One day, the abnormal rise in temperature continued.
The air was already filled with an unpleasant smell, like rot mixed with scorching.
Leaves curled up, and many animals died from the unbearable heat. Insects crawled in and out of their bodies, absorbing the last bits of moisture and nutrients.
Although water sources were easy to find in the forest, such as streams or puddles everywhere, this water could not be drunk directly due to various impurities and bacteria.
Mu Shan had tried her best to avoid the sun while walking, hiding herself in the shadows of the leaves.
Players’ physical qualities had already improved significantly compared to ordinary people. They could endure more pain and had more ways to survive extreme weather.
But they were not gods after all; they still had to rely on sweating profusely through their skin to dissipate heat.
Mu Shan tilted her head back and poured the last drop of water from the bottle into her mouth. She licked her lips, screwed the empty bottle shut, and tossed it back into her backpack. Just reaching position 6 had already used up two 480ml bottles of water.
After walking a few steps with a tree branch as a crutch, a rumbling roar suddenly came from the forest behind her, continuous and growing clearer.
An earthquake again?
No, not an earthquake.
The ground did not shake, but trees along the path fell one after another at a visible speed. The broken trees crashed into the forest like waves breaking, creating a massive commotion.
It was as if something was charging straight toward her.
It was too late to escape. Mu Shan curled up and hid behind a tree trunk.
The thundering roar grew closer, with dust and leaves flying chaotically. Mu Shan protected her head and watched wide-eyed as a dirt-gray giant snake burst out of the forest, roaring and smashing through countless trees.
“Ao ao ao—” The giant snake was like a monster from mythology, its body comparable to a train.
Or rather, this snake was formed from sand and earth. Its massive body crushed the ground, with the edges of its snake form constantly turning into sand particles, only to reform endlessly.
Its eyes were pure stone, and its mouth was lined with cracked patterns. Two thick, long fangs resembled ivory.
Mu Shan watched as the giant snake twisted its head and stopped right in front of her, flattening the surrounding grass and trees beneath it. It opened its huge mouth and exhaled a blast of foul wind.
Mu Shan’s hair was blown into a mess. She lowered her hands from protecting her head and looked inexplicably at the giant snake that had “parked” in front of her.
“Shanshan.”
A person stood up on the snake’s head. He Yuncong spotted her and leaped down.
Only then did Mu Shan notice that two other people were already riding the giant snake: Zong Rui and Xia Xueqin. They sat in the middle of its body, but due to the vast size difference, they were obscured by its scales.
“Your face looks terrible.” He Yuncong squatted beside her, supporting her shoulders as he examined her nearly flushed face and pale lips. “The temperature is already sixty degrees now.”
Mu Shan closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder.
She understood what he meant.
“Don’t worry, I can manage.”
He Yuncong said nothing more. He supported her back with his left hand and scooped under her knees with his right, lifting Mu Shan in one motion and leaping onto the snake’s body.
The giant snake continued upstream, its thick body brutally ravaging the surrounding trees. Whether it was an illusion or not, after picking up Mu Shan, the snake’s speed clearly increased, its state one of indescribable urgency.
Unseen by anyone, lines of virtual text refreshed in midair.
【Special Reminder to Elite Player 7771
Your current instance main quest remaining: 2 days
Overall completion: Low
Side quest incomplete;
Resource collection no progress;
Personal abilities unchanged;
Please advance task progress quickly and achieve personal upgrade!】
【Reminder: Player upgrade is the only way out in the instance game】
【Elite Player 7771, do not disappoint the main god’s expectations】
He Yuncong ignored the system prompt before his eyes. His heart and gaze were filled only with one person.
He touched Mu Shan’s sweat-drenched forehead. “Feeling bad?”
The girl closed her eyes. Pressing against the snake’s cold scales helped lower her body temperature to some extent. “Much better now, bro. I can hold on.”
He Yuncong gazed thoughtfully at her forced endurance.
With the Sand Snake’s help, the players’ movement speed in the forest increased fiftyfold. Places that would have taken a full day on foot were reached in half an hour as the snake barreled straight through.
The seven players dismounted one by one.
Mu Shan looked at the unrecognizable jungle and found the rock pile where she had hidden before. She touched the scorch marks on the stone surface. “Let’s go; it’s right ahead.”
The traces of battle in the forest had been covered by earthquakes and storms, leaving only charred, twisted trees. The path leading to the valley had been burned into scorched earth, but its general shape was still discernible.
Zong Rui squatted by the path and touched a shattered clump that looked like “moss.” “Dead players?”
