Chapter 218 - 207: Pay-to-Win Warrior, Part 2

Chapter 218: Chapter 207: Pay-to-Win Warrior, Part 2

"Colonel Lin really lives up to his reputation..."

He watched the young woman he’d known for years, now on Lin Fan’s back, her sword a blur as she reveled in the slaughter. He muttered to himself,

"But since when did this Cyan Bird get so damn fierce?"

THWUMP!

A dark shape smashed down from the dome above, landing on the ground in front of the armored vehicle with a heavy thud. A figure then slowly climbed to its feet, standing in the headlights.

Cheng Qi’s pupils contracted, his hand tightening on his pistol. ’That uniform...!’

"Watch out!"

He suddenly roared a warning. Even though the face was familiar, he remembered what the young woman had told him on the way here—the person before him was no longer the comrade he knew!

He immediately opened fire.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The high-caliber pistol’s reports echoed like muffled thunder under the small dome. Bursts of blood erupted from the figure’s body, its entire head blown apart, only to slowly squirm and knit itself back together.

By the time Cheng Qi emptied his magazine, "Jiang Jing" had fully recovered.

But it ignored Cheng Qi in the armored vehicle, charging straight for Lin Fan and Ye Qingniao’s backs!

Ye Qingniao, riding on Lin Fan’s back, was already on alert from the gunshots. However, she was facing into the light and couldn’t see the newcomer clearly. As the figure rushed them, she swung her longsword, aiming straight for its head!

Yet, in the instant before her blade could connect, the figure suddenly raised its head, revealing an incredibly familiar face—one that even wore a hint of ’urgency’.

"Cyan Bird! Get away from him! He’s a bad guy!"

The newcomer yelled, but his fist never slowed, continuing its path to smash into Ye Qingniao and Lin Fan!

The familiar voice and face struck her like a lightning bolt, and her descending sword froze in mid-air...

"Uncle Jiang!?"

The pupil of Ye Qingniao’s good eye quaked. She couldn’t bring herself to complete the strike, muttering in disbelief.

"That’s the immortal monster! Don’t let it trick you!"

Cheng Qi had reloaded, but the monster’s silhouette was now overlapping with Lin Fan’s, making it impossible to get a clear shot. He could only shout in desperation. Seeing Ye Qingniao frozen in place, he grew frantic.

"Colonel Lin! Behind you!"

He suddenly realized he’d made a terrible mistake. He’d thought the monster had disappeared, and knowing Ye Qingniao’s personality, he hadn’t mentioned it to her.

He never expected it to show up now, right in front of her!

Seeing the monster’s heavy fist smashing toward Ye Qingniao on Lin Fan’s back, Cheng Qi was instantly consumed by regret!

On the battlefield, a moment of hesitation often meant death!

He was about to throw caution to the wind, open the vehicle door, and charge out, when he saw the air behind Lin Fan abruptly distort!

A massive, misshapen slab of steel had materialized in the air behind Lin Fan!

Like a fortress gate, it slammed into place a split second before tragedy could strike, barring the way between the monster and Ye Qingniao!

CLANG!

DONG!

Ye Qingniao’s longsword struck the edge of the greatsword with a sharp ring; the monster’s fist smashed into its flat side, causing the massive blade to shudder and boom like a gong!

"Snap out of it!"

The moment Lin Fan heard Cheng Qi shout, he knew something had happened to Ye Qingniao on his back.

He’d summoned his greatsword to block the attack, then raised his spear to smash a Mutated Zombie in front of him. Stepping to the side, he smoothly gripped the greatsword’s hilt and recalled it.

’This face... It’s familiar. Is that Jiang Jing?’

Lin Fan dodged left, putting some distance between them. He took in the figure and the uniform, thought about who had recently gone missing, and put two and two together.

"Jiang Jing is dead," he said. "Snap out of it. That’s a monster in disguise."

When he turned his head, he could only see the grayish-white blindness of Ye Qingniao’s left eye, not the dim pupil of her right. But from the slight tremor in the arm she had wrapped around his neck, he could guess what she was feeling.

"I know..."

Ye Qingniao said in a low voice. The arm around Lin Fan’s neck tightened, and a sharp killing intent erupted from her entire being.

"Put me down. I’m going to avenge Uncle Jiang!"

"Then you’ll have to let go..."

Lin Fan casually dispatched the last few lunging zombies, then glanced at the "Jiang Jing" figure and spoke with a hint of exasperation.

"...Oh. Right."

