Nightmare Forest
"I'm Shi Ximing!
“President Long Yan is Shi Xizheng’s younger brother!
"Do you want to destroy Yongan? Okay—
“Kill me first!!!”
The sound of the loudspeaker blaring at the top of its lungs echoed across the black wasteland.
An Rou raised her head and looked at the thermal boat above her head with empty eyes.
On the boat, Meng Ziyu stared at Paopao in amazement. The latter was holding the thermal boat's communicator in his hand and turned on the boat's built-in speaker.
"What the hell, you are the brother of the leader of Long Yan Gang?" The sensitive words did not prevent Meng Ziyu from absorbing the meaning of the words.
It wasn't that Meng Ziyu looked down on Paopao. On the contrary, he genuinely liked this man of destiny who had no prejudice against ghouls. It was just that he had always assumed that Paopao was one of those down-and-out people who had gotten together with Anrou out of sheer luck.
I didn't expect that the guy named Pao actually has such a valuable identity?
Meng Ziyu's first reaction was disbelief, and his second reaction was to go and see the United Legion.
A few hundred meters away, the United Army actually slowed down.
Meng Ziyu moved the telescope and found the person in the middle of the legion.
That must be Shi Xizheng, right?
His face was ashen and looked distorted.
No wonder Paopao concealed his family background, determined to be a wandering destiny no matter how hard or tiring it was...
Meng Ziyu had no idea what Shi Xizheng was thinking at the moment.
Ever since he saw Paopao emerge from the wall, Shi Xizheng had been eager to kill him. He was about to order players with ranged attack skills to use their abilities, but Paopao suddenly revealed his identity.
And put him up there.
Aside from a few people in the command center, no one in the United Corps knew Paopao's true identity. Shocked, he naturally slowed down.
A trace of resentment appeared in Shi Xizheng's eyes. Without saying a word, he took out his weapon, activated the highest skill level, and threw it towards Paopao with force.
Qingwu "Thunder Spear", sixth level skill, Thunder Arrowhead.
The tip of the gun cut through the air at high speed, turning into a flash of lightning.
Meng Ziyu reacted extremely quickly, pulled a handful of guns and ran, while aiming and firing an anti-aircraft gun, accurately hitting the Thunder Gun.
Artillery fire and lightning exploded, obscuring the vision of both sides.
The Thunder Spear was a green weapon after all, and it was not damaged. It was blown back by the shock wave and flipped back into Shi Xizheng's hand.
He glanced coldly at the legion around him: "Still standing there? Attack!"
"But... isn't that President Lu's younger brother?" Someone hesitated and expressed everyone's concerns.
Shi Xizheng chuckled: "I'm not even worried about him dying, so why are you worried? Don't forget, you're in a game!"
It's a pity that the ones who killed that kid were players, not ghouls, otherwise... if they ruined his plans time and time again, his luck would be taken away sooner or later!
Shi Xizheng's attitude made all the legion players understand.
The other party was the younger brother of Guild President Long Yan, but Guild President Long Yan didn't want him to play games. In other words, he just wanted everyone to kill Paopao offline.
After realizing this, the legion's movement speed increased sharply.
On the other side, Meng Ziyou squinted his eyes and observed the fireworks tumbling in front of him. He said to Paopao, "What kind of brother is yours? He even killed his own brother? Don't be sad, Pao. That guy is not your brother. I am your brother. Wait and see how I, your brother, will avenge you!"
Paopao's eyes were fixed.
The Thunder Spear came at an extremely fast speed, and when it was hit by the anti-aircraft gun, it was already very close to him. From the lightning, he saw the surging murderous intent.
The game is fake, the weapons and skills are fake, but the murderous intent contained in it is real.
My brother really wanted to kill him.
When Shi Xizheng was dismissed from his post not long ago, he clearly felt unprecedented honesty and concern during the phone call, but today the other party came back online and wanted to kill him.
Why?
He hasn't forgiven Shi Xizheng yet, so why does Shi Xizheng keep changing?
Behind the farm, the smoke clouds from the anti-aircraft guns were dispersed by the army. Meng Ziyu suddenly shouted, "Brothers, take action!"
A player has already used his skills to attack.
Meng Ziyu was around, and the ghoul employees he personally trained drove the thermal ship up a bit, quickly firing anti-aircraft guns, shooting down those skills one by one.
