Chapter 2613: Are You Still in Good Mental Health?
Xu Huo followed the people from District 001 to a temporary safe house near Xia City. To avoid attracting the Night Tour Team due to personnel gathering, the temporary safe houses were located near the city’s edge and were relatively dispersed. The main occupants here were government staff responsible for coordination and some injured players who could not be transferred in time, while other city residents had to take shelter nearby without leaving the city.
It seemed that they realized props could not fully evade the headgear, so the safe house used tents made of lightweight metal with all sides open, offering a wide view and facilitating personnel evasion.
"Conditions are urgent and limited, so multiple people have to share a tent." The elderly man with white hair personally led Xu Huo and the Girl in the Painting to the safe house, which was low and already had a few players waiting inside. Upon seeing them arrive, the players immediately stood up and saluted the old man with white hair.
The elderly man waved them off, instructed them briefly to take care of the two friends from the Outer Zone, then apologized to Xu Huo and left.
Though the term "take care" was used, these people’s main duty was actually to protect Xu Huo and the Girl in the Painting, defending against attacks from dungeon headgear while also guarding against malevolent strikes from others.
The Water Rubik’s Cube and the floating silk of Spatial Power within Xu Huo’s body reached a balance. The Time Force through the spatial passage did not affect him much. The previous shock left him with some internal injuries, although he appeared to have vomited quite a bit of blood. Yet, as his Evolution Rate increased, he quickly recovered, making it hardly worth mentioning.
He opened his personal panel, replied first to Bai Kou’s message, and then asked what consequences might result if one were pierced or parasitized by Spatial Power.
Bai Kou never left. "In the vast majority of cases, it leads to rapid death, but there’s a minute chance of Super Evolution. However, such Super Evolution might come with aftereffects, which are difficult to predict, and may not lead to a long life, far inferior to a natural Secondary Evolution."
"If you have absolutely no talent for Secondary Evolution and still want to take the risk, you might as well give it a shot."
A typical example of being pierced by Spatial Power was right beside him. Without a secondary fortuitous encounter, Nie Xuan would probably have lost his life, and his body showed changes meaning he must always be ready for potential changes.
When traversing the spatial passage, the Water Cube Barrier was not broken. Clearly, if there were any issues with the barrier, he couldn’t have emerged unharmed. But a strand of Spatial Power remained locked within the Water Cube, hard to say it wasn’t triggered by some program, as the so-called "losing the future" seemed to show its true meaning. Not only was the Water Cube’s defense function completely paralyzed, but he also couldn’t use Spatial Power, and had to constantly guard against this ticking time bomb inside him.
"You won’t do something so foolish, will you?" After a while, Bai Kou sent another message.
Xu Huo didn’t reply again. His silence was a tacit acknowledgment. Forcefully trying to follow the Night Tour Team attempting to exit the restricted area space was indeed reckless. He hadn’t anticipated the team leaving so quickly, nor that the space truly affected his control over Time Force... Throughout this contest, Spatial Power wasn’t as one-sided as he imagined, and Time Force wasn’t absolutely invincible.
Suddenly, a snack appeared in front of him, the Girl in the Painting holding a communicator asked, "Are you unhappy?"
"A bit." Xu Huo picked one up and put it into his mouth, "Initially came here to solve a problem, didn’t expect the problem to snowball bigger and bigger."
"Then go ask that writer," the Girl in the Painting said, "I saw she loves answering others’ questions."
Xu Huo smiled, "Talk about it later, don’t know if that old man got fished out."
No sooner had he spoken than his communicator rang. It was contact from Mr. Xi, whose image, nose not a nose, eyes not eyes, projected onto the ground before them, saying, "You can leave, why not take me? Now what, living years less for no reason."
Rescued players were forcibly placed into prop containers and taken out, now detained with others.
"You’d only have died following along," Xu Huo said, "That wasn’t a normal spatial passage, the entire Night Tour Team was disassembled on the spot."
"To what extent disassembled, probably reduced to molecules invisible to the naked eye, hm. You didn’t see the scene; initially spread out gloriously, quite aesthetically pleasing, but compared to the spatial storm, it appeared particularly crude and lost the essence of returning to nature."
The old man fell silent, after a moment he said, "Is your mental state still normal?"
"What do you think?" Xu Huo retorted.
The old man cut off the communication in silence.
Xu Huo tossed the communicator back into the luggage compartment, leaned against his chair and stared at the night sky. His hearing was exceptional, even on the city’s edge he could hear the occasional screams for help echoing from afar, as one unconventional Rank-A instance gradually pushed eight million-population cities into hell.
The players from District 001 were very busy, continuously treating injured persons arriving at the safe house who, after brief treatment, quickly rejoined the rescue efforts.
Xu Huo also had three consecutive groups come over, all seeking information related to the instance. Every detail was recorded meticulously, no questions asked, clearly knowing their plan for players to follow the Night Tour Team out failed. Each person’s anxiety bore a hint of despair.
Meanwhile, within the dungeon restricted area only less than two days had passed.
The Night Tour Dungeon’s timing was based on the restricted area space. All ticket-holding players must enter the restricted area sooner or later; even though other parts of the dungeon venue already surpassed seven days, it wouldn’t conclude. This would be an endurance battle nearing a month.
Nearing dawn, the elderly man with white hair arrived at the safe house again. While conversing with Xu Huo, he spoke of the latest progress regarding the Night Tour Team. They had arranged three players carrying super instruments to follow, yet none survived. While both people and instruments successfully emerged with the team from the restricted area space, upon retrieval it was either merged with the Night Tour Set becoming a new prop, or reduced to a skeleton.
District 001’s super defensive instruments didn’t have any effect; all three died while passing through the spatial passage.
The Night Tour Team’s set indeed had certain defensive abilities within the spatial passage; perhaps due to the prop’s inherent power, or perhaps due to dungeon rules. The key point is that the Night Tour Team’s transit through the spatial passage was extremely brief, possibly akin to wandering in restricted area space, a matter of moments. Xu Huo’s trip likely resulted from interferences between Time Force and Spatial Power.
District 001’s super instruments actually worked, otherwise the distinction between intact corpses and skeletons wouldn’t exist. Yet limited by Spatial Power or dungeon forces, crossing that passage left them only with death; of course, it might be because the super instrument effects they carried were far inferior to those of the Water Rubik’s Cube.