The Second Kingdom (Part 3)
After its antennae were removed, the ant twitched a few times and then stopped moving completely.
Now it was Shi Xiaofeng and the other two's turn to be dumbfounded.
After a brief silence, Alan stepped forward and kicked the ant: "It's dead."
"Was that the tentacle that Baobao just pulled off?"
Nie Yun asked Shi Xiaofeng bluntly, "What else? Me?"
Shi Xiaofeng hissed and squatted down, picking up the tentacles. "These are made of alloy! I weigh them, they must weigh ten pounds! What's the structure of this little creature?"
They could see clearly that no matter how the ant shook its body, Liang Baobao firmly held its antennae and stepped on its head, with no intention of falling down.
"To be honest, sometimes I really have the illusion that Baobao is Liang Qing's biological son." Nie Yun said softly.
Shi Xiaofeng nodded in agreement: "Just as good at eating, just as strong, just as...advocating for the aesthetics of violence."
Alan squatted down to examine the pair of tentacles and frowned: "There seems to be a communicator hidden in here?" He lifted the bottom of the tentacle and pulled out a piece of wire. There was a small communicator connected to the top.
He was about to say something when Nie Yun quickly covered his mouth. Allen was silent and asked with his mouth: "How do we deal with this?"
Nie Yun took out a pair of his thick socks from the package he was carrying, wrapped the communicator tightly in them, and folded them together with the tentacles and stuffed them in.
"Put it away first."
The three decided to continue walking when the system's voice suddenly rang out—"Congratulations to Party B for completing the first kill of an [Ant]! The system rewards each player with 1,000 points and an extra meal!"
As the system voice faded, a cardboard box suddenly appeared before the three of them. Shi Xiaofeng opened it and was overjoyed: inside were thirty neatly arranged fruit-flavored energy bars, three large bottles of purified water, and a large bag of baby fruit puree.
Without a second thought, Nie Yun grabbed the water bottle and guzzled it down. He then unscrewed the fruit puree and stuffed it into Liang Baobao's arms. Liang Baobao had fallen asleep, exhausted from the ordeal. Perhaps he was truly overwhelmed by hunger, as he closed his eyes and unconsciously grasped the fruit puree package. He licked it with his little mouthful, then opened his mouth and swallowed it mouthful by mouthful.
Although he ate, he was still a completely different kid from his previous big appetite.
Shi Xiaofeng's mouth was stuffed to the brim, and Allen was also wolfing down his food. They had previously assumed that the system would only deliver food once a day, so when it came to food, none of the three dared to eat freely. They first fed Liang and then saved as much as possible for themselves.
"We are Party B? So Party B's mission is to kill these giant bugs? Then what does Party A do?"
Shi Xiaofeng and Allen both shook their heads. Forget Party A and Party B, they hadn't even seen a single living person. This place was so vast and desolate, and aside from the occasional bugs that popped up, there was nothing there.
Only the first dungeon had the system kindly provided a background guide, but the difficulty of the next two dungeons increased, leaving me with no idea what to do or how to break through. For now, I could only survive.
Allen studied his phone for a while. "It seems the system updates the points mall a few seconds after each food distribution. I just grabbed another bag of rice cereal, which will fill me up."
During this time, the three of them spent their free time browsing the food categories in the mall, but they were always sold out. Allen's discovery was good news; after all, being able to spot patterns gave people a sense of security.
——
As Xiya's wings unfolded, Liang Qing admitted to being incredibly jealous. Special skills couldn't be sold; they had to be allocated by the system. Xiya, only one level higher than him, already possessed such a rare special skill—it was truly enviable.
If she had this superpower earlier, why would she have to drag her family to climb the pipes and fight mosquitoes while bleeding?
"Have you seen enough?" Xia looked coldly at Liang Qing, whose eyes were shining.
"What?" Liang Qing woke up from his shashasha state, "Oh, yes, feed it."
Shia: ...
She was very resistant to the word "feed", and even more resistant to Liang Qing actually taking out a pack of compressed biscuits and a bottle of water from his pocket and throwing them to her like feeding a kitten.
