Chapter 244: Prequel to Infinite Highway

"Hey, why aren't you guys talking?"

Annie changed into her combat uniform in no time and was climbing up the wall at a rapid speed, with almost no foothold.

The number of mecha figures she can summon at one time is limited. The suit she wears is an exoskeleton, not a full-body mecha, but it takes up three mecha slots, so she can summon a virtual screen in front of her eyes and call up many videos.

In order to avoid interfering with the field of vision, Annie turned off the camera function and only turned on the voice.

The images of the several square cameras floating in front of her were dark, but she could hear the sounds.

This caused other areas to become extremely noisy, while the base camp suddenly fell silent.

As Annie climbed up like a spider, she even thought she heard the sound of A Guang swallowing his saliva.

"The connection is not disconnected. Maybe you are in trouble..."

A Guang almost covered his mouth and screamed silently: Auntie, it’s obviously you who encountered something more terrifying, okay?

But he really didn't dare to say it, for fear of disturbing Anne.

"Just keep climbing up. Don't look back or move around. Be steady."

When the captain spoke, Annie immediately said "Okay".

Annie is not a fool. She will not look back secretly out of curiosity at the critical moment.

Li Yuan was also staring at the face behind her, which was floating with the flow, rising and falling, and staring at the face above.

Some of the faces seemed to have noticed Annie was about to fall, and they were actually biting each other's limbs. A noticeable small white bulge appeared from the sea, and it was unclear whether they wanted to catch Annie or grab her.

Fortunately, those limbs seemed unable to leave the water. As soon as they emerged from the water a little bit, they quickly melted and turned black like marshmallows in an oven.

Li Yuan adjusted the camera and saw the part where the boat was in contact with the water.

The good news: these things really can’t move on the water surface. At least there is no human face hanging on the outside of the wall for the time being.

Bad news, they can move freely underwater.

Li Yuan adjusted the focus and saw layers of things lying on the bottom of the boat like barnacles under the water.

They squirmed, seemingly gnawing at the ship's hull material.

It was not until Annie climbed completely onto the deck that A Guang, who was almost suffocating, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"I was scared to death, but luckily I got up safely."

Annie sneered, "What a coward you are. Is it me or you who's climbing the wall? You think I'm the NPC in a horror game, right?"

After saying that, she looked around the deck. After not seeing any enemies for a while, Anne leaned over the railing and looked back curiously.

The mechanical goggles in front of her automatically focused and helped her quickly magnify the scene on the water.

A Guang finally got what he wanted and heard Annie's string of swear words.

"Now you know that I didn't talk to you before because of you, okay?"

Annie just zoomed in too much and it felt like she was face to face with several ghost faces.

She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms and rushed back to the captain's room without even turning her head. "Thank you for letting me know another way to deal with the enemy. If that damn sheep-head hypnotizes me again, I will just push her into the water!"

"Well, there's no rush for you. I have other experimental materials here. Let's go see Mo Wen first."

Li Yuan and his team had almost dealt with the situation. There were several animal players tied up and unconscious in the room, with some of their skulls cracked and some with their arms and legs broken.

Ah Guang thought about what Li Yuan meant and was stunned for a while: "Just throw it into the sea?"

The captain hummed: "That's not the sea, it's the river of life and death, and also the Styx."

Li Yuan glanced at him expressionlessly, took off the bag on his back and threw it into A Guang's arms: "There are probably three or four orcs outside. They may not rush in on their own initiative. I have to stop them. You keep an eye on the stone."

As the team's auxiliary, A Guang always has a medic, Doctor Wu, and a summoner, Aunt Huo, by his side. In their base camp, A Guang, as the eyes and map provider, must be the safest.

As Li Yuan stepped out of the room, he saw corpses strewn all over the corridor, most of which belonged to the invaders.

And judging from the badly mutilated state of their limbs, these guys most likely turned to their own people after failing to eat others.

Fan Xi disappeared, but there were obvious traces of a chessboard on the ground, which should be the effect of her skill.

When Li Yuan came out of the room, there were still three or two guys eating meat with their heads bowed and their backs hunched.

Hearing the noise behind him, his ears turned and his red, beast-like pupils trembled.

He didn't rush into Li Yuan's room like before, but turned around and ran away.

When hunger takes over the brain, the body becomes out of control and people become extremely impulsive.

