Fatal Shot

A Level-42 Elite Bladed Beetle larger than the others was sprinting on the edge of an abandoned commercial building. It moved very quickly in a straight line at a speed of more than 20 meters per second.

After sprinting for a distance, the four segmented legs used their strength to push off, producing four deep scratches on the surface as it leaped. Propelled forward by the impact, it moved like a dark red ghost to the higher roof on the right. However, just as it leaped into the air and put its sharp forelimbs on the edge of the roof, an armor-piercing bullet with a faint blue light suddenly whistled from below at a 30-degree angle. The shot hit its dark red right forelimb, which had just mounted the roof.

Bang!

The blue energized armor-piercing bullet was like a heavy hammer, interrupting the progress of its front limbs, which were covered by a layer of red armor. The body of the Elite Bladed Beetle suddenly lost its balance and fell toward the floor of the nearly 50-meter-high building. Nevertheless, it responded very quickly. Immediately ejecting its sharp dark red tail, it rolled toward a metal pole on the roof while flapping its half-degraded wings on both sides to support itself.

Bang!

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However, the shooter seemed to have already anticipated this. The next armor-piercing bullet, astonishingly, hit the center of its winding tail. After a snap, its tail was split in two.

Suddenly, the body of the Elite Bladed Beetle, which had lost all its support, fell straight down through the air. Sharp sound waves inaudible to human ears were emitted from its mouth with two jaw plates, and it simultaneously flapped its degraded wings, instinctively trying to save its own life.

However, its efforts were in vain because the third armor-piercing bullet, which also emitted blue light, was steadily closing in. During the Elite Bladed Beetle’s rapid fall, the bullet accurately hit the weak point in the head that was exposed in its struggling tumble.

There was a bang! The blinking blue bullet crushed its shell hard and sent blood splattering outward, sapping its remaining 3,200 HP with a red lethal damage value.

It took less than five seconds for the Elite Bladed Beetle to be reduced to a corpse, falling straight to the edge of the lower floor and crashing into a pile of mud.

Mu Zi who was prostrate and holding a grass-green military telescope in observation couldn’t help whispering, “Brother Feng, your skills are astonishing!”

The two of them were now in side by side, at the edge of a building. Here in the Level 30 area, a low-rise building not more than 10 meters high.

What they were doing now was sniping and killing monsters of Elite-grade and above. All of this was due to the provocation of “Young Master Lin,” who had made the older employees of Nightless City, such as Mu Zi and Orange, indignant.

When Feng Luo finally revealed his strength during the cleanup task in the afternoon, Mu Zi found that the shooting method of Feng Luo was absolutely superior to all the sniper players he had met before. Like Mu Wu, Mu Zi encouraged him to compete in the contribution point rankings.

After some strange inquiries about the reasons, Feng Luo now knew about the conflict between Nightless City club and the head office of Lu Conglomerate, and he learned some of the reasons. Considering that he had promised Mu Wu to do his best and that this did not conflict with his own idea of speeding up the cleanup process, Feng Luo put his heart into it during the afternoon and tried his best to score points quickly.

It was to the point that he was now ranked 51st out of more than 3,000 players and third among all Snipers. However, it was slightly regrettable that Young Master Lin—whose ID was discovered by Mu Zi to be “Prince Lin”—was ranked 33rd overall and fourth among Machine Gunners.

They were third and a fourth within their categories. Within their respective categories, Feng Luo had a higher rank (3rd, Snipers) than Young Master Lin (4th, Machine Gunners), who, as a Machine Gunner, had a Rare Level-45 machine gun. But overall, Lin’s total score was a bit higher than Feng Luo’s score. This was mainly because Snipers and Machine Gunners were totally incomparable in killing efficiency. Although the system converted points according to profession, there were only five Snipers in the top 100 players while there were 31 Machine Gunners.

Clearly, it was very difficult for other professions to challenge the position of Manipulators and Machine Gunners. But after some experimenting, the players had discovered a rule within the internal statistics system that provided extra bonuses for killing monsters above the Elite level and an even higher bonus for monsters above the Commander level.

No doubt it was too difficult to face Commander monsters. Feng Luo was cleaning up for an afternoon, and they were almost done with the Level 30 area. The only Commander they had met had been a Level-35 Mutant Mouse Commander. But there were undoubtedly a lot more Elite monsters. It was easier to find a few in the monster-dense ruins, especially when teamed up with Mu Zi, who had the Detection skill.

However, they had cleared up to the edge of the Level 30 area this afternoon, and if they went any further, they would step into the Level 40 area. The danger in this area was relatively higher, and now it was getting dark, so the team decided to stop. Some people would go offline to eat or rest in the rear section of the Level 30 area, preparing to continue the battle after dinner when it was completely dark.

Yes, some people had to stay for the fight tonight. Because some of the monsters in War only appeared in the evening, this procedure was unavoidable, which was a troublesome part of the 24-hour cleanup during the city-building process.

Fortunately, many players did not need to go offline because they used a virtual pod with special nutrients to provide for the body. They could even ensure that a player could be online for more than half a month nonstop.

Feng Luo and Mu Zi were these kinds of players. They were now taking the time to find some new Elite monsters and gather information from the Level 40 areas for the toughest battle yet, after dawn tomorrow.

After killing an Elite Bladed Beetle 200 meters away, Feng Luo asked Mu Zi beside him, “Mu Zi, was there any information on beetles at the headquarters?” As he spoke, he searched for new prey through the Eye of the Thunder.