Xia glared at Liang Qing and took it honestly.
"Why is it so little? It's not enough."
Liang Qing nodded: "A pack of compressed biscuits has 500 calories, which is enough for you to drag me flying for 20 minutes. I will renew the charge after 20 minutes."
Shia: ...
After the two of them set off, Liang Qing hung on Xiaya, and the pair of golden wings fanned the air in the cave, supporting the two of them steadily.
With wings, Liang Qing chose to fly out directly. Suddenly, the scene in front of them was bright, and a huge green space with endless depth appeared before them.
The green space is dotted with small holes, the closest of which is where the beams lean out. The whole space resembles a vertical and fantastical beehive.
Xia's special skill is short-distance leaping. She can use a hole as a jumping point each time, and then fly in any direction for about 5-10 seconds.
"Where are you going?" Seeing Liang Qing looking left and right without seeing any target, Xiya asked Liang Qing unhappily.
"No rush, take me around so I can get familiar with the terrain." Liang Qing threw her a pack of compressed biscuits as if nothing had happened.
Xiya's feeling of being treated like a donkey came back. She was about to speak when Liang Qing interrupted her: "Be careful!"
A giant spider suddenly appeared from nowhere, spitting out a sticky web from its mouth, heading towards Liang Qing who was hanging on Xiaya.
Liang Qing thought Xiya would pull him away, but Xiya didn't move. Liang Qing quickly drew out his knife and slashed in the direction of the silk net. The silk net instantly entangled the knife, and Liang Qing didn't rush to pull it out.
She patted Xia: "Cooperate."
Shia below: ...
She flapped her wings weakly and flew in the direction the web was pulled back in. The spider nearby hadn't expected its prey to approach it, and its stripes on its body glowed crimson with excitement.
Liang Qing used the silk thread to wrap more tightly around the knife and pulled it back with all her strength. She was testing Xiya, so she used 80% of her strength when pulling the silk net, and Xiya, who was carrying her, had to bear double the force.
Xiaya continued to fly steadily and leisurely. Liang Qing raised an eyebrow: "Interesting."
"What did you say?"
"It's okay, the net is closed."
Liang Qing said this and suddenly let go of his hand. The blade of the knife aimed at the spider's head and flew away, moving at an extremely fast speed due to the elasticity and inertia of the silk web.
In less than a second, the knife pierced the spider's eye. The tank-sized spider winced in pain, and green slime suddenly spurted out of its mouth, which had been spewing spider webs.
This time, it was Xia who reacted first. She raised her golden wings and the slime fell vertically into the abyss like rain swept by a windshield wiper.
It turns out that she is not afraid of spider attacks at all.
Liang Qing clapped his hands and cheered: "Great! I hope my reward will also be wings."
Xiya rolled her eyes. "Hope is useless. The system only gives you the skills they think you need most."
Liang Qing looked at Xiya strangely. Xiya guessed what she wanted to ask and shrugged nonchalantly: "I was sick when I was a child. One of my legs can hardly bear any force."
Liang Qing scratched his chin: "Then my leg was injured too."
"What's the injury?"
"I kicked the table leg with my big toe."
Xia swung Liang Qing violently, and Liang Qing was caught off guard and thrown into the nearest hole.
Liang Qing rolled on the ground and got up: "Hiss, how could you turn against me so easily?"
"Two packs of biscuits are enough, I got the points!" Xia shook her phone proudly.
For the spider that the two of them had just killed together, the system gave each person 500 points. Combined with the biscuits given by Liang Qing, Xia was confident that she could hold on until the next food distribution.
"You're quite good at getting rid of people after they've done their job." Liang Qing stood up straight and did some stretching.
Xia Ya laughed: "How did you get into the top 20 with your IQ?"
"Just rely on your luck."
Xia rolled her eyes and turned away.
"Hello, you are the Party A player, right?" Liang Qing suddenly asked.
Xia looked back at her, flapped her wings and left with an expressionless face: "See you later."
Liang Qing watched Xiya leap away, and only when her golden wings completely disappeared from his sight did he lower his head.
