Chapter 85: Chapter 82: Enemies on a Narrow Road In a small town in the southern region of Holy Grail Island, figures occasionally darted through the streets.
Sometimes, even when two teams met head-on, they wouldn’t immediately start fighting. Instead, they would stare each other down before both sides backed away.
The chaos had been worst when everyone was first dropped onto the island. As time passed, the teams that had yet to be eliminated became exceptionally cautious.
Aside from a few teams whose overall strength far surpassed the rest, most now adhered to the principle of "don’t fight if you don’t have to."
After all, no one knew what items or abilities the other side had. Just when you thought your team was guaranteed to win, the opponent might suddenly pull out some strange item and turn the tables.
That was why many teams now steered clear of others, only truly fighting it out when competing for a discovered supply crate.
Even then, they couldn’t get too invested, lest a third party take advantage of the conflict. It was a common sight: two teams fighting to the death over a supply crate and taking losses, only for a full-strength third team to appear and clean up the leftovers.
However, a few teams took the opposite approach, aggressively "clearing the field."
SHK!
Inside a stone house, a sharp curved saber pierced the chest of a squad’s final member, signaling their complete elimination from the game.
The man holding the curved saber snorted. "Only 4 points. What a piece of trash."
A kill awarded a fixed 1 point, and the other 3 were plundered from the defeated player’s score. This meant the victim had only managed to defeat three people.
"Captain, this area is clear. No other teams," a man said as he entered the room.
The man with the curved saber nodded, his voice laced with an undeniable anxiety. "To the next area!"
If Guan Tong were present, he would have recognized the man by his curved saber alone. It was the very same squad leader he had confronted in the industrial park.
His name was Gu Fei.
The Apocalypse Rules Strategy Research Room had invested resources into creating five elite squads, and Gu Fei was the captain of the third.
He’d been furious ever since the mission to eliminate the Screamer had failed.
It wasn’t just his failure to kill the Screamer. After that particular Apocalypse Rule had ended, the local armed soldiers in Yunhua had filed a collective complaint against him, accusing him of abusing the authority granted by the Strategy Research Room and ordering them to carry out unsanctioned operations.
A collective complaint from soldiers was no laughing matter. The head of the Strategy Research Room, Gao Liangwei, was a former senior colonel himself and took such incidents extremely seriously.
Although Gu Fei hadn’t heard it firsthand, Dr. Zhang, who was responsible for selecting them, had passed on the news. Because of the complaint, Gao Liangwei was deeply disappointed in the third squad and was already entertaining the thought of disbanding them.
Panic had seized Gu Fei upon hearing the news.
He knew he couldn’t accept being disbanded. After enjoying the many perks of being an "Official Team," it was hard to go from riches to rags.
’Just imagine,’ he thought, ’if I’m no longer the captain of the third squad, will I still have multiple professional researchers studying item combinations for me? Will I still have tens of thousands of Sublimation Coins invested in me?’
The mere thought terrified Gu Fei. He couldn’t afford to fall from his position. Therefore, he had to place in the top three of this competition. He had to take first!
Gu Fei did a quick mental calculation. Since landing, his squad had been constantly moving toward the most populated areas. They had already eliminated over twenty teams, accumulating a total of more than 300 points.
’But that’s not enough!’ he thought. ’I have to eliminate more. It would be best to wipe out every team but my own!’
The other members of the squad understood Gu Fei’s mindset; they felt the same way. If the higher-ups decided to make cuts, the entire team would be disbanded, so everyone had a stake in this.
After clearing the small area, the third squad immediately headed to the next section of town.
Upon arrival, the team members spread out, each taking out and activating a Small Reconnaissance Drone.
Several drones flew into the air, scanning for human targets within a hundred-meter radius.
As an officially funded team, every member was loaded with items, from drones to Lock Openers. They had dozens of drones in particular, all for the purpose of finding people to fight as quickly as possible.
Soon, a few members returned to report the scan results to Gu Fei.
"We’ve detected over a dozen people to the east, and only one to the south."
"A lot of people to the east," Gu Fei said, licking his lips. "I’ll take three men and clear them out. Jianming, you go and take care of the straggler to the south."
"Yes, Captain."
The two groups split up. The team member named Jianming soon arrived outside a three-story mud-brick building. According to the drone’s scan, the target was inside.
He took out his Psychic Power item: a crossbow.
Before the Apocalypse Rules began, he was an advanced member of an archery club with considerable skill. After their arrival, he acquired this crossbow, which could consume Psychic Power to generate crossbow bolts of impressive power.
It was thanks to this crossbow that he served as the team’s second attacker, their secondary damage dealer.
Jianming crept toward the building’s entrance, crossbow in hand. He then used another scanning drone to get a real-time fix on the target’s exact position.
The scan showed the target on the second floor. Seeing the result, he immediately stepped onto the first floor.
Yet, the instant he stepped inside, a figure lunged at him from the left of the doorway!
Though caught off guard, Jianming’s reactions were fast. He immediately rolled to dodge the surprise attack.
Pushing himself up, he got a good look at his attacker. It was a red-eyed human who had been hiding just inside the door.
’No, that’s not a human,’ he thought. ’The drone didn’t pick it up at all! The pale red eyes... Is that a Living Dead from the previous Apocalypse Rule? Why is it here? Is it the effect of an item?’
"ROAR!"
Its first lunge having missed, the Living Dead roared and charged again. Jianming snorted and fired a Psychic Power bolt, instantly destroying the creature with a shot to the head.
Meanwhile, on the second floor, Guan Tong was searching for supply crates when he heard the Living Dead’s roar and instantly realized someone had arrived.
He had posted the Living Dead by the door after entering the building to guard against ambushes from the rear, ordering it to roar and attack anyone who came in.