To everyone’s surprise, after suffering such a grievous wound, the zombie did not collapse but raise its arm to grab Wang Tanzhi. In that second, everyone there was thinking the same thing: one, it was already a muddled mess inside the monster’s skull; two, it was game over for Wang Tanzhi.
BANG!
Another gunshot. Feng Bujue’s moved as fast as he thought. Plus, he had a deathly serious calmness on his side. He appeared two meters from the zombie and aimed at its head. Due to the close distance, the bullet shot through the zombie’s skull, carrying some unknown substance with it as it left a hole in the zombie’s head.
The zombie finally stopped moving. Wang Tanzhi quickly struggled loose from its grasp and jumped down from its shoulders. Feng Bujue walked to stand before the zombie and aimed the gun right between its eyes. “Very interesting, looks like the monster has no use for the lower half of its brain.”
Then, he fired another shot. The bullet travelled through the zombie’s forehead. This time, it did not even make a peep; it had gone completely silent.
“Hmm… I understand it now. The creature is used to focus on the most threatening target, thus exposing its back to others. Even though the weakness is its skull, the system purposely placed its weakness at the front of its head and then gave it a high attack and high health…”
When Feng Bujue was speaking, the zombie was still falling. Actually, for the man, killing the monster was not that important; learning how to kill it was more important.
Long Aomin finally got the chance to breathe. He could still stand, but his face lacked color. Even though the others did not know how many Life Points he had left, they knew that he was not in a good state.
The loss of Wang Tanzhi’s Life Points was incomparable to Long Aomin’s. Of course, with his physical condition, if he was slashed by the zombie at ninety percent Life Points, he would instantly die.
Just as they thought that they had beaten the mini boss and had a chance to take a rest, the darkness fell again. Various scary noises crowded their ears, and the group’s Terror Points rose. Everyone was thinking the same thing—what if the zombie got up from the ground, evolving into something stronger after the darkness passed?
Several seconds later, the darkness dissipated. Like before, it left as quick as it arrived. Feng Bujue had already raised his gun and had it aimed at the zombie’s forehead, but the zombie did not show any response.
“From the looks of it… my second possibility seems to be the correct one.” Feng Bujue took aim for five seconds and put the gun away after noting a lack of reaction from the zombie. “The darkness is part of the natural phenomenon, and the effect is probably to cause evolution in any ’living’ monsters.
“I suspect that this zombie has already evolved… Not only him, when we first experienced the darkness, all the monsters that are alive inside the city have been strengthened.”
Long Aomin, Mr. Loneliest, and Miss Saddest walked over to Feng Bujue. Long Aomin did not say much but handed the man the ’Ultron’s Fragment’. Feng Bujue accepted it easily, and the two did not comment on it at all. Feng Bujue said, “If we did not kill the zombie, I believe it would have undergone another evolution in the darkness.”
“Then, wouldn’t the scenario be too difficult? If the darkness fell a few more times, wouldn’t the whole city be crawling with monsters?” Wang Tanzhi said.
“In a way, that is the timer placed on us by the system. The city is so big, and the monsters inside the scenario are not gathered at a fixed location, or at least, they are not as numerous as the monsters we see in zombie moves… Therefore, the system used this method to prevent the players from taking their time and exploring the city slowly,” Feng Bujue explained. “If we do not hurry, in a few hours, any random monster in the city will be as strong as a boss, and we’ll definitely be wiped out.”
“Then, what are we waiting for? Quickly…”
Before Long Aomin finished, Feng Bujue had already shaken his head. “In any case, we have to be clear about the urgency of the situation; this doesn’t affect our original plan.”
He looked back at the police station. “The zombie has been killed, and after fighting such a hard fight, I believe there has to be a reward. We should search the police station for any equipment and try to arm everyone. Other than that, we must find a way to recover your Life Points, Brother Long.”
Feng Bujue walked to the broken wall. He took out the shattered flashlight from his backpack and said, “I have a skill that will allow this thing to run normally for three minutes, but it will exhaust one hundred Stamina Points. Since I had to rush back to the battle earlier, I did not search the place thoroughly, and I wanted to use my Stamina Points sparingly before the battle, so I did not use the skill.
“Considering the limited light inside the building and the singular flashlight, I suggest I enter the building alone. If I manage to find a more reliable light source, I’ll come out and get everyone, and we can explore the place together.
“Of course, if anyone wants to follow me now, that also works, but your movement will be limited to the space where my flashlight shines on.”
“There’s no need. We’ll just wait here for you to come back. Wait, do you think we’ll be afraid of you keeping all the equipment to yourself?” Long Aomin guffawed as he sat on the ground. “I can also make use of this chance to rest and restore some Stamina Points.”
Mr. Loneliest had his mouth zipped. During his two previous scenarios, none of the high-level players had protected him and his girlfriend, much less shared equipment with them. Now, this Brother Feng wanted to find some equipment for the team, so of course, they had no objection.
Feng Bujue communicated with the four with his eyes and nodded before jumping through the hole again. But this time, he had a flashlight in his hands. After taking a few steps, he activated A Hasty Repair. While one hundred Stamina Points were deducted, some matrix cube written in code appeared around the flashlight, and seconds later, it magically came back to life.
———
Item Name: Flashlight
Item Type: Tool
Quality: Normal
Function: Lightning
Can be taken out of the scenario: Yes
Remark: Needs two D-size batteries to work.
———
Even though this thing could be taken out from the scenario, it was not much use because once Feng Bujue’s skill ran out of time, it would turn back to Poor quality, and this was not a plot item that could be turned into a puzzle card.
With the flashlight, Feng Bujue’s search became extremely efficient, and it did not take long for him to find something useful.