As the sunset plunged into the smoke and flames, the snow was dyed a凄美 red by the glow, and the battlefield, littered with corpses across the wilderness, resembled the gateway to hell.It was over.This could hardly be called a war.It was more like a massacre!Without the protection of armor and with no reliable shelters nearby, when the scream of death echoed from above and the whistle of the charge sounded from all directions, Yu suddenly recalled the fear he had felt in the forest that day.The awakened power could not bring him a shred of security.
He only wished he had two extra legs to run faster, or even two wings to flee this terrifying place completely...
On the northwest side of the battlefield.
With the cover of his trusted lieutenants, Black Snake, abandoning his vehicle, finally fled into the forest.
It proved to be the right choice.
The light armor, stripped of its mobility, was like an iron coffin on the open snowfield. A few high-explosive shells later, the gunner holding the fixed machine gun was blown to bits on the spot, and those who used the armored pickup as cover were also killed instantly, without even a chance to scream.
"Damn it... where did these people get all this equipment?!" A hint of panic flashed in Black Snake's eyes.
And what were those things that flew at them just now?!
How many cannons did they have?!
Black Snake felt like everything happening at the moment was like a dream.
A nightmare, to be precise!
It was completely different from the intelligence he had gathered.
Just over a month ago, these survivors hadn't even had a decent vehicle and had been helpless against their armored pickups, neither able to catch up nor escape.
And now, the situation was completely reversed.
Just then, Black Snake suddenly spotted from afar his most loyal and brutal centurion, who was now discarding his gun like a coward and crawling on the ground to beg for mercy from those survivors.
"This waste of space!"
He cursed, but Black Snake, fleeing deeper into the forest, dared not stop.
The survivors who attacked them had discovered them, and the pursuing enemy was quickly catching up, biting at their heels and chasing relentlessly.
To cover his retreat, four out of the six lieutenants who ran into the forest with him had to stay back to fend off the pursuers, while the remaining two escorted him to continue fleeing northwest.
Gunfire erupted behind them.
Those four had probably encountered the enemy.
However, the gunfire ceased soon, and it was unclear whether those four brave souls were alive or dead, and whether the pursuers had been stopped.
Without turning back, Black Snake continued to run.
But then, he suddenly realized that his strategist was missing.
The guy had somehow fallen out of the group at some point.
Breathing heavily, Black Snake asked his lieutenant beside him.
"Where's Wydes? Where is that guy?"
The lieutenant quickly replied.
"I don't know. When we first got off the vehicle, he was still behind us, but as we ran, he disappeared. Maybe we got separated... Boss, don't worry about him now, we need to break through from here first!"
Another lieutenant also said.
"Yes! As long as we have our mountains, we're not afraid of no firewood. We'll definitely get our revenge sooner or later!"
Although they had suffered a defeat and lost all their possessions, the situation was not yet hopeless.
Black Snake still had six hundred-man units ahead, currently rushing towards his direction.
As long as he could unite his followers, he still had a chance to regroup.
At worst, he could abandon Qingquan City and leave this tough nut to Lion's Fang, continuing his original plan to march east.
He had heard that there was a place called Red River Town there, with a lucrative mine and even a paradise for slave owners.
With six hundred men, taking over the place would be more than enough.
As for today's grudge,
There will be plenty of opportunities for revenge later!
Suddenly, the sound of two gunshots echoed behind him, interrupting Black Snake's thoughts.
The man running on his left groaned and collapsed forward onto the snowy ground, exhausted.
The other trusted lieutenant was shocked and realized he couldn't escape. Instead of continuing to run, he used a large tree, thick enough for one person to embrace, as cover. He took out his submachine gun and fired wildly behind him, shouting loudly.
"Boss! Run!"
"I'll stay back to block them for you!"
Black Snake, running ahead, was touched by his subordinate's bravery.
However, before he could even say a word of farewell, he watched the subordinate who stayed back to protect him get shot in the head by the pursuing bullets and fall backward onto the snow.
Black Snake knew he couldn't escape.
Those pursuers were incredibly fast, catching up to him no matter how far he ran.
The snow ahead was getting deeper and deeper, reaching his thighs. Black Snake found a relatively reliable shelter, caught his breath, and shouted back.
"Friends over there!"
"Don't you want to consider yourselves?"
"I'm just a desperate man with nothing on me. Even if you catch me, you won't get any benefits.
"Why don't you turn back? Right behind you, on my trucks, there are treasures, fine wine, and women—everything you want can be found there! If you go later, you'll get nothing."
