Players, Please Board the Train

Zhao Sheng leaped from the sixth floor, climbing over two external AC units before landing on the ground. Seeing no one chasing after him, he felt slightly relieved and was about to leave when a tall, thin shadow suddenly pounced from the darkness on the second floor. He barely had time to see several inhumanly long, sharp nails flash before his eyes before three bloody scratches appeared on his face!

Hu Wenhu jumped onto a tree branch opposite, crouching like a cat, his vertical pupils fixed intently on the person below!

Zhao Sheng cursed, pushed off with his feet, and sprinted fiercely toward the exit of the residential complex. As he ran, he pulled out a black potion and poured it into his mouth.

Hu Wenhu leaped between trees and building walls like a leopard, closely following behind him. The two exited the complex one after another. Tian Yun flashed into view from the other side of the apartment building, leaving a blur in the air as he collected the bottle Zhao Sheng had discarded before following them out.

Meanwhile, Yu Xiaoyu appeared on a nearby residential building, following Zhao Sheng’s trajectory as he moved lightly between structures.

This area was all residential buildings with dense housing complexes and numerous alleyways. Zhao Sheng had originally planned to find a place to hide, but even if he temporarily shook off his pursuers, they would quickly find him again. As he ran, another player suddenly appeared, flanking him from left and right!

”Damn it!” The wounds on his lower back and wrist gradually healed, and his speed increased accordingly. After putting some distance between them, he pulled out his phone and made a call, shouting into it as soon as it connected: ”Boss, someone’s targeting our Holy Sword Society! I’m being followed—”

Before he could finish speaking, one of the two pursuers suddenly accelerated and charged from the left, slamming him into a roadside trash bin!

”Roar!” Beast-like roars were getting closer!

Zhao Sheng ignored his flying phone, kicked the trash bin to block the path, and then sprinted forward!Hearing two crashing sounds behind him, he was about to look back when a taxi suddenly appeared in the middle of the road!

Sharp braking sounds echoed through the street. Zhao Sheng barely avoided it by jumping onto the taxi’s hood, denting the metal surface and shaking the entire vehicle. He turned his head and found himself locking eyes with the driver.

Instinct made him pause for a moment, then he turned and dashed into the residential complex across the street without looking back. Beyond this complex was Sunshine Avenue, an area under construction. Since the frequent dismemberment killings began in Ting City, nighttime construction had stopped, and not even security guards remained at the work sites.

”I want to play too,” Painting Woman reached from the back seat to show him the words on her phone.

Xu Huo glanced at her through the rearview mirror. ”Besides photos, what else can you sense? If your range is big enough, I’ll let you play.”

Painting Woman hesitated for a moment, then quickly typed: ”Photos, paintings, paper, within one building.”

Xu Huo restarted the car. ”No matter how big the place is, as long as it’s contained within one building?”

Painting Woman nodded.

”Alright then,” Xu Huo said. ”Go help Yan Jiayu.”

Painting Woman happily floated out through the window, her small bag containing the phone still securely strapped to her paper body, making her look like a flying carpet.

Parking the car outside the building complex opposite the construction site, Xu Huo entered the work site and arrived at a building that hadn’t yet had its exterior walls finished.

Inside, Yan Jiayu had already knocked Zhao Sheng unconscious. She held a stone rod in one hand while casually dragging him out by his foot with the other. Painting Woman floated beside her.

Looking at Zhao Sheng’s blood-covered head, Xu Huo greeted her, ”Thanks for coming to help.”

Yan Jiayu still had her somewhat messy hair, but she had changed into ordinary clothes. She smiled and said, ”My master taught me to be a good person. Being good means eliminating threats to the people. This guy is too wicked—I didn’t want to reason with him, so I hit him a bit hard.”

”No problem, as long as he’s still breathing. Player-Eaters are tough anyway,” Xu Huo said as he placed a limp balloon over Zhao Sheng’s nose and mouth. After one breath, the balloon spontaneously inflated to the size of a human head.

He casually released it, and Liu Jia’s voice came through his earpiece: ”Mr. Xu, I see the balloon floating above the building.”

”Good.”

Just then, Huang Junjie and the others arrived. Tian Yun handed Zhao Sheng’s phone to Xu Huo. ”We went through so much trouble driving him here. Will it be useful?”

”Of course it will be useful,” Xu Huo said, taking the phone and dialing the number saved as ”Boss.”

”Hello?” The person on the other end paused before adding, ”You captured Zhao Sheng? What do you want?”

”I want to exchange him for someone,” Xu Huo said, deepening his voice. ”Did you capture a player named Zhou Xiao a few days ago?”

”There is such a person,” the voice on the phone said without inflection. ”But anything that comes into the hands of our Holy Sword Society has never been returned before.”

”We don’t need the potion. You bring the person to exchange for Zhao Sheng,” Xu Huo said roughly. ”If you don’t care about Zhao Sheng’s life, that’s fine too. I have some brothers who won’t have problems getting information out of him. As long as your Holy Sword Society remains in Ting City for one more day, we won’t rest until this ends. Think about it.”

After a few seconds of silence, the person on the other end suddenly laughed coldly. ”Then wait.”

Xu Huo cheerfully provided the address and hung up.

On the third floor of a shopping mall in the southern part of the city, almost the moment the call ended, a tall, dark, and muscular man threw his phone away, snarling, ”What the hell does he think he is!”

”Boss, what’s wrong? Did something really happen to Zhao Sheng?” asked a young man who looked like a wealthy playboy, holding a pool cue.

”I always said he’d cause trouble sooner or later,” a stunningly beautiful woman said as she sank a ball, smiling as she added, ”He kills without restraint. Players aren’t out in the open yet—can he withstand bullets or artillery? It’s good that someone’s dealing with him, so we don’t get targeted by the Special Affairs Department because of him.”

”Is the boss really concerned about Zhao Sheng’s life?” asked a long-haired young man sitting on a sofa several steps away, sipping wine with a gentle smile. ”Although our branch hasn’t been established long, no player has dared to openly challenge us yet. If we let this slide, where would that leave the boss’s and the Holy Sword Society’s reputation?”

”That’s true too,” the beautiful woman threw a seductive glance at the tall, dark man everyone called boss. ”Boss, how many people do they have? Should I go check it out?”

The tall, dark man rested his fist against his chin in a thoughtful pose before saying after a moment, ”Fine. Cao Yan, you and Ma Yu take seven or eight people and go. First, find out if they have backing. If not, eliminate all of them.”

”What a waste to just kill them,” Cao Yan said, touching her red lips with a smile. ”They’re all players—why not bring them back for use?”

”Zhao Sheng’s phone location shows he moved from Jiayi Residential Complex to Sunshine Avenue and then stopped moving. The call also came from there,” Ma Yu flipped her hair. ”What use are a bunch of simple-minded fools? Better to eat them and replenish our strength.”

”For muscle, why do they need to be smart?” Cao Yan giggled. ”But players do taste good—eating them works too.”

”I’ll go too. Same as always—whoever kills them gets them,” the playboy said with interest, licking his teeth.

The group happily imagined the taste of players, the atmosphere quite harmonious.