Chapter 262: Hive Riot, the Arrival of the Final Bird!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
First came the twisting of the doorknob, then violent pounding on the door.
Outside, there were three strange insects and two others. With less than one-tenth of his strength left, forget fighting five of them – even taking on just one would be tough.
If it weren’t for his condition stabilizing a bit, he’d probably be coughing up blood just from running.
Plus, the passage was so narrow. If Hilde opened the door, he’d be dead for sure, with no chance of escape.
What worried the audience in Hans Country the most was that he had already used his last half bottle of disinfectant while in the sewers.
So, he had entered the wrong room at the wrong time, without any solutions left.
Basically, this round was considered a guaranteed death.
Many viewers in Hans Country couldn’t bear to watch the moment of his death and switched to other tier’s chosen ones, finding some comfort in seeing their miserable states.
The expert panel also couldn’t find any possibility of his survival. Even among his own supernatural faction, quite a few people had started praying for him.
After all, Hilde had basically triggered almost every possible condition for death.
He didn’t have to die, but he was just too bold and skilled for his own good, and incredibly unlucky on top of that.
He might not rank first among chosen ones who died from being reckless, but he might be the most unjustly killed.
The pounding on the door grew more intense. It started as knocking, and now they were smashing it.
Boom!
A sharp forelimb, as sharp as a mantis’s arm, sliced a small tear in the door.
If you looked through that tear right now, you’d see a wide, eerie eye trying to squeeze in.
The eye was being pushed so hard, it seemed like it might bleed, but it still couldn’t get through.
So, the strange insect outside just let out a strange cry and continued smashing the door.
As the smashing got worse, many small tears appeared on the door.
Was Hilde just waiting to die? Of course not. Even if everyone on Blue Planet had given up on him, he hadn’t given up on himself.
But there was nothing here, he had no disinfectant on him. How could he survive?
Most importantly, there was no high place here either; he couldn’t climb up to think things through.
Got it!
Suddenly, Hilde started doing a strange pose – a handstand.
With his hands on the ground, his body was inverted in the room.
It seemed that as long as his feet left the ground, his intelligence returned.
The Hans Country audience saw him struggling and cheered him on.
But what’s up with this strange pose? Are you thinking those weird insects can’t see you if you’re upside down?
Do you think you’ll figure a way out just by standing on your hands?
Well, actually, yes, he could.
First, Hilde felt a ’round ball’ in his stomach drop downward.
Then two bottles of potion slid out of his pocket.
“Got it! I can survive!”
At the most critical moment, Hilde’s intelligence finally kicked in.
Combining the items in front of him with the changes in his body, he remembered a rule.
【Rule 7: The blue potion can quickly hatch eggs, and the green potion can quickly kill eggs.]
The rule only said the blue potion could hatch eggs quickly; it didn’t specify it only worked on insect eggs.
Didn’t he still have that strange crow’s egg inside him?
If he could just cough up that strange crow’s egg and then hatch the strange crow, he’d still have a glimmer of hope!
Don’t forget, strange crows are the natural enemies of these weird insects!
In the footage viewers initially didn’t understand why Hilde was constantly dry heaving.
But the expert panel realized that he had found the only possible way out!
Time was running out; the door seemed like it couldn’t hold much longer.
Hilde practically coughed up his own gall.
Finally, with a ‘pop’, he coughed out the strange crow’s egg.
He stopped doing the handstand and immediately turned on his flashlight, afraid of mixing up the blue and green potions.
If he poured the green liquid on the strange crow’s egg, it would be no different from suicide.
Under the beam of the flashlight, he found the blue bottle, quickly unscrewed the cap, and poured the potion onto the strange crow’s egg.
Soon, movement started inside the strange crow’s egg; it was shaking non-stop.
The rule said ‘quickly,’ but it didn’t say exactly how fast.
From the looks of it, it seemed like it might need a little more time to break through the shell.
Hilde actually felt the urge to try and crack the shell himself, but what if the thing inside wasn’t fully developed yet? What if he accidentally killed the strange crow by smashing it?
Wouldn’t he be shattering his only hope?
Thinking this, Hilde calmed down.
He didn’t stay idle during this time. Now that he saw a glimmer of hope for survival, he got up and started moving.