The two sides are still quite far apart, and only a few can actually reach the farm.
Meng Ziyu felt something in his heart and turned his head suddenly, looking past the farm buildings and towards the direction of the farm.
"An Rou?!" he shouted.
This sound woke Paopao up.
Paopao hurriedly leaned out of the boat and looked down, only to see the boss with his face raised, his teeth clenched, and veins bulging on his forehead.
This is a sign of extreme mental stress.
Paopao jumped off the boat, quickly took out a mental potion, fed it to An Rou, and then asked, "Boss, what's going on?"
An Rou didn't answer him, but instead loudly informed Meng Ziyu: "Don't stop the anti-aircraft guns, lower the aiming position, and don't let the legion notice anything unusual!"
"Alright!" Meng Ziyu laughed, "Brothers, let's have some fun together!"
Four anti-aircraft guns fired continuously, fireworks exploded, and thick smoke completely obscured the legion's vision.
The mental potion greatly alleviated the stinging pain caused by the mental burden. An Rou finally had the energy to explain to Paopao, "A large number of ghouls are pouring out of the Nightmare Forest at a very fast speed. They are coming for us."
Paopao suddenly realized.
The Nightmare Forest in the Land of No Life is the best hunting ground for ghouls. The scale of this Nightmare Forest is unprecedentedly large, so there are naturally many ghouls hiding in it.
"Were they attracted here by the United Legion?"
How high-level must a ghoul be to be able to smell the soul of a Chosen One from several kilometers away?
An Rou shook her head. "No, even those who have suddenly become rich don't have such a long-range sense of smell. I guess it's the Rainbow of the Valley. But the reason they're coming here is not important. I've already controlled them."
Paopao breathed a sigh of relief.
Using the ghoul tide to deal with players was an old trick he and his boss often used. However, the allied forces were all high-level players, not the mob they used to be. There was a key problem with the boss's trick -
"How many ghouls are there? A hundred, a thousand? If their level is too low, even a thousand ghouls might not be able to stop the army..."
An Rou pursed her lips and smiled: "Tens of thousands."
As the ghoul got closer and closer, the attraction of the Rainbow of the Valley to the ghoul gradually increased, and her mental burden became stronger again.
Controlling ghouls is not easy.
The explosions from the anti-aircraft guns were getting closer and closer, deafening. Meng Ziyou shouted in his mind: "The thermal ship is running out of fuel. How much longer?!"
An Rou: [Now!]
If they were alone, the Legion player would probably get lost in the fog. Fortunately, there were hundreds of them tracking together. Although the visibility was only one or two meters, it was enough to see the companions around them clearly.
The most important thing is that Shi Xizheng, who is running in the front, has been leading the way.
Some players cast skills to try to clear the smoke, but the anti-aircraft guns continued their barrage of attacks. The disparity in firepower caused some to secretly resent the Onigashima players in the Legion.
Even the thermal boat was snatched away by Yongan?
"It's very close, get your weapons ready!" Shi Xizheng's shout reached everyone's ears.
The legion stared at the smoke in front of them with wide eyes. It seemed that there was a wind blowing towards them, sweeping the hot air onto their faces.
The smoke is dissipating.
Finally, they saw the enormous outline of the farm again. Just as they were about to activate their weapon skills, the farm suddenly rose in height.
Some people startled, their skills launched, but missed. Some people hesitated for a moment, and this hesitation saved them.
A black shadow suddenly appeared in the gray and white smoke ahead.
The next second, thousands of ghosts roared.
"Ghoul...ghoul wave!"
Someone shouted, and the players who had prepared their skills but hadn't used them immediately drew their weapons and narrowly defeated the ghoul in front.
But those ghouls were like a tide, with the back waves swallowing up the fallen front waves in an instant and flying towards them.
Some have undergone a berserk transformation, some haven't, C-class, A-class... there's even an S-class berserk ghoul.
The legion of several hundred people was like an isolated island, surrounded by a surging tide of ghosts.
In the ghost tide, only the bone knife, which was a hundred meters high, carried the farm and waded forward without any hindrance.
Shi Xi, who was in the front, was the first to suffer. A crazy ghoul suddenly rushed in front of him, its sharp fangs emitting a foul smell, and bit his arm as he tried to block it.
