Chapter 261: The early bird catches the worm, but the early worm gets eaten by the bird!
Seeing Zhang Yangqing act so decisively, the teammates next to him couldn’t help but take a couple of steps back.
They were truly afraid that if this big shot encountered danger, he might just unleash an all-around attack, and then none of them would survive.
This is probably what they mean by “when gods fight, mortals suffer.”
After Zhang Yangqing walked in, many Chosen Ones were still hesitating outside.
These Chosen Ones aren’t afraid of anything, except for emotional traps.
Zhang Yangqing didn’t know any of the storyline at all; he just skipped this whole part. Who would dare say anything to him?
Besides, he didn’t have any psychological burden, since he couldn’t hear them anyway.
Even if he did know, he wouldn’t care.
It’s not like he doesn’t have all these useful tools around him, right?
Gregori also thought about this couple. Even though they knew something was wrong with their child, they still indulged him.
They probably killed quite a few teammates along the way just to feed their child, didn’t they?
If you think about it that way, you can bring yourself to strike.
If you don’t do it now, it will be even harder to deal with them once they recover.
Except for one Chosen One, the others didn’t agree to their request. This is the final stage, and the rules don’t say I have to agree to your demands.
Some Chosen Ones just turned around and left, not wanting to get involved in this mess. After all, without the black liquid, they wouldn’t be able to beat the mother insect anyway. They figured it was better to find the hospital early and deal with the virus inside them.
They could figure out the rest after they were cured.
Most of those who were willing to go for the kill were the tough guys who had gotten their hands on the black liquid.
They had come this far, and they wouldn’t be satisfied just leaving now.
The resources were almost within reach; they couldn’t just give them up.
When the Chosen Ones entered through the entrance, they discovered that this abandoned reservoir was a whole different world.
Because of the wastewater discharged from the abandoned factory next to it, the water inside had long been polluted.
The strange insects growing in this place would probably have attacks that came with their own pollution debuff.
The mother insect probably knew this, so she chose this place as her nesting ground.
And within these complex tunnels next to the reservoir, some hidden rooms served as the insect nest’s base.
Pushing open the old doors, the Chosen Ones shone their flashlights inside and saw a sight that nearly made them vomit last night’s dinner.
There were lumps of strangely shaped flesh eggs, similar to what they had seen on the bridge.
These flesh eggs were nearly a meter tall and kept throbbing like hearts.
If there was just one, it wouldn’t be so bad, but the room was densely packed with them, even on the walls and ceiling.
It was a truly overwhelming sight.
If it weren’t for their crow masks, the smell alone would have made them throw up.
And it wasn’t just this room. After checking the nearby area, the Chosen Ones found that every single room here contained hundreds of these flesh eggs.
They had no idea how many rooms there were in total; there were over a dozen just in this vicinity.
And they had only explored the front area of the nest; they hadn’t even reached the deeper parts yet.
On the way, the Lone Wolf guy sighed, “If all these eggs hatch, it will be a huge disaster for the city. The city might even be destroyed.”
Some teammates strongly agreed with him. After all, with so many eggs hatching, no one could imagine how terrifying that scene would be.
Even at their peak strength, they struggled to defeat even one strange insect.
Some were even considering whether, after they were cured, they should tell the people in the city about this, since they were humans too.
That’s when Zhang Yangqing casually added, “Actually, destroying this place is pretty simple. Just go to the statue and make it rain for a week or so. Once the reservoir fills up enough, open the floodgates, and the water will directly flood the city.”
Everyone: “…”
We’re sighing over here, hey! You’re thinking about destruction?
Even though they really wanted to make fun of Zhang Yangqing, everyone kept their thoughts to themselves.
They just thought: The big shot’s way of thinking is definitely different from ours. We’re just thinking about how to avoid danger, but the big shot is always thinking about how to destroy everything.
Hilde, the extraordinary from Hans Country, was now in a very dangerous situation.
He was one of the few Chosen Ones who entered the insect nest without killing that couple.
Not only that, but he also agreed to the couple’s request to try and find their child.
But he had thought it over while sitting in a tree. Under normal circumstances, he knew he probably couldn’t complete the hidden main quest, so he was thinking he could try to complete more side quests. Maybe he’d get lucky and finish the hidden task by accident, right?
Anyway, he didn’t have the black potion, so he could only try this method.
Like the saying goes, since he had come this far, he wasn’t willing to just leave empty-handed either.
