Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 679: Anyone Who Sees the Eyes Must Die

Chapter 679: Chapter 679: Anyone Who Sees the Eyes Must Die

"Both of their eyes had been gouged out, their brains and internal organs drained dry; only a flap of skin was left of their upper bodies," Fang Penghui said. "I’ve been here for four days, and this is the first time I’ve encountered a player who died like this."

Before this, players, aside from those killed by other players, would just disappear without a trace, with no way to find where their bodies went.

To be discarded so carelessly in such a place was a first.

It seemed to carry more of a warning ... Xu Huo pondered for a moment and then said, "Isn’t there a player who has been here for six days in the instance? Maybe he knows what’s going on."

"Brother Fang, why beat around the bush with him!" a square-faced player with a temper snapped, "That guy is crazy; you can’t get anything out of him. The only ones who know what’s going on are this man and woman. If it wasn’t something in the instance that killed them, then these two are the Cannibal Player, creating this scene on purpose to cover their own tracks!"

"If they refuse to talk, kill them, the Cannibal Player. Killing him would mean one less danger for everyone!"

"Are you sure?" Xu Huo wasn’t keen on resorting to violence right now. "Before the end of the month, the number of players here is finite; a few go missing every day, and one fewer means the odds increase for each of us. Do you think you, with your intelligence, can survive the seven days?"

The square-faced man looked like he was about to explode, but Fang Penghui stopped him. "What do you mean before the end of the month?"

"The hotel’s registry; it gets wiped clean at the end of each month," Xu Huo said. "The players don’t check into the instance at the same time, so there’s no chance everyone can clear it simultaneously, and it’s not possible that the checked-in players had agreed to stay somewhere together. So, the instance will probably purge everything at the end of the month; I doubt any player will escape."

"Looking at the time, that would be the day after tomorrow, and your seven-day instance period wouldn’t be up by then, right?"

Fang Penghui’s face turned grim, his wariness toward Xu Huo slightly diminished. "You’re right, I also noticed the thing with the registry. Those who came before us were all safe, but a change occurred yesterday. Even if players camp in the hotel and don’t step out, avoiding potential triggers for disappearances, most likely they won’t survive till the instance ends."

"That’s exactly why I want to know what really happened last night."

"I really have no clue," Xu Huo said. "The two of them ran into danger first. Yi Pei and I heard the noise and that’s why we doubled back to the hotel. The only thing I’m sure of is that it was over for them in a few seconds, with absolutely no chance to fight back."

"You didn’t see what killed them?" the square-faced man couldn’t help but inquire further.

Xu Huo gave him a look. "Would you rush in to see? There was no time to escape, let alone investigate, and the fog was too thick. You couldn’t see much beyond two or three meters."

That much was obvious to all, as several players involuntarily looked toward the gloomy sky before Fang Penghui added, "The instance won’t let us off just because we follow the rules. The best approach is to contact all the players and confront the instance together."

His eyes fixed on Xu Huo. "Since the hotel is cleared out at the end of each month, it means players who came before didn’t make it through either. A combined effort is better than going at it alone."

"I wasn’t planning on clearing the instance by myself," Xu Huo lifted his injured hand, "I’m not in any condition to do so; but can you convince the other players?"

With people going missing every day and the knowledge that there’s an even greater danger lurking within the instance, wouldn’t sticking together as players potentially bring the danger sooner?

"Convincing the majority will do... we’ll have to leave a few as cannon fodder," Fang Penghui shrugged his shoulders. "So, let’s agree on that and meet in the hotel lobby."

Having said his piece, he left with his group, but halfway through, two people split from the team and followed Xu Huo at a distance.

Xu Huo didn’t mind and proceeded to check the nearby bushes for footprints according to yesterday’s route before examining the couple’s bodies.

The corpses had been covered with grass by Fang Penghui and his group; lifting the cover revealed an odor, not the smell of decay but that of the contents of the internals.

He felt the corpse’s skull, torso, and limbs; naturally, the eyes were gone, and there were no bones left in the head or belly, with only some internal matter in the abdominal cavity. The muscles and bones of the hands and feet were still intact, though somewhat atrophied.

With the skull, internal organs, and most of the bodily fluids missing, the corpse weighed less than a third of its original weight—could it be that the corpses that appeared in the forest yesterday had been hollowed out?

There was no scent of the living, no footprints left in the forest, and the number was considerable.

Even if it were half a corpse, it couldn’t just appear out of nowhere. Where would such a quantity be hidden on a regular basis?

After a moment’s thought, he took out the Screaming Chicken and had it continue along yesterday’s path.

Passing through the forest, one man and one chicken arrived at the edge of the pond, where the Screaming Chicken no longer moved forward but started to pace in circles on the spot.

After the administrator’s disappearance, he came to the pond.

Gazing at the misty water before him, Xu Huo took out a surveillance orb from the luggage compartment and tossed it into the lake, guiding it to sink.

The surveillance orb, which he had brought from Zone 011, was waterproof, of course, but since it was portable, it couldn’t dive too deep.

However, to his surprise, the surveillance orb touched the bottom less than ten meters down. He put on his glasses, fitted on the Oxygen Supply, and then remotely maneuvered the orb to move from side to side.

There was a stone platform underwater, about ten meters across, which must have once been a flat road, with deeper water on both sides. The light didn’t reach the bottom, but this road seemed to start from this side of the pond, pointing toward the other side.

There must have been people living on the other side of the pond, at least before the road was submerged.

The game background mentioned that Sifang Palace City had reduced in size many times. Could it be the abandoned areas were all isolated on the other side of the pond?

With this thought, Xu Huo felt an unsettling sense of incongruity within.

The buildings in the county town showed no traces of transition. The people here were believers, so there should have been some religious marks left intact. Rather than remnants of Sifang Palace City, it seemed more likely that they had simply built a New City in a different place.

The disappeared players and the deceased from the county town all ended up in the pond, indicating that the Sifang Palace City referred to in the instance couldn’t just be this small area of the county town—the missing players should be within the surface-abandoned parts of Sifang Palace City proper.

Turning back toward the direction of the county town, Xu Huo furrowed his brow, meaning that having spent two or three days here, they were merely circling the entrance of Sifang Palace City, without having touched the core of the instance.

As he was contemplating whether to cross the pond to take a look, thick smoke suddenly rose from the direction of the county town. The hotel was on fire.

He folded his umbrella and shook off the two people tailing him, rushing back to the county town as fast as he could. By the time he arrived, half of the hotel was already ablaze, and two or three players were forcibly holding someone down in front of the hotel entrance.

"This madman!" A player with a square face, unable to bear the bite he received, delivered a punch to the person on the ground.

The delirious player had completely forgotten how to use his abilities and tools, struggling frantically with brute force. After being hit, he cried out in panic, "Eyes! Eyes everywhere! Everyone who sees the eyes will die!"

Xu Huo slowed his pace; this person was the only player who had survived until the sixth day in this instance.