Chapter 336 - 253: First Drain the Water, Then Pull the Net (2)

Chapter 336: Chapter 253: First Drain the Water, Then Pull the Net (2)

"...You didn’t give it a second thought?"

The corner of Lin Fan’s mouth twitched. He pointed at the car lift, which had been blasted to smithereens by the energy backlash, and asked in disbelief,

"You just sliced it like that? Weren’t you afraid it would explode?"

"Huh? They can explode?"

Hearing this, Su Qing’s eyes widened, a look of belated fear finally appearing on her face. She glanced at the twisted steel frame, then back at her own hands.

"..."

Seeing her "the-ignorant-are-fearless" expression, Lin Fan was left completely speechless.

"Fine..."

He sighed helplessly, his gaze once again focusing on Su Qing.

[569/715]

The purple border was still eye-catching, and her health pool was reassuringly large. But no matter how closely Lin Fan looked, her health bar was still just a clean, green strip.

There was no blue [Energy Bar] like everyone else had, nor were there any strange icons or status effects displayed.

Other than the numbers, there was no difference from before.

’This is strange...’

Lin Fan crossed his arms and fell into deep thought.

’If her health bar hasn’t changed, that means this isn’t some kind of skill she acquired later on. It’s most likely some kind of hidden innate talent.’

’Could it be that ever since the day she awakened, Su Qing has always had a hidden attribute like ’Ignores Energy Shields’ or ’Physically Slices Through Anything’?’

’Was it just because all we’d encountered before were regular zombies, so she never had a chance to display this kind of dominance against Magic or Energy-based opponents, and that’s why I never noticed?’

’If that’s really the case...’

Lin Fan watched Su Qing, who was helping Chu Zhaozhao pull a blade that was stuck in the steel frame.

’This ’goddess of war’ with her frighteningly high combat intuition... her potential is probably far more terrifying than I estimated.’

"Brother Lin, this is from those two big guys."

Xu Qian walked over quickly. Not minding the filth, he casually wiped his hand on his clothes and then opened his palm.

In his hand lay two crystals, still stained with a bit of bodily fluid.

One was an [Impact Crystal (10%)]. The other was a round impact crystal, which could be saved to use as an item for reducing mana consumption.

"And these are from the other Mutated Zombies on the way here. Sister Qing had me hold onto them."

As Xu Qian spoke, he magically produced four more crystals from his pocket and handed them over. Three were round, and one was polygonal.

"Nice work."

Lin Fan reached out and took the handful of sparkling "spoils of war."

These were useless to Su Qing and the others, who only had green health bars, so he put them all into his inventory.

After doing all this, Lin Fan scanned the devastated auto repair shop, his gaze finally landing on Su Qing.

"Earlier, I heard from Wang that you guys were just scouting. You didn’t have to come this deep, did you? Do you have a specific target?"

Lin Fan was a little confused.

If it was just for car parts or something similar, there were plenty of shops on the outskirts to gather components from. It wasn’t worth risking danger to venture this deep into what was clearly a "monster zone."

"We weren’t looking for anything in particular. It was mainly to find some high-durability off-road vehicle parts, like puncture-proof tires, high-capacity batteries, that sort of thing," she explained as she looked at Lin Fan.

"Besides, we discovered that the situation in this area is a bit unusual."

She pointed at the rows of interconnected buildings outside.

"This is a mixed district of car dealerships and auto repair centers, with lots of partitioned spaces and dense storefronts. When the disaster broke out, a lot of people who were here to get their cars fixed or to buy one must have been trapped. Add to that the complex terrain and all the clutter, it would have been difficult for survivors to escape, so..."

Su Qing paused, her expression turning serious.

"The zombie density here is very high. And because ’food’ was plentiful, the number of Mutated Zombies is also exceptionally large."

"Our original plan was for me to use my ability to scout ahead and mark any locations on the map that might have Mutated Zombies or large hordes, so the collection teams following us could go around them..."

Beside them, Xu Qian scratched his head sheepishly and chimed in timidly, "But Sister Qing said that since we’d be wandering around here for a long time anyway, just hiding wasn’t a solution."

He glanced at Su Qing, a hint of admiration in his eyes.

"She said she might as well come with me, and if we ran into any threatening Mutated Zombies, we should just kill them if we could. Otherwise, leaving them lurking in the shadows would be a total disaster if one of the collection teams accidentally ran into them."

"It’s good practice, anyway," Su Qing added nonchalantly as she adjusted her arm guards, as if the thrilling life-or-death battle just now had been a mere warm-up. "We’ll definitely face more terrifying things in the future. We need to get used to fighting head-on."

"My ability is too weak. I’m not suited for a head-on clash with these thick-skinned Mutated Zombies..."

Xu Qian gave a wry smile, glancing at the two massive corpses on the ground and then at the other zombie bodies scattered around.

"Sister Qing basically carried the whole way. I was just responsible for pulling aggro and clearing out the zombies on the side. I feel like a freeloader."

"Don’t sell yourself short," Su Qing said, looking up at him seriously.

"You can precisely pull the horde apart, separating the mutated ones from the regular zombies. Otherwise, how would I have gotten the chance to fight those two big guys one-on-one? Your ability has immense value. When used well, it’s more important than just being a heavy hitter."

"Alright, alright, that’s enough. This isn’t a corporate awards ceremony; no need for the mutual praise."

Lin Fan waved his hand, cutting off their mutual praise.

’He could see the situation clearly.’

’Among the three of them, even Xu Qian, the squishy one, had over four hundred health.’

’Meanwhile, Su Qing and Chu Zhaozhao both had health in the seven-to-eight-hundred range, well on their way to a thousand. They were superhuman.’