Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo kicked away the hand that was about to touch the toy gun, controlling the piano wire to thread through the buttonhole and pulling the gun into his own hand.

Although owned items couldn’t be used directly, holding them in his own hand prevented others from using them!

Ma Yu knelt on one knee, knowing the item couldn’t be retrieved. If not for the protective item he was wearing, he probably wouldn’t have lasted this long. These players were smarter than he imagined—going solo had been a serious miscalculation!

Just as he was planning to escape, Huang Junjie, who had been fighting another Holy Sword Society member, suddenly came crashing through a wall opening!

Ma Yu lunged toward Huang Junjie, his vein-bulging arm striking like a giant snake aiming for the throat!

Huang Junjie, focused on the enemy before him, failed to notice the sneak attack until the last moment. He barely dodged the blow, but blood streaked across his throat from the glancing strike. Blocking the follow-up attack with his bamboo knife, he instinctively searched for Xu Huo: this long-haired man was his opponent—if the other had broken free, did that mean he had failed?

The thought flashed through his mind just as a shadow swiftly brushed past his side, bodily slamming the player who had been pursuing him into the distance!

The two disappeared into an adjacent empty room, blocked from view, but he immediately heard a distinct ”crack” sound followed by the thud of something heavy hitting the floor.

Huang Junjie felt a slight relief—two against two had become two against one.

Ma Yu clearly heard it too, immediately putting distance between himself and Huang Junjie while pulling out a whistle and blowing it hard!A high-frequency sound beyond normal human hearing range pierced through the entire building, followed by Liu Jia’s rapid voice in his earpiece: ”The woman on the crane tower is coming down.”

Huang Junjie paused—the situation that had just improved was rapidly deteriorating again.

”Kill him first!” Xu Huo brushed past him, the words barely out of his mouth before he was already closing in on Ma Yu, a faint glow shimmering in his hand.

Seeing the dagger again, Ma Yu couldn’t help but sneer, ”Ordinary blades are useless against me...”

His unfinished words suddenly changed tone as the dagger originally aimed at his abdomen abruptly shifted upward at the last moment, thrusting toward his chin!

Ma Yu desperately threw his head back, unavoidably taking a cut to the chin before a knee slammed into his abdomen, embedding his entire body into the wall!

The man stuck in the wall spat blood, but Xu Huo maintained pressure with both legs, pinning him firmly in place. Huang Junjie, arriving immediately after, seized Ma Yu’s right hand while Xu Huo pressed down his left hand—one clean slash across the throat!

Even with evolution, even with protective items, the human body remained fragile, especially the throat.

By the time blood sprayed out, Xu Huo had already retreated to the ground. The game prompt to receive the player’s remains confirmed the man was thoroughly dead.

”Tap!” A crisp clicking sound echoed on the balcony as a woman in high heels landed gracefully, sweeping back her long hair and taking a deep breath. ”Such a strong scent of blood—looks like that effeminate Ma Yu is dead, isn’t he?”

*

First floor.

From the abrupt interruption in Xu Huo’s communication and the intermittent sounds from upstairs, Zhou Ning and the others knew the second-floor battle was intense.

Hu Wenhu and Tian Yun had retrieved Zhou Xiao. Although he had suffered some flesh wounds, his life wasn’t in danger.

”Sis, I know I was wrong. I’ll never disobey you again,” Zhou Xiao said with a choked voice. Born with a weak constitution, he remained frail even after becoming a player. When he left the Preliminary Trial Train, he had no ticket, no special abilities, no potions—surviving at all had been pure luck.

Zhou Ning had promised to find him a ticket and forbade him from contacting other players privately, but he didn’t want to live under his sister’s protection. That’s why he went to trade for a ticket while Zhou Ning was in a dungeon. He never expected to be scammed immediately—losing his potions. If that female player Cao Yan hadn’t wanted to brainwash him, he probably wouldn’t have survived until now.

”We’ll discuss this later,” Zhou Ning suppressed her anger and said to Hu Wenhu and the others, ”According to our earlier plan, we’ll split up.”

”Can we let the person inside out?” Yan Jiayu, crouching nearby, pointed at the hair cocoon on the floor.

”I’m worried we won’t be able to control him if he comes out. This man doesn’t seem like an ordinary player,” Zhou Zhou said. Drawing from her experience dealing with Zhao Sheng, she had woven four strands of hair into a snake-like bind, wrapping it three layers thick and stuffing his mouth and nose. If she could make him suffocate to death, that would be even better.

”No problem.” Yan Jiayu shook her stone staff against her palm. ”If you don’t mind getting dirty, I can finish him off first.”

”These hairs can’t be reused anyway, do as you please.” Zhou Ning’s original hair couldn’t achieve this length and growth speed—this was thanks to that bottle of hair growth solution. However, the effect only lasted two to three hours. Once the time was up, the hair would automatically break off.

Yan Jiayu nodded, her seemingly slender and thin arm swinging the stone staff to deliver a powerful blow to the lower part of the hair cocoon—where the Young Master’s knees should be. With a series of cracking bone sounds, the cocoon actually dented inward while strange gurgling noises emerged!

Zhou Ning nearly got knocked senseless by that strike. The feedback through the hair strands was faint, but when Yan Jiayu’s staff came down, it felt like she’d taken a blunt force trauma to the head, her mind buzzing with dull pain!

Seeing her raise the staff again, Zhou Ning quickly severed the hair and retreated. Without their previous binding power, the hair snake turned into ordinary strands. The Young Master trapped inside struggled and tore open the cocoon, revealing a mouth that roared, ”I’ll slice you all into a thousand pieces—”

Before he could finish, the back of his head made a crisp cracking sound from a blow that sent him sprawling face-first to the ground, blood seeping through the hair strands.

”Is he dead?” Hu Wenhu and the others were stunned by Yan Jiayu’s brutality. This young girl looked quite young, thin and small, rather cute actually, and spoke with straightforward honesty—who would have thought she’d turn out to be such a fierce fighter!

”Not yet.” Yan Jiayu swung her stone staff as she walked over, delivering another blow to the Young Master’s head before saying, ”Now he’s really dead.”

She shook her head and sighed, ”Dishonest people must be punished. I hope he can repent for his sins after death.”

The group was momentarily speechless.

Just then, faint voices came from the distance, ”What the hell is this thing? It’s blocking the entire doorway!”

This building wasn’t finished yet, with no sealed doors or windows—the interior was laid out in a grid pattern. Following Xu Huo’s earlier instructions, Zhou Ning had sealed some of the doorways and window openings with hair. If too many Holy Sword Society members came, they needed to find ways to separate them.

Yan Jiayu tilted her head to listen, then said, ”I’ll take the two on this side.”

”I’ll go too.” Yuan Yao quickly added, then said to Painting Woman, ”You stay right here and don’t move.”

Painting Woman obediently nodded.

Yan Jiayu and Yuan Yao then headed to the left side of the first floor, while Zhou Ning went to intercept the player coming from behind. Tian Yun and Hu Wenhu went to find the remaining player.

After the group dispersed, only Zhou Xiao and Painting Woman remained guarding the severely injured and unconscious Zhao Sheng, along with the Young Master’s corpse.

”Don’t be afraid, I’ll protect you if anyone comes,” Zhou Xiao whispered to Painting Woman.

Painting Woman nodded. In the darkness, she began slowly rolling up from her shoes upward, like paper being turned, transforming within seconds into a tall woman wearing high heels and a red long dress.