Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo arrived at the underground circular tower for the third time.

This time, the spiral staircase did not revert to its previous state from his first two descents, but maintained the form it had when he last left. Descending the white steps to the bottom of the circular tower, he found the round table already positioned in the center, with three black shadows sitting in their original three seats. He walked over and took his own place.

After a moment of silence, all four simultaneously extended their hands. Xu Huo opened the white book before him, while the three shadows respectively flipped over the playing card, gripped the dagger, and pressed down on the black fragment.

White, orange, red, and black colors spread out, rapidly covering the table before flowing down the table legs to the ground. After swallowing the floor, they spiraled upward through the circular tower, the colors sometimes mixing together, sometimes separating, each striving to occupy more area of the circular tower.

Soon, the black and white colors gained the upper hand. The orange and red, squeezed out, halted in their current positions, leaving black and white to compete. After devouring the entire tower, black began to cover white.

As the white area diminished, it joined orange and red in being suppressed by black. All three colors were pressed back to the tower’s base. Simultaneously, changes occurred within the circular tower itself.

The round table deconstructed, splitting into four pieces, but the section occupied by the black fragment continuously grew and extended, soon exceeding the round table’s total area. The spiral staircase also slowly transformed from its original white to black, with thorny spikes growing from the steps. These spikes extended toward the surrounding tower walls, while countless black stone spikes sprouted from the circular tower’s interior. The stone spikes and thorns connected together, gradually allowing the black color to invade even the space itself!

The circular tower shook, and black cracks appeared on the white-covered book placed before Xu Huo—his own mental world was being invaded by another personality!

Frowning, he flipped the book forward one page. White flowed out again, and after the cracks on the book cover repaired themselves, the white area within the circular tower immediately stopped contracting. Together with orange and red, it began reclaiming the territory occupied by black.

The spiral staircase restored to white, the thorns and stone spikes on the tower walls turning into fragments and vanishing completely. After the bright tones once again dominated the entire circular tower, the split round table also reconnected.The four figures sat together again, and the colors returned to the objects placed on the table.

Xu Huo closed the book and looked to his left. The figure beside the playing card gradually gained color, transforming into a teenage version of himself. Shifting his gaze across the table, the figure beside the dagger became a young adult version of him, though slightly younger than his current age. As for the figure holding the black fragment on his right, it shrank to one meter tall, still maintaining its black shadow state with no facial features.

All three figures at the round table turned their attention to the black shadow, but the child-sized shadow picked up the black fragment, jumped down from the chair, and tried to run up the circular tower.

Xu Huo raised his hand, and the circular tower’s interior instantly transformed into a triangle. The three tower walls rapidly closed inward toward the center, forcing the shadow back.

The triangular tower was occupied by Xu Huo himself and his two personalities—the young adult version and teenage version. With nowhere to escape, the shadow could only return to the round table.

Tapping the table, Xu Huo signaled for it to put down the black fragment.

The shadow turned its head toward him. The dark, misty mass of its head couldn’t express any emotion, though the continuously expanding black mist symbolized its mood.

The young adult version of Xu Huo stood up, grabbed the back of its head, and pressed it against the table. The black shadow obediently released its grip.

As the triangular tower moved back and restored to its cylindrical shape, the black fragment floated to the center of the table.

Hundreds of floors flew about in fragment form, creating brand new curved bookshelves that obscured the empty circular corridor. Then the playing card moved to cover the fragment.

As the bookshelves separated from each other and doors fell into place one by one in the gaps, the dagger stacked on top of the playing card.

When dozens of doors on each floor closed one by one, Xu Huo’s white-covered book was placed on top of the dagger, suppressing the black fragment while also suppressing the other two objects representing personalities.

With this, he temporarily completed control over the other three personalities and achieved mastery over his own mental world.

”Click!” With the sound of a door opening, the teenage version of Xu Huo appeared on the fourth floor, pulled open one of the doors, and walked inside.

Next was the young adult version of him, disappearing into a door on the twenty-third floor.

As for the child-sized shadow, it hid within the circular tower simultaneously as the other two personalities vanished.

The base of the spiral staircase grew to reach Xu Huo’s feet, then lifted him upward. When he returned to the top of the circular tower, a door appeared before him. Turning the handle and stepping out, everything went black before his eyes, then returned to normal.

Opening his eyes, he found himself inside a dilapidated building, with Yan Jiayu collapsed beside him, breathing evenly as if asleep.

After calling her name twice without waking her, he walked out of the building. Not far away was the wall they had climbed over, with no trace of the Mutants that had been chasing them. Looking around, this area more closely resembled an abandoned city.

Not walking far, he discovered Sima Xiao Er and others in the adjacent building, all lying haphazardly on the ground. However, he didn’t see Nie Xuan among them.

Additionally, there were some people he had never seen before, unclear if they were from the Special Defense Department.

Slapping each person awake yielded the same result as with Yan Jiayu—completely unresponsive. But thinking about it, this made sense. They weren’t merely asleep but trapped within their own mental worlds. Until they could recognize they were caught in illusions and gain control over their mental worlds, even if awakened, they might behave erratically.

Xu Huo moved Yan Jiayu to where Sima Xiao Er was, then took out the ”Awakening Doll.” Tapping its head, he said, ”Need to talk with you.”

The doll’s eyes glowed, followed immediately by a hand reaching out from inside. He quickly grabbed the hand, saying, ”Come out so we can chat.”

”You don’t have candy!” a shrill voice came from the doll. ”Liar!”

”I got trapped right after leaving the dungeon,” Xu Huo said, not releasing his grip. ”If you want candy, you’ll have to wait until I get out alive. How about I double your candy next month?”

The struggling little hand stopped. Then a little girl wearing a pink hat jumped out from the doll. The moment her feet touched the ground, her face fell and she turned to go back.

Xu Huo pressed down on her shoulder. ”Now that you’re here.”

Struggling, the little girl said, ”All you adults are liars! You clearly promised candy before calling me, but instead you tricked me into coming to an unstable space!”

”I didn’t trick you—I’m trapped,” Xu Huo cut straight to the point. ”What do you mean by unstable space?”

”With so many wormhole points, what’s surprising about a few unstable spaces?” The little girl looked around before saying, ”This should be a post-war ruin. The space isn’t completely broken, which is why it’s drifting through different worlds.”

”What kind of war could damage a space?” Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.

”Player wars, of course,” the little girl looked back at him. ”You’re a player from Zone 014, don’t you know that?”