Gamers Are Fierce-Chapter 846 - 845: Shadow

Two beams of shining light, swiftly traversing the 44th floor of the Lost World.

It's none other than Liu Wu Dai riding a floating motorcycle and Li Ang on a Fearful Warhorse.

They passed through winding tunnels, with dozens of drones flying in the air, scouting the road ahead and drawing maps.

"..."

Liu Wu Dai hangs the motorcycle helmet on the back of the floating motorcycle, glances around; the dim space echoes only the roar of engines and the clatter of hooves, yet such commotion surprisingly did not attract any mech beasts.

To be precise, starting an hour and a half ago, the 47th, 46th, 45th, and 44th floors of the Lost World suddenly fell silent.

The mech beasts vanished,

security guards hiding in the crevices of walls and pipes disappeared too, and even when Liu Wu Dai and Li Ang were extracting amber-like energy from the edges of the 47th floor walls, nothing appeared.

What exactly happened?

Liu Wu Dai silently pondered the various unreasonable signs, contemplating the reasons behind them.

After the disappearance of the security guards, she and Li Ang dug into the pipes within the walls of the 47th floor, which contained layer upon layer of metal materials resembling giant dragon scales.

The deeper they dug, the more solid the metal became,

and the amber energy flowed out from the gaps in the metal material layers.

It's unclear whether there was an anomaly in the energy system of the Lost World,

or if Liu Wu Dai and Li Ang made a mistake in their operation,

in any case, the amber energy flowing out of the pipes was much less than before, and even using conduits for extraction, they barely managed to gather the equivalent of a gas tank.

Maybe this is one of the reasons for the security guards' disappearance...

Liu Wu Dai glanced at the manga titled "When the Stars Return ③" placed in the basket of the floating motorcycle.

This manga was found in the nest of the security guards on the 47th floor, located within the abdominal cavity of a security guard corpse that they shattered and was dragged away by its companions.

Regardless of the content of the manga, the mere appearance of such fresh paper is extremely bizarre,

This brand-new paper could not possibly have been passed down from the era of the Lost World civilization collapse.

It's unknown whether the security guards possess 3D printing capabilities,

or if there's a factory manufacturing paper somewhere in the Lost World...

The sound of wings beating the air approaches, thirty birds fly from the corner of the tunnel ahead, chirping noisily.

"Left."

Li Ang said, lightly patting the neck of the Fearful Warhorse, which then gracefully leaped over a protruding piece of metal debris, turned lightly, and sped into the corner.

These birds are of the same model as the bio-weapons Li Ang used long ago in the King of Shengnan script mission and the Realms Corridor race segment,

but they lack the psychic communication function,

and compared to other bug nest units that have most restrictions lifted,

there are extreme differences in exterior shape, anatomical structure, DNA information, etc.

The chromosomes of the newly hatched bug nest units contain quite a bit of nucleotide sequences from Earth's humans and Lost World's native residents (obtained from skeletal remains in hibernation pods),

Even if other forces capture bug nest units (which is usually difficult, as bug nest units are programmed to self-destruct explosively upon capture), conduct DNA analysis, they'd consider the swarms as native creatures of the Lost World, experimental species,

or as otherworldly creatures evolving from devouring Earth players and Lost World native residents' corpses.

Hundreds, nearly a thousand bird-shaped scout bio-weapons, fitting the power level of the identity "Li Rising."

Players at the same level with summoning skills would be about this tier too—Li Ang chose to team up with Liu Wu Dai and used the skill [Summoning: Fearful Warhorse] in front of the detector's lens to further reinforce the impression that "Li Rising is a second-tier player with summoning skills,"

separating his identity from the bug nest.

"Right."

Li Ang reminded, again commanding the flock to scout the road ahead, steering the Fearful Warhorse around the corner, heading toward the passage from the 44th to the 43rd floor.

Amid the divine power connection established by the evil god statue, echoes the information sent by hundreds of brain worms.

Details of the bug nest's war against mech beasts, the battle damage ratio of bug nest units, progress in dissecting the genes of native resident corpses, monitoring of players by scout units, plans for dealing with captured players...

