Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!

Chapter 2462

(Wait a moment to modify) Xu Huo could feel that force entering the underground cave, and it remained without dissipating for a long time. Shortly after, a breeze swept across his face, as if guiding the direction.He turned around to look at the tangled tree roots above the cave and drew out the Black Blade to sever them.

With a rumbling sound, a heap of mud spewed out like vomit, lavishly covering most of the cave floor, almost burying Xu Huo’s Defense Prop barrier.

After the outside calmed down, Xu Huo and the Girl in the painting flipped onto the nearby tree roots.

"What a sweet scent." The Girl in the painting took a deep breath, "That mud soaked in the tree is especially fragrant."

Xu Huo had smelled that odor when he came down; it should be a kind of hypnotic gas. Death isn’t a pleasant thing, but these gases can make the process a bit more bearable.

Whether locals or players, the corpses show few obvious injuries on the surface, and being able to face death so peacefully might be related to these gases.

"There’s something under the mud!" The Girl in the painting suddenly excitedly turned her head and mouthed at him, then jumped down, fumbling in the mud, and raised something in each hand.

In her right hand was a fully preserved Instance Authorization Document, and in her left hand was a green gemstone.

Xu Huo grabbed these two items, and his personal panel showed a prompt:

[Instance Authorization Document: "Hidden Friend" Instance Authorization Document. Destroying this document can cause the instance to collapse immediately. Taking the Instance Authorization Document out of the dungeon venue can indefinitely halt the instance.]

[Eternal Slumber Core: An S-rank special healing potion naturally born within the instance, possessing incredibly potent effects that grant a dying person a glimmer of hope. Just by placing it in the mouth, anyone will enter a brief slumber state, and no pain can awaken them until it is fully consumed. Note, this potion is a one-time use item.]

The Instance Authorization Document isn’t particularly rare. Xu Huo placed the Eternal Slumber Core under the light for a closer look. It seems like a gemstone but feels soft, more like a result of compressing some kind of fibrous material.

Not giving a dying person a glimmer of hope, the effect is similar to a potent potion capable of rapid recovery, according to the description,

*

The first rule is that the instance’s member count has become 20.

"I don’t know about this." Xu Huo said.

"I’ll try." She indeed wanted to take a knife and scrape the skin on Bubble Bean’s forehead.

"Alright," Xu Huo stopped her, "Don’t mess with him; we still need to go somewhere."

The Girl in the painting rose with some regret, casually using her foot to brush aside leaves on the ground, covering the person again, then followed Xu Huo, asking, "Where are we going?"

"To where the instance hides people," Xu Huo said.

Although players can safely pass the instance without killing, the instance will periodically take away locals, and those missing people are likely all dead.

The concept of "Hidden Friend" regarding "death" and "longing" might differ from humans, so aside from the elderly, it occasionally calls upon young people too. Whether the whole process is entirely voluntary, no one knows, but it certainly has a place dedicated to "hiding people."

Which is the burial site.

When he followed the Bubble Bean along with the instance’s force fluctuations to this vicinity, he sensed there was a rather large cavity underground, but it was slightly deep and easy to miss if not careful.

"This is it." Xu Huo chose a suitable location for the robot to create a passageway down.

A few minutes later, the two descended to a position fifty meters underground.

The robot burrowed into a massive root stem, and strangely, this stem was hollow, allowing people to easily pass through it. Following this root stem, it didn’t take long to reach the core of the cavity.

A hole was opened on the stem, releasing a unique fragrant aroma that rushed over.

Xu Huo put on a full-body Protective Suit and jumped out from the stem, landing on the underground rocks.

The place was indeed vast, nearly a hundred meters deep, longitudinally stretching several hundred meters, looking like some special plant roots had hollowed out the underground rocks and replaced them, thus intertwining dragon-like root stems everywhere. The hanging root hairs connect with each other, and crawl all over the rock surface of the cavity.

Xu Huo noticed some undulations covered by root hairs, and when he approached and uncovered them, there was a human figure curled beneath.

Uncertain of how much time had elapsed, this person along with his clothing had been eroded by some special substance, becoming as fragile as paper, while the body itself had been entirely absorbed by these plant root hairs, leaving behind a shell.

"There’s one here too!" The Girl in the painting called out to him from not far away.

Xu Huo glanced over, she found a deceased player, judging by the condition of the corpse, likely not from this instance.

Such human figure elevations were numerous, almost covering the entire cavity, and in some places, it was evident that more than one person was layered.

"Were they hidden by the big tree?" The Girl in the painting didn’t care about the instance but knew the content from hearing other players talk about it.

Xu Huo inspected the surrounding rocks, trying to fathom the dramatic changes in soil and rock evolution that led to this forest’s mutation into such a form, but unfortunately, he didn’t find any suitable Secondary Stone for props.

"There’s a lot of mud here." The Girl in the painting carelessly stepped on the root hairs, pulling out a foot covered in dark wet mud. In some places in the cave, water seeped out, and where there was soil, it formed these small mud ponds.

Xu Huo circled around finding nothing of value, then took out paper and a pen, employing the Characteristics of "Home Field View."

Earlier content didn’t have much to observe, mainly his experiences within the instance, but later parts held significance.

"...When Xu Huo led Bubble Bean deep into the forest, he believed he was sensing a unique magnetic force or spatial power within the instance. However, little did he know that during his walk, a shadowy figure followed him not too closely nor too distantly; he saw with his eyes but failed to distinguish whether the shadowy figures differed from other plant-like shadows."

"Nevertheless, when he entered the underground cave, that shadow didn’t follow..."

...

"Feeling some frustration due to the lack of findings beyond corpses in the cave, Xu Huo’s frustration stemmed entirely from a lack of knowledge. If he recalled the comprehensive guide on Mutant Plants he’d recently read, he’d realize that that wet mud was ideal for cultivating Mutant Plants."

Without hesitation, Xu Huo filled several buckets with mud and put them in the cargo hold. The seed initially extracted from Dou Shengnan’s eye needed nutrients.

Just as he was about to leave, a gentle breeze brushed across his face, causing him to halt, because the words on the paper continued:

"...The shadowy figure came before Xu Huo’s eyes."

Xu Huo squinted, roughly understanding. The "Home Field View" mentions the shadowy figure, likely the instance venue’s power, or the real "Hidden Friend." It might occasionally masquerade as a shadowy figure, or it could be formless. Why did it follow him?