Chapter 143: Long Hair

The puppet stopped at the second-floor staircase, its smooth black eyes looking down at the crowd from above, an invisible pressure spreading outward.

The next instant, the puppet transformed and expanded in place without any warning, becoming the red-haired, bow-wielding Princess Merida, who swiftly nocked an arrow and drew her bow, aiming at Byron.

Whoosh—

The arrow shot out, the sound of it tearing through the air sharp and piercing. Byron had no time to dodge and could only hastily change his move, summoning a Medusa snake from his sleeve and unleashing a petrifying gaze at the arrow.

The unremarkable wooden arrow, under the effect of the petrifying gaze, turned grey-white, its mass increased, causing its trajectory to shift, and it embedded itself into the marble floor in front of Byron by a hair's breadth.

Bang!

Several floor tiles shattered on the spot, and the flying debris struck Byron's head and body at extreme speed. He let out a muffled grunt, fresh blood streaming from the wound on his forehead.

Not stopping there, the red-haired Princess kept firing arrows, launching indiscriminate attacks at Byron, Li Cheng, Hui Yu, Su Jie, and the others, wantonly ravaging and destroying the hall, shattering pillar after pillar.

Byron, furious, shouted at Elliot: "Make her stop!"

He considered himself to be in the same camp as Elliot, did not care about the life or death of the others, and was willing to provide Elliot with tourist cards belonging to anyone other than himself; if necessary, he did not mind joining forces with Elliot and the Princess puppet to kill the remaining players.

This could be seen from how he had just ambushed Su Jie for the head-in-a-jar.

Yet Elliot paid no heed to Byron's shouting. He hung the language translator at his waist, drew a black briefcase from the void, and aimed the cannon-barrel side of the briefcase at Andrei.

Boom—

A cannon shell, a full circle thicker than the side of the briefcase, was "squeezed" out of the barrel and blasted forward—a distance sufficient to pierce through solid composite armor walls.

Facing the cannon shell, Andrei's figure suddenly vanished into thin air, reappearing three meters away, his feet stepping on a page of a book—when the Princess puppet had appeared, he had made his decision, tearing a page from the 【Inch-Span Scripture】 and tossing it into the shadows to serve as an anchor for his short-range teleportation.

The cannon shell flew past Andrei's afterimage, shattering a stone pillar; the explosion's flash blazed dazzlingly, the shockwave reverberating back and forth through the castle, briefly drowning out the shrill air-raid siren.

Dust trembled down, and pages from the 【Inch-Span Scripture】 scattered through the air, one of them drifting past just above Elliot's head.

Andrei teleported instantly to above Elliot's head, hanging upside down in mid-air, head up and feet down.

His long robe billowed violently, his feet treading on the page, two straight swords in his hands slicing diagonally, determined to cut off Elliot's head along with the fingers wearing the ring.

At this distance, Elliot had no time to swivel the cannon barrel, especially since the briefcase cannon had a cooldown time just like a self-propelled artillery piece.

He held his breath and focused, unleashing a skill toward Andrei above his head.

【Skill Name: Weapon Incandescence】

【Type: Psychic】

【Effect: Sensory Heating. Causes one enemy within line of sight to experience a realistic hallucination, making them believe the weapon in their hands is rapidly heating up, and to physically exhibit symptoms of being scalded, until the target enemy drops the weapon in their hands. Effect lasts up to 5 seconds】

【Cost: 250 Mana Points】

【Cooldown: 3 minutes】

【Note: This body is the bone of the sword. Steel is the body, and flame is the blood. The tide of blood is like iron, the heart like glass】

Hiss—

Though the straight swords were still those same straight swords, showing no signs of heating, beneath Andrei's gloves scorching smoke truly rose, and his skin turned blackened and charred.

An ordinary person at this moment, driven by physiological instinct, would subconsciously drop the weapon in their hands, interrupting the skill's effect.

Andrei ignored the pain in his palms; deep within his cold eyes rose an excited frenzy, and his hands suddenly accelerated, swinging his swords to slash at Elliot, who had hastily raised his arm to block.

The blades on the left and right cut through thick plush, the left one severing three fingers, the right one slicing deep into the neck, nearly cutting off Elliot's entire head.

Nearly.

Over a dozen strands of golden long hair descended from the ceiling, coiling like spider silk around Andrei's limbs, making it impossible for him to advance his sword even a fraction further.

Creak!