He took the tables, chairs, cabinets, bookshelves – basically anything he could lift – and piled them against the door to buy a little more time for the strange crow to break free.
Eerie cries came from outside the door, sending shivers down the spine. Those bug-men and weird insects seemed really angry.
Bam after bam, the pile of furniture at the door began to fall apart.
And just then, a crisp ‘crack’ was heard.
That sound was like heaven’s music to Hilde’s heart.
The strange crow was finally starting to break out of its shell.
Hilde remembered something – usually, when these baby birds open their eyes for the first time, whoever they see, they mistakenly think is their parent.
So he quickly came near the egg, waiting for the strange crow to arrive.
He watched the cracks on the egg grow bigger. As bits of broken shell fell to the ground, Hilde felt a thrill of excitement and anticipation, even more intense than when his own children were born.
After all, this was about his own life – how could he not be excited?
Gradually, more and more cracks appeared on the shell, like some kind of strange pattern, showing that it was no ordinary egg.
Finally, the shell broke completely, and a puff of black mist burst out from inside.
A small, black, strange baby bird with some peculiar colored feathers on its head appeared before Hilde.
This weird creature looked ready for battle right from birth, just like the strange insects.
The first thing the strange baby bird saw was, naturally, Hilde. Then it opened its beak and started chirping, as if it were very hungry.
It seemed to have taken Hilde for its parent and was waiting to be fed. That was its instinct.
Hilde looked a bit awkward, then pointed at the door and spoke in human language: “I’ve prepared the food for you over there, but whether you can eat it depends on your skills.”
The strange baby bird seemed to feel challenged, or it was genuinely very hungry.
The moment the door burst open, its eyes gleamed. It turned into a puff of black mist, let out a terrifying shriek, and swooped out.
The weird mantis leading the charge didn’t even know what hit it before it was instantly killed by the black mist.
“Whoa, is this little guy really this strong?”
Hilde was also a bit surprised. He was a supernatural being himself, with some ability to protect himself and judge the combat strength of strange creatures.
In his opinion, this strange baby bird seemed even stronger than the two he had controlled before.
Could it be, this bird was also the so-called ‘mutant’ type?
He wondered if it could match that strange beetle.
The fight outside the door lasted less than a minute. The strange insects and bug-men were all slain.
The strange baby bird seemed to love eating the weird insects but wasn’t very interested in the bug-men.
The audience and Hilde couldn’t understand it. How could a baby bird, no bigger than two palms, eat so much?
It wasn’t long before he had devoured three weird insects over a meter tall.
Hilde even gulped when he saw that. Of course, he wasn’t wanting to eat them; he was just a little freaked out.
After eating, the strange baby bird flew onto Hilde’s shoulder and rubbed its grime-covered body against his face, as if saying it wanted more.
This little thing had saved his life, so Hilde wasn’t about to act disgusted.
Just then, a bold idea popped into Hilde’s head.
“I wonder if the little guy could take on the mother insect?”
After all, this little creature was just born and already this powerful.
But he thought better of it. Based on the rules, the mother insect was probably something only the Final Bird could handle.
Besides, there were still plenty of other powerful strange insects in there. The few that had been chasing him were just grunts.
There were so many strange insects in the hive; even if he tired the little guy out, he couldn’t kill them all.
Having cheated death, Hilde decided not to push his luck. His supernatural faction already knew he’d done his best, so they wouldn’t blame him if he got out.
With that thought, he planned to head back the way he came and wait until he was cured of the poison.
Meanwhile, the other, more cautious teams were still advancing towards the underground reservoir.
Zhang Yangqing had been thinking about the use of the green potion all along.
Since the Horror Tale World mentioned it, it probably wasn’t just a pointless item meant to confuse, right?
Suddenly, he thought of a so-called ‘variable.’ Could it be that in this level, the two children from that family of four were the variables?
What was their purpose in entering the hive? Could it be just to act as guides?
Remember, the further you go in the Horror Tale World the harder the hidden missions become.
When he last cleared a Horror Tale, Zhang Yangqing had also watched the completion routes of other chosen ones.
Specifically, he watched the recording of Rahman, the chosen one from the Pyramid Country.
Zhang Yangqing wanted to know what kind of traps a regular, ordinary person might encounter.
