Chapter 345 "Evolution" is everywhere

  Over Qingquan City.

  A "Dragonfly" transport plane is circling along the edge of the Fifth Ring Road.

  Looking at the boundless yellow-green thick fog outside the cabin, the unprofessional Fanman couldn't help but smacked his tongue, with surprise in his eyes.

  The spore cloud gathered in the city center is like a waterfall rolling down from the clouds, and looks like a giant tree with lush branches from a distance.

  The towering torso devours the earth, and the outstretched branches and leaves invade the sky.

  Is there really a weapon that can destroy this thing in reality?

  Even if it’s a nuclear bomb…

  A faint chill crawled along the line of sight, Brother Mantou shook his head, picked up the walkie-talkie hanging on his shoulder and shouted.

   "Are you ready?"

  Interspersed with the current sound of fried wheat, Lao Bai's intermittent voice came from the earphones.

   "OK."

  The signal has begun to fluctuate unsteadily, and my intuition tells Brother Mantou that without the protection of anti-electromagnetic interference equipment, this is already the limit that the aircraft can approach.

  He pulled the joystick beside him.

  Accompanied by an unstable tremor, the locked hatch at the tail of the aircraft was slowly lowered, and the restless air flow was drawn into the cabin.

   "The hatch is open—"

"Wish ya'll good luck!"

  At the same time, Lao Bai, who was standing at the hatch, gestured to his teammates behind him, and stepped out of the hatch first against the howling airflow.

  The camera zooms out, and only a few black spots are separated from the cabin, galloping towards the direction of Qingquan city center. Not long after, six parachutes bloomed over the Third Ring Road.

  After landing, everyone quickly gathered in the direction of the airdrop, recovering the ammunition placed there, RPG rocket launchers and other support equipment.

   Same time, the other side.

  Located in Boulder City on the edge of the West Third Ring Road, within the radar station on the giant wall, the operator on duty has already spotted the plane hovering in the sky.

   "The UFO is approaching our airspace!" The operator sitting in front of the radar control terminal was the first to discover the red dot on the screen.

  However, instead of being nervous, he shouted excitedly.

  The radar station was instantly busy.

  The staff here are mostly in the same mood as him at the moment.

  It has been too long since they have seen the aircraft of other survivor forces appear within the range of the radar alert area.

   "Damn, I'm sure! It's the stuff of those scavengers in the northern suburbs!" An operator cursed excitedly.

   "The other party did not respond to our communication!"

   "Could it be that they simply don't have a radio that picks up the signal?"

   "Haha, it's possible!"

   While he was talking, the colleague sitting next to him was already operating the air defense system, aiming a rapid-fire cannon at the slow silver "Big Bird".

  The computer has calculated the preview circle based on the aircraft's motion parameters.

  He just needs to press the fire button, and the big silver bird will turn into a ball of fire.

   "The opponent has entered our range!"

   "Do you want to shoot it down?"

  Different from the excited operators in the radar station, the station master in charge of managing the radar station is obviously much more cautious.

"hold on."

  The plane did not continue heading towards Boulder City, but quickly turned around and headed back towards the northern suburbs of Qingquan City.

  The staff who operated the weapon looked slightly disappointed.

  He has been sitting on the cold bench under his **** for almost ten years, and the air defense system on the giant wall has never come in handy.

  A staff member said indignantly.

   "This is a challenge to us!"

   "It's up to the city lord to decide whether it's provocative or not," the station master of the radar station interrupted his speech, and looked at his deputy, "Report this incident immediately!"

  The deputy standing aside nodded.

"yes!"

  …

  South Third Ring Road, Qingquan City.

  The five members of the cattle and horse team who landed safely successfully gathered near the airdrop box and got the weapons inside.

  However, everyone's expression is not very optimistic.

  The situation here is far worse than they imagined.

we can even say…

   It was completely beyond their expectations.

  Dark red creep covered almost every building, every viaduct, and every corner of the street.

  The grim-looking gnawers, as well as those slime mold variants that were more vicious than the gnawers, wandered aimlessly on the fragmented streets.

