Greenery overran every street and high-rise.
Dense thickets of vines and tree roots crisscrossed in every direction. Skyscrapers leaned precariously, their concrete walls covered with cracks and moss.
It was hard to imagine that this had once been a bustling urban district.
Primeval forest and urban sprawl seemed to have melded into one. While many districts of Qingquan City looked similar, none had ever felt this overwhelming.
As far as the eye could see, every frame looked like a classic painting, and every angle felt like a work of art.
Could human modeling technology truly achieve such heights?
Unable to resist snapping photos with his ear-mounted camera, Fang Chang felt a sliver of gravity creep into his eyes even as he marveled at the sight.
How were they supposed to get through?
The group had only one last kilometer between them and the mission location.
Yet that single short kilometer seemed utterly unreachable across the undulating ruins.
"Looking at the background lore... this was one of the core commercial hubs of Qingquan City's eastern district. The giant dome right ahead is our objective," Lao Bai said, clad in a Light Cavalry exoskeleton, checking against a pre-war map beside Fang Chang.
Jieyan asked curiously, "What is that place?"
Kuang Feng replied, "A zoo."
Its full name was the Qingquan City Third Ecological Protection Park. The structure of the entire facility was similar to the artificial biosphere they had discovered earlier at the Mid-Continent Aerospace experimental base, differing only in purpose.
One had provided research support for deep space colonization, while the other was for local citizens to visit and enjoy.
The former was undeniably more technologically advanced.
In terms of scale, however, the latter was significantly larger.
Ye Shi wore a subtle expression. "...I suddenly have a bad feeling about this."
"Same here. Stay sharp and prep for combat." Lao Bai turned off the display screen on his forearm, untied a nylon fiber rope from his waist, and tossed a bundle to Kuang Feng beside him. "Time to work."
"Work" naturally referred to the scientific expedition team's hidden mission.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't really a hidden mission—only that its professional level requirements were so high that only their squad currently met the criteria to accept it.
As for the reward, it was exceptionally generous. If they could pinpoint the exact location of Shelter 401 and successfully secure the area, they would receive a grand total of five thousand silver coins!
Naturally, that was the best-case scenario.
Since intelligence on this area was a complete blank slate, the expedition team's only clue regarding Shelter 401 was that it might be beneath the zoo or a nearby subway station.
If they swept the area with their VMs and discovered Shelter 401 didn't exist at all, or if they encountered dangers like a deathclaw and were forced to retreat, they would only get the intelligence reward.
Lao Bai, however, didn't think that would be much of a problem for them.
After all, he was the man who had scored the "first kill" on a Deathclaw.
Even if it was after the deathclaw had already been crippled by focused fire from a huge force of marauders...
The rope was thrown down from the half-collapsed high-rise.
Lao Bai rappelled skillfully onto the slope below. Once he confirmed the ground was clear, the other four squad members rappelled down to the surface one after another.
Jieyan, clad in heavy KV-1 armor and wielding a machete, took point to clear the path. Close behind him, Lao Bai had already flicked off the safety on his LD-47. As a Perception build, Ye Shi walked right in the center, followed by Fang Chang with his Daybreak compound bow in hand.
Kuang Feng launched the Y-1 Firefly quadcopter drone, using his tablet to program a tracking route so it trailed them at a steady altitude.
The party pressed deeper into the dense forest.
Their boots crunched over damp concrete rubble with squelching creaks, the humid air carrying rustling foliage and insect chirps.
Everyone's nerves were wound tight—or rather, buzzing with excitement.
The continuous rustling always made them feel as though something was spying on them from the dark, biding its time.
Still, the journey proved more tense than dangerous.
Aside from crossing paths with a few roaming hyenas foraging for food, only a python hanging from a tree branch gave them a real scare.
The python was as thick as a tree trunk, with silver markings trailing from the corners of its mouth to its eyes, looking uncanny like a clown's grin.
Coiled around the branch, it had probably been asleep; only when its eyes opened and turned their way did Ye Shi detect its presence and quickly warn the group.
