Chapter 2598
The killing intent blanketing the sky and the sudden feeling of his body going hollow made that Player fail to hold onto his Prop for a moment—and in Advanced Player combat, life and death are decided in seconds. Just as he felt a chill climbing up his throat, the murderous man in front of him suddenly turned his head toward a certain direction, then turned away without hesitation and left.
After Xu Huo’s figure disappeared, the other three Players from the rescue team confirmed their teammate was fine and followed. From a distance they saw him standing on a half-collapsed low building, diverting a bolt of lightning with a Prop, then dragging someone up out of the ground.
It was a District 001 guy wearing a Mechanical Suit Set.
"You were a bit of a pain to find, didn’t expect you to be hiding underground." Xu Huo put away the metal device that was blocking the gale, then folded his umbrella, only then speaking to the man who was hanging upside down, hauled up by a Psyche Force Materialization.
Mr. Xi was being tossed about wildly by the wind, but he couldn’t spare any attention for his vertigo and blood rushing to his head; he blurted out anxiously, "There are people chasing me underground!"
"Smack!" The Girl in the painting, covered in dust, stuck her head out of the hole punched open by the Materialized Item. The metal on her head shrank back, revealing her disgruntled face. "This old man runs really fast, I’ve been on his tail forever!"
The Materialized Item gave a hard swing and flung the little old man onto the rooftop. Several Mechanical Arms rapidly grew out from the back of the Mechanical Suit Set with its automatic protection function, steadily bracing the man on the ground while also opening up a demon head mask that had been swept over by the wind.
The Heavy Rain was gone, the Defensive Barrier was already active; as soon as the little old man hit the ground he couldn’t wait to strip off the Mechanical Suit Set, dry heaving for a while before sprawling out. "I’m done, I can’t hack it anymore. Xiao Xu, my life’s in your hands now."
Xu Huo pointed at the four people in the distance. "This mess isn’t my doing."
The little old man recognized the rescue team at a glance and cursed weakly, "Are you here to save people or kill them? I was hiding in the sewer and you nearly fried me to death. Get out, get out, get out!"
"Mr. Xi." The four from the rescue team had already retrieved their Props, and now asked in surprise, "Is this the bodyguard you hired?"
"If I don’t count on my own people, am I supposed to count on you lot?" If the little old man could stand up, he’d probably be jabbing them in the forehead as he cursed.
"We misunderstood." The four from the rescue team still held him in high regard. The Player who had first fought Xu Huo took the lead in apologizing to him. "I was a bit rash just now. If we’d known earlier you were here to save people too, we wouldn’t have had to fight at all."
The man’s eyes were full of deep wariness as he spoke. Xu Huo looked only like a Rank-B player, yet he’d handled combat against their four Rank-A with ease. If he’d been willing to go all out, odds were at least one or two of them wouldn’t be walking away today.
The Girl in the painting, who had climbed up from downstairs, stomped angrily over to the little old man and gave him a vicious kick, making him clutch his leg and howl.
Xu Huo gave a token tug to hold her back, then waved at the few people whose faces had darkened. "She knows how hard to kick."
"No matter what, you can’t beat up an elderly person." The few of them were quite displeased; if it weren’t for the Girl in the painting holding back, they wouldn’t just be standing there.
The Girl in the painting was still fuming. She held up her Communicator and demanded of the little old man, "Why’d you attack me when I called you?"
The little old man looked completely innocent. "You had a metal mask on, how was I supposed to recognize you? I thought you were a mini-boss from the instance!"
Xu Huo watched him with a half-smile. "You’re pretty cautious."
The little old man snorted. "If I weren’t, how would I have lived this long?"
The dusty Girl in the painting looked like she wanted to give him another kick.
"Enough." Xu Huo grabbed her. "If you want to vent, we’ll just not give him anything to eat later."
The Girl in the painting raised her hand, and the hardworking paper Props hauled the box hidden underground up to the surface.
(Edit later)
*
The Heavy Rain washed the space between the two sides, and it had a tendency to fall harder and harder. The raindrops themselves were Ray Blades; they were a nonstop barrage. The four members of the rescue team had long since deployed their Defense Props, but once the coverage area got large, the chances of demon head masks appearing shot up as well.
Accompanied by the sound of Props and instruments striking, the four Players maintained their Props and instruments in active state as they accelerated toward Xu Huo.
Their small Spatial Teleportation Device was interfered with by "Rain From Above," so the four split into high and low, two above, two below, flanking from the tops of buildings and street level.
Xu Huo watched their flight trajectories; likely for coordination, the four weren’t moving at the same speed. The two front and two back were separated by at least a few hundred meters. That distance both made it easier for teammates to act and reduced the risk of the entire team getting wiped at once by a powerful Prop from the enemy.
Eyeing their positions, Xu Huo raised his hand, and a sand table floated into the air. The tokens representing the four pieces moved rapidly across it. After stacking "Counting Soldiers and Generals," he directly shifted all four together through Mental Portals, then used the dreamy false teeth on one of them to issue a command:
"Hug your teammate."
The two people running in front had already been forced to suddenly turn, which meant they were just about to collide with the two behind; they’d been about to dodge when a teammate grabbed them. Two versus two, they slammed straight into each other. The pair locked in a hug couldn’t break free for now, but they had no problem activating their Props, so several Props exploded in succession at Xu Huo’s location. The churned-up gale and lightning intertwined, instantly leveling the ruins to flat ground.
And that wasn’t all. A massive thunderball condensed in the sky in an instant, with several bolts of lightning repeatedly tracking Xu Huo’s high-speed movement under one Player’s control. At the same time, the whole city was like a boiling boiler: the ground skin peeled up, buildings blew like bombs, smashing together in midair one after another, only to be swept up by the oncoming tornado. Lightning, raindrops, flying building debris—all of it became killing tools at this moment. In just a few breaths, the city area within sight had been obliterated.
If he relied purely on physical movement, dodging an attack on this near-natural-disaster scale would of course be exhausting. But without a strong Spatial Barrier in place, evasion using his Spiritual World wasn’t hard for Xu Huo.
The countless flying obstacles obscured vision; even though he couldn’t see those few people, both his Spiritual World and spatial senses let him clearly feel their every move. Attacks on this scale were meant to just carpet-bomb everything first, so the four on the other side barely moved, only maintaining a certain distance while standing in the sky.
It seemed they wouldn’t stop until they achieved their goal. Xu Huo paused, then opened ten-plus Mental Portals in succession, crossing the thunderstorm zone.
On the other side, the four Players had been using Props to monitor the surroundings all along. The distance was too great for them to sense Xu Huo directly, but the markers on their Props could show his position in real time. One second he was still thousands of meters away; the next blink, he was suddenly right in front of them, positioned exactly beside the one who had first gone hand-to-hand with him. The four hadn’t yet had time to react when a black umbrella abruptly appeared in their field of vision!