“So powerful...” a faint voice drifted from behind him.
Zuo Lin'an remained motionless.
He had already sensed a very faint specter aura quietly approaching him from behind, but he was familiar with this aura, so he didn't care at all.
Xu Youyou lowered his voice.
“I saw it just now. The grade director was stabbed to death with a staff by Gu Hedao. That was a specter item. It disappeared after use, so it should be a single-use item.”
“His speed was incredibly fast just now, silent and almost like he was drifting over. The grade director was busy killing other players and didn't react at all.”
“His talent is 【One-Thought Breeze】, which allows him to turn into a gentle breeze, but he probably didn't use his talent just now.”
Zuo Lin'an replied, “Of course. The Scarlet Dream has only just begun. Special talents are among the players' trump cards; they wouldn't use them so easily.”
Xu Youyou's expression turned serious at this moment.
“True. And the academic building has already quieted down. A small portion of the players who ran out earlier have now fled back inside. I have to admit, when so many players gather together, they truly are a terrifying force.”
Right now, there were at least a hundred and twenty or thirty players in the academic building, and at least a hundred of them had trump cards and combat capabilities.
The two of them were also quite cautious at this moment, concealing their figures as they hid in a corner. As they conversed, a specter aura isolated their movements, ensuring they wouldn't be discovered by those players.
Zuo Lin'an pondered before speaking, “Calculating the time, the dream has only been active for a little over ten minutes, yet all the specters in the academic building area have already been dealt with.”
“I doubt other places are faring any better.”
Xu Youyou asked again, “What are those cards? I saw them drop after players repelled the specters earlier. How come I didn't know about this?”
Hearing him say this, Zuo Lin'an knew he hadn't carefully read the section of the materials regarding the Scarlet Dream, so he briefly explained it to him.
“Oh!”
“So that's how it is. Should we go snatch them then?”
Zuo Lin'an thought about it and shook his head for now.
“I thought so too at first, but then I realized that we are NPCs after all. We don't even know if we can take the cards out of the Scarlet Dream after snatching them.”
“Therefore, we cannot treat snatching cards as our primary objective. If there's an opportunity, we can try to snatch one to test it out. If it doesn't work, we'll just have to honestly hunt down the players.”
Xu Youyou asked, “Alright, so who do we kill first?”
Zuo Lin'an replied, “Don't act rashly for now. These players are all huddling inside the academic building and refusing to come out.”
“There are at least nearly a hundred veteran players with combat capability inside. The moment a specter appears, if just a few of them pull out some specter items, you'll definitely die.”
“As for me...”
“The special effect of my gold hairpin only protects me from being repelled. If they use other things—like pinning me in place for a few seconds, or confusing my sense of direction, perception, and so on—it won't help.”
“If those players each control me for a few seconds and scramble my perception a few times, the two hours will pass just like that.”
Xu Youyou scratched his head. “That's true, but we can't just wait here forever, can we?”
Zuo Lin'an said, “Weren't there many running wild around the campus earlier?”
“In any case, the players who entered the dream are all considered to have triggered the Death Rule. No matter where they hide, we can sense them. You can go hunt those isolated players now.”
“As for this place... I'll observe for a bit first.”
Xu Youyou was somewhat worried.
“Are you going in? There are bound to be players with the 【Spirit Vision】 talent inside. Hiding here with cover prevents them from seeing us even if they activate Spirit Vision.”
“But if you want to go inside... it's probably impossible.”
As he spoke, he pointed toward the academic building.
Zuo Lin'an nodded slowly.
“I see them.”
Just now, he had already seen several players standing casually along the corridors, their eyes occasionally turning dark gold.
That was the external manifestation of activating the Spirit Vision talent.
In other words, the players had already treated Academic Building No. 5 as their defensive stronghold, arranging players to monitor whether any specters were approaching.
Under such circumstances, even if he concealed his figure to draw near, he would still be seen through by 【Spirit Vision】.
One had to know that using 【Spirit Vision】 had absolutely no limits or cooldowns; it merely consumed mental energy.
To be fair, even so, players couldn't keep it active for extended periods within a short timeframe. Otherwise, with their mental energy overdrawn, they wouldn't have an easy time either.
However, the players were no fools.
These players with the 【Spirit Vision】 talent took turns. To ensure they could safely pass the next two hours, they needed to conserve their mental energy as much as possible.
Thus, whenever it was their turn, they would only activate 【Spirit Vision】 for one or two seconds. Once they confirmed there were no specters, they would deactivate the talent.
After observing, Zuo Lin'an discovered that after everyone completed a full rotation, they would all get to rest for a period of time.
During this period, other players would sharpen their vigilance and patrol the corridors.
If Zuo Lin'an wanted to go in, he could actually use this window to sneak inside quietly.
Of course, there were too many veteran players inside, and some might possess bizarre specter items capable of detecting hidden specters.
Still, he leaned toward the belief that as long as no specter was detected, they wouldn't waste their life-saving methods.
Therefore, the probability of being exposed during the infiltration was quite low.
Then again, that wasn't quite right either.
Zuo Lin'an felt a bit of a headache.
Because he suddenly remembered that there were many martial artists in this academic building. There were quite a few of even the strongest Xiantian Rank ones, and there were easily a dozen or twenty First-Rate ones.
Even if he restrained all of his specter aura, these people would most likely still detect something unusual.
What should he do?
Xu Youyou withdrew his gaze from the academic building.
“Brother An, I'll leave this place for you to watch for now. There are some isolated players hiding in the other empty academic buildings. I'll go take them out first.”
“If there's an opportunity later, I'll head over to the administrative building to check on the principal. So many players rushed in there just now, I wonder how he is doing.”
Zuo Lin'an muttered under his breath.
“The principal?”
“I recall that in the Scarlet Dream, the principal appears as an ordinary person?”
Xu Youyou nodded.
“Yes. Only when a player kills the principal while he's an ordinary person will he transform into a specter. At that point, the true final boss of the Scarlet Dream will make his official appearance.”
“The entire Scarlet Dream is the property of the specter principal. Thus, the principal can enter and exit any place, killing any player. Even if he is repelled, he can rapidly regenerate in the administrative building in no more than five seconds.”
“So, I'm actually looking forward to these players killing the principal sooner.”
Zuo Lin'an cast a glance toward the administrative building.
“Calculating the time, several minutes have already passed since those players entered the administrative building.”
They must have already met the principal. After all, he was right there in the principal's office and wouldn't hide. Yet, there was no movement from that direction.
Rate on N.U.