From the middle to the south of the River Valley Province, he had destroyed at least ten survivor bases along the way and plundered countless supplies and treasures.
Thinking of this, Black Snake felt his heart bleeding with pain. After working hard for half a year, he had lost everything before the winter was even over.
Now he only regretted not listening to Vides' advice.
If he had been more cautious, this wouldn't have happened today.
The two players chasing him exchanged glances, looking utterly confused and not understanding what he was saying.
Elf King Rich: "What... is he talking about?"
Irina: "Who knows."
Elf King Rich: "Dammit! Didn't you say you know the Human Federation language?"
Irina smiled embarrassedly.
"Uh, I only know a few words... Should I try the Qiuqiu language?"
"Forget it, I can't rely on you."
Elf King Rich sighed and shook his head.
Then, using a few words he had learned from NPCs, he shouted to the raider leader hiding behind the tree.
"Surrender!"
"No killing!"
"Refuse."
"Kill!!"
Black Snake was confused at first and didn't understand.
But when he did, he flew into a rage instantly.
"Want me to surrender? Dream on! Even if I die, I'll never be a captive!"
Two people want to catch me?
With a roar, he lifted his assault rifle and fired behind him.
Bullets whistled through the trees, hitting the trees in front of Irina and Elf King Rich, causing splinters to fly.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Black Snake pulled out his last smoke grenade and threw it hard outside the shelter.
As the smoke began to spread, he wasted no time, emptied the last magazine in his clip, then discarded the rifle and ran deeper into the forest.
However, to Black Snake's surprise, as soon as his front foot left the shelter, several gunshots rang out from behind the smoke.
The person completely ignored the smoke and fired at him.
Hit several times in the back, Black Snake didn't have time to utter a cry before collapsing into the snow, thus ending his sinful life hastily.
As the smoke cleared, Elf King Rich walked up with his rifle, poked his bayonet at Black Snake's face, and found that he was already dead.
Irina also came out from behind the shelter, looked at the dead raider who was killed through the smoke, and said in surprise.
"Wow, buddy, are you using a wallhack?"
"Get lost, this is a console game, where would you get hacks? It's a talent, understand? Bloodlust Vision! My eyes can see infrared light, isn't that amazing?"
Irina looked envy.
"Amazing... To be honest, your ability is really a bit OP."
Elf King Rich chuckled and said, "It's a bit OP indeed. Regular smoke is useless against me, unless it can block heat sources."
Or something that can generate heat itself.
At this moment, the voice of Mr. Mole came from behind the two of them.
"MMP, finally got it done! How about you guys? Did you catch up?"
It took some time to tie up those prisoners behind them. When he caught up, he found that the gunfire ahead had stopped.
Irina said.
"Got him. He's lying on the ground. By the way, is this guy really a Centurion? Or a Millenarian?"
The Mole spoke with certainty.
"Probably."
Elf Wang Fugui looked at him curiously.
"How did you guess?"
"Need to guess?" The Fugitive Mole in the Canyon rolled his eyes and said matter-of-factly, "Just look at who runs away like this guy, with someone even staying back to cover for him."
Elf Wang Fugui was taken aback.
Wow?
That makes sense!
The Mole went over to check the person lying on the ground.
"Dammit, he's dead."
Elf Wang Fugui awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
"Uh, I was aiming for his leg, but the recoil of this shotgun is way too strong. The second shot went straight to his back."
"That's just not smart of you. I just picked up their submachine guns to use."
Waving the military submachine gun wrapped in tape in her hand, Irina chuckled and boasted, "This works wonders at close range. 9mm pistol rounds, almost no recoil. A burst can take down a bunch of them!"
Administrators have a special fondness for full-power ammunition. Whether it's automatic rifles or light machine guns, they all use 50mm cartridges, and bolt-action rifles are even more extreme, with cartridge lengths directly reaching 70mm!
Perhaps due to the experience of surviving on the Wasteland, high-powered rifles are more effective against aberrations. Those small-caliber, short-cartridge rifles can't even pierce the defenses of Crawlers.
Take the QBZ-95 as an example. The overall cartridge length is only 58mm, and the cartridge case is probably just over 30mm.
What does that mean?
In short, when fired in burst mode, the LD-47 is like a semi-automatic "Kar98k". Besides Strength-type characters, few people can control it.
This also indirectly saves bullets, leaving fire suppression to dedicated machine gunners.
The Mole glanced at Irina's submachine gun, his gaze lingering on the ruler-like magazine for a moment.
"Your squirt gun... works okay for hitting people, but not so good against aberrations."
