The music continued without stopping well into the night. People who had come from the county and those already in this rediscovered medieval city halted their parades and began the sacrificial celebrations.
Both the dead and the living walked through the city like ordinary people. At first glance it looked no different from a normal festival, except that now and then a half-body of a corpse could be seen lying in an alley or by the roadside.
Xu Huo arrived near the square palace.
The palace was built on a massive platform raised more than ten meters above the city. A plaque above the main gate bore the three characters "Sifang Palace." It had four levels in total, each level guarded by sword-bearing Black-Armored Soldiers, and six Black-Armored Soldiers stood before the main gate. On the wide terrace in front of the main entrance, which had occasionally echoed with sound earlier, a Black-Armored Soldier stood on each side.
There were plenty of zealous worshippers gathered beneath the palace platform. Although clearly irrational, some even tried to climb the platform and rush into the palace.
Of course they were beaten back by the Black-Armored Soldiers. If someone was accidentally killed, the corpse would be dragged into the palace in full view of the crowd, without causing the slightest dispute.
Xu Huo stood on a building not far from the palace. Seeing this, his brow twitched. He took out his Similarity Seeker, and the distribution of items within two hundred meters instantly appeared on the screen.
Although the palace directly ahead could not be fully included, the information he obtained was sufficient.
The drum and the Black-Armored Soldiers were, unsurprisingly, items, and both were C-grade Items. At the palace gate there were two items, one C-grade Item and one B-grade Item. They could not be seen from outside, so they were likely placed inside the hall.
A stacked item data entry suddenly appeared in the corner of the screen. He followed the bearing and discovered a Black-Armored Soldier walking toward the palace.
A true Black-Armored Soldier carried only two or three items. This one, however, had mostly D-grade and E-grade items on him—clearly a player disguised as a Black-Armored Soldier.
Xu Huo stood by the railing and watched the impostor confidently walk through the gate. The instant the impostor stepped inside, the gate closed automatically behind him. A red light shone through the wooden lattice windows, and in the next second the Black-Armored Soldier suddenly struck the drum with a hammer. The sound wave released from the drum made people dizzy; even with headphones blocking hearing, vision went dark.
Under the dizziness, Xu Huo involuntarily moved toward the palace. Several players mixed in the crowd were also walking forward.
Under the drumbeat the worshipping crowd had frozen. The few players who moved became especially conspicuous. People turned back, stared at them, then reached out and tore at their bodies. One player, still not fully aware, had his limbs ripped off on the spot, and the crowd even began biting them!
With that level of strength, they were clearly not ordinary NPCs from the dungeon; these were players!
Xu Huo who regained clarity immediately retreated until he reached the city entrance.
Judging by the drumbeat’s reach, this was the safest place in the entire city.
Of course, from a distance perspective, returning to the county would have been safer, but the county—now deserted—likely held other dangers.
More stacked item data appeared on the Similarity Seeker, and Xu Huo turned and moved toward the woods outside the city.
Black-Shirted Player, Fu Danhong, Yi Pei, Fang Penghui, and the others were now hiding in the grass, watching the stone road shrouded in Heavy Fog.
After slipping away from the Black-Armored Soldiers, they had abandoned plans to defeat the Dungeon Boss and intended to retreat to the county to ride out the dungeon’s duration. But Black-Armored Soldiers patrolled from high vantage points across the city, and the stone road could be seen from every direction. Stepping onto it would make them sitting targets, so they had crouched nearby and hid until now.
It had only just turned dark, and as the center of the sacrificial activity shifted, fewer people remained near the entrance. The Black-Armored Soldiers came by less often, so they decided to wait until nightfall and then take a look.
Just as they were watching for a chance, several figures suddenly appeared on the stone road through the thick fog. Hearing the regular footfalls, their faces changed. When the figures drew closer, they were indeed Black-Armored Soldiers, each carrying several corpses—undeniably the players who had earlier fled back to the county!
Black-Shirted Player used an invisibility item and said to the others, "It looks like there’s no hiding from the Black-Armored Soldiers anywhere. The dungeon will probably harvest all the players during these two days of sacrifice."
"Every time the drum sounds, the dizziness intensifies," Yi Pei said with a grave look. "I’m afraid we’ll be controlled before the sacrifices end."
"I don’t know what other tricks the dungeon still has up its sleeve," Fu Danhong said. "Instead of waiting to be slaughtered, we might as well join forces and poke the hornet’s nest..."
"Who goes there!" Before she finished, Yi Pei suddenly leaped up, her eyes sharp as she stared into the trees behind them.
The others quickly spread out; if they hadn’t been mindful of nearby Black-Armored Soldiers, they would have reacted immediately.
Xu Huo stored his invisibility item and stepped out from behind a tree.
The group visibly relaxed. Fu Danhong said, "I didn’t expect you to still be alive."
Yi Pei couldn’t make out faces at that distance, but with Xu Huo standing before her she could recognize his silhouette and asked, "Did you come from the Sifang Palace side?"
Xu Huo signaled for them to stay low. "I saw the Black-Armored Soldiers coming from the county. The road back to the county won’t work. We can only stay in Sifang Palace City."
They all understood. Fang Penghui pointed to his bloodshot eyes and said, "The longer we stay in the dungeon, the more it affects us. I was lucky to get here, but I probably won’t make it through seven days."
"You’d better hang on," Xu Huo said. "Those players who didn’t die earlier are now jammed at the Sifang Palace gate waiting to be eaten. They’ve already divided three living people among them."
Fang Penghui’s expression went blank. "That information is useless to me."
"This is very important," Xu Huo said. "The three players who died entered the dungeon earlier than I did. They could clear it as early as tomorrow night. Compared to me, they will find it harder to stay conscious under the drumbeats."
"In other words, reducing risk depends on two factors: first, the shorter your time inside the dungeon, the better; second, it’s best not to hear the drumbeat."
Fang Penghui understood. "If I were standing in front of Sifang Palace now, I’d just be waiting to die."
"The drumbeats have intervals," Black-Shirted Player said. "I did a rough estimate; each drumbeat interval is fairly consistent."
"Around ten minutes," Yi Pei added.
"But the impact of each drumbeat grows worse each time," Fu Danhong said. "And we can’t guarantee the drum will only sound every ten minutes."
"The drum isn’t the main issue," Xu Huo revealed information that made the others even more desperate. "What really affects people should be inside the Sifang Palace. There’s red light inside the palace; the eye that creates the illusion is likely inside Sifang Palace, or maybe the whole Sifang Palace might be an item."
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