Chapter 286: Chosen

A kilometer's distance vanished in an instant on the bat-wing motorcycle. Upon arriving at the scene, Hui Yu couldn't help but raise her eyebrows, feeling an all-over discomfort like biting into a cockroach antenna in a takeout order. "What the hell is this thing."

The humanoid heat signature detected by the drone was indeed humanoid—no mistake about that—except it was a giant nearly five meters tall.

It had no hair or any bodily features; its upper body was disproportionately large compared to its lower body, especially bulky, and its abdominal skin was divided into two layers, forming a pouch similar to a kangaroo's.

Through the semi-transparent outer layer of the pouch, one could see a human girl who had fainted inside, still holding a crude, self-made metal spear in her hand.

The information-integration eyepiece clearly displayed the human girl as "Human."

And it tagged the kangaroo giant as "Infected."

*Pat, pat. *

The kangaroo giant, which had been slowly making its way through the city ruins, heard the sound of the bat-wing motorcycle and slowly turned its head toward the direction the sound came from.

Upon seeing the two of them, that expressionless, vacant face slowly squeezed out a hint of a smile. It swung its long legs and charged over, slow in appearance but fast in truth.

Hui Yu picked up the Skull-Crusher Hammer, spun it twice, leaped lightly into the air, and brought the hammer down on the kangaroo giant's head.

*Splurch-crack. *

The enormous head burst open like a watermelon. There was no skull inside—only soft tissue that had replaced the skull and served as support.

These soft tissues, torn apart by the shockwave special effect of the Skull-Crusher Hammer, immediately regenerated at high speed after a brief delay.

The headless kangaroo giant wobbled in place, regrew a fresh, blood-drenched head, and continued reaching out to grab Li Cheng.

*'This regeneration ability is almost on par with Chinese chives.'*

Li Cheng thought to himself. Unhurried, he drew the Spear of Steel and Victory from the void, and the instant the giant's palm reached over, he whipped the spear back in a counterstrike.

The first special effect of the 【Spear of Steel and Victory】, 【Moment of Counterattack】, activated abruptly. Ignoring the weight difference between the two sides, it effortlessly sent the giant flying, crashing headfirst into the broken walls, its limbs all pierced through by exposed rebar.

Li Cheng stepped forward, used the spear like a dagger, and with a *tear* sliced open the giant's abdomen.

The human girl crashed heavily onto the ground, suddenly vomited red liquid, and her consciousness gradually cleared.

She groggily raised her head, saw Li Cheng, and with great difficulty opened her mouth to say something.

Li Cheng said considerately: "Don't worry, both mother and child are safe—your mom will be fine."

??

The human girl was completely bewildered. Li Cheng paid her no more attention, picked up his spear, and sliced off the kangaroo giant's limbs.

The kangaroo giant's skeleton had also been replaced by soft tissue, and its regeneration ability was quite outrageous—if the severed limbs were close enough, they would directly sprout flesh buds and reattach.

If they were farther away, it would simply regrow new limbs.

The information-integration eyepiece judged it as "Infected"—the question was, infected with what.

Virus? Bacteria? Parasite?

Li Cheng sliced the kangaroo giant into pieces like sashimi, carefully observing with the information-integration eyepiece. The slowly waking girl threw up several times from watching, yet he still couldn't find the specific source of infection.

After slicing it apart dozens of times, the kangaroo giant's regeneration finally weakened, and the system notification chime rang in Li Cheng's ear.

【Unit killed: Infected. Gained 50 experience points and 120 game coins】

Fifty experience points was reasonable enough—apart from being a bit strong and having strong regeneration, the kangaroo giant itself was actually very weak.

Any modern special-forces squad, as long as equipped with large-caliber firearms or flamethrowers, could grind it into the dirt.

The players participating in this mission were of varying strength; if a weaker Transcendent had come, they might have been able to squeeze more rewards from the kangaroo giant.

"Um, hello."

The human girl struggled to get up from the ground, nervous and uneasy yet full of hope: "Are you the one who came to save us?"

"I suppose so."

Li Cheng sized her up. By rights, the souls of all victims were dragged into the other world, while their bodies remained in the real world as vegetables.

Strangely, this person also had a physical form in the other world.

Moreover, judging from her clothing and her level of exhaustion, she had been here for at least forty-eight hours or more.

"You just said 'us'—besides you, are there other people?"

"Yes."

The girl nodded. "I and several other companions left the temporary camp to look for water, food, and medicine, got separated by accident, and then were attacked by monsters."