At this time, eating their own people can make up for this desire to eat. The players in the animal camp are not fools. Their companions have proved with their own experience that the people in this room are not to be messed with.

Li Yuan was writing a program. He was originally going to connect the Chu River and Han River that Fan Xi had deliberately left behind to create a game similar to chess, but suddenly he paused and changed to another program.

[Maze mini-games are being superimposed...]

[Two auxiliary robots detected, authority sharing in progress, holographic projection activated...]

[Ding——Maze version of Mirage, start! ]

Annie's mecha quickly turned off the camera function and instead projected various light and shadow screens outwards.

In Li Yuan's scene construction, the art maps in the surrounding corridors perfectly match those projections.

He used the power of technology and imitated the method of the girl with goat horns before, and directly set up the illusion.

The three hyena-like figures running outside did not notice that the corridor in front of them had changed into a different appearance.

They were rushing back to their building, when suddenly, the guy at the front of the team realized something:

"No, this is not the way back!"

[The tour guide needs to remember the tour route and must walk on the right road]

A small flag used by tour guides suddenly appeared in the hand of the brown-gray hyena. He had been completely transformed into an animal due to eating, and his four limbs on all fours gradually returned to human form. He grabbed the flag in his hand with his flexible hands and waved it vigorously:

"Go back!!! There's a cliff below!!!"

However, his shouting did not work, as the two guys behind him, who were not as fast as him, directly overtook him.

The guide only had time to throw out two hats.

[Tourists wearing hats, please follow the guide to take the correct route. If you get lost or encounter killing, the tour group will not be responsible! ]

The one who rushed the fastest fell into the water directly, and the one behind him reacted faster and bit the hat that was flying over his head.

This slap successfully saved his life.

After throwing his hat, the tour guide changed direction and ran. When he held the guide flag in his hand, his ability to explore the route would be epically enhanced, and he would soon find out that he must have been caught at some stage before.

Why are these damn human players so difficult to deal with?

He decisively replanned his route and ran back, but he bumped directly into a man who was holding a keyboard in his hands and had circles of numbers flying around his body like chains.

The tour guide player felt a chill down his spine and ran in the other direction without looking back.

The hyena behind, with the hat in its mouth, also staggered after it.

Li Yuan's fingers did not stop, but he did not actively chase and kill them. He just applied a few patches to these players.

His ability to create games is relatively complex and requires a lot of preparation in advance, as well as trustworthy teammates to cooperate with him.

The ship was so large that he needed to make arrangements in advance outside his room.

It also requires a fixed space and code to be spread like a virus. Li Yuan has already pasted those things under the feet of those two people.

The two men successfully returned to the base camp, which was actually helpful to them.

Li Yuan walked to the railing and looked down with his own eyes.

The mecha robot in the air had already recorded the moment when the player fell into the water. When Li Yuan arrived, he just caught up with the second half.

This image was being transmitted synchronously to the room where A Guang was. Aunt Huo and the other two, who had already dealt with all the captives in the room, were watching quietly nearby.

The player who fell into the water didn't even struggle. He was like a wet plush toy floating on the water. He stared up at the sky with wide eyes, his expression slow, and he seemed to be shouting for help.

And behind him, those squirming pale faces finally curved their eyes, they opened their black mouths wide, squirmed, bit, gathered like white maggots, arched up the animal players that fell into the water, and ate happily.

Hikaru was already making obvious sounds of discomfort and seemed about to vomit.

Li Yuan just kept watching quietly, watching the player with animal fur having his flesh bit by bit bit eaten away until only a skeleton was left, but what happened afterwards was a little strange.

Li Yuan frowned, operated the camera to zoom in on the image, and carefully fixed it near the player's chest.

"Doctor Wu, can you see clearly? Is this a normal anatomical picture of the human body?"

Doctor Wu was also silent: "Let's record the video and watch it later. Why don't you..."

Before he could finish his words, a loud noise was heard from the top floor where the captain's room was behind Li Yuan. He looked away and saw a huge dump truck that had directly smashed through the window of the cabin.

Hikaru didn't really want to watch the scene in the water, so he quickly cut the scene to the captain's room. "Oh my god, wasn't Annie playing with a mecha figurine? How did she turn into an Autobot?"

Li Yuan frowned: "That is Mo Wen's ability."

Before he was ready to go up and see what was going on, he felt the ship suddenly shake violently.

The radio suddenly sounded.

