Chapter 685: The Proposal to Slaughter the City
The Painting Woman, wearing the "Happy Invisibility" coat, had already walked away from Brother Stone's corpse. She seemed particularly curious and, instead of quietly standing to the side as Xu Huo had told her before he acted, she walked over to the female player.
Once she merged with the environment, even Xu Huo couldn't see her. He sensed her standing there motionless, and noticed that one side of the female player's hair was gently brushed aside. He didn't call her back, but instead said to Fang Penghui and the others, "I killed the man. Any objections?"
There were definitely objections, and strong ones at that. But Brother Stone, who was no weakling, had been killed on sight, and the two players who followed them out hadn't returned either. Fighting to the death was pointless.
"Our goal was only to stop them from setting the fire." Fang Penghui stated his position. "You killed him, so the item naturally belongs to you."
"However, these few people can't be let off easily." He pointed at the female player and her group. "We can't let them drag everyone down because of their actions."
Hearing this, those players immediately objected. "The idol can bewitch players. What's wrong with burning it all down?"
"Use your brain, will you!" the square-faced man said. "Burning the house doesn't destroy the idol. You're just digging a pit for everyone!"
"Since it's fine as long as you don't look at the idol, even if it's exposed, it shouldn't be a big problem," the other party said matter-of-factly.
Fang Penghui and the others were momentarily stunned, then laughed in anger. "I seriously wonder how you people managed to survive to a D-rank Instance!"
Before the two sides could argue it out, the residents who had nearly been burned to death without opening their eyes all woke up at once. Their first action wasn't to flee, but to rush into the rooms to rescue the idols!
The players were startled and immediately used their various abilities to block them. However, the key wasn't these people outside, but those still trapped in the sea of fire. In the brief moment it took the players to rush over, someone had already carried a wooden cabinet out!
"Damn it!" someone cursed, and the players immediately scattered in all directions.
Both the people running out of the fire and the wooden cabinets were actually ablaze. The bewitched residents seemed completely oblivious to the flames on their bodies. They were like human torches, running towards water sources, first plunging the wooden cabinets into the water.
Unfortunately, the wood, having been burned for a while, fell apart upon contact with water. Then, a fist-sized wooden eye fell out and floated on the surface.
No red light appeared. After waiting for a moment, some bold players went to check. They found that the wooden eyes, whether in the water tanks or on the ground, had all developed cracks after being burned. The wooden shells shattered, and several round objects rolled out from inside.
"These are... eyeballs!"
The things rolling out of the wooden eyes were all rotten eyeballs. Some were so decayed that they dissolved into a fluffy mess upon contact with water, emitting a foul stench!
"Could these be the eyeballs of the missing players?" Wei Xian said with disgust. "The boss of this Instance is too disgusting, digging out living people's eyeballs for worship!"
"A few of them are fresh!" Another player crushed a cracked wooden eye, and several eyeballs rolled out, one pair having blue pupils.
"I remember one of the players who went missing last night was a mixed-race person with blue eyes."
So, the person went missing last night, and by today, their eyes were already inside the idol.
"I knew these people were no good!" A player pointed at the injured residents nearby. "They must have put the eyes in there!"
"Maybe they were just waiting for the right time to drag us down. If they really take out those wooden eyes, we won't be able to stop them with our numbers!"
"In my opinion, we should strike first!"
"No!" Yi Pei immediately objected. "Don't forget, there are still children here. Do you want to kill them too?"
"No?" The player who proposed slaughtering the city said coldly, "It's either them or us. If you want to play the saint, first check your own abilities!"
Yi Pei gripped her item tightly, her voice stern. "Then try me!"
In an instant, quite a few players sided with the slaughter faction. The cost of killing was too low, especially in an Instance. To survive, they had already killed countless people.
"People need to have a bottom line." The black-shirted player frowned and stood with Yi Pei. "I don't agree with killing either."
Fang Penghui and Tian Kunwen hesitated for a moment before also choosing Yi Pei's side.
The player who first proposed the slaughter saw that the numbers on both sides were roughly equal and said, "You saw it yourselves. Those people are influenced by the idol; they don't even feel death. If they go berserk, who can stop them? In an Instance, survival is the only rule!"
"I have a question." Xu Huo interrupted the two groups on the verge of conflict, asking the man in the hoodie, "How can you be sure that killing everyone here will prevent anyone from bringing out the idol?"
The hoodie man was momentarily speechless, then said, "Isn't it obvious? With them gone, the players won't touch the idol either."
"You're forgetting one thing." Xu Huo said. "How did those corpses disappear?"
He then turned to the female player who had been with Brother Stone. "You were guarding that player's corpse earlier. Where is it now?"
The female player's expression was complicated. "It's gone."
Earlier, when the county residents went berserk, they had left the courtyard. When they returned, the corpse was gone, but the item they had placed on the body was left in the yard.
"It must have been the people in the city who moved the body!" the hoodie player asserted. "Their goal is to put psychological pressure on us."
"Use your imagination a bit." Xu Huo said. "The corpse might have left on its own."
The players present found this absurd, but Yi Pei suddenly understood, blurting out, "You mean the things we encountered last night were all corpses!"
"What do you mean? What did you encounter?" Fang Penghui quickly pressed for details.
Yi Pei's expression was grave. "Yesterday, we went to follow the administrator, but it felt like we were ambushed in the woods. However, they were very different from living people. At first, I didn't even think they were human."
Yi Pei had poor eyesight, so one of her evolved abilities was a radar-like trait that could determine the size and shape of objects within a certain range. She only vaguely sensed that the "people" who appeared had slightly different feedback information, but she didn't think of corpses.
First of all, corpses moving on their own defied common sense. Even if an item was used, what kind of item could control so many corpses in batches and command them to attack people?
It was simply preposterous!
It was more likely that they were humanoid items.
The other players shared Yi Pei's thoughts. Fang Penghui said, "Living people can move because they are alive. Even if a corpse moves, it can't have strong attack power."
Let alone dealing with players.
"Alright, let's say those corpses have no attack power." Xu Huo conceded, then said something that sent chills down everyone's spine. "Are all the missing players dead?"
(End of Chapter)