“The first time I entered, there was only a shapeless black film covering the entrance. The second time, there was an outline of a door. Now that I’m here the third time, there really is an actual door in front of me. Is this supposed to scare me?”
Despite observing the foreboding changes in the black mist ruins, not only did Su Mo feel not a trace of fear, but a strong fighting spirit rose within him instead.
Sticking out his tongue to lick his slightly dry lips, he stared at the excavated dirt wall covered by the mist. Su Mo did not wait a moment longer. He took out and held a steel sword in his right hand, and a handgun in his left hand. Su Mo then dashed into the ruins, bringing Oreo and Moore along with him.
Boom!
The pitch-black door seemed to sense the presence of an invader and started to spew out more frightening black mist.
With every step Su Mo took, the door seemed to shrink back a step.
When he finally arrived at the place he had been previously, the door finally stopped moving and, as Su Mo sliced with his sword, an entrance was revealed.
“Heh, is there something about me that makes you feel scared?”
Each time the black mist ruins appeared, it acted more and more like a living creature.
Chuckling coldly, he gestured for Moore to step forward, and the two of them started madly hacking away.
A few seconds later, the door that was previously still full of dark energy finally scattered into mist, no longer able to defend against the attacks of the two assailants.
“I’m going now. Safety is always the first priority—if the enemy is too strong, remember that protecting your life is the most important thing. We’ll discuss the long-term plan when I return.”
Before he stepped into the ruins, Su Mo opened the game panel and sent a message to Zhong Qingshu.
Beep beep…
When he heard the prompt that indicated that it was successfully sent, Su Mo stepped into the black mist without further hesitation.
Behind him, the two little ones put aside the fear in their hearts as well and followed after Su Mo, plunging into the mist.
Swoosh!
As Su Mo and the two little ones entered…
The next moment, as the sun continued to rise, the bluish black mist started shrinking and collapsing at a terrifying rate. As Zhong Qingshu and the militia observed the phenomenon, a second later, the two square kilometers of mist had been reduced to less than 300 meters.
Before they could react, the mist shrank to one square meter in size, transforming itself into a black-and-blue turtle shell.
Immediately after, the tortoise shell flew into the sky and vanished from everyone’s view without a trace.
The mysterious aurora in the night sky also disappeared alongside it.
If they had not seen it all happen before their very own eyes, all this would have seemed like it had never happened at all.
…
[Record]: It has been detected that the player “Su Mo” has entered the ruins.
[Record]: In the current ruins, the game panel function is sealed. You can only use the storage space function. Please exit the ruins to reactivate the other functions.
[Record]: It has been detected that the player “Su Mo” possesses time currency. Authority level increased to level one, and some of the ruins’ authority has been automatically unlocked.
[Record]: Number of entries into the current ruins: 3
[Record]: Time until the current ruins collapse: 23: 57: 35
[Record]: You can choose to exit the ruins. Time left until automatic exit from the ruins: 23: 57: 00
[Record]: Please open the game panel to view the current ruins’ property classifications.
Hula hula!
Seven consecutive game prompts flooded him like a wave.
However, Su Mo—who had just entered the ruins—currently had no intention of opening the panel to look through the ruins classification.
Because…
In Su Mo’s eyes!
He was finally able to see the ruins surroundings this time!
Previously, every time he entered, no matter which direction he traveled to, he always ended up at the village entrance of Liangfang Town.
Moreover, because of the invisible wall blocking him, other than returning via the original path to exit the ruins, he could not enter any other places at all. He could not see just exactly what was outside either, and even the sky was just a white blur.
This time, with the unlocked authority gained from possessing time currency, though the invisible wall remained, Su Mo could see the scenery outside the invisible wall clearly.
Everywhere he laid eyes on was scorched earth.
Moreover, there were raging black-and-red flames burning the ground like a scene from purgatory.
“Could it be that this parallel timeline experienced World War IV? Or was it invaded by a foreign civilization?”
Raising his head to look at the sky, Su Mo was even more shocked.
Amidst the blazing red sky, in the brief three seconds that Su Mo looked up, four meteors passed by and violently crashed to the ground who knew how many kilometers away, causing the ground outside the invisible wall to quake like it was squirming.
As for the things that spilled forth from the quaking ground, those made his scalp tingle even more.
“So many bones! What exactly happened here?”
The dense white and black bones intertwined, forming a frightening shape on the ground.
“Woof! Woof woof!”
“Roar!”
Su Mo was still evaluating the sight before him when the two little ones started roaring behind him, causing Su Mo to abruptly turn around.
Turning around, Su Mo was so startled that he reeled backward.
Behind him, a tide of mutant creatures had assembled at some point.
There were the black dogs he had killed before, mad cows so terrifying that they did not feel pain, and even some other strange creatures he had only seen in films…
Zombies!
Lickers! (T/N: A fictional creature from the Resident Evil series.)
These monsters all lay beyond the invisible wall, frantically attempting to wriggle their way inside. Clearly, they could see Su Mo standing inside too.
Swallowing hard, Su Mo carefully took two steps forward. When he was less than a meter away from a zombie, he halted his footsteps.
Taking out a handgun, he fired a test shot at the zombie outside the invisible wall, but nothing happened. Su Mo noticed that this wall was invincibly sturdy.