[The long dark night is about to pass, and the short disinfection time at dawn is coming]

[During the first two hours of the day, the ship will enter anti-virus mode. All passengers are requested to stay in their rooms and not come out.]

[Of course, this does not apply to players who are sunbathing and planning to disinfect themselves.]

Li Yuan thought to himself that something was not right, and he quickly started running. At the same time, he turned on Annie's channel and yelled at her to stay in the captain's room and not come out.

Then he rushed back to the corridor where he came out.

Because it was night, the weather outside was cold and the surroundings were dark, but from the moment the broadcast sounded, a brilliant light lit up on the horizontal surface in the distance at a speed visible to the naked eye.

How can a person run as fast as light?

Li Yuan reacted quickly, but his back was still more or less burned by the white light.

Until he ran into the room and closed the door without saying a word, several shouts and curses came from Annie's video:

"Damn it, if you weren't lucky, I would have taken the opportunity to throw you out. Stay still! Don't move!"

She seemed to have subdued the girl with goat horns, and Mo Wen's weak face appeared in the video.

Behind him, in addition to the basic structure of the captain's room, he could see half of a car stuck on a window.

It is said to be half a car because Mo Wen is now using his ability to retract the car.

Li Yuan and his friends saw through the camera that the place where a big hole was hit by the car before had now turned into a mass of paste and was healing itself like wall patching material.

However, this material is quite corrosive. Mo Wen originally wanted to pull out the entire car, but it was cut directly off, leaving only half of it.

"Thanks to Annie, I was almost hypnotized and handed over the captain's authority just now."

Every time he spoke a word he had to cough twice, and you could see a layer of blisters on his face.

Mo Wen hissed, and Annie squeezed into the camera and added, "If I hadn't closed the window in time, we would have been burned to death in our current position!"

Li Yuan understood this sentence deeply. His neck and wrist were also swept by the white light. Wu Hanyu looked at the injured parts of his body with a sad face.

"I'm an orthopedic surgeon, and I don't know much about dermatology."

Having said that, a white medical box appeared in his hand, and he took out various strange bottles and jars and began to mix medicine. The most important thing was that a medical book appeared directly at his hand, and he treated patients while flipping through the book.

[The books and literature that a medical student has to read in his lifetime would pile up to the ceiling of his dorm, so it is normal for him to know a little bit about everything. Of course, life-saving matters should be left to specialists. I am only at a passing level in terms of medical knowledge outside of my department.]

Dr. Wu recited the second half of his skill without any hesitation.

"Your injury feels like a laser burn. In addition to hammering people on the head, my skills are more helpful for bone injuries. The healing potion I gave you depends on your personal recovery ability. So, what's the situation outside?"

Annie and Guang worked together, and the mechanical surveillance systems on the deck all disappeared the moment the white light enveloped the ship.

But the good news is that players' skills can still be used for the time being, so even if they are locked in the room and cannot go out, they can still communicate with each other.

Ah Guang touched his chin and said, "There are no doors on either side of the corridor. According to the environment we detected before, there are no more than four completely sealed rooms on this ship."

Apart from Qi Fan's room, where the largest animal player stayed, and the rooms of a few human players on Li Yuan's side, there were only the captain's room on the top and the cargo hold at the bottom.

A dark camera lit up, it was Fan Xi.

"I'm in the cargo hold right now and can't get out for the time being. I'll use the rest of the daylight hours to explore the place."

The others immediately turned their attention to her.

It was true that Annie left a small robot for her, but she didn't expect that Fan Xi actually found the entrance to the warehouse at the bottom.

"This ship seems different now than when we assembled it. I remember the cargo hold underneath was empty before, but now it's full of cargo."

Fan Xi paused and said, "Also, before I came in, I saw a very strange large disc lock outside. When I touched it with my hand, the lock surface turned into a chess game, an endgame, which was very difficult."

Before entering this inexplicable world, Fan Xi was a national-level chess player. She never expected to see such a chess game in a game world that was like the afterlife.

"The door lock turned into a chessboard, and after solving a chess game, I came in."

After she came in, not only did the door lock automatically, but soon after, a disinfecting white light descended outside, so she couldn't go out for the time being.

When Li Yuan saw Fan Xi's expression, he knew that she had something more important to say.

"Have you looked through the goods?"

