44: Chapter 44 The Beginning of the Blood Sacrifice

Walking halfway down the corridor, he finally saw the corpse of Ockham, the once high-and-mighty leader of the Mountain Tribe.

This ruler, who was once arrogant and cunning in the wasteland, was now sprawled on the ground like a pile of trash.

His head had been brutally ripped off, along with his spine, and taken away by some monster.

"You old bastard, look at you now."

Black Rat gave Ockham's headless corpse a vicious kick, but he didn't linger, instead rushing anxiously toward the deepest part of the corridor.

"Lily... Lily..."

He kept muttering a name.

It was the only emotional anchor for which he risked his life in the wasteland.

Black Rat rushed to the room at the very end.

The door was wide open.

Black Rat's body froze abruptly.

The automatic rifle in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter.

On the soft bed in the room lay the... headless corpse of a young girl wearing a floral dress.

Blood stained the sheets red.

Black Rat stood blankly at the doorway, his whole body trembling violently.

He had killed, looted, and done every disgusting thing imaginable in the wasteland.

But at this moment, his mental support completely collapsed.

He stood at the doorway for a full ten minutes.

Then, without a word, he walked inside, wrapped the girl's body tightly in the bedsheet, held it close to his chest, and turned to go downstairs.

He walked out of the cave, which was like a living hell, found a sunny hillside in the wilderness, dug a pit with his combat knife, and buried the girl.

At this moment, desperate screams were still continuously coming from the residential area on the other side of the cave.

Black Rat wiped the dirt and blood from his face, picked up the automatic rifle again, and turned to leave the place.

Just then.

A large group of people suddenly surged out of the dark mine entrance at the bottom of the cave.

Black Rat raised his gun abruptly.

But when he saw who they were, he froze.

They were not the dark red muscle monsters from before.

Instead, they were a group of pitch-black, gaunt, ordinary miner slaves.

The heavy shackles on their feet had already been brutally smashed open.

They clutched blood-stained, rusty pickaxes in their hands. Although their eyes were bloodshot from extreme fear and exhaustion, they had not mutated.

This group of lucky survivors saw the fully armed Black Rat and his dark gun barrel, and they were all so scared that they stopped in their tracks, at a loss.

Black Rat looked at this group of his own kind, whose eyes were filled with despair.

He let out a long sigh and lowered his gun.

"Everyone above is dead, and Ockham is dead too. There are murderous monsters everywhere here."

Black Rat's voice was hoarse and weary, "If you want to live, run outside."

After saying this, Black Rat ran madly toward the southwest without looking back.

That was the direction of Fire Seed Shelter.

The slaves looked at each other, their eyes erupting with the ecstasy of escape.

They dropped the heavy pickaxes in their hands and, like a herd of startled antelope, ran for their lives behind Black Rat.

...

Fire Seed Shelter, second underground floor.

On a patch of open ground next to the arsenal workshop, a striking piece of equipment was placed.

That was the [Servitor Modification Bed] that the players had brought back from the Greenskin tribe that morning, bearing the gear-skull emblem of the Imperial Mechanicus.

Now, this very loyal machine had its underlying logic forcibly modified by STC-73, turning it into an operating table capable of custom prosthetic implantation.

"Beep—Neural connection successful. Prosthetic assimilation progress 100%."

Accompanied by a cold electronic prompt.

[ikun True Fan] was lying shirtless on the cold metal bed.

At this moment, six mechanical auxiliary arms, resembling octopus tentacles and exuding a metallic luster, had been forcibly implanted on both sides of his spine!

The entire modification surgery took less than an hour.

"Surgery complete. Carbon-based carrier has awakened." 73 hovered to the side and announced coldly.

Brother Kun opened his eyes abruptly.

He touched his back, feeling the six mechanical tentacles completely controlled by his own nerves, looking incredulous.

"Eh? Something's not right."

Brother Kun asked suspiciously,

"Such hardcore cyberpunk body modification, and it's even directly connected to the spine. Shouldn't I be in excruciating pain after the surgery? Why don't I feel anything?"

73's optical lens flickered:

"Of course it is because the great Creator, in order to prevent you fragile clones from dying of pain shock on the operating table, has significantly lowered your pain threshold in the underlying protocol, you idiot."

Brother Kun didn't care at all about being scolded by the AI.

He excitedly climbed off the modification bed.

As a result, as soon as he landed, because he hadn't fully adapted to the extra weight on his back and the brand-new neural feedback,

"Plop," he fell face-first in a very pathetic manner.

"Damn! Damn!"

