Chapter 85: Mutation
The scimitar slashed through the air, and the black piece of meat instantly broke into several sections, but the strange feeling under the snow layer did not stop.
Li Ziyue quickly raised his arm, moved his fingers slightly, and pulled the trigger without hesitation. Then there was a loud gunshot, and the strange beast lurking behind Zhang Xingzhi exploded into a ball of dense needles in the blink of an eye.
The fine needle, with the help of external force, attacked them again.
He threw the gun into the sky. The silver spear in Li Ziyue's hand spun rapidly into an impenetrable barrier. As soon as the needle touched the gun body, it was bounced to all directions and turned into lifeless black smoke, blending into the snow.
A raging fire "whoosh" rose up from the snow and wind, tightly surrounding the cloud of black smoke. The smoke screamed in the orange-red flames. After an unknown amount of time, the black color gradually dissipated, and the snowy night was shrouded in darkness again.
Everything returned to calm.
[This time, a total of 3 gold coins are consumed. The 'Lance' weapon can no longer be used.]
Li Ziyue stood under the tree, rubbing his slightly sore wrist expressionlessly.
Zhang Xingzhi put away the scrapped spear and looked at Li Ziyue in surprise: "Why do I feel like you know how to use all kinds of weapons? Have you learned them specifically?"
Up to now, the miscellaneous layer of his system backpack has been stuffed with dozens of disposable weapons that Li Ziyue used to save gold coins. No matter whether it is a small dart or a giant axe, there is nothing that Li Ziyue will not use twice.
Li Ziyue didn't raise his eyes, but just shook his head.
His eyes were cold, as if he was stating a trivial matter: "In the first few years after the release of the Advanced Pseudo-Human Dungeon, I encountered players who used various weapons. After being beaten by them many times, I naturally learned to use their weapons."
"..." Zhang Xingzhi's expression was stiff, "I'm sorry, I don't know..."
"It's okay," Li Ziyue wrapped the bandage around the wound, moved around a few times, and then straightened his clothes and continued to walk deeper. "The grass on their graves is at least ten meters high now. Overall, I'm still making a profit."
Zhang Xingzhi: “…”
He followed Li Ziyue and asked: "What exactly is "Advanced Pseudo-Human Copy"? "
Li Ziyue said nothing.
Zhang Xingzhi added: "I will also enter Gaofei in three months. The players in Gaofei will not be hostile. I will be your teammate."
Li Ziyue lowered his eyes with an unclear expression, as if he was only paying attention to the ground covered with thick snow.
After a long while, he slowly said, "Information exchange, I won't do anything that loses money."
Zhang Xingzhi had an expression of "not surprising to me" and took out a light blue crystal pendant from his backpack: "Don't you think Zhang Lian is familiar?"
This was the first time that Li Ziyue stopped on his own initiative. He raised his head slightly and his eyes fell on the pendant.
"I think you should have guessed that you have a past memory that you can't remember, and Zhang Lian is also hiding it," Zhang Xingzhi put the pendant in Li Ziyue's palm, "Now, it is hidden in the pendant. As long as you break the pendant, you can remember everything."
Li Ziyue looked tired, but he hung the pendant around his neck and continued walking forward.
"have no idea."
"Ah?" Zhang Xingzhi was stunned. "What do you mean you don't know?"
Li Ziyue's voice came through the snowy wind, with a hint of indifference: "I really don't know."
He paused for half a second and said, “I even doubted for a long time whether I had escaped from the Advanced Pseudo-Human Copy.”
"Everything I've experienced in the past six years, even you in front of me, even myself, may be fictional."
"The whole world is a grand scam to me. It was because I couldn't distinguish between truth and falsehood that my seniors died."
Zhang Xingzhi sighed subconsciously: "... Gao Wei is really so..."
He paused in surprise.
The "Advanced Pseudo-Human Copy" is opened once every three years, and only the top ten teams in the standings are allowed to enter.
Those who can make it to the top ten in the scoreboard are all veterans who have completed countless dungeons and must have their own strengths. However, the completion rate of "Advanced Pseudo-Human Dungeon" has been 0 so far.
This data alone is enough to prove the horror of "Advanced Pseudo-Human Copy".
Li Ziyue sighed softly: "The normal process for players to clear a dungeon is: the system issues tasks, players look for clues, and then complete the tasks and answer them."
“No matter how complicated the task is, there must be a complete thread behind it that connects everything.”
"For example, there is a generally accepted order for the 26 letters of the alphabet, that is, A is followed by B, and B is followed by C... A simple copy will tell you C first, and then ask you to work your way back to A and B. A complex copy may directly tell you Z, and then ask you to work your way back to combine these letters to form a word."