  The most troublesome thing is not only these, but the intricate terrain, which doubles the risk factor here.

  The high-rise buildings deep into the clouds are connected by tunnels, making this place truly a "steel forest".

  When he parachuted down earlier, Ye Shi almost hung on the pedestrian bridge.

   Fortunately, he was lucky, the parachute passed through the middle of the two broken bridges, and then he landed safely and joined his teammates smoothly.

   "Oh my god...it turns out that the center of Qingquan City looks like this."

   On the fiftieth floor of a thousand-meter-tall building, Ye Shi, wearing a gas mask, stood beside the damaged wall, holding a telescope to look in the direction of the crash site.

   The crashed W-1 mosquito glider was stuck on the outer wall of the high-rise building directly opposite them, and the front half of its body was inserted into the wall.

   Falling Feather should be inside.

  Ye Shi glanced at his feet.

  Below him is an invisible abyss. The thick spore cloud is like the water in the venom pool, and the area that can be observed is very limited.

  Due to the spore clouds gathered in the city center, the visibility here is less than two hundred meters.

   In fact, due to the countless construction debris and reinforced concrete, the actual visibility is not even half of this number.

  This is much more exciting than the waves.

   "Haven't you guys explored this place before?" Quit Smoking said nervously.

  Guangfeng shook his head.

   "I haven't heard of anyone coming here."

  Fang Chang also said: "There is no mission here, and there is no way to save files. Even if you come here, it is meaningless."

   You can’t go far without high-value equipment, but you have to consider risks if you bring high-value equipment.

   This game does not restrict the player's specific gameplay, but it also emphasizes that everyone is an adult and needs to be responsible for their own choices.

  In fact, earlier, they tried to start from Boulder City and explore in the direction of the third ring road.

  However, the fighting power of the alien species encountered along the way became stronger and stronger, and a lot of bullets were wasted but there was no benefit at all, so I finally gave up.

   Carefully observing the situation on the way forward, Ye Shi's face became more and more serious, and he lowered his voice and said.

   "... There are a lot of evolutions here!"

  Hearing the word evolution, everyone's expressions immediately became serious.

   "Corrupted Knight?" Lao Bai said solemnly.

  Ye Shi shook his head, did not speak, but pointed lightly to the outside of the tall building, the concrete elevated connecting another building.

  I saw the wreckage of cargo drones lying there, roughly hundreds of them, and beside them were packages and takeaway boxes from two hundred years ago.

  The dark red shell looks like rust, but if you take a closer look with a telescope, you will find that what is attached to the surface of those drones is not rust at all.

  It's a shocking creep!

   "Those things... I can feel that they are alive," Ye Shi said in a deep voice after a pause, "And I'm afraid it's not easy to deal with!"

  Guang Feng frowned.

   "Do you want to bypass them?"

"The situation down there is not much better. Have you forgotten what we saw when we came up?" Lao Bai took out the RPG rocket launcher on his back, inserted a high-explosive grenade, and shot the smoker who was carrying a heavy machine gun. With a gesture, "I can only try."

  It is impossible to go around.

  The difficulty of stealth in this game is not so high, especially those mutant slime molds, where there are spore clouds, the head seems to have an antenna for detecting enemies.

   Get a little closer, and rush up.

  The best way to attack is to choose a relatively safe path, lure out the monsters in the area and clear them, and then move on.

  Seeing Lao Bai took out the RPG, the other team members also went to their respective battle positions tacitly, with the weapons in their hands unlocked.

"I'm ready."

   "Ok is on my side too."

   "+1"

   "..."

   Everyone cooperated quite tacitly. After all, it was not the first time for them to form a team, and they had already experienced countless battlefields.

   Seeing his teammates getting ready one after another, Lao Bai took the lead in pulling the trigger.

  Tail flame jet!

  A high-explosive grenade hit the middle of the dense drone group!

  As the flames and thick smoke exploded in an instant, a large number of drones were sent flying out by the shock waves and fragments of the explosion, and fell towards the bottom.

