Chapter 160
Chapter 160 Why Are You So Contrarian?
They had encountered traps like this several times before, so by now, being caught in such a predicament hardly shocked Ling Mo.
However, time was of the essence in their situation. Even though he wanted to roast the Witch’s peculiar penchant for creating traps, he quickly began scanning the area for any potential escape routes.
Xia Xinyan walked straight up to the ghastly face painted on the wall and reached out to touch it.
The image was freshly painted, and as she touched it, some of the paint peeled off. Looking at the red unidentified liquid on her hand, Xia Xinyan’s expression turned puzzled.
This image… should it be a warning to players about a deadly trap here?
Then why was it freshly painted?
She had initially thought there might be some mechanism in this place, similar to the bloody handprint they had seen when they first entered the Witch’s Castle, but it seemed that this was merely a hint.
“I didn’t find an exit,” Ling Mo said gravely as he approached, “I don’t see any mechanisms on the walls around us, and the door we came in through has turned into a wall. There shouldn’t be an exit here.”
Even so, he still had a way to create an escape route, though it was a bit dangerous.
But why was there no escape here?
Xia Xinyan glanced around, about to say something when the rumbling around them suddenly quieted. Turning her head, they saw that the walls on either side had stopped compressing.
“…What’s going on?” Ling Mo frowned, “Are they not going to kill us?”
This time, he really didn’t understand.
Xia Xinyan furrowed her brow slightly, feeling increasingly strange.
It felt like she was overlooking something, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
Suppressing her thoughts for now, she said, “It seems they don’t plan to attack us, but they haven’t given us a way to leave either.”
“Then we need to come up with a way out,” Ling Mo thought for a moment and said, “I can use a bomb to blast a hole in front, but that could very well endanger us.”
He did have protective gear on his list, but those were either too large to use in this situation or too fragile to rely on.
Hearing this, Xia Xinyan seemed to recall something and grabbed the shield generator she had won in a previous lottery from her space watch. “This can protect us; you should give it a try.”
Even though it was a good item, there was no need to treat it like a precious treasure; it should be used when needed.
Ling Mo hesitated for a moment but nodded. “Alright.”
He manifested a moderately powered timed bomb and placed it against the innermost side of the wall they had entered through. This was to test whether the blast would penetrate the wall and also to prevent any potential harm to Liliya, who might still be behind the wall.
Once those preparations were done, Xia Xinyan set up the shield in the middle of the room, and the two of them huddled inside. Ling Mo then detonated the bomb.
With a loud bang, as the smoke cleared, a hole suitable for one person to pass through appeared.
“Phew… Lucky us, seems this wall isn’t very sturdy,” Ling Mo breathed a sigh of relief and stepped toward the hole.
Outside in the hall, Liliya was nowhere to be seen, but Ling Mo soon noticed a small… ventilation duct next to the grand door they had entered through.
It looked like it, but he wasn’t sure if the Witch’s Castle had such things—could it be an underground dog hole?
“Could Liliya have left through here?” Ling Mo muttered to himself in confusion.
Xia Xinyan crouched down and crawled into the duct first. “Let’s check it out; there’s no other way.”
Ling Mo hurriedly followed, “Be careful, don’t rush.”
However, there were no dangers inside the duct.
The duct was straight, and upon reaching the end, they emerged into another hall—it was quite lively. Besides Liliya, Tang Nian Nian and Hao Nan were present, along with someone named Wen.
And there was a horde of zombie-like monsters attacking them.
Xia Xinyan was about to jump in to help when the ground in front of her suddenly caved in, revealing sharp spikes underneath.
She halted her steps.
Hao Nan, who had transformed into his giant form and was hammering down on the zombies, immediately noticed her and Ling Mo, urgently warning, “Be careful, this ground is poorly constructed; it could cave in at any moment!”
Ling Mo quickly pulled Xia Xinyan back. “Let’s just watch from here; they can handle those monsters.”
Xia Xinyan tilted her head and glanced at him, then nodded. “Okay.”
It was a good opportunity to observe their current strengths.
Hao Nan’s brute strength was indeed impressive; with one swing, he could take out a monster and smash the ground around him—he really was a demolition expert, even making Wen furious enough to shout, “Can you not be so violent?! You’re almost breaking the ground!”
“What do you want me to do?!” Hao Nan swatted another zombie away, looking distressed, “My abilities are like this; what can I do?!”
“Come back! Let me handle it!” Wen directly shoved past him and charged at the crowd of zombies.
His abilities seemed to manipulate time, allowing him to slow down or speed up everything within a certain range. But it was really just a pseudo-time ability, unable to completely stop “time” or rewind it. Even after he set the speed, he would also be affected like everything else in the area, but with less impact.
So, it looked like an impressive skill, but it was clear he hadn’t mastered it yet. Therefore, his killing method looked quite silly—a slow-moving person swinging a sword at zombies that were already moving slowly, like an elderly person acting out a dark fairytale.
Among the three, Tang Nian Nian’s abilities were the most dazzling; the area around her was covered in ice and snow. Any monster that approached her would immediately be frozen into an ice sculpture and then shatter into fragments.
Ling Mo thought this girl must feel very comfortable in summer.
Meanwhile, Xia Xinyan surveyed the situation in the hall.
Aside from the duct they came through, there were several narrow paths that could only accommodate one person. At the front of the hall, there were two very grand doors—if only they had “Exit: Choose One” written above them.
—And then she watched as words appeared above the right door: “This door is the exit” in blood-red letters.
Xia Xinyan: “…”
Ling Mo was also dumbfounded, “Do they think we’re idiots?”
At this moment, Tang Nian Nian and the others had finished off the monsters and were looking at the words on the door with bizarre expressions.
“Do you think that’s true?” Hao Nan asked the others.
Wen shot him a sideways glance, “Of course it’s fake; do you think a game would give us such a straightforward hint for the escape route?”
“What if the game is playing psychological warfare with us? Making us think it’s false when it’s actually true.”
“How do you know it’s not a reverse psychological tactic? Making us think it’s true while in reality, it’s fake?”
“Why are you so contrarian?”
“……”
