Thriller Paradise

The battle could not be considered a harsh one by any standard because none of the five players had lost any Life Points, but after this battle, the power level of the team members had been revealed quite plainly. To put it simply, there were three able players and two practically useless dead weights.

Wang Tanzhi's face and clothes were soaked with the monster's dirty blood. Thankfully, the blood was not poisonous or corrosive; all it did was make him smell less than welcoming. With the shield blocking most of the spray, Long Aomin was quite clean. While the 'pollution' Feng Bujue experienced was the most serious, he soon came up with a solution to this problem.

Rather, Feng Bujue had thought of the solution before the fight ended. After killing the empowered monster, he turned and walked up to one of the cars. He yanked the door open and pulled off a seat cover. Then, he walked back to the curb where a fire hydrant was. He used the wrench to loosen the valve, and the water flowed out. Using the seat cover as a cloth, he drenched it in water and wiped down the stuff stuck to his clothes and body. As the disgusting stuff got washed away, so did the smell.

Wang Tanzhi followed his lead and went to get more fabric from the car. Then, he squatted down next to Feng Bujue and started cleaning himself. Long Aomin went to inspect the monsters' carcasses. After confirming that they were all dead, he let out a long sigh and sat on the curb to allow his Stamina Points to slowly recover.

"Thank you." Mr. Loneliest and Ms. Saddest walked back into the light. "If not for your help, it would have been game over for the both of us already."

Mr. Loneliest sounded humbler. Initially, he had thought that they should be better than the two level five players, but now, he would not doubt the brilliance of Feng Bujue's analysis.

"Before we reach the coordinates for the Demonic Door…" Feng Bujue had already finished cleaning his face. As he rubbed down his shirt and pants, he said, "We have to help each of you find some equipment. Even if it's one whose quality is not that good, at least it will be better than you two being defenseless."

"The map of this scenario is huge; I don't believe it will be difficult to find some stuff on the road to use as weapons. If there is really nothing, just grab some iron rods, or perhaps you can use the wrench to pick apart some of the machinery to use as a weapon," Long Aomin said. "By the way… that thing you mentioned earlier… about the three possibilities regarding the sudden falling of darkness…"

"The first is that… actually the light around us did not dim. Instead, it's our sense of sight and hearing that was somehow interrupted within that short period," Feng Bujue replied. "Our eyes were covered by darkness, and the strange noises crawled into our ears, but in reality, nothing has really changed.

"If this hypothesis is real, then it leads to another problem. Is the 'culprit' that is behind these interruptions actually close to us, but we are simply unable to see it… or is it somewhere faraway, and it is able to cause these interruptions over a distance?"

When the terms, 'nearby' and 'unable to see it' were mentioned, the other four felt a breeze caressing the back of their necks. Only Feng Bujue appeared rather unfazed.

"Other than that, there is the issue of the monster's evolution. Specifically, what triggered it? Is it the same thing that influenced us that influenced that monster?" He rubbed his body clean and tossed the dirtied cloth away. "These are hypotheses that cannot be proven for now, so there is no need to dwell on them. Hmm… Let's move on to the second possibility. Maybe the darkness is real, and it has swallowed up the city and perhaps even the whole world inside this scenario."

Wang Tanzhi interrupted to ask, "But how did it manage to do that? The streetlights' main power line can be cut off, but what about the moon? It cannot be switched off like a lamp, can it?"

"No matter what the trick behind it is, for the argument's sake, we will assume that there is a power that can do that. Then… earlier, the whole world was probably consumed by an unknown darkness, and it lasted for several seconds. Within these few seconds, the monsters, due to the effect of this darkness, experienced some kind of strengthening evolution."

He put the wrench away and joined Long Aomin on the curb. "Personally, I am leaning toward the second hypothesis. The darkness earlier felt more like a natural phenomenon, and its effect was non-discriminating, we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"What about the third possibility?" Long Aomin asked.

"The system corrected the scenario due to the efficiency that we've shown when dealing with the four earlier monsters," Feng Bujue replied.

"No, that sounds too unlikely," Ms. Saddest argued. "Loneliest and I have queued up for two scenarios before, and that's never happened. Even if the team managed to kill the monsters with ease, there was no instance where the system suddenly decided to increase the scenario's difficulty."

"We've been in a team with players that were almost at the same level as Brother Long," Mr. Loneliest added. "The monsters we met at the start of the scenario were taken care of in seconds, which is why I said earlier, with Brother Long leading the way, we should be able to clear the scenario easily."

He was telling the truth, but during the earlier scenario, those level ten players probably did not have the mind to protect them, so in the end, they had been killed in the scenario.

"Hmm… I admit the chance of this third possibility is miniscule," Feng Bujue replied. The main reason he thought about this possibility was due to how the AI had reacted in his previous Solo scenario. But at that moment, he quickly denied its possibility. "This is my first time in a Team Survival Mode, so I'm not that familiar with the set-up. In that case, we can forget about this third possibility."

Wang Tanzhi had also finished cleaning himself up by then. He stood up to say, "We will need some time before we can confirm the previous two possibilities, right? If what Brother Jue said is true, then no matter which possibility it is, as long as we continue on with the scenario, the darkness will descend upon us again."

"You have a point." Long Aomin stood up. His Stamina Points had recovered quite a bit. "Then, we'd better resolve the equipment problem with Mr. Loneliest and Ms. Saddest before we run into another wave of monster or before the next darkness descend."

"The route that I plan to take will bring us past a police station." Feng Bujue also stood up. "When we're there, we should go in to take a look. There might be a gun or police baton. If we're lucky, we might find helmets, shields, and anti-bullet vests."

In a surprisingly excited tone, he said, "I've always wondered how it feels to shoot a gun or throw a grenade…"

Just hearing that made Long Aomin feel unsettled. Feng Bujue sounded quite like a high-functioning psychopath.

The group discussed their plan for a few minutes before moving again toward the police station that Feng Bujue had mentioned. Even though the atmosphere was still oppressive, and they had no idea how many monsters were hiding in the dark, at least they had the police station to look forward to.

After all, during the early stage of the game, shooting-type weapons were incredibly rare. If they could find a gun, and if it was a powerful gun like a rifle or a shotgun, then hiding halfway through the scenario was totally worth it.