NOVEL NEXT Chapter 49: Crisis
After making up his mind, Zhang Tuohai quickly packed his things and prepared to head north.
"Classmate Xiao Ai, proceed to the northern mining area."
Zhang Tuohai issued the command to the vehicle's control system.
He had no more interests in other areas; the only thing on his mind was the orange supply boxes buried in the northern mining area.
Moreover, the final contraction point of the poison circle was also there, so he might as well go straight there and wait for the circle to shrink.
As for the scattered supplies, greedy players would naturally help him collect them.
He just needed to offer a bit of food in exchange for their hard-earned gains for the day—why bother exhausting himself?
Indeed, it was much more comfortable to make money while lying down.
Under Zhang Tuohai's command, the vehicle moved toward the northern mining area.
The farther north they traveled, the more desolate the surroundings became.
Buildings grew shorter, and the road conditions worsened.
He could even occasionally see wild beasts lurking by the roadside, waiting for their prey.
Lions, leopards, wild boars, tigers...
Zhang Tuohai even spotted a crocodile.
Heaven knows how a crocodile ended up in the desert.
[Warning: A mutated desert spider is ahead. Please be cautious!]
The prompt system chimed in.
"There’s a spider up ahead? Can we avoid it?"
If possible, Zhang Tuohai really didn't want to engage with a mutated desert spider.
Not only would it waste bullets, but there was also no benefit in doing so.
[This path has the least mutated desert spiders; other directions have more.]
"Alright, then let's go meet it." With the system's suggestion, Zhang Tuohai had no choice but to load his gun and prepare for battle with the mutated desert spider.
[Caution: Behind the wooden door of the red-roofed house ahead, there is a mutated desert spider. Please approach carefully.]
Following the system's indication, Zhang Tuohai looked and indeed saw a small red-roofed cabin about fifty meters to his left.
The door hung from its frame, and shattered glass littered the ground.
It appeared no different from the other broken-down houses nearby.
However, a beam of sunlight exposed the hidden predator inside.
In the sunlight, a dark shadow stretched out, revealing the form of a massive spider.
"Goodness! This spider has learned to ambush?" Zhang Tuohai marveled at the spider's intelligence.
If he had rushed in unprepared, he might have actually been ambushed by it.
"Want to ambush? Fine, let’s see who ambushes who first." Zhang Tuohai drew his shotgun, aimed at the cabin door, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
With a gunshot, the wooden door shattered.
A streak of red oozed from the other side of the door.
Hiss—hiss—
Accompanied by a series of hissing sounds, a giant spider burst through the wooden door and charged straight at Zhang Tuohai.
This spider was over a person’s height, with black and red stripes on its body, resembling the mutated desert spider Zhang Tuohai had seen in the basement earlier.
If there was a difference, it was that this mutated desert spider had a human face.
"What happened to it?" Seeing that face, Zhang Tuohai felt a chill run down his spine; he sensed trouble.
He realized that things were not as simple as they seemed.
It wasn't just a mutated desert spider infestation.
At that moment, the mutated desert spider was less than five meters away from Zhang Tuohai, its enormous front limbs raised, about to stab him.
Zhang Tuohai hurriedly pulled the trigger, and his Remington roared.
Bang bang bang.
The number 12 buckshot rained down on the mutated desert spider.
The immense force pushed the spider back step by step.
In the blink of an eye, Zhang Tuohai emptied a magazine.
As the chamber clicked empty, Zhang Tuohai wasted no time and quickly reloaded, continuing to fire.
Fortunately, after being blasted with seven or eight shots from the shotgun at close range, the mutated desert spider had no strength left to move, giving Zhang Tuohai time to reload.
Bang bang bang!
Zhang Tuohai fired another seven or eight shots at the mutated desert spider, and the system's voice sounded.
[The mutated desert spider has been killed.]
Zhang Tuohai let out a sigh of relief, reloaded his weapon, and got out of the car to inspect the spider's corpse.
At this point, the body of the mutated desert spider had been blasted to pieces by Zhang Tuohai's shotgun, utterly unrecognizable.
However, that human face miraculously remained intact.
Zhang Tuohai studied the face carefully, feeling it looked somewhat familiar, as if he had seen it recently.
After a moment of contemplation, he slapped his thigh.
This was the guy from the young couple he had encountered in the residential area that morning!
He had seen them twice while entering and exiting the row of apartments, and there had been some minor conflicts between them, so he remembered them.
But how had this guy turned into a mutated desert spider in such a short time?
Where was his companion?
Suddenly, Zhang Tuohai recalled that after leaving the row of apartments, he had seen in the rearview mirror that the young couple seemed to be heading back toward the apartments.
Could it be that they had foolishly opened the basement?
The more Zhang Tuohai thought about it, the more he felt this possibility was high.
Having seen him take the orange supply box from the row of apartments, the couple might have wanted to enter and search for more.
By chance, they stumbled upon the cluttered storage room.
Out of curiosity, they opened the door to the basement.
Two completely unprepared young people facing a mutated desert spider would likely end in disaster.
As for how that young man's face ended up on the mutated desert spider, Zhang Tuohai had two theories.
One was that the mutated desert spider had a habit of hunting and wearing the faces of its victims.
The other was that the mutated desert spider possessed some ability to transform its prey into more mutated desert spiders.
If it was the former, it just meant the mutated desert spider was brutal, but the situation was still under control.
If it was the latter, however, that would be serious.
Zhang Tuohai knew that over two thousand people had entered this area with him.
If all those people were turned into mutated desert spiders, he would be in big trouble.
He had struggled to deal with just one mutated desert spider; if ten or eight surrounded him, he would definitely be doomed.
"I can't let these idiots drag me down; their deaths don't matter, but they must not involve me."
Zhang Tuohai quickly entered the regional channel and wrote a message.
"Beware of mutated desert spiders! Their bodies are exceptionally tough; ordinary melee weapons cannot pierce their forelimbs. Do not attempt to hunt mutated desert spiders; it's a death sentence! Also, they can turn the dead into more of their kind, and their numbers will grow. Don't become fodder; the other side is well-equipped, and no one can escape. If you see one, run fast!"