“No matter how difficult the problem is, as long as you find the hidden conditions based on the known conditions, string the conditions together into interim conclusions, and finally add, delete, and modify reasonable conclusions, you will be able to find the answer.”
"But the Advanced Pseudo-Human Dungeon is not like that," Li Zi lowered his voice as the night deepened. "First of all, the mission is illogical. It's like the system randomly grabs a few unrelated elements and asks you to guess what the next one is. It's completely... impossible to start."
"That's fine," Li Ziyue rubbed his brows lightly, "It's hard to avoid the dangers in the dungeon."
"Let me give you another example. The monsters in this instance require gold coins + weapons to kill. The system will first let you participate in a session where you can earn gold coins, and then let you fight the monsters."
"How much gold you earn in the early stages depends on your ability. At least the system will leave you a way out. Although this way out looks very narrow, in the Advanced Pseudo-Human Dungeon, the system only wants you to die."
"It won't tell you the gold coins, nor will it give you weapons. Without the blessing of gold coins, you can't do any harm to the monsters."
"When the players found out that they were 'unable to cause damage', they would look for clues about the gold coins," Zhang Xingzhi thought for a moment, "This is obviously caused by the players' lack of preliminary research..."
"No," Li Ziyue waved his hand, "A normal person would definitely realize which link he missed, but by the time you realize it, the link to obtain gold coins has been permanently closed by the system."
"Want to restart the process? Then wait until you die and reincarnate."
Zhang Xingzhi's back was already covered with a dense layer of cold sweat.
"This is totally unexplainable... It's impossible for a person to predict something that hasn't happened without any clues."
"Yes," Li Ziyue chuckled with an ambiguous tone, "What if I tell you that in this situation, there is a fake person who looks exactly like you, thinks the same as you, but is stronger than you, can guess all your strategies, and desperately wants to replace you?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Li Ziyue moved his arm slightly, and a flying bullet flashed from the black muzzle of the gun. The strange beast beside Zhang Xingzhi was torn into two halves in an instant.
"I've encountered something that can be split," Li Ziyue frowned slightly, "trouble."
Zhang Xingzhi turned around swiftly, and then there was a creepy sound of sticky liquid wriggling, and the strange beast split into two and screamed in a hoarse voice.
Their upper bodies have been corroded and mutilated by unknown liquid.
"Rain attribute ability."
Li Ziyue's brows twitched slightly, he looked at Zhang Xingzhi's back, and said nothing more.
"This cost me 5 gold coins," Zhang Xingzhi gritted his teeth, "Can the system be any more deceptive? I only have about a thousand gold coins in total."
Li Ziyue was stunned for half a second.
There are only more than a thousand Zhang Xingzhi?
If what he said is true, then who is the only one among the five-member team who achieved the achievement of "no spectator casualties"?
Liu Yuche? Or the fifth one who never showed up?
Several plant tentacles grew out of his waist, and suddenly turned into a pool of dark green liquid. Zhang Xingzhi took a breath and said, "Don't be distracted."
The light around was so dim that it was almost impossible to see Zhang Xingzhi standing next to him. The snow and wind were strong, and the number of strange beasts increased suddenly. Li Ziyue's hands were unknowingly covered with disgusting mucus.
Then, a strong incandescent light appeared in the far distance, and the night seemed as bright as day. The strange beasts lurking in the dark corners also roared and rushed over.
Zhang Xingzhi held one of his ears and said, "The zoo has been attacked by strange beasts. It is too difficult to defend the sky and the ground. I can even hear people screaming through the earphone."
When the light reached this side, a black screen appeared. It was not clear in the surveillance video at first, but now that I got closer, I could feel how vast and shocking the black screen was.
All the light was cut off in front of the black screen, and countless strange beasts emerged from the center of the black screen. They had a clear goal and headed straight for the zoo.
Behind them, a luminous object resembling a round moon can be seen.
The shadow of a small strange beast swayed on the sphere. The surface of the sphere seemed to be covered with a slippery membrane. Occasionally, one could see the strange beast's distorted face sticking to it, and then squeezing outward. Its face was trapped by the membrane and wrinkled into an even stranger thing.
It was difficult for Li Ziyue to describe what he saw.
It’s as if you picked up a soft ball with a twitching inner layer, cut open the outermost protective membrane, and the densely packed black insect eggs inside scrambled out, then quietly slipped through your skin and into your body.
This is the place where humans and exotic animals combine to produce new types of exotic animals - a breeding ground.
There seemed to be another strange scent in the air. If you smelled it carefully, you could feel a bit of sweetness that shouldn't be here.
Zhang Xingzhi glanced at Li Ziyue and then threw him a small air filter.
"Don't breathe that kind of gas," Zhang Xingzhi hid in the snow, adjusting the bomb that was about to explode, "If you breathe too much of that kind of gas..."
