Mad Speculation

The next moment, Buddha Saves the Predestined, who was not far away, gave a knowing smile and said coolly,

"If this kid dies later, I want this item."

"This is at least a second-tier piece of armor. As for the points reward for killing the Trickster, I can make a concession."

"You take two-thirds, and I'll take one-third."

At that, Eagle of Justice's expression briefly flashed with displeasure. However, upon noticing Red Skirt Phantom standing before him like an iron tower, he suddenly retreated several steps, not daring to rashly engage the red skirt.

After all, back in the dungeon, even though each of them had hidden some trump cards, hadn't they still been beaten into a panic by El's ghostly soul?

That psychological trauma made the security officer, Eagle of Justice, unwilling to face Qin Shang's summoned phantom alone.

Moreover, priests were the nemesis of all evil spirits, and Buddha Saves the Predestined was a second-level priest.

With his help, taking down this kid was a certainty.

Thus, after his thoughts flashed and turned, Eagle of Justice said coldly,

"Fine. Deal."

Only then did Elder Priest, Buddha Saves the Predestined, place the cross in his palm and truly join the battlefield.

He raised his clasped hands above his head and stared straight at Qin Shang, his gaze chilling.

As a surge of white light welled from his palm, Elder Priest's figure suddenly seemed to grow taller by several inches. The steady face of a middle-aged man gained a touch more holiness and grandeur.

"Purify!"

As those two words fell, Qin Shang felt as if his head were splitting apart.

Red Skirt, blocking the two men in front, also let out a sizzling sound, as though it had been struck by some invisible attack.

Even so, it dutifully blocked the successive attacks of Eagle of Justice on its master's behalf.

Qin Shang clutched his temples, his expression somewhat fearful.

So this was a skill possessed by players of the Divine Path!?

No, that's not right...

It should be an item skill!

After Elder Priest cast that move, his entire presence rapidly withered, like a deflated ball. He looked several degrees more listless.

The price.

The price for using an item!

His Red Skirt seemed to have something similar.

Elder Priest now looked as if a female ghost had just drained all the yang energy from his body. He had certainly paid some price for using the item!

At the same time, the audible sizzling gradually vanished.

However, the gray-black, mist-like substance filling Red Skirt had also disappeared by nearly half.

If Red Skirt's figure had previously resembled that of a burly young man, it now looked like a girl barely twelve or thirteen years old, her body not yet developed.

Qin Shang's sense of security plummeted!

He endured the intense pain inside his skull. The sensation was difficult to describe, like having a basketball smash into his temple.

His vision swam, and everything before his eyes began to sway.

Still, he knew Red Skirt could hold on for a while longer.

He didn't know how to use items, and that was another weakness.

Since the Divine Path game had a leveling system, player-versus-player battles should not simply involve both sides pulling out items and engaging in a chaotic brawl.

Otherwise, using a comparison to King of Glory, if giving a level-one Li Bai a Black Cleaver allowed him to crush a level-fifteen Baili Shouyue, what would be the point of having levels?

Therefore, players must be able to enhance their items somehow.

But he didn't know how to do it...

"Damn it, being a newbie is costing me..."

Precisely because he had considered this, Qin Shang had not rashly put on Red Skirt and tried to escape.

As a newbie player, even if the security officer gave him the obviously item-like Gloves, or Elder Priest handed him his cross,

he might not necessarily know how to use them.

The next moment, he communicated with his Character Card and opened the panel.

Time; 15 minutes

Damn!

Qin Shang's mouth twitched as he broke away and ran toward Carriage Two behind him.

The security officer directly engaged Red Skirt Phantom. His fists, wrapped in white gloves, slammed fiercely into the hem of the skirt, while the phantom continuously emitted sizzling sounds.

Judging by the looks of it, Red Skirt, after taking a wave of attacks from Elder Priest, seemed unable to hold off Eagle of Justice any longer!

At the same time, when he glanced back, he caught sight of Elder Priest, who had been resting in place all along, turning his gaze toward him.

The next moment, their eyes met, and Elder Priest immediately started running after Qin Shang!

"Fuck your mother!"

Those two were both veteran players. Qin Shang definitely wasn't their match alone.

Seeing the security officer engage Red Skirt Phantom one moment and Elder Priest summon white light in his palm the next, anyone who didn't know better might think that two Maoshan Taoists had descended from heaven.

He was like a useless little weakling. Of the three skills in his skill bar, two were about to expire...

But Inheritance was completely useless at a time like this.

Decrypt and Heal were useless too...