Other than the two sides being able to see each other, it was probably not possible for one to travel to the other side, at least for the time being.
With this assurance, Su Mo stored his gun away and grasped his steel sword, rushing forward till he was 50 centimeters away from the zombie.
“This can’t be the future of the world, can it? Meteors, zombies, mutant beasts…”
“If it really is like this, then the survival environment on Earth must be countless times worse than even the wasteland!”
On Earth, Su Mo had once seen a movie called ‘World War Z’.
In this movie, not only could zombies run lightning-fast, they possessed a basic level of intelligence that allowed them to even form a zombie wall tens of meters high to attack humans.
Compared to other movies, where the zombies had physical capabilities similar to those of senior citizens and were only dangerous in large numbers, the zombies shown in this movie were far more impressive.
However, even the zombies from World War Z were small fry in comparison to the zombies in front of him.
Looking further into the distance, some of the zombies could leap two or three meters high in a single jump, showcasing their abnormal muscular strength. Some of them had thick arms that could casually grab a mutant Black Dog and tear it asunder, bathing in the wonderful taste of black blood that erupted from its corpse.
If zombies like this were thrown into the wasteland, Su Mo had no doubts that even the stronger foreign races would be unable to withstand their assault.
After conducting his investigation, since the other functions of the game panel were sealed, Su Mo could only take out his diary and start recording the characteristics of the creatures before him.
From the most common zombies to the various strange mutant creatures; since he could not touch them, Su Mo could only note down their appearances and movement characteristics, and leave the rest for later.
“There are 19 types of mutant creatures and 7 types of zombies with different attributes.”
“At the moment, it seems that as long as the mutant creatures don’t block the zombies’ path, the two sides can co-exist peacefully.”
“And it looks like even if humans turn into zombies, they are still among the stronger ones in this disastrous world!”
The fear he had at the beginning turned into relief. After observing the creatures for over an hour, Su Mo’s nervousness subsided, and his mood relaxed.
As long as they were living creatures and not imaginary enemies like ghosts and such, there would be a way to deal with them.
If he could assemble enough firepower to drown his enemies in a torrent of steel, whether it was zombies like this, or even something several times scarier, Su Mo would have the confidence to deal with them.
“These intellectual zombies seem to be cursing me, but that’s not a big issue. I can’t hear them anyway, noobs!”
After noting down the last zombie’s attribute, Su Mo made an internationally-recognized gesture at the large-headed zombies yelling at him, packed up his pen and paper, and started to walk away.
With the time currency he possessed, he could stay a full 23 hours in these ruins, so he was in no rush at all.
Su Mo even opened the game panel and glanced at the ruins’ properties panel.
As expected, the description afforded to a level one authority holder was pitifully simple.
However, the prompts that popped out at the top spelled things out, providing an answer to most of the questions in Su Mo’s heart.
[Shelter Core: Liangfang Town (Almost destroyed)]
[Description: A Lv 17 shelter developed from the core of the experienced player “Ma Fei”. A total of 45 energy nodes are connected to it. Each energy node can provide a regular supply of energy to the main core and keep the core functioning but, as the number of energy node connections lessen, the shelter core has also reached its limits due to the damage sustained. Continuing to provide energy can extend the time till the shelter core’s collapse as well as the shelter’s protection rule.]
[Core owner: Ma Fei (dead)]
[Shelter’s location: Wasteland coordinates (11056, 35875)]
[Energy required for time extension: 10 thousand Disaster Points or energy of equal value]
[Cores needed to rebind: 200 complete shelter cores, 1000 broken shelter cores]
[Time until shelter collapses: 22: 41: 22]
[Time consumed by triggering protection rule]: 12H (can be offset)
“All this time, I thought I was entering the ruins. I never thought it was actually someone else’s shelter!”
“A Lv 17 shelter—f*ck me, just how many disasters had this Ma Fei experienced? How long had he held on for?”
“Still, this indirectly explains why the time flow doesn’t change when entering some ruins, whereas in others it goes a little faster. Some are like mine, where a few days can pass in the blink of an eye.”
He stared, shocked at the description of these ruins displayed on the game panel. All the things he could not figure out in the past seemed to reveal themselves—it was as if someone had torn away the veil of mystery.
“It is currently known that, as long as a shelter is continuously upgraded, various rules can be set within the shelter’s boundaries via the new functions gained and added on.
“These rules are recognized by the game. As long as the shelter core’s level of the person entering the shelter doesn’t exceed the level of the owner’s shelter, all these low-level rules would still remain active.”
“This also explains why all of my game functions can be sealed—it’s because these are the rules that Ma Fei set!
“And different shelter levels should allow for different levels of restrictions as well. That’s right. Some people don’t encounter scary time flow differences after entering the ruins, and Liangfang Town’s situation has now given me a suitable answer!”
The moment he thought about how the small town he had been born in, in this small world, was actually someone else’s shelter, Su Mo could not help shaking in agitation.
Because, when all the prompts were read together, an unbelievable conclusion began to take shape…
“This isn’t earth at all—it’s a supernation that humans built on the wasteland.”
“The outside world is probably a wasteland that has already experienced countless disasters!”
“Or our Earth… has always been a shelter someone else built and, it’s just that the person who owns Planet Earth’s core…”
“Is dead!”