"Good stuff! Perfect for making snake wine!" With a single chop, Jieyan took off the snake's head, happily bagging the python into the pack behind his KV-1, splattering blood everywhere.
Catching the reek of blood, Ye Shi recoiled a step in disgust. "Ew, why are you turning into Old Na now?"
Jieyan chuckled. "Snakes and bugs are totally different. How can you compare the two?"
Fang Chang asked curiously, "Does that stuff actually do anything?"
Kuang Feng said, "A rational analysis: alcohol denatures and inactivates proteins. The only use for snake wine... is that it has no use."
Lao Bai cleared his throat. "All right, this debate won't lead anywhere... Let's keep moving."
Harvesting materials was part of monster hunting.
Certain prey could also be brought to the Hunter's Guild or the warehouse to trade for money and contribution points.
Like the three hyenas Fang Chang had shot dead.
It was just that they were too far from Shuguang City; compared to the lucrative mission they were on, wasting time processing game simply wasn't cost-effective.
The Ox and Horse Squad pushed on.
After cutting through vast, undulating forest and gaps between buildings, the group finally arrived near the moss-covered giant dome.
The street here was relatively wider. A collapsed high-rise lay directly between the zoo and the subway station.
Several skeletons lay strewn beside the iron grating of the security checkpoint. Everyone went on high alert instantly.
Lao Bai signaled Fang Chang beside him to provide cover, pointed at his earpiece, then crouched low with his rifle raised and cautiously moved closer.
The skeletons showed blunt-force trauma to their chests and heads as well as puncture wounds from sharp weapons—evidently not left by beasts.
"Judging by the decay... probably within ten years." Or maybe twenty.
He wasn't a professional medic, only knowing basic first-aid measures like stopping bleeding, bandaging, and suturing.
"After they died, beasts gnawed on them—there are bite marks all over the bones... But the fatal wounds came from arrows."
Hearing Lao Bai over the comms channel, Fang Chang frowned slightly in his direction. "Arrows?"
"Yeah... I don't see any bullet impacts here." Lao Bai scanned around, suddenly furrowing his brow as he reached down to pick up a rusted iron token half-buried in the dirt. "What's this?"
The vegetation was thick, making it dim, but under the dappled light he could still clearly see a triangular base with the outline of a flame etched onto it.
A torch?
A look of surprise crossed Lao Bai's face.
That was something from several patches ago, back when the shelter had just defeated the Bone Chewer tribe. The NPC shop had listed thirty-seven "Torch" mental interference devices looted from Black Snake, which allowed users to direct mutants using brainwaves.
Although some Intelligence players had developed a pet-master build, combat-oriented Intelligence players were rare; most had chosen life and production professions, so that playstyle never gained much traction.
If he remembered correctly...
This should be the symbol of the Church of the Torch.
But why was it here?
Just as Lao Bai was puzzled, two sharp whooshes tore through the air from the side. Two arrows hurtled straight for his chest and head.
*Clang! Clang!*
Though the arrows were lightning-fast, they struck the polymer ballistic plate and helmet of the Type 5 "Light Cavalry," leaving only faint scratches.
"Fuck!"
Ambushed, Lao Bai flinched, then raised his muzzle without hesitation and pulled the trigger toward where the arrows had come from.
*Rat-tat-tat—!*
Bullets ripped through the forest-choked street.
Wood chips sprayed in the dark shadows. Two shrill shrieks echoed, and shortly after, something tumbled out of the trees.
Meanwhile, Fang Chang, Ye Shi, and the others instantly spotted Lao Bai's situation, raising their rifles to fire and provide cover for their ambushed comrade.
"Lao Bai! What's the situation on your end?" Fang Chang asked rapidly.
"No idea! Didn't see what they were... but I think I dropped two. Kuang Feng, can you see anything from your end?"
His eyes closed, Kuang Feng shook his head before opening them. "Canopy's too dense. The drone can't see a thing."
More whooshing sounds cut the air as arrows continuously shot from the shadows, raining down toward Lao Bai. Right then, a Molotov cocktail was suddenly hurled out, bursting into flames amidst the chaos.
