Chapter 279, exclusively published on Jinjiang Literature City, features a mutated beast tide.
One and a half months for plants and animals to undergo changes.
Since the volcanic ash spread, the sky has been overcast every day.
As the magma cooled and solidified, the temperature also dropped, remaining around 20 degrees Celsius.
This temperature is not only suitable for human survival, but it also makes the mutated beasts more active.
With the disappearance of lone mutated beasts in the wild, both animals that were originally social or solitary now move in groups, and the people who had been actively hunting recently have become more docile.
You can't be dishonest. Even a team of three to five people would face extreme danger if they encountered dozens of mutated beasts, or even just a group of rabbits.
If the number of people is less than thirty or fifty, the gatekeepers at the entrances of various towns will not let them pass, fearing that the people will not return.
Even if a sufficient number of people go out, they must bring with them body parts of mutated beasts from the Star Alliance.
Feathers, furs, or dried meat they had specifically traded from Lu Xuan.
When Lu Xuan returned from Sorenson, there was still a lot of mutated beast meat in his space that hadn't been eaten by the vampire vines. Because the meat was inedible, it had been stored away. It wasn't until this mutation appeared in his native land that he realized the new use for the meat.
The feathers and fur still retain the lingering scent of high-level mutated beasts, and of course, the meat does too. They are dried into jerky to prevent rotting. When going out hunting, they are stored in the space first to prevent all the mutated beasts from avoiding them and resulting in no harvest. They are only taken out to intimidate when a real problem arises that cannot be dealt with.
In this way, the number of casualties among travelers can be greatly reduced.
Not only civilians, but also soldiers were required to carry two sets of these items when they went out, one as a backup in case of an emergency.
As for what constitutes an accident...
Naturally, it means encountering a mutant beast of the same species as a high-level mutant beast.
Low-level mutated beasts can enhance their strength by devouring high-level beasts. In such cases, the pressure emanating from those feathers and furs will have the opposite effect, attracting them instead of driving them away.
However, such situations are rare events. The varieties that Lu Xuan provides are all quite rare, or varieties that are rarely seen or even never seen in the country.
The probability of it actually happening is less than one in a thousand.
Nevertheless, hunting is no easy task as the mutated beast hordes become increasingly concentrated.
Many of the superhumans in the Western Continent are still at level one, the same level as the mutated beasts.
Even with slightly stronger level two strength, they would still be wiped out if surrounded by eight or ten mutated beasts, and in the end, they could only rely on firearms to save the day.
When Lu Xuan led his hunting team in the wild, they would occasionally encounter hunting teams from the Western Continent.
Apart from 'professionals' like the Huo family army or the Luochuan garrison, most of the time the hunting process of the disaster victims made people hold their breath, with dangerous situations occurring frequently.
The battle process is basically as follows:
If there is a superhuman in the team, they should use their superhuman abilities first, while the others should use alloy crossbows or other melee weapons to assist. Firearms are released in relatively small quantities to avoid internal strife, and most teams cannot obtain them. If they find that they cannot win, they should immediately take out high-grade mutated beast pelts to scare away the beast horde.
After recovering, they would put away the fur, regroup, and continue fighting. If they couldn't continue, they would take out the fur again, and so on.
You may need to repeat the above steps four or five times a day.
After observing for two days, Lu Xuan's viewers in the live stream felt exhausted for the disaster victims, realizing how difficult it was to make a living during a disaster.
Lu Xuan didn't seem to care.
If it were the apocalypse, besides mutated beasts there would be a large number of zombies, and even a scratch could turn you into one of them, wouldn't that be even more terrifying?
Let's look at the battle situation in Yunlu Village.
The hunting team had a dozen or twenty level-three ability users, and they could easily handle a herd of beasts numbering in the hundreds.
However, after more than a month of fighting, these ordinary mutant beasts, which showed no signs of upgrading, could no longer bring any further progress to their combat abilities.
Advancing from level three to level four requires more accumulation and time, which is something that cannot be overcome no matter how much you play.
