The Paper Artisan vanished amidst the fluttering sheets of paper.
Xu Huo remained standing where he was, having sowhat deduced the mindset of this super player.
The premise of his belief in the "guidance of fate" was that he wanted to see what the ultimate destination of "fate" pointed to by going with the flow. It was like how he had obtained a part of "Fielder's Battle Angel" and gained so information, but he himself did not value this Super Item highly. What he wanted to investigate was the reason behind the Super Item's reappearance.
The other party had not revealed more information, and Xu Huo had no way to guess anything beyond that. However, one thing was clear: he was temporarily not in danger. If another player possessing a part of the Super Item really ca looking for him, he could just hand the situation over to the Paper Artisan to deal with.
Yet, it had already been a long ti since he obtained "Angel's Teeth," and during this period, no one like the Paper Artisan had appeared... Perhaps they had appeared without his knowledge, but this also indirectly confird the Paper Artisan's words.
There was no point in staying in Clown City any longer. He opened his personal panel and took out the return ticket.
*
Ting City had just turned dark. The street lights were still on, but there were absolutely no pedestrians anymore. The mont Xu Huo removed his mask and stepped from the teleportation alley onto the main street, he sensed two pairs of eyes fixed on him from the darkness.
"Ergency broadcast for Ting City! Recently, lawless elents have been active within the city limits. Citizens are advised to avoid going out after dark!"
Temporary broadcast speakers were installed everywhere on the streets. The sa announcent played three tis in a row. By the ti Xu Huo walked onto another street, the ergency broadcast started playing again.
He glanced at the surveillance cara's location, understanding this was a deliberate warning for him. Looking left and right, he chose an inconspicuous small alley and walked in.
Soon, the two people tailing him appeared. Both wore hoods, sneaking around while avoiding the surveillance caras. After exchanging hand signals, they split up to flank him from both sides of the alley.
Half a minute later, only the sound of two "thunks" of skulls being cracked ca from the alley. Shortly after, soone walked out of the darkness.
After using cleaning solution to wash the blood off his hands, Xu Huo proceeded along the wide, empty street towards the residential district where he rented.
At this hour, there were absolutely no pedestrians on the street. After he dealt with the two players, no one from the Special Defense Departnt ca out to clean up the aftermath. It was clear the situation in Ting City was not good.
He took out his phone, charged it, and turned it on. Over a hundred ssages flooded in instantly. Most were from Yuan Yao and the others. Yan Jiayu had invited him twice to explore Random Dungeons. Hu Wenhu had fallen into a player's trap in a dungeon and was infected with Mutant toxin. He had now gone with Zhou Ning to Capital City to participate in drug trials.
Liu Jia, on the other hand, told him that soone had seen a person resembling Professor Han in a dungeon. She said she would verify with the Special Defense Departnt, but there had been no follow-up within the month since that ssage.
Additionally, Yu Qingqing sent ssages analyzing dungeon processes, asking him to deduce how to improve ratings. There were also condolence ssages from Tang Guangbo, telling him to go see Ms. Fang if he returned, because after receiving external information, Ms. Fang was worried he had died in the ga.
Others included ssages from Professor Lan and Huang Junjie.
Professor Lan tried to persuade him to participate in player experints. Huang Junjie ntioned a very important piece of information: the changes in the international situation of Zone 014. Major powers had begun frequently launching wars abroad to consolidate resources. In the past two months, three more small nations had completely vanished.
Xu Huo then scrolled to ssages from Nie Xuan and Team Leader Wu. Both ntioned the sa thing: requesting his support at the border.
They didn't go into detail. He exited the interface and opened the news, only then learning that the nation had already fought two defensive battles at the border. The scale wasn't huge, but players from both sides had participated. Certain characteristics and items could cause weapons to malfunction, resulting in heavy casualties.
Furthermore, the dostic situation was also unstable. Many foreign players had infiltrated. While these people caused disturbances, others took advantage of the chaos to loot. Two cities had suffered terrorist attacks with heavy casualties. Driven by players with ulterior motives, entire cities had seen mass exoduses.
Elite players needed to be used as decisive forces. Therefore, ard forces were deployed extensively across various regions to suppress this wave of erging players.
However, this situation was only alleviated, not resolved. People kept jumping out to cause trouble, both openly and covertly, keeping everyone on edge. To reduce casualties, governnts in so cities urged citizens to minimize travel and absolutely avoid going out at night.
But compared to other countries, this was still considered good. Currently, every nation in Zone 014, regardless of size, was in a state of panic. Conflict incidents erupted almost daily. Besides violent attacks, there were also malicious acts like poisoning water sources to cause Mutant transformations.
News flooded every online platform, constantly refreshing.
Although he had long anticipated this situation might occur, Xu Huo hadn't expected it to happen this quickly. From a normal perspective, at this stage, each nation should be busy cultivating its own players. Investing combat power and resources into war too early was detrintal to both themselves and others.
Unless sothing had happened that forced the major powers to act this way.
While walking, he quickly browsed through this information. Finally, he looked at Yuan Yao's ssages. Most were nonsense, with only two key points:
First, Lichun had been tricked away by Yu Qingqing.
Second, their original residential complex had been burned down. He had already moved everything to the building opposite the Special Defense Departnt.
Following the new address, before he could even go upstairs, Team Leader Wu's call ca through. Upon answering, Team Leader Wu sounded quite delighted, "Xu Huo, you're really back! I received your signal but could hardly believe it!"
"Is the situation that difficult now?" Xu Huo frowned. A single player, even a B-rank player, couldn't play a decisive role in a war on a national scale, let alone lower-level players. Team Leader Wu's eagerness to call him indicated the situation might be more difficult than he had imagined.
"You've probably seen the news by now. Many players are voluntarily going to provide support," Team Leader Wu's voice was grave. "But that's not the most urgent matter. The biggest crisis now is that Mutant toxin has begun to spread."
"Mutant toxin doesn't just affect players; ordinary people are not immune either. So players have brought Mutant toxin onto the battlefield, willing to trade one for one just to spread this toxin. Not only that, soone has refined and upgraded this toxin, using special channels to introduce it into reservoirs, causing large numbers of ordinary people to be poisoned."
"There are many symptoms of poisoning. So gradually weaken until they are bedridden and die, but others undergo Mutant transformation, especially players... Currently, what we're defending against at the border are large numbers of players who have undergone Mutant transformation. They were concentrated and deployed against us."
Xu Huo understood. This was about dragging everyone down.
"What's the cause?"
"A group of players from small nations," Team Leader Wu said. "Their countries have already vanished."
"I contacted you to ask if you've obtained any new antidotes in dungeons. The antidotes we've developed can only delay symptoms and postpone death. Other antidotes brought back from dungeons are too few in quantity and cannot completely eradicate the toxin either."
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