   Quit smoking, who set up a machine gun not far away, also pulled the trigger immediately, unleashing ferocious firepower towards the front area.

  The fired 10mm bullets weaved a rain of orange-yellow fire in the air, frantically harvesting the frightened drone swarm.

   "Damn it... Can this thing really fly?" Fang Chang, who opened fire with his rifle, had a hint of surprise in his eyes.

   Two hundred years, unless it is nuclear power, no matter how durable chemical energy batteries can last for so long!

   Obviously, those mutant slime molds replaced the battery on the drone and became a new power source, driving the propeller in a peculiar way, and even evolved part of the creep into the propeller itself.

but-

   In the face of absolute firepower, these are nothing, and the drone swarms rushing out against the billowing smoke, large areas were harvested by bullets.

   Everything seems to be going well.

  However, at this moment, a sudden change occurred!

   The drones that were knocked down by the high-explosive grenade did not all fall to the ground and shatter. Some of the surviving little ones flew up again.

  At the same time, more and more drones floated out from the viaduct and even the opposite building, and even began to outflank towards both sides.

  The cow and horse team guarding behind the bunker immediately fell into a hard fight.

   "Damn it! Isn't that too much?!" Empty the whole drum, quit smoking and cursed, and immediately replaced the magazine.

   At this time, Gu Feng, who was pulling the trigger and pouring firepower, suddenly spoke.

   "Is there a possibility?"

  Fang Chang: "What do you want to say?"

"The mimicry ability of the mutant slime mold not only imitates individual drones, but the drone swarm itself..." After a pause, the wind continued, "To put it simply, it is not a certain courier package that attacked us, but a group of drones. The entire express cabinet."

  Ye Shi was startled.

   "Fuck! Don't be crowed!"

   "It's not a crow's mouth, as long as you find the 'drone hive' that dominates this group of little guys, it should be able to make them lose their organization..."

  Watching the quitting machine gun recover its firepower, Gufeng took out the drone with the IED strapped in his backpack, and prepared to control it to fly to the opposite building.

  VM opens.

   The neural access device is worn on the head.

  However, at this moment, Kuangfeng's expression froze suddenly.

  Noticing the change in his expression, Ye Shi hurriedly asked.

"what's the situation?"

   Fengfeng, who was holding the earphones, frowned, glanced at the VM screen in front of him, and said in a deep voice.

   "Unable to connect to..."

  Damn it.

   There is still a little signal left!

   "%￥#@!"

  Ye Shi cursed and knocked off the empty clip on the rifle.

  No one can count on it now.

  If you want to survive, you can only try your best to shoot down all the drones in front of you!

  But at this moment, a drone suddenly broke through the firepower net, passed through the broken wall on the side of the building, and rushed towards Ye Shi.

   A warning sign suddenly arises in my heart!

  Ye Shi reflexively let go of the clip in his hand, and pulled out the ten-man pistol inserted in the belt.

However-

  Even though he warned of the danger in advance, his hand was still one step slower after all.

  The drone covered with dark red creeper rammed head-on, and the tentacles protruding from the bottom of the fuselage popped out like lightning, and slammed towards his face.

  Ye Shi only had time to see the shadow flash, and then his consciousness fell into the boundless darkness.

  A light blue pop-up window appears.

【Disconnect】

  One time, another world.

  Jiangcheng University, in a certain dormitory in the male dormitory, an abrupt ghostly cry suddenly sounded.

   "Blanch!"

  Hearing the movement from the bed, all the animals sitting down and eating chicken were stunned on the spot, and the hands that pressed the guns stopped.

what's going on?

   There was no sound in the dormitory.

  Sun Qian turned his head to look at the bed behind him, and was about to ask what happened, when Brother Awei's voice drifted over from the bed.

   "Sau Rui...something happened just now."

  Ye Wei, who was sitting on the bed, stared at the helmet in his hand, his chest heaving slowly.

  The three roommates looked at each other in dismay.

  Although I don't know what happened, it's good that I'm fine.

