Chapter 631: This Time, the Brain Is Enhanced?

Chapter 631: This Time the Brain Got Upgraded?

The afternoon sunlight stretched endlessly through the gray-green spore clouds, and though midday was when slime mold fruiting bodies were least active, this rule reversed at the turn of spring and winter.

Even constrained by the sun, the frozen fruiting bodies, thanks to the more suitable temperature, revived with a breath of life, their mouths and noses slowly exhaling a grim gray gas.

Yet perhaps because prey had not yet appeared, they made no other moves.

They simply stood silently on the ravaged streets, their vacant eyes fixed on the direction where life’s energy pulsed most intensely.

As if waiting for something.

The Alliance soldiers watched them too, rows of light and heavy machine guns mounted on window ledges.

Now was not the optimal moment.

They too were waiting, waiting for those slime molds to gather on the street, then calling in artillery fire to shred them, and finally mopping up the remnants with machine guns...

Alliance Defense Sector 06 lay at the waist of the line, which had been cut into twenty segments. The pressure here was not as severe as in Sectors 10 and 11, nor as leisurely as in Sectors 1 and 20—for now, it was calm.

At the foremost Position 1, atop a reinforced abandoned office building.

Spring held a telescope in his hands, motionless, staring northward.

In the direction he watched, a four-wheeled pickup truck, welded with steel bars and a shovel bucket, drove out from an open gate under the cover of four players, charging toward the Feeders wandering on the nearby position.

Aside from the driver, a veteran player at level 20, the other four were newcomers who had just entered the game.

They carried bolt-action rifles, with crowbars or short blades strapped to their backs, looking even more "trendy" than raiders, their faces brimming with eager excitement.

"Awesome! So this is the wasteland?"

"Is that a zombie? Shorter than I imagined—and why aren't they wearing clothes?"

"Dummy! It's been 200 years, how could they still have clothes?"

"What zombie? That thing's called a Feeder! It comes from mushrooms!"

"Whoa? Mushrooms? Isn't that like Warhammer's Orks?"

"I think the difference is pretty big..."

Worried these guys might get too hyped and mess up the mission, the veteran player in the pickup honked the horn.

"Stop sightseeing, keep your eyes on your targets. I'm not joking—you're on the front line now, this isn't a game."

Their task was simple.

Clear out the annoying Feeders in front of the position.

These creatures weren't strong, but as cannon fodder, they'd waste the Alliance's machine-gun ammo. Regularly cleaning them up before the tide arrived was routine for every defense sector.

"Big, big shot... if you die in the game... what happens in real life?" asked a female player wearing a football helmet, both excited and nervous, gripping her rifle tightly.

Called "big shot" for the first time, the level 20 player smiled sheepishly and joked.

"What happens when you wake up?"

The girl paused.

"What happens..."

"You wake up."

"Pfft."

It wasn't that simple. He remembered his first death—three days offline, feeling like ants crawling all over him, lying flat in bed at night with eyes wide open, unable to sleep.

But after a few times, it got better.

People entering a new environment from another always feel uncomfortable, but after a while, most adapt to this life of "switching between two worlds."

Just as they exchanged a few words, the nearby Feeders, drawn by the earlier sharp honk, began gathering toward them.

The veteran player coughed, ending the chat.

Seeing the approaching Feeders, the four newcomers tensed their nerves.

A Strength-type player raised his "Ripper" rifle first, aimed at the nearest Feeder, and pulled the trigger.

A bang rang out, a bright muzzle flash flickered, and gravel and dust kicked up from a nearby concrete block.

The massive recoil slammed into his shoulder, shoving him back.

Though the shot missed, watching the smoke curl from the barrel, the player lit up like a two-hundred-pound kid, his face glowing with excitement.

The feel!

A real gun!

Way more fun than those water blasters!

Seeing his cluelessness, the veteran in the pickup chuckled.

A slow-moving target at thirty meters, and he couldn't hit it.

But he didn't mock these greenhorns; instead, he patiently advised.

"Don't panic. You're a Strength-type, you can definitely hold the barrel steady. Remember to spread your legs front and back, bend your knees, lower your center of gravity—don't stand there like a post. If a Crawler shows up, you won't even be able to run—whoa, I didn't tell you to run, what are you running for?"

