Gamers Are Fierce-Chapter 845 - 844: Prisoners (5K)
Whoosh——
The piercing sound of something cutting through the air echoed across the sky,
as oval-shaped shells shot forth from the skyscraper jungles of the city ruins, tracing elegant arcs in midair before finally plunging into the midst of the mech beast horde.
Boom!
The pale shells exploded, releasing plumes of yellow-green smoke.
The smoke quickly spread; any mech beast caught within it first abruptly slowed down, then stumbled to the ground, sparking with electric arcs as its limbs twitched.
The armor and joints on their surfaces were severely corroded, and their central processors were infiltrated by the insidious corrosive smoke.
Boom!!
The ground was entirely upheaved as six gigantic life forms erupted from below.
They resembled enormously magnified worms, their bodies covered with multiple layers of solid, fish-scale-like shells, tightly connected to protect their muscles from the abrasive underground stones and sand.
Their heads... or accurately, one end of their bodies, were olive-shaped,
with three-pronged threaded drill bits at the tip and arrays of multi-pronged drill bits on the sides.
The sizes and shapes of the drill bits varied, but they all shared a dim color, making one wonder if they were biological or mechanical — after all, every drill bit turned freely, and there were no visible eyes or mouths.
Only a small part of one end of the body of the ground-drilling worm was exposed above the ground, yet this small section alone was comparable to an entire subway carriage.
The mech beast horde instinctively circumvented the ground-drilling worms, with the silver tide splitting like encountering a solid reef.
The ground-drilling worms did not actively attack the mech beasts (except for those knocked away or crushed when breaking through the surface),
instead, they twisted their bodies, crawled forward a short distance, rotated their drills, and burrowed back underground.
Leaving behind two wide and deep black tunnels.
Rustle——
The tunnels immediately filled with the sound of dense footsteps, and numerous fierce creatures clambered out from the underground passageways.
They could be broadly categorized into two types: Beast Level and Guard Level.
The Beast Level ones were larger, with four limbs and a long tail. The strong and robust hind legs landed first, while the forelimbs carried firearms (ranging from purely biological models to those made with human technology, material from the Lost World, or composites of various materials),
Their tails were noticeably long, tapering significantly at the ends.
Their shape was reminiscent of raptors.
These Beast Level soldier bugs had several layers of tough chitin mixed with metal armor covering their bodies. Between the armor plates were densely packed minute holes for cooling and oxygen intake.
Tens of thousands of Beast Level soldier bugs dashed out from the tunnels at car-like speeds (their tails helping maintain balance),
forming a battle formation at the tunnel entrance, fiercely firing their firearms at the surrounding mech beasts.
Various types of heavy bullets zipped through the air, with the surrounding mech beasts toppling like wheat stalks.
Only a sparse few mech beasts managed to tread over their fallen comrades to reach the frontline defenses.
The weapons of ordinary mech beasts could cleave through a layer of the armor on a Beast Level soldier bug,
yet once the armor sensed being cut, it would rapidly contract its muscles,
the armor on both sides clamping down like iron pincers, firmly trapping the mech beast weapon to prevent further damage. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
Emerging from the tunnels were also the Guard Level soldier bugs,
their size smaller, resembling medium to large dogs,
armed mainly with biological bone knives, sharp blades seized from mech beasts, and small firearms.
The Guard Level soldier bugs matched the Beast Level ones in number. They were more agile and swifter than the larger bugs,
weaving freely across the battlefield to sever joints or shoot the limbs of the mech beasts with their firearms, paralyzing them and leaving them vulnerable to being trampled by their kin.
Six fortress-level ground-drilling worms meant six tunnels.
Continuously flooding from underground were Beast Level and Guard Level soldier bugs, gathering at the tunnel entrances like reefs, devouring the surrounding mech beast tide.
Collaborating with them was the long-range firepower from the bug hive—
Within the steel jungle of the metropolis, hundreds of large entities called "Heavy Armor Level" creatures slowly crawled out.
Some were as large as elephants, typically possessing six limbs, with the rear four being robust and stocky, their ends covered in spikes capable of anchoring deeply into the ground,
while the smaller front limbs supported their bodies above the ground, providing stability and cushioning.
The Heavy Armor Level soldier bugs came in more than ten models, commonly used as artillery and tanks,
usually equipped with a single or dual-mounted heavy cannon, with the cannons often longer than the Heavy Armor Level bugs themselves. The barrels lacked rifling, effectively making them smoothbore guns.
