readbooksol Chapter 379 Shrinking Circle
Chapter 379 Shrinking Circle
There, a door had quietly appeared, its origin unknown.
A simple, rustic stone door that stands out starkly against the surrounding pixelated ruins and futuristic boundary walls.
The door was ajar, and behind it was a soft white light.
"You think this is difficult enough to stump me?" Lin Tian scoffed, shaking his head as he looked at the door.
He walked to the center of the ruins, stood before the door, and spoke with an air of self-righteous arrogance:
"Who says you have to take the correct route to clear a maze? I've torn down all the walls and cleared all the paths. So, for me, there's only one path left in this entire maze—the one I'm standing on. Everywhere is a path, and nowhere is a path, because I don't need a 'path'."
He seemed to be conversing with an unseen maze designer, or perhaps summarizing his own philosophy of behavior.
"By dismantling the maze into ruins, the exit will naturally appear."
He patted non-existent dust off his hands, a mocking smile playing on his lips. "Clever as I am, haha."
With a light laugh, Lin Tian didn't linger any longer and reached out to push open the slightly ajar stone door.
A familiar sense of spatial displacement came over him, and a soft white light engulfed his figure.
......
When the scenery becomes clear, the slightly fishy smell of sand and dust fills the nostrils, and the ceaseless howling of the wind echoes through the crimson canyon.
Lin Tian found himself standing on the edge of a huge hole in the ground.
Looking down, he saw the entrance to the hidden dungeon, twenty meters in diameter, with neat edges and an unfathomable depth. He had returned to the starting point where he had entered the hidden dungeon.
He then brought up the control panel.
[Time until the next safe zone shrinks: 00:27:43]
Less than thirty minutes have passed.
"The shrinking circle is almost here..." Lin Tian muttered to himself, a cold glint of a hunter flashing in his eyes.
He could imagine that the players who were still alive in the competition area at this moment, no matter where they had been before, must be desperately rushing towards the center of the safe zone.
That will be the stage for the final battle, and the place where points will surge wildly in the end.
As people gather, conflicts escalate, and chaos intensifies... it's the perfect time to reap the rewards.
"Everyone else must have run towards the center." He looked in the general direction of the center.
"Time to go and harvest another wave of players."
A calm tone uttered the cruelest words.
Harvesting players seems to be no different from harvesting monsters before; it's all about gaining points, experience, and... fun.
He didn't linger, and didn't even step on the ground.
With a slight thought, magical power flows.
【Shinra Tensei】—Low power, repulsive field lifts itself up!
A powerful repulsive force was generated beneath his feet, not for destruction, but for precise manipulation, forming a stable upward force.
Whoosh!
Lin Tian, like a shooting star shooting against the wind, suddenly detached himself from the ground and soared into the air towards the center area.
......
[Countdown to the shrinking safe zone: 00:01:17]
[Countdown to the shrinking safe zone: 00:00:43]
[Countdown to the shrinking safe zone: 00:00:21]
......
[Countdown to the shrinking safe zone: 00:00:00]
The white circle of the safe zone visibly shrank on the map, its edges as if erased by an invisible eraser, slowly and irresistibly eroding the dark red that represented the danger zone.
A new, smaller security zone has been established with the central government at its core.
Most of the remaining players, whether lone wolves or organized teams, had already begun consciously moving towards the central area long before the countdown started, even at the cost of engaging in premature skirmishes.
At this moment, most of them are already within the new safe zone, or at least very close to the boundary, seizing the last moments to rest and resupply, or lying in ambush on the edge of the safe zone, ready to hunt down those "latecomers" who have rushed into the zone.
However, not everyone had such a smooth journey.
In the vast Gale Canyon, in the "poison circle" area far from the center and gradually abandoned, a few figures are still struggling, running wildly, or making a last-ditch effort in despair.
......
Rocky slope.
"Wang Hu! Here's the stuff! Let me go! The circle is shrinking!" A rogue player named Sun Ming leaned against a wind-eroded boulder, his chest heaving violently, and several cracks appeared on his leather armor, seeping blood.
He clutched a gemstone that emitted an icy blue light tightly in his hand and shouted at the warriors blocking his way.
Warrior Wang Hu held a broadsword stained with blood. He was also panting heavily, and there was a deep, bone-revealing wound on his left arm, left by Sun Ming's poisoned dagger.
"Now you're scared? Weren't you pretty cocky when you ambushed me and stole the 'Frost Core'?"
Wang Hu spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, his eyes fierce.
They had all come for a rare elite "Ice Soul Elemental" that spawned on this rocky slope. They arrived almost at the same time, and after a fierce battle to defeat the elemental, Sun Ming took advantage of his stealth and speed to snatch the dropped core first, which then triggered a chase and counter-kill that lasted for nearly ten minutes.
"It's too late! Look at the map!"
Sun Ming's voice was filled with anxiety and fear as he forcefully threw the "Frost Core" at Wang Hu's feet.
"Here you go! If we keep fighting, we'll all die out there!"
Wang Hu glanced at the map in his mind. The edge of the shrinking circle of light was not far from their current location, and it was still getting closer!
His face also turned extremely pale.
The safe zone is shrinking; staying outside means certain death.
"Oh shit!"
Wang Hu cursed under his breath, quickly bent down to pick up the core and stuffed it into his backpack, but he didn't put down his battle sword, still watching Sun Ming warily.
"Get lost! Don't follow me! If you try anything funny, I'll kill you even if it means eating poison!"
Sun Ming felt as if he had been granted a pardon. He immediately turned around and sprinted towards the roughly identified center direction, even using his acceleration skill, leaving a trail of afterimages in his wake.
Wang Hu didn't dare to delay either. He swallowed a mid-level healing potion to suppress the pain of his injury, chose a direction slightly different from Sun Ming's, and started running as fast as he could.
The life-or-death struggle just now became insignificant in the face of a greater threat to survival.
The two didn't even care about sneaking up on each other; they just wanted to be one second faster, one second faster, to rush into that life-saving white circle of light.
......
Wind-eroded forest
"Li Na! To the left! Another one's coming from the left!"
Archer Chen Hao's voice was hoarse, his fingers were bleeding from the bowstring, and arrows shot in a line towards the "Wind Howling Harpy" that was flanking him from the side.
This is a gregarious wild monster that is fast and has tricky attacks.