As a Scout, Mu Zi had remained in constant contact with the command headquarters. In addition to uploading some useful information obtained by the team in battle, Mu Zi was also responsible for checking the information collected by other teams.

They had been cleaning up at Level 30 that afternoon, and the only beetle monsters they had encountered were the Bladed Beetle and the Gatherer Beetle. But some other teams had even cleared the edge of the Level 40 area or had encountered some other types of beetles in some special places, so they had obtained information about beetles that others did not know. Feng Luo was naturally very concerned about information on beetles.

“Well, there was a summary video,” said Mu Zi.

He linked his communicator and personal terminal and displayed some videos and beetle pictures he had downloaded from command to Feng Luo, explaining them.

“At present, there are six main types of beetles known. The gray Suicide Bombeetle can fly with high self-destructive damage, but its HP is very low, and it can be killed by long-range attacks. The brown Gatherer Beetle looks a little like a scorpion. It moves fast and has the ability to dig tunnels quickly. It steals the crystals dropped by monsters. The red Bladed Beetle has high attack power and speed, normal defense, and low HP, but it’s huge in numbers.

“These three beetles are the types we have encountered, and there are three other types of beetles that we haven’t encountered yet. The green-colored Spray Beetle can shoot venom from a distance. Any target sprayed with venom will suffer debuffs like attribute drops and corroded armor and energy shields. And the poison effects could be partially stacked! The white Energy Beetle is an energy-type defensive beetle. Their individual strength is weak, but they can link their respective energies together to form an energy barrier to prevent various flight attacks. This kind of energy barrier has a high defense value. Even when a mecha was attacked by mini Thundersnake missiles, it was directly blocked by an energy shield formed by hundreds of Energy Beetles.”

Mu Zi paused here to add his own opinion. “In fact, the beetles in these ruins do not have powerful individual abilities, but they have some sort of combination, and their strength in numbers can be quite scary. For example, the last type, a black beetle, is the Steel Beetle. It was discovered by the Roaring Dragon Mercenary Group’s squads, who first explored the Level 40 area of the district.”

Feng Luo was squinting. He revealed no significant expression on his face as he heard mention of the Roaring Dragon Mercenary Group.

“They have some crazy defense power. To break through a Level-40 ordinary Steel Beetle’s defense, four to five assault rifle shots need to hit the exact same spot. They produce a high-energy sound wave that causes sustained AOE damage. Although the individual damage isn’t high, it’s similar to the energy beetle. After stacking multiple attacks, it seems that some effect will occur that multiplies the damage. Not only that, but the Roaring Dragon Mercenary Group’s squads also met several Elite Steel Beetles and a Commander Steel Beetle.

“The Elite Steel Beetles were twice as strong defensively as ordinary Steel Beetles and had the added ability to deal sustained laser damage. The Commander Steel Beetle had some sort of energy shield on its body, which was much more powerful than a Manipulator’s energy shield. It could even withstand nearly 1,000 shots from a mecha’s six electromagnetic machine guns. Although this was partly due to the damage limit on Commander monsters, it was enough to show that the beetle was a challenge.

“Because there were many types of beetles in the Level 40 area other than the beetles mentioned, there were other beetles which also had reached Level 40. So, they won’t be able to survive in there for long. For the time being, they returned to the Level 30 area. They are going to wait until tomorrow, when they are all on the same schedule, and then enter at the same time. In addition, these beetles seem to be able to gain experience and improve their ranks immediately after killing players. Some players even witnessed an ordinary Bladed Beetle evolving to an Elite after a series of battles.”

“Rapid Evolution?” said Feng Luo.

In fact, this was the most significant takeaway that Feng Luo had gained from this intel.

Each beetle in the ruins had a special “evolutionary” ability to evolve from a Normal monster into an Elite, a Commander… or even a Boss. And each beetle had evolved to acquire new abilities.

Feng Luo recalled how, during the battle in Town of Exile, he had encountered a Level-45 Black Beetle Boss. It seemed to have displayed a total of five attacks. Compared to the energy shield of the Commander-grade monsters, the Boss’s energy cannon—which could kill Heavy Armor Warriors in seconds and completely destroy an energy military vehicle—was undoubtedly more powerful.

“In addition,” continued Mu Zi, “after comprehensive analysis, command suspects the existence of a beetle with reconnaissance capabilities because many teams in some areas have encountered sudden interference on their recon meters and have been attacked. But so far, no trace of them has been found yet.”

Mu Zi’s last bit of information revealed why his recon meter had frequently failed today.

Gatherer, Scout, Suicide Bombeetle, Bladed, Steel, Spray…

Feng Luo recalled the names in his mind and noted more and more connections to the interstellar Zergs, like Drones, Overseers, Scourges, Zerglings, Ultralisks, Vipers…

Of course, there were also differences. For example, the Energy Beetle did not seem to have a Zerg counterpart, but rather, a Protoss one.

After finishing his report, Mu Zi turned his head and suddenly gave out a soft “Hey!” while pointing to a location. “Look, Brother Feng. That’s Young Master Lin’s group that we met this afternoon. They seem to want to do something. Damn, that seems to be a Level 40 area over there!”

As a Scout, Mu Zi’s visual perception was no worse than Feng Luo before fusing with the evolutionary virus, so even in dim light, he could make out the identity of the group of players more than a 100 meters away.

“Huh?” Feng Luo raised his head, adjusted the direction of M110, and looked through the scope.