Mu Shan glanced at the safe house still under construction behind her. The progress bar had just reached 1/3. There was no retreat now. She resolutely charged toward the riverbank.
The enemies drew closer and closer, but she never heard the sound of limbs scraping against the gravel. Instead, there was only the deafening hum of wings in mid-air.
“Buzz buzz buzz.”
Flying insects…
Mu Shan gripped the peashooter, her muscles tensing all over.
The riverbank was the [attack map] designated by the system. Even if the insect monsters could fly over the jungle, they had to move along the river.
But as the shadows grew nearer, Mu Shan gradually felt her scalp tingle.
It was a swarm of enormous… mosquitoes.
When it came to the insects humans hated most, mosquitoes undoubtedly took first place.
As a child, she often had nightmares of ping-pong-ball-sized mosquitoes chasing and biting her, a scene straight out of a horror movie.
Now that she was grown up, she had the system to thank for making those dreams come true.
Only these weren’t ping-pong-ball-sized. These venomous mosquitoes were as big as washing machines. Their proboscises were like water pipes. A single bite might not even wait for the venom to take effect before causing death by blood loss.
The mosquitoes swarmed densely, numbering nearly thirty—far more than she had expected. After all, when they first arrived at the safe house, there had only been seven of those highly resilient giant cockroaches.
The bamboo arrows she had sharpened were depleted in the previous attack. She had no time to set up new ones. Even the remaining traps had all been ruined by last night’s storm.
Mu Shan’s face grew heavy. She pulled a lighter from her pocket and flicked it. The flint scraped, and a small cluster of blue windproof flame burst from the top.
The distance wasn’t close enough yet.
In the sweltering heat, sweat dripped down one by one. She glared at the mosquito swarm blotting out the sky.
【Remaining survival time in instance: 10 seconds, 9 seconds…】
Upstream, only Yu Da, Catwoman, and Aunt Wang remained among the players. They must not have held back the majority of the insect monsters.
He Yuncong’s situation was unknown, but she had to buy time for Xia Xueqin and Zong Rui downstream.
She absolutely could not let the giant mosquito swarm drift downstream to the NPC Village!
【Remaining survival time in instance: 6 seconds】
When the distance closed to the limit—close enough for her to make out the mosquitoes’ exaggerated compound eyes and the black-and-white patterns on their legs—
Mu Shan took a deep breath, puffed out her cheeks, and blew hard toward the flame.
“Hoo—”
Starting from the tiny lighter, the originally blue flame expanded infinitely, instantly exploding into an orange-red sea of fire that blotted out the post-rain clear sky. It roared and surged toward the nearby mosquito swarm.
【You used the skill: Scorched Earth
Cooldown: 72h】
Without any accelerants, the high-temperature blaze burned from the ground to mid-air, turning into a layer of suspended, scorching “cloud.” The vast cloud layer engulfed the mosquito swarm in an instant.
She saw “fireworks” bursting in the sea of flames. The mosquitoes’ wings ignited, producing continuous “crackling” explosions.
Heat waves rolled. Mu Shan shielded her face with her elbow and retreated swiftly.
Just approaching that fire cloud made her hair curl rapidly, showing signs of scorching.
The sky-obscuring inferno withered the trees on both sides. Mu Shan stared intently at the “black shadows” churning in the fire. As the “crackle crackle” explosions faded, her heart rose… Could it really have wiped them all out in one go?
But that thought was slapped down the moment it formed. The giant mosquito swarm, charred black all over, clawed their way out of the fire using their six legs with unnatural tenacity.
Mosquitoes truly were hard to exterminate…
Though wingless now, their legs still dug powerfully into the ground, producing grating “crunch crunch” sounds.
These weren’t insect limbs—they were steel whips!
The lead giant mosquito monster was the most severely burned. Not only had it lost its wings, its compound eyes were sunken from the flames, its body covered in carbon ash, its antennae curled. It charged out purely on rage and instinct. Its slender, sharp proboscis pointed straight ahead, as if ready to pierce a human abdomen in the next second.
Dozens of giant mosquitoes charged madly, completely berserk.
Faced with this terrifying sight, Mu Shan steadied her trembling hands and fired the peashooter nonstop, maximizing her ranged attack efficiency.
Though the peas couldn’t pierce the shells, they could damage the soft compound eyes.