"Dammit!"
Attacked from three sides, Lao Bai cursed under his breath. Firing back, he scrambled back over a dozen meters behind a collapsed slab of concrete, watching his surroundings warily against the cover.
The lighting here was terrible!
And the enemy was lurking in the shadows.
If it was just arrows, there was nothing to fear.
While the Light Cavalry exoskeleton wasn't renowned for pure defense, deflecting a spray of bullets was no problem, let alone primitive cold weapons.
The worry was whether they had other weapons up their sleeves.
Like Molotovs...
Lao Bai had experienced firsthand how cunning hostile NPCs were in Wasteland OL; in this game, even hyenas knew how to flank and exploit weak spots, let alone humans.
"Holy shit, how did I miss them completely?!" Ye Shi gripped his Pu-9 submachine gun tightly, staring hard at the forest-covered street ahead.
Sightlines were too narrow; sniper rifles were useless here.
Kuang Feng said calmly, "Maybe their stealth stats are too high, failing your passive Perception check. Hasn't something like that happened before? Don't rely too much on sheet stats... By the way, what about your Killing Intent Perception?"
Ye Shi knitted his brows tightly. "I feel it now! It's coming from all directions!"
Kuang Feng: "..."
Fang Chang made an immediate decision. "Lao Bai, there are too many! Pull back first!"
"On it."
Lao Bai slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle and broke cover.
Right then, several sparks of fire flared within the shadows under the dense canopy.
Fang Chang swiftly loosed an explosive arrow toward the flicker of fire. With a loud *bang*, shrapnel whizzed into the woods, and several dark figures tumbled from the branches.
At that exact moment, however, blazing arrows rained out of the woods like an airtight net, blanketing Lao Bai and the covering members of the Ox and Horse Squad behind him.
The fire arrows dealt little damage, but they exposed their exact positions.
"Howwl!!"
Apes shrieked through the forest. Dark silhouettes swung long arms through the trees. Fang Chang's pupils constricted slightly as he finally saw what was attacking them.
No—
Strictly speaking, they weren't humans.
They were a troop of apes, barely 1.5 meters tall, their arms dangling all the way to their ankles!
In their hands were not just bows and arrows, but short spears fashioned from rebar, hammers bound to concrete rocks, and various scavenged blades and machetes.
Ye Shi aimed at the apes closing in and pulled the trigger. Under the submachine gun's sudden burst of fire, four or five monkeys plunged from the branches within a single breath, slamming heavily onto the ground.
Yet more apes soon crawled out of the shadows, baring bloody fangs and brandishing odd, makeshift melee weapons as they closed the net around them.
"Monkeys?!"
Jieyan fired his weapon, shock written across his face. "Holy shit! Monkeys in Wasteland OL can use tools?!"
"Who knows? Maybe someone taught them..."
Kuang Feng picked them off with steady semi-auto bursts from his rifle, shooting down the apes pursuing Lao Bai one by one to cover his retreat back to the squad.
Gunfire echoed incessantly through the woods.
Flashing muzzle flares repeatedly broke the ape troop's encirclement.
After suffering heavy casualties, the apes finally seemed to realize that this group was not to be trifled with, and their assault gradually slackened.
Fighting as they fell back, the party soon cleared the streets around the zoo and shook off the apes' pursuit near a collapsed shopping plaza.
"I thought it was weird earlier that there weren't any gnawers around... Turns out a bunch of monkeys took over the place!"
Flopping down onto a chunk of concrete, Ye Shi panted heavily and checked his SMG's ammo.
Two magazines left!
Since this was a scientific expedition mission and the likelihood of large-scale combat was low, they had only carried standard ammunition based on prior experience.
If they were just ordinary monkeys, there wouldn't be much to fear. The problem was that these apes not only used tools and knew the terrain, but were utterly fearless and appeared to be mutated.
That made things tricky!
Fang Chang said, "We should've brought Scavenger along."
Stowing the drone back into his backpack, Kuang Feng caught his breath and looked at Lao Bai. "Want to keep going?"