The golden hair binding Andrei's limbs all pulled together with force, tugging in different directions; Andrei was forced to activate the 【Inch-Span Scripture】 effect and teleport away, narrowly avoiding the fate of Shang Yang cut into five equal parts.

The broken puppet was seen to have transformed from the red-haired Princess Merida into a golden-haired, pink-skirted long-haired Princess. Behind her, golden long hair grew wildly, spilling onto the carpet, rapidly spreading and climbing along the walls and ceiling.

Like countless living ropes, they wound toward the several players.

The twice-humiliated Byron was nearly grinding his teeth to dust, driving his snake-taming art, summoning venomous snakes to spit corrosive venom at the surrounding golden hair;

Andrei swung his swords like the wind, hacking in rapid succession, severing the hair strands; Su Jie released a Golden Bell Shade phantom, enveloping the surroundings to resist the golden hair's strangulation;

Hui Yu, meanwhile, stood in place, her palm liquefying into a chainsaw, emitting a buzzing, sputtering sound, casually cutting away.

It could only transform into one Princess at a time, each Princess possessing different abilities.

His conjecture confirmed, Li Cheng gripped the nuclear lighter, flicked the cap open with his fingernail, turned it to the fourth setting, and sprayed fierce flames at the surrounding hair strands.

One of the Killing Game's rules: consumable items/skills of the same quality are, in the vast majority of cases, more powerful than non-consumable items/skills.

The nuclear lighter, as a consumable item, traded limited fuel for a higher tier of attack power.

Under the burning of the raging flames, the surrounding golden long hair curled and carbonized one after another, burning to ash.

Rumble rumble—

The castle's own pillars had already collapsed by several; now subjected to the波及 of successive battle aftershocks, they one after another发出 sounds of being unable to bear the load.

Seeing the castle about to collapse, Li Cheng expended a large amount of fuel, forcing back the golden hair surging in from all directions, and was the first to retreat toward the exit. The remaining players hurried to follow, leaving only Elliot, his neck half-severed, and the long-haired Princess behind in the continuously collapsing castle.

The moment they stepped outside, Byron immediately drove his snake-taming method, remotely controlling the blind snake left at the air-raid siren, turning the valve and shutting off the air-raid siren.

The shrill alarm sound stopped abruptly, and the entire castle vanished in an instant, revealing the scenery of the 【Future World】 zone.

The sunset on the horizon was still descending, with only about ten minutes left before nightfall. Li Cheng closed his eyes, his brain rapidly calculating, mapping out the park's layout.

"This hair is quite pretty." Hui Yu plucked severed hair from her chainsaw—the golden strands were resplendent in color, soft and lustrous, rivaling shampoo commercials loaded with special effects. Even a salon "Tony" couldn't find fault with it.

"You can talk?!" Su Jie, who was picking up the head jar from the ground, was startled; he had assumed Hui Yu was some kind of non-intelligent summoned creature or avatar.

"What? You're surprised?" Hui Yu, dressed in a Daoist robe just like Li Cheng but entirely grey-white, glanced at Su Jie. "You look down on avatars? You think avatars don't have the right to speak? Deserve to be oppressed by this human-rights-system society? Hearing this makes me so angry I tremble all over, sweating cold sweat head to toe in this hot weather, my hands and feet ice-cold—can this society get any better? What do you people want from us avatars before you're satisfied."

As a liquid-metal robot, Hui Yu didn't need sleep to maintain full energy, and the extra time each day was spent surfing the internet.

"No, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way." Cold sweat broke out on Su Jie's forehead; he hurriedly shook his head in denial, casting a sidelong glance at Li Cheng.

Judging by this one's level of abstraction, the saying "a pet resembles its master" really is true.

"I accept your apology, but accepting ≠ approving. As compensation for mental damages, you'll pay me eight hundred thousand or so—just transfer it to him." Hui Yu pointed at Li Cheng, her mind already beginning to fantasize about how to splurge once she got the money—first buy a top-spec computer, then a game console, a lazy sofa, a water bed, a massage chair, and best to also get a fridge so she could grab corn juice anytime.

Byron's facial muscles twitched slightly as he stared at Li Cheng and said hoarsely: "So what do we do now? You refused to hand the tourist card to Elliot to let him release us. We're still trapped here!"

"You're wrong." Li Cheng opened his eyes and said calmly, "It's not only us who want to leave this place."

Bai Lang was stunned. "What?"

The air-raid siren sounded once more, and the half-collapsed castle re-emerged in the void.

(End of chapter)