In mere seconds, the “rumble rumble” of their march reached her. The fastest giant mosquito lashed out with its long segmented limb. Mu Shan dodged sideways, and the limb smashed the tree behind her.
In the flash of an instant, she swapped the peashooter for the laser sword.
The sword light slashed horizontally. The insect monster’s shell, which neither battle axes nor bullets could breach, was cleanly severed by the pink glow.
With its front leg shortened, the giant mosquito monster lost balance and crashed to the ground, emitting an enraged hiss from its mouth.
Even Mu Shan was startled by the destructive power.
The laser sword was more accurately a lightsaber, operating on plasma cutting principles—far beyond traditional iron or gunpowder weapons.
But with just her and one sword, holding off thirty giant insects was basically impossible.
Mu Shan gritted her teeth, tore the last two talismans, and charged into the swarm wielding the lightsaber.
【Gained temporary speed boost (30 minutes)】
【Gained temporary defense boost (30 minutes)】
Mu Shan used every means at her disposal. Apart from the life-saving summoning scroll, she deployed all sorts of items: using the Nine Linked Rings to trap insect monsters one moment, banana peels to trip them the next.
Even so, she never dared venture into the center of the mosquito swarm. She kept circling the periphery, kiting the enemies.
The giant mosquito monsters’ steel-whip-like limbs scraped the ground.
Sand and soil flew, blotting out the sky.
【Player successfully killed Giant Insect Monster (Diptera) x2
Coins +100】
At first, riding the flames’ residual power, Mu Shan could still take down two of the weak and wounded ones. But later, whenever she attacked one, the surrounding giant mosquitoes swarmed to aid it, preventing her from isolating any.
They were… forming a battle line.
“Ah!”
Mu Shan thrust her sword fiercely into a giant mosquito’s compound eye, shoving with all her might. Fetid yellow pus splattered instantly. But just as the kill notification appeared, her sword hand went limp, and she nearly collapsed to the ground.
Bad—stamina at its limit!
She had barely slept battling the storm all last night. Now her vision blurred with phantom shadows.
Mu Shan blinked hard to dispel the surging fatigue. She gritted her teeth and fell back. The three nearest giant mosquitoes promptly surrounded her again.
Their eyes burned out by the fire, they relied purely on sound and scent to locate her. But even with that handicap, Mu Shan couldn’t protect herself amid a mass monster assault. She was easily nicked by legs, antennae, and proboscises.
She could only retreat into the forest.
Compared to the flat riverbank, the dense trees and underbrush in the forest slowed some giant mosquitoes. Unable to fly, they crawled on their legs, noticeably lagging.
Mu Shan kept changing direction, occasionally turning to fire a cold shot, maintaining the aggro.
After about ten minutes at this pace, the distant giant mosquitoes began entering “disengage” state one after another.
They crawled swiftly back to the riverbank, continuing toward the NPC Village downstream.
Only the remaining three mosquitoes dogged her relentlessly.
With the buffs from new skills and weapons, dragging six giant insects was already her limit.
She laboriously raised her arm. Her tiger’s mouth trembled uncontrollably; she could barely hold the laser sword.
The peashooter had only ten shots left before cooldown.
Mu Shan took a deep breath.
“Pew—pew pew—”
Three peas burst one giant mosquito’s compound eye. Yellow slurry sprayed. It crashed down, trampled into paste by the two behind it.
A drop of hot sweat stung her eye. Mu Shan blinked, and suddenly rows of system prompts appeared in her vision.
【Player handgun proficiency maxed, unlocked title: Peace Elite
Peashooter upgraded to—Gatling Shooter
Fires 3 peas per second
Damage +15%
Cooldown -20%
(Player crit skill special effect: Crit chance +50%)】
The originally green little handgun transformed amid a glow. The barrel elongated and thickened. Still green, it now resembled a rifle.
A small yellow flower bloomed abruptly on the barrel, swaying softly and beautifully in the wind—like a flower of peace blooming in the wasteland.
Mu Shan shouldered the gun, sighting the giant mosquito’s terrifying head through the scope with her right eye. She gently pulled the trigger. The little yellow flower quivered, and in the next instant, peas fired at extreme frequency.
“Pew pew pew—bang!”
Three peas struck the mosquito’s head in the same spot. The final one exploded in a tiny firework. The crit effect dropped the giant mosquito dead.
Only one left!
The insect monster’s proboscis sliced like a scythe, shredding the already chaotic forest into fragments.