After all, he had directly killed an angel last time, and at its full strength. All his defenses were maxed, so he didn’t really feel the danger.
It was different now. With less than one-tenth of his strength, there were some things he really needed to consider.
If Rahman ever found out that Zhang Yangqing watched his recording, he would be incredibly excited and feel immensely honored.
After all, among all those who cleared Horror Tale, most of them regarded Zhang Yangqing as a god of completion.
Even if some people wouldn’t admit it out loud, one look at their viewing history would show they re-watched Zhang Yangqing’s completion recordings over and over.
Zhang Yangqing still remembered that the hint on Rahman’s side was that ‘humans’ were enough to kill the ‘angel’.
But there would be a certain twist. It was best to know the angel’s abilities beforehand; otherwise, if you didn’t notice the anomaly in the end, you might fail the mission or get parasitized by the angel.
Thinking of this, several hypotheses formed in Zhang Yangqing’s mind.
The Final Bird’s combat power was definitely above the mother insect’s. But if he didn’t deal with a certain special egg, that egg might prevent him from completing the mission.
Perhaps that was the meaning of the green potion.
As for which egg, Zhang Yangqing guessed it was the one that couldn’t be destroyed by normal means.
What was Zhang Yangqing’s advantage now?
Naturally, it was that he had six helpers and carried more than six times the amount of potion as other chosen ones!
Along the way, Zhang Yangqing shared his guesses.
The one-eyed kid could understand, but it gave the other teammates a headache. They wanted more detailed explanations.
But Zhang Yangqing didn’t plan to explain further. According to him: “With your IQ, it’s hard for me to explain clearly.”
So he just casually said: “Whatever doesn’t seem right to you, just pour potion on it.”
In short, go by your gut feeling, don’t bother using your brains.
After all, I’m not expecting you guys to achieve much; it’ll be good enough if you don’t cause trouble for me.
The lone wolf guy and the three nurses finally relaxed. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? Then we get it!”
The further they went in, the greater the danger felt.
The walls around them were covered in slime and grime. It seemed the strange insects weren’t in the habit of cleaning house.
At first, they just complained about how dirty it was, but soon they were truly inside the hive.
There wasn’t just one path here; there were other passages branching off.
The end of the path led to a fairly large area – the location of the mother insect.
Up ahead, quite a few strange insects were already on guard, making it impossible to go further.
The chosen ones could also see a mountain of food and an endless stream of strange insects carrying more food over.
It looked like the mother insect had a pretty big appetite every day.
Following the plan, the chosen ones entered a nearby room and hatched a strange insect that looked powerful.
Then they commanded it to put the black-sticky-liquid-covered black oranges into the food pile guarded by the other strange insects.
After doing all this, the chosen ones planned to quickly get out and wait for the Final Bird to arrive, not daring to stop for a moment.
At this point, the only chosen ones from the first tier still in the hive were Zhang Yangqing and Grecko.
Grecko had a similar problem. He felt like something was wrong, but after thinking for a while without figuring it out, he decided to leave.
After all, he didn’t dare face the mother insect directly either. If discovered, the sheer number of strange insects swarming him would be overwhelming – he doubted he could escape even at full strength.
But on his way back, he encountered a fork in the road.
The chosen ones had come in from the left path, so taking the left way would lead them out.
The right path was clearly not dug by humans, but by the strange insects. There were rooms along this path too, just not as finely made as human ones.
They hadn’t noticed it on the way in, but now on the way out, not only Grecko but also the other supernatural beings noticed something unusual.
There were some clothes along the side of this path.
Bug-men wore clothes, so finding clothes here wasn’t that strange. But what truly surprised the chosen ones was that they had seen these clothes before.
Yes, they were the clothes of the couple’s children, which the chosen ones had seen inside the temple.
Grecko braced himself and went forward to check. He also found a crow mask, shoes, and so on.
It seemed those two kids were indeed the ones.
Following the trail of discarded clothes, Grecko arrived at a room without a door.
It was pitch black inside, but when he shone his flashlight in, Grecko’s heart skipped a beat.
“Oh no, the really formidable eggs are here.”
Under the light, the room was in complete disarray. It looked like something had eaten its way through here.
