Players, Please Board the Train

The woman stood in front of her umbrella. She raised a hand to her head and peeled, a piece of beige-tinted human skin sliding off smoothly. She tossed it aside casually, and the woman standing there now had a brand new face.

Xu Huo’s gaze darkened. This woman was wearing more than one skin on her body.

”Huang Yue, I remember now,” the Cheongsam Woman said. ”The last time I met a little girl, young and tender. I tortured her for quite a while before she died. I never heard her say she had a player relative at home.”

”Is that so?” Xu Huo said in a low voice. ”Then perhaps I remembered wrong. Her surname might be Zhang or Wu.”

The Cheongsam Woman snorted. ”These days, you really get all sorts of people.”

”Can’t be helped. I only got the name from the news,” Xu Huo said expressionlessly. ”But compared to the disgusting hobby of layering human skins on yourself, mine is small potatoes.”

The Cheongsam Woman’s face twisted into a ferocious expression, but at that moment, Xu Huo lit his lighter. She reflexively dodged and pressed herself against the wall. However, his real target was the umbrella on the ground!

The Cheongsam Woman, startled, looked back and realized that during the brief fight, the white umbrella that had fallen to the ground had been drenched in gasoline. The area around it was littered with glass shards. Now, ignited by the flame, the umbrella’s surface erupted into roaring flames!

Seeing her immediately lunge towards the umbrella, Xu Huo grabbed his Crimson Sword and slashed through the air!

The sword energy shot through the alley, transforming into a slicing plane dozens of meters high, cleanly cutting the wall on one side of the entire alley in half!The Cheongsam Woman, who had forcefully changed her trajectory mid-air, leaped onto the wall opposite. Her eyes flickered over the crack in the wall before her figure blurred once more, darting and weaving through the narrow alley at extreme speed.

From Xu Huo’s perspective, every time he managed to catch up with her movements, he could only see the crater-like cracks left behind by powerful stomps. These cracks appeared one after another on walls and the ground, gradually getting closer and closer!

”Die!” Seizing a moment during the movement, the Cheongsam Woman had already closed in on him. Xu Huo raised his sword to block her right hand while simultaneously manipulating the piano wire to bind her left. He kicked her away and immediately hurled several more gasoline bottles!

The woman dodged the bottles. Hesitating for a split second between her white umbrella item and Xu Huo, she chose the former. She rushed back, scooped up the white umbrella, stored it in her item slot, then turned and fled out of the Rain Alley.

With the white umbrella stored, the rain also stopped. Xu Huo tossed his backpack aside and followed her without the slightest hesitation.

This area was a maze of complex, narrow alleys where it was easy for someone to hide and disappear. That was the Cheongsam Woman’s plan. Unexpectedly, Xu Huo’s speed was not the least bit inferior to hers; he was following behind with what seemed like effortless ease!

After several failed attempts to shake him off, the Cheongsam Woman weaved through the crisscrossing alleys for a while before finally stopping in a dead-end. She opened the white umbrella again, and a light drizzle began to fall once more. ”I originally wanted to spare your life. I didn’t expect you to be so eager to deliver yourself to death. Fine, eating anyone is the same.”

As she spoke, her petite, delicate cheongsam began to bulge and distort from swelling muscles. Her height increased, the outer skin stretched to the point of tearing, splitting open from the head like a blooming flower to reveal a square, national-character face.

”A man disguised as a woman?” Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.

The Cheongsam Woman’s face showed anger. ”This lady is a proper woman!”

This time, she didn’t even bother peeling off the skin. Tossing the white umbrella aside, she leaped onto an air conditioning unit hanging in the alley and pounced down on Xu Huo from above!

Xu Huo dodged the woman’s attacks while keeping an eye on that white umbrella. After being burned, the umbrella’s edge had an abnormal, scorched yellow curl, revealing the black umbrella fabric underneath.

A faint smell of roasted meat wafted out. One didn’t need to think hard to guess what that white layer was made of.

However, he noticed that after the umbrella was damaged, the intensity of the rain increased.