He looked embarrassed.
"You know what that hotbed is, so I won't explain it to you."
Li Ziyue was stunned for two seconds, then nodded woodenly.
[I am dying of laughter. I haven’t seen such a well-behaved Brother Li for a long time]
[He nodded very seriously hahahaha]
[Adults are watching the live broadcast, children are not allowed to open their eyes (reward 100 points)]
Zhang Xingzhi took advantage of the cover of snow to walk from the edge to the hotbed of light, while Li Ziyue followed behind to clear away possible dangers for him.
During this period, more and more strange beasts attacked, and the notification of gold coin depletion was like an alarm clock ringing in the early morning, and Zhang Xingzhi also felt the pain.
"Go on," Li Ziyue said calmly, "I'll transfer 300 gold coins to you later."
"Brother, you're so generous." Zhang Xingzhi smiled while lowering his voice.
Li Ziyue said nothing. He raised his wrist slightly, and then a third ray of light shining like a shooting star appeared in the night sky.
The bomb tied near the hotbed was detonated in an instant. With a loud "boom", the surrounding strange beasts were all shaken into a bloody mess.
The flames were blown more wildly by the wind, and they quickly rushed along the flammable lines buried by Zhang Xingzhi. Combined with the lights on the side, they completely turned the night upside down.
The strange beast, which had not yet taken shape, screamed and rolled in the raging fire. Gray-black smoke rose into the sky, the temperature around it rose, and the poisonous fog spread faster. Even though Li Ziyue was prepared in advance, he was choked by the smoke and couldn't stop coughing.
One or two human figures could be vaguely seen flashing across the destroyed hotbed. Half of their faces had been burned into a blurry black by the fire, but at the corners of their mouths there was a smile of relief.
Their lower bodies had been ravaged beyond recognition, with countless cut scars covering every part of their exposed skin.
Li Ziyue's heart stagnated, and a feeling of painful depression surged into his heart. He gritted his teeth and ran to the left side of the dark curtain using the firelight and chaos.
Zhang Xingzhi's voice rang in the headset: "How is the situation over there?"
The strange beast crawled forward on the snow. Li Ziyue covered his breath and said, "Okay."
"Hurry up, the flames will irritate the beasts."
The hotbeds in the north and south where the projections overlapped have been blown up by them, and the upper and lower hotbeds were handed over to Zhang Lian and Liu Yuche. Now he and Zhang Xingzhi need to deal with the hotbeds in the east and west where the projections are vertical lines.
The hotbed was compressed to the limit into a short strip, which was not as visually obvious as the north and south sides. In addition, Li Ziyue more or less inhaled the strange gas overflowing from the hotbed. His consciousness became more and more confused, and he could only move forward by instinct.
The closer they got to the east, the more strange beasts there were. The strange beasts that were originally confined to the north and south were driven away by the flames and ran to the east and west.
Li Ziyue's sideways kick temporarily eliminated one of the strange beasts. His vision widened and he finally found the Eastern Hotbed next to the fallen body of the strange beast.
However, when he really saw what was near the hotbed, he couldn't help but step back.
An inexplicably strong fear suddenly pierced his heart.
A person stood next to the vertical line hotbed.
She had an extremely slender figure, with arms on both sides like endless thin ropes, her neck was coiled around her thin shoulders, and her oval head hung in the middle of the neck.
At this moment, she bent her body slightly, and with her sharp nails, she tore open the outer membrane of the hotbed and took out the human-beast eggs that were still hatching.
And when she twisted her stiff head and focused her two empty eyes on Li Ziyue, Li Ziyue seemed to be fixed in place by a powerful force.
This face...
There was a sudden sharp pain in his head, and countless chaotic fragments of memory, like an endless army, broke into his brain without any hesitation.
Pain, suffocation, depression, regret, self-blame, crying until I can’t breathe...
[He stood in the snow for a long time, as if he had been frozen into a lifeless ice sculpture.]
[What she said to him seemed to be engraved in his bones. He was powerless to refute and could only let her take the child away.]
[He became alone again]
My limbs suddenly stiffened, and the snow below me melted into water without me noticing when, and then quickly froze.
He couldn't move.
"Zhang Xingzhi..." Li Ziyue panted slightly, feeling the heat in his body disappearing rapidly, "Contact Zhang Lian... There is something unusual here, there may be a special mutant..."
There was no response from the headset.
Li Ziyue felt increasingly depressed.
"Zhang Xingzhi?"
The surroundings seemed to become unusually quiet, and the sound of snowflakes falling to the ground could be heard clearly.
Her slender fingers had already pinched Li Ziyue's fragile throat, and the thorns cut his neck, drawing conspicuous blood.
The blood fell on the snow.
Silently.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