Versus the tunneling mech beast tide, against which targeting was unnecessary, the hive's naturally chosen smoothbore guns had higher breech pressure and were easier to manufacture.
All the artillery barrels of the heavy-duty soldier bugs are connected to their back. The exaggerated weight of the heavy-duty can absorb the recoil of firing, while the eight chimney-like organs on the black carapace of their back can function to dissipate heat and cool down the artillery barrels.
Behind each heavy-duty soldier bug, there are a dozen or so beast-level and guard-level soldier bugs,
responsible for installing various models of shells into the loading port on the back of the heavy-duty soldier bugs.
Against the mech beast ocean, armor-piercing shells are unnecessary,
more often used are grenades and biological bombs — a type of bug nest weapon resembling mortar shells, spherical in shape, with a solid exterior, which can automatically explode upon hitting the target,
harming the enemy through shockwaves, chemical substances, gunpowder explosions, and shrapnel.
Sometimes special shells with corrosive gas are also fired.
Hundreds of heavy-duty soldiers fired simultaneously, with the ground rumbling from the dense roaring like the surface of a drum being beaten rapidly.
Vibrating, undulating, shaking.
Dust was raised by the shockwaves, with fragments of stone and metal raining down,
The mech beasts hit by the shells were smashed into pieces, with those around the craters also being torn apart and buried under the soil.
The few mech beasts lucky and resilient enough,
break through the layers of blockade by guard-level and beast-level soldier bugs, and without being hit by the dense barrage of shells, they roar (some mech beasts shout phrases like "Welcome to the Shelter's 42nd-floor garden zone") and charge towards the Steel City.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Dense figures fell from high buildings on the outskirts of the city,
The huge guard-level soldier bugs blocked in front of the heavy-duty, fired at the mech beasts, quickly extinguishing the enemy's charge.
On the entire battlefield, the bug nest units are not without casualties,
The most numerous beast-level and guard-level can sometimes be directly killed by the fearless mech beasts which rush upon them,
but their bodies are quickly recovered by some special bug nest units (worker bugs and special levels), pulled into the dark tunnel, disappearing without a trace.
Replacing them are more soldier bug units.
Mech beasts fighting with only their bodies have limitations,
The bug nests evolving and employing targeted tactics quickly gain battlefield dominance,
The seemingly endless tide of mech beasts is soon incrementally divided and completely devoured.
As a security guardian lying on the wall at the back of the battlefield emitted a shrill scream, several other security guardians began to act, landing in front of the mech beast swarm, hacking and driving the mech beasts with blades, stopping their charge,
turning into a certain pipeline at the far rear of the battlefield, retreating.
On the battlefield, only bug nest units remained active.
Heavy-duty and guard-level soldier bugs slowly retreated to the depths of the city.
The beast-level and guard-level at the tunnel entrance dispersed and used firearms and biological bone knives to finish off those mech beasts that were not completely dead,
while a multitude of worker bugs crawled out of the tunnel, collecting bug nest unit bodies,
and with sharp teeth and claws cut apart the limbs of mech beasts, taking them to the ruins of the city.
The battlefield clean-up phase, silent and soundless,
so quiet that Nina felt a shiver from the soul as she watched from in front of the screen.
"Bug Clan? Natural Disaster?"
Qin took a deep breath, murmuring: "What is this thing exactly?"
"Biological weapon." Eva said expressionlessly: "Just like the flying creature we saw before. Born purely for war, slaughter, and devouring.
Note those dead Bug Clan units, they are full of organs, muscles, bones inside them,
lacking digestive and reproductive systems which normally occupy large capacities in regular organisms.
There's a small chance I misjudged, but a large chance that these bugs have discarded the digestive and reproductive functions,
being directly supplied with biomass and energy by other bugs,
with reproduction taken care of by other types of bugs."
"More ant-like than ants..."
Pei Youzhen murmured, a gleam of clarity flashed in her eyes, "Could it be that Ant King? I've heard he once raised a biological weapon army."
"No, it can't be him."
The Blue Lantern beside her looked solemn as water and softly said: "I have fought with the Ant King, his own strength can only be regarded as average. As for his biological weapon army?
