The Paper Artisan vanished amidst the fluttering sheets of paper.

Xu Huo remained standing where he was, having somewhat deduced the mindset of this super player.

The premise of his belief in the "guidance of fate" was that he wanted to see what the ultimate destination of "fate" pointed to by going with the flow. It was like how he had obtained a part of "Fielder's Battle Angel" and gained some information, but he himself did not value this Super Item highly. What he wanted to investigate was the reason behind the Super Item's reappearance.

The other party had not revealed more information, and Xu Huo had no way to guess anything beyond that. However, one thing was clear: he was temporarily not in danger. If another player possessing a part of the Super Item really came looking for him, he could just hand the situation over to the Paper Artisan to deal with.

Yet, it had already been a long time since he obtained "Angel's Teeth," and during this period, no one like the Paper Artisan had appeared... Perhaps they had appeared without his knowledge, but this also indirectly confirmed the Paper Artisan's words.

There was no point in staying in Clown City any longer. He opened his personal panel and took out the return ticket.

*

Ting City had just turned dark. The street lights were still on, but there were absolutely no pedestrians anymore. The moment Xu Huo removed his mask and stepped from the teleportation alley onto the main street, he sensed two pairs of eyes fixed on him from the darkness.

"Emergency broadcast for Ting City! Recently, lawless elements have been active within the city limits. Citizens are advised to avoid going out after dark!"

Temporary broadcast speakers were installed everywhere on the streets. The same announcement played three times in a row. By the time Xu Huo walked onto another street, the emergency broadcast started playing again.

He glanced at the surveillance camera's location, understanding this was a deliberate warning for him. Looking left and right, he chose an inconspicuous small alley and walked in.

Soon, the two people tailing him appeared. Both wore hoods, sneaking around while avoiding the surveillance cameras. After exchanging hand signals, they split up to flank him from both sides of the alley.

Half a minute later, only the sound of two "thunks" of skulls being cracked came from the alley. Shortly after, someone walked out of the darkness.

After using cleaning solution to wash the blood off his hands, Xu Huo proceeded along the wide, empty street towards the residential district where he rented.

At this hour, there were absolutely no pedestrians on the street. After he dealt with the two players, no one from the Special Defense Department came out to clean up the aftermath. It was clear the situation in Ting City was not good.

He took out his phone, charged it, and turned it on. Over a hundred messages flooded in instantly. Most were from Yuan Yao and the others. Yan Jiayu had invited him twice to explore Random Dungeons. Hu Wenhu had fallen into a player's trap in a dungeon and was infected with Mutant toxin. He had now gone with Zhou Ning to Capital City to participate in drug trials.

Liu Jia, on the other hand, told him that someone had seen a person resembling Professor Han in a dungeon. She said she would verify with the Special Defense Department, but there had been no follow-up within the month since that message.

Additionally, Yu Qingqing sent messages analyzing dungeon processes, asking him to deduce how to improve ratings. There were also condolence messages from Tang Guangbo, telling him to go see Ms. Fang if he returned, because after receiving external information, Ms. Fang was worried he had died in the game.

Others included messages from Professor Lan and Huang Junjie.

Professor Lan tried to persuade him to participate in player experiments. Huang Junjie mentioned a very important piece of information: the changes in the international situation of Zone 014. Major powers had begun frequently launching wars abroad to consolidate resources. In the past two months, three more small nations had completely vanished.

Xu Huo then scrolled to messages from Nie Xuan and Team Leader Wu. Both mentioned the same thing: requesting his support at the border.

They didn't go into detail. He exited the interface and opened the news, only then learning that the nation had already fought two defensive battles at the border. The scale wasn't huge, but players from both sides had participated. Certain characteristics and items could cause weapons to malfunction, resulting in heavy casualties.

Furthermore, the domestic situation was also unstable. Many foreign players had infiltrated. While these people caused disturbances, others took advantage of the chaos to loot. Two cities had suffered terrorist attacks with heavy casualties. Driven by players with ulterior motives, entire cities had seen mass exoduses.

Elite players needed to be used as decisive forces. Therefore, armed forces were deployed extensively across various regions to suppress this wave of emerging players.

However, this situation was only alleviated, not resolved. People kept jumping out to cause trouble, both openly and covertly, keeping everyone on edge. To reduce casualties, governments in some cities urged citizens to minimize travel and absolutely avoid going out at night.

But compared to other countries, this was still considered good. Currently, every nation in Zone 014, regardless of size, was in a state of panic. Conflict incidents erupted almost daily. Besides violent attacks, there were also malicious acts like poisoning water sources to cause Mutant transformations.

News flooded every online platform, constantly refreshing. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Although he had long anticipated this situation might occur, Xu Huo hadn't expected it to happen this quickly. From a normal perspective, at this stage, each nation should be busy cultivating its own players. Investing combat power and resources into war too early was detrimental to both themselves and others.

Unless something had happened that forced the major powers to act this way.

While walking, he quickly browsed through this information. Finally, he looked at Yuan Yao's messages. Most were nonsense, with only two key points:

First, Lichun had been tricked away by Yu Qingqing.

Second, their original residential complex had been burned down. He had already moved everything to the building opposite the Special Defense Department.

Following the new address, before he could even go upstairs, Team Leader Wu's call came through. Upon answering, Team Leader Wu sounded quite delighted, "Xu Huo, you're really back! I received your signal but could hardly believe it!"

"Is the situation that difficult now?" Xu Huo frowned. A single player, even a B-rank player, couldn't play a decisive role in a war on a national scale, let alone lower-level players. Team Leader Wu's eagerness to call him indicated the situation might be more difficult than he had imagined.

"You've probably seen the news by now. Many players are voluntarily going to provide support," Team Leader Wu's voice was grave. "But that's not the most urgent matter. The biggest crisis now is that Mutant toxin has begun to spread."

"Mutant toxin doesn't just affect players; ordinary people are not immune either. Some players have brought Mutant toxin onto the battlefield, willing to trade one for one just to spread this toxin. Not only that, someone has refined and upgraded this toxin, using special channels to introduce it into reservoirs, causing large numbers of ordinary people to be poisoned."

"There are many symptoms of poisoning. Some gradually weaken until they are bedridden and die, but others undergo Mutant transformation, especially players... Currently, what we're defending against at the border are large numbers of players who have undergone Mutant transformation. They were concentrated and deployed against us."

Xu Huo understood. This was about dragging everyone down.

"What's the cause?"

"A group of players from small nations," Team Leader Wu said. "Their countries have already vanished."

"I contacted you to ask if you've obtained any new antidotes in dungeons. The antidotes we've developed can only delay symptoms and postpone death. Other antidotes brought back from dungeons are too few in quantity and cannot completely eradicate the toxin either."