Since that's the case, instead of wasting a lot of time every time we encounter a group of mutated beasts, we might as well change our fighting style and improve efficiency.
Lu Xuan had been hoarding them in his spatial storage for a long time, and they kept growing. The dozens of mechs he had obtained from rewards, from guaranteed draws in the Black Gold Blind Box, and from daily discount purchases finally had a use.
·
In a wilderness a dozen kilometers north of the western continent.
A civilian hunting team of thirty people is engaged in a fierce battle with a group of more than twenty mutated wild boars.
Calling it a fierce battle is an exaggeration; to be precise, the hunting team was being relentlessly rammed and completely crushed by the mutated wild boars.
Of the thirty people, six or seven had already been injured and fallen to the ground, unable to fight. The others had also suffered many injuries while dodging and fighting, and had consumed a lot of energy. They were on the verge of collapse.
In contrast, only two wild boars were injured, one of which was not too seriously injured and looked ready to regroup.
Sweating profusely, the team members shouted to their captain, "Boss, we can't take this anymore! We can't defeat so many wild boars! Quickly, get the hides out!"
The captain felt somewhat resentful.
They have to prepare a lot of weapons every time they go hunting, and the pelts of high-level mutated beasts are also quite valuable, so they have to invest a lot.
They've only managed to capture one wild boar so far. After deducting costs, and dividing it among thirty people, with the injured receiving even more, the average amount per person is practically negligible. It's not worth it at all compared to their sacrifices.
But considering that if there were casualties, it would be difficult to explain to the relatives of the injured or killed, and they would have to pay even more compensation, they gritted their teeth and nodded.
"You all step back."
The team members, who had long been unable to hold on, were about to retreat when the wild boar herd began a new round of charges.
The team members relaxed because their captain was about to take out the skin, and two of them were a little slow to dodge and were about to be knocked away.
At the critical moment, the already overcast sky above everyone suddenly darkened even more, as if something huge was falling rapidly, bringing with it a strong gust of wind.
Everyone's faces grew increasingly pale.
Could it be that we've run into a flying mutant beast?
These flying birds are much harder to deal with than those that run on the ground.
"Captain—!" Hurry up and get the hide out!
Just as the captain's hand touched the 5-cubic-meter space ring that the entire team had pooled their money to buy, a colossal machine over ten meters tall crashed to the ground, its massive mechanical legs stomping on the wild boars charging towards the team members.
The others only heard two clear 'splatter' sounds as the two enormous wild boars were instantly crushed into meat patties.
"!!!"
Immediately afterwards, the giant machine in front of it swung its mechanical arm and slapped a wild boar away. The wild boars were either thrown into the air and crushed to death, or they were slammed into huge tree trunks further away. The intense impact caused their internal organs to rupture and they vomited blood, convulsing as they fell to the ground.
The scene was filled with the shrill screams of the mutated wild boars and an increasingly strong stench of blood.
Looking at the members of the civilian hunting team, they were already terrified when the huge iron lump in front of them crushed the wild boar.
Only when not a single wild boar remained standing did someone come to their senses and let out a scream.
"Iron Man Immortal Weapon! It's Lord Yunxian's men who have come to our rescue!"
The others were also jolted awake by the keywords 'immortal artifact', suddenly realizing what was happening.
"Is it the one that others mentioned before? I was hoping to see it in person, and I never expected to run into it today!"
The team members, who were still terrified a moment ago, immediately became excited. Even the captain, after wiping away a cold sweat, couldn't help but look at the huge thing in front of him with excitement.
A few days ago, some people in the city were saying that a magical artifact, which was ten or twenty meters tall and could carry people, had appeared in Yunlu Village, where Yunxianhou lived. The artifact was said to be more powerful than a superhuman and could easily kill mutated beasts.
Before seeing it with their own eyes, they couldn't quite imagine what such a thing looked like. Now that they actually saw it, they realized how huge it really was!
Even though they were more than ten meters away from the immortal artifact, looking up at it still felt incredibly stressful.
"Are you all alright?" A young man's voice suddenly came from inside the immortal artifact.
