Yan Wei glanced at Yan Mingguang.
The man stood there as usual, one hand in his pocket, his back straight, his gaze calm and expression serene, revealing nothing.
Yan Wei paused, averted his eyes, and after a moment of contemplation, he retracted the questions he had intended to ask Lin Zhen, simply saying, “Let’s go, continue following.”
Yu Feizhou frowned. “Aren’t we going to see what’s going on with Lin Zhen? There might be clues about the instance that could help us break this Benevolent Automaton trap.”
“No need,” Yan Wei said, intentionally or unintentionally looking at Yan Mingguang. “It shouldn’t be related to the Puppet; it’s likely that Lin Zhen himself is just a bit special.”
The Arena Instance had projections in every corner, and Yan Wei didn’t finish his sentence, but the others understood.
Lin Zhen’s uniqueness had been mentioned by Lin Qing before they entered the building. Because they were brothers, when they received the skills gifted by the building, they gained a special mutual skill, allowing Lin Zhen and Lin Qing to borrow each other’s abilities for a short time—of course, given the current disparity in their strengths, it was essentially Lin Zhen borrowing Lin Qing’s abilities.
However, Lin Zhen had just stated that he hadn’t used this skill…
Yan Wei’s words clearly indicated he was just making an excuse.
Although Yu Feizhou still felt a bit puzzled, he trusted Yan Wei’s judgment and didn’t press further. As for Lin Zhen, he was surprised but had never really cared about the matter from the beginning.
Yan Wei continued to follow the path Xu Miaomiao had taken, while Yan Mingguang stood still for a moment, watching Yan Wei’s retreating figure.
He had been too anxious just now. In trying to interrupt Yan Wei’s train of thought, he had inadvertently revealed a flaw, allowing Yan Wei to realize he was aware of Lin Zhen’s situation.
He sighed silently and then caught up.
On the first floor of the castle.
A young woman dressed in casual sportswear with long hair cascading down stood gravely by the power box.
Before her, the power box that had already been blown up by “Yan Wei” was now even more shattered, its original shape completely unrecognizable. Behind her stood six or seven players.
One of the players said, “Are you reassured now? The power box is destroyed beyond repair; even players with repair skills can’t turn this mess back into anything.”
The long-haired woman finally relaxed a bit, letting out a sigh. “That solves one of my worries; we can continue to score points. Speaking of which, the fact that we have ample time to deal with this is thanks to the person who destroyed the power box delaying the fighting… Who in those large organizations would have such good intentions?”
The players behind her seemed accustomed to her way of thinking, and no one interrupted her.
However, after pondering for a moment, she didn’t spend any more time on the matter, shaking her head. “Forget it, whether it’s good intentions or not isn’t something we should worry about right now. We, the unorganized players, are merely prey in the eyes of those seeded players. Right now, being in fourth place is too conspicuous, but it will only get harder from here. We can afford to slow down a bit on scoring; we must start looking for advantages that can help us survive until the end—”
A clear voice suddenly interrupted her.
“There are advantages; it just depends on whether you dare to take them.”
The players immediately showed expressions of surprise—players generally had some level of perception, and even those with poor perception could feel each other when they got close. The owner of this voice had already walked up to them, and they only realized it when they heard the voice?
The long-haired woman instinctively turned to look in the direction of the voice.
“Yan Wei” leaned slightly against the nearby stairway, one hand in his pocket, the other resting on the railing, smiling down at them as he said, “I’m the one who ‘kindly’ destroyed the power box, and now I’m ‘kindly’ giving you a method to gain an advantage.”
“Whether you can take it depends on you—do you dare?”
The leaderboard was changing faster and faster.
Any player who had seriously observed the trends on the leaderboard would notice that the movement of the leaderboard had begun to show subtle changes. Initially, almost all organizations’ scores increased by one point at a time, but now, as the day was nearing its end, some organizations’ scores had begun to show rapid accumulations of several points at once.
—“Hunting” was becoming increasingly intense.
Of course, this speed seemed slow to those high-ranking players, as the Number Lamp that assisted players in knowing the density of Puppets had already disappeared.
At this moment, most players finally realized the hidden dangers lurking deep within this instance and suddenly understood the importance of displaying the number of Puppets.
But it was already too late. They had already fallen behind, and even if they understood now, a day had already passed in the game, leaving them with no choice but to accept the current situation.
In a corner of the castle, two Xu Miaomiaos finished exploring the last corner and looked at the completely drawn castle map with satisfaction. One Xu Miaomiao hid the last Blocker and said, “I’ve got the terrain map and the advantage of reading the local Puppet count; now we just wait for the final feast in the last few days.”
The other Xu Miaomiao said, “They’re even more useless; they let them catch that person who plotted against me last night, and they still haven’t found him.”
“Look at this terrain map… why does it feel a bit familiar?”
“Hmm? It does feel a bit—”
The two Xu Miaomiaos paused simultaneously.
They raised their eyes, exchanged glances, and in unison, their fingertips slid over the Black Ring, opening the leaderboard.
On the leaderboard, Morning Star was in first place, and Xue Wan’s score remained high. Moreover, the gap between Manjusaka in second place and Morning Star suddenly widened, with Manjusaka’s score decreasing instead of increasing, while Morning Star had almost gained the points that Manjusaka was missing.
Combined with the name of a player from Manjusaka who had just turned gray, what had happened was already quite obvious.
The teammate Xu Miaomiao had arranged to go to the Stargazing Platform to score points not only failed to score but was completely devoured by Xue Wan, along with the points. They had lost a teammate and the points that teammate had earned, while one had gained a large number of points, suddenly widening the gap.
The two Xu Miaomiaos stared at the leaderboard for a while, then suddenly spoke into their communication Item in unison, “…Where are you? Gather.”
