Chapter 1342: The Combat Style of High-Level Players
"This poison is formidable!" Dr. Duo Er observed the dead vines, discovering that even though the mother plant had abandoned its branches, the toxin could still spread along the ground toward the surrounding area, quickly contaminating other vine branches. As a result, the vines covering this region had to continuously retreat.
The vehicle started moving again, and he turned to ask Xu Huo, "How long will the contamination last?"
"It won't be enough to completely destroy the mutated plants in this area," Xu Huo said. "The contamination will be cut off soon."
This was a variant of the contamination bacteria extracted from Yu Guo's hands, with some toxins added by him. However, the speed and extent of contamination were far from reaching Yu Guo's level. Even if it weren't cut off, it couldn't keep growing indefinitely.
Dai Song, however, lacked Dr. Duo Er's amazement and curiosity about new things. His gaze wandered over the robot, the syringe gun in Xu Huo's hand, and the various items he wore, a hint of disappointment in his expression.
Compared to the bustling and active other districts, District 023 was like someone struggling in a quagmire of death, barely holding on to their last breath. The players here were generally weak, which meant their expectations for future missions were nothing but delusions.
The people in the vehicle could more or less sense his emotions. It was like someone who had always been at the bottom in every aspect since childhood, watching the people around them become increasingly outstanding. After being thoroughly outperformed in every way, this subtle envy would turn into endless despair, especially when such comparisons came with a cost of human lives.
"Could you sell me one of those toxin agents?" Dr. Duo Er asked nervously.
Dai Song immediately looked up at him. "Doctor..."
"No problem, I can even give it to you." A voice interrupted him, and Xu Huo directly took out a box of injections. "Different contamination levels are included, a set of five."
Dr. Duo Er received it as if it were a treasure, holding the box and saying, "This must be very rare."
Even he knew that some strange and unusual items in the game couldn't necessarily be bought even with money.
"It is rare," Xu Huo commented briefly, at least from the source's perspective.
"Thank you so much," Dr. Duo Er said. Unlike Dai Song, who cared about face and didn't want to bow to players from other districts, he approached this gift more with the passion of a scholar.
"I don't have anything else to give you in return." He took out a half-finger-long reagent clipped in his coat pocket and handed it to him. "This is a genetic disease treatment agent I developed. Although it might not be very useful for players from other districts, since you carry such agents with you, you must be interested in this. You can show it to the right people after you leave. It would be even better if it could be put to other uses."
After Xu Huo accepted it, he added with emotion, "I hope no one in any district suffers from genetic diseases."
"They will," Xu Huo said, then turned to the others. "Someone's coming ahead."
The group immediately became alert. When the vehicle drove forward, they saw three injured players hiding inside a defense barrier. Outside the barrier, a kind of man-eating flower resembling a human face had grown, each the size of a face. When the mouth part opened, sharp thorns could be seen lining the inside of the stem.
These flowers were stained with blood here and there. They showed no reaction to Xu Huo and his group passing by, instead scrambling to cluster outside the barrier.
The three players weren't exactly trapped by these man-eating flowers. As they watched Xu Huo's vehicle approach, they suddenly all looked toward the woods across the road.
"Something's coming!" Dai Song whispered a warning. The next second, a huge black shadow pounced onto the vehicle, not only tilting the car but also causing cracks in the outer defense barrier. Then something kept slapping the vehicle, producing banging sounds.
In that moment, Xu Huo and the others also saw what it was. If they had to find a similar animal, it would be a giant owl, also known as a night owl. This mutated animal was mentioned in the Twin Cities Xenomorph introduction booklet. Generally, they had a wingspan of ten meters when spread, with some individuals approaching twenty meters. After evolution, they had changed their living habits, preferring to live in groups of a dozen or several dozen in one area and excelling at group combat.
"They're sensitive to moving objects!" the players hiding inside the defense barrier shouted a warning.
The vehicle had to stop because the night owls swooping down one after another had already buried the car. The front half of the vehicle was already clawed out of shape. If they forced their way through, the car might soon be dismantled.
Regular firearms were useless. The night owls' heads and chest-abdomen areas had evolved a very tough type of feather that ordinary bullets couldn't penetrate, and agents couldn't be injected either.
"Buzz!" Since the defense barrier was already broken, Qiu Ming swung his sword through the open front window, knocking back the one blocking the front.
But that night owl didn't die. Although it was large, it wasn't clumsy. It even knew how to use its evolved hard feathers to weaken the attack power of weapons. Qiu Ming's sword slid off, not only failing to kill the night owl but also creating a gap in the vehicle's front.
"This thing is tough enough. Ordinary items..." Qiu Ming hadn't finished speaking when several flashes of cold light passed by. The night owl's body, split in two, fell onto the vehicle along with blood. Amid the collisions, the number of night owls approaching continued to decrease.
Leaning out to look, they saw Xu Huo standing on the vehicle's roof with a black sword in hand, chopping through the group of night owls like cutting vegetables, killing them one by one. Except for the first few, not a single one could even successfully touch the vehicle afterward!
Those mutated birds that had relied on their tough feathers to dare ram the vehicle were now as fragile as newly hatched chicks.
In no time, about twenty night owls were killed, leaving only the largest one circling high in the sky.
Xu Huo didn't intend to let it go either. Using "Gentleman's Poise," he leaped into the air, and through the dense branches of the mutated trees, he used "Cake Slice" to split it in half.
A rain of blood was about to fall, but Xu Huo returned to the vehicle just in time. With a hum, the car sped off, crushing the night owl corpses and the blood-soaked ground.
Dai Song, who hadn't had a chance to act, began to doubt himself. At the same time, he doubted that Xu Huo was a C-level player. He had seen plenty of C-level players from other districts. The normal ones should be like Qiu Ming or the three still hiding in the defense barrier—they might be able to escape from fierce mutated animals, but they were far from being able to move through them as if no one was there.
Of course, he didn't voice this question.
The three players trapped by the night owls caught up. Among them, the one who looked honest and reliable smiled broadly and discussed with them, "Could you give us a ride?"
Although Xu Huo was strong, there were still several days of travel ahead. They couldn't have him be the main force the whole time, so Qiu Ming looked to him for confirmation.
(Chapter End)