If Elder Priest caught up to him, he would definitely die.

"This doesn't make sense. Hasn't the Divine Path game always maintained a delicate balance?"

The number of God Slayers and their accomplices could never exceed the number of the Team Leader and passengers. That was an obvious sign.

Otherwise, with the enemy many and us few, this round of the dungeon would be a dead end, and no one could clear it!

Everything was for the sake of balance.

Then the Divine Path should also understand that if the Trickster relied on clearing the game this round, the Trickster would inevitably face backstabbing from the other players.

As the public enemy of everyone, a walking pile of real-world money, there was no reason for those people not to kill him for cash after the game ended.

As the saying went, people died for wealth and birds died for food. Qin Shang had not fully grasped the uses of points, but he roughly understood what points meant to the vast majority of Divine Path players.

The Divine Path couldn't possibly leave Trickster players without even a sliver of hope, could it?

The game's matchmaking mechanism existed for balance, so there had to be some way for Trickster players to find an opportunity to escape unscathed after finishing the game.

He just hadn't discovered it yet...

At that moment, Qin Shang suddenly noticed the diaries in the corner of Carriage Two.

Diaries?

"Grandpa Niu cosplaying as a maid to seduce Zhuangzhuang's mom"—when the two of them entered Carriage Two for the second time, Little Loli seemed to have torn off a diary page.

At the time, Qin Shang had assumed that the little girl's survival instinct had flared up and that she was curious about what clue he had found on the wallpaper...

Qin Shang had also used that detail to determine that this woman definitely wasn't a priest!

After all, priests possessed night vision. There was no need for one to specifically tear down the diaries on both sides of the carriage windows in order to read their contents.

At that thought, a shocking idea suddenly rose in Qin Shang's heart.

"Fuck! I was completely wrong. I analyzed one part incorrectly!"

"The bodies of those two disappearing wasn't an illusion. I wasn't hypnotized."

"Grandpa Niu didn't hypnotize me that round. I couldn't see the bodies because they had been eaten by the ghostly thing formed from El."

"So every time Mary and Jack's personalities entered the cycle and began judging the passengers before bringing them into Carriage Three, the passengers were slaughtered one-sidedly by El and then eaten by El."

"That's why Carriage Three always had a stench of decay, yet no corpses could be found."

"The only corpse was Jack's, who had died of old age in Carriage Three. Elder Priest also found the final diary on that corpse—the diary belonging to Vien..."

Heart-to-Heart Sister died before my eyes, and her corpse was eaten by El. That was proof.

That ghostly thing really did eat people!

"Under normal circumstances, before the train was contaminated, Train Exploration should not have had a second phase."

"In other words, if the first round of Death Train contained all of Train Exploration's content, with the scene remaining unchanged, then these things were actually seals designed to prevent the ghostly thing formed by the fusion of El, Jack, and Mary's souls from entering the carriage."

"Death Train was merely expanded content for the Train Exploration dungeon!"

The instant this speculation surfaced, Qin Shang's mouth twitched.

However, based on his many years of gaming experience, this speculation held up to scrutiny.

That was because whether it was Train Exploration or Death Train after contamination, the dungeon number was 0927.

This meant Death Train had not appeared out of nowhere as a dungeon.

It was an expanded dungeon.

That was why its dungeon number had not changed...

At this thought, Qin Shang's Adam's apple rolled involuntarily.

"So Grandpa Niu tore down the diary on the wall back then to break the seal and let the El from the expanded dungeon enter Carriage Two?"

"And I had been completely absorbed in reading the diaries in Carriage One."

"I didn't move or make a sound."

"That was why I didn't attract the attack of El's phantom?"

"That ghostly thing left after finishing eating the people..."

"This is the entire process behind the disappearance of the corpses!?"

Then...

At this thought, Qin Shang suddenly swallowed hard. A trace of madness surged into his eyes, while the footsteps from the carriage behind him drew closer and closer.

Clearly, Buddha Saves the Predestined was about to catch up with him.

Who knew how long Cursed Red Skirt could hold out under the security officer's attacks?

He looked toward the windows on both sides. The section of diary that Little Loli had torn away had indeed returned.

The entire Carriage Two was dark and enclosed. The diaries on the windows on both sides blocked out all light...

A refresh!

The dungeon's teleportation had sent them back to Carriages One and Two, returning them to a refreshed version of the dungeon.

At this thought, Qin Shang took a deep breath.

Time to gamble!

The next moment, he turned his head toward Elder Priest and gritted his teeth.

"You old bastard, do you think you've already won?"