“Xu Miaomiao has left.”
In another corner not far away, Yan Wei cautiously retracted his perception, ensuring that no one else noticed his presence.
As soon as he finished speaking, Yan Mingguang, who had just left the team, quickly returned from a narrow passage, saying, “I swapped out the last Blocker she hid.”
With that, every corner of the castle was now hiding their Blockers. If necessary, Yan Wei could control the switches of these Blockers simultaneously, cutting off the power flow in other areas, and then briefly replace the electrical energy with his perception to read the numbers beneath his feet, thus obtaining the count of the Puppets.
In addition, they also possessed the same terrain map of the castle as Xu Miaomiao.
Yu Feizhou said, “The leaderboard has changed dramatically—Manjusaka lost 5 points, and Morning Star gained 9 points. It seems that the traps left by Yan Wei and another Yan Wei caught Manjusaka off guard; truly, cleverness can be outsmarted.”
As he walked to the other side, Yu Feizhou continued, “In a while, Xu Miaomiao will realize everything that happened today. Yan Wei, should we think of a way to deal with Xu Miaomiao thoroughly?”
“No need; she has other opponents.”
“Other opponents?”
“I’ve gained the advantage of reading the Puppet count and the terrain map here, so ‘I’ will anticipate the hidden dangers that this advantage brings. ‘I’ am probably already on the path to setting a trap for Xu Miaomiao, so there’s no need to worry.” Yan Wei smiled, “What we need to do now is to skip Xu Miaomiao and move on to the next step—find other clues that might exist in the castle and deal with Xue Wan.”
“Xue Wan is tough to deal with,” Yu Feizhou said. “Just him alone, even if he’s unfathomable, it’s still manageable since we have Yan Mingguang. But the players coming in with Morning Star are all particularly outstanding seeded players in terms of Body Index, and with their Benevolent Automatons, it’s highly likely we’ll face at least five or six opponents with exceptionally high Body Indexes. Right now, if we confront them head-on, we can only run.”
“We definitely can’t confront them head-on; even if we win, we’ll pay a price,” Yan Wei turned his head and extended his hand. “By the way, Lin Zhen, is the terrain map finished?”
Lin Zhen lazily leaned against the wall, one hand holding a pen and the other cradling the paper, finishing the last stroke. He made a sound of disdain and handed the terrain map to Yan Wei, saying, “This castle is just a big circle; the paths inside are completely irregular, making it all mysterious. Turns out it’s like this; you can’t see anything.”
Yan Wei took the terrain map, glanced at it, raised an eyebrow, and chuckled softly.
“This isn’t something you can’t see; it’s an unexpected delight.”
This was something Yan Wei hadn’t anticipated. He initially wanted the terrain map to navigate the castle with ease later on, not for any clues. But at this moment, this terrain map unexpectedly…
“Can’t you see anything from this completely irregular path?” Lin Zhen asked.
Yan Wei rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a coin—it was one of the seven coins given to each person by the Man in Black Robe when they first entered the castle. One coin could capture one Puppet, and using it to throw the captured Prey into the Meat Grinder would consume one coin. Each team had a base of twenty-eight coins, and they could also earn coins from the Prey they captured. So far, this item had no critical function other than symbolizing the exchange for Points.
The design of this coin was somewhat similar to Yan Wei’s Swallow Coin; although one side was completely blank, the other side indeed featured a bird in flight. However, while Yan Wei’s coin depicted a swallow, this coin was clearly engraved with a man-eating crow that lingered around the castle’s perimeter.
Yan Wei placed this coin next to the terrain map and said, “Look closely.”
After a moment.
Yan Mingguang said calmly, “The terrain map is an enlarged version of the coin.”
Looking at the terrain map alone might not evoke much feeling, but when placed alongside the coin, it became apparent that the irregular, intricate, and spiraling paths within the castle actually formed an enlarged crow.
Adding to that the circular outline, the entire castle was, astonishingly, a giant coin pattern!
What did this represent?
Yan Wei furrowed his brows and pondered for a moment, unable to think of any logical connection between this and breaking the situation or scoring points.
However…
He blinked, a hint of a smile appearing at the corners of his eyes.
“What this castle’s terrain represents, let’s set aside for now,” he said, “but it does remind me of a method to deal with Xue Wan.”
“Oh?” This time, even Lin Zhen became interested. “What method? Hurry up and tell me. No one knows Xue Wan’s Body Index and skills even now; many people were saying before entering the instance that they would rather face all the seeded players than face Xue Wan alone—do you have a way? Hurry up and tell me; I want to fight him.”
“The method is what you just said.”
“Huh?”
—“I’d rather face all the seeded players than face Xue Wan alone.”
“Forgot? I mentioned that Xue Wan’s score has been rising so quickly, and every time it rises, it’s by several points. It’s very likely he’s just waiting at the Stargazing Platform to catch players off guard. So anyone who wants to score points runs the risk of facing him directly, and in the end, they must confront him. But there’s more than one way to reduce the gap between us and him; we don’t necessarily have to score points; we just need to ensure he doesn’t score.”
Yan Wei raised his hand, his fingertip gently tapping the coin he had taken out, enunciating each word, “Although I can’t yet deduce what the castle’s terrain hints at regarding the coin, I must thank this coin for reminding me—we just need to ensure that those going to the Stargazing Platform have no coins. Xue Wan’s own team’s coins have probably been used up; they rely on the coins of players going to the Stargazing Platform to exchange for points. What if we ensure that the players who reach the Stargazing Platform have no coins?”
Then even if Xue Wan captured someone, he wouldn’t be able to exchange for points.
How to deal with someone who might be unbeatable?
Simply don’t confront him.