Brother Kun struggled on the ground for a long time, and finally, relying on those six mechanical tentacles to support the ground, he wobbled up like a monster.

"Hahahaha! I've really become Doctor Octopus! My work efficiency is going to take off!"

Brother Kun laughed wildly, stumbling toward the elevator, unable to wait to go to the surface camp to show off to his brothers.

In the control room.

Suddenly, 73 issued a prompt.

"Great Creator. From the northeast, people from the Mountain Tribe seem to have come again. There are many of them, and they are in a state of panicked flight."

"They're here again?" Lin Li frowned, a trace of doubt rising in his heart, "What on earth is that old fox Ockham up to now?"

He immediately put on his trench coat, grabbed his war halberd, and took the elevator to the surface camp.

Just as he stepped out of the gate.

Lin Li saw Black Rat bringing a large group of ragged, gaunt slaves, who were sprawled on the sand outside the camp, panting heavily.

The surrounding players had long since caught wind of it and gathered around in a circle, watching like they were looking at monkeys.

"New plot is here! Come over and watch!"

"Oh, Brother Kun, stop messing around with those broken claws of yours, hurry up and come watch the plot!"

"How did you know I just installed six awesome mechanical hands?" Brother Kun shouted, waving his tentacles outside the crowd.

"Get lost! You're blocking my view of the CG!"

Lin Li ignored the players' silly interactions and strode in front of Black Rat.

When he saw the extremely high-quality Kevlar bulletproof armor on Black Rat, and the indelible terror and dried blood on his face, Lin Li's brows locked tightly together.

"What's going on?" Lin Li's voice was cold.

When Black Rat saw Lin Li, it was like seeing a straw to save his life; he scrambled over, looking honest and filled with grief and indignation.

"Lord Dawn! Help! The miner slaves launched a rebellion, they killed leader Ockham, and they killed all the guards! I risked my life to escape, and I want to join you!"

Lin Li looked at him with great suspicion, then pointed to the group of miner slaves behind him who were equally terrified:

"And them?"

"They also escaped during the chaos, not knowing where to go, so they just followed me here."

Black Rat's eyes flickered a bit.

Lin Li snorted coldly.

He turned and walked toward the group of slaves, asking a few people who seemed relatively clear-headed in Gothic.

The answers he got were about the same as what Black Rat said:

A riot occurred deep in the mine, many people died, and they smashed their shackles and ran out while the guards were fleeing.

But Lin Li's keen intuition told him that there was definitely something fishy about this!

"If these miners, who couldn't even get enough to eat, could so easily overthrow the fully armed elite guards, they would have launched a rebellion and won long ago! Why wait until today?"

Lin Li calculated secretly in his heart, his eyes sweeping over the group vigilantly.

Just then.

[Use Fire Punch], who had been silently watching the plot from the side, suddenly frowned and reached out to rub his still-aching temple.

"Strange..."

Flame Fist muttered in a low voice, "These people... have a familiar, sickening feeling about them."

Hearing this from the mage.

The alarm bells in Lin Li's heart rang loudly!

Flame Fist was someone who had come into contact with Warp power, and his intuition could absolutely not be wrong!

"Hum—"

Almost at the same second!

Lin Li's high-level pv terminal suddenly popped up an extremely glaring blood-red window!

[Challenge Mission Triggered: Purge the Corruption!]

[Warning! The tentacles of the Warp Chaos God (Khorne) have already reached this wasteland! Irreversible demonic aberration has occurred in the core area of the Mountain Tribe!]

[Objective: Before the veil of reality is completely torn and a terrifying Greater Daemon appears, completely eliminate all mutants contaminated by Chaos!]

[Reward: 1000 Core Points!]

Lin Li looked at the words on the screen, his eye twitching violently, his back instantly soaked in cold sweat.

"Chaos?! Blood God Khorne?!"

Lin Li cursed inwardly, "It's only been a few days since the start! How has the difficulty of this damn planet skyrocketed?!"

Lin Li stared at the disheveled Black Rat in front of him, and the shivering miners behind him, his eyes icy.

The Black Stone Matrix calculation still needed more than twenty hours.

The Shelter currently had no physical protection against Warp energy.

At such a critical juncture, taking in this group of people who had just escaped from a Chaos contamination source was no different from planting a time bomb in his own home.

No one could guarantee whether there were any hidden infected among this group who had been corrupted by the whispers of the Chaos God.

If a bloodthirsty Bloodletter suddenly popped out in the Shelter hall in the middle of the night, that would be a huge disaster.

