Oh, so this is the green grassland... not at all.
Driver sighed, his frustration turning into helplessness. He truly envied the Ant’s fearless or rather heartless nature.
"If this really involves a Mystery Lock with space distortion effects, once we lose sight of each other, we’ll likely be pulled far apart."
Zhao Zijing had also regained her composure and shouted loudly, "I’m currently standing with Ant and Midnight Howl. What about you all? Report your situations."
The hot air balloon had just crashed, but everyone had landed relatively close to each other.
Li Cheng, Zhao Zijing, and Midnight Howl formed one group.
Driver, Bandage Man, Mendoza, and Catherine formed another.
The two groups felt close to each other by sound, but they couldn’t get through the tall grass to find each other.
Electromagnetic waves were blocked, walkie-talkies couldn’t be used, and Reconnaissance Skills couldn’t penetrate the thick grass. Additionally, the grass had self-repairing capabilities and could revert to its original state.
For example, if you tie one end of a rope around a stem and walk a distance with the other end, the tied end would disappear on its own.
It’s as if the observer effect from quantum mechanics was applied to the macro world—only objects continuously observed by living beings remained unchanged.
In other words, it’s impossible to mark paths by leaving landmarks.
This was also proven elsewhere—The three hydrogen balloons Li Cheng had left by the roadside to mark distance had all drifted away, blending into the dark sky.
"Fortunately, the Task Battery wasn’t lost."
Holding the Task Battery, Zhao Zijing pondered for a moment, then shouted to the Driver on the other side of the bush, "Driver, do you have any passenger-carrying vehicles over there? Let’s head in the opposite direction indicated by the radar map and see if we can get back to the highway."
Driver took out a convertible four-wheel drive from his Backpack, which resembled a sightseeing vehicle in the African savannah—small and nearly defenseless, but compact enough to fit directly into a backpack.
Zhao Zijing then opened a Dragon Ball Capsule, summoning an amphibious armored off-road vehicle.
Both groups headed toward the highway. To prevent anyone from falling out of the convertible, Driver also tied himself and the other three Ordinary people together with a climbing rope.
In a tense atmosphere, they drove for an hour, by which time they should have seen the highway, but there was still only endless green grass ahead.
Worse still, there was a problem with the Task Battery.
"Something’s wrong!" Midnight Howl picked up the battery, looking serious. The central area of the originally bucket-shaped battery, which emitted a pale yellow light from top to bottom,
now, its top crystal no longer glowed. It was as if the displayed battery power on a cellphone had decreased, leaving 90% remaining.
"Could it be leaking power?"
Li Cheng took the battery, his eyes narrowing, and spoke in a trembling electronic voice, "Su Yunjin, what will you use to repay what you owe me—"
His voice was so enchanting that even Zhao Zijing, driving, couldn’t help but glance at the rearview mirror, her face showing a ghostly expression.
Li Cheng placed the battery down nonchalantly and calmly stated, "Alright, it’s confirmed, it’s indeed leaking power."
Zhao Zijing barely maintained her composure and analyzed calmly, "In the Slaughter Field, no trouble is the best trouble, but conversely, any unexpected situation could likely turn bad."
Midnight Howl frowned, "What does that mean?"
"We should turn back."
Zhao Zijing hit the brakes, rolled down the window, and shouted outside, instructing Red Driver to also turn around and head in the direction indicated by the radar map.
Both groups turned back and sped away.
The "Remaining Battery" indicator continued to drop, finally reaching 80%, and changes at last appeared ahead. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ noveⅼfire.net
On some tall grass leaves, ashes exuding a burnt smell began to appear.
The ashes were slightly sticky, with a texture similar to moon sand, and they gave Li Cheng an inexplicably familiar feeling.
Somewhat like... the flesh and blood of an Insect Lord Demon-infected?
That was the sensation; since the ashes had mineralized, Li Cheng couldn’t reverse-engineer the abilities of the Divine Calamity infected by absorbing their genes.
As he drove further, the spread of the dust became denser until a pit suddenly appeared ahead.
The pit was about ten meters in diameter and three meters deep. No vegetation grew inside the pit, nor was it covered with decomposed organic matter. In the center lay a skeletal body clad in a loose storm jacket.
Next to the body stood a metal monument over two meters tall.
Li Cheng gasped, "Yamucha!"
Even the composed Zhao Zijing couldn’t help but retort sarcastically, slamming on the brakes urgently and signaling the distant drivers to stop as well.
The sudden apparition of the corpse was too eerie, Zhao Zijing didn’t dare approach directly and flew a drone over to get closer to the ground.
Since there was no grass in the pit, the drone managed to send back clear footage.
The skeletal figure lay on its side, its storm jacket embroidered with the flowing silver words "Amalgam."
Zhao Zijing exclaimed in shock: "Mercury Alloy?!"
Li Cheng immediately responded, "That guild?"
"What are you guys talking about?"
Midnight Howl furrowed his brows; he was neither an agent of the Global Supernatural Alliance nor did he have sufficient time and experience like Li Cheng to have gathered information, so he didn’t understand their conversation.
"It was a small guild that has been annihilated."
Zhao Zijing quickly explained: "The Slaughter Field Game began four years ago, with the earliest players all being selected by the killing field.
Initially, when everyone was just beginning to understand the Slaughter Field Game, there was absolutely no semblance of order. Financial conglomerates and national forces hunted players, players killed the financial tycoons, and players killed each other in a state of severe chaos.
This chaos continued for about half a year until the Whale Song Organization established a global anonymous forum, providing players with a platform for communication, negotiation, and compromise with national forces, which limited the spread of chaos to a certain extent."
"Back then, many lone wolf players started forming small-scale organizations and associations.
Like [Beating Shark Center],
[Flying Spaghetti Monster Sect],
[Black Clothes Organization’s Another Day of Being Infiltrated],
The names of these small associations went for satire and parody, serving both as clubs for enthusiasts and warmth for small players to huddle together.
Many of the large guilds you know of today, like [Demon Scientist Alliance], [Thousand Throats Beast], and others, started as smaller organizations."
Li Cheng continued, explaining that player forums weren’t like Baidu Tieba where posts could be capriciously deleted; it was still possible to find many old but essential posts to understand the affairs of that era.
"[Mercury Alloy] took its name from the antagonist organization in the light novel ’Full Metal Panic’, and it was one of the earliest small enthusiast clubs but also one of the fortunate ones to have survived the chaotic period.
Until a year ago, the guild leader, a level 30 spiritual ability expert named [Mithril], led all ten guild members on an unclear mission to explore deeper into the killing field, resulting in the disappearance of the entire team."