Players, Please Board the Train

A sudden sandstorm erupted, engulfing the entire eighth floor in vision. Xu Huo stood still, sensing that two more people had joined the floor at that moment. These two, along with the Crew-cut Blonde Man, rushed at him from different directions, while gaps appeared in the flowing sandstorm—likely cut off by items or something similar.

Hesitating briefly, he opened a door right where he stood, timing it perfectly to activate it just as the three attacked.

”Shh!”

”Bang!”

The sounds of metal weapons clashing and gunfire rang out simultaneously. The attacks from the Crew-cut Blonde Man and his two companions, launched through two doors barely half a meter apart, struck their own allies!

The sandstorm around them had been completely cleared, so the three could clearly see the doors and what came through them. Realizing it was their own companions’ items, they couldn’t hide their shock as they stared at the doors before them.

Their senses were nowhere near as sharp as Xu Huo’s, but from this close range, they could still feel something. Given their positions, aside from the gun, their other items shouldn’t have been able to hit each other at all!

The swirling sandstorm suddenly dissipated, and the three looked up to find that the two doors ahead had somehow merged into one—they had been fighting through a single doorframe!

”Tombstone of the Wretched!” another player instantly shouted, throwing a heavy tombstone onto the ground. On it was written in large letters: ”The world is full of banana peels!”

The floor suddenly became slick and slippery. The Crew-cut Blonde Man and his remaining companion immediately dodged to the side, trying to avoid the tombstone’s effect. But before they could get out of the way, the tombstone was knocked back by an unknown force!The two scrambled to evade, while the player who had used the item lunged forward in a flash, appearing right in front of Xu Huo. He raised a block of ice from his chest: ”Deep Freeze Relationship!”

A wave of freezing air washed over Xu Huo, and his Protective Suit instantly became coated with a layer of frost, which quickly spread toward his limbs.

”Interesting.” Xu Huo glanced at it dismissively, then charged forward without hesitation. With a swing of his Crimson Sword, he predicted the opponent’s escape route and simultaneously threw out the kite string!

The player was pierced by the kite string and yanked toward Xu Huo’s position. Seeing the frost on Xu Huo growing thicker and thicker, the man shouted, ”Leave the rest to you guys!”

The moment he finished speaking, he vanished from the spot. The Crew-cut Blonde Man and the remaining player flanked Xu Huo from both sides while his body was still encased in ice.

”Everywhere at Once!” the Crew-cut Blonde Man blew a puff of white powder at Xu Huo.

Xu Huo smirked, and instead of dodging, he charged straight into the powder, landing a heavy punch to the man’s abdomen!

The Crew-cut Blonde Man crashed into the wall. Seeing Xu Huo appear right in front of him, his pupils contracted in shock, and he quickly rolled to the side!

Xu Huo kicked through the wall, then swung his sword in a horizontal arc, cutting through the wall like tofu as he chased after the Crew-cut Blonde Man!

”My poison can penetrate through the skin. It’s a special toxin designed specifically for players. Within three minutes, you’ll be completely incapacitated!”

”You went out of your way to explain that to me in the nick of time, but since you knew I had the antidote fungus, didn’t it occur to you that I’d already taken it in advance?” Xu Huo swept his finger downward, and the ”beautiful rays” unfolded a dazzling plane of light in the air, chasing after the Crew-cut Blonde Man!

The Crew-cut Blonde Man dodged too slowly and lost several fingers to the cut. He activated his defensive barrier item again, but this time it didn’t drive Xu Huo back. Xu Huo raised his hand, and a massive metal room slammed down between them. Its overwhelming weight sent the Crew-cut Blonde Man flying backward!

The man crashed to the ground. Xu Huo was about to finish him off when the other player flashed in front of him, raising a mirror. ”Danger makes you blind!”

Xu Huo was struck blind!

His vision went pitch black. Xu Huo retracted Shelter 101 and blocked two attacks before retreating a few steps.

He had closed his eyes in time, but still couldn’t escape the item’s effect. This was likely similar to Liu Jia’s ”Answer if You Dare”—something that couldn’t be avoided through ordinary means.

The texture of the ground felt wrong. Earlier, the Crew-cut Blonde Man had used an item to turn the floor tiles into dust. Xu Huo should have been standing on concrete, but what he felt under his feet now was different—it seemed to have turned into wooden flooring.

It was indeed wooden flooring. Not just under his feet, but the entire eighth floor had inexplicably acquired the pattern of wooden planks, and they were moving like an escalator, sliding toward the Crew-cut Blonde Man’s direction.

Xu Huo stood on the wooden floor and found himself involuntarily moving forward.

He activated both ”Like Repels Like” and ”Absolute Safety Distance” simultaneously, but he wasn’t about to just stand there waiting to be killed. He brought out the ”Lament of Plants,” and the eighth floor was instantly filled with a suffocating, piercing scream.

The item’s effect wouldn’t last long, but he only kept the ”Lament of Plants” out for less than two seconds. Once he retracted it into the item slot, the high-frequency sound that filled the floor didn’t disappear. Instead, it continued to grow louder and louder, until the Crew-cut Blonde Man and his companion could no longer bear it!

Both of them had items designed to block their hearing, but even with those equipped, it seemed useless. The sound had become so piercing that the items couldn’t cancel it out. It amplified and amplified, overwhelming them until they were dizzy, with blood oozing from their ears and noses!

”No good...” The Crew-cut Blonde Man wiped his nose and was about to say something to his companion when he turned around and found Xu Huo standing right where his ally had been. The other player was already lying on the ground, decapitated.

Xu Huo’s eyes didn’t seem to have recovered, yet he looked at the Crew-cut Blonde Man as if he could see perfectly. He flicked the blood off his sword and charged forward in a flash!

Sword energy sliced through the space in a horizontal arc, eventually cutting into the wall not far away. The wall split open, but the Crew-cut Blonde Man, who should have been on the eighth floor, had vanished.

”Fast runner.” Xu Huo held his sword, forcefully closed his eyes once, and when he opened them, his vision had returned.

He glanced up toward the floor above, then directly cut a hole in the ceiling and vaulted up.

Above was the secret room. There was an open door nearby, and the room showed clear signs of a fierce struggle—the walls and floor were littered with shattered wooden crate remnants and embedded playing cards.

None of the rooms near this area had anyone in them, though there were a few presences a bit further away.

Xu Huo pulled out his phone from his pocket and dialed the Painting Woman’s number.

The sound of ”Beep, beep, beep” came from somewhere in the secret room. He hung up and forcefully opened the door, cutting a straight line right through the middle of the secret room.

When he found the Painting Woman’s hiding spot, she was busy stuffing a teary-eyed Tongtong into a drawer, while the kid was saying, ”Sister Lichun, there’s no way I can fit into such a small space...”

The Painting Woman turned around and saw Xu Huo. She immediately pulled her hand off Tongtong’s head and looked a bit guilty as she wrote, ”I thought it was a bad guy. I wanted to hide him.”

Xu Huo saw that the kid’s mental state was still okay. He walked over and asked, ”Can you walk?”

Tongtong quickly scrambled out of the drawer, wiped his tears, and nodded vigorously.