She held a small communicator in her hand, which she had secretly taken from Xia's bag when she was fighting with the spider.
The green light on the communicator came on, and Liang Qing pressed the accept button. A man's voice came from inside: "Xia Sang, Worker Ant No. 1 has been killed. The signal device has been pulled out. Our people saw two men and a woman with a child heading towards the center of the tree trunk in the east area. Do you want to follow?"
Liang Qing squeezed the communicator tightly, quickly recalled how Xiya spoke, and raised his voice slightly: "Where are you?"
…
After Liang Baobao woke up, he returned to his gloomy and aloof demeanor. He tossed the half-empty bag of fruit puree back to Nie Yun.
The three of them were helpless in their attempt to help him in his downturn. As they walked along, they encountered a few scattered players, all of them isolated, small-time traders who were not a significant force. Whenever someone asked for water or food, the three of them dodged them whenever possible.
At this moment, they were hiding in a secluded cave. Alan and Nie Yun were guarding Liang Baobao, while Shi Xiaofeng went out to explore.
Not long after, Shi Xiaofeng brought back good news.
"I guess I've got the hang of it." He took a stick and drew two squares on the ground.
"This is Party A, and this is Party B. Party B is us. We'll earn rewards by destroying these insects. The ultimate quest might be a boss like the giant insect leader. Party A is also a player, and their quests shouldn't overlap with ours. If we want to form a competitive situation, then we can only..."
Alan continued, "They drive the bugs to destroy us?"
Nie Yun added: "Or maybe they are the creators of the bugs."
Shi Xiaofeng snapped his fingers. "That explains why these giant insects all have signs of transformation. Also, do you remember the old man we met today?"
They both nodded. On their way to avoid the ants, they encountered an elderly man about 60 years old. If they hadn't so rashly intruded into his sight, he might have had time to calm down his overly calm demeanor.
Now looking back, how could there be people who are so calm and composed in a survival game.
There was only one possibility: the system had assigned them another role—hunter. That made sense. The three of them fell silent.
"It's so unfair! The previous level just used us to raise Gu, but this level makes players fight each other." Shi Xiaofeng gritted his teeth.
Nie Yun frowned: "But Party A also suffered losses. How did they die?"
Shi Xiaofeng chuckled and added a branch line next to Party A's box on the ground: "This is what I want to tell you - if the bugs they create don't harvest Party B's lives within a certain period of time, then they will be eliminated by the system before they can even run out of water and food."
----
Thirty minutes ago, Shi Xiaofeng, who was exploring the road, encountered three people at a fork in the road. To his surprise, there was a praying mantis standing behind these three people.
The mantis's body was dark green, and like the other insects they had seen before, it was made of metal. As the three spoke, the three or four-meter-tall mantis remained motionless in an eerie posture, its majestic forelegs raised high like a shiny, sharp sickle.
"Please! Give me some time! The system still gives 24 hours! Why are you only renting it for 20 hours? Give me another four hours, no, just two hours, and I'm sure I can find someone alive!"
The man kneeling on the ground begged endlessly. Shi Xiaofeng's heart began to beat wildly, and he shrank back to hide his body.
"Twenty hours and no progress. I might as well give the remaining four hours to someone else, don't you think?" A woman who looked like a high-level gamer possessed him and patted his face. She pulled hard, and a small metal piece attached to the man's back was pulled off.
The next second, the motionless mantis suddenly moved. Its large black eye slowly glanced downward, finally fixing its gaze on the three people before it. Then, mercilessly, it raised its knife and slashed at the man who had turned and fled.
The man's body split into two halves, falling to the left and right, his hands still maintaining the posture of running forward, everything was swallowed by blood plasma.
The woman, one of the remaining two, applied the patch to the inside of her arm. The mantis returned to standby mode. Shi Xiaofeng noticed that the inside of the woman's arm was densely covered with many similar metal pieces.
She turned around and looked at the person who had been standing behind her without saying a word. The person was still staring blankly at the bloody flesh on the ground, and had not recovered.
