Card Room

On the 12th day of the secret room, the bugs gathered at the east bridge in accordance with the queen's instructions.

The assembled bug army didn't take any action. Sure enough, it was as Xiao Lou and the others had guessed. The more important purpose for the queen summoning the bugs was to find the 'bug traitors' who didn't obey instructions and eliminate them one by one.

For her, more than 99% of the city had been infected and it was the last step before completely occupying the city.

Since the bugs could have only one leader at the same time the bugs couldn't continue to upgrade after level 9 due to her existence. They would become her strongest subordinates once they obeyed her. If they didn't obey her, these high level bugs would become the greatest threat to her.

The current strength of the bug queen was something that could no longer be defeated by ordinary humans. The thing she feared most were the high level bugs who wanted to replace her. Therefore, she gathered the bugs willing to take orders from her to prepare for the final cleansing of the city.

Shao Qingge was now a level 9 bug and one of the queen's greatest threats.

After a day's rest, he had completely tamed the new bug in his body and his abilities were restored to their full state. Shao Qingge tried to scratch his arm with his nails and within a minute, they healed visibly to the naked eye.

Ye Qi reached out to gently touch the healed arm and sighed. "It looks human but I always feel like there is hard armour under this layer of skin."

Shao Qingge smiled and squeezed the muscles of his arms. "Yes, that is the armour of the bug race. Now ordinary trauma like knives or gunshots will find it difficult to pierce my skin. Besides, the bug's healing ability is very strong. Even if the sharpest knife cuts off their hands and feet, in theory, new ones will grow in a few minutes.

Ye Qi gave a thumbs up. "This ability is too strong!"

Xiao Lou added, "Chief Shao can be said to have an 'immortal' body unless he is burned."

Ye Qi asked curiously, "Are you afraid of fire?"

Shao Qingge shook his head. "I'm not afraid. I'm essentially a human now and my willpower has suppressed the willpower of the bugs, assimilating them. Bugs are naturally afraid of fire but I'm not. Of course, I can burn to death with fire."

Xiao Lou’s eyes lit up. “In this way, we can try to use fire to deal with the bug queen. As long as she isn’t formed from a human assimilating a bug, Shao Qinnge will have one advantage over her. He isn’t afraid of fire.”

Yu Hanjiang frowned slightly and touched his chin. “Will the bug queen be a challenger?”

Shao Qingge shook his head. "It is unlikely. If a challenger really assimilated and upgraded to a queen then she can issue other orders to let the bugs disperse or stop attacking, so that her challenger team can easily pass the instance. However, her first command was to have the bug army gather at the bridge and she has been sending signals to search for the bugs around there. I'm sure that the queen is still a bug."

Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang glanced at each other. They remembered that when meeting the challenger teams from Luoying Pavilion and the Eternal Kingdom in the supermarket, the captain of Luoying Pavilion mentioned that the bugs might produce a leader such as a 'queen.' It was a common setting in science fiction movies.

Who was it?

Xiao Lou thought carefully about the people he met initially. Was it the crazy woman in the hospital? The little girl? The intern next to him or a female respiratory patient who first developed the disease in the Second Hospital? Every one of them was possible or it might've been someone they hadn't seen.

Xiao Lou took a deep breath and glanced at Shao Qingge. "Chief Shao, you have just acquired the bugs' powerful abilities. You might not be very proficient in using them. Practice and master these abilities as soon as possible."

Shao Qingge nodded. He jumped directly from this floor to the top of the building in front of them. The jumping distance was close to the 50 metres of the teleportation card. After the evolution, Shao Qingge's climbing, jumping and attacking abilities had been fully improved. His fighting power wasn't inferior to Yu Hanjiang and Shao Qingge had an advantage when dealing with the bugs. After all, the low level bugs wouldn't actively attack him.

Shao Qingge repeatedly tried to jump and climb to practice her newly acquired abilities. Everyone watched him walking on the wall and couldn't help feeling, "Chief Shao is no longer the fighting scum who lies down to win. It is so sudden that I'm not used to it!"

Yu Hanjiang's low voice was heard. "One more fighting ability in the team is a good thing. We used to need to protect Chief Shao but now he doesn't need our protection. He can protect his teammates, which is a great improvement for the entire team."

Everyone nodded and they were happy for Chief Shao. They just wondered if this ability could be taken out of the secret room. Once the body data was cleared when leaving the secret room, Chief Shao will definitely return to a normal person unless he draws a relevant card. Judging from the fact that Xiao Lou drew the zombie leader Liu Xiaoyuan from 2 of Spades, perhaps Chief Shao could really draw the bug card this time.

It was almost lunchtime. Shao Qingge practiced his abilities and returned to the roof to have a meal with everyone.

