It was a chaotic melee. The A-class player had clearly been lying; he still had companions inside Yongxing Hotel. They were the ones who had bombed the hotel earlier, and now they were holding back Flower City's players.
Someone had used an item, though Xu Huo couldn't tell which side. In any case, standing outside the flames, he could no longer make out how many players were inside the hotel. Meanwhile, the Flower City players closing in showed no intention of letting the Outer District Players who had fled the hotel get away.
The barrier surrounding the hotel had been breached in several places, but rows of high-powered weapons stood guard outside, with players held in reserve.
When District 014 had just begun to evolve, players' physical abilities and their ability to use items and Abilities were still limited, so government forces had enjoyed an overwhelming advantage. Bullets, anesthetics, and electric fences had all been effective ways to capture players. But as players grew stronger, these methods gradually lost their effectiveness. It was no longer possible to fight players and capture them alive with minimal loss of weapons. Today, however, Flower City had brought that old approach back.
The improved bullets detonated less than a second after leaving the barrel, whether or not they hit their target. The thin, flying fragments were ultra-micro bombs that exploded as they spread, with each bullet covering an area of at least ten meters. Meanwhile, stealth aircraft dropped capture nets from above whenever players tried to dodge. The nets were coated with an anesthetic specially made for players, designed to knock them out the instant it touched their skin.
And that wasn't even counting the visual and auditory interference. Across the street, they had set up a device that emitted high-frequency sound waves. Even