Cave Refuge-Chapter 325 - 297 Monsters in Other Regions

The monsters that appeared in the City Center resembled centipedes, only that the Thousand-Legged Bugs were quite larger, the size of four or five dachshunds lying on the ground in a straight line.

Moreover, the Thousand-Legged Bugs had two long antennae on their heads like detectors, which could locate the survivors no matter how well they hid or behind whatever obstacles.

Although the people of Pengville City didn’t eat just about anything like those in the two Guang provinces, the populace could still stomach foods with strong flavors, such as hairy eggs. Besides, Pengville City had the dish ’Stir-fried Five Poisons’, which was vegetarian, but from the name alone, it was clear that the survivors here had a relatively high tolerance for various foods.

Ever since news had spread from Pengcheng urban area that bugs could be used in medicine, the Thousand-Legged Bugs of the City Center had not escaped the cruel hands of the survivors.

After all, incidents had occurred in Pengville City even before the catastrophe, where people got poisoned from privately brewing centipedes in liquor.

Therefore, when it became known that the monsters appearing elsewhere were edible, the initially dreaded Thousand-Legged Bugs had now become very popular, much like in Pengcheng urban area where Hunting Teams had been formed.

Once the medicinal value of the Thousand-Legged Bugs was confirmed, the City Center quickly established specialized hunting squads as well.

Through the personal trials of many pioneers, the practical value of the Thousand-Legged Bugs had also been confirmed by the survivors.

The first thing that was confirmed was that the meat of the Thousand-Legged Bugs was edible, although it contained a slight toxin and was not suitable for children and the elderly.

But precisely because the Bug Meat carried a mild toxin, adults who ate it over a prolonged period could increase their resistance to poison. Moreover, if the meat was soaked in strong liquor of over 60 degrees and then naturally air-dried, the Toxin in the meat could be neutralized, allowing the elderly and children to eat it as well.

In addition, an extremely small number of Thousand-Legged Bugs had a white transparent pearl inside their bodies, with an extremely hard outer shell but containing some liquid inside.

Some people tried drinking the liquid from inside the pearl, which made their limbs more agile. Not just ordinary people, even Martial Artists in the Inner Breath Realm who drank the liquid from inside would experience certain benefits, although the higher one’s Cultivation Level and the better their physical condition, the weaker the enhancing effect would be.

Once this information was confirmed, the Martial Artists in the City Center had also become much more frantic. After all, this was a tangible enhancement, and having more agile limbs not only provided significant help during combat but also made attacking and retreating much easier.

Unlike other places, no monsters had appeared on the land of Weishan County, but many planktonic organisms had emerged beneath the water surface. These planktonic creatures were not large in size, in fact, similar to the bugs found in the Bug Nests of the Pengcheng urban area, they were quite small and even somewhat transparent in appearance.

But despite their frail transparency, compared to other newly emerged monsters in different places, the planktonic organisms that appeared in Weishan Lake were extremely horrific.

Unlike the plankton that used to drift with the currents, stuck at the bottom of the food chain, the plankton in the lake now possessed the ability to shoot and jump out of the water.

Once these plankton landed on the skin of survivors fishing on boats, they could quickly burrow into the survivors’ bodies through the pores on the skin, unnoticed, and using the bodies of the survivors, they would devour their flesh and breed rampantly within the hosts.

Moreover, these creatures reproduced quickly and covertly, and by the time others noticed, the infested survivor would have already collapsed, bleeding from every orifice and dead.

Yet that wasn’t even the worst part; the most terrifying aspect was that the plankton which grew and reproduced inside the survivors would follow the blood flowing out of the orifices to the outside of the corpses.

When other survivors approached to inspect the deceased’s body, these organisms would stealthily shoot from the blood into the bodies of other survivors.

Initially, no one was aware of this, and the boats that kept fishing on Weishan Lake would succumb one after another, like being infected with a contagious disease, with everyone dying unnoticed.

These planktonic organisms could hide in most liquids and even Martial Artists in the Inner Breath Realm might accidentally fall victim if they were unaware of the information.

In the beginning, since the details about these planktonic creatures were not known, all the fishing boats on Weishan Lake were wiped out, and some survivors who tried to rescue the fishermen also died unknowingly.

It wasn’t until the Officials defined the situation as a severe contagion and arranged for fully enclosed medical personnel to enter the lake that a Martial Artist in the Inner Breath Realm unintentionally discovered many transparent plankton within the lake, constantly shooting out from the water towards them.

Only then did they uncover this crucial clue. After using cattle to confirm multiple times, they finally determined the cause of death for the lake’s survivors.

Unlike Pengville City, with their limited scientific research conditions, even though many survivors were willing to sacrifice themselves, they never found any utilitarian value in these planktonic creatures.

Fortunately, although these plankton had mutated, the aquatic creatures in Weishan Lake still fed on them, so fishing in the lake was still possible, but it now required the boat crew to wear thick multilayered protective suits.

For safety, after each trip and docking, they were required to visit a specialized cleaning room to thoroughly disinfect the protective suits, for fear of bringing the lake’s planktonic organisms ashore.