Chapter 2684: The Mad Circus

Those aren’t ordinary materials but are exceptionally flexible props. A lot of strands hang down; if you don’t intercept them with a defensive barrier in time, it’s easy to get entangled. Although Xu Huo used defensive instruments immediately, he and Qi Cong were still stuck in the hair. The defensive barrier turned into a box trapping them inside.

The hair didn’t just trap them; it dragged them deeper into the game tent.

"Let’s break out!" Qi Cong said, "There can’t be anything good inside the tent!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, the two were forcefully tossed into the air, caught again mid-air, and then spun around like a gyro. Cheers erupted around them.

After the hair gradually let go, they had switched from the tent entrance to a rather large performance arena—from the outside, the game tent didn’t seem big, but this performance area was several times the size of the tent. It was obvious they had entered a venue prop.

Now, they weren’t trapped by a defensive instrument’s spatial barrier but were being toyed with in the hand of a gigantic split-mouth puppet’s translucent hand!

The spatial barrier had disappeared, but the split-mouth puppet’s hand formed a square cavity, encasing them inside, just holding them.

"What do they want to do..." Qi Cong looked at the audience, asking instinctively, but when he saw the people around him looking back, he followed their gaze and discovered the enormous body of the split-mouth puppet was gradually approaching. The very next second, a giant eyeball met their line of sight!

"Why... why..." Qi Cong stammered. Even though he was a Rank-C Player, even if he didn’t have a super strong space perception ability, he wouldn’t feel nothing about his surroundings. Although he and Xu Huo were held by the puppet, the split-mouth puppet wasn’t actually that big. Its hand was separately enlarged, but the eyeball closing in was clearly bigger than the puppet’s body. If a single eyeball was as big as an adult, how massive would its entire body be?!

It seemed to confirm his thoughts as the split-mouth puppet slowly straightened its body. Its head got farther away, but the shadow it cast grew bigger. At the same time, the tent’s ceiling also slowly rose, and the colorful dazzling lights became more blurred...

Just as Qi Cong was trembling under the deterrence of the dungeon prop, a cold glint swiftly sliced through from above, cutting through the split-mouth puppet’s hand before darting towards its eye!

Qi Cong was dropped down, and the split-mouth puppet quickly clasped its hands in front of its chest. With a dull sound, Xu Huo was stuck in mid-air, and the multiple defensive barriers surrounding him shattered in succession!

Seeing the defensive barrier deform under pressure, Xu Huo didn’t wait for the last layer to break. He seized the Black Blade, spun, and sliced through both the split-mouth puppet’s hand and took a leap towards the ground!

Although the split-mouth puppet was huge, it wasn’t slow. It spread its arms wide and swept forward, uprooting the entire performance area along with the puppet spectators. Amidst the laughter and screams, the puppet’s giant hands began to smash around madly inside the tent. Amid the trembling, Xu Huo raced towards the exit through the Mental Portal, grateful that the tent wasn’t sealed. He brought Qi Cong out smoothly.

Despite the commotion inside the tent, there was no sound outside, and the split-mouth puppet didn’t chase them out.

Qi Cong was almost scared to death, urging Xu Huo to leave even if the split-mouth puppet didn’t pursue them. But after only a few steps, a magician, two people tall, walked up to them, flipped the funnel-shaped hem of his cloak, and enveloped them.

Xu Huo didn’t want to enter another bizarre dungeon venue. With the Mental Portal, he distanced himself from the magician, and like the split-mouth puppet, the magician didn’t chase them, allowing their departure before continuing to wander the street.

"Boom! Boom!" Two mutated lizards on the street performed fire spitting, burning a few puppets. The puppet people were still laughing loudly a second ago, now their expressions distorted as they fled. They seemed unable to extinguish the flames on themselves, running while shouting, "On fire!" Yet no one came to their aid—it seemed to be part of the performance.

Soon after, they ran into a few Battle Dolls carrying torn cloth pieces. A box full of colorful cloths spilled out, easily igniting in the fire. As the fire spread, many puppet people approached to watch, only to be ruthlessly thrown into the fire by the Battle Dolls. When enough people piled up, the fire gradually extinguished...

Witnessing this process, anyone would find it absurd. Clearly, real people dressed as puppets, with water nearby, yet the Battle Dolls chose to extinguish the fire with puppet people—it was ineffective and foolish.

Of course, this could be the operating mode of Circus City, as most "animal performances" here were performed by humans.

Although the dungeon props didn’t pursue them relentlessly, it didn’t mean they had a breather. After witnessing the entire "fire disaster," Xu Huo and Qi Cong, transferred 2,000 meters away via the Mental Portal, seamlessly fell into a cylindrical slide.

The randomly appearing retractable metal blades could chill anyone with a normal thinking ability. Protected by the instrument, Xu Huo stepped on two blade leaves to stop inside the slide. Just as he turned his head, Qi Cong accelerated and crashed into him. The slide was coated with oil, making it hard to stabilize, and even through the defensive barrier, the impact carried him sliding down.

The metal blades couldn’t break through the defensive barrier, so Xu Huo inserted the Black Blade into the slide and used a Materialized Item to grab the freely accelerating Qi Cong. Together, they plowed a few meters before finally stopping.

They fell out after cutting open the slide.

No wonder they were suddenly teleported into a slide; turns out this area’s street was a massive whack-a-mole device. The voids that opened and closed constantly sent cylindrical slides flying in and out of holes like springs, and occasionally fragments of puppet people fell out.

"All my defensive instruments are broken!" Qi Cong covered his bleeding thigh, lamenting, "One more time, and I’m done for, bro, give me a couple of instruments quickly!"

Xu Huo didn’t say much, handing him several defensive instruments, "If we get separated, find somewhere to hide and wait for dawn."

Qi Cong, moved to tears, said, "Other than Little Yu’er, you’re the best to me. We’re both men; we shouldn’t offer ourselves..."

"Shut up," Xu Huo coldly glanced at him, "Instead of wasting breath on nonsense, think of quicker ways to find people."