Irina awkwardly smiled.
"Uh, yeah."
But it's okay.
He can carry two.
Elf Wang Fugui glanced at the body on the ground and muttered under his breath.
"What should we do now?"
All that chasing was for nothing.
They originally intended to capture him alive, but unexpectedly killed him, instantly halving the war score. The MVP is probably out of reach now.
The Mole sighed, shook his head, and said.
"Just drag him back first."
...
Elsewhere.
The battle on the snowfield had ended. The holdout raiders were all killed, and those who surrendered by dropping their weapons were rounded up and forced to crouch with their heads down in an open area.
The players on the front lines had a brainstorm, taking off the shackles from the slaves and putting them on the raiders.
These are made of iron, much stronger than ropes!
To prevent slaves from escaping, these raiders had added weights to the shackles.
However, all these clever designs are now used on themselves.
Those freed slaves, most of them staring blankly at this side, hadn't yet come to their senses about what had happened.
Some had realized it, but their faces still wore numb expressions, standing in place.
In most cases, slaves on the Wasteland don't gain freedom just because their original owners are killed. They would just be traded to a new owner and continue their previous life.
However, being able to change owners is not a bad thing to be happy about.
After all, being a slave to the looters not only meant having to work but also being treated as food.
Working for those survivor settlements at least guaranteed a shack to sleep in and no need to worry about being slit throats in the night or being arbitrarily captured and cooked.
Until a week ago, they still had nearly a thousand people.
And now, only four hundred remain.
It's enough to show how terrible it was.
The players didn't approach them for communication, merely assigning a few members to watch over them based on the VM tasks to ensure they were safe.
The guard team would arrive within an hour, and then someone would take charge of them, escorting them to the refugee shelter for accommodation.
"Mom, I've hit the jackpot!"
Standing on the rear deck of the captured light truck, Commander Quan lifted the curtain and stepped inside, scanning the crowded truck with a face full of surprise.
Potatoes!
A whole truckload of potatoes!
"This truck must weigh at least five or six tons!"
These weren't those mutated horned potatoes but genuine pre-war crops. Although it wasn't clear if they were improved varieties, even the most common ones were pricier than mutated crops like green wheat and horned potatoes.
Especially in some survivor settlements where people were particular about their food, the price could even reach two or even three times that.
Quan had learned all this from the official website's setting manual.
Apart from the truck filled with potatoes, some bags made of flax cloth were stacked in the corner of the truck, containing grains like rice, wheat, and beans.
It seemed that these looters had a pretty balanced diet.
According to the latest grain recycling price at the NPC granary, this truckload of supplies was worth at least five or six thousand silver coins.
Buying them would be even more expensive.
In MMORPGs, it was common sense that the price difference between buying and selling equipment in shops was significant.
"Wasteland OL" was similar, with the initial buying and selling price ratio being 1:10, gradually increasing to 1:3~1:4 after several rounds of inflation, which could be considered quite generous in the industry.
Based on the game's battle reward settlement mechanism, these supplies would be converted into silver coins as war spoils and added to the reward pool, distributed according to the war score.
It was somewhat similar to the Heist mode in GTA5 but not entirely.
Quan folded his hands and looked devout.
"Thank you, nature, for your bounty!"
Money was the least of his concerns.
With this batch of supplies, the food crisis at the outpost base should be smoothly resolved, right?
He hoped the noodles at the North Gate Market wouldn't increase in price.
"Eating" was one of the greatest pleasures in this game, comparable to the joys of exploration and combat.
Especially as one's level increased, energy consumption and appetite would also rise, which was very reasonable.
In reality, he couldn't even finish a bowl of noodles, but in the game, he could eat two bowls without burping.
Indulging without worrying about weight gain, diabetes, or high uric acid levels, and tasting foods that were completely unseen and dare not be tried in reality, challenging the limits of taste buds.
It was truly delightful!
In the wooden crates at the far end of the truck compartment, there were some meat jerky of uncertain ingredients.
Based on his experience, it probably wasn't anything good, so he closed the lid.
Jumping out of the truck, Commander Quan continued to inspect the next one, just as he heard the voices of his teammates.
"Holy shit, this truck is amazing! 5, 10, 15... 40! Forty artillery shells! Jesus, I didn't even see them fire a shot!"
"It's a waste giving them these!"
"Haha, mine's the same! This is insanely rich!"
"Let's place a bet. I say our mission's earnings will hit 500!"
"Ugh... you're making me nervous."
"Why? What's there to be nervous about?"
