Chapter 1802: C33-010
Xu Huo nodded with understanding. "There aren't many people as open-minded as you these days."
The pink-haired man leaned back on the sofa with a smug look, then added, "This world has gone mad, and people too..."
Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly vanished from his seat.
"He got off so quickly." A nearby player muttered enviously, but within two minutes, people in the carriage began disappearing one after another.
"It seems everyone is getting off here." Xu Huo packed up and stood up. A few seconds later, he too left the train.
His vision shifted abruptly, plunging from brightness into darkness. A faint stench of decay and dry dust first assaulted his senses, followed by the stuffiness of stagnant air. Once his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in light, Xu Huo carefully examined his surroundings.
He had landed in an old, worn-out room with no windows. In one corner, a few steps led up to a trapdoor made of wooden planks and metal strips, likely used to cover a basement entrance. However, it had been torn open, leaving deep claw marks on its surface.
This place must have witnessed a desperate struggle. Unfortunately, the person hiding in the cellar hadn't escaped the mutant attack and lay dead on the spot, still clutching a self-made long blade. The other end of the blade was lodged in the throat of a mutant.
Both bodies had dehydrated and dried out, relatively well-preserved. It was clear that the mutant that killed the man was a low-risk type, and the stench was emanating from it.
Xu Huo glanced at its slightly swollen abdomen compared to its shriveled body, then sealed the room with a spatial barrier before slicing open the mutant's stomach from a safe distance.
A pool of thick, foul black liquid spilled out, mixed with an underdeveloped baby mutant.
Xu Huo crouched down to examine the still-moist infant mutant and frowned slightly. Judging by its condition, it had survived for some time after the mother's death. Whether it was the mutants' reproduction or their overly tenacious vitality, neither boded well—enhanced reproductive and survival capabilities only made the human environment more dangerous.
Pushing aside the wooden board covering the basement entrance, he found a wardrobe with a broken door outside. Beyond the wardrobe was a one-room dwelling with its doors and windows sealed. Signs of messy habitation were everywhere: uncollected instant food wrappers, snack bags, a bottle with just a sip of water left at the bottom, and some unidentified excrement—neatly bagged and placed in a corner. Near the window, a few flower pots were likely used for growing food, but the soil inside had long since cracked, making it impossible to tell what had been planted.
Parting the curtain, Xu Huo peered through a gap in the window. This appeared to be a residential area, abandoned for who knows how long. Thick dust covered the entire building, giving everything a grayish-yellow tint.
It was a stifling, desolate world.
Pushing open the already damaged door, Xu Huo stepped out of the room. He was on the first floor of the building, just a few meters from the exit. The hallway floor was covered in sand, but the walls still bore traces of discolored bloodstains. The building itself was relatively clean, with no corpses or severed limbs in sight. However, once he stepped outside, he saw many plastic bags discarded in what used to be green belts. Some bags had torn open, revealing clean white bones.
His gaze swept over them briefly before he continued walking out of the neighborhood. The city was almost devoid of any greenery. Streets, buildings—every trace of human habitation had been ravaged. Whether by mutant invasions or internal human conflict, everywhere bore the marks of weapon destruction and wind erosion. The city wasn't large, so from a high vantage point, he could see that the edges near the outskirts were already buried under sand.
Before arriving, he knew Zone 010's environment was harsh, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad. From the city's perspective, the surroundings had nearly turned into a desert, far worse than the wasteland areas mentioned in the data.
Of course, it was possible he was just unlucky and had gotten off in a desert region.
After checking that the air was safe, Xu Huo changed into a lighter protective suit and began searching the city for a map.
Since this was a residential area, maps from before the city's abandonment were easy to find. However, because many cities had been destroyed and then buried, he tried several teleportation points based on the map's city names but failed to leave. This meant the city he wanted to go to likely no longer existed.
This was the general state of Zone 010. Although this district had managed to survive until the game merged with reality, subsequent major environmental changes and waves of mutant outbreaks had caused the population to plummet. Without resources for human reproduction, Zone 010 could only slowly wither away.
Sand was everywhere. Within the extreme limits of "Head-to-Tail Loop" and "Door-to-Door Visit," he couldn't find a suitable teleportation city. Although "Same-Zone Teleportation Gate" could cross an entire district, it had a cooldown period and couldn't be wasted. Additionally, he had been in Zone 010 for a while but hadn't triggered any instance notifications.
Crouching in the shadow of a building to rest, Xu Huo began moving through the city again. This time, he didn't use silencing items, deliberately came down from the rooftops, and slowed his pace.
Zone 010's extreme environment had persisted for over a decade. Apart from the safe zones established by players, the chances of survivors in other cities were very slim, especially with mutants appearing from time to time.
Still, running into other players would be good.
After leaving the densely packed ordinary residential areas, Xu Huo searched the commercial district before heading to the high-end residential areas, especially the villa district.
He had just passed through two zones and was about to change locations when a red beam swept past him. He quickly traced its source and found it came from the rooftop of another villa district. Besides a laser flashlight and binoculars, the person was holding a large flag. Before Xu Huo could approach, the flag pointed to his left.
Xu Huo turned around and saw three mutants—two large and one small—enter his detection range.
A minor issue. He casually hooked his hand in the air, and several ray blades pierced through the charging monstrosities, skewering them.
As the bodies hit the ground, Xu Huo teleported to that villa district, standing on the neighboring rooftop, watching a man in his thirties huff and puff as he climbed down from a scaffold.
The scaffold was about ten meters high, crudely built, with a simple pulley system at the top. A damaged drone was fixed to the pulley, and from that height, it could see most of the roads in this villa district.
The man, clutching his binoculars, had just descended when he looked back and saw someone standing on the opposite rooftop. He immediately covered his mouth in excitement.
Some people are dead, but not entirely dead...