25: Chapter 25 Visiting Others

As the red star completely set, Fire Seed Shelter welcomed a brief period of dormancy.

However, while the night grew deep in the game, the internet in the real world was just being set ablaze.

In the 'I Also Want to be Happy' QQ group, the message refresh rate at this moment was like a cascading waterfall.

Makabazi: "Brothers! My hands are still shaking! When that Ork's blade slashed my shoulder, I really thought I was going to die! This game's pain feedback is definitely toxic, but damn, I actually felt so good!"

ikun True Fan: "Brother Bazi is awesome! Slaying above your level on the first day! By the way, advertising here: Rat-man Technology is buying waste plastic and rubber at high prices. Urgently need points to refine pyrolysis oil. Bosses, throw all your scrap materials my way!"

Daidai Jiaobu: "Is anyone taking leather sewing commissions? I got too many skins back today, I can't tan them all by myself. Labor fee is two points per piece. Any skilled sisters or brothers available?"

The discussion in the group was in full swing, but it wasn't enough to cause a true earthquake.

The true earthquake came from that simple official website.

Just ten minutes ago.

On the official website page, a new section titled 'Pioneer Atlas' suddenly appeared.

This was, of course, Lin Li's doing.

He used STC-73 to directly intercept recorded footage from the players' pv terminals, rendered the clarity a bit, and posted them directly as official promotional images.

The first image:

Under a dark red, sickly sky, violent winds swirled with yellow sand.

Five blood-soaked players, holding various extremely crude melee and ranged weapons, were surrounding the headless corpse of an Ork as massive as a small hill!

The second image: A player stood before a black-smoke-belching earthen kiln, directing several shirtless, mud-covered men who were frantically mixing mortar and laying bricks.

The third image: A 2.3-meter-tall Minotaur, carrying a mountain of daily supplies on his back, was sprinting across a dried-up riverbed, kicking up dust all the way.

As soon as the images were released, not just the QQ group, but major single-player game forums and boards were instantly ignited!

“Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!!!”

“Is this damn in-game footage?! This lighting rendering, these muscle textures! This Ork's quality! You're telling me this is a game?!”

“This is definitely CG! Or a concept image made by some Hollywood VFX team! Current graphics cards can't possibly run physical destruction effects of this level!”

“Bullshit! That's me! The shirtless guy mixing mud in the second picture is me!”

Players followed the threads frantically on the forums,

“I can prove it! This is 100% pure in-game footage! I moved three thousand bricks today!”

“The laborer Minotaur in the third picture is me. It's one thing for you sons to treat me like a beast of burden, but the dev actually posted my ugly photo on the official site! Refund my money!”

Makabazi also jumped out to share his personal testimony.

With the personal verification of these first-test players, the 'cloud players' who had originally mocked this as a Trojan-horse-infested scam site were completely silenced.

Immediately following was an overwhelming, frantic demand for accounts.

“Father! Dev Father! Give me an account! I'm willing to trade ten years of my life for an internal test slot!”

“This Ork is made so damn badass! Old Warhammer fans are ecstatic!”

“Who just said this game was a reskinned browser game? Step forward and take your beating!”

At this time, the happiest person was none other than the small streamer, Miracle Walker.

He directly tossed that ultra-high-definition screenshot of himself stepping on a steel wall and headshotting an Ork with an Elephant Gun into his fan group of several thousand people.

Miracle Walker:

“Come, come, come! You cloud players who said in the stream today that I was taking dirty money and playing fake ads, open your eyes and look! Is this CG? The rifling and smoke on this barrel, the parabola of that Ork's head exploding—which game on the market can pull this off?!”

The fan group was dead silent for a full minute.

Then, those anti-fans who had been clamoring to unfollow instantly did a 180-degree turn in attitude.

“Brother Xing! I was wrong! I admit my voice was a bit loud just now!”

“God Xing, do you still need a lackey? Take me with you! This game looks so damn cool!”

“When will the streamer start tomorrow? I want to watch you stream fighting Orks!”

Looking at the rows of 'begging for forgiveness' emojis in the group, Miracle Walker leaned back in his gaming chair, took a sip of ice-cold cola, and felt so satisfied he was practically floating.

Meanwhile.

Fire Seed Shelter.