Mu Shan replied, “Players, and dead for at least half a year. When we saw them before, they were still intact humanoid shapes.”
The player corpses, resembling landscaping works, had been shattered by the earthquake and storm. Once they no longer resembled humans at all, the system would remove their markers. Without those cyber tombstones, the players’ last trace of existence in the instance was erased, reduced completely to dust.
Mu Shan pointed to the dark mountain ahead. “This man-made trampled path and the successive players prove that Stone Valley is an important place with key information.”
“Let’s go in and take a look.”
The group entered the valley in formation: Yu Da led, Zong Rui and Li Gang brought up the rear, Granny Wang and Xia Xueqin flanked Mu Shan on left and right, and He Yuncong guarded the back.
After passing through a narrow cave infested with bats, their view suddenly opened up.
The vast valley was the size of a standard eleven-man soccer field, with towering mountains overhead too high to see the tops of, layered with ancient giant trees.
The surrounding walls were not smooth, resembling a pyramid structure with layers of rocks stacked like enormous steps, barren of vegetation and uniformly grayish.
The ground was flat, with a dry riverbed winding through, devoid of any water.
But due to the uneven rocks, shadows filled every nook and cranny from top to bottom around the valley.
Li Gang had sharp eyes. He pointed to a corner. “Something’s over there. I’ll check it out.”
He transformed into Catwoman, landing on all fours and nimbly scrambling up.
Granny Wang cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Li Gang, what’s up there—?”
Her voice echoed endlessly in the vast valley.
Li Gang quickly responded, “Human remains, dead a long time—!”
“Landscaping again—?”
“No, just bones, all scattered—!”
Mu Shan was observing the surroundings when she heard this and froze. “Bones?”
Xia Xueqin also sensed something off. “Bone-Eroding Fungus only lets spores parasitize the body and suck people into moss; it wouldn’t crush them into bones.”
“You’re right; they didn’t die from the fungus. Maybe attacked by bugs, or…”
At that moment, Mu Shan suddenly heard a sound: the buzzing of wings.
“Did you hear…”
“What the hell is that!?”
The sunlight over the valley suddenly dimmed. Something blotted out the sky, like a dark cloud.
“Locusts.”
Wang Ruizhi gripped her knife tightly. “During locust plagues, these things devour crops down to nothing. Locusts this size would leave no bones after eating people.”
Xia Xueqin: “Well, now we know how those players died.”
Everyone drew their weapons, expressions turning serious.
The locusts descended like helicopters. Whether in individual combat power or defense, they far surpassed the previous mosquitoes.
They did not attack directly but hovered around with massive mouthparts, eyeing them predatorily, as if awaiting a command.
“About thirty of them.” Li Gang’s voice trembled.
“Our task is to fight locusts?” As soon as Zong Rui asked, everyone received the system prompt at almost the same time.
Mu Shan looked at the virtual dialog box before her.
【Player 537099, you have triggered the [Humid Heat Forest] side mini-game: Heart Locust Locust
Game limit: 20 minutes
Before countdown ends, players must destroy all stone blocks
Game success: Rewards
Game failure: Player death】
Xia Xueqin screamed in breakdown: “If I die, of course the game fails; no need to spell it out!”
Mu Shan vigilantly scanned left and right. Destroy stone blocks? How big?
They soon got their answer.
Amid rumbling rolling sounds, everyone’s attention was drawn over.
From the direction they came, a giant spherical stone about two meters in diameter
slowly rolled out from the pitch-black cave.
The stone ball was light gray with traces of moss growth on the surface. Though uneven, it did not hinder its accelerating speed.
Xia Xueqin’s gaze lifted higher and higher until she stared dazedly at the giant stone ball nearly half a meter taller than her. “This—so—big; how are we supposed to destroy it without explosives!”
The winding depression in the valley center, which they initially mistook for a “riverbed,” was no water-eroded trace but the stone ball’s track.
Rumble rumble.
The stone ball rolled along the depression, gaining speed bit by bit, barreling toward them with devastating momentum.
Mu Shan watched a thick tree branch on the ground get silently pulverized to powder under the stone ball. Humans were not much tougher.
She shivered.
At almost the same moment, the locusts in the sky activated as one, their huge compound eyes filled with hunger and desire as they flapped toward the humans in the valley.
【Countdown 19:59】
Everyone sprang into action.
Zong Rui drew the bamboo pole from her waist, speaking rapidly: “Yu Da, help me hold off the locusts. You all figure out how to destroy the stone block!”