Bullying modern armies lacking heavy weapons might be fine,
but compared to this army of giant Bug Clans numbering in tens or hundreds of thousands, they are not even on the same level."
"The disparity is like heaven and earth."
If it were before, Blue Lantern would have certainly used a mocking tone to sarcastically ridicule the Ant King, one of the Seven Martial Seas.
But now she had completely lost interest and was instead engulfed in shock and fear.
Supposing she fell into the center of the Bug Nest Battlefield, facing overwhelming artillery strikes and an endless sea of biological weapons, how long could she hold out?
Half an hour? Or fifteen minutes?
Perhaps less than ten minutes, she would be forced to use all the special effects of her equipment, depleting most of her magic potions, with every skill entering cooldown...
Or worse,
for survival, overly relying on the ability of [Prajna Transformation], completely losing self-awareness, becoming a demon with no intellect, driven only by the instinct to kill...
No, calm down, calm down.
Blue Lantern took a deep breath, forcing herself to wake from the terrifying imagination.
The biological weapons on screen weren't that frightening,
The strongest point of players lies in the mobility granted by their array of bizarre skills,
Even if they can't match the vast sea of bugs, they can always manage to escape and retreat—just from this one localized war,
The bug units seemingly don't have ultra-fast mobile units...
Blue Lantern exhaled a turbid breath, choosing not to ponder the scariest possibility: that the Bug Nest might not have shown its true power, with more terrifying entities lurking in the dark and vast ruins of the city...
"The detector is still operational."
Eva, pale-faced, pressed her lips together, glanced at the System Detector in the corner of the basement, and said softly: "Did the screen just show the footage to the camera?"
"Yes."
Nina nodded.
"That's good."
Eva's eyes lowered, her mind racing, knowing the support team in the real world must be intensely analyzing the footage, speculating about the origin and power of those strange creatures.
Unfortunately, the Lost World is disconnected from the Mortal Realm, with information only going out and none coming in. They can't receive external analysis results...
"Where exactly did these monsters come from? What are they doing? What's their identity?"
Qin furrowed her brows and asked, "Are they summoned creatures of players,
or players from the otherworldly,
or dangerous species escaped from some secret testing ground in the Lost World?
Why are they clashing with mechs and security guards?"
"They can't be summoned creatures."
Blue Lantern replied seriously, "Even the Beast of Thousand Throats guild, which excels at taming demons, can only summon five Two-headed Chimera Dragons at most for its president, Parasitic Mistletoe, ranked 23rd.
Summoned creatures consume various attributes of the user,
And the battlefield's hundreds of thousands of biological weapons cannot be summoned by players of this level, no matter how strong they are.
Moreover, observing the behavior of those biological weapons, they recover their own corpses and dismantle enemy components, clearly having a complete logistics system,
which contradicts the characteristic maintenance time of summoned skills."
Umibouzu pondered for a moment and said softly, "Could it be equipment transported in through spatial storage from the outside?"
"Highly unlikely."
Blue Lantern, expressionless, said: "Players' inventory slots can't store living creatures,
And those space equipment or items that can store living creatures,
Capacity and price are proportional,
but at most, it can't exceed the volume of a building.
The total volume of all biological weapons absolutely exceeds a building, plus biological weapons need reserved space when stored, they can't be fully packed—
Unless that space storage equipment is exceedingly considerate, installed with zero gravity and freezing functions, making stored creatures fall into hibernation and weightlessness, preventing them from crushing each other due to weight.
Furthermore, even if the storage issue was solved, how would the player handle communication command?
I don't think any player at this stage could achieve that..."
Before she could finish, a crackling noise came from the control panel in Nina's hand.
Pop!
The screen suddenly went dark, startling them and almost making them draw their weapons.
"A drone has been attacked!"
Nina's face suddenly changed, pressing several buttons on the control panel to switch the screen from Drone ① to ②.
Drone ① had already been pierced by a nearly meter-long spike,
attacked by the swarm flying units seen by Wind Chaser and others earlier—a flying squad composed of over a dozen scout soldier bugs, swooped down, grabbed the smoking Drone ①,
pulled it to the ground, and tore the drone into eight pieces with sharp claws.
Eva urgently said, "Quick, get the other one out!"
Without relying on companions, Nina pressed a button to command Drone ②, stationed behind, to fully activate its invisibility function and fly backward at a very slow speed.
Fortunately, Drone ② was stationed farther back; once turning the corner, the battlefield scene was out of sight.
