Chapter 2686: Pursuit and Assassination

A few melon seeds fell into his hand, and the kangaroo hopped along with the parade, just like the other puppet people in Peace City. Each puppet in the carnival parade has its own behavioral pattern.

Following the parade team makes it less likely to be attacked, so Xu Huo simply joined the march. Occasionally, puppet people would come over to sell products, and many of them would forcibly give him items without payment. Before long, his body was adorned with various little trinkets, most of which were worthless little toys. Though the snack items were fake, most of the bracelets and necklaces appeared to be made from polished bone, impossible to tell if they came from humans or animals with the naked eye.

He casually tossed these items to Qi Cong walking behind him, and when a puppet person passed by, he grabbed a handful of fluorescent powder and quickly walked a few steps to slap it onto the kangaroo.

"Keep an eye on that kangaroo," Xu Huo reminded.

Qi Cong nodded quickly, his gaze never daring to shift away for even a second.

Xu Huo bought all the balloons from a puppet person, changed the mark on the balloons to 3.0, and smeared them with fluorescent powder to ensure they stood out amidst the crowded balloons. After keeping a few, he released the rest to fly away.

The carnival parade is so long and under constant observation that when the balloons fly from here, the Girl in the painting and Dai He should be able to find us soon.

The Girl in the painting and Zhu Bo’s group arrived even faster. The Girl was fine, but Zhu Bo’s group was quite disheveled. Despite having prepared instruments on their bodies, it wasn’t enough in an environment like Circus City, especially given their limited personal panels. One person in the group was severely injured, needing support to walk.

The Girl in the painting’s frog costume was replaced with a white bear. With her puppet costume towering half a head above Xu Huo’s, she extended her paw to pat his head.

Xu Huo tilted his head sideways, causing the furry bear paw to rest on his shoulder while the oversized bear head leaned in, its vacant eyes staring straight at him.

He patted the bear’s nose and said, "Found Yan Jiayu, stay close."

The white bear nodded, shuffling along behind them while occasionally picking two toys from the carnival parade.

Zhu Bo moved closer with a deep voice, "You didn’t use the agreed signal."

"Circus City suddenly switched to nighttime mode, which is dangerous everywhere. Even if I wanted to meet up, I couldn’t manage it," Xu Huo replied. "However, the area around the carnival parade is relatively safer."

While the carnival parade circles the city, it’s sufficient to delay time. Given their current preparations, it’s challenging to approach the castle without incurring significant damage.

Zhu Bo didn’t speak further and followed behind him.

After about half an hour, Dai He showed up, covered in injuries and smelling of blood, enough to draw glances from puppet people immersed in the parade.

Though the surroundings of the parade were relatively safe, it couldn’t be guaranteed that the puppet people and puppets within the team weren’t aggressive. Moreover, they differed significantly from ordinary puppet people and likely rivaled those dungeon props occupying separate spaces alone. Dai He dared not gamble, abandoning two failed attempts promptly and followed from neither too close nor too far.

The parade continued for five hours before showing signs of conclusion, ending at a circus site. As the parade team gradually entered, the puppet people watching the excitement dispersed.

Xu Huo and the others waited outside, but for half an hour, there was no movement inside the circus site.

"I’ll go in and take a look." The Girl in the painting, without any fear, felt like she’d been wandering through a real amusement park before finding the carnival parade, making her distinct from the others.

The separately enclosed circus site likely had a small boss guarding it. Since Yan Jiayu became part of the parade team, he couldn’t come out easily, making it most suitable for the Girl in the painting to go in.

Xu Huo told her the mark on the kangaroo puppet, and she confidently headed inside.

Unable to discern what’s happening inside from the outside... but within two minutes, a deformed white bear, holding its tilted head, rushed out, followed by a string of performing mutant animals!

"Don’t come over here!"

The puppets in the carnival parade have considerable attack power; when the Girl in the painting was chased out, the performing puppets gained autonomous movement and locked onto Xu Huo and the others!

With hundreds of performers in the carnival parade rushing out, even the puppet people on the streets switched modes, initiating an all-city pursuit!

Amid the crowd surge, no one could take care of anyone else. As Xu Huo just opened his Spiritual World, he felt a sharp pain in his head and noticed, across hundreds of meters, the singer in the carnival parade looking his way.

His gaze slightly sunk, he had to shrink the scope of the Spiritual World, tossing Qi Cong, the nearest to him, further away—without seeing the kangaroo puppet’s interior, he couldn’t be certain it was Yan Jiayu. If not, there might be a use for him later!

In just an instant, the singer had already caught up behind him, several beams of spatial power slicing from her fingers towards him. Every place touched, be it puppet people or dungeon buildings, was cut in half—this was a completely different level compared to previous dungeon props!

Immediately using the Spatial Interference Device, which produced minimal results, Xu Huo then supplemented it with a defense instrument, wrapping a hexagonal shield around him in a dozen layers as he moved.

The singer’s attack was continuous; with each wave of her hand, more spatial power secant lines appeared in the air, cutting open large sections of street, shattering unknown numbers of puppet people.

Seeing an opportunity, Xu Huo used a small hurricane instrument, sweeping up broken puppet people and hurling them toward the singer.

This only slightly slowed the singer’s pace, offering little impact, as she evidently had no intention of changing targets. With her palms joined into a triangular shape, a triangular confinement shield soon enveloped thousands of meters of nearby streets.

Xu Huo was sure he was targeted because of Spirit Evolution, with the singer persistently chasing him—a complete departure from previous dungeon props. It made him hesitate multiple times about whether to use Time Force, knowing Circus City’s instance follows a destructive-rising, encirclement-strengthening principle when not yet activated. Even utilizing Time Force couldn’t immediately kill these dungeon props, and the greater the chaos, the higher the chances of attracting the Suitcase Man’s attention...

Just wait a bit longer!

He chose to move away from the castle, swiftly heading toward the edge of the triangular confinement, eyeing the translucent blue shield in the air. Clenching the Black Blade with both hands, he stabbed it upwards!

"Boom!"

The Black Blade was barely half a meter from the shield when a shadow suddenly sprang out from the side, slamming into him and sending him plunging into a transfer station dozens of meters away!