"Isn't there only eight sets of those miner exoskeletons left in the NPC shop? After this, they might be sold out."
"What?!"
Sheesh!
These guys were already worried about inflation for the game designers.
However, upon hearing that the 2000-silver-coin miner exoskeletons might sell out, Commander Quan couldn't help but feel a pang of anxiety.
The reason why godly equipment was godly was because of its rarity!
When everyone was without guns, having an iron pipe rifle could make one a big shot, but who used that stuff now?
The same went for exoskeletons.
Currently, only he and Lao Bai had the "Miner I," naturally making them feel like stars.
Once everyone had them, the godly equipment would turn into whiteboards, and he, who had finally gained some advantage, would have to start chasing the next version again.
Not far away, the players were still counting their war spoils, showing off and comparing, having a blast.
It was like opening blind boxes.
Before lifting the curtain, no one knew what was inside. After opening it and scanning it with the VM, they could even earn 2 war points.
With more than twenty trucks, they were quickly divided, and half had already been inspected in a short while.
"Eww, my truck is filled with shit," said the battlefield atmosphere team member, unable to hold back.
Quan walked over curiously, took a look, and said with disdain.
"What shit? That stuff is nutritional paste, right? I heard the ones made by cockroaches are black."
The battlefield guy was shocked.
"Holy shit, can anyone actually eat such heavy stuff?"
"A piece of trivia:Devil's Freeze(Devil Jelly, a fictional food) is made similarly."
"Alright, don't say anymore."
"+1, I'm gonna throw up."
"Haha, keep talking, and Ya Boss will be out of a job!"
"Wow, you guys are all opening blind boxes? Leave one for me; I want to see too!"
Excitedly lifting the curtain, [I'm the Luckiest] hopped onto the last light truck, but just as he entered, a woman's scream came from inside.
Everyone turned to look, and there was I'm the Luckiest, who had just gotten on, coming out again with a black face and embarrassment.
"There are a few girls in the truck... Who can find some clothes?"
Quan and the battlefield guy exchanged glances, and the surrounding players also looked at each other in astonishment.
"Wow?"
"Impressive."
"Is this realistic...?"
"..."
One could guess with their toes what the situation in the truck was like.
Although it was something those looters would do, it was unexpected that the operator had even included this content, especially during the closed beta phase.
Is this content really free to see?
Of course, now was not the time to discuss that.
After some thought, Quan said, "I think I saw a truck with cotton clothes and some cotton fabrics inside..."
The battlefield guy immediately said,
"I'll go with you."
On the other side.
At the border between the wasteland and forest in the northeastern part of Longjiu Farm, 200 players and over 30 NPC guards were advancing towards the battlefield along the edge of the forest.
Due to the lack of vehicles, they had to travel on foot.
Walking at the front of the group, Tail, who was carrying a rifle, suddenly glanced around and furrowed her brow.
Seeing the expression on her face, Sisi couldn't help but ask curiously.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Tail shook her head and muttered, "Is it just Tail's imagination? Why does it feel like a picnic."
Sisi: "You don't have to feel, it definitely is."
Among these two hundred players, many had joined the game during the 0.9 and 0.8 versions, averaging LV5, with a few LV6 and LV7, and even a couple of LV3 who had just obtained VMs.
Regardless of whether they had military experience in reality or not, since people from all walks of life played this game, at least in terms of levels, the two standing here could be considered high-level players.
"Say, S, will it be over by the time we get there?"
The sunset had already descended.
It would be dark in a few minutes.
Sisi: "Maybe, but isn't that a good thing?"
Tail turned back in surprise.
"Ugh, so we'll have run in vain?!"
Sisi: "But think about it this way, if even those big legs can't win, wouldn't we just be sending ourselves to die if we went."
"Damn, Tail's chance to shine has slipped away again."
"Not necessarily."
Sisi suddenly squinted her eyes and looked towards a snowy slope in the distance.
Visibility in snowy weather was poor, and the light of dusk was also very dim, but facing away from the sunset, they could still see a series of vague dark spots on the distant slope, rapidly advancing towards them.
Almost at the same time, Tail also noticed the abnormality.
As an agile character, she could see farther, which was more useful at this distance than the perception attribute.
"Ahead! Lots of people! One, two, three... Damn, I can't count, at least a hundred!"
Upon hearing the player's warning, Deputy Captain Liu Ding, who was leading the guard team, immediately raised his binoculars.
After confirming the situation ahead, his expression slightly changed, and he immediately ordered.
"Enemy approaching from the front!"
"Suspected deserters from the Raiders!"
"Prepare for battle!"