Halfway there, Yu Hanjiang heard the sounds of clashing weapons in the distance. He frowned, hid in the shadows, and hurried towards the source of the sound. The moment he arrived, he witnessed a scene that nearly stopped his heart.
The woman's chains, like serpents, completely surrounded Xiao Lou, while the man kept shooting poison needles at her. The young man in black, wielding a long sword, swiftly intercepted the chains and poison needles with his own.
Yu Hanjiang recognized Xiao Yu at a glance.
As a top swordsman, Xiao Yu was agile and his snow-white sword light created an impenetrable barrier, deflecting the woman's chains and poisoned silver needles. The two hunters couldn't hurt Xiao Lou for the time being.
However, at that moment, a dark figure suddenly rushed out from the side like the wind.
Before Xiao Lou could even see who his opponent was, a flash of white light appeared before his eyes. Xiao Yu beside him suddenly groaned, and a torrent of blood gushed from his back like a tap being turned on, splattering the ground.
The glaring sight of blood made Xiao Lou's heart tighten, and he quickly turned around and said, " Xiao Yu!"
Xiao Yu was stabbed through the chest, but his mission to "protect his brother" kept him from putting down his sword. With his last breath, he suddenly turned around and stabbed the woman who had attacked him.
Xiao Yu's longsword was as fast as lightning. The woman was caught off guard and had no time to dodge. He slit her throat with a single blow.
A bloody hole was pierced through the woman's neck. Her eyes widened as she fell straight down in front of Xiao Yu. Immediately afterward, Xiao Yu also knelt on one knee, unable to support herself any longer.
Seeing this, the Hunter on the rooftop acted swiftly, unleashing a barrage of silver needles like a torrential rain upon Xiao Lou, while the four chains completely blocked his escape route.
Just then, two gunshots rang out beside my ears.
Yu Hanjiang was still some distance from Xiao Lou. He hid in the darkness and used the moonlight to see the positions of the two people.
He decisively pulled out his long-range sniper rifle, opened the scope, squinted, and fired two shots at the rooftop.
The woman holding the chains was instantly pierced through the heart, her body tumbling rapidly from the roof. Four chains flew from her grasp, hitting the ground with a piercing sound. She quickly rolled away, narrowly avoiding the rain of silver needles.
Because there was a chimney right in front of him, the man with the poisoned needle nimbly dodged to the side, and Yu Hanjiang's bullet only wounded his arm. Blood gushed from his arm, and realizing the danger, the man quickly covered his wound. With his other hand, he held onto the double swallow kite and quickly flew into the sky, disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye.
Yu Hanjiang strode forward.
Xiao Lou was still in shock, while Xiao Yu had already collapsed in a pool of blood.
His face was pale, and he called out softly, "Brother."
Xiao Lou felt a pang of sadness and quickly grasped his hand. Through her blurry vision, she saw Yu Hanjiang walking towards her. Xiao Yu seemed relieved; his longsword clattered to the ground, and he said in a hoarse voice, "I can't protect you anymore. Take care."
After saying this, he closed his eyes peacefully in Xiao Lou's arms.
Xiao Lou's voice trembled slightly as she said, " Xiao Yu."
The young man in his arms gradually grew cold, and Xiao Lou's hands kept trembling. Although Xiao Yu was not his biological brother, but only the brother in one of the secret rooms of Card World, Xiao Lou still had clear and complete memories of that world in his mind.
He remembered how Xiao Yu always followed him around as a child, calling him "brother" in a sweet, childish voice, acting as his little follower; he remembered how Xiao Yu always got injured while practicing martial arts, needing his help to bandage him; he remembered how, even as an adult, Xiao Yu was always very protective of his own, worrying that Yu Hanjiang would bully him, and thus always going against Yu Hanjiang.
In that world, Xiao Yu helped them solve the case and became Xiao Lou's summoning card when they left the locked room. It followed Xiao Lou and would automatically come out to protect its brother when Xiao Lou was in mortal danger.
Now, Xiao Yu has completed her mission to protect her brother and has left Xiao Lou forever.
Watching the young man in his arms gradually turn into a ball of light and disappear completely, Xiao Lou felt as if his heart was being torn apart, yet he couldn't utter a single word. He had initially thought that with Xiao Yu, a master protector, he would be safe, and that this would allow Yu Hanjiang to fight the remaining Hunters with unrestrained courage —a win-win situation.
He never expected that Xiao Yu would be ambushed by the third Hunter, and even lose his life.
This card has a special mechanism; once it dies, it cannot be reappeared, and he will never see his younger brother again.
Yu Hanjiang gently stretched out his arms and hugged Xiao Lou tightly, whispering, "Don't be sad. This Xiao Yu was just a copy of the Guardian created specifically to protect you. He has completed his mission. The real Xiao Yu has always been in the world of Red Heart 8. Do you remember in that world, we lived to be over eighty years old, and Xiao Yu later married and had children."
The familiar body temperature from Yu Hanjiang quickly calmed Xiao Lou down.
He was right. Although Xiao Lou was saddened to see his brother die in front of him, it was indeed a card. The real Xiao Yu was always in the world of Red Heart 8.
It can be really hard to tell the difference between the real and fake Card World sometimes.
