"Alright."
The Eyes Communication Headset isn’t limited to auditory information transmission; it also cos with a top-down visual collection function, allowing it to capture the scene within a certain range around the headset.
The canyon ahead was firmly blocked by boulders. Yuan Donglian needed only to send the image back to the Special Affairs Bureau headquarters, where idle supercomputers could naturally analyze the stress graph of the rock arrangent to judge if it could be traversed.
Upon receiving Yuan Donglian’s response, Wu Quan nodded at REX, who understood imdiately, got down from the driver’s seat, took off his shirt and pants, and amid a sowhat painful howl, his body continued to swell, transforming into a 8-ter long, 9-ton triceratops with three horns and a shield-like neck plate.
REX belongs to the Monster Alliance guild, and his na itself is derived from the type species Tyrannosaurus rex of the tyrannosaurs, capable of transforming into a series of Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous dinosaurs led by the T. rex.
Clang.
REX used his horns to pry open the rubble, creating a passage. He then circled to the back of the debris, reverted to human form, put on his clothes and pants, and reappeared in the driver’s seat.
Two off-road vehicles passed through the canyon, drove another twenty kiloters, left the canyon area, and arrived at an abandoned building complex.
The buildings here were constructed of a coral-like calcareous material, with a narrow base and a wide top, open at the top, resembling stinkhorn mushrooms, morels, and chanterelles.
The roads had streets, the buildings had doors and windows, inside were tables, chairs, and beds, even utensils for holding food. From the food that had decayed into dust in the utensils, it could be deduced that the original inhabitants of this complex had died out more than a century ago.
This area was filled with an ominous atmosphere, but Puruya’s condition no longer supported them for long-distance treks.
After a brief discussion with his companions, Wu Quan imdiately took out a capsule and tossed it to the ground.
Bang!
The capsule broke open, revealing a polygonal steel-frad shelter.
The shelter was supported by six legs at the bottom, lifting the body about ten ters above the ground, with an automatic gun installed at each of its four corners, and a high-power omnidirectional antenna on top.
This space capsule was expensive, equivalent to a youth version of the Seven Rings Spell Mansion Technique. Wu Quan being issued a space capsule was a testant to his importance in the Special Affairs Bureau.
REX and others took the elevator up into the shelter,
while the humanoid computer Ada released over a thousand small drones, which swiftly scanned the building complex, and after confirming no signs of life, all drones landed on top of the mushroom-shaped buildings, activating the cara sensor function for reconnaissance.
The group had survived in the wilderness for six days, gaining considerable experience without any occurrence of the abstract scenarios depicted in certain literary works where soone would claim "it’s too dangerous with everyone together, I’m going back to my room to sleep,"
rather, they gathered in the shelter’s hall, turned on the lights, closed the doors and windows, took turns on night watch, and tended to the feverish and unconscious Puruya.
Unbeknownst to them, far away in the high-altitude cloud layers, Li Cheng and Gray Rain sat in a floating Edge Fighter, observing them through binoculars.
"Six players,"
Li Cheng put down the binoculars, rubbing his chin, "average level Level 13..."
Gray Rain cracked his knuckles, asking softly, "Their direction is approaching the Toy Factory, should we take them out?"
"They’re just passing through, no need to kill them, I’m not a natural-born killer."
Li Cheng rolled his eyes. Theoretically, a Light Speed Elbow Strike could indeed reduce Wu Quan and his team to atomic particles before their brains felt the pain signal.
But first, these six were just passing by, not targeting the Toy Factory.
Secondly, Wu Quan was still an operator of the Mobile Task Force, basically a buddy.
Again, Wu Quan was wearing an Eyes Communication Headset, and the custor service Xiao Yuan in the Room of Ten Thousand Eyes could record the scene in real ti and analyze it fra by fra. The Light Speed Elbow Strike’s effect was too distinctive, too easy to recognize.
"So what do we do?" Gray Rain asked.
"Hmm..."
The Toy Factory was Li Cheng’s livelihood and must not be exposed at all costs.
