The defense prop took effect immediately, blocking these wind blades. Xu Huo regained his grip on the Black Blade, just about to sever the seal barrier outside, when another player rushed in and suddenly shouted, "Helpless!"

This is a characteristic; at that moment, all players in the room, including his companions, were tightly bound with their hands down at their sides. Meanwhile, several Wheel Blades were swirling around the room, flying towards Xu Huo, the Girl in the painting, and the injured player on the ground.

The Wheel Blades are sharp instruments, releasing wind blades one meter long as they approach a person, greatly increasing their area of attack. The injured player was pressed and smashed into the wall, and the force was sufficient to prevent him from escaping, even without fully breaking the defensive barrier.

The two pursuers initially targeted the injured person; dealing with Xu Huo and the others was primarily a diversion. Now that their diversion was accomplished, the priority was to resolve their target, but just as they turned around, Xu Huo emerged from the blockade barrier. With a shout of "Please Sit," the two were pulled onto the chairs in the room, entering lock-seat time, while Xu Huo himself deflected several attacks and used the Black Blade with a Secant Line to continuously destroy their defensive barriers, once again using the "Harmonious Atmosphere" to cleanly and swiftly finish the battle.

Turning back to look at the person huddled in the corner, "Do you need anything more?"

Covering the bleeding wound on his body, the other gasped, "Can I hide here for a while? I assure you, I won’t disturb you."

Xu Huo did not forcibly eject him, implicitly allowing him to stay.

Shi Shuai killed a significant figure associated with the Fish Banquet—a player with skills beyond those of ordinary security personnel, especially given that the person held a special locating instrument. His death would inevitably trigger a chain reaction. Failing to find Shi Shuai might result in retaliatory hunts against other players. Certainly, Xu Huo had already been targeted. Without thoroughly removing any tracking characteristics or prop effects on him, venturing out would likely make him a punching bag.

"Let’s revisit this tomorrow," he said to the Girl in the painting.

The Girl in the painting had no objections. A tentacle tool she disliked had already been taken by Shi Shuai, so she was at ease now.

Resting with her eyes closed on the sofa, Xu Huo was thinking about the middle-aged man killed by Shi Shuai.

The opposition was undoubtedly a Super Evolver, not lacking in strength. Though he didn’t break through the Water Rubik’s Cube’s blockade barrier, he certainly affected its state. From this standpoint, even if he couldn’t kill him, there were lots of methods to restrict his actions. Facing powerful foes, mere defense wouldn’t suffice. Therefore, what Hua Han Werna said about finding a Super Player to practice was just a joke. Only if he were in an environment where escape was absolute, such as where tickets could be used, could he consider it.

The Fish Banquet Building already exceeded that scope.

Regarding the conditions for becoming a Super Player, the Super Dungeon holds special characteristics. It might be one of the conditions for becoming a Super Player, but perhaps not the sole requirement. Hua Han Werna should be asked about this more appropriately.

The term ’Super Player’ is just a codename. Observing the situations at Fish Banquet indicates there might be several unnamed Super Players at other Advanced Wormhole Sites, and the game’s control over players surpasses his understanding. Even spaces created outside of game scenarios that simulate severing game channels might not actually escape the game but rather reflect a concession in the game programming for such scenarios.

Indeed, by conventional wisdom, every prop, including naturally born instance bosses, results from the game and evolution. More crucially, they rely on the game. Obtaining game certification allows props to become effective. If simulated instruments could entirely disconnect from the game, then wisdom-based props should be unusable just like other types. Yet, wisdom-based props can be used as usual, proving Shi Shuai’s statement correct—that any place where players tread will never truly escape the game, and the spaces created by simulated instruments are not genuinely independent of the game.

This is a despairing truth for anyone, since it indicates that neither a fugitive nor someone escaping through Wormhole Points to avoid high-risk random instances can truly escape the game. As long as the game program or its creators desire, anyone might reenter the game, and the supposedly external Super Evolution Power is merely an unstifled, unusual characteristic or prop effect...

On this basis, the No Ticket Zone within a Rank-A Wormhole Point, or the game’s birthplace, becomes a fully controllable space. Players and Super Evolvers alike will revert to normal human states under the influence of both game and technology—suggesting that no one can resist the game.

Naturally, Super Evolution Power itself can also be interfered with using instruments, but instrument interference is limited, unlike the decisive cut-off by the game. If this is all true, Hengxing Company, the game’s creator, could create a zone at the headquarters where every player returns to being an ordinary human, a zone players could never reach.

From the perspective of the fixed curved time in Pumpkin City, Dr. Wu has grasped certain rules for triggering curved time. Returning to the past through curved time is feasible, yet he hasn’t done so and has always roamed across different Wormhole Points, leaving traces of his presence...Is it that his individual power is insufficient, or that this is not a viable method?

Upon realizing curved time can genuinely reverse time or revert facts already occurring, Xu Huo has considered using curved time to change the game world’s state or simply to make the game vanish as a definitive solution. In this regard, he believes his goals align with Dr. Wu, but if all commonly accepted truths are overturned, he loses the ultimate goal, and it becomes impossible to rewrite past events or change what’s already happened.

The unalterable past marks everything Dr. Zhang created as irreplicable, and Xu Zhi’s death becomes an eternal certainty...

"Do you remember how you arrived?" he suddenly looked up at the Girl in the painting.

The Girl in the painting is a sentient prop; under normal conditions, such props might be born with accompanying instances akin to Little Pink Hat. The commonality between them is the absence of restriction by other props, while props are restricted, first to limit players and second to reduce prop wear, extending usage time. The moment "Three Seconds of a Lifetime" was born as a Super Prop, the game dictated the rules of its use. This suggests that whether super or general, props must operate through the game’s medium to become effective. Naturally born props face the game’s restraint upon forming—this applies equally to all props, including wisdom-based ones. Little Pink Hat relies on the instance, and for her, the instance is a restriction. Why doesn’t the Girl in the painting face restrictions?

"Me?" The Girl in the painting pointed at herself, glanced at the person by the wall, and stealthily typed, "Did you forget?"

Xu Huo wasn’t referring to the painting on the wall. He used a prop to isolate external peering, asked earnestly, "Do you remember the first time you opened your eyes?"