Players, Please Board the Train

At such close range, the thing Xu Huo threw rolled straight down the monster’s throat, and right after he pressed the remote, music started playing from inside the creature’s belly:

“Xiao Ming has a secret, he told his friend Xiao Hua…”

The monster was pawing at its mouth. When it heard the sound, it spun in place, then lunged violently at Xu Huo!

“Watch out!” Yu Guangnan, who was rushing up behind, saw him driven into a dead end in the corridor and couldn’t help shouting, while tossing out a whistle to draw the monster’s attention.

But the monster clearly held “new hatred added to old” against Xu Huo, it didn’t even look at the sound-emitting item flying past, its sole target was the person directly in front of it!

Still, taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Xu Huo had already adjusted his angle, used his characteristic to pass by the monster, and even slashed its back with his sword—stopping the blow as soon as it touched bone!

“Go!” With the objective achieved, Xu Huo no longer lingered. He set a cloth soaked in alcohol alight in the corridor and called for Yu Guangnan to withdraw.

The injured player had already been taken away. Xu Huo and Yu Guangnan climbed up from outside the wall, but the pursuing monster actually scaled the wall, clamping tenaciously to the two of them from behind!

“Speed up the fall!” Sun Bo appeared at the window and once again used an item to knock the monster back to the ground, buying time for Xu Huo and the others.

“Awooo! Awooo!” The monster, thrown back to the ground, howled and paced, constantly grinding its claws against the floor. But it had clearly grown smarter, realizing it couldn’t climb up. After turning in circles for a while and staring up at the upper floors for a long time, it finally gave up and moved into the first floor.

Back upstairs, Xu Huo thanked Sun Bo. Sun Bo said, “Now you understand. Sniping this monster is tough. It can even destroy some items. Cuts from knives or swords only wound the surface; by morning it can bounce back.”

“At least now we can be sure it can’t leave the hotel area,” Xu Huo said. “If the whole hotel lacks its nest and latrine, that means the monster’s activity isn’t limited to the Mirror Hotel. There really are secret passages inside the hotel.”

“We didn’t see it in the Corpse Hotel. Could this hotel have three layers of space?” Xiao Ling asked with a question in her voice. “If so, wouldn’t it be even harder for us to get out?”

“Proving another space exists doesn’t mean that space has an exit,” Xu Huo said. “Otherwise the monster should have shown up in the Corpse Hotel too.”

“If multiple spaces are confirmed and the monster can move freely between them, there must be passages connecting them,” Xu Huo continued. “Those possible passages are our only hope right now.”

Space is intact; the weakest points are the passages. In fact, hearing other players’ footsteps from outside while in the Mirror Hotel is odd. If this phenomenon is caused by spatial passages, then those passages shouldn’t be mobile—unless the hotel’s space changed entirely at those times and Peng Fengnian and the others didn’t notice.

“What do we do next?” Xiao Ling asked.

“Wear the monster down,” Xu Huo replied. “See if it can lead us to clues.”

For the time ahead, they placed various noise-making tools and items they carried on different floors to lure the monster. This time they didn’t need to face it head-on; the focus was on attrition, and ideally they could sneak a tracking device onto it while they had the chance.

As the noises sounded, the injured monster was repeatedly drawn out. Taking the opportunity, Xu Huo, Peng Fengnian, and the others re-searched the hotel rooms.

Most rooms were arranged similarly and could be checked at a glance; nothing worth noting. Xu Huo didn’t find anything like the wax figures, mannequins, or dolls that had appeared in the Corpse Hotel, nor any potions.

If the S-version Potion were really hidden somewhere in the dungeon, and if the hints about potions in the psychological treatment room were indeed left by Dr. Wu, then this hotel with multiple spaces would be the most likely storage place.

Would he hide the potion in a third layer of space?

Avoiding the monster, Xu Huo and the others searched the entire hotel from top to bottom, confirming again that there was no nest or latrine for the creature.

“The sound’s gone?” Xiao Ling stopped in the corridor and looked up out the window. “The music is still playing, but the monster’s noises are gone.”

Xu Huo glanced at the time. “Dawn’s coming.”

It was nearly six in the morning. The darkness outside had retreated a bit. He turned to find Peng Fengnian’s group and learned the monster was last seen on the eighth floor, so he headed to the eighth floor.

As soon as he entered the eighth floor, he externally projected his Mental World, but unfortunately he didn’t sense anything on this level.

“What are you looking for?” Lin Zhenhuai followed him up.

Xu Huo casually opened a nearby door; inside was still a normal hotel room. His expression darkened, and he closed the door again.

“See if you can find the passage the monster used to leave.”

Xiao Ling and the others didn’t have much knowledge about the dungeon’s spatial mechanics, but Lin Zhenhuai had an item that could sense small-scale spatial fluctuations. He said, “Every time the monster left, I tested it. The item didn’t react.”

If a passage really existed, their best chance to “snatch” it would be just when the monster vanished. Waiting for Xu Huo to check room by room would be too slow.

Xu Huo didn’t explain much. He only needed to take a few more steps to check the whole floor. After finding nothing, he returned with the others to their previous room.

Peng Fengnian’s side still had the same people showing up as before. Besides Teacher Pan, two players hadn’t left their rooms.

Xu Huo didn’t care about that; he was more concerned about the injured player earlier.

“The spine was crushed,” Peng Fengnian sighed. “The external injuries are severe too. If we don’t get out in time, he’ll probably die here.”

Everyone fell a little silent and began consolidating the details.

Apart from the monster’s last appearance on the eighth floor, it had been roaming between different floors the rest of the time, never fully disappearing. During that period, the wound where the steel cable had once caught its neck had already half healed. They didn’t know whether the burned fur would grow back.

Of course they failed to stick a tracker on it. Once it discovered something attached to its body, the first thing it did was tear it off, even pulling out any tracker lodged in its flesh along with the skin.

“Any signs it vomited?” Xu Huo asked. “I shoved a player into its belly with a player device.”

Peng Fengnian looked at him in surprise. “No, not that I saw. But if that’s the case, why didn’t you just toss a tracker in?”

“I grabbed whatever was at hand in the moment,” Xu Huo offered a reasonable explanation.

Xiao Ling and the others were speechless and disappointed, while Peng Fengnian looked him over a couple more times.

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