If Wu Quan and his team didn’t know their precise location, that would be fine. What he feared was that before or after, they might encounter maps with coordinates drawn by other guilds, leading to exposure of the Toy Factory.
After considering for a mont, Li Cheng struck his hand with his fist, "Killing them or eting them as Pifu is both inadvisable.
The best approach is to scare them away, quickly leading them away from the Toy Factory’s direction."
He picked up the Phone Worm, and dialed the Smart Core, "Pause production, assemble all chanical Servants for the photography, lighting, art, props, and set dressing teams."
Li Cheng needed to stage a grand performance.
————
Ding.
The microwave lit up and Wu Quan took out a steaming lunch box, handing it to the half-cyborg girl Alisi, who was taking care of Puruya, "Have sothing to eat."
Alisi was originally a patient severely disabled and bedridden due to a traffic accident. After becoming a player, she imdiately took out loans to implant nurous prosthetics in herself,
but her digestive system was still human-original, needing to obtain calories from food.
"Thank you."
Alisi accepted the lunch box. The chefs from the provincial Special Affairs Bureau cafeteria were Transcendents from the logistics system, and the als they made not only looked, slled, and tasted great, but also ca with various buff enhancents.
Even though it was just a bowl of Cantonese-style stir-fried rice noodles with beef, one bite, and Alisi was suddenly filled with the illusion of seeing her kindly grandmother.
The others also took their lunch boxes, crying uncontrollably as they ate.
Artificial lifeform Ada, incapable of eating (lacking a digestive system), devotedly multitasked by feeding the half-conscious Puruya warm seafood porridge,
while repeatedly reviewing the recording of this task in her mind.
This task was nad Nightmare Curse, in the first phase, twelve players were teleported to the killing field, tasked by the system to proceed to a Republic-era residence deep in the mountains.
The killing field physically connected all worlds, not only capturing people and buildings from the Real Earth through rifts,
but also constructing buildings from different tis and worlds.
That Republic-era residence was likely from a certain ti and space, with a dance deity statue covered by a bloodstained rag enshrined on the altar inside.
The statue was headless, with a neck stump that continuously burned a non-temperature green fla over a wick.
After destroying the statue, including Ada and the half-cyborg Alisi, all players were simultaneously cursed, with red spots appearing on their backs. Since then, they continuously encountered paranormal events.
So were dragged into mirrors by pale, swollen arms, disappearing without a trace;
so beca dazed and jumped off cliffs voluntarily;
so pairs smiled at each other, using blades to gouge out each other’s hearts;
Wu Quan and others fled from the old residence, striving to survive for six difficult days, relying entirely on Puruya’s telepathy to guide them in a direction—according to her prediction, the intensity of the Nightmare Curse wasn’t fixed,
increasing gradually as ti passed overall, yet also fluctuating in strength with the players’ movents.
"There are only 18 hours left until the task ends."
Putting down his lunch box, REX stated gravely, "According to killing field conventions, attack intensity will likely grow fiercer as the deadline approaches."
The atmosphere in the shelter beca oppressive at once, perated with nothing but the faint hum of the air conditioning (as the shelter was a positive pressure airtight structure, scent molecules were reclaid to prevent killing field natives from following the scent).
"If there’s truly no hope for clearance, I’ll forcefully retreat, leaving the killing field for the real world. Then, I’ll use the last monts of my life to spend with my family."
REX confessed. Though Regular Tasks allowed forced retreats, the failure penalty this ti was transforming the next task into a Punishnt Task, practically akin to dying.
The other team mbers remained silent. After a long while, Abdullah sighed and said, "Thinking back now, the second-phase task was likely a trap set by the killing field.
[Escape from the old residence and survive for seven days], perhaps the key to breaking the curse was within the residence itself."
Wu Quan stayed silent for a mont and shook his head, "...saying this now changes nothing, and we were already cautious enough to search the residence inside and out for half a day before destroying the statue, without finding anything..."
Before finishing his sentence, Wu Quan’s expression suddenly shifted, and he abruptly stood up from his seat. Also rising was Ada, the highest-level person present.
A barely perceptible rhythmic sound ca from outside.
"Aaghhhh..."
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