Chapter 529 - Severe Loss
“Boom!”
The micro-energy bomb explosion created an energy sphere with a radius of around 20 meters. The explosion engulfed half of the Emperor Suite.
“Ka, ka, ka...”
The violent wind caused by the explosion swept across every corner in the room, sending all the corpses of the dead players, that did not disappear since it was an ongoing mission, flying all over the place.
Even the enhanced glass that could withstand the blade of Ghost Weep, to a certain extent, began to crack after being hit by the violent and powerful impact.
“Cough, cough...”
After five seconds, coughing sounds began to appear across the room.
Feng Luo stood up near the wall where he was thrown. He grimaced as he saw the completely battered room.
He was left with less than 5,000 HP after the explosion. The incident earlier happened so quickly that he did not have time to activate the Life Protozoa’s shield before he felt the impact head-on.
The good thing was that his total HP was 17,000. Additionally, he was not at the center of the explosion and the shield provided by the Energy Beetles absorbed some of the damage, so his injury was not too severe.
However, all his advanced Energy Beetles, which was more than ten, had died.
Additionally, the four Elite Grade Bladed Beetles and one Elite Grade Scout Beetle were also killed by the powerful force generated from the explosion.
Even 24K, if Feng Luo had protected 24K by putting it behind him during the explosion, taking most of the damage for it, 24K might have also died. Since 24K’s intelligence level was quite high, it had already cast a psionic energy shield all over its body the moment it detected danger. Otherwise, 24K might have also died.
The loss was quite severe.
“Cough, Big Pineapple! Why are you so clumsy? Look at what you’ve done!” On the other side of the wall, Phoenix also stood up while coughing. Many of her equipped items seemed to have been damaged by the blast. Her Red Lotus equipment set’s chest plate seemed to have deformed substantially from impact, the armor was also covered in dust.
She had even fewer HP left than Feng Luo, and had just entered Heavy Injury status after her HP dropped lower than 5%.
historical
If it weren’t for the stat-boosting food made by the Master Level NPC chef during the banquet earlier, which increased her HP recovery effect, she might have already died.
The damage from the explosion was truly quite high.
However, as a glass cannon Scout, Onishi whose HP did not even reach 7,000 was not as lucky.
No matter how strong he was or how quickly he moved, there was no way for him to avoid such a large radius explosion. He instantly died during the explosion and had been engulfed by the white light of death.
The North City Number One Expert, the number one Scout in War, was completely screwed over by Big Pineapple.
Apart from that, the middle-aged NPC who was captured also flew out of the room through one part of the wall that had collapsed from the blast. Needless to say, there was no way for him to have survived that.
After casting the skill Immovable Mountain, Big Pineapple continued to use a greatly distorted alloy shield. He was the only one who remained standing even after taking on the powerful impact. He looked awkward and upset as he said, “It’s all my fault... Old Feng, sorry...”
Many password-protected suitcases had a self-destruct setting installed on them. If one were to not disarm the warning system prior to opening the suitcase, one may get nothing at all.
Of course, from the strength of the explosion, it was probably not a simple self-destruct mechanism; instead, the suitcase itself might have been an explosion device.
“Let’s not talk about this first. I am fine but for Onishi, you should try and think of something to make it up to him.” Feng Luo said and shook his head.
He did not want to blame Big Pineapple. Although Big Pineapple was careless, he only managed to know that the suitcase was suspicious after hearing the NPC’s last words. The suitcase’s bomb trigger mechanism might not have been triggered by Big Pineapple’s kick. It could have been remotely detonated by the one manipulating the NPC behind the scenes.
Although Big Pineapple made a mistake, his final action had an immense effect.
He stood and raised his alloy shield closest to the detonation point. This helped reduce the impact behind by at least half, which ultimately reduced the damage on Feng Luo and Phoenix.
Otherwise, not only were Feng Luo and Phoenix susceptible to being killed, even the large Emperor Suite that was over a dozen meters above the hotel might have collapsed from the powerful explosion.
The commotion caused by that would have been incredibly large, and they would have failed their mission.
After all, the mission requirement was that they had to limit their presence as much as possible.
“But the commotion right now is not considered small.” Feng Luo turned around to look outside the wall destroyed by the blast. The hole in the wall was located right across Emperor Suite number one.
At that time, Emperor Suite number one was still very lively. Many players were rushing toward the balcony with their weapons in hand.
Since the Emperor Suites had good soundproofing systems, with two soundproofing layers, the earlier battle did not attract the attention of the Storm City players proactively trying to get the spots for the exploration inside Emperor Suite number one.
The energy bomb blast turned the luxurious Emperor Suite number two into a slum. The debris from the blast also flew over and hit Emperor Suite number one.
There was no way the banquet could continue after encountering an incident like this. After the group of players ran out of the banquet hall, they looked toward the suite containing Feng Luo and the others with shock and curiosity.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“What was that sound just now?”
The people across in Emperor Suite number one became noisy as they talked among themselves. Many of them looked over past the hole created by the explosion toward Feng Luo’s group.
However, Feng Luo did not pay much attention to the gazes of the people, as their disguises were still active. Additionally, with the dark environment and dust filling the air that made even Phoenix’s Red Lotus equipment set look like a beggar’s outfit, there was no way the players across them could recognize them.
What they needed to pay attention to was the location of the main entrance...
“Boom!”
The door of the main entrance was pushed open with a strong force. A group of fully-equipped NPC hotel security guards charged into the room.
...
“Just what kind of weapon was used? To have blown up the hotel!”
Compared to Feng Luo and his group’s indifference, many of the players, who were higher-ups of organizations in Storm City, seemed to not be as calm and collected. Some even looked full of curiosity.
After vaguely detecting the glow of battle loot beside some of the visible player corpses, particularly several Rare Grade items, a player speculated, “We’ll see. It is probably caused by internal strife about items between two groups of players.”
“To kill someone in a main city and also blow up an NPC’s hotel? Whoever did this did not consider the consequences at all. They’ll probably need to stay in jail for a while, they might even face losing their accounts.”
As the higher-ups of large organizations, there were many bigshots who were the kind who “Could not be shocked no matter what.” At that time, such players were still holding the wine glass casually while speaking to a person on the side with a faint smile.
Committing a crime in main cities was considered one of the most severe crimes. If one were caught, not only would the individual be fined by the police, but they may even have to stay in prison.
For players who could stay at the Emperor Suites, they typically wouldn’t mind losing a few credits; however, going to prison was something everyone feared since if players were sent to prison in the game, they had to stay there during game time.
Several people deleted their accounts and played from the beginning because their Criminal Points were too high and they were imprisoned for such a long time that it was unbearable.
As such, in the eyes of most players, killing people in main cities was an incredibly dumb and illogical behavior.
“The guards are here. It looks like there’s no way for them to escape now.”
The players raised their heads and saw a few black and grey weaponized patrol spacecraft descending quickly towards the opposite side.