Gamers Are Fierce-Chapter 836 - 835: Energy

The four of them worried that the comic might contain memes, so they didn't show the comic directly to the camera (although they knew that the live-streaming servers in the real world were equipped with software to counteract meme effects).

Instead, Nina used her finger to emit laser, writing words to briefly summarize the comic information.

The cover of the ninth installment of the comic series "When the Stars Return" features an eerie blue ocean with a coral reef, and on the reef lies a conch with some green seaweed extending from it.

The comic is in full color, with hard paper, a style leaning towards photorealism, vibrant and layered colors, full of infectiousness and emotional tension, more resembling a work of art than a comic for children or youth.

There is no publishing time, author, script, or artwork information inside the comic, only the words "Homeland Publishing House" printed on the back of the book.

As for the content...

The ninth comic opens with a red, powerful, license-plate-free convertible driving on a wilderness road. In the driver's seat sits a pink-skinned humanoid creature, hairless, without a nose or eyebrows, with an old face, firm and cold expression, and muscular build,

dressed in a trench coat, wearing a hat, with a cigar in its mouth, a silver cross necklace on its chest, and a revolver hanging from each side of its waist.

It sometimes quotes classics, telling mysterious parables and philosophies of life, potentially being a priest.

In the back seat of the car sits... a clownfish.

With orange-yellow skin, surrounded by white patterns, standing upright on two legs like a human, looking somewhat juvenile,

from the way the two converse, the clownfish might be the pink-skinned priest's adopted son (or daughter. Clownfish are hermaphrodites, showing no distinct features when young, males can turn into females, but females cannot turn into males. From the art style, this clownfish looks delicate and it's hard to distinguish gender, and the comic doesn't say).

The two seemingly experienced something earlier, with neither in a great mood.

In an awkward conversation, they drive through the wilderness, and the clownfish finally gathers the courage to tell the priest that it doesn't want to move forward anymore, suggesting they find a place like the Anemone Forest to live.

The priest remains silent for a long time, saying that after the dust settles, he will help the clownfish achieve this dream.

After some more traveling, the vehicle finally arrives in front of a tall metal fortress.

The fortress's gates are tightly closed, with walls reaching more than ten meters high filled with machine guns and turrets, and barbed wire and trenches set up outside the gate, unclear of what it is guarding against.

The clownfish is somewhat scared, asking if this is truly the home of the priest's old friend,

the priest nods, turns off the car, raises his hands as he approaches the metal fortress, shouting that he comes for friendship.

A machine cannon rises from the fortress, with a large LCD screen mounted on top of it.

The machine cannon loads bullets, and a human female face appears on the LCD screen, expressionlessly telling the priest that his friend is already dead, and that she now controls this fortress.

The comic plot abruptly ends here.

"Overall, the comic's art style is realistic and exquisite, with skilled use of color, worthy of being called a work of art."

Nina summarizes, "This might be a literary work in the road movie genre, with the protagonist going through various events on a journey, completing life experiences, undergoing ideological changes, achieving life goals and self-value.

Like Journey to the West, The Last of Us Part 1, Thelma and Louise, American Gods, etc. However, due to the missing plot before and after, unknown character names, we do not know the story details.

The players we defeated earlier were attacked during the powder change. From the bodies of the security guards who attacked, we obtained this comic.

If we can get a few more comics, maybe we can complete the entire comic plot, extrapolate the background story of the Lost World, and thus survive better."

"Exactly."

Eva nodded, adding, "I personally think that this comic may hold extremely special significance to the security guards, to the extent that they hide the fresh comic in their bodies.

Once our numbers grow a bit more and we accumulate more strength, we will deliberately dismantle belts, induce security guards to attack, obtain more comics,

and even track the security guards to their nest to search for..."

As she spoke, a detector in the sky suddenly disappeared.

Eva's pace of speech slowed slightly, slowly adding the latter half of the sentence, "...possibly existing printing equipment – this comic is too new."

"The detector is gone."

Pei Youzhen frowned slightly, sighing, "Perhaps the observation time is up, or a battle has erupted elsewhere."

"But we've already transmitted the information, and as for how the outside analyzes it, that's their business."