"...There are too many of them, and we're shorthanded. Let's pull back for today." Lao Bai glanced at the iron token in his hand, marked with the torch.
Although they hadn't reached their objective, the operation wasn't a total failure.
At least they had scouted the situation around the mission site, and they had uncovered an intriguing piece of intel.
Fang Chang sighed with evident regret. "If only we'd managed to grab one... even a dead one."
Just then, Jieyan, who had been quiet, timidly raised his hand. "Do you mean... this?"
Every eye locked onto him. His backpack hung open, and in his grip was a lifeless ape.
The members of the Ox and Horse Squad finally got a close look at the monster they had fought for nearly half an hour.
The ape had long arms and tiny, dark-green eyes, like two miniature mung beans embedded in a misshapen potato. The most striking feature of its hideous face was its teeth: not only shockingly jagged, but with two fangs protruding past its lips.
Most peculiar of all, while black fur covered the creature's body, its back was completely bare of hair. Instead, a layer of black scales ran from the nape of its neck all the way down to the base of its tail.
Ye Shi gasped in surprise, "Holy shit! Nice one, bro! When did you pick that up?"
Jieyan chuckled bashfully. "While falling back, I happened to stab one dead with my machete. Felt like a waste to leave it behind, so I plucked it up and stuffed it into my pack."
Ye Shi couldn't help praising him, "That 'pluck' was brilliant! You're a hero!"
Jieyan: "Heh heh."
Fang Chang walked over, took the ape from Jieyan, and ran a dagger across its back. Finding it didn't even cut through, surprise flashed across his face. "This stuff is cut-resistant?"
Kuang Feng stroked his chin thoughtfully. After quite a while, he offered his assessment: "Probably make good gloves."
Meanwhile, atop an observation tower constructed of wooden planks and steel bars on the edge of the vine-covered dome structure, stood a man clad in a beast-hide coat.
Dark-green mud was smeared across his face. In his hand was a spyglass fashioned from a hollowed human bone, and vines encircled his neck for camouflage.
The surrounding monkeys treated him with great reverence—or rather, fear—as if he possessed something that terrified them.
Watching the uninvited guests vanish from sight, he cursed, kicked away an ape hovering near his feet, and put away his spyglass. "Useless trash!"
Two sets of exoskeletons!
And the guns in those wastelanders' hands!
High-end gear, without a doubt!
At the thought, a flicker of greed entered his eyes.
What a shame he hadn't managed to keep them here for good!
...
Official Game Forums.
[Monster Compendium Updated:
1. Ironback Ape: Black fur, with black scales along its back. Packs/social creatures capable of using basic tools and open fire; skilled at shooting arrows from ambush; suspected night vision; extremely high mobility in dense forest. Recommended hunting level: LV8+.
2. Silver-mouthed Snake: Silver-white patterns extending from the corners of its mouth to its eyes. Stores up to 120 ml of venom at the base of its fangs. Venom glands distributed throughout the entire body. Do not consume.
]
[Qingquan City Eastern District Intel Added: The eastern district of Qingquan City is a primeval forest. For unknown reasons, the vegetation there is far denser than in other regions.]
[Shelter 401 Intel Added: Suspected connection to the Church of the Torch.]
With the return of the Ox and Horse Squad, the official website's database was updated with the intel gathered from Qingquan City's eastern district.
A new map!
And new mutants!
Many players were brimming with curiosity about this realm where few had ever set foot.
Tail: "Understood! The new map is the high-rise edition of Yumu District! (o°ω°o)"
Sisi: "The list of bizarre fantastic beasts expands once again."
Elaina: "Eww! Venom glands all over its whole body? That terrifying?! (funny face)"
Elven King Fugui: "What are you planning? I'd advise you not to even think about it. (funny face)"
Fang Chang: "Regarding the new map, here's my take: Shelter 401 in the eastern district could become the next starting village. Our clearing progress on this map will very likely directly impact how quickly closed beta invitations are rolled out!"
Kuang Feng: "Agreed. The beta testing progress in this game follows the main storyline. The shelters have capacity limits; once capacity is maxed out, Human Alliance support for the New Alliance halts. That part is remarkably realistic as well."