She loosened the legs clamped around his waist and the arm wrapped around his neck, releasing her hold and hopping down from his back.

She planted her longsword in the ground, then held out a small hand toward Lin Fan.

"Let me borrow your spear..."

"Sure..."

Lin Fan was generous enough, casually thrusting the spear into the ground. The spearhead instantly sank into the concrete floor.

Ye Qingniao reached out to pull it up, but the spear seemed to have taken root. It wouldn’t budge.

Her face flushed. Refusing to be defeated, she gripped it with both hands, planted her feet, and heaved with all her might. Still, it didn’t move.

"..."

The air fell silent for a moment.

"...It’s so heavy." Ye Qingniao sheepishly let go, shaking her hands behind her back. Pretending nothing had happened, she silently picked up her own longsword and gave it a flourish. "Forget it. I’m not used to polearms. You can keep the spear..."

"Alright..."

Lin Fan suppressed a laugh and waved a hand toward the monster, gesturing for her to go ahead. ’Time for a break,’ he thought.

With her gone, he was suddenly missing his fur-lined, self-heating human backpack charm, and he actually felt a little chilly...

In any case, Cheng Qi had said the main force had already retreated, so Lin Fan could finally relax.

He leaned against his spear, and with a flick of his wrist, pulled a bottle of purified water from his inventory. Tilting his head back, he drank while watching the two figures slowly approach each other like duelists.

[529/700] was Ye Qingniao’s current Life Value.

[3255] was the "Jiang Jing" monster’s Life Value...

「Ten minutes earlier」

The two of them had been sprinting back toward the ruins when, just a few hundred meters away, they were ambushed and surrounded by a tidal wave of countless tentacles.

But the strange thing was, after Lin Fan shredded a large swath of them with his greatsword, they stopped swarming. Instead, a few flexible, durable tentacles remained to keep Lin Fan occupied while the rest rapidly and densely wove themselves into a massive bowl, trapping the pair inside.

They had tried to break out. He would swing his greatsword, activating its ability to smash the wall, but he could only ever crack one layer. In the next instant, the breach would be sealed by an endless, dense mass of tentacles. It was as if whenever he attacked one section, tentacles from the other side would move to reinforce it, making a breakout impossible.

And it was then that Lin Fan finally understood what Ye Qingzhou had told him: this monster was indeed intelligent.

At first, waves of wrist-thick tentacles had attacked, but after Lin Fan smashed every one, the monster got crafty. It stopped expending its own mass and began letting in zombies and Mutated Zombies from the outside to wear them down, leaving Lin Fan with no time to focus on the walls.

It didn’t dare open the floodgates and let all the zombies pour in at once, knowing Lin Fan would surely carve a path through the horde and escape. Instead, it could only feed them in, batch by batch, stuffing them through the narrow gaps between its tentacles.

But dragging around dead weight wasn’t a long-term solution. Since they were trapped with no quick way out, Lin Fan decided to simply feed all the round crystals in his pocket to Ye Qingniao...

The likes of Su Qing and Chu Zhaozhao, with their green health bars, had a more "eco-friendly" growth path. They could level up just by killing monsters, no crystals needed. It was slow and steady...

But he had to admit, these yellow-health-bar bastards, with their pay-to-win-style leveling, were damn fast.

Shoving twenty-two round crystals down her throat all at once was like feeding her a hormone-laced super-growth supplement. Her life bar shot up so fast it physically pained Lin Fan to watch.

In minutes, she went from a near-death [27] Life Value all the way up to [529]. Her maximum Life Value hit a perfect [700], and her Energy Value—which, like Chu Zhaozhao’s, was twice her Life Value—shot straight up to [1400]...

In a flash, she had transformed from a weak, paralyzed girl into a little superwoman who could swing a twenty-pound longsword with one hand...

With such a powerful ally, the two humans and one monster settled into a stalemate within the cramped biological chamber.

What should have been a game of Temple Run had devolved into a tedious round of Tower Defense.

Although he hadn’t seen the monster’s true body, Lin Fan was convinced the only thing that would plot against him so deliberately was that "tree."

At first, he didn’t understand why the monster had "kidnapped" him. But after seeing Jiang Jing just now, and remembering Colonel Zhou’s plea for death, he finally got it.

’It’s taken a liking to me...’

’So what if I burned a nest of its little monkey spawn? Does this monster really hold such a grudge?’

Lin Fan leaned on his spear, watching as Ye Qingniao’s longsword began to slowly crackle with electricity. He prepared to take a well-deserved break, relax, and let his own dwindling Energy Value recover a bit.