Qin casually lifted her leg, resting it on the bench across the bamboo basket, lazily saying, "By the way, Eva, can you turn the ventilation system of the Airy Camping Bamboo Basket up a notch, it's almost time for a meal.

In my spatial storage equipment, I've stored burgers, pizzas, iced cola, and many various national cuisines. What do you want to eat?"

"Are you here to battle or to camp?"

Eva's eye twitched, reprimanding, "The Airy Camping Bamboo Basket might be able to block odors, but the stronger the ventilation system, the more it consumes my spirit energy value,

just endure it with some high-energy drinks and food."

"Oh no!"

Qin screamed, "Those drink foods are too awful, like a hybrid of slime and snot and slug, with peanut-like hard energy blocks inside, every time I eat one I feel like I'm shortening my life by ten years.

Are you hoping I die early and then take the lead to hog the talents?"

"Tch."

Eva sneered, "With that cheerleader brain of yours, I could buy a bouquet of roses, poison them a bit, then trick you into thinking they were sent by an admirer,

you'd giggle, take a big whiff, and then show off the flowers to us."

Qin's face looked shocked, "What?! You actually poisoned me!?"

"No! I'm just saying hypothetically..."

"You're definitely trying to poison me!"

Qin looked vigilant and certain, "I knew I couldn't trust you!"

"...Ugh, it's indeed impossible to communicate with such a brain as yours."

Eva heaved a long sigh, massaging her forehead.

Nina initially watched everything with a chuckle, but suddenly, the tablet on her knee vibrated, and a ring of red light lit up around the screen.

The four girls instantly calmed down from their playful banter as Nina frantically tapped on the tablet, whispering an address, "3 o'clock direction, 2.5 kilometers. A drone has been destroyed."

"2.5 kilometers,"

Eva's gaze flickered, "That's about the maximum detection range of the scout drone...

How was it destroyed, can you tell?"

"Yes."

Nina nodded, "Before the drone was destroyed, it transmitted back the last video."

The other three girls moved closer, looking at the tablet, where the screen was already showing the night vision view—

The drone flew steadily along the corridor, the scanning device beneath its body swept the spacious passage back and forth, measuring the terrain, detecting enemy traces.

Suddenly, as if the drone detected something, it jerked the camera around,

seeing a winged flying creature on the distant wall at the end of the dim corridor.

The creature was crouching above the hanging stairs, its back covered with a sturdy carapace of chitin and metal, filled with spikes and chimneys,

beneath the nearly three-meter wingspan, an array of tentacle-shaped objects were parasitized, resembling missiles on an armed plane.

The creature's mouth was wide open, extending a hollow pipe-like tongue,

and silently shot out a spike from the middle of the tongue.

The nail tore through the air, instantly crossing a distance of nearly a thousand meters, hitting the drone—leaving it no time to activate its defensive cannons.

The screen abruptly cut off.

"..."

Eva stared at the screen, at the ferocious and brutal creature that seemed nothing like an Earth species, murmuring to herself, "What on earth is this thing..."

————

Lost World, 47th Floor.

"What's wrong?"

Riding on a floating motorcycle, clad in fully enclosed protective gear, Liu Wu Dai turned his head to look at Li Ang, who suddenly looked back while riding a Fearful Warhorse beside him.

The Fearful Warhorse was similar in size to a normal horse, except its coat was jet black, its eyes a fiery red, and it exhaled gas with a sulfurous smell, with eerie blue fire that burned without heat igniting wherever its four hooves stepped for 30 seconds, without burning anything.

In terms of speed, the max speed of the Fearful Warhorse matched that of a race car, and it adapted to terrain far better than conventional vehicles,

just without stirrups or a saddle—the Fearful Warhorse detested those things, so the riding experience for novice players wasn't great,

and those with weaker constitutions might even have their internal organs injured during the bumpy ride.

However, given Li Ang's current physical fitness, taming the Fearful Warhorse was child's play, and the horse seemed to realize this. After Li Ang fed it a carrot, it willingly carried him through the Constructed City.

"Nothing."

Li Ang turned his head and smiled.

It's been hours since he released the hive, and the hive had fully absorbed the biomass from the landfill on the 46th floor, starting to expand upward and downward in search of more biomass sources.

A few newly produced Scout insects had flown between the 50th and 40th floors to survey the terrain and search for enemies.

