“Ya!”
When she saw the other party’s sudden action, Lunene only had time to let out one cry of surprise—however, Xia Li was far more composed.
Because as “Xia Li” in her previous life he had watched over a hundred B-grade films with blood plasma flying in all directions, played dozens of horror games, and was thoroughly familiar with these tropes, from the very beginning she had kept a wary eye and had been continuously preventing the other party from suddenly erupting and making a move.
After all, the experience of being cruelly pushed down continuously dozens of times in a certain four-person cooperative shooting game had long ago made her understand one point: a young girl softly weeping in the darkness was often the most dangerous existence on the entire map!
Precisely because of this, after discovering the other party’s opening move, Xia Li immediately reached out and seized the arm the other party was swinging over.
Then, the reaction ability cultivated over long years by the original body allowed her in the first moment to directly control the other party’s other arm, after which she delivered one accurate and ruthless headbutt toward the other party’s forehead.
“Ya!”
The young girl who had attempted to attack Xia Li was directly knocked unconscious by this unexpected strike and collapsed onto the ground.
And the thing in her hand also fell onto the floor—that was a soft dark-red gelatinous mass, from which more than ten tentacles roughly the length of human fingers extended, looking very much like the baby octopuses Xia Li had eaten in the past.
Although soft and springy baby octopuses that were suitable whether stewed, roasted, or made into sashimi were one of the favorite foods of the “Xia Li” of those days, the premise of her liking them was that these cephalopods had already long died and been frozen for a period of time in the cold storage of fishing boats.
However, the thing before her eyes was alive.
Even after having been seized, it was still struggling with all its might, attempting to escape from Xia Li’s grasp.
Of course, Xia Li also did not spoil it.
After fiercely throwing this mass of tentacles onto the ground, Xia Li immediately stomped it to pieces with one foot.
This kind of reaction was also a good habit cultivated by the original body in long years of military training and actual combat—toward any thing of unknown origin that might be dangerous, unless there were other orders, the best method of handling it was to destroy it.
However, all of this was not yet finished.
Although the previous move of “Iron Head Technique” had indeed knocked that young girl unconscious onto the ground, in the next second she once again, with a strange posture, performed a carp-leap and bounced up, then drew a folding knife and stabbed toward Xia Li.
Of course, this move also did not succeed.
After all, as the Imperial Marshal, Xia Li had from the age of ten, under the supervision of her mother in law—that is, Emperor Guangjing who had been assassinated not long ago—begun practicing various techniques of armed combat.
Toward this kind of attack, even if she had no weapon in hand, she still had sufficient means of response.
In merely half a second of time, the young girl’s folding knife was easily kicked flying away by Xia Li.
Afterward, Xia Li delivered a palm strike to the depression of her shoulder and neck—this place where nerve clusters were dense, as long as it received one heavy blow, would immediately cause a person to suffer extreme pain, often further leading to loss of consciousness…
…But the one before her eyes clearly was not among this category.
Xia Li was very certain that the force of her attack just now was absolutely not light.
However, the other party’s performance also indeed did not look as if she had suffered much pain.
After swaying and retreating two steps, that young girl once again bared her fangs and brandished her claws as she charged over.
“This, this appearance is simply the zombies of legend!”
“That kind of unscientific thing cannot possibly exist!” Weeping of the Shadow said, “Pay attention to behind her!”
“Eh?! That’s right!” Thanks to Weeping of the Shadow’s reminder, Xia Li suddenly came to her senses: just as this black sword had said, behind that young girl there seemed to be dragging a long semi-transparent linear object, exactly like the tentacles jellyfish use to hunt small fish and shrimp.
But because the transparency differed little from jellyfish tentacles, before this Xia Li had continuously failed to discover its existence.
Thus, after raising that .38-caliber revolver, Xia Li lifted her hand and fired two shots, severing that linear object.
