Chapter 176: Killing Insects

The exploration ship, following the "small horse pulling a big cart" line of thinking, had rapid-fire cannons, autocannons, and anti-aircraft machine guns installed on the deck as defensive firepower—unfortunately, the effect against centipede insects in such massive numbers was poor.

Zhao Zijing's hair stirred without wind, releasing telekinesis to lift the coast guard ship–style electric water cannon from the middle of the vessel, aiming it at the outer hull to spray water.

Hiss—

The water pressure of the jet stream, measured in megapascals, acted like a broom, sweeping the centipede insects off the left side of the hull one after another.

"They're climbing up!" The Crimson Charioteer's pupils contracted. More centipede insects crawled up along the front, rear, and right sides of the hull, piling up layer upon layer on the deck.

All the people heard in their ears was the clatter of arthropod legs.

"You four, get into the cabin and don't come out."

Midnight Howl pushed Mendoza and the others into the cabin, shut the door himself, turned around, and scratched his forehead with a headache.

As a purely combat-type extraordinary, he really had no suitable way to deal with the situation before him, so he could only take out Molotov cocktails and grenades from his backpack slot and toss them at the water, trying to kill as many of the clustered insects as possible.

"Come out, Cyndaquil."

The Crimson Charioteer threw out a Poké Ball, releasing a Fire-type Pokémon over a meter tall, with flames burning at both its head and tail.

Cyndaquil was the first-stage evolution of Quilava, its strength having risen by a large margin. After receiving the command "Use Flamethrower" shouted out by the Crimson Charioteer, Cyndaquil immediately spewed blazing flames, sweeping them across the deck.

The effect was devastating. The centipede insects hit by the scorching flames curled up and died one after another, but the rupture of their bodies also meant that the corrosive venom inside them, not yet evaporated by the heat, would all seep out.

Splash.

The corrosive venom dripped onto the deck, accumulating little by little until it quickly ate a large hole through the deck.

The Crimson Charioteer hurriedly called Cyndaquil back, summoned Pidgeotto, and had it use the Gust move. Its wings stirred up a strong wind that, at a slightly lower efficiency, blew away all the centipede insects within sight and cleared the deck.

Li Cheng stood at the rear, observing briefly. Judging from the deep water erosion marks below the cliff dam at the rear, the floodgates had definitely been opened for flood control more than once or twice—it was something that had been going on for years.

Perhaps it had already reached some bizarre tacit understanding with the insects filling the city—the dam let the insects live in the unmanned city, and every so often released floodwaters to wipe out 99% of the insects.

Once the insects recovered their numbers, the next cycle would begin.

The centipede insects surviving in the entire city numbered in the tens or hundreds of billions. If this dragged on, the ship would sooner or later be gnawed to death by sheer numbers of ants.

Li Cheng took out the 【Death-Seeking Notebook】 from his backpack slot, tore off five sheets of paper, and took a look at the possible ways he might die in the near future.

The divination results were very strange.

The doodles on the first four sheets of paper were pitch-black, nothing at all visible. Only the last one showed the ship being destroyed, with Li Cheng and Zhao Zijing and others trapped on the rooftop of a tall building in this city.

Suppressing the doubt in his heart, Li Cheng activated the special effect of 【Automated Stereoscopic Warehouse】 and took out a solid bowling ball.

He then released the temporary skill 【Small Gravity Energy Sphere】 inscribed from the Bone Corridor toward the bowling ball.

Hum!

The pitch-black energy sphere attached itself to the bowling ball, and the gravitational disturbance zone it produced immediately caused many insects nearby to float up, writhing and twisting in midair.

"Catch."

Li Cheng tossed the bowling ball to Zhao Zijing. She tilted her head, caught the sphere in midair with telekinesis, and instantly understood his intention.

Nodding, Zhao Zijing kept her left hand controlling the water cannon, spraying the centipede insects off the deck.

Her right hand released telekinesis, driving the bowling ball and the gravitational disturbance zone attached to it in a circle around the hull.

Like a powerful magnet sucking up iron filings, it drew away a massive number of centipede insects.