Saying so, she shivered—anyone could imagine that without Li Cheng arriving in time, she would sooner or later become food.

The drone detected many non-human-shaped heat signatures in the surrounding area and emitted bursts of alarm.

"This isn't the place to talk."

Li Cheng opened the 3D terrain map just drawn on the remote, stuffed the remote into her hand, and said calmly: "Do you know the way? Take me to your camp."

The girl took out a compass and a crudely drawn temporary map from the backpack on her back. After a laborious effort to make sense of them, she finally pointed out the specific location—the underground parking lot of a half-collapsed high-rise building.

Li Cheng took back the remote, took out a one-time spatial capsule gifted by the GOC, summoned a multi-terrain armored transport vehicle, and beckoned her to get in.

This transport vehicle was electrically powered, producing even less noise than the bat-wing motorcycle while driving. Without alerting the surrounding monsters, it quickly traversed the rugged terrain and headed toward the destination.

"Here."

Hui Yu took out a bottle of mineral water from beneath the seat, handed it to the girl, told her to wipe off the slime on her body, and took the opportunity to ask her name and what she had been through these past few days.

The girl gave her name as Yang Hua, from Lipo, sixteen years old this year.

About three days ago, she had crossed over to the current wasteland without any warning, surrounded by a dozen or so strangers of the same age in the same inexplicable situation.

Before the group could react, they were attacked by a pack of mutant hound-shaped monsters, and more than half the people were killed on the spot.

Yang Hua and the other survivors ran desperately. Just as they were about to be caught, at the moment of impending death—

A native girl from the other world, younger than her and dressed in scavenger clothing, appeared and led them to escape the monsters' pursuit, taking shelter in the relatively safe underground parking lot.

And that native girl's account of the apocalypse was roughly the same as what Li Cheng had read in the newspaper—four years ago, after humanity conducted a spatial translocation experiment, large-scale natural disasters suddenly began erupting across the globe.

Human civilization rapidly disintegrated, order collapsed in an instant, massive numbers of mutant monsters appeared out of thin air and began preying on humans, and even some survivors were inexplicably transformed into deformed monsters.

Hui Yu exchanged a glance with Li Cheng through the rearview mirror on the front of the vehicle. Her suspicions unabated, she thought seriously for a moment, then asked Yang Hua: "How do you prove you're from Earth?"

". Eh?"

Yang Hua was stunned by the words, unable to react.

"In the intelligence I've gathered, you're already in a vegetative state in the real world, but the you here still has a body."

Hui Yu said with full conviction: "So, how do you prove you're an Earthling, and not a mimic monster."

"This—"

Yang Hua was left speechless; this question was as absurd as proving your father is your father, impossible to answer.

"Forget it, let me rephrase."

Hui Yu said solemnly: "Which of the following lines belongs to Sun Wukong in the classic masterpiece *Journey to the West*?

A. I want this sky to no longer block my eyes, I want this earth to no longer bury my heart.

B. The king, only three years old, showed no fear,

C. I am the number one demon renowned through the ages.

D. In the second half of this year, the East-West co-produced *Journey to the West* will officially begin filming."

"This—"

Yang Hua's eyes seemed to spiral like mosquito coils, "I've never read *Journey to the West*."

"You haven't even read *Journey to the West*? Do you still deserve to be called an Easterner?"

Hui Yu instantly flared up with righteous indignation, snatched the water bottle from Yang Hua's hand, and said sharply: "Tell me, what's the next line after 'Palactic Imperial Jade Liquor Wine'??"

Hui Yu's impassioned voice made Li Cheng in the front row unable to resist glancing at the rearview mirror.

First, given Hui Yu's knowledge of geography, she probably can't tell Li Po apart,

Second, strictly speaking, she is a mechanical citizen of the Zello civilization, not even an Earthling, let alone a citizen of Hua Nation.

Hui Yu noticed Li Cheng's gaze, puffed out her chest, and said solemnly: "Actually, I've long been a citizen of Hua Nation, I've already naturalized. Look."

Having said that, she pulled out her Huawei Mate70pro+ phone from her chest; the phone case was a poster of Leng Feng from *Wolf Warrior 2*, the lock screen was a surnamed-Gu athlete, the screen background was the RNG team logo, the home screen theme was *Black Myth: Wukong*, and even the ringtone was "Any evil shall be brought to justice!"

My goodness, a chosen Hua-zi indeed.

Li Cheng hurriedly wiped the cold sweat that didn't exist on his forehead and focused on driving.