The Lost World has a relatively weak absorption effect for divine power, but it's not entirely absent,

The greater the distance, the larger the consumption and poorer effect of information transfer via the divine power connection.

Thus, Li Ang sent scout soldier bugs to various floors, while the brain worms were first dispatched to the 46th floor, leveraging troop strength to wipe out the security guards stationed there.

Liu Wu Dai didn't notice earlier on about the secret of the energy pipelines—amber energy is being transported from the lower to upper floors.

Upon realizing this, Li Ang commanded the bug nest to collectively relocate, bypassing the 45th, 44th, 43rd, 42nd floors to directly reach the 41st and 40th floors, establishing a total of four new bug nests in the abandoned metropolitan near the edge walls.

Considering mobile operations, the organs of the bug nest factory could be dismantled and carried away by heavy armor level and fortress level bugs.

The scattered giant elevators aided the bug nest's relocation.

After establishing the bug nests, they immediately initiated large-scale extraction, fully mining amber energy from the pipelines—

Based on the map expanded by scout soldier bugs from the 55th to the 38th floor, the Lost World overall forms an olive shape, narrow on the ends, wide in the middle, with a total of 50 energy pipelines encasing the Lost World.

The 41st and 40th floors each contained two bug nest metropolitan, each controlling and extracting from three energy pipelines, totaling twelve pipelines.

This action immediately attracted the security guards' attention,

security guards from up and down floors mobilized collectively, attacking the bug nest.

After the initial waves were repelled, various models of security guards quickly altered their tactics, driving a mass of mech beasts to wage war. Both sides engage in fierce battles around the bug nest metropolitan, with numerous mech beasts and soldier bugs dying.

The number of mech beasts in the Lost World is hard to calculate, but the number security guards can deploy in a fixed time is limited. Deterring mechanical beasts requires time, and driving mech beasts to the bug nest also demands time.

And the portable bug nest incubation factory can collect the dead insect corpses on the battlefield, absorb, digest, decompose, and utilize the incubation pool for mass production at a rapid pace—amber energy with extremely high thermal value is comparable to an accelerator,

not only can it provide energy for the bug nest factory to speed up production, but it can also be loaded into the bodies of high-level bug nest units, saving biomass energy and reducing the time needed for incubation and formulation.

On the local battlefield, the bug nest undoubtedly has a leading advantage (the replication and reproduction speed of mech beasts is far faster than the assembly line in the mortal realm, but it's still too slow compared to the bug nest incubation factory),

The brain worms use the scout soldier bugs to establish an intelligence network, analyze the mech beast army forces assembled by security guards, and plan production work,

always maintaining the military advantage of the four bug nest metropolises locally, preventing them from being engulfed by the mech beast tide.

And once the bug nest has harvested the energy in this level of the pipeline, it can move again, using giant elevators to continue advancing to the lower floors, mining the amber energy there, to produce more units.

Located on the 45th floor, Li Ang can remotely control the bug nest with the divine power connection,

he can also maintain the divine power connection and distinguish himself from the bug nest while using the identity of "Li Rising" to continue advancing to the lower floors.

All aspects are within Li Ang's calculations, yet his mood remains grave.

Rumble!

A loud, dull sound came again from above the dome, the dome shook and trembled, and rubble splashed down.

"The interval between the loud noises shortened again."

Liu Wu Dai's voice remained clear amidst the roaring engine of the hovering motorcycle, "Two hours and forty-nine minutes since the last sound."

"Is it gradient accelerated descent?"

Li Ang furrowed his brows slightly, murmuring: "Perhaps it really is like the guess, the lost world is gradually compressing the player's activity space..."

The part of the soldier bugs he sent out to explore the upper floors has confirmed that the upper floors have indeed collapsed, and as for the reason for the collapse, it is still under investigation.

However, the other piece of intelligence he has is quite special.

Some models of security guards have the "When the Stars Return" series comics inside them,

During this period of war with the mech beasts, the bug nest has seized a total of seven, with three being identical and four being volumes ②, ③, ⑥, and ⑧.