In the blink of an eye, it was less than ten meters from Mu Shan.
She pulled the trigger rapidly… silence. Out of ammo at the critical moment!
Mu Shan turned and bolted without hesitation.
One person and one insect engaged in a desperate chase.
Two legs couldn’t outrun six. As the giant mosquito closed in, the two zombie workers guarding near the safe house lunged to help, only to be impaled through the abdomen.
Its proboscis was like a steel pipe. The mosquito instinctively sucked, but the zombie’s blood had long congealed and dried. It got only a mouthful of rotten flesh.
The enraged, starving giant mosquito monster flung the two zombies aside.
But by then, Mu Shan had reached the safe house.
【Construction progress 100%】
The moment the prompt sounded, the tarp covering the sunroom vanished. She sprinted the final stretch, flung open the entrance door, and dove inside the walls in a prone crash.
The gate had just closed when the insect monster arrived the next second.
The charred-black, deformed, terrifying giant mosquito loomed larger and larger. Mu Shan, sprawled on the ground, looked back and met the reflection in its compound eye.
She shielded her face with her elbows.
The next instant, blinding electric light flashed.
“Zzz—”
The giant mosquito slammed into the wire mesh outside the sunroom. Sparks erupted across its body. Purple current danced around it, its black limbs twisting and shuddering in mid-air.
After seven or eight seconds of intense electrocution, everything went dark.
The air filled with the stench of burnt char.
Mu Shan lowered her hands from her head and looked up at the mosquito corpse hanging on the high voltage grid at her home’s entrance.
—All mosquitoes were doomed to the fate of the electric mosquito swatter.
【Player successfully killed Giant Insect Monster (Diptera) x4
Coins +200】
Mu Shan climbed to her feet, nearly collapsing from exhaustion.
She had just set up the defensive formation flags in the sunroom and infused 10 coins of defensive power into the central array eye when she heard someone calling her from outside.
“Shanshan—!”
Wang Ruizhi, Li Gang, and Yu Da arrived from upstream, dusty and travel-worn. Because of the Scorched Earth skill effect, they couldn’t take the riverbank and had detoured through the forest.
Mu Shan went out to meet them. “How did you all get here?”
Wang Ruizhi wiped sweat with a towel. “We wanted to chase the mosquitoes all the way. My son called it ‘mobile turret tactics,’ but they flew too fast, and we couldn’t catch up.”
Li Gang counted the corpses around. “You killed four, five?”
Mu Shan: “Six. I burned off their wings; none should be able to fly.”
Li Gang gave a thumbs-up. “Impressive.”
Wang Ruizhi: “Come on, let’s follow the insect monsters and check downstream. I have a bad suspicion.”
Even crawling, the giant mosquitoes moved faster than humans on foot.
By the time Mu Shan and the others reached position 4, they saw the ground soaked as if it had just rained.
Xia Xueqin lay flat on the ground nearby, eyes tightly shut, face pale.
Not far from her was a pile of giant mosquito corpses corroded to mush by acid rain, impossible to count precisely.
Mu Shan jumped in fright and rushed over to support her upper body. “Xia Xueqin, are you okay?!”
Wang Ruizhi and the other two crowded over. Li Gang squatted down to take her pulse.
Xia Xueqin’s pink hair stuck to her neck in strands. She opened her eyes into a slit, her pale lips moved, and after a long moment, she uttered a few weak words.
Mu Shan lowered her head to listen carefully.
Xia Xueqin struggled to speak: “If I die, what about the balance in my housing provident fund account…”
Then her head lolled to the side, and she fainted.
Li Gang checked her breathing. “She seems to have just passed out from exhaustion.”
The group worked together to carry Xia Xueqin to the door of her own safe house and covered her body with several large leaves for shade.
Auntie Wang sighed. “Let her rest. We’ve all gone days without sleep; if our bodies can’t hold up, it’ll be disastrous.”
She didn’t dare curse the main god and could only mutter her impotent rage under her breath. “Today is insect monster attack day, and last night they deliberately unleashed that rainstorm. My sunroom was destroyed. I really don’t know if it was on purpose…”
Mu Shan patted her shoulder, and the two exchanged a glance.
“Being alive is good enough.”
“But how much longer can we live?” The middle-aged woman dropped her strong facade, revealing her weakness and fatigue. “The insect monsters are getting more numerous. Do you know how many there were in the insect swarm when it reached position 9 today?”
“A full fifty of them.”