Chapter 2594: Nowhere to Run
"The rescue team entered the instance holding tickets to understand it better. It’s said that the players with tickets and those involved by accident enter different areas of the restricted zone, which are somewhat more dangerous."
The extra staff hesitated slightly before saying, "Before I came in, I heard a rumor that the rescue team that came to Lanshui Town was completely wiped out."
"Bang, bang, bang!" The shuttle persistently worked to chase away the masks appearing nearby. Together with the Girl in the painting filling in the gaps, the conversation went smoothly. Judging from this situation alone, the dungeon didn’t seem as dangerous as rumored outside.
At least it shouldn’t be so dangerous to Rank-A Players.
"I’m not a ticket player." Xu Huo’s main purpose was to fish out the old man. Using a ticket requires clearing the instance and waiting for it to end to leave, but non-ticket players might not have to. The situation inside the instance is unclear, and whether new changes will appear behind the dungeon restricted area is unknown, so non-ticket players would have an easier escape than ticket players.
Learning that he was here to save someone, the extra staff looked at him with quite some admiration and added, "Let’s look around some other places, maybe we can run into your friend."
Since the location these two entered wasn’t too far from the theater, Xu Huo straightforwardly unleashed his Spiritual World, using the Mental Portal to change his position and search. But he did not expect that just as he was about to leave, a shop’s door behind the mall suddenly burst open, and a young woman clutching a child stumbled out, shouting for help as she ran.
Xu Huo manipulated the Materialized Item to trap the mask, then brought the woman out, soothing her frightened expression. He took out two defense masques for them to wear.
The young woman calmed down a bit, but her body still trembled uncontrollably, especially at the sudden appearance of the mask lunging at her, causing her to staggerly retreat.
The Girl in the painting was behind her, supporting her back with one hand while using the Sword’s blade to "snap" open the mask in front, then pointed to the box on the ground, indicating for the woman not to step on it.
The young woman immediately apologized, and after regaining her composure a bit, she tightly hugged the child in her arms, lowering her voice to say, "A lot of people died, all the more than ten people who came in with me are dead!"
The mall door had been shut, but not only Xu Huo, even the extra staff could sense that behind that door were only the young woman and her child!
It seems the restricted area not only had partitions but was filled with doors.
"Let’s go!" Xu Huo didn’t intend to go over and check, because with the increased number of people, more masks gathered around. Although using the Spiritual World could quickly and shortly get rid of ghost face masks, the time stretched long, and the spiritual power couldn’t be consumed continuously.
Fortunately, he carried enough instruments, allowing a few short-range position shifts, but after just a few moves, new people appeared again.
A player was dragged out by silver-white threads spread across the ground. When people crashed through the wall, they already turned into several pieces, sparsely dragging all over the place... Any person watching such a scene would feel their stomach churn, but this was not an isolated case because originally empty cities appeared continuously with people like they disappeared into the dungeon restricted area as if they reappeared here. Some are dying, some are just corpses, and some are escaping while screaming, seemingly having been fleeing for quite some time...
"Help... Help..." Someone spotted Xu Huo’s group in the distance and struggled to run toward them, but just as they started running, a mask suddenly swooped in and covered their head, dragging them meters high before crashing down, the head following the fleeing mask disappearing.
The number of people appearing in the restricted area increased, as did the masks. Some people covered by the mask died immediately, while others, like outside, walked with the mask on. Among them, some desperately tore off the mask, and some begged others to kill them, but the killer mask would switch, and no one was willing to assist. Amidst a scream, not knowing if they sought death or acted recklessly, a man wearing a mask jumped from the twentieth floor.
And as time went on, there were masked people and masks together chasing those trying to escape.
Xu Huo’s side unexpectedly encountered a player who was randomly killing people, seemingly having lost reason, ignoring the loud shouts of extra staff.
Xu Huo didn’t intend to kill but merely broke the opponent’s limbs. Yet when the person kneeled, the mask on the person’s head suddenly lifted, directly taking away the head!
The blade gleamed in the air, slashing head and skull into two halves falling to the ground. In the separated head, root-like tubes twitch like worms, though losing vitality in moments, hanging like fake prop tubes.
Xu Huo pushed aside the mask and saw that most of the root-like tubes under the mask were merely attached to the scalp, while only a few pierced the brain, and it was these few tubes that took the person’s life.
The shuttle knocked away a mask descending from above as he stood, shadows underfoot quickly flowed into long whips, opening more and more masks.
"We can’t stay here, let’s find a place with fewer people!" shouted the extra staff.
Compared to the whole city, this number of people was indeed nothing, yet every person appeared randomly. There was no telling where people would be more or fewer—an open building might suddenly have several people inside by the time you approach.
Not to mention there weren’t enough props to respond every second, even the stamina couldn’t keep up, while those masks paused for no second, any slight mistake could lead to being covered, leaving them almost no resting time!
"Hide in a cabinet..." said the extra staff before someone screamed as they dashed out of the wardrobe at the furniture store. That was a very small wardrobe, barely allowing a person to stand inside, hanging display clothing. Logically, not such a cramped place for a mask to appear, but it did, clinging to the person’s head side. By the time he exited in terror, the mask quickly covered his entire head, only for a headless corpse to collapse after a few steps.
Hiding in cabinets seemed useless. The extra staff tried pulling out a venue prop, but as the door opened, a mask took advantage and flew inside, slashing open the mask, and like spreading into the dungeon venue, his venue prop also became part of the instance, with masks freely entering and exiting.
If taking the instance anywhere someone goes, hiding inside venue props is pointless.
Looking at one mask opened only for more masks to emerge, the extra staff remarked despairingly, "We can’t sustain this for long."
They couldn’t possibly cope with seven days of uninterrupted mask attacks!