"Are you sure that woman's name is Liang Qing?"
The latter nodded stiffly.
"A female player ranked in the top 20 in the server, with a baby?"
The man swallowed and said dryly, "Yes, a child less than one year old."
"Anything special?"
"It seems not."
The woman smiled with satisfaction and patted his shoulder: "Jason, you are very good. Go and find Yitian, he will assign an insect to you."
Not far away, Shi Xiaofeng, who witnessed the whole thing, gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.
…
Nie Yun held Liang Baobao in his arms, still digesting the information Shi Xiaofeng brought back.
"The Second Kingdom is about humans using artificial insects to kill each other?"
Shi Xiaofeng nodded: "The place we are in now should be a test site made of a giant tree."
"How can there be such a big tree..." Nie Yun muttered, "If every insect is attacking us under the orders of Party A, is there a way to incite them to attack Party A?"
Shi Xiaofeng snapped his fingers: "It's a good idea. But, if you can do it, go ahead."
Nie Yun: ...
What kind of unlucky spirit possessed me this round? I drew Party B. I will either be starved to death by the system or killed by insects. It's so miserable.
The two of them looked at Alan tacitly. After Shi Xiaofeng came back after telling what he had seen and heard, Alan had not said a word.
In fact, it was not just Allen. Shi Xiaofeng and Nie Yun also did not expect that Jason, who had fought alongside them, would be the A party this round. They did not expect that he would actually sell out their information in exchange for an insect to kill people.
"That woman who rents insects must be quite influential."
Nie Yun muttered something, and suddenly, she caught a faint hum of electricity coming from her backpack. Liang Baobao suddenly raised his head, staring at Nie Yun with his big eyes blinking.
Nie Yun pulled the communicator from his bag, which he had wrapped tightly, and signaled Shi Xiaofeng and Allen to mute the phone. As he unwrapped his socks, the top of the communicator flashed red: an unread message. Fresh and warm.
Nie Yun nodded, and a voice came from inside that cheered everyone up—
"Xiao Feng? Nie Yun? Can you hear me?"
Nie Yun's hands were shaking, and he didn't care where the receiver was, and hurriedly put his mouth to it: "It's me, Boss, I can hear your voice..."
Before she could finish her words, a fat hand snatched the communicator away domineeringly. Then, Liang Qing heard the little boy crying aggrievedly on the other end.
Her heart suddenly tightened, and her eyes were red. "Baobao? Hush, don't cry, I'll be there soon to meet you."
On the other end of the communicator, Nie Yun and the others were busy comforting Liang Baobao and putting earmuffs on him.
The communicator finally returned to Nie Yun's hands. She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask Liang Qing, but for now, she could only focus on the important ones.
"How are we supposed to find you? This place is like a maze, we're practically going in circles."
Liang Qing quickly replied, "You don't have to come find me. Just follow the original path. We'll meet in about half an hour. Remember, if you see a giant red dragonfly, get as close to it as possible. Also, buy as many traps as possible!"
Liang Qing finished speaking in a flurry, and the communicator disconnected. The signal light was off, and there was no sound. Nie Yun tried to call back, but after fiddling with it for a while, he realized that their phone could only receive calls, not initiate outgoing calls.
She looked down and saw Liang Baobao's mouth still opening and closing, but his thunderous sobs were muted. He seemed to know that if he continued crying, it would only cause trouble to the three guardians in front of him, so he fell silent with a wronged look.
Those big eyes were filled with tears, and they looked at Nie Yun with a heartbreaking look. He pursed his lips, reached out to wipe away his tears, and stubbornly closed his eyes again, burying his face in his slings.
Baobao was little, and habitually sought a sense of security by sleeping or pretending to sleep. Nie Yun caressed his round face lovingly: "Baobao, we will see Aunt Liang Qing soon."
Shi Xiaofeng was still analyzing the message Liang Qing had left. "Did they ask us to approach an insect, or a dragonfly? Why? Is it because dragonflies are less aggressive?"
Allen was also puzzled as to why she approached Dragonfly: "Sister Liang Qing also got the communicator. Is there only one possibility? She has successfully infiltrated the enemy."
