Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo turned to look at Yan Jiayu, who nodded. "Let's follow and check it out."

The group was moving along the ground while also shaking off attacking players, so their speed wasn't particularly fast. The hot air balloon had no trouble keeping pace.

"Writing a name on paper and crossing it out to kill someone..." Yan Jiayu mused. "So far, I've only heard of this happening once."

Xu Huo nodded. "The elite player killed during the Super Item incident."

The investigation into that matter was still ongoing. Nie Xuan had revealed that the players who died inexplicably without any enemies present at the time had been killed according to a list. The order of deaths followed the order on that list, with short intervals between each death. However, the victims were scattered across different locations, and many weren't in the same place at all.

The list had been leaked from the Special Affairs Department, the predecessor of the Special Defense Department. The culprit had killed more than fifty players without even showing their face, relying solely on that list. How could the Special Defense Department swallow that humiliation? They'd been hunting for the culprit ever since, but unfortunately, they'd found nothing so far.

The method that person used to kill just now was similar to how those on the list had died. Perhaps they were the same person who had come to stir up trouble in Zone 014 back then.

"They think the item is carried by a specific player, which is why they're killing on such a massive scale." Yan Jiayu frowned. "But this item's effect is abnormally powerful. If knowing someone's true name is enough to kill them, then almost no player can avoid it."

Not only that, it ignored distance, location, and defense. The moment a name was crossed out, the person died. There was no visible pattern to how the item operated, and it was also different from most items that required "verbal" triggers.

She stopped mid-sentence, then changed her mind. "Then again, not necessarily."

At the very least, the Super Item from Zone 014 back then had been obtained by a low-level player. Moreover, not all Super Items had devastating offensive power. There were plenty of defensive ones as well.

"One of them got away." Yan Jiayu tilted her head. "The one who killed with the pen went into the Commercial Building."

"He should be chasing the player who just left the building." Xu Huo said. "The player who escaped had some of their companions killed along the way, so their target probably isn't among the known group."

"If someone holds a high-grade item, they wouldn't easily enter a dungeon. If something protected by so many people were to die inside a dungeon, it would only benefit others." Yan Jiayu pointed downward. "I'm going down."

The moment the hot air balloon retracted, the two of them plummeted at high speed. Yan Jiayu deployed a parachute item mid-fall, while Xu Huo dropped all the way to the bottom, only pulling out the "Chair That Lands Upright" just before hitting the ground.

One landed on the rooftop, the other at the base of the building. Without crossing paths, they both went straight into the building.

Yan Jiayu guessed that the government players were protecting a high-grade item, but Xu Huo thought it might be an S-version Potion instead.

If it were a high-grade item, and it was already in a player's possession, there would be no reason not to use it rather than keeping it hidden. Of course, if it were something like "Three Seconds of a Life," that would be a different story. However, this time in Zone 009, word of the Perfect Potion had leaked out. Whether the doll's arm actually contained the Perfect Potion, and whether the potion had been obtained by Zone 009's government players, were both unknown. But the Perfect Potion was definitely something worth fighting over far more than an ordinary high-grade item.

Glancing upward, Xu Huo made his way up the stairway. When he reached the third floor, he sensed someone rapidly descending from the middle of the building. Switching to the office floor in a second, he braced the Shelter 101 directly beneath him!

The fleeing player had been using an item to move between floors when he unexpectedly stepped onto Shelter 101. This metal item from the game was something he couldn't break through. Spotting Xu Huo nearby, he raised a crossbow and took aim!

What the crossbow fired wasn't a physical bolt but a semi-transparent ice projectile that pierced into the wall and quickly melted!

"The person I'm looking for isn't you." Xu Huo stated his position. But because of this brief delay, the pursuing player had already come down from upstairs. However, no sooner had he revealed a pair of feet than he was knocked away by a strange force, carving a deep trench into the ceiling before slamming to a stop against the wall.

The next second, two people and a stone lion landed on the same floor as Xu Huo and the others.

"Da Mao, go!" Yan Jiayu directed the stone lion to pounce at the man while simultaneously slapping a sticker of a muscular doll onto her face. Her speed instantly skyrocketed, making her an uncatchable cannonball as she blasted toward the man against the wall!

That player clearly didn't take her reckless charging combat style seriously. He patted his shoulder, and a blue arc of light instantly spread open in front of him. Protected by the light arc, he didn't even spare Yan Jiayu another glance, instead focusing his attention on the stone lion that was trotting over from the side in a wide circle.

However, just as he was about to free up his hands to deal with the stone lion, Yan Jiayu, the living bomb, slammed into him. Whether she had other invisible defensive items on her or not, when her body crashed against the light arc, she drove the player straight through the wall, while cracks simultaneously burst across the light arc!

"What?!" The man couldn't hide his shock, but he was then pushed all the way to the outermost wall of the building, only to be bounced back by a barrier sealed into the wall surface.

Yan Jiayu, on the receiving end of the impact, wasn't nearly as disheveled as he was. She landed steadily in the middle of the room and charged forward swinging her Demon-Subduing Pestle, unleashing a flurry of wild strikes!

With several heavy thuds, cracks appeared on a shield item. The player quickly dodged, used his characteristic to briefly restrict Yan Jiayu's speed, and then made a beeline for Xu Huo's direction!

His real target was the government player who still hadn't escaped. But just as he was halfway there, a cold flash of light swept in from the side!

The pursuing player hastily dodged sideways. As he raised his hand, dozens of fine needle projectiles shot out from his sleeve.

The air barrier couldn't be used for now, so Xu Huo simply deployed and retracted Shelter 101 in front of him. While attacking, he simultaneously activated "Extreme Fatigue" and "Progress Bar Disappearance."

That player immediately felt the item effects being applied to him. He pressed a spot on his cuff, and the clothes he wore opened and closed like scales. As the color of his outfit shifted once and returned to normal, the fatigue on his face had completely vanished!

Yan Jiayu and the stone lion closed in to reinforce. The lazy Da Mao got a smack on the rear from the pestle and immediately unleashed all its fury on the pursuing player. Between the pouncing, biting, and tearing, the man was forced into a steady retreat.

"Time for the flower vase!" The pursuing player tossed a cushion onto the ground. The scrambling Da Mao slipped and stepped on it, and one of its claws was frozen to the floor.

But that didn't do much good. The stone lion, true to its violent nature, simply dug a hole straight through the floor. If it couldn't free itself from the cushion, no problem. It could just carry the floor slab along with it.

Da Mao was already hard to handle, and Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu were no slouches either. Yan Jiayu fought in close quarters while Xu Huo provided support with items from the side and occasionally launched sudden attacks himself. After three minutes of fighting, both sides had suffered their share of damage.

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