Players, Please Board the Train-Chapter 246: Mutations under Characteristics

In a relatively remote factory area, black long hair converged into numerous slender snakes, some crawling along the ground littered with randomly placed steel materials, while others coiled around pillars and roof beams, creating a stunningly dense sight.
Xu Huo grabbed a snake flying toward him, originally intending to pull out the person behind it, but as soon as he rounded the nearby pillar, the snake transformed back into hair and fell limp from his hand—the hair had already been severed.
Simultaneously, a giant snake above him opened its mouth to bite down. Xu Huo snatched up a steel rod he had picked up and stabbed it into the snake's mouth. The giant snake instantly dissolved into countless small black snakes that poured down, simultaneously entangling his limbs and body!
The steel rod in his hand was wrigglingly sucked away by the hair snakes. Soft yet resilient hair tangled wildly around him, gradually devouring his space to move.
The hair snakes were highly active, and Xu Huo didn't detect any signs of Zhou Ning approaching nearby. However, he wasn't in a hurry to escape either. Instead, he took out the Adult Fairy Tale Book and slapped its cover, saying, "Time to work."
This time, the fairy tale book didn't refuse to open or go on strike after opening. Randomly selecting a page, as bleeding font gradually appeared on the page, a eerie and terrifying voice also rang out: "She discovered all the snakes around her twisting their heads around. Their pitch-black color turned multicolored, pairs of crimson eyes surrounding her like stars in the night sky. Brightly colored forked tongues flicked in and out, dripping with foul-smelling liquid. Some snakes that had eaten too much even vomited out some eyeballs and human hand remnants..."
"The intense smell of blood stimulated those venomous snakes, making them even more ravenous. While vomiting out undigested food, they crawled toward her..."
"Ah!" A sharp scream came from within the hair snake pile. Zhou Ning abruptly retreated from the hair mass while swiftly waving her hand to cut off her own hair!
"Snap!" Xu Huo closed the fairy tale book.
Zhou Ning quickly retreated several steps before steadying herself. Looking at the hair scattered on the ground before her and the person standing nearby, her eyes showed a moment of confusion, but she quickly understood, "You have an item for mental attacks?"
"Your characteristic has mental effects, and you can't distinguish between reality and illusion?" Xu Huo asked.
Zhou Ning looked somewhat ashamed, "Although I can create attacks, my defense isn't very good. Simply put, I need to believe in the illusions I create myself for them to have lethal power."
Xu Huo paused, "Explain in detail."
Zhou Ning described her newly developed characteristic.
She had previously told Xu Huo about her profession—Medusa. The basic characteristic was "Elderly Medusa," which could simply transform hair into snakes or create a giant snake illusion, but the attack power was very weak. The giant snake illusion had almost no lethal power beyond intimidation and was ineffective against people with stable minds and rigorous thinking.
Earlier, she had used her second characteristic to conceal her traces—"Temporary Medusa." She could imagine herself as a hair snake mixed among them, making it difficult to be detected.
Additionally, during the process of using her characteristics, she discovered that the richer her imagination, the more realistic the effects of her characteristics would be.
"I used this characteristic to kill a player who was following me. The situation was critical at the time, and I imagined myself as a snake, even my perspective shifting to snake-eye level. The other person seemed completely unable to detect me. I didn't expect to succeed myself, but when I 'turned into a snake,' my hair looked even more like real snakes."
After listening, Xu Huo said, "So your characteristic can expand perspectives. Have you tried controlling the range?"
Zhou Ning shook her head, "I haven't been able to recapture that feeling since then."
Xu Huo put away the fairy tale book, took out the "Peeping Eye" and put it on, then gripped the Crimson Sword, saying, "Be careful. Don't blame me if you lose limbs next."
As soon as he finished speaking, sword energy shot toward Zhou Ning!
Zhou Ning retreated in surprise, but her reaction was quite swift. As she retreated, her loose hair rapidly grew longer, with one strand flying toward the factory's main beam.
"Trying to go above?" Xu Huo exposed her intention. With two light steps, his speed suddenly surged, instantly cutting in front of her to sever her hair!
Zhou Ning had already used the Hair Growth Potion, so her hair grew extremely fast. The next batch immediately surged out. She casually grabbed a handful, and several hair snakes automatically twisted together to form a flexible long whip, whistling as it swept toward Xu Huo!
The hair whip was unsurprisingly severed, but this was merely a feint. Taking advantage of this gap, she had already flipped behind the stacked steel materials!
Xu Huo immediately leaped onto the steel pile, but didn't see Zhou Ning's figure—only some hair snakes disappearing around the corner.
He wasn't in a hurry to chase Zhou Ning. Standing upright, he swung his sword left and right, cutting through the piled steel materials!
Zhou Ning revealed her position on one side, but when he quickly walked over to look down, he found it was only a section of fallen steel material. He abruptly turned around, only to be met with a mass of interwoven hair. The hair ball reached his face, and dozens of small snakes suddenly surged from its center, biting toward his eyes!
Xu Huo twisted his wrist to cut the hair snakes in front of him, but the next second, his feet were bound by hair snakes. Moreover, these hairs had imperceptibly invaded the steel materials stacked here. With simultaneous force from left, right, and below, they buried him within the steel pile.
Innumerable hair snakes swarmed over again, forming an oval cocoon-like structure. However, Xu Huo wasn't in a hurry to break out of the hair snakes, merely cutting down the flying ones while re-examining these repeatedly intertwining hairs through the "Peeping Eye." He noticed details he hadn't seen before.
These hair snakes moved with certain patterns. They were roughly the same thickness, initially appearing like a repeating animated image. Watching for more than two seconds easily caused dizziness, and combined with the hair snakes' fast movement speed, it was difficult to spot any differences. At least in the previous encounter, Xu Huo hadn't detected Zhou Ning hidden within.
But under the "Peeping Eye," subtle changes appeared among these hair snakes—the movement cycle of hair snakes in one elongated area had slowed down!
He stabbed his sword in and pulled it out, the Crimson Sword now stained with blood.
But the next second, someone approached from behind!
Xu Huo turned and kicked, only to find that the movement came from several hair snakes, while Zhou Ning crouched low below, stabbing upward with a knife!
At such close range, with one foot still entangled by hair snakes, it seemed difficult for him to avoid this strike.
Zhou Ning thought exactly that, so she hesitated slightly in her attack. But she soon regretted it, because Xu Huo actually forcibly pulled out the hair snakes, sweeping his leg in an arc before driving his knee into the side of her head!
The hair snakes quickly swallowed the falling Zhou Ning, then swarmed over again!
"Whoosh! Whoosh!" Two bursts of sword energy pierced through the hair cocoon, causing large amounts of broken hairs to drift down. But to his surprise, there was an even larger hair cocoon outside, while the hair strands fallen on the ground were also wriggling.
Xu Huo narrowed his eyes, grabbed the piano wire to ascend, and cut an opening above with his sword. Just as he was about to exit, several sharp steel materials stabbed down from above, while the injured Zhou Ning stood on them, her round pupils showing a tendency to contract toward the center!