【Player Zong Rui (Cleaner) uses skill: Clean Freak Syndrome
(Active) Increases own attack power in filthy environments, scaled to dirtiness
“Check… hygiene!
Or… deduct… points!”】
Zong Rui’s eyes glowed red. She gripped the bamboo pole, roared, and launched into a run with explosive leg power.
She leaped nimbly as if weightless, flipping into the air.
A locust flew over her head, but Zong Rui grabbed its limb. Her seemingly ordinary bamboo pole thrust upward with unnatural sharpness, piercing the giant locust’s abdomen instantly. Thick green juice splashed out, pouring to the ground.
The locust shrieked, veering wildly like a crashing helicopter. Zong Rui swung in midair, using superhuman physical prowess to borrow force from one locust’s back to leap to another.
Green blood bloomed everywhere she passed.
She was like a war machine in ultimate destruction mode, the true strength of an elite player.
Yu Da’s expression was grave as he rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a Blue Mushroom, swallowing it whole.
The next moment, his face twisted ferociously, skin turning blue. His upper body muscles swelled visibly like rising dough, bulking him up a full size.
Xia Xueqin: “Whoa, are you a blue elf or a blue giant?!”
Yu Da answered with a beastly rasp: “Ao ao ao—!!!”
He charged madly, leaped high, and grabbed the locust’s mouthparts top and bottom, ripping them apart with both hands—
Xia Xueqin ran toward the stone ball with Mu Shan and the others, glancing back repeatedly in shock. “Did you see that? Those two turned ground combat into air combat. Elite players are awesome!”
Li Gang pulled tools from his backpack, sweating profusely. “You’d better pray they hold out. I think we few can’t handle this ball!”
“Stop dawdling; the stone ball’s coming!”
Mu Shan quickly pulled out her upgraded machinegun shooter, aimed, and fired “bang bang bang” three shots in succession. The next shot’s pea triggered a critical hit, exploding a burst of sparks on the stone ball’s surface.
When the smoke cleared, a basin-sized dent was left on the stone.
Mu Shan frowned. It was too small.
“Aah!” Auntie Wang and the others charged forward with machetes, crowbars, and the like, putting all their effort into a fierce barrage of attacks.
People were so insignificant in front of the nearly two-meter-tall boulder, especially since the stone ball showed no signs of stopping and kept rolling forward.
Their flurry of actions around the crater Mu Shan had blasted out merely turned the round stone ball into something like the surface of the moon. Aside from some pits of various sizes, they had not damaged its core at all.
The stone ball continued rolling along its path.
“It’s limestone. The texture isn’t that hard. We can chip away at it.” A clear look of delight appeared on Li Gang’s face. “We still have 20 minutes! Let’s put some more muscle into it. We can definitely smash this stone to pieces!”
The three of them worked like miners, laboring furiously.
But Mu Shan lowered her gun and stopped wasting peas. He Yuncong stood behind her like a bodyguard who never strayed an inch, constantly staying vigilant against the giant locusts that got too close.
“This shouldn’t be how it is…” Mu Shan shook her head.
According to what Richard had said, the side quest minigame involved the stones going “bang bang.” The current situation did not match his description.
Unless…
As if confirming her guess, Li Gang’s raised voice came from not far away. “What’s going on? Why is there a second one?!”
A second stone ball slowly rolled out from the cave where the first one had emerged. It was also about two meters tall, with a size and diameter that seemed perfectly crafted by heaven. The only difference was that this stone ball was jet-black all over, its surface covered in layers of accumulated dust and moss from years past.
Li Gang and the others rushed to the second stone ball, trying to stop it. Their crowbars and machetes struck the stone surface, leaving only shallow marks.
【Countdown 18:23】
The first stone ball was covered in wounds, while the second one was merely scratched on the surface.
Before they could react further, a third and fourth stone ball rolled out of the cave amid rumbling sounds, heading downward.
This time, all of them stopped their attacks.
Mu Shan: “Have you noticed?”
Xia Xueqin turned her head, her teeth chattering. “Sister, don’t ask. Just tell us!”
“The valley floor isn’t level. The slope makes the stone balls roll faster and faster.”
“The locusts have sealed off the air routes, and the giant stones have blocked the ground paths. If we can’t clear the stage in 20 minutes, we might get crushed by the giant stones.” She paused. “Or eaten by the locusts.”
“We saw it just now. It’s impossible to damage these stones by hand, so the true intent of this side quest absolutely isn’t for us to chisel away at them with tools.”