   "Hey... small problem, it's okay."

   "We don't care, but you pay attention to your body..."

   "Indeed, it's so loud when playing R18 games, it's hard for my buddies not to worry about you."

   Ye Wei: "..."

   MMP!

   These gangsters!

  Ye Wei rolled his eyes and threw the helmet beside the pillow.

  Getting up and using the ladder to get out of bed, he went to the balcony to wash his face, leaned against the guardrail, took out his cell phone, and glanced at Xiaoqun.

   "Anyone?" He sent a message.

   After a while, no one replied.

   Seeing this, Ye Wei heaved a sigh of relief.

   It seems that everyone is fine, only I accidentally gave it for nothing.

  But when he thought that he would not be able to log in for the next three days, he felt depressed for a while.

   Good guy.

  The withdrawal reaction has begun!

   Just when Ye Wei was about to close the Q group and go to the official website to see what new work the sand sculptures were doing, a message suddenly popped up in the group.

   Ah Guang: "Yes, what happened?"

  Ye Shi was startled when he saw the ID of the sudden fraudulent corpse.

   What the hell?

   Dog Curated!

   "Brother Guang?!"

"you are still alive??"

  Suddenly realized that there seemed to be something wrong with his way of asking, Ye Wei quickly withdrew the message, and typed at the speed of light to answer the sentence below.

   "Uh, I mean you actually remembered the account password."

  Aguang: "..."

  Ye Wei looked a little embarrassed, and sent a dog head to ease the atmosphere.

  However, the broad-minded Brother Guang didn't care about such trivial matters, and quickly changed the topic on his own initiative.

   Ah Guang: "How is the situation on your side? Are you in contact with the enemy?"

   Isn’t this asking knowingly?

   But it was rare to have a few words with the dog planning, Ye Wei still answered truthfully.

"Well, we ran into a different species not long after we landed. The situation inside the third ring road was even worse than we expected. The ground, the sky, and the underground... The intricate traffic is like a maze, and paper maps and compass have no Not useful, we ended up relying on VMs and weak signals for bearings."

   "Then there are alien species... here are not just eaters, crawlers and tyrants, but also a large number of ancient machines operating in this area."

  Aguang: "Ancient machine?"

   Ye Wei continued typing.

   "It's an evolutionary body! For example, the power armor wrapped in slime mold, tanks, self-propelled robots, etc. that appeared in the wave expansion pack before... Anyway, they are all weird things."

   "By the way, there are also drones! We encountered a large group on the way to the crash site, densely packed like locusts!"

  Aguang: "About those evolutionary bodies, can you explain to me in detail?"

   After a few seconds, he added another sentence.

   "I mainly want to understand the situation on the new map from the player's perspective."

  Although he felt a little strange, Ye Wei didn't think much about it. He picked the screen of his mobile phone and described his experience in the third ring road to A Guang in detail.

   After a while, Ah Guang replied.

   "Well, I probably understand."

   After laying the groundwork for a long time, Ye Wei typed immediately.

   "Brother Guang, is the difficulty in the third ring road too high? The equipment can't keep up, and it's hard to push in with just a few light weapons."

   "It is strongly recommended to put power armor on the weapon store!"

  There are too many advanced monsters!

  This level design is simply unreasonable!

However-

   Aguang does not seem to intend to adopt his suggestion.

   "I can't help with the difficulty. Part of the game content is generated by the server itself, and part of it is added by the player. We are only responsible for maintaining the operation of the server and dealing with violations... Sorry."

   "I have something to do here, let's go down first and talk back."

   Automatically generating game content is okay.

  What kind of Ubisoft behavior is this?

  Looking at the two lines of messages on the screen, Ye Wei looked helpless.

   Believe it or not, Ah Guang didn't intend to continue explaining to him. After asking what he wanted to ask, he went offline mercilessly.

  I was the only one left in the group.

   There is no point in continuing to guard, the empty and lonely Ye Wei sighed, closed the group chat window, opened the browser and boarded the forum.

  The forum is quite lively at this point.