As for Li Cheng himself, he unhurriedly sank his consciousness into the 【Automated Stereoscopic Warehouse】.

The entire warehouse was packed with all kinds of supplies he had purchased at great expense, shelves lined up row after row, requiring dedicated stackers and forklifts to organize. Calling it a wholesale supermarket would not be an exaggeration.

He took out twenty bottles of broad-spectrum insecticide from it, lined them up on the ground in a row, and bound them into groups of ten with tape.

After taking protective measures, Li Cheng strode forward, pressed the insecticide valve, and sprayed the liquid toward the swarm.

"That won't work."

Midnight Howl spoke up to remind him that a few bottles of insecticide against a sea of centipedes was utterly inadequate. However, before his words had even faded, a pale yellow stream of toxic smoke began pouring from Li Cheng's palm.

The casting trait of a Tier-1 Tinkerer allowed the release of low-level spells through various objects.

Among them was a cantrip called 【Toxic Splash】, whose effect was to spray a stream of poisonous gas.

When the Toxic Splash spell met modern broad-spectrum insecticide, the combined effect was greater than the sum of its parts.

The thick toxic smoke quickly spread across the deck. Wherever it went, the centipede insects curled up and died, and their bodies did not seep out corrosive liquid either.

Even so, Li Cheng still felt the efficiency was too low.

After a moment's thought, he took out a medical high-pressure oxygen tank over a meter tall with blue paint from the stereoscopic warehouse, then directly inserted it into his own chest.

?!?!

Midnight Howl and the Crimson Charioteer stared dumbfounded, watching helplessly as Li Cheng, with an oxygen tank stuck in the middle of his chest, swaggered across the deck with an expression as if nothing were wrong.

The effect of the Perfect-quality item 【Assembled Puppet】 could, to a considerable degree, distort the form of existence of a living body, allowing flesh-and-blood organs to temporarily fuse perfectly with inorganic matter.

Li Cheng had inserted an oxygen tank into himself, which, besides letting him take deep breaths of oxygen to soothe his emotions, also allowed him to use the high-pressure oxygen to accelerate the emission of toxic gas and improve the insect-killing efficiency.

In the eyes of the other players, all of this looked especially horrifying—Li Cheng's hands, mouth, nose, and even ears were all spewing poison, the very image of a little poison man.

Even stranger, none of this affected his continuing to chat idly: "This Lucky Insecticide really is something else—high-end insecticide, mellow taste, fragrant smell, and there's still flavor after sucking on it this long."

Big bro, your hands are shaking—are you really okay?

Midnight Howl and the Crimson Charioteer wore horrified expressions. Even Zhao Zijing, who prided herself on having seen great storms following the GOC, had her eyelid twitch and nearly lost her grip on the water cannon.

The visual oddity of Li Cheng's move was directly proportional to its actual effect.

The entire outer side of the ship was quickly enveloped in yellow insecticide smoke. The centipede insect swarms still floating on the water surface, once fumigated by the toxic smoke, no longer had the strength to climb up the hull.

The exploration ship accelerated out of the urban area, finally leaving the massive insect swarm behind and temporarily reaching safety.

Zhao Zijing breathed a sigh of relief, put down the water cannon, and looked back to see the steel plates on both sides of the hull corroded into pits and holes, with a large hole also punched through the deck.

Fortunately, these could all be repaired and would not affect the ship's navigation function.

As for Li Cheng, he activated the 【Assembled Puppet】 special effect, pulled the oxygen tank out of his chest, and calmly exhaled the last puff of toxic smoke.

"Master Pi Fu,"

If before, the Crimson Charioteer had found Li Cheng to be a massive headache, now it was seven parts headache and three parts awe: "Are you okay?"

"It's nothing, just a little bug spray — to me, it's no different from an e-cigarette."

Li Cheng waved his hand. In fact, if he weren't afraid of startling his companions, he could have used the 【Assembled Ragdoll】 special effect to take out his own throat, intestines, and lungs, rinse them clean with water, and reinstall them.

(End of chapter)