Xiao Lou took a deep breath, and as he stood up, his face had regained its calm expression. He asked with concern, "How's it going on your end? Are those two still hunting?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "I shot and killed the boy named Xiao Qi, but the other one escaped. However, the skill magnetic field screen in the boy's hand..."
I didn't find the hidden card; it seems it was moved after his death.
The card was transferred after the Hunter died in the Mermaid Royal Palace secret room, a result Xiao Lou had expected. Xiao Lou frowned and said, "So, we've already taken care of three Hunters."
The boy killed by Yu Hanjiang, the woman who attacked with a knife that Xiao Yu killed in a counterattack, and the woman who used a chain as a weapon that Yu Hanjiang sniped from a distance—three Hunters have died in front of them.
But the Hunters don't seem to be afraid of death. Whether they, like the Challengers, have a chance to go to the " Nightmare Secret Room " to try again after a mission failure is currently unknown.
Yu Hanjiang nodded and asked, "Hmm, three died, so there should be nine left. Should we teleport?"
Xiao Lou wasn't in a hurry. He gently pressed his earpiece three times, sending the code message "Take care of the three Hunters " to his teammates. Soon, he received a response in his earpiece; Qu Wanyue and Liu Qiao both tapped their earpieces to indicate that it was safe.
Xiao Lou breathed a sigh of relief and said, " Wanyue and Xiao Liu are in a safe place right now. The 5 minutes are up, the Card Skill Shielding is off, so there's no need to rush to teleport. We can kite those Hunters a bit more to relieve some pressure on our teammates."
Yu Hanjiang nodded in agreement, "Okay."
Just now, Xiao Lou was completely on the defensive because his card skills were blocked. Now that the block has been lifted, with so many high-level cards in his hand, he is no longer afraid of being chased by Hunter.
Moreover, Yu Hanjiang has killed three people, so those Hunters probably won't dare to act easily again.
The two exchanged a glance and continued walking towards Zuiyue Lake in the center of Qingfeng Town. However, after walking a short distance, the moonlight in the sky suddenly seemed to be obscured, and the sky above them turned as black as ink.
The Telepathic Connection has been restored.
Xiao Lou thought to himself, "It's that girl again, in the dark alley, Absolute Domain."
Yu Hanjiang said, "Did she pull us into the dark alley to use the same trick again, creating various illusions and exhausting us with a war of attrition?"
Xiao Lou shook his head. "It shouldn't be. She used the same trick twice. Last time you chopped off her arm, so this time we're on guard and it's even less likely we'll fall for it. I guess she pulled her teammates into the Absolute Domain as well, essentially creating an independent space to outnumber us, putting us at a disadvantage and preventing our teammates from supporting us."
Once Xiao Lou calmed down, he indeed made a sharp and insightful analysis of the other party's psychology.
The advantage of the Absolute Domain card is that only the user knows about the entrance and exit. To leave, one must either obtain the owner's permission or resort to violence, such as killing or subduing the owner of the domain.
The domain is like an isolated alternate dimension, similar to Peach Blossom Spring. Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang were forcibly pulled into the domain, and their teammates couldn't enter, leaving them isolated and helpless.
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang stood back to back, cautiously looking around.
The next moment, countless strands of long hair, like snakes, slithered rapidly towards the two of them along the ground and walls.
The woman who used long hair as a weapon had ambushed them at the inn on the first night of the maze. Now that she had reappeared, Yu Hanjiang immediately drew his sharp military knife and cleanly cut off the surrounding long hair.
But following the long hair was a pair of pale hands.
Two hands suddenly reached out from the wall beside him and grabbed Xiao Lou by the neck.
Those hands were so thin they were just skin and bones, and they felt extremely cold to the touch, like the corpses of dead people you would touch in a laboratory.
Xiao Lou recalled that he and Yu Hanjiang heard the sound of a wooden fish being struck coming from the backyard of the Zhao family's courtyard. They saw an old woman chanting scriptures inside the house. Then, the lights in the Zhao family's house suddenly went out, and a pair of aged hands darted out from the paper window and precisely grabbed Xiao Lou's neck.
The suffocating feeling of being choked is still vivid in my memory.
Xiao Lou reacted with lightning speed. Almost the instant he was choked, a cold glint flashed at his fingertips, and Li Qingzhao, who had been prepared beforehand, appeared. With a single utterance of the skill's words, the hands on the wall and the surrounding black hair all began to replay in slow motion.
The suffocating feeling in his neck instantly lessened. Xiao Lou forcefully pried open those withered, bony hands, while Yu Hanjiang swiftly cut off the surrounding black hair and rushed towards the end of the alley with Xiao Lou in his arms.
They must find the girl with the umbrella as soon as possible.
Only by eliminating her can we escape this pitch-black Absolute Domain.
A woman with floor-length hair, an old woman with withered, slender hands, a young girl holding a red oil-paper umbrella—are there anyone else in their domain?
How many terrifying opponents will the two people trapped in this realm face?
To make matters worse, at that moment, Xiao Lou suddenly heard four soft "tap tap tap tap" sounds in his earphones. Liu Qiao and Lao Mo were in trouble; they were facing four Hunters.