”You’re just unlucky!” The Cheongsam Woman obviously noticed this too, and her attacks became even more ferocious. In just a few minutes, she had practically demolished the walls on both sides.

”Only knowing how to dodge, what kind of man are you!” After repeated failed attacks, she screamed at Xu Huo in a furious rage.

Xu Huo had been waiting for this opportunity. With one sword slash, he severed her right hand, then immediately grabbed his lighter!

The woman rapidly retreated, saying, ”In the rain, the effects of your items are suppressed. It’s impossible for you to ignite my clothes...”

Yet before she could finish her sentence, the human skin draped over her shoulders on both sides burst into flames, and the cheongsam was instantly engulfed in fire!

”How is this possible!” The woman shrieked, frantically tearing at the fabric and skin on her body. The next second, both her legs were severed in quick succession, and she knelt on the ground.

Even with her legs cut off, her reaction was still fairly quick. She first stored the cheongsam in her item slot, then ripped off the human skin and threw it away. Although she was left with numerous burns, they weren’t severe—just a matter of drinking a few more healing potions. The real tragedy was that she had lost both feet and one hand!

She frantically poured healing potion into her mouth. Xu Huo didn’t stop her. He waited until the bleeding gradually slowed before looking at the blood on the ground and saying, ”I thought the blood you bled wasn’t human blood. Turns out it’s also red.”

The woman scooted backward along the ground while saying, ”Don’t kill me! I can give you all my items!”

”Killing you, the items will still be mine,” Xu Huo said, pointing his Crimson Sword at her. ”Say something valuable.”

The woman was sweating profusely, her eyeballs trembling. After a few seconds, she said, ”You’re here to do a dungeon, right? I know a lot of dungeon strategies, I can tell you all of them!”

”Then tell me about Rose Castle,” Xu Huo said. ”You’ve been here for years. You should know something.”

The woman looked at the sword in his hand, swallowed, and said, ”Actually, my player level isn’t that high either...”

”I can tell,” Xu Huo interrupted her. ”Hiding in the residential areas of ordinary people for years, only daring to kill there. It’s obvious you don’t have much skill.”

The woman didn’t refute his words. Meeting his gaze, she immediately said, ”There is a dungeon inside Rose Castle, but I’ve never been there...”

Xu Huo stabbed his sword into her shoulder. ”Weren’t you invited as a guest? It’s not far from here to Rose Castle, and you go out at night. Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence.”

The woman’s face twisted in pain. She hurriedly said, ”I’m telling the truth! I haven’t done the Rose Castle dungeon! I was only invited as a guest!”

Xu Huo slightly eased the pressure. ”Inviting Player-Eaters as guests... seems the master of that castle is no good person... Is this your first time going?”

”Y-yes!” The woman’s lips trembled. ”The invitations to Rose Castle aren’t personalized. Anyone can buy them on the black market, but the quantity is limited. I heard you could eat players for free there, so I sold a few items and bought an invitation at a high price!”

”The invitation.” Xu Huo signaled for her to take it out. Comparing it with his own, the only difference between the two invitations was the signature. His dungeon inviter was the castle master, He Pu. The woman’s invitation only had a rose pattern.

”Second question: How do you avoid the random dungeons that occur every three months?”

”You’ve been here for years. You should have been transported to a random dungeon long ago.”

The woman grinned. ”If I tell you, will you let me go?”

”No. But I can make your death quicker,” Xu Huo said. ”Player-Eaters should be more tenacious than other players. Even without limbs, there’s still plenty left. The skin is a bit charred, though.”

Understanding the implication in his words, the woman couldn’t stop trembling. After forcing herself to endure for a moment, she said, ”Leave the original wormhole point. I was originally a player from wormhole point E15.”

Xu Huo gave her a once-over. ”The method.”

”I don’t know!” the woman raised her voice. ”I really don’t know! With my low level, how could I possibly have a way to cross wormhole points! I encountered a dimensional storm while fleeing, and when I woke up, I was here!”