The passive defense was activated, and the ghoul failed to bite through. Shi Xi was about to seize the opportunity to plunge the Thunder Spear into the opponent's brain, but he felt a pain in his leg.
This crazy ghoul... actually only has an upper body, or rather, its lower body is an inverted upper body, with the two extra arms acting as legs, and there is a head between the two legs.
The head took advantage of his passive defense to dissipate and bit through his trouser leg.
A tremendous anger suddenly swept through Shi Xizheng's body. A figure flashed above him very quickly. The figure grabbed the ghoul's neck and exerted a little force with his five fingers. The ghoul exploded into a pile of gold coins and corpse fluid.
The process was extremely short, not even a blink of an eye, and the figure returned to Shi Xizheng.
Shi Xizheng's body tensed for a moment, but soon relaxed. He swung the Thunder Spear and slashed off the head of another ghoul.
Damn it, the fragile human body restricted his abilities, and he was unable to discover the existence of this group of ghouls in advance, let alone compete with An Rou in controlling them.
But right now, he needs this body and the power held by its owner.
The smoke from the anti-aircraft guns was dispersed by the tide of ghouls. Wandouhuang rushed to Shi Xizheng's side and saw his bloody calf at a glance.
"President, are you okay?" Wandouhuang's concern was mixed with a hint of vigilance.
It is impossible for the soul to remain intact after being bitten by a ghoul.
Shi Xi was holding back the urge to tear the other person apart, and said coldly: "It's okay, I've used the soul card to complete it. Gather everyone to follow me and charge away from the ghoul tide!"
-
When the tide of ghouls passed under Baofu, Anrou's mental burden was approaching its limit.
She was bleeding from all seven orifices again.
Fortunately, it was successful. As the distance between the farm and the ghouls widened, the ghouls' attention was finally focused on the strong soul fragrance around them.
Ahead, the Nightmare Forest is just around the corner.
It was like an oasis in the desert, densely packed with towering trees, their branches and leaves thick, and the light filtering through the cracks between the trunks was deep and dark. At first glance, the scale was much larger than I remembered.
An Rou cut off her control over the ghoul tide and, through her sudden vision, focused her gaze on the Nightmare Forest.
[Ready, three, two, one, jump!]
The bone knives on Bao Fu's limbs suddenly bent down, then bounced up quickly, leaping into the air with the entire farm on his back.
Then, it was as if a piece of earth fell from the sky and smashed into the center of the Nightmare Forest.
The sound of trees breaking rang out, and was then drowned out by a loud bang.
The farm landed.
The air below was squeezed into a forest breeze that spread in all directions, the treetops swayed, and the green leaves fell like snow.
On the farm, all the residents felt the house shaking violently at the same time, and they were inevitably panicked. Some people rushed to the door, fearing that the house would collapse, while others, not knowing what was happening outside, opened the curtains to look outside.
The thermal boat's horn sounded in time, stopping all residents from moving.
"Close the doors and windows tightly, and don't come out! Close the doors and windows tightly, and don't come out!"
Four thermal ships flew alternately over the farm, and Meng Ziyu brought three ghoul employees to warn everyone.
The aura of the Nightmare Tree had a strong hallucinogenic effect. Even if the residents were told to close their doors and windows in advance, they wouldn't be able to hold out for long.
An Rou and Paopao also entered Baofu's body in advance and were transferred from Baofu to the central pond.
Behind the stone statue, there is a column coated with gold paint.
Paopao held his breath and sprinkled a handful of gold coins on the cylinder. The gold paint disappeared, revealing the dark cylinder. On the surface of the cylinder were three etched numbers: 007.
An Rou had personally experienced the power of the Nightmare Tree's hallucinogenic gas, so she decided to move the farm to the Nightmare Forest and naturally considered how to defend against the hallucinogenic gas.
She thought of the pillar of Black Market Island No. 7.
Although the pillar had never been used, An Rou had not forgotten it. In the Spirit Realm, she took the time to experiment with Paopao for a long time, trying to find a way to activate the light shield of Black Market Island.
The Black Market Island Pillar wasn't a weapon, or even an item. It couldn't be included in the item list, and there was no item description. However, An Rou still managed to figure out how to activate it.
The logic is hidden in the words "Black Market Island No. 7".
The core function of the Black Market Island is trading, and the key features are the trading platform and the trader. The platform is Anrou, and the trader - just an NPC standing on the pillar can act as a trader.