The young girl who had just been baring her fangs and brandishing her claws as she pounced toward her immediately collapsed onto the ground like a wired remote-control robot whose optical fiber had been cut, foaming at the mouth and no longer moving.
“What exactly is this…” After confirming that the other party was no longer moving, Xia Li squatted down and used the front sight of the revolver to pick up the tentacle severed by the bullets.
These eerie gelatinous substances indeed looked seven-tenths similar to the jellyfish skin on the dining table, only with higher toughness and also more solid.
One end of the tentacle disappeared into a floor drain covered by a metal grate in the corner of the warehouse; clearly, in the sewers below there still existed a larger “something.”
And the other end extended along the young girl’s thigh and groin, ultimately disappearing into the area near the coccyx between the two legs.
After confirming this point, Xia Li finally understood the situation.
No wonder a Game with a mortality rate as low as 3.2%, looking simply equivalent to a “newbie village,” would actually be officially designated as difficulty third-rank “Bishop” level.
“Have you figured it out?” Weeping of the Shadow asked.
“Mm. The ‘living take all’ rule… no wonder!” Xia Li poked the unconscious young girl and discovered that she still had breathing, and even still had reactions to external stimuli.
But overall she was like an arthropod that had been attacked by a parasitic wasp, completely showing no conscious activity.
Without a doubt, this was the true terrifying aspect of “Secluded Forest Girls’ Academy”: those monsters wandering in the jungle actually could not cause great threat to the players; their greatest reason for existence was attracting their attention.
Even the few miscellaneous soldiers deployed inside the campus at the beginning were only for the sake of, after being eliminated, letting everyone produce a false sense of security.
And when everyone was tightly staring at the jungle outside the walls and maintaining vigilance, the true threat then quietly proliferated inside the campus: although she did not know what the main body of this thing was, Xia Li could affirm that it was the true big Boss in the genuine sense.
From the situation of this female student, this thing very likely only began secretly acting after the defenses had stabilized and everyone had begun wholeheartedly guarding against external enemies.
First, it would make a move against people who were alone, establishing a connection through the method of piercing into the spine—as for how it manipulated the brain, currently Xia Li was still not very clear.
But based on the knowledge of “Xia Li,” those tentacles perhaps directly penetrated the blood-brain barrier and turned into some kind of organic brain-machine interface; perhaps they released some neurotropic viruses that assisted in carrying out control.
However, no matter what the specific principle was, these manipulated people all turned into living puppets, and could even assist in luring and ambushing other people.
Because the action ability of these tentacles themselves was insufficient, these puppets would also directly stuff that thing similar to baby octopuses onto the victims, in order to more efficiently capture the targets.
Although the actual combat power of these parasitic monsters was not necessarily very strong, after everyone’s attention had been attracted, they would turn into the most terrifying “first-encounter kill” method, very likely leading to a total wipe of the players—however, whether becoming a puppet after being manipulated, or turning into this living-dead state after the manipulation was severed, the players technically did not count as “dead,” and of course would also not be counted into the total number of deaths.
This was the truth of the 3.2% mortality rate in the statistical data…
“Alright… well, it really is quite excellent bad taste,” Xia Li subconsciously clenched both fists, “In the area of word games, they truly have played it clear.”
“However, this also illustrates one matter,” Weeping of the Shadow said, “That fellow Xushinige…”
“No need to say it.” Xia Li shook her head: from the design of this Game, without a doubt, even if one did not know at the beginning, being able to survive one round of the Game and clear it necessarily meant that one had long since known of the true threat.
And Xushinige not only had not told anyone of this matter, but had even deliberately recruited large numbers of stupid lolis like Lunene whose brains were not bright and who could not effectively respond to danger, and had even further dispersed everyone into single sentries and small teams that easily became isolated; this clearly only illustrated one matter…
“Wait… where is Lunene? Where is Lunene?!” The instant she thought of that stupid loli, Xia Li suddenly realized that Lunene, who should have been continuously following behind her, had for some unknown reason lost all trace!
This was bad!