Chapter 208 Tear Off the Facade

“What do you mean I’m afraid to leave?” Gao Tian’s tone shifted slightly. “What are you talking about?”

Xia Xinyan stepped in front of him and quietly asked, “If I’m not mistaken, these escape pods are meant to be our coffins, right?”

She had figured it all out.

The entire dungeon might have been deceiving them from the start.

Including that voice that had appeared in their heads.

The real game system had only issued them tasks at the beginning and hadn’t provided any further hints.

Even now, if they opened the task panel, they would see that the current task was still stuck at [Destroy the Control Hub].

And the biggest hint the entire dungeon had given them was that the game system had told them from the beginning—don’t trust anything.

Once that hint disappeared, they were dragged into a scam.

This city, and even that voice, was merely a reality show targeting them, the players.

Everything they encountered, the entire flow of events, seemed to be pushing them towards “destroying the Control Hub.”

The biggest problem was that this point felt too smooth; they hadn’t even faced any real challenges, with only the final few mecha being somewhat difficult, but they hardly qualified as the highest difficulty of this dungeon.

What made Xia Xinyan connect all the dots was this last action.

The first thing the Resistance Army thought of after their victory was to send them out of this spire—while the reason sounded reasonable, it made Xia Xinyan feel a sense of… urgency.

The Resistance Army wanted them to leave quickly, or more precisely, they wanted this group of players to board the escape pods as soon as possible.

Looking at these events from a bystander’s perspective, this action seemed a bit too deliberate.

What also struck Xia Xinyan as deliberate was this “Control Hub.”

Whether it was the holographic projection screens they had seen before or the constant indoctrination by the Resistance Army, everything aimed to make them believe this was the “Control Hub,” and that their mission was to destroy it.

Thus, the players smoothly teamed up with the timing Resistance Army, mockingly commenting on their childish tactics while following them to attack the spire.

They were indeed childish and perfectly played the role of “support characters beside the protagonist.”

But, still, it was too deliberate.

When Xia Xinyan began to doubt the Resistance Army because of the “Control Hub,” many of those earlier doubts started to link together—such as how it seemed the Resistance Army’s offensives were actually half-hearted. Besides the casualty numbers they claimed, players hadn’t seen any sign of the Resistance Army sustaining any damage.

In contrast, this spire, the core area controlling the entire city, had no armed resistance forces besides a bunch of robots; in fact, the only humans they had seen in the core area surrendered without a fight, only cursing a couple of times, which didn’t seem like a proper response from people in such a position.

It led Xia Xinyan to think… the Resistance Army and the spire were like actors performing a play, both fooling the blindfolded players.

And the few doubts she had noted earlier also indirectly confirmed this suspicion—Gao Tian was clearly an ordinary young man living in the outside city but was very familiar with high-tech terms and creations. His explanations about those battle robots on the way were detailed, and he even knew their weaknesses, which clearly didn’t match his living environment.

The excuse of needing to understand the opponent before a battle didn’t really convince Xia Xinyan—besides, the secret data for guarding this spire couldn’t just be distributed like newspapers.

Moreover, even if an ordinary person had some knowledge about fields they had no access to, they wouldn’t know it in such detail—take Lamborghini as an example; most people know the brand, but not many would know the design of the Aventador SVJ ignition button.

Unless they frequently encountered these aspects.

With that, everything made sense.

As for why Xia Xinyan felt the escape pods were a dead end, it was simple—intuition.

And a little speculation.

After all, she hadn’t seen any member of the Resistance Army enter the escape pods; logically speaking, after the battle, wouldn’t they want to send a few people down to report back?

Upon hearing what she said, the fat guy and Tian Yi, who had entered the escape pod, immediately dashed out: “Holy crap! Are you trying to set me up, you son of a dog?”

Seeing the fat guy charging at him menacingly, Gao Tian finally showed a hint of panic: “No! I didn’t! You misunderstood! We’re friends! How could I harm you? I just wanted to…”

Before he could finish, the fat guy grabbed Gao Tian and pushed him into the escape pod: “No problem, huh? Then I’ll send you down first. Once you land safely, give us a call, and I’ll take you out for drinks to apologize.”

However, at that moment, Gao Tian started struggling: “No! Don’t do this! Aren’t we friends?! I really can’t go down! This place still needs me! I can’t…”

The fat guy simply kicked him inside: “Why so much nonsense? In you go!”

With that, he shut the escape pod’s door.

After being kicked into the escape pod, Gao Tian saw the door close and immediately disregarded the pain, scrambling to his feet and banging on the door: “No! Help! Let me go! Don’t do this! No!! Let me go!!”

Seeing him like this, the fat guy suddenly changed from furious to nonchalant again: “OK, confirmed, it really is a dead end.”

Tian Yi was left bewildered by this sudden change: “Wait… Bro, were you faking it just now?”

“Of course, do I look like someone without manners?” The fat guy shot him a sideways glance and shrugged. “Here’s a tip—when facing an angry and intimidating opponent, people often reduce their thinking time to quickly come up with ways to placate or distract them, in other words, they’re prone to revealing their cards. Plus, anger can cloud judgment, prompting people to do things they wouldn’t normally do, which is quite understandable, right?”

Tian Yi: “…”

He had always thought this guy was pretty thick-headed.

Even Ling Mo started looking at the fat guy with new respect: “Didn’t see that coming, you’ve got some skills.”

However, Xia Xinyan thought this fat guy’s actions were quite normal.

Anyone who could remain stable on the leaderboard till now must have some tricks up their sleeve.

It was just… they had officially torn their relationship with the Resistance Army now.

Things were finally getting interesting!