Chapter 639: Setting Fire to the Mountain
Blood mixed with rainwater flowed down, but the hallucination didn't disappear. C wiped his face with his hand, and his left palm was quickly contaminated as well.
"It really is poison..." Before he could finish speaking, he spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed forward. As he lay dying, he looked toward an unknown place and asked, "Who the hell are you... What grudge do you have against us..."
"I get it... You're from the Special Defense Department... Do you want to know how this rain came about? This is God's punishment on Country X..."
Xu Huo stood on a tree five zhang away, motionless and silent, with no intention of going over to see him off. He watched as C grew weaker from the poison.
C realized he couldn't lure the person out now. Turning back to see his two companions with blackened faces, he struggled to reach for the micro-bomb at his lower back.
A faint beam of light sliced through his wrist. Almost at the same moment, a sharp gleam flashed in C's eyes. He leaped up from the ground and dove toward the direction the prop had come from. Before he could even see the person, he threw out a metal barrel of considerable size: "If I die, you're coming with me!"
The metal barrel exploded on impact, and flames surged out instantly. The three figures in raincoats at the center of the blast were obliterated without a trace. The nearby trees were leveled as well. As the shockwave spread, trees within a radius of several dozen meters were all knocked down and set ablaze, turning the vast forest into a sea of fire in an instant!
The sudden explosion and massive flames immediately caught the attention of players on both sides of the forest—the guard players near the low-lying area and the Special Defense Department players rushing in to reinforce.
"What the hell is C doing? Making such a big commotion will definitely alert the Special Defense Department." Code name D contacted the others through a communication prop.
"The opponent must be extremely tough. Otherwise, C wouldn't have chosen to die together. Doing this means all three of them are dead." Code name A said.
"Three vehicles have arrived, and there are ten armed helicopters in the air." Code name E reported.
"U's bait mission might have failed. The Special Defense Department knows the high-level prop is with us. Their primary target is the prop. We can delay them for at most twenty minutes. After twenty minutes, whether or not the Special Defense Department gets the prop, Country X will bomb this area flat. B, stay behind to prepare for prop recovery. The rest of you, follow me to lure them up Wen Mountain." Code name A finished speaking and led the way into the densely vegetated mountain forest.
At the same time, the Special Defense Department players who had arrived also bypassed the fire zone, cutting through the forest from the side adjacent to Wen Mountain.
"Xu Huo's phone can't get through. Could he have died in the explosion?" A female player with a pretty face said after several failed attempts to dial.
"I'd say it's very likely. With a fire that big, the Country Y players probably pulled out all the stops." Another player wearing a cartoon mask said, "Bad luck for him. If he'd waited a little longer, the situation would have been different."
"He didn't have to provoke those players. Maybe he wanted to hog the prop." The tall, thin player walking in the middle said.
"Then he deserved to die." A player with an earring in the team grinned and pushed forward two spots. "This is what they call 'greedy snake trying to swallow an elephant.'"
"Who deserved to die?" A short, scrawny player at the back, fumbling with the hood of his protective suit, said, "Zeng Tai, don't talk nonsense. No matter who dies, Brother Xu won't. Don't you see when he became a D-rank player? He doesn't have a country backing him with money and resources to keep grinding instances!"
The female player turned around. "Wang Chaoqing, weren't you pretty hostile toward him when you first arrived? Why are you speaking up for him now?"
Wang Chaoqing was the shadow player who had previously spied on Xu Huo and mistakenly led him into Decibel Town. Later, in Hai City, he got poisoned by a xenomorph and followed Team Leader Wu to Jing City. After using a delayed-toxicity antidote, he shamelessly stayed on at the Special Defense Department headquarters.
"Times have changed. Brother Xu is amazing. He even brought back the detox fungus. He'll probably save my life sooner or later. He's my lucky star. Of course I'm on his side!"
"Don't mind him. I've never seen anyone so afraid of death." The earring player, Zeng Tai, rolled his eyes. "The poison he got wasn't even that deep. Using an antidote wouldn't have affected his body much in the short term. And yet, he keeps running to the research institute to apply for the first batch of detox fungus potion. Shameless."
The other players didn't react much to this. Wang Chaoqing didn't care about their cold shoulders either and argued confidently, "What's wrong with being afraid of death? If you're not afraid, then don't wear a protective suit!"
The tall, thin player interrupted them. "Wang Chaoqing, stop joking around. Have you looked at the underground cable map of the Wen Mountain area? Have you sent out your shadows?"
"Already sent, already sent," Wang Chaoqing said. "They've all entered the mountain. Eight people total."
"What about near the low-lying area?" the female player asked.
"There doesn't seem to be anyone near the low-lying area..." Wang Chaoqing paused. "Maybe the other four were all killed by Brother Xu."
"Then did you find Xu Huo?" Zeng Tai asked sarcastically.
Wang Chaoqing's shadows couldn't forcibly enter the fire zone either. He said irritably, "Maybe Brother Xu went into an instance."
"Do we need to send people in to search and rescue?" the female player asked. "Xu Huo is on the top list of people the higher-ups want to protect."
"No need. He might not be in trouble." The tall, thin player said. "We're already short on manpower. Those lurking players must have come fully prepared. We also have to watch out for the high-level prop they're carrying."
The group of twenty-three left the forest and arrived at the foot of Wen Mountain. The tall, thin player pressed the timer on his watch. "Total operation time is thirty minutes. Everyone must retreat outside Wen Mountain by the twenty-seventh minute. Sync your times. Wang Chaoqing, stay at the foot of the mountain."
The players dispersed into the forest. The armed helicopters flying in from a distance began to circle over Wen Mountain and the low-lying area. Ultra-bright beams of light occasionally swept through the trees, searching for and reporting any players that might appear.
Current thermal imaging and detection devices weren't very effective against players. Mainly because, with the increase in D-rank players, many had brought back props from other game zones specifically designed to counter such instruments. Given the current technological level of Zone 014, there was nothing they could do about it. So when dealing with mountain incidents like this, they mainly relied on manpower. Only after the players finished their mission would heavy firepower be brought in to clean up.
However, for players who could escape into instances, even the final firepower coverage seemed somewhat helpless.
Two minutes after the players entered the mountain, three of the helicopters split off and flew toward the forest.
These three planes were looking for Xu Huo. His phone had been unreachable, and the Special Defense Department wasn't sure if he had entered an instance. To be safe, they decided to search the forest anyway.
But the fire and smoke were too thick, and the helicopters couldn't get in.
In the center of the sea of fire, on a patch of ground that had been completely burned clean, stood a metal room of considerable size. The surrounding trees had been burned beyond recognition, but this metal room was completely intact, with no marks left on its surface. It also seemed to be non-conductive to heat, giving off a cold metallic sheen under the red glow of the flames.
Xu Huo pulled open the door and stepped out, conveniently answering the phone that happened to be ringing.