An Rou stood on the cylinder, and a little blue light appeared under the water. It drilled out of the surface along the pillar and disappeared into the air.
An Rou tried to breathe.
Under Paopao's nervous gaze, she spoke after nearly a minute: "No problem."
The farm is a large entity. If it falls suddenly, the hallucinogenic gas around it will inevitably be cleared out. The light shield opens in time and covers the entire farm, so the gas outside has no time to invade.
However, this step is also a bit risky.
According to the Black Market Island's settings, no player is allowed to enter during non-trading hours. The light shield is a visible and tangible physical barrier. This barrier can block people, but it may not block air circulation.
An Rou thought about it and felt that it was okay.
Because the light shield can block out sound. According to the game, you can use a piece of grass to reshape the properties of anthracite urine, so it must be very scientific in some aspects.
Air can conduct sound, and the light shield can block sound. If it isn’t blocking air circulation, then what is it?
As it turned out, she was right.
Paopao felt relieved and jumped onto the pillar, taking a deep breath.
"Don't be too happy too soon, we still have a problem." An Rou said.
Paopao nodded, knowing what she was referring to, and looked up at the sky.
The Nightmare Forest is densely wooded, and the rich can sneak in through the buildings on the farm, but they can't, so they can only jump to the center of the forest. As a result, the middle of the forest is empty.
The nightmare tree outside the farm might be able to stop the United Army, but the sky wouldn't be able to stop them. With a little higher jump, they could easily find the farm.
The farm needed to be covered somehow.
Paopao’s suggestion was to use the reshaping skill to install a huge dome for the entire farm, and then cut down some nightmare tree crowns and place them on top of the dome.
There is no doubt that to build such a large dome, a huge amount of gold coins is needed, probably no less than that of the statue.
But this is the only solution out of all options.
The light shield during the day has the property of preventing entry and exit, and can also support the tree canopy. At 8 o'clock in the evening, the trading time, the tree canopy will fall down. The consequences are unimaginable.
"I'll go to the warehouse to get the trading tablet, and ask Lao Zhang and the others to bring some props over." Paopao said.
An Rou was about to nod when she suddenly pulled him back.
"Look."
Paopao followed her gaze and saw an incredible scene.
Not only him, but also the ghoul employees on the four scattered thermal ships and in some corners of the farm noticed something unusual.
All around the farm, nightmare trees are growing wildly.
Because the soil layer of the farm itself is more than ten meters thick, which is much higher than the height of the nightmare tree, An Rou deliberately asked Bao Fu to smash it very hard, forcing more than half of the soil layer of the farm to be embedded under the forest.
Even so, the crown of the nightmare tree barely reached the same level as the farm wall.
However, at this time, the tree crowns were rising little by little, the main trunks below were visibly growing longer and thicker, and the branches at the top of the trunks were constantly growing, differentiating, and growing.
In just a few minutes, so many pairs of eyes witnessed what a true "towering tree" is.
Judging from the height of the farm buildings, these nightmare trees only stop growing when they grow to hundreds of meters, shrinking the sky visible from the farm into a huge "wellhead".
They didn't stop completely.
The nightmare trees near the farm were still growing, but now they were growing horizontally instead of vertically. The branches that rushed toward the farm stretched out and overlapped with each other, like welcoming pines with tilted crowns.
They enveloped the entire farm, preventing even a ray of sunlight from getting through.
The farm fell into darkness, and soon, colorful rainbow lights spread in all directions, like a gorgeous and dreamy aurora.
Paopao was already stunned.
He stared at the boss in a daze: "What... is going on..."
An Rou had already digested the shock.
She asked Zhang Da to bring Meihong over and take over guarding the column, and then she and Paopao went around to the front of the stone statue.
The stone statue held its hands against its chest, quietly suspending a rainbow in the empty valley.
In this dark and quiet environment, the rainbow light and the stone statue exude a shocking mysterious beauty.
"It's the Rainbow of the Empty Valley." An Rou said, "When Bao Fu cut off the Rainbow of the Empty Valley, did you notice what was happening under the spire?"
Paopao shook his head. At that time, he only felt the light was dazzling and he couldn't open his eyes.
Every morning, NPCs would bring flowers and place them in a circle at the foot of the spire, expressing gratitude to the Rainbow of the Valley for bringing prosperity and abundance to the Valley. After noon, the flowers began to wilt. When Su Fu severed the Rainbow of the Valley, it erupted with powerful energy, and the flowers came back to life.