In the main control room on the first basement floor, Lin Li was boredly watching the number of official website pre-registrations skyrocketing on the computer screen, a profiteer-like cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

“The vanity of these players is truly the best free promotional tool in the world.”

Lin Li stretched,

“Once the third floor is opened and the manpower is gathered, then it will be the end for the Black Claw Clan.”

Just as he was calculating his next 'leek-harvesting' plan.

“Beep—”

STC-73, hovering in mid-air in sleep mode, suddenly emitted a very faint but urgent alarm.

“Creator, an abnormal heat source has been detected approaching.”

73's optical lens instantly switched to a wary yellow,

“Northeast of the Shelter, at a distance of two kilometers, a team of about ten people is rapidly approaching under the cover of night. Target is directly aimed at the surface temporary camp.”

The smile on Lin Li's face vanished.

“Bring up the surveillance footage!”

The screen instantly switched to infrared night vision images of the surface.

Amidst the swirling radiation dust, a dozen figures draped in tattered camouflage netting were weaving through the ruins like ghosts.

They were all armed, and their movements were extremely cautious, clearly the work of strictly trained wasteland veterans.

“Northeast direction...”

Lin Li narrowed his eyes, his brain working rapidly,

“That direction... is the Mountain Tribe I traded with yesterday.”

“These sons of bitches scavengers, they really didn't have good intentions,” Lin Li cursed fiercely in his heart.

He knew the survival laws of the wasteland all too well.

During the day, he had shown his wealth, using extremely precious high-purity food to trade for a large batch of ore and primers.

For any resource-starved settlement, this was a piece of fatty meat dripping with oil.

These people creeping over under the cover of night were definitely not here to drop by for a chat.

This was called reconnaissance by fire!

If they found the defenses here empty and the place a soft target, this so-called trade caravan would, in the next second, transform into the most ruthless raiders, killing everyone and stealing all the food and women.

“Want to play 'black eat black'? You really think I'm made of clay?”

Lin Li snorted coldly.

Since the surface buildings weren't finished yet, Lin Li had requested Rhine and Willow to live underground for now. Lin Li did not wake them.

He grabbed the halberd hanging on the wall and reached under the table to pull out that 12.7mm Elephant Gun that Miracle Walker had used during the day.

“Ssh—”

The elevator doors opened, and Lin Li arrived at the surface alone.

The wind and sand outside were still very heavy.

The infrastructure projects the players had half-finished during the day looked like looming shadows in the night.

A half-finished mud-brick wall and several half-dug foundations provided Lin Li with perfect cover.

Lin Li thrust the halberd into the sand beside him and propped up the exaggeratedly heavy Elephant Gun. The muzzle poked through a gap in the bricks, the crosshairs locking dead onto the lead figure.

In the darkness.

The team had already crept to within fifty meters of the camp perimeter.

In that instant!

“Clack!”

Lin Li violently pulled the bolt. The crisp metallic sound of a thick brass bullet being chambered was extremely piercing in the silent night wind!

“Wandering the wasteland in the middle of the night...”

Lin Li's cold voice, cutting through the wind and sand, reached the ears of everyone on the opposite side clearly.

“This isn't the conduct of any legitimate trade caravan. Take one more step, and I guarantee you'll turn into a pile of minced meat.”

The opposing team froze instantly!

A dozen crude automatic rifles were raised almost simultaneously, their muzzles snapping in unison toward the direction of Lin Li's voice.

The atmosphere in the air instantly dropped to freezing point, as if just a single spark would trigger a tragic gunfight.

A stalemate lasted for a full ten seconds.

From the opposing team, a deliberately lowered cough suddenly came.

Immediately after, an extremely thin man wearing a tattered jacket and possessing an honest-looking face slowly lowered his weapon and raised his hands.

“Don't shoot! Friend! We have no ill intent!”

The thin man shouted at the top of his lungs in an extremely humble tone,

“We're from the Mountain Tribe to the northeast! The patrol saw a bonfire here today and heard the sound of large-scale tree felling, so we guessed a new neighbor had arrived!”

“Taking advantage of the weak radiation wind tonight, we specifically brought some local specialties to see if there's any business to be done with you, friend!”

