Chapter 734: Chapter 488: The Ancient Castle
The pursuers did not know that the previous night, all the hiders had not transformed into inanimate objects, but instead had uniformly taken the form of the pursuers themselves, thus gaining the ability to attack the pursuers.
After sunrise, the hiders formed small squads and started reaching out to the pursuers in various ways to build relationships. They then devised plans to disperse the pursuers and took the opportunity to kill them off.
Since the vast majority of the pursuers had run out of their food supplies, it meant that they really only had the morning left for hunting. This made most pursuers less tense as they awaited the end of the game, expecting the roles to switch afterward.
Exactly because of this, facing the unsuspecting pursuers, the hiders coordinated with each other, employing a strategy of luring the tiger away from the mountain. They typically earned the pursuers’ trust quite easily and led them to isolated places to eliminate them.
The hiders, having succeeded time after time, naturally selected Dong Tianyu, who was alone, as their next target.
Initially, Dong Tianyu didn’t pay much attention to those hiders. Although he had encountered a hider capable of taking on a pursuer’s form at the beginning, it only happened once, and he hadn’t encountered any after that.
This time, when invited by others, Dong Tianyu thought that since the game was about to end, it wouldn’t hurt to go along and see.
However, the cautious Dong Tianyu always observed his surroundings using Divine Sense, and upon discovering that some pursuers were preparing to attack him, he didn’t hesitate to fight back and kill those who showed hostility towards him.
When Dong Tianyu took preemptive action and killed the pursuers ready to ambush him, it was only after earning reward points that he confirmed those pursuers were actually hiders in disguise.
Even though he was aware of this fact, Dong Tianyu did not actively inform others. Although he was supposed to be teammates with the other pursuers, he was well aware that in the Bloody Mysterious Realm, there was no such thing as a double victory. In the end, only one person could get the Blood-Colored Mysterious Core.
It was precisely for this reason that Dong Tianyu usually preferred not to have too much contact with others during the competition. After all, the deeper the relationship, the harder it became to face them when it was time to turn swords against each other.
Just as Dong Tianyu found a quiet spot to wait for time to run out and prepare to concede and leave, other areas of the mansion were experiencing episodes of assassination and counter-assassination.
Whether they were hiders or pursuers, many were acquainted with each other, but most were still strangers.
This was why hiders, once they had transformed into pursuers, could integrate so easily into the pursuers’ groups.
Since most of the hiders used ambush tactics to take down the pursuers, the number of survivors among the pursuers rapidly diminished under the hiders’ assassinations.
As the death toll of pursuers rose, some smart individuals spotted the problem, and more and more people began to distrust their allies, fearing they might be killed by their own companions in an unguarded moment.
Though now it was possible to concede and go back earlier, the survivors who made it here, whether they were categorized as pursuers or hiders, still had very strong resolve.
And those who chose to enter the Bloody Mysterious Realm were no easy opponents; otherwise, they wouldn’t have ventured into the Secret Realm willingly.
So now, many pursuers, upon realizing that hiders could transform into other pursuers and actively attack them, not only weren’t scared, but some were actually delighted.
They had been worried about not finding enough hiders, and now they realized that the hiders would actually reveal themselves and launch attacks.
At this point, the pursuers on the field no longer distinguished whether someone was a true pursuer or a hider disguised as one. As long as a stranger approached, regardless of their camp, they were eventually an adversary. So even a mistaken attack meant eliminating a future competitor.
Aside from some who wisely chose to stay out of harm’s way, both pursuers and hiders began to engage in a melee. Under the current circumstances, everyone’s mindset was to first knock down anything that moved, regardless of whether they were allies or not.
This chaos caused the already dwindling number of survivors to further decrease. When the clock hit noon, whether they were pursuers or hiders, everyone fell into a state of unconsciousness.
This time, Dong Tianyu didn’t last long before he too succumbed to slumber.
When Dong Tianyu woke up, he understood that the roles had changed; in this round, he was a hider.
Unlike the previous Jiangnan garden-like setting, this round’s game was set in a castle, and compared to the previous garden, the castle was much smaller.
At that moment, a map of the entire castle appeared before Dong Tianyu, and the target he had transformed into this time was a set of Human-shaped Armor.
Fortunately, the setting was a castle this time; had a set of Armor suddenly appeared in the garden, it would have been noticeably suspicious.
Learning from previous experiences, Dong Tianyu wouldn’t make himself an easy target by hiding right at the entrance. The idea that the most dangerous place is the safest is just plain wrong; deliberately seeking danger isn’t bravery, it’s folly.