   The speed at which the news on the gossip section is refreshed is dizzying. Almost every time it is refreshed, the posts on the homepage will be completely changed.

   At this moment, Ye Wei was surprised to find that Ah Guang secretly updated an announcement while he was not paying attention?

   Curiously, he went in and took a look, and he was stunned on the spot.

  【Map information update: Qingquan city center】

  【Map Overview: The downtown area of ​​Qingquan has been completely sacked by the slime mold. A large number of equipment left over from the prosperous era has been assimilated by the fruiting body of the mutant slime mold, forming an evolutionary body with a special structure...】

  【Recommended Exploration Level: LV.25 and above】

  【Map Tip 1: Recover the remains of the evolved body, which can be exchanged for high rewards in the scientific expedition team! 】

  【…】

  Recommended exploration levels and map tips are not a problem.

   It's just the "map overview" column...

  Why does he look so familiar? ?

  …

  Wasteland world.

  Shuguang City Industrial Zone, the train platform near Bach Aluminum Factory.

  The staff is busy operating the crane equipment, loading some large equipment that has been dismantled into parts onto the pallet of the freight train.

  The industrial areas of the New Alliance are moving north.

  This work will be carried out simultaneously with the construction of Dawn City.

  At that time, the industrial area of ​​Shuguang City will be transformed into a light industrial base mainly producing consumer goods.

  The heavy industry, including steel, weapons, and heavy equipment production, will be transferred to Dawn City in the north.

  After listening to Xiaoyu's introduction, Pai asked curiously.

   "Why are you moving north?"

  Xiao Yu said helplessly.

   "Because it's so close to our neighbors."

   Pai asked the bottom line.

   "Do you have a bad relationship with them?"

  Placing her index finger on her chin, she thought for a while before replying.

   "Well... I can't say whether it's good or not. In Brother Chu's words, we are too close to them and are dangerous to each other."

  Of course, there are also a series of factors such as the closer the north is to the raw material production area and the larger population, but it is too troublesome to explain in detail, and Xiaoyu himself has only a half-knowledge, so he simply omitted it.

"All right."

  Accepting this statement, Pai temporarily put this trivial matter aside, and continued to search near the stockpiling area.

   Xiaoyu looked at her movements and couldn't help asking curiously.

   "What are you looking for?"

   "Some ingredients!"

   "Ingredients?"

   "It's nothing, you don't have to worry about it, it won't harm you anyway!"

  Looking at the confident Pai, Xiaoyu tilted his head in confusion. Although he was still very curious, he didn't ask any more questions in the end.

   "Okay...can I help you?"

   "Really? That's great!" Pai's eyes lit up, and he excitedly gestured with his hands the size of a cup. "First, I need a bottle of crude oil. It doesn't matter the type... probably this much is enough!"

   In order to teach that disrespectful guy a deep lesson.

   This is a necessary material!

   "Original, crude oil?" Xiaoyu was stunned for a moment, and asked in a low voice, "Is biomass crude oil okay?"

   Pai rubbed his chin in thought for a moment.

   "Biomass crude oil...it's a bit troublesome, but it's okay!"

   "In short, get a bottle first and see!"

  …

the other side.

  South of Shuguang City, a nursing home in Linghu Wetland Park.

  Just learned about the situation in the city center from Ye Shi, Chu Guang is planning to continue to conceive the unfinished reform plan and the update content of Beta0.3 version.

  However, just as he was staring at the newly created folder on the screen, wondering what title would be more appropriate, an unexpected call suddenly hit him.

   Seeing that the communication request came from the "New Alliance Office in Boulder City", Chu Guang temporarily stopped his work and pressed the connect button.

   Soon, Shuyu's voice came from the other end of the phone.

   "Five minutes ago, people from the Boulder City City Hall came to my place."

   People from City Hall?

  A trace of surprise appeared in Chu Guang's eyes.

   "What did they say?"

   Shuyu continued.

   “On trade and security issues…”

   “The Minister of City Hall would like to speak with you on the phone.”

  (end of this chapter)