10: Chapter 10 The Barking of a Clown

As the holographic light curtain in the sky slowly dissipated, the main channel for the entire District C completely exploded.

Especially in the C-72 District chat channel, it was as festive as a New Year's celebration.

"Hahaha! Did you see that? Eight hundred and fifty thousand people in our district survived! What do you call this? This is what you call a heaven-chosen district!"

"The district next door had over eight hundred thousand people freeze to death in one night! A bunch of noobs!"

"Exactly! Luck is part of one's strength! Who told our district to be so lucky that the system spawned so many warm safe zones for us!"

"This is definitely the system favoring us, giving us special treatment!"

In the channel, countless surviving players were frantically bragging about their luck and mocking the misfortune of other districts.

However, on this morning of revelry, there was one person who couldn't laugh at all.

Zhuifeng de Lang.

He stood beside a raging, dark red sea of fire, his expression extremely grave.

"Something's wrong, this is very wrong..."

He used the morning light to carefully examine the surrounding terrain.

This fire was not burning on flat, open ground, but was deeply embedded in a massive, charred crater that looked as if it had been struck by a meteorite!

The walls of abandoned buildings had been shattered by a terrifying shockwave, and the surrounding soil showed radial scorch marks.

A crazy thought instantly erupted in Zhuifeng de Lang's mind.

"This damn thing isn't a safe zone spawned by the system at all!"

"This is clearly a crater left behind by that tank expert who broke through the formation alone and soloed the regional boss while speeding along yesterday!"

...

Meanwhile.

Six hundred kilometers ahead.

In the five-square-meter folding bedroom of the Red Wolf Tank, Lu Yuan stretched comfortably and woke up naturally.

Because he had slept too soundly and the soundproofing was too good, he had perfectly missed the holographic announcement on the sky screen that morning.

"This sleep felt damn good."

Lu Yuan rubbed his eyes, took an extremely precious bottle of purified water from his backpack, luxuriously poured it onto a towel, and washed up briefly.

After getting dressed, he pushed open the wooden door, returned to the cold cockpit, and sat in the driver's seat.

"A new day, time to keep moving."

Before starting the tank, Lu Yuan habitually opened the regional chat channel, wanting to see the current situation.

As soon as he entered, he was stunned by the screen full of words like "Kindling," "Miracle of Salvation," and "Highest Survival Rate."

"Extreme cold? Fire source? Safe zone?"

Lu Yuan scratched his head and quickly scrolled through the history.

Then he suddenly realized.

It turned out that shortly after he fell asleep last night, the game had unleashed its first natural disaster—the Night of Extreme Cold.

Other districts, having no preparation, suffered casualties of over eighty percent.

And the players in District C-72 had actually survived the extreme cold of minus thirty degrees Celsius by finding those "Explosive Fireballs" he had casually blasted onto the roadside yesterday afternoon!

Looking at the faint black smoke that could still be vaguely seen at the end of the horizon behind the periscope.

Lu Yuan's mouth twitched; he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"These guys, their luck is really damn good."

He swore that when he fired his cannon yesterday, he was truly just trying to exploit a system bug to travel faster, and incidentally test the power of his new weapon.

He never once thought about being some kind of savior!

After thinking this, Lu Yuan prepared to close the regional channel.

But a message that suddenly lit up occupied Lu Yuan's vision and instantly interrupted everyone's bragging and revelry.

Speaker: Zhuifeng de Lang.

"Everyone, don't be blindly optimistic! Don't you find it strange? Look at this survival rate; other districts don't have any so-called fire sources at all!"

"How could the system possibly open such a backdoor just for our District C-72?"

The chat feed paused for a moment.

"Yeah, yeah, now that you mention it, I think it's strange too."

Zhuifeng de Lang took a deep breath and typed out another shocking message.

"I just carefully examined the fire source near me."

"All the flames are either on shattered walls or in massive deep craters!"

"Tell me, is there a possibility..."

"These fire sources that saved hundreds of thousands of us aren't any system safe zones at all, but the aftermath of the attacks left by that tank expert yesterday?!"

The moment this message was sent.

The massive chat group of the entire District C-72, with eight hundred and fifty thousand people, fell into a ten-second deathly silence.

Then, the screen exploded with symbols!

"?"

"?"

"!"

"Holy crap!!!"

Immediately after, another player jumped in excitedly.

"Don't say it! Seriously, don't say it! I also found it strange just now; the fire source I'm at is exactly a crater after an explosion!"

"I remember now! Someone said on the public channel yesterday that the expert's tank was driving [backwards]! He was using the cannon barrel as a thruster!"

"That's right! It's confirmed! That terrifying crater, that incredible firing frequency, it's definitely the expert's handiwork!"

"My god! The aftermath of a single shell can burn all night without going out! What kind of terrifying weapon is this!"

"We actually survived by relying on the exhaust from the expert's travel?!"

If Lu Yuan soloing the Corpse King yesterday made everyone feel awe.

Then today, when everyone realized that their lives had been saved by Lu Yuan unintentionally.

This awe directly transformed into a frantic worship akin to that of a deity!

"Thank you, Expert, for saving my pathetic life! Wuwuwu, without those few shots from the Expert last night, I would have already frozen into an ice sculpture!"

"The tank expert is the god forever! From now on, whoever dares to say a bad word about the Expert, I'll be the first to fight them to the death!"

In the crowd.

Wang Jian, who was driving the beat-up minivan last night, looked at his sleeping wife and child in the passenger seat, his hands trembling as he typed a line of text on the public channel.

"Thank you, Expert, for saving my whole family! I will never forget this kindness and virtue!"

The screen was flooded with praise, worship, and gratitude, surging like a tide in the public channel.

Lu Yuan sat in the cockpit, watching these messages. Although he felt a bit awkward, he didn't feel any aversion.

After all, everyone loves to hear good things.

However.

Just as the atmosphere of gratitude in the entire channel reached its peak.

A highly discordant, or even malicious, message abruptly popped out!

Speaker ID: Liu Dazui.

"Pfft! Hilarious, a bunch of bootlickers!"

"What kind of bullshit savior expert? He just drove fast, ran in the front, and harvested all the high-level supply crates in advance!"

"Use your brains and think! If he hadn't snatched up all the supplies in front, would we be unable to even find a piece of warm clothing or an extra barrel of gasoline?!"

"If you ask me, those one hundred and fifty thousand people who died yesterday were killed by him!"

"He is just a piece of selfish trash who relies on good luck! And he has the nerve to accept your worship here? Pfft!"

Once this message, filled with extreme moral kidnapping and shameless logic, appeared.

The regional channel, which had been burning with gratitude, instantly fell into a suffocating silence!