Chapter 15: Life-and-Death Struggle

"Watch out!" Just as Wang Xiaohui was beside Liu Jia, she gave her a shove and slid her wheelchair into the way. The moment she made contact with the middle-aged woman, a translucent beam of light erupted around her. The woman’s knife seemed to strike a spring; not only did it fail to penetrate, but the massive rebound force sent both her and the knife flying backward!

The middle-aged woman slammed into the glass window. Shocked and furious but not daring to continue the entanglement, she scrambled up and rushed toward the front door. But the moment the door was pulled open, a black shadow appeared before her like a projectile, a palm swiping rapidly across her neck!

Bright red liquid sprayed out. The man pushed the middle-aged woman back into the carriage and followed her inside!

He was a tall man. He wiped his bloody hand across his mouth, his eyes fixed on the others in the carriage.

Xu Huo was the closest to him, but after a fleeting glance, the man skipped over him and locked his gaze on Yan Jiayu, who was two meters away!

Having spent two days on the train, the players all possessed basic emergency instincts, so when the middle-aged woman was killed, Liu Jia and the others retreated.

Wang Xiaohui’s special ability couldn't last long, and neither Liu Jia nor Professor Han were fighters—plus, the professor was injured. The only ones left who could fight were Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu!

Yan Jiayu, now the target, exchanged a look with Xu Huo and retreated slightly toward the hole in the window, kicking away the table that had been placed underneath it.

The red-clad player from the first-class carriage glanced at her and then shifted his focus back to her face, attacking without a hint of hesitation! Although the man had been forced to flee the first-class carriage due to a left-arm injury, the second-class passengers were either crippled or wounded. Even injured, he figured dealing with a young girl would be a simple task, so he held a blade between his fingers, intending to finish Yan Jiayu off in the same manner.

Standing by the window, Yan Jiayu appeared to have nowhere left to retreat, but she remained extremely calm. She slid her right leg back into a lunge, lowered her center of gravity rapidly, and dodged the attack with pinpoint precision. As the blade swept over her head, her fist, bulging with veins, slammed into the man’s chest!

"Hah!"

It was impossible to tell how much force was in that punch, but three distinct "crack" sounds of bone breaking echoed. The man spat blood, hunched over, and retreated repeatedly. Yan Jiayu followed up with a knee strike to his chin. As he fell to the ground, his head twisted backward at an angle impossible for a living person, and his breath vanished instantly.

Yan Jiayu brushed her hair back and let out a breath, murmuring "Amitabha." Just as she was about to move the body aside, the man’s stiff eyeballs suddenly rolled, and he lunged up like a ghost in a horror movie, biting toward her throat!

Xu Huo was right behind Yan Jiayu. He pulled her away while thrusting his knife at the male player. With a "crunch," the man actually caught the blade in his mouth, his teeth clamping down hard on the steel!

Feeling the tension on the blade, Xu Huo grabbed the man’s wrist with his other hand and shoved it sideways. As he sliced through the man’s cheek, he followed up with a heavy elbow strike to his temple!

Even for a formidable red-clad player, the temple was an extremely vulnerable spot. Although the man instinctively tilted his head, he was still struck hard enough for his eyes to roll back. Yan Jiayu seized the opportunity to land a kick, sending the man flying into the glass window. He let out a muffled groan and closed his eyes!

"He’s not dead yet!" Liu Jia pointed at the man’s twitching fingers. She and Professor Han grabbed tables and chairs and rushed over, beating him frantically until he was a bloody mess before carefully lifting him up and tossing him out the window!

Watching the man’s figure disappear beneath the cliff, Professor Han finally let out a sigh of relief. "The red-clad players from first class are too terrifying."

To think he could play dead like that—if it weren't for Xu Huo’s quick reaction, Yan Jiayu might have lost her life.

"It’s not that the first-class players are powerful," Xu Huo said. "There is no clear ranking of strength among players; it’s just that we happened to run into novices."

In the second-class carriage, only the heavily made-up woman was relatively strong; the others lacked everything from physical fitness to experience, otherwise, they wouldn't have been taken down so easily. If it had been him, half of the ordinary second-class players would have died on the first night.

The third-class carriage had self-destructed; otherwise, given the level of slaughter there, players would surely have escaped. If any of them had mutated into monsters, it would be hard to say whether the metal doors could have held them back.

As for the middle-aged woman, it was just her bad luck.

Yan Jiayu felt a lingering fear. "I’ll block the front door in a bit."

Liu Jia looked at the middle-aged woman’s corpse and asked, puzzled, "Weren't there only six people? Why is there an extra one?"

"I know now. The woman killed the night before last wasn't a red-clad player."

"It wasn't her; it must have been Chen Yi." Xu Huo squatted down to check the items on the middle-aged woman. There was a family photo; the faces of the two elderly people and a middle-aged man had been scratched out, leaving only the middle-aged woman and a young girl.

He covered her face with a blood-stained apron and turned back to briefly explain the situation regarding Chen Yi.

If he had only been driven by hunger, his first choice should have been Liu Jia—they were close, and subduing a female college student was easier than an adult man. Perhaps it was for White Bills, or perhaps for potential game rewards, that he chose to target Xu Huo.

Of course, it was possible he wanted both, but for a red-clad player with an urgent craving for food, that was clearly not cost-effective. Moreover, "Whether you board the train on an empty stomach makes a big difference."

The others in the carriage fell silent. They hadn't noticed at all; when they boarded, they were already starving, and the carriage was filled with the scent of others. Just suppressing the desire to attack others was difficult enough, let alone having the energy to observe anyone else.

"You don't look like you boarded on an empty stomach either," Yan Jiayu suddenly said.

Liu Jia and the others, whose emotions had fluctuated wildly, looked at them, still shaken, their gazes darting between the two.

Xu Huo lit a cigarette with measured movements, exhaled a cloud of smoke without reservation, and stood calmly amidst the wreckage. "What do you think?"

"I think you're a good person." Yan Jiayu took all the dried fruit out of her patchwork bag. "Let’s crack some walnuts to eat."

The time that followed was very peaceful. Using the few White Bills they had to exchange for a small amount of food and water, combined with the snacks, that ravenous desire seemed to have completely faded. After lunch, the group even took turns sleeping.

By the time the lights were about to go out, Professor Han voluntarily moved a table to the back door. His condition was much better than it had been in the morning, but since there was no telling what might happen at night, they stuck to their plan, with Yan Jiayu keeping watch over him.

This left the remaining three to guard the holes in the left and right windows and the front door respectively.