"So, the Valley Rainbow not only contains the power of water, fire, wind, and thunder, but also possesses the power to nurture life. That's why it attracts ghouls and ghosts, and accelerates the growth of the Nightmare Tree.
"Perhaps the nightmare trees here are too dense, or perhaps the game setting suggests that these hallucinogenic trees are also greedy to some extent. In order to compete for the life force emitted by the Rainbow of the Valley, they simply shroud the forest in its light.
"And because the farm itself is covered by a light shield, it isolates them from intrusion, allowing them to grow the dome we need. In short..."
An Rou wanted to say, "The goddess of luck favors us," but she swallowed the words back when they came to her lips.
The word "lucky" is not a good word in the game.
"What in a word?" Paopao asked.
An Rou smiled and said, "Anyway, if you want to verify my guess, it's very simple. Follow me."
The two of them quickly circled around the farm buildings.
The trees in the pond, the flower beds, the vegetable fields...all the plants on the farm are extremely vibrant. Even the fruit trees in the orchard are suddenly covered with new fruits.
It's not only plants that are imbued with the power of life.
The chicken coops and duck sheds in the orchard were quacking, the fish in the fish pond occasionally jumped out of the water, and the cattle and sheep on the newly reclaimed grassland were much more energetic than when they were in the empty valley.
"Also, you're a player, so you might not have noticed. I'm an NPC, so it's obvious."
An Rou smiled and said, "When I was in the floating city, my spirits were more vigorous than ever before."
Even when he made a bet with the princess and got stabbed, he didn't feel like he was going to die.
It is a thriving vitality.
Paopao shook his head hesitantly, then suddenly nodded vigorously.
He recalled the night he chatted with Bai Ge. Standing on the rooftop of Huamanlou and overlooking the farm streets, it was indeed more down-to-earth than ever before.
At that time, I thought that the residents were pretending to be servants of God during the day and were too bored to death.
The two stopped at the gate of the villa.
An Rou pushed the door open and walked in: "Dad?"
An Younian came out quickly and saw the blood stains on his daughter's face that had not yet dried. He stamped his feet in pain.
An Rou stared into his eyes.
In the valley of An Younian's consciousness, the background sound of "It's so cold, so cold" disappeared.
She smiled, her eyes and eyebrows curved.
An Younian carefully wiped her face with a handkerchief, and complained, "Still laughing, still laughing...does it hurt?"
"It doesn't hurt. It's all fake. We're trying to trick the enemy." An Rou said, "Dad, you and Qiao Jie are not injured, right? We landed in a hurry just now."
As he was asking, Qiaojie came out and brought An Younian a wet handkerchief.
"I can't help at all if I stay in the house. How can I get hurt?"
An Younian put on a wet handkerchief to wipe the blood off An Rou, muttering with red eyes, wishing it was his own blood that was flowing.
Before he could completely wipe it clean, Meng Ziyu's voice was heard outside.
"An Rou! This woman said she's looking for you!"
It’s Princess Half Moon.
The princess used two silk threads to wrap around the corners of the eaves of the business and confronted Meng Ziyu on the thermal boat.
Meng Ziyou was as if facing a formidable enemy, his eyes fixed on her as he shouted, "An Rou, she'd better be your friend, otherwise I can't beat her! No one can beat her except Big Brother!"
But the eldest brother was in hibernation, leaving only an empty shell.
An Rou smiled and nodded: "I know her."
Meng Ziyou didn't dare to release the anti-aircraft gun button: "Do you really know him?"
The princess giggled for a while, then shook a piece of silk cloth lightly, throwing a person onto the thermal boat.
Meng Ziyou was horrified: "Remove the ink?!"
He quickly realized that there was no soul scent on Chu Mo.
"This guy... you killed him?" Meng Ziyu couldn't help but give a thumbs up, "Sister, you're awesome!"
"Oh, what a sweet little mouth."
Of course, the princess recognized Meng Ziyu as a ghoul. Because of his high level and rich experience, she was not too surprised by Meng Ziyu's words and actions.
She drove Ling Luo to fly in front of An Rou, and An Rou discovered that she not only brought the ink remover, but also an NPC.
The NPC's identity information is [Daytime Priest].
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