But after those two kids came in, they seemed to have vanished. Where was he supposed to look?
Hilde felt the potion bottle on his body.
He had blue potion and green potion. When he saw so many eggs in the room, a bitter smile appeared on his face.
Hilde muttered to himself, “How am I supposed to play this? My potions can at most hatch one egg or destroy one egg. There are way too many here.”
To make them easy to carry, he had only brought two vials as thick as a thumb.
He still had to carry regular water and dry food on his body, after all.
It wasn’t like he could just carry two big buckets all the way here, right?
Besides, there were this many eggs in just one room. Even if he had two big buckets, let alone that, even if he brought a whole well, it wouldn’t be enough!
Thinking this, Hilde felt like turning back. But then he remembered that the leader of their extraordinary forces was watching on the big screen. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
After sitting up high and thinking it over, he suddenly had a realization.
“Could this be the way to understand the rules? That I need to take control of a more powerful egg so I can increase my chances of survival in the nest?”
Having thought this, Hilde seemed to understand something.
The ones outside must be the grunts, the mass-produced type.
The ones inside that look special might be the unique eggs.
But as for how to find the so-called ‘inside’ in this complex underground passage, a map was essential.
The other Chosen Ones were facing similar problems. They didn’t know where the mother insect was, nor did they have a map of the reservoir.
If they could find a topographic map of the reservoir’s various facilities, they might be able to guess the mother insect’s location.
Since this was a reservoir, there was probably a central control room. Maybe finding that would reveal everything.
After passing through a tunnel entrance, the Chosen Ones continued towards the underground tunnel of the mountain next door.
Just then, the Chosen Ones noticed that it was getting light outside.
They had set out at 2 AM, and after 2 AM, they had to walk a long way. It took about an hour to reach the sewer entrance.
They had to walk at least another two hours in the sewer to reach the city.
Then, from the sewer exit to the nest entrance, they needed time to follow the family of four, deal with the trouble, and then search for clues inside the nest.
By now, it was almost 6 AM, and dawn had broken.
Before they knew it, the Chosen Ones had been fighting all night, but none of them dared to nod off.
Now might be the real test for them.
Since it was getting light, perhaps the danger for the Chosen Ones had lessened a bit.
After all, in the pitch-black night, the Chosen Ones had to rely on their lights to move forward, making them easy targets for attacks if discovered.
But now it was daytime, and some areas were clearly visible.
Even where it wasn’t completely clear, some sunlight would mask the light from their flashlights. Even if there were insectoid people or strange insects passing by, it wouldn’t be as easy for them to be spotted immediately.
As the Chosen Ones searched along the way, they finally found the central control room.
Following standard procedure, the Chosen Ones first peered through the glass window of the control room door. After confirming there was no danger, they slowly turned the doorknob and entered.
There were no flesh eggs here, just some old tables and chairs, broken computers and telephones, and many data charts hanging on the walls that the Chosen Ones couldn’t understand.
There were also many documents and files on the tables. The map was likely among them.
This is where the principle of “many hands make light work” came in handy for Zhang Yangqing. He didn’t have to lift a finger himself; the other five tools were diligently searching for the reservoir’s topographic map.
It didn’t take long before the One-Eyed Kid handed him a map.
The map showed not only the upper reservoir area, which looked like a large pool, but also an underground reservoir.
Underground reservoirs are usually used to increase water storage space, and evaporation loss is relatively small.
“Since there’s plenty of space here, the mother insect is probably in this place.”
This was actually easy to deduce. In this world, the larger the insect, the stronger its combat power.
Besides, if it can lay eggs nearly a meter tall, the mother insect can’t be less than a meter itself, right?
It must be a gigantic creature several meters or even tens of meters long.
According to the markings on the map, the underground reservoir was huge enough to accommodate a monster tens of meters long.
Just as the One-Eyed Kid was about to open the door and head towards the underground reservoir, Zhang Yangqing suddenly said, “Don’t move. Something’s coming, and there are a lot of them.”
Everyone present was puzzled. They hadn’t heard anything at all.
But no one would question Zhang Yangqing’s statement. His word was their highest command.
Sure enough, after a while, footsteps were heard outside the door.
If someone were brave enough, they could look through the glass window on the door.
They would see a group of insectoid people and strange insects, carrying various fruits and some unidentifiable chunks of meat, walking further inside.
Zhang Yangqing nodded. It seemed the hidden quest was right here.
