret everything you've done in Jing City today."
"Every single life lost in Jing City today because of the Black Rain will be repaid with lives from your country."
"Shut up!" The buzz-cut man roared. He clasped his hands together, and all the metal objects on the entire floor flew toward Xu Huo at once!
"Try something new." Xu Huo ignored the flying false images, accurately sweeping aside the items mixed in among them. Then he made a motion like turning a doorknob. A door materialized out of thin air in front of him. He stepped through it and appeared behind the buzz-cut man.
The buzz-cut man turned and retreated, slapping one hand on the ground. The floor tiles of the entire level simultaneously turned to sand, whipping up into several tornadoes that converged on Xu Huo. But before they could close in, they were swallowed by a door that appeared on the ground.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Several doors slammed shut one after another. The buzz-cut man stared at the scene in confusion. "Spiritual Power can at most interfere with a person's judgment. How can it block a physical attack!"
Xu Huo had no intention of explaining. He raised his hand, and several independent doors rose up around the buzz-cut man. He opened one, walked through it, and emerged from another door.
The buzz-cut man stood still. A shockwave-like barrier surged around him, pushing outward to sweep everything on the ground clean and shatter all the doors. He predicted Xu Huo's position, rushed forward in rapid strides, and used the shockwave to smash the newly generated door along with it!
Xu Huo was flung out along with the door's wreckage. He stumbled backward. The buzz-cut man kept charging forward, slamming him straight through the wall of the adjacent room!
With a crash, the wall was blasted through. The debris buried Xu Huo as well. But the buzz-cut man didn't press the attack. Instead, he quickly turned around and opened fire toward the office area!
"Don't forget—I also know how to use Spiritual Power!" the buzz-cut man shouted at Xu Huo, who seemed to have never left his original position.
Xu Huo opened a door. The bullets all vanished into it without a trace. He reminded the buzz-cut man, "Do you hear a sound?"
The buzz-cut man, thinking it was an attack, instinctively listened closely. But what rang in his ears was the sound of human speech. The next moment, he used an item to block his ears and pulled out a miniature bronze bell, spinning it into the air.
The bell flew toward Xu Huo, expanding continuously mid-air. A tremendous gravitational force emanated from its center, sucking everything around it inside!
Xu Huo noticed that the size of the objects being sucked in didn't change. He kicked two tables to block the entrance, then rode the gravitational pull to leap onto the bell and charge at the buzz-cut man!
The buzz-cut man smirked. With a flip of his hand, the bell turned upside down, swallowing Xu Huo's legs!
"I don't need to get your whole body in there. Just restricting your movement is enough—"
But his smugness didn't last two seconds. The bell began to disintegrate from its edges.
The buzz-cut man's expression changed. He lunged forward to snatch the item back, but Xu Huo wouldn't give him the chance. "Like poles repel!"
The two of them pushed apart, creating a three-meter distance between them. By the time the buzz-cut man looked up again, the bell had become nothing but a pile of powder on the ground.
Losing the item was painful, but the buzz-cut man quickly adjusted his mindset. He threw both hands into the air. An artificial beehive flew up, and a massive swarm of bees poured out!
"You people really have no shortage of good things." Xu Huo dropped the Desert Windmill on the ground.
(Chapter End)