Chapter 39: Spider's Crawl, Cicada's Transformation (End)

Li Cheng immediately understood the meaning of this drone.

His sense of the beetle's direction was stronger than his sense of distance. It was like a single ray, pointing toward the beetle's bearing but not indicating the distance between them.

And now, with the green laser projected by the laser designator, the intersection of the two rays marked the exact position of the Ink-Colored Spider.

In front of a... pizza shop.

Found you.

————

They'd been spotted.

Yuan Zhixia pressed her lips tightly together, a Molotov cocktail in hand, her gaze fixed dead on the freight corridor leading to the mall.

The rustling sound of legs scuttling from that direction grew closer and closer.

Yang Ling hopped back and forth in a panic, spitting silk to glue the iron door shut.

Bang bang bang!

A mass of objects slammed into the iron door, shaking dust loose from it nonstop. The web Yang Ling had woven held for less than ten seconds before being torn apart, and she had no choice but to retreat quickly.

Boom!

As the iron door was smashed into flying ash, Yuan Zhixia hurled the Molotov cocktail with all her might. The glass bottle shattered the instant it struck the ground, the flammable liquid splashing everywhere and erupting into a roaring wall of fire.

The spider monsters at the front instinctively feared the flames and hesitated. But the ones behind had already surged forward, shoving their kin ahead of them into the fire.

The spider monsters whose bodies were scorched by the blaze immediately let out shrill shrieks; their far more developed nervous systems—compared to ordinary arthropods—produced far greater pain, sending them careening wildly for a stretch before finally curling their eight legs in the flames, belly-up, and burning to charcoal.

The Molotov worked beautifully; the corridor was filled with the crackling roar of burning, but more spider monsters came charging over the corpses of their kin.

Crack!

Yuan Zhixia pulled the tab off an aluminum Pepsi can and hurled it forward.

The magnesium-powder flashbang struck the ground and burst into a blinding flash and a thunderous bang.

The massive blast reverberated down the freight corridor, leaving large numbers of spider monsters staggering and unable to advance for a short while.

Yuan Zhixia drew the Glock at her hip, her right hand's Hukou pressed flush against the grip, her left hand gripping the back of her right, both thumbs parallel to the barrel to maximize stability, and began squeezing the trigger in rapid succession.

Gunshots rang out; five of the spider monsters that had luckily burst out of the corridor were sent tumbling by bullets, but a few still dodged the shots.

Yuan Zhixia lowered the pistol, tossed out a smoke grenade, and shouted: "Go!"

"Mm!"

Ye Jiaying struggled with both hands to pilot the drone, guiding Li Cheng's bearings.

Not until the two sides had pulled apart did the LCD panel on the remote display the prompt 【Signal Connection Poor】; only then did she toss the remote toward the mall, letting the drone hold a passive hover, before herself breaking into a sprint after Yuan Zhixia and Yang Ling.

————

Where is this? Why... am I so tired?

A strange, dazed feeling spread through his mind. Li Cheng sprinted down the corridor, his wet, disheveled hair plastered to his forehead—he couldn't tell if it was his own blood or the green ichor.

His memories were a tangled mess; he didn't know why he was here, nor could he recall what he was doing.

Only one thought remained in his mind: charge toward that vague, blurry direction and attack.

It should be almost over, right?

That fuzzy sense—the thing moving through the mall was slowing more and more, like a spent arrow, and had stopped on the fourth floor, in front of an audio shop playing a languid blues tune.

Both sides were nearly burned out; if the fight didn't end now, he would collapse from exhaustion, and the other would bleed to death.

The next move would be the final strike.

Moved by some dim intuition, Li Cheng leaned forward like a cheetah, the muscle fibers in his thighs pulling taut as a tremendous force exploded through them.

Whoosh—

He lunged forward, bouncing between floor, railing, ceiling, and walls, then suddenly slid sideways, bracing his left palm against the ground, his right arm bent and raised, the bone blade pointing upward, and scraped across something.

The sticky resistance transmitted from the blade was strong at first, then weakened. Li Cheng ended his slide, pushed off his palm to rise, and whipped his head back to look.

That vague sense had finally stopped moving, gradually sharpening into the shape of a long-horned dynastid beetle.

It hung in the air, its legs waving about helplessly, and beneath it was some unseen yet undeniably present massive creature.

Thud!

The long-horned dynastid beetle abruptly dropped a stretch, meaning the massive creature beneath had finally crashed to the ground.

It's over.

Li Cheng pushed his hair back, and a voice suddenly rang out in his mind.

【Critical reaction detected. Qualifier aptitude-granting procedure initiating automatically.】

【Aptitude-granting procedure complete. User initial name: Li Cheng】

【User level: lv1】

【Current experience: 0/100】

【Equipment: None】

【Items: None】

【User determined to be an initial qualifier. Newbie guidance procedure initiating automatically.】

【Eternal night approaches; the Killing Ground descends.】

【The gods have fallen; a hundred ghosts walk by night.】

【You may stand in the spotlight and proclaim the coming of the era's tide to the world, or hide in the darkness, watching coldly as others struggle to survive.】

【Free your mind, embrace your fate. This is an absolutely real game. This is—Earth Killing Ground.】

So this is what they call a player?

Li Cheng pressed his lips together, dragged his exhausted body forward, and plucked the long-horned dynastid beetle out of midair; his palm was soaked in some unseen, slowly flowing, viscous blood.

The effect of 【Gene Hunger】 triggered once again.

So that's how it is.

The attribute of contaminating information is an innate passive of the Ink-Color Spider.

Anyone who sees it will quickly forget after looking away; surveillance cameras that capture its image will rapidly distort; and any creature it devours will have its very "existence" erased.

Beyond that, the Ink-Color Spider is a creature of the Shadow Realm, possessing the ability to freely toggle the Shadow Realm on and off. The cost for it to maintain the Shadow Realm is far less than for a Summoner.

Precisely because of this, the Ink-Color Spider and its kind can freely remain in the Shadow Realm, hiding right under the noses of the Special Affairs Bureau.

The contaminating information is the essence of the Ink-Color Spider and was not absorbed by 【Gene Hunger】, but the ability to freely toggle the Shadow Realm was inherited by Li Cheng.

He slowly raised his palm, then suddenly clenched his fist.

Boom!

Ye Jiaying and Yuan Zhixia, who had just run out of the parking garage and rushed onto the subway platform, had seen countless spider monsters chasing after them a moment ago, but the next instant all the spider monsters vanished without a trace.

No, it wasn't that they had disappeared.

Yuan Zhixia looked around. The subway platform was brightly lit, and the pedestrians' faces and bodies were not shrouded in shadow.

It was that they had left the Shadow Realm.

"Playing cosplay? Those two girls?"

"What a realistic-looking handgun."

The crowd noticed Ye Jiaying and Yuan Zhixia, whose hair was disheveled and who still carried a faint smell of gunpowder on them, and began whispering among themselves.

But soon they noticed the giant spider hidden between the two girls — one the size of a medium-sized dog, with half a human face.

"Aaaaaaah!"

"What is that thing?!"

The crowd screamed and fled; bystanders in the distance, not knowing what was happening, were swept up as well, running toward the far end of the platform.

"Hoo—"

Yuan Zhixia twirled her gun, holstered the Glock back at her hip, glanced at the bewildered Ye Jiaying and the dazed, wooden Yang Ling, sighed, and plopped down onto a bench.

"Sit and rest for a bit. The police and the Special Affairs Bureau should be here soon."

(End of chapter)