Qin couldn't help asking, "How was the first drone discovered?!"
"Who knows."
Eva's expression turned gloomy, "The wind sound from the propeller blades, the buzzing of the motor, the heat radiation emitted by the motor, or the change in the position of the dome's black clouds caused by the propeller blades stirring—the invisibility function can't shield against that."
She turned to Nina, speaking softly, "Is the portable communication device signal confirmed to be in the middle of the battlefield?"
Nina shook her head, "It's at the city's left edge, but merely with this drone, it definitely can't cross the defense line..."
Suddenly, without warning, Drone ② was passively displaced—a finely crafted whip made of tens of segments of wood silently swept in, hooking the drone's body and pulling it back hard.
The drone's lens spun uncontrollably, and upon stabilizing, it was facing several faces: Bai Haozheng, Qimian Xuantian, and Ju Zi, who was holding a wooden long whip.
They were lurking inside a broken large pipe, and upon seeing the [Dragon-rising Style Support Drone], their faces slightly changed, presumably recognizing it as Nina's property.
No sign of Ju Tianfu and Long Xiangbao Bian...
Blue Lantern squinted slightly, took a half step back.
Bai Haozheng pondered for a moment, waved his hand, releasing telekinesis, to restore the soundproof barrier broken by Ju Zi earlier with the whip, and looking at the drone lens, said softly, "Excuse me, is this the India Special Situations Security Department? I am Bai Haozheng, the intelligence analyst from the Special Affairs Bureau."
Nina glanced at Eva, received her affirmative nod, and pressed the control device button, remotely projecting her face onto the Dragon-rising Style Support Drone's screen.
Bai Haozheng had met Wind Chaser and others before when Wind Chaser had come to Yin City last time to record a show.
After meeting, both parties breathed easily, after a brief inquiry of the situation, Eva immediately asked the question, "Mister Bai, where is Ju Tianfu? We received intelligence that he was with you..."
"..."
Bai Haozheng paused, and said seriously, "I'm sorry, Comrade Ju Tianfu was accidentally caught up in the war between the Bug Clan and Mech Beast half an hour ago,
captured by the Bug Clan creatures occupying the 41-story city ruins."
Hmm?
Blue Lantern raised an eyebrow beside, her lips involuntarily slightly curved upwards.
Captured?
Interesting.
"How is that possible?!"
Eva's face suddenly changed, "Didn't the members of the Special Affairs Bureau equip emergency tactical suits?"
"Equipped."
Bai Haozheng nodded, speaking quietly, "But the Bug Clan releases high concentrations of hypnotic gas, bypassing the automatic surrender function of the emergency tactical suit.
We're currently trying to rescue him..."
In Blue Lantern's mind, she felt even more satisfied; if they want to rescue Ju Tianfu, then there's absolutely no spare energy to turn around and trouble Blue Lantern and her group,
perhaps Blue Lantern can still take advantage of the situation, using the Bug Clan to eliminate these people from the Special Affairs Bureau camp...
"...them."
Bai Haozheng spoke seriously, "Captured into the Bug Clan nest along with Ju Tianfu were also Long Xiangbao Bian from the Special Affairs Bureau, Cheng Yin from the Sword King Court Guild, Dusk Knight from the Royal National Church Knight Group, Litang Jianxue from Phantom Moon Circle, and Xiao Man from the Japan Islands Anomalous Affairs Investigation Bureau..."
Upon hearing the last name, Blue Lantern, who had been laughing very happily ("These fools have all been captured in one scoop, hahaha"), her face suddenly changed.
Tsuchimikado Xiao Man is a child of the senior officials from the Japan Islands Anomalous Affairs Investigation Bureau...
————
Deep within the Bug Nest Metropolitan.
Inside the underground facility filled with mycelium carpets, meat chunks, and otherworldly plants, seven brain worms lay separately in life-sustaining pods, with numerous conduits connecting to the back of their brains.
Some conduits are responsible for feeding nutrients, removing waste from the brain worms,
while others lead to the Bug Nest Biological Factory, reporting the factory's status directly to the brain worms through neural signals—the latter can issue neural instructions from underground facilities to remotely control the biological factory.
And now, these seven brain worms are reporting their work to their creator and father.
"The captured players..."
In the upper world of the Lost World, Li Ang silently thought, "How should I deal with them..."