Lightning King Professor Yang: "Holy crap, keep at it, top dogs! Hurry it up! Our happiness depends on you! T.T"
Riding a Donkey to the Fair: "+1, *sob*, I want to play too. QAQ"
Fang Chang: "Don't fret, everyone! We're already doing our best to conquer the new map!"
Lao Bai: "The scientific expedition team raised the mission payouts based on the intel we brought back. We're planning to organize another expedition, but there are way too many mutants active out there. Just the few of us might not cut it. Any brothers want to join in?"
Scavenger Lv99: "Me, me, me! Brother Lao Bai, carry me! I'm in the Burning Corps too! (excited)"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Need air support? My plane's already fixed! Mark the target with a flare, and leave the rest to me. (side-eye smirk)"
I'm the Darkest: "Holy crap, that thing could be repaired?! Didn't it get blown to smithereens?!"
Fatal: "Don't listen to him brag. Our spendthrift boss just built a new one. This time it's got a gyroscope and a pitot tube though, so it should actually be able to land... (sigh)"
Midnight Chicken Slayer: "Raising hand! Jungle Corps reporting for duty! (proud)"
Piltover Paratrooper: "Paratrooper No. 1 standing by!!!"
Xiao Xiao Xiao Bookworm: "Heheh, wilderness warfare is our specialty. (smirk)"
Lao Bai: "Solid! You guys it is! (grin)"
...
Shelter 404.
Administrator's office.
While players clamored on the forums, Chu Guang studied the iron token engraved with the torch, lost in thought.
"Shelter 401 was opened fifty years ago?"
Beside him, Yin Fang nodded. "According to the intel we've gathered, yes."
Chu Guang continued, "The Torch left Shelter 117 twenty years ago... which means they had already set their sights on Shelter 401 back then. Just what was kept in there?"
If memory served, the black box stored in Shelter 117 primarily produced bionic organs and shouldn't have included any "mind control devices," nor had Heya—who had slumbered for twenty years before waking—ever heard of anything related to such technology.
Evidently, the mutant control technology wielded by the Church of the Torch, which dominated the southern Death Coast, had not come from Shelter 117, but was salvaged from some other shelter facility.
And that place was very likely Shelter 401.
For a treasure chest he had finally located to have likely been plundered twenty years ago was hardly welcome news to Chu Guang.
Yin Fang shifted his posture, arms folded, and said helplessly, "Three-digit shelters are classified. Public records won't have anything, and two centuries have passed besides. I could only pinpoint its general location through indirect clues."
Pausing, Yin Fang continued, "However, while looking into that Qingquan City Third Ecological Protection Park, I did find something rather interesting."
Chu Guang: "What is it?"
"Out of the twenty biology professors granted admission tickets to Shelter 401, seventeen hosted academic lectures at that ecological protection park. While the original papers are gone, ticket records confirm these lectures repeatedly brought up something called 'Resonance Theory.'"
Chu Guang frowned. "Resonance Theory?"
Meeting his expectant gaze, Yin Fang threw up his hands helplessly. "Don't look at me like that. This is my first time doing archaeology in River Valley Province too. I've never heard of this bizarre concept before. The good news is, we can now at least be certain Shelter 401 is near that ecological reserve."
Chu Guang pondered for a moment. "Looks like our only choice is to go in and see."
Yin Fang shrugged. "That's what I'd recommend too. We already know there's something there, so why not just send your people to check it out?"
They were only monkeys, after all. Could they overturn the heavens?
Even the Tide had been no match for these blue coats. Yin Fang had zero doubt that wiping out a pack of beasts was merely a matter of time for them.
Just then, footsteps came from outside, followed quickly by a knock at the door.
"Come in."
The door swung open.
The person who entered was Heya.
Chu Guang looked up and caught the excited look on her face, prompting him to ask curiously, "Did something good happen?"
Without keeping him in suspense, Heya said elatedly, "About that induced expression serum you asked me to study earlier... The results are out!"
Chapter 288