The protagonist is a pink-skinned humanoid creature and a humanoid clownfish who is a foster child to the former; the comic's art style is stunning, with a story style reminiscent of a road movie,

The two seem to be traveling in a lost world of chaos, with a certain purpose, heading to a special location.

The bug nest attempted to capture and control some security guards for more information about the lost world,

but so far, not a single security guard has been effectively captured—they all self-disintegrate upon capture.

As for those players inadvertently caught in the war between the bug nest and the mech beasts, and eventually captured by the bug nest...

Killing them outright is the most wasteful, and it might lead to the bug nest units acquiring player qualifications, spawning swarm players capable of traversing multiple worlds, thereby risking Li Ang's absolute control over the bug nest.

In previous wars between the bug nest and the mech beasts, the bug nest had already been exposed to the sight of other players,

Fortunately, as in Li Ang's plan, these people also believed more in the bug nest being indigenous to the lost world (like out-of-control creations in the laboratory, similar to mech beasts), and no one would think that such a large-scale biological weapon race would be under the control of any player or players.

Since exposure has happened, it should be used to maximize benefits.

After a brief deliberation, Li Ang immediately issued orders to the brain worms in each bug nest to start interrogating, questioning, researching, and analyzing the captured players.

(The Evil God statue is placed in No. 1 bug nest on the 41st floor; other bug nest metropolises use psychic communication to connect with No. 1 bug nest, and then, through the brain worm of No. 1 bug nest, relay information to Li Ang using the Evil God statue)

Players who can rank in the top 300 possess one or more unique skills,

As long as the bug nest can ensure absolute control over these players, the potential benefits gained are far greater than the risks.

Of course, Li Ang is not a demon,

He won't cut players into pieces,

Once their value is drained, he will let them safely leave the lost world — as to the form of life they leave in, that is not within Li Ang's consideration.

The summoning time of the Fearful Warhorse is about to end, Li Ang slows down, dismounts, and casually throws a carrot to the vanishing horse,

He steps forward a few paces, looking at the deep, pitch-black tunnel ahead, leading to the lower layer, and says in a low voice: "Up ahead is the passage from the 44th floor to the 43rd floor."

Liu Wu Dai also dismounted from the hovering motorcycle, picked up the "When the Stars Return" comic that could not be placed in the inventory, placed it into the backpack, and said softly: "There are a lot of scratches left by mech beasts crawling by the edge of the tunnel,

And the marks are still very new."

Li Ang said in a deep voice: "From the number and density of the scratches, the mech beasts on this level seem to be passing through this tunnel for some unknown reason, heading to the lower levels, ultimately disappearing."

"...I have a bad feeling. It seems like there's an enormous shadow of evil lurking in the lower floors...."

Liu Wu Dai silently gazed at the pitch-black tunnel, paused for a moment, and slowly said: "Let's go, we have to make our way to the lower levels eventually."

"Mm."

Li Ang nodded, reached out to press on the roadside metal ruins, forged two chains, anchored them to the wall, and together with Liu Wu Dai, gripped the chains and descended into the depths of the tunnel.

————

"Swarm...large troop...Ant King...help..."

The communication device transmitted disjointed noisy human voices, lasting for a moment before the signal was cut off, leaving only static noise.

A young man, with dark skin and tusks in his mouth, stood atop a pile of ruins, holding the communicator, his expression subtly changed.

He is [Dahan], ranked 42nd in the individual combat strength ranking, affiliated with the European Heavy Industry Group, and like Wind Chaser Nina, he comes from India.

But unlike the latter, his caste in real-world India is Brahmin, born into a noble family, with considerable influence in various circles in northern India.

In line with this status is his power system passed down from the legendary Dahan Mahakala.

"Swarm..."

Dahan murmured the words from the European Heavy Industry Group communicator, turned to look at the man in the suit sitting in the corner, and said in a deep voice: "Ant King, why did he mention your name?

The swarm that has been chasing us, is it related to you?"