Ye Qi wondered seriously, "Do you want to eat instant noodles or human blood?"

Shao Qingge grinned and rubbed the young man's head. "Of course I will eat noodles. I am essentially human."

He paused and then lowered his voice to whisper in Ye Qi's ear, "After assimilating with the bug, I remember you feeling me blood… does your hand hurt?"

He gently pulled at Ye Qi's hand and looked at the cut finger.

Ye Qi had put a band-aid on his finger. After all, Ye Qi's skin didn't have the ability to heal automatically. After a few days, the wound was still there. Shao Qingge's heart tightened and he spoke softly, "Don't do such a stupid thing later."

Ye Qi laughed. "I was afraid that you would starve to death after turning into a bug. It's fine. It is just a small injury."

Shao Qingge didn't say anything else and personally gave him a new band-aid.

The team members gathered to finish lunch. Yu Hanjiang stared into the distance before turning seriously to Shao Qingge. "The bug army should've been gathered and we must plan for our next actions as soon as possible. The queen can perceive Chief Shao's position and will definitely bring some high-powered subordinates to destroy Chief Shao. If she brings some level 9 bugs to kill you, what is your chance of winning?"

Shao Qingge frowned and thought about it. "I'm still not sure how many high level bugs there are around the queen but we also have great advantages. First, I not only have the bug abilities but also the cards. As teammates, we can work together to control these bugs. Second, I'm not afraid of fire while the bugs are. Perhaps we can use this aspect to make some arrangements in advance."

He paused before continuing. "I'm most worried about the queen. The level 9 bugs are already so powerful. I don't know about the level 10 bug queen. How strong are her abilities? Will she be invulnerable and heal immediately after being injured?"

Yu Hanjiang had also considered this possibility. The ability of the level 10 queen was definitely stronger than Shao Qingge but the specific strengths were still unclear. Once she brought her elite troops to kill Shao Qingge, it was likely that everyone would be destroyed if they didn't make arrangements in advance.

The enemy's combat ability couldn't be estimated. This was the biggest headache.

Yu Hanjiang's thoughts were conveyed to Xiao Lou's mind through the heart channel. XIao Lou took out a pen and paper and wrote while analyzing it. "Bugs will only merge when they are in danger. Two bugs of the same level will be promoted to the next level. To fuse a level 9 bug, you need 256 level 1 bugs."

Xiao Lou carefully recalled his experiences in this secret room.

On the first day, the challengers were busy gathering their teammates and accumulating supplies. The bugs had just invaded the city and were madly biting the surrounding humans. The bugs had no organization or disciple and their locations were scattered. There would be no large-scale upgrade situation.

For example, their encounter in the supermarket. They killed 50 bugs. Even if the bugs merged with each other due to danger, only level 3 or 4 bugs were merged.

That night when they fled from the city centre to the east of the city, they saw all the bugs in the central area suddenly gather. The dense swarm of bugs flooded into the residential areas to attack the uninfected humans in the city…

Thinking of this, Xiao Lou suddenly said, "By the way, on the first night, the collective actions of so many bugs must've been done by a high level bug. Chief Shao, can you order around the low level bugs?"

Shao Qingge replied, "A few in a small area are fine. Only the level 10 leader can order a large army."

Ye Qi's eyes widened. "In other words, the bug queen actually came into being on the first day? At that time, we emerged from Old Mo's studio to explore the way and we saw a large number of bugs flooding into the residential areas, shopping plazas, food courts, office buildings etc. Was it an order given by the queen?"

Shao Qingge's expression became serious. "It seems so. Only the queen can mobilize thousands of bugs."

Xiao Lou felt a chill shoot down his spine. "This queen should be very scheming. She has been lurking the entire time and used the bugs to infect the residents of the city centre. Then she had the vanguard troops look for the fish that slipped out of the net. Step by step, her plan was very meticulous. Now the residents of the city are also conquered and she is aiming at the high level bugs who don't obey her orders."

Yu Hanjiang added, "Gao Xiaoyi's team was besieged by the bugs in the north university town. At that time, they relied on physical and chemical knowledge to blow up an experimental building. The bugs would've definitely merged in panic when they encountered an explosion and a level 9 bug should've been generated. We used gasoline to burn the bugs outside the warehouse and the bugs who weren't burnt can also generate a level 9 one."

Xiao Lou looked at Yu Hanjiang. "According to the characteristics of the bugs, a large group of bugs only merge spontaneously when they are in danger. The residents of this city were infected too much at the beginning because they didn't know the truth. They are easily overwhelmed when facing thousands of bugs. Therefore, the biggest crisis of the bugs should be made by us challengers."