Yes, the floor was littered with the remains of strange insects.
It looked like they had been eaten by other species before they even had a chance to hatch.
And in the room were two insect eggs covered in strange patterns. Nearby these two eggs were two shriveled, dried-up human skins.
From the traces on the skins, you could vaguely tell they were a man and a woman.
Grecko could roughly deduce that the bug-men children of that couple were likely special, strange parasitic insects.
These parasites could grow stronger by controlling or eating powerful creatures.
Now, these two parasites had already eaten quite a few powerful strange insects here, then shed their humanoid skin and flesh to revert to the form of insect eggs, waiting to hatch even stronger.
Creatures from the same faction usually didn’t devour each other, but since these two were outsiders, that rule didn’t apply to them.
There were many powerful eggs in here. If allowed to keep devouring and evolving,
they might eventually evolve into new mother insects or special parasitic types.
This was probably the biggest variable in this Horror Tale World.
But Grecko only had one bottle of green potion, which could only destroy one insect egg.
He should have just used one bottle to hatch an insect here and the other to kill an egg, instead of summoning that random strange insect earlier.
The most correct answer would have been to hatch one here and destroy one here.
“One blue bottle, one green bottle – were they meant for the boy and girl of that couple?”
Grecko sighed, as if he finally understood.
Unfortunately, knowing this now was too late. Going back to the well to fetch water would take a lot of time, not to mention the dangers on the way.
He couldn’t exactly go to the mother insect and report that her eggs were being eaten by outsiders.
The mother insect would probably eat him first, then go deal with the other bugs.
So he could only choose one at random and pour the green liquid on it.
As he poured, he secretly hoped it was strong enough – that half a bottle would suffice.
But unfortunately, he had to pour the whole bottle before the egg even started to dissolve.
As for the other egg, he commanded his strange insect to devour it, but not only couldn’t it devour it, it couldn’t even damage it.
Grecko had half-expected this. The bridge level earlier seemed to hint at something like this.
If it could be destroyed, the Horror Tale World probably wouldn’t have reminded the chosen ones to use the potion.
His only option now was to get out quickly and find a doctor who could cure the virus so he could, like last time, fight alongside the Final Bird.
He just hoped the Final Bird would take its time to arrive.
But the Horror Tale World might not give them that chance.
Because Grecko noticed that the eggs in nearby rooms were pulsing faster and faster, as if summoned by something.
That “thump, thump, thump” sound seemed to echo throughout the hive.
It was like they were about to hatch. Realizing this, he immediately ran out.
Here, chosen ones who brought more potion definitely had the advantage.
Those who had wasted potions earlier generally had similar ideas to Grecko.
But Zhang Yangqing didn’t have this problem. He had many subordinates, so he could just casually use two bottles to deal with the so-called hidden dangers.
After the chosen ones finished their poisoning mission and started running out from inside, it was around 7:30 AM.
They were, understandably, a bit anxious, fearing the Final Bird might strike at that moment.
But something even more worrying happened – the eggs nearby actually started hatching!
Sweat beaded on the chosen ones’ foreheads. They sped up, frantically commanding their strange insects to fight a bloody path, trying to get out before the eggs fully hatched.
Otherwise, with tens of thousands of pollution-carrying strange insects appearing, their chances of survival would be zero!
“Damn, so the eggs hatch this morning! That means if we hadn’t come to the hive first and looked for the doctor to cure the poison instead, we wouldn’t be able to complete the hidden mission!”
Many chosen ones cursed. The Horror Tale World was giving them extremely tight deadlines.
After they all got out, behind them they could already see waves of strange insects surging out of the hive. They were like a terrifying, dark ocean, carrying a fearsome aura, wanting to devour every living thing in sight.
The sight was enough to make anyone’s skin crawl. They wanted to get away from this place as soon as possible, or they’d be reduced to bones within minutes.
But just then, an even more horrifying aura rose up.
Accompanied by a earth-shaking bird cry that made all living creatures dizzy,
a gale swept through, directly blowing away the dark red haze.
A gigantic black creature appeared in the sky. No matter who looked at it, their pupils would instantly contract.
That majestic aura caused every living thing to feel an extreme sense of shock and awe!
The Final Bird of the Horror Tale World had arrived!