Regardless, Liang Qing's return gave the entire team the motivation to survive. The gloom on everyone's face cleared away, even the sleeping Bao Bao had a slight smile on his face.
Following Liang Qing's instructions, they pretended that the conversation had not happened and continued to proceed with the same appropriate caution as before.
After walking for half an hour, at an ordinary fork in the road, they were suddenly surrounded by a large group of insects from all directions.
In front was a flea, its back arched high and full of intimidation; next to it was a locust, brown with bright green spots; there were also bees, ants and spiders...
A total of ten kinds of animals blocked all their escape routes from above, below, left, right, front and back.
These animals appeared before them silently and without warning. It seemed that to them, this was not a random hunt, but a siege after active ambush.
If they had not received Liang Qing's message, they would have panicked. At this moment, the three of them looked at the inconspicuous but most eye-catching red dragonfly at the periphery of the insect formation.
It was larger than any insect they had ever seen. It was completely red, with only the compound eyes on its head and its wings being golden. Its beautiful golden wings were patterned with even brighter lines. Its body was slender, and its abdomen, connected by segments, resembled a black train.
Shi Xiaofeng blinked and suddenly realized the difference between this dragonfly and other insects - there was not a single metal organ on its body.
"This looks like an animal I've seen in picture books before." Alan raised his weapon in a defensive posture and whispered to his companions.
"What?"
"Meganeuron. An ancient animal that died out long ago."
As they were talking, the flea closest to them suddenly began to attack. Its pair of metal mouthparts were covered with long barbs, and the mouthparts collided with each other, making a heart-pounding friction sound.
The flea jumped in front of him, and just when it was about to touch Shi Xiaofeng who was closest to him, the latter threw out a trap.
The animal trap in the system was originally designed for large animals. It can quickly identify the opponent's forward path and can clamp the animal's legs without being placed somewhere in advance and waiting for the animal to take the bait.
The moment the trap was thrown out, Shi Xiaofeng suddenly understood why Liang Qing asked them to buy traps to deal with insects - the trap did not aim at the flea's thin legs, but directly clamped off its mouthparts that served as weapons.
In the first few seconds after losing its mouthparts, the flea had no idea that it had lost its hunting weapon. It lowered its head and wanted to stab Shi Xiaofeng, but Allen shot it in the eye - that was the only weak point on its body wrapped in layers of iron helmet.
The fleas died on the spot.
The next to attack were the ants and spiders. Shi Xiaofeng and Allen coordinated their efforts, allowing the spiders to spit out webs that entangled the ants, while the ants' acidic mucus melted the spiders' legs...
In the chaos, Nie Yun took the opportunity to dismember the ants and lured the bees and locusts onto the spider's web soaked in strong acid...
The three people's tacit understanding became stronger and stronger. While protecting Liang Baobao, they moved closer to the direction of the red dragonfly.
The red dragonfly remained motionless throughout the entire battle, like a bystander, only flapping its wings violently when the bee broke free from the web and stung Nie Yun from behind. This was like a tornado with eyes rising from the ground, sweeping the bee behind Nie Yun away to an unknown place.
Nie Yun held Liang Baobao and went directly behind the dragonfly's wings.
Soon, Shi Xiaofeng and Allen also rushed over. The remaining insects were injured and battered, and they were not able to make a big move. At this moment, the situation was strangely formed into a scene of confrontation between the two factions.
Nie Yun took out his communicator, and sure enough, another call invitation came in. It was from Liang Qing again: "Climb up, and then throw away the communicator."
The three of them looked around and their eyes were fixed on the dragonfly's back - the black back was about half a meter wide and as hard as a long stool.
They didn't hesitate and there was no time to hesitate. The second round of bugs attacked from all directions. Even a dumb person could see that the three of them were being targeted.
Nie Yun led the way, followed by Allen, and then Shi Xiaofeng brought up the rear. After climbing onto the dragonfly's back, Shi Xiaofeng crushed the communicator he had plucked from the ant's head and threw it hard down the green cliff.
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