Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!

As the player level increases, the ways to enter a dungeon become more varied. For example, the last Melissa instance only officially started after he encountered the zoned personnel.

Location, characters, all might become triggers for the dungeon. However, others have already entered Xi City, and the dungeon has yet to be triggered. Perhaps location and people are not the key, or he chose the wrong place, or the dungeon is activated in another way?

Xu Huo casually picked a dungeon entrance, "Let’s go here."

He took the girl in the painting, but he did not approach the entrance directly. Instead, he chose to observe the situation from a thousand meters away.

Indeed, there were some Outer Zone players lingering near the entrance, but no one entered recklessly. Probably because even near the dungeon, it did not start. Some players came and left swiftly, with personnel replacement happening quickly.

"Is the stuff in the handbook fake? Nobody believes it," the girl in the painting said.

It’s uncertain whether it’s fake, but there’s no guarantee it’s entirely true either. Not to mention the random instances; accidentally entering another ticket instance makes catching up with one’s own dungeon very difficult.

"Let’s look again," Xu Huo was about to turn around but suddenly saw a blaze in the city’s center. A blast erupted, toppling buildings along two or three streets. Simultaneously, several players in white robes leaped into the air and started fighting visibly with a dozen players from The Shadow Eater Sect.

The players dressed in white robes belonged to another religious faction within the city. Both parties fought without regard for others in the city, not suppressing their powers and not using props to minimize the collateral damage, utterly unconcerned for the lives of ordinary people at the battle’s center.

Cries and calls for help originated from there, but quickly dwindled. As the battle scale grew, these desperate sounds fluctuated several times.

"Let’s go," Xu Huo said to the girl in the painting.

As they were about to leave, suddenly someone charged from in front. Perhaps lost in the fervor of battle, seeing the girl stepping on Xu Huo’s shadow, the newcomer’s long knife swiftly cut a "ten" shape, with the "ten" light extending a hundred meters far, enveloping even the entire building where Xu Huo and the girl were.

"Boom!" The light divided the building into three sections, the upper half’s attack blocked by Xu Huo’s defense prop. He didn’t intend to tangle with this person, taking the girl, stepping two kilometers further away.

Somewhat unexpectedly, a member of The Shadow Eater Sect pursued him.

"Nobody in Xi City is allowed to break The Shadow Eater Sect’s rules!" the opponent uttered the words of a fanatic, and gathered several companions. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Xu Huo looked at the approaching group, curiously asking, "Bringing outsiders into internal conflicts, not afraid of the trouble outweighing the benefits?"

The player replied, "Household matters need handling, and clueless guests need dealing with."

"That’s reasonable," Xu Huo nodded slightly, "Your turf, your rules, requesting compliance is justified."

"However," he paused, looked back at the group, "I just established a rule that any cultists of The Shadow Eater Sect appearing in my sight must be dead."

The expressions of several people changed, then furiously struck out.

Xu Huo didn’t plan to face them all at once, expanding the spiritual world, slicing them into different mental spaces, utilizing materialized items and spatial rays along with "Everything Wants to Slice." The battle ended swiftly.

The girl in the painting watched cheerfully, pointing to one side, "Look there, look there, kill them all!"

Xu Huo turned around, but the few spectators had already fled—C11-011 players are skilled in combat, but that doesn’t mean they knowingly send themselves to die for no reason.

The chaos in Xi City likely wouldn’t end soon. As they left the city, they saw many people fleeing. However, the aliens outside were not completely cleared, so ordinary people could only temporarily escape the city.

Alongside, there were many Outer Zone players also retreating. Some headed to more distant cities, while others, like Xu Huo, chose the nearest Ye City.

Ye City’s atmosphere felt slightly eerie. Upon entering the city, floating high up were light screens inscribed with words like "Congratulations on Zhao Shouming’s next funeral arrangement," "General Wang receives twenty-one golden coffins, Pan Ren sends special congratulations from Fuxiang Building," or "I will host a housewarming banquet at six tomorrow evening and specially invite One-eyed Sister of Lotus Street to attend with family," etc. The city’s buildings looked like blocks of tofu, piece after piece collectively representing different factions. A street or intersection could be divided among three or five factions. It seems those word screens might be mutual mockery between the factions, rather like yelling insults at each other openly.

The streets were crowded, but many were wounded, both players and ordinary people. For instance, the factions who just fought outside the city now stood off at the hospital’s entrance, vying for beds, neither side willing to give way.

As Xu Huo and the girl in the painting passed by, the hospital director was shouting into a loudspeaker at the crowd outside: "Get far away if not seeking treatment, blocking the entrance like mourning!"

"Director, this is a hospital, you can’t say that!" The nearby doctor tried dissuading him, but the director shoved the loudspeaker against his face, "You also get far away!"

The loudspeaker again directed downstairs, the old director yelled: "Move away, or I will euthanize all hospitalized people immediately!"

The players and injured people’s families blocking the entrance reluctantly agreed. After some discussion, most dispersed, appointing some ordinary people as representatives to enter the hospital.

"What are you looking at?" Someone passing by Xu Huo, upon meeting his gaze, grumbled angrily, "Move aside!"

Xu Huo stepped aside, went to a nearby shop, and bought five instance handbooks—no choice, here all factions capable of staking a land have published dungeon handbooks, encrypted versions, special editions, upgraded versions, all sorts, even dungeon check-in manuals... who knows who they aim to earn money from.

Yet better than Xi City, their manuals are complementary, some entrances also marked whether they are ticket dungeons or random dungeons, plus several are likely frequented by local players, supplying not only dungeon names but also sound strategies.

These are instances close to the station. Xu Huo planned to try his luck there.

However, before he and the girl in the painting reached the nearest entrance, the instance introduction popped up:

[Player Passerby A has entered the trigger range of the instance "Doll." Since the number of personnel entering this instance range has reached twenty-four, meeting the instance’s activation conditions, you will be transported to the instance venue within one minute.]