As the saying goes: The early bird catches the worm, but the early worm gets eaten by the bird.
Early in the morning like this, the mother insect would definitely be feeding. So, if they could find a way to put the Wugan fruit into the food pile, they could complete this hidden quest.
Because only the Wugan fruit would ensure that the mother insect actually ate it.
But they couldn’t just open the door and let these insectoid people and strange insects carry it in now, could they?
They would have to wait for them to leave, then follow them over and look for an opportunity.
Zhang Yangqing thought, the best strategy here would be to use the potion on his body to summon a relatively powerful strange insect in some room.
Then, use that insect to put the poisonous Wugan fruit into the food pile.
After all, the food pile might be guarded by other strange insects, and a human probably couldn’t get close.
This was all pretty easy to figure out.
However, there was a huge pitfall here. Why did Zhang Yangqing consider the correct strategy to be summoning a relatively powerful strange insect?
Because after poisoning the food, they would definitely need to leave, right?
And around that time, many insectoid people and strange insects would start appearing.
For the Chosen Ones to escape alive, they would need to use this powerful strange insect to fight their way out.
Otherwise, when the mother insect ate the Wugan fruit covered in black slime, and the Doom Bird descended, this entire area would be destroyed.
Whether the Chosen Ones could survive that would be up to fate.
When creatures of that level fight, basically, the whole area collapses.
Leaving early would give them a much better chance of staying safe.
As for whether the Doom Bird could beat the mother insect, that wasn’t something they needed to worry about.
Considering the limits of what an average Chosen One could achieve in a final stage, this was already far beyond a fight they could get involved in.
Other Chosen Ones thinking up to this point was pretty much their limit.
But Zhang Yangqing was puzzled about one thing. Since they knew the use of the blue potion, what was the use of the green potion?
Blue hatches an egg, green kills an egg.
Does that mean there might be some accident, and they would need to kill a specific egg?
But for now, everything was just speculation. They would only know for sure once they followed the markings on the map and went further in.
This was just Zhang Yangqing’s initial plan. He actually had another guess that he didn’t mention.
Even if things turned out differently from what he currently envisioned, it would probably still be within his expectations.
Zhang Yangqing didn’t need to explain things in a complicated way. He simply told them the straightforward strategy for clearing the stage and said, “This is your only hope of saving this city. You only have one chance, understand?”
Why did Zhang Yangqing say this? Because, of course, he wanted to slack off.
I’ve already told you the method. Do you still expect me to do it?
What’s the point of me bringing you along then? I’d be better off playing alone.
Tools are meant to make clearing the stage easier for yourself.
Even though many viewers had guessed Zhang Yangqing would do this, the way he so appropriately handed the task over to the NPCs was kind of admirable.
It felt like, among all the players clearing the stage, he was the one having the most fun.
The five people in the room looked serious and nodded in agreement. “Understood.”
With that, they found the right opportunity, opened the door, and walked out of the central control room.
Following the map, the group headed towards the underground reservoir.
Along the way, they constantly had to be mindful of footsteps behind them and in front of them.
If they heard any, they would need to quickly hide in a nearby room.
The further they went in, the stronger the aura of the flesh eggs in the rooms seemed to become.
However, there were also some rooms without eggs. Perhaps the conditions weren’t suitable for the eggs to develop, or maybe the eggs inside had already hatched, and those strange insects were currently working outside.
And right at this most tense and critical moment, an accident happened to one of the Chosen Ones.
It has to be said, Hilde, the extraordinary from Hans Country, was really unlucky.
He was the perfect example of “a slip can cause a fall.” The underground passage was already dark, and while going down the stairs, he accidentally stepped on a round piece of fruit.
His whole body started to topple backward.
But the fall wasn’t the main issue. As an extraordinary of his level, he wasn’t about to start crying out in pain. He used his strong physique to brace himself on the ground.
Trying his best not to make any noise.
He was fine, but the problem was the round fruit he had stepped on rolled down at great speed.
After bouncing around a couple of corners, it just happened to hit an insectoid person ahead, successfully drawing aggro.
Now, Hilde had locked himself inside a pitch-black room. Outside were two insectoid people and three strange insects. They had already arrived near his hiding spot and were opening doors one by one to check inside.
Hilde’s life was hanging by a thread. The worst part was that there was nothing in this room!
If it had even an ordinary strange insect egg, let alone a powerful one, he could have possibly bluffed his way through.
Just then, there was a knock on the door he was hiding behind!