In this process, encounters with mech beasts and other players were inevitable.

Mech beasts had an intense urge to kill flesh and blood creatures, but the latest Scout insects had several layers of a semi-transparent thin film on their surfaces that could reduce some heat radiation.

The chimney-like organs responsible for oxygen intake and heat emission also had specialized components built-in to hide the scent of living organisms during respiration,

to prevent early detection by mech beasts and subsequent attacks.

As for players—the Scout insects wouldn't actively attack players they encountered but would keep a certain distance, conceal themselves, and continuously observe the others,

relaying the observations back to the Brain Worm in the hive.

If the players became aware, the Scout insects would quickly fly away, even self-immolating if necessary to deny players the chance to capture a biological sample.

The hive wasn't powerful enough yet and still needed time to convert biomass into sufficient troops.

Once the hive expanded enough, the Brain Worm would shift its strategy,

like instructing the Scout insects to remove physical constraints, emitting heat radiation and the scent of living organisms everywhere, luring surrounding mech beasts to attack players to gather more player data.

Or directly deploying forces to attack or even capture, killing hostile players...

Rumble—

A dull sound came from above the ceiling, the entire Constructed City shaking and quivering, dust constantly falling from the sky's dome,

causing the Fearful Warhorse to sneeze, snort displeasedly, and exhale more sulfur-scented gas.

Liu Wu Dai immediately glanced at his watch, "Six hours and 3.212 seconds... second tremor."

"The last tremor occurred three hours after we were transported into the Lost World, right?"

Li Ang frowned, "Does it tremor every three hours here? Is this some kind of signal or a time hint?"

In typical puzzle-solving scenarios, time indications are often extremely important,

like every certain period, the monsters in the mission get strengthened once; not acting timely means certain doom from being overwhelmed by monsters;

or failing to find clues within designated time results in covert penalties—like losing a piece of equipment you could've obtained.

"Unsure."

Liu Wu Dai shook his head, glanced at the dome, softly said, "The first sound occurred around three hours and 3.417 seconds.

The second was at six hours and 3.212 seconds.

The intervals aren't exactly three hours."

Li Ang raised an eyebrow, "Do you think there's a special meaning to this time difference?"

"There's a possibility."

Liu Wu Dai nodded, looked around, "But here the building structure is peculiar, and the materials are unique,

it's hard to judge distance to the sound based on sound speed in building materials.

Maybe the time difference was caused by a change in my position."

"Hmm."

Li Ang slowly nodded, intrigued by the sound as well, but the Lost World's building structure was incredibly complex, with the positions of passages between layers not fixed, requiring self-navigation,

even the highest positioned Scout insects were only at the 50th floor now.

"We're here."

Liu Wu Dai took a deep breath, stopped the floating motorcycle, and Li Ang dismounted the Fearful Warhorse, tossing a carrot into its mouth to end the summon skill.

In front of them was an unimaginably thick and tall metallic wall, stretching from the ground all the way to the ceiling.

The entire wall showed no signs of metal plates assembled together, no rivets or such components for fixation.

Only the center of the wall bulged towards the Constructed City, forming a giant pipeline-like contour.

From the pipeline contour, tens of thousands of miniature metal conduits extended, crawling all over the entire wall like ivy, disappearing into gaps in the walls on both sides.

"..."

Liu Wu Dai remained silent, took a palm-sized instrument from his inventory, and pressed a button aimed at the wall,

after a long while, turned to Li Ang and said, "The material of this wall is completely different from other construction materials, can't measure its exact thickness.

This should be the edge of the Lost World."

Li Ang nodded, leaned over to tug at the miniature conduit, but couldn't move it.

He frowned, took out the Tyrant Halberd, applied more force, and cut off a miniature conduit.

Pfft—

The metal conduit drooped down like a decapitated snake's body, dripping amber-colored liquid.

"Is this... oil?"

Liu Wu Dai tightly frowns, avoids touching the amber liquid, instead taking an observation instrument composed of several lenses from his inventory to observe via the instrument, "No, this isn't oil,

but it does contain high-quality energy.

I need to collect a sample..."

"Don't rush, we have company."

Li Ang turned his head, looking back—a large number of humanoid puppets slowly climbed out from the edge of the Constructed City and the broken pipelines.