Hearing this nonsense, a cold smile tugged at the corner of Lin Li's mouth.

“Seeing a friend? Creeping over in the middle of the night with a dozen guns to make friends?”

Lin Li mercilessly tore through the other party's disguise. He remained hidden behind cover, the muzzle of the Elephant Gun pointing fixedly at the thin man's head.

“Enough nonsense. Drop all your guns on the ground and kick them away!”

Lin Li's tone brooked no argument,

“You! Just you, walk over with your hands up. If anyone else dares to make a move, this large-caliber Bolter in my hands will blow your head apart like a watermelon!”

Feeling the tangible killing intent emanating from Lin Li and catching a glimpse of that barrel thicker than a thumb,

The thin man's expression changed.

He was an old hand in the world and could hear the absolute confidence in the other's tone.

Anyone who could establish a new camp in the wasteland and dare to face a dozen guns alone was definitely a tough character.

“Alright! Alright! We'll follow the rules!”

The thin man turned and gave a gesture to his subordinates.

Stumbling through the sand, he slowly walked to the half-finished brick wall where Lin Li was located.

By the faint red light peeking through the clouds,

The thin man saw the tall figure in the black trench coat behind the cover, and his pupils shrank violently.

“It's you?!”

The thin man blurted out.

He recognized him; wasn't this the tough guy who had gone to their Mountain Tribe settlement and traded high-purity food for a large amount of sulfur and primers?!

“So it's you, friend. We even met today. If I'd known it was your camp, we would have visited during the day.”

The thin man immediately squeezed out a fawning smile, trying to act familiar.

Lin Li maintained his stone-faced coldness.

He didn't take the bait. He simply stood up, carrying the Elephant Gun in one hand and pulling the halberd from the ground with the other.

“Follow me.”

Lin Li's voice was icy as he turned toward the silver-white elevator hidden behind the ruins.

He knew that for these hyenas of the wasteland, verbal threats alone were useless.

He had to show them what true muscle looked like to completely extinguish their laughable thoughts of plunder.

The thin man followed behind Lin Li.

When he saw that silver-white airtight elevator door—filled with an extreme sci-fi industrial aesthetic that was completely out of place with the surrounding tattered ruins—his eyes instantly widened.

“This... this is the core elevator of a Ruin?!”

Stormy waves rose in the thin man's heart.

To be able to occupy such a perfectly preserved Ruin entrance in a place like this, this group's background was definitely not simple!

“Ssh—”

The elevator doors opened, and the two stepped into the cabin.

After a descent of a dozen seconds,

The main hall of the first basement floor of Fire Seed Shelter was fully revealed before the thin man.

In that instant, this old fox who had crawled and rolled in the wasteland for decades felt like his breathing was about to stop.

Memory metal flooring, white as snow and without any visible seams!

Cold light source illumination that emitted a soft glow without any flickering!

Extremely sturdy and precise all-metal tables and chairs!

But none of these were what made him feel the most fear.

His gaze was nailed to a simple weapon rack on the side of the hall.

There, several greatswords and greataxes, covered in nicks and rolled edges, were placed casually.

On those crude metal edges, a thick layer of pungent-smelling, sickly green blood was smeared!

The thin man's cold sweat poured down instantly, soaking through his back in a heartbeat.

As a scavenger who frequently operated on the northern fringes, he was all too familiar with the smell of this blood.

This was Ork blood! And judging by the amount of blood, it definitely wasn't left by the lowest-level Squigs or Gretchins!

“They... they actually went out and hunted an adult Ork today?!”

The thin man's brain buzzed frantically.

He recalled how, just moments ago outside, he had actually thought about bringing a dozen broken guns to rob this group of lunatics who could trade blows with Orks! This was simply like the God of Longevity hanging himself—tired of living.

The slight trace of contempt and the crooked thoughts of 'black eat black' in his heart were completely and cleanly wiped away upon seeing that sickly green blood!

In their place was humble fear and awe.

“Gulp.”

The thin man swallowed hard and squeezed out a smile that looked worse than crying, cautiously glancing around:

“My... My Lord, your camp is truly amazing. How come... I don't see any other residents or guards?”

Lin Li turned around, his deep black eyes staring at him coldly.

“Don't ask what you shouldn't ask.”