"I know very well what you are hiding." Lin Li spoke, his voice devoid of any warmth.

Black Rat shuddered, and just as he was about to open his mouth to quibble, Lin Li raised his hand to interrupt him.

"Now, take your people and go to the dry riverbed on the east side of the camp to set up a temporary camp. Without my permission, no one is allowed to come within half a step of the Shelter's main defensive line."

Black Rat's face changed.

The eastern riverbed had no cover.

At night, not only would there be bone-chilling radioactive winds, but there was also the constant possibility of attacks by mutated beasts.

But this was still much better than going back to that mine full of bloodthirsty demons.

For them, the bottom-dwellers of the wasteland, being able to live one more day was a win.

"Yes, yes. Everything is as you command, my lord." Black Rat nodded repeatedly, and like a shepherd herding sheep, he led the group of terrified miners toward the east.

"Rein, take a few soldiers and give them some food."

"Yes, my lord!"

After dismissing these potential hazards, Lin Li immediately turned and walked into the elevator, descending directly to the first underground floor.

He sat in front of the computer, his fingers typing rapidly on the keyboard.

Since the system had triggered a challenge mission, he had to cut off the source completely before the real Greater Daemon arrived.

This job, he could only let the players fill in with their lives.

At this time, at the surface camp, the players were still crowding around the six cool mechanical tentacles on Brother Kun's back.

Suddenly, the pv terminal on everyone's chest simultaneously popped up a glaring blood-red prompt.

[Challenge Mission: Purge Demons]

[Mission Brief: A terrifying demonic aberration has appeared in the Mountain Tribe. The tentacles of the Warp Chaos God have reached this wasteland.]

[Mission Objective: Go to the Mountain Tribe and completely eliminate all demons and mutants contaminated by Chaos.]

[Mission Reward: For every demon or mutant killed, gain 200 to 500 points.]

The camp was quiet for a moment.

Then, it erupted into a burst of fanatical cheers.

"Damn, zombie siege? Left 4 Dead Warhammer Edition?"

"Demonic aberration? Sounds exciting. Brothers, time to grind mobs."

"Forming a team, forming a team, four-person squad departing, need a tank."

The players were excited, but soon someone calmed down and calculated the economics on the ground.

Flash squatted on the sand, drawing circles with a stick, his brows locked in a frown.

"This isn't right, brothers, this time we don't have free bullets issued by the Shelter."

Flash looked up at the eager companions around him,

"Right now in the armory shop, a single 12.7mm bullet sells for 3 points. A single mob might only give 200 points."

"What if these aberrated monsters have thick blood and one hundred bullets can't kill one? Wouldn't we go bankrupt?"

The surrounding players gasped when they heard this.

"Damn, playing a game and there's an economic crisis too."

"Then what do we do, charge up with swords and fight the demons? Isn't that just feeding them kills?"

Liver Emperor rubbed his chin, a Flash of experienced pro-player shrewdness in his eyes.

"I have a plan."

The surrounding players immediately gathered around, pricking up their ears.

Liver Emperor pointed to the list in the armory shop:

"In our camp, aren't there a few rich players with a lot of points? Let them pool their money, or let everyone contribute, and just buy a few of those 2000-point medical exoskeletons."

"And then?"

"Then go to the construction machine, use the best materials, and make a two-hundred-catty, extra-large heavy shield."

Liver Emperor became more and more excited as he spoke, gesturing,

"Strength-based players who bought the exoskeletons can put on the equipment and hold this two-hundred-catty shield at the very front. The people behind can attack with spears and war halberds through the shield."

Miracle Walker's eyes lit up, and he understood instantly.

Liver Emperor slapped his thigh, "Now that everyone has finished fighting the Greenskins, levels are up, and strength and agility aren't low. As long as we coordinate well, cold weapons can definitely break their defense. The most critical point is that respawning only costs 20 points. Even if we get scattered and wiped out, it's still much more cost-effective than emptying a magazine of bullets."

"Makes sense. Not only can we save ammunition, but we can also steady our footing and test the strength of the monsters."

Miracle Walker gave a thumbs up, "Brothers, let's do it, let's form teams."

Soon, the players in the camp spontaneously divided into several large groups, preparing to set off tomorrow as soon as they logged on.

The core configuration was uniformly a tank player wearing a silver-white exoskeleton and carrying a heavy steel shield that looked like a blast door.

Behind the shield followed several melee DPS players wielding long-handled cold weapons.

Only a few rich players were in the back row holding guns, responsible for providing covering fire.