Fan Xi nodded, then with a complicated expression, she walked closer to the shelf closest to her, which was filled with all kinds of neatly arranged cardboard boxes, inside which were various square folders that were organized in a very standardized manner.

Fan Xi picked up the file on the outermost side, which had a red label on the outside.

【List of people who accidentally fell into a coma in 2000. 】

Others were confused by this title, but Li Yuan finally understood something in an instant.

“Have you found your year yet?”

Now even Guang realized it: "Wait, this isn't the age I thought it was. This list can't say..."

Fan Xi on the other end nodded slowly in the dim orange light of the warehouse: "All written here are the names of the players in the Infinite Mall."

"Although I don't know many people who came in 2000, their names and the reasons for coming in are written directly on it."

Page 1 of the book that Fan Xi spoke to the camera.

【Zhuang Yao, occupation, porter】

[2000, April 7, 13:59:46, accidentally fell down the stairs and suffered a head injury. After falling into a coma in the hospital, his consciousness entered the Infinite Mall.]

[Current status: Already integrated into the river]

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the last line of the page.

They had all used surveillance to see the scene in the river below, especially the scene where Li Yuan used his ability to trick a player and the player fell into the river. The final fate of that guy is still vivid in their minds.

After the hyena player fell into the water, all his flesh and blood was eaten away, leaving only his internal bones. However, what was contained in his chest cavity was not his heart, liver, spleen, lungs or other internal organs, but white paper bags.

At first, Li Yuan thought that it was a symptom of some disease of the player himself.

It was not until Dr. Wu said that it was not a lesion at all and that it was impossible for a person's stomach to be filled with so many white, tumor-like things.

Following the captain's signal, A Guang finally operated his own equipment tremblingly, exported the video that had been remotely transmitted by the robot, edited the clips, enlarged them, and replayed them.

In the picture, you can see the white bags gradually becoming transparent after being soaked in water.

Then, some strange objects appeared in everyone's sight.

The bag contained not internal organs or flesh, but some strange daily necessities.

A hand-woven doll that was obviously made by a child, an old, yellowed, rolled-up certificate, a car key, a diary, and a badge with a hyena logo.

At the end of the shot, the player whose meat was eaten up finally had a piece of floating white skin sliding off his bones like a plastic bag.

The ghost faces around him only ate his flesh and left his stomach contents and his face untouched.

Li Yuan and the others only saw the things in the white bags, which soon began to float up and down, and then like small balls strung together, they formed a row and floated away to an unknown place, completely disappearing from the camera.

The scene ended, and Fan Xi's voice came from the other side of the video:

"I suspect that those who fall into the water will become completely dead, and those of us who are recorded in the files may not be truly dead."

She flipped through several more files, and most of the people's names had "In the Game" written on them.

Some names would even be followed by the current floor and the number of times they had been resurrected (5).

Among them, only a few people fell into the water, and everyone can see from the comparison documents specially selected by Fan Xi that most players can be resurrected after dying in the shopping mall game.

But this book also tells them a cruel truth.

It’s different after falling into the water. The line showing the number of resurrections will disappear and become “merged into the river”.

To merge into this river might mean to truly die.

There were only dead bodies in the water, and it would be the same if they went in.

Li Yuan also called up another picture at this time: "I have another bad news. Those faces under the water are attacking this ship."

He released the scene of the barnacle-like human faces on the bottom of the ship, gnawing at the ship.

A Guang immediately made vomiting sounds.

After Li Yuan looked at him, A Guang immediately raised his hand weakly: "No way, sir, even pretending to vomit is not allowed?"

As a result, the captain looked at the schoolbag in his arms.

A stone was pretending to vomit in the same tone as Guang.

[Ew, ew, the things under the boat are so disgusting! ]

A Guang's expression froze for a moment. He loosened his hands holding the schoolbag and looked at his teammates for help.

"Did you hear it just now?"

The teammates looked at Ah Guang subtly, until he began to suspect that he was possessed by evil spirits and began to hear hallucinations. The captain then said:

"Xiao Shitou's learning ability is quite strong, so be careful with your words."

Then, Li Yuan took the backpack and the big rock from his arms and frowned again: "Don't make such noises in the future."

[Ah? Why? I’m going to tell you! I’m going to tell you!]

Then he nudged Li Yuan's hand angrily.

Li Yuan paused for a moment, then naturally continued: "I'm talking about Ah Guang."

A Guang who is still worried:???