Xu Huo kicked away the hand reaching for the toy gun, controlling the strings to thread through the eyelet and pull the gun into his own grasp.
While a possessed prop could not be used directly, holding it in one's own hands meant no one else could use it!
Ma Yu knelt on one knee, knowing in his heart that the prop could not be taken back. If he hadn't been wearing props himself, he likely wouldn't have lasted this long. These players were smarter than he had imagined; fighting them one-on-one had been a massive miscalculation!
Just as he was plotting an escape, Huang Junjie, who was fighting another Holy Sword Society player, suddenly tumbled through a hole in the wall!
Ma Yu lunged at Huang Junjie, his vein-bulging arm striking like a giant snake aiming for his throat!
Huang Junjie had been too preoccupied with his immediate enemy to notice the sneak attack. He managed a narrow dodge when he realized what was happening, but several bloody scratches were left on his throat. He parried the attack with his bamboo sword and instinctively searched for Xu Huo's silhouette: that long-haired man was his opponent—had he escaped because Huang Junjie had slipped up?
As the thought flashed through his mind, he saw a shadow streak past his side, using its body to slam the player who had been pursuing him away!
The two disappeared into an adjacent empty room. The line of sight prevented him from seeing what happened, but immediately after, he heard a "crack," followed by the sound of a heavy object hitting the floor.
Huang Junjie's heart eased slightly; the two-on-two had become a two-on-one.
Ma Yu clearly heard it too. He immediately put distance between himself and Huang Junjie and pulled out a whistle, blowing it with all his might!
The high-frequency sound, exceeding the hearing range of ordinary people, pierced through the entire building. Moments later, Liu Jia's voice came rapidly through the earpiece: "The woman on the crane has come down."
Huang Junjie froze; the situation that had just turned in his favor took a sudden, sharp turn for the worse.
"Kill him first!" Xu Huo swept past him. Before his voice had even faded, he had already closed in on Ma Yu, a ghostly light flickering in his hand.
Seeing him use the dagger again, Ma Yu couldn't help but sneer, "Ordinary blades are useless against me..."
His words suddenly shifted in tone, because the dagger that was originally thrusting toward his abdomen abruptly jerked upward at the moment of contact, stabbing toward his jaw!
Ma Yu tilted his head back in a desperate move, but he couldn't avoid being struck in the chin. He was then met with a knee to the abdomen, pinning him hard against the wall!
The man pinned to the wall spat out a mouthful of blood, but Xu Huo did not release the strength in his legs, pressing him firmly into the wall. Huang Junjie followed immediately, seizing Ma Yu's right hand, while Xu Huo pinned Ma Yu's left hand with one hand and delivered a fatal strike to the throat!
Even with evolution, even when wearing props, the human body remained fragile, especially the throat.
As the blood sprayed out, Xu Huo had already retreated to the floor. Upon receiving the game prompt to "collect player relics," he knew this man was dead for good.
*Tap!* A crisp clicking sound echoed on the balcony. A woman in high heels landed gracefully. She brushed back her long hair and took a deep breath. "Such a heavy scent of blood. It looks like that sissy Ma Yu is dead."
*
The first floor.
As Xu Huo's voice cut off, intermittent sounds echoed from upstairs. Zhou Ning and the others knew the battle on the second floor was intense.
Hu Wenhu and Tian Yun had managed to reclaim Zhou Xiao. Although he had suffered some physical injury, his life was not in danger.
"Sister, I know I was wrong. I won't dare disobey you again," Zhou Xiao said with a sob. He was born frail, and as a player, he remained weak. When he left the initial screening train, he had no ticket, no traits, and no potions; surviving 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 wing. That was why he had tried to trade for a ticket while Zhou Ning was in a dungeon, only to be swindled the moment he stepped out. He had lost his potions, and if not for that player named Cao Yan trying to brainwash him, he likely wouldn't have survived until now.
"We'll talk about that later." Zhou Ning suppressed her anger and said to Hu Wenhu and the others, "As we discussed before, we move separately."
"Can the person inside be let out?" Yan Jiayu, crouching to the side, pointed at the cocoon of hair on the floor.
"I'm worried that if he comes out, I won't be able to restrain him. This person doesn't look like an ordinary player," Zhou Ning said. Having gained experience dealing with Zhao Sheng, she had braided four strands of hair into a snake, wrapped it three times, and plugged his nose and mouth. If she could make him suffocate to death, that would be even better.
"It's fine." Yan Jiayu tapped her stone club against her palm. "If you don't mind the mess, I can kill him first."
"The hair can't be used anymore anyway, do as you wish." Zhou Ning's original hair had not reached this length or growth rate; that was thanks to the hair growth potion. However, its effect lasted only two or three hours; once the time was up, the hair would break off automatically.
Yan Jiayu nodded. Her slender, thin arms swung the stone club, striking the lower half of the hair cocoon with ferocity. That area should have been the young master's knee. Accompanied by the sound of cracking bones, the cocoon actually dented inward, and a strange gurgling sound emerged from within!
Zhou Ning was nearly stunned by the blow. The sensation feedback through the hair strands was supposed to be faint, but when Yan Jiayu struck, it felt as if Zhou Ning herself had been hit with a blunt object, her head throbbing with a dull ache!
Seeing her raise her hand again, Zhou Ning quickly severed the hair and retreated. Once the hair-snake turned back into ordinary strands, it lost its binding strength. The young master trapped inside struggled to tear through the cocoon, revealing a mouth as he roared, "I'll carve you into a thousand..."
Before he could finish, there was a crisp crack at the back of his head. The blow sent him sprawling to the ground, blood seeping from within the hair.
"Is he dead?" Hu Wenhu and the others were terrified by Yan Jiayu's brutality. This girl looked young, thin, and small, and she was quite cute with her straightforward way of speaking. Who would have thought she was such a ruthless fighter!
"No." Yan Jiayu swung her stone club over, delivered another blow to the young master's head, and then said, "Now he's really dead."
She shook her head and remarked sentimentally, "Dishonest people must be punished. I hope he can repent for his sins in the afterlife."
The group was momentarily speechless.
Just then, a faint voice drifted from the distance: "What the hell is this? The doors are all blocked off!"
This building was unfinished, with no doors or windows installed. The interior was a grid pattern. Following Xu Huo's advice, Zhou Ning had used hair to seal some of the doorways and windows. If too many members of the Holy Sword Society arrived, they would have to find a way to split them up.
Yan Jiayu listened intently and said, "Leave these two on this side to me."
"I'll go too," Yuan Yao said quickly, then turned to the painted woman. "You stay here, don't move."
The painted woman nodded obediently.
Subsequently, Yan Jiayu and Yuan Yao headed to the left side of the first floor. Zhou Ning moved to intercept the player coming from behind, while Tian Yun and Hu Wenhu went to find the remaining player.
With the group dispersed, only Zhou Xiao and the painted woman remained to guard the unconscious, heavily injured Zhao Sheng and the corpse of the young master.
"Don't be afraid. If anyone comes, I'll protect you," Zhou Xiao whispered to the painted woman.
The painted woman nodded. In the darkness, starting from her shoes and moving upward, she began to unfurl slowly like a sheet of paper. Within a few short seconds, she had transformed into a tall woman wearing high heels and a long red dress.