The group was startled by what they heard, and after a while, the captain hurriedly said, "We're alright, thank you for saving us. If it weren't for our benefactor's timely appearance, many of us would probably have died."
The big guy, Chen Rong, inside the mecha, waved his hand and said, "I just happened to be passing by. Since there's nothing else, I'll be going."
The captain paused, "Then these wild boars, you..."
Chen Rong said, "I don't need this much prey. You can handle it yourselves."
The team members exchanged glances, their faces filled with surprise and delight. They hadn't expected such an unexpected gain after things had taken such a turn for the better.
Chen Rong quickly flew away again, while the team members left behind went to collect wild boars and had a lively discussion.
"That's incredible! With just one kick and one slap, all the wild boars were dead."
"If we had that kind of strength, why would we need to work ourselves to the bone?"
"Hey, can you compare to the people of Yunlu Village? They're all incredibly capable. Didn't you see it during the superhuman competition? Even the kids there are way more skilled than the adults."
The captain reminded them, "We're already very lucky to have been rescued and to have gotten so much prey today. Don't be too greedy."
The others, without any other thoughts, quickly nodded and said, "Indeed, with so many mutated wild boars, even if not all the meat is edible, after deducting the cost of buying bows, crossbows, and spatial rings, each family should be able to get at least a hundred or two hundred catties."
"This is equivalent to almost half a month's worth of our harvest."
The group grew happier and happier as they thought about it. Although it was still early, they decided to call it a day and head back to divide the meat to avoid any unforeseen accidents.
·
In the air, after crossing the wilderness and arriving at a relatively dense forest, Chen Rong opened the internal channel and told the others about his recent experience.
Others chimed in, saying, "I also encountered a group of people here, but they were from Feng County. The beasts they encountered weren't too fierce, and they were able to handle it, so I didn't bother with them."
"I did save a group of people, and they insisted that I take half of the prey with me, so I did."
"I didn't encounter any people, but I did find a group of mutated horned sheep, which are much more powerful than goats. Fortunately, I had a mecha, so I took care of them all without much effort."
Chen Rong wasn't envious after hearing this.
Since everyone in the village who could operate mechs switched to them, they have started to act independently, and with the help of mechs, they have gained much more than before.
Even with the worst luck, each person can still catch several thousand kilograms of edible meat.
This is why Chen Rong looked down on the mutated wild boar, which generally didn't taste very good.
Having grown accustomed to fine food, he looked down on meat.
As expected, the powerful Lu Xuan reaped the most rewards, managing to obtain tens of thousands of kilograms of edible mutated beast meat every day.
Upon learning that Lu Xuan had already obtained over 30,000 jin of meat that morning, Chen Rong immediately abandoned his idle chatter and rushed into the forest to search for the herd of beasts that had just appeared on the radar.
·
In addition to providing mechs to the hunting team of Yunlu Village, Lu Xuan also traded a batch of cost-effective standard mechs to various towns in the Western Continent.
With the addition of mechs, the Western Continent was greatly enhanced, the safety of those venturing out was further guaranteed, and the amount of supplies obtained by the government also increased exponentially, just like in Yunlu Village.
Unfortunately, the number of wild beasts on this continent was simply too astonishing. Despite so many people killing them for over a month, the size of the beast hordes that had gathered from the Western Continent did not decrease at all; on the contrary, they increased in number. Even on the beach, strange fish that had mutated and grown legs to climb ashore appeared.
After a long journey of more than half a month, these mutated beasts and strange fish finally gathered together to form an astonishing beast tide, completely surrounding the entire western continent.
Lu Xuan initially speculated that the reason these beasts were heading towards the western continent was because many superhumans and crystal cores had gathered there, and they were attracted by the large amount of energy contained within them.
But when seen through drones and binoculars, the dense, countless, endless horde of beasts stretches as far as the eye can see, the answer to this question becomes irrelevant.
The beast tide has arrived, and all they can do now is fight!
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Author's Note: Reader "Jenny Mash" watered the page with +2 nutrient solution on 2025-07-25 20:53:35
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