"I-I-I'm kiting!" an Agility-type player shouted, retreating while working the bolt.

The veteran in the pickup couldn't help but facepalm.

"It's just a few Feeders! Kite my ass! Fix bayonets and charge! Stab their necks, smash their heads with your rifle butt! Way faster than shooting!"

The veteran kept yelling commands from the truck, and amid the continuous honking, the Feeders surrounded his vehicle.

At level 20, he wasn't afraid of a few Feeders. He released the handbrake, stomped the accelerator, and the serrated shovel bucket flipped several Feeders lunging at the hood.

Encouraged, the four newcomers mustered their courage, drew their crowbars and short blades from their backs, and charged at the Feeders surrounding the pickup with wild shouts.

As clubs and blades swung wildly, black blood splattered across the battlefield. Soon, over a dozen Feeders lay on the ground.

The fight lasted a full half hour.

Covered in blood, the newcomers panted heavily, but their faces showed no fatigue—only growing excitement.

At first, the realistic models of these snarling monsters had startled them.

But in the end, it wasn't so bad.

"Big shot, these Feeders aren't much of a fight," said the Strength-type player, wiping black blood from his face, rifle in hand, walking up to the pickup with a grin. "Got any stronger mutants? Something a bit more thrilling?"

The veteran in the truck lit a cigarette and laughed at the comment.

"Stronger? Of course! I'll take you to hunt Deathclaws later!"

Their eyes lit up.

"Really?!"

"Really," the veteran said cheerfully. "But only if you survive the tide first."

Death was an inevitable part of every player's journey. Sooner or later, everyone dies—dying early has its perks.

According to player feedback on the forums, most people's turning point came after their first death.

Whether it be understanding of the game or experience in battle, both will be sublimated in the rebirth three days hence.

The task of clearing the Gnawers was at an end, and the group began to clean up the battlefield.

Under the veteran player’s command, the four rookies, grunting and groaning, hoisted the Gnawer corpses onto the pickup truck.

The fruiting bodies of the slime mold could be used to produce nutrient paste and fertilizer, and also to recycle active substances for making clones.

Selling this truckload of corpses for a few dozen silver coins was no problem; a few more trips and they’d have enough for an automatic rifle.

Standing on the rooftop, the Spring Commander watched from start to finish.

Kakarot, shouldering his rifle, walked over to him and grinned.

“This batch of newbies isn’t half bad.”

“Indeed.”

Lowering his binoculars, Spring smiled as well. “They remind me of us back in the day.”

Kakarot: “Hahaha!”

The girl who had earlier asked, “If you die in the game, what happens in real life?” seemed timid, but her actual performance in combat was far calmer than she appeared.

And that Strength-type player, though he missed his first shot, quickly adapted to the recoil and trajectory of the Ripper rifle and soon scored his first kill in his gaming career with the butt of the gun.

Although the Storm Brigade didn’t accept rookies below LV10, their veteran players always took on the “Passing the Torch” mentor missions, guiding fresh newcomers to adapt to the current version of *Wasteland OL*.

These tender little leeks might be dead weight now, but they would grow in time.

And when that day came, these former rookies would list the Storm Brigade as their first choice.

So he often gave his brigade members opportunities to take those rookies to the front lines in less critical daily combat missions.

But just then, the gray-green fog not far from the forward position suddenly turned abnormal.

Spring’s brow furrowed slightly as he picked up the binoculars he had just set down.

“The spore cloud activity index is rising… The fog is moving toward us.” Pulling out an air monitoring indicator and glancing at it, Kakarot, standing beside him, said with a serious expression.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Spring immediately gave the order.

“Sound the alarm. Prepare for battle.”

“Yes, sir!”

…

The gray-green fog rolled down the street like a flood pouring from the heavens.

The veteran player in the pickup truck immediately sensed something was wrong, and at that moment, a voice came through the comm channel.

“A large number of mutants are approaching your position. Fall back to the defensive line immediately!”

“Damn!”

The veteran cursed under his breath, stuck his head out the window, and shouted at the players still grunting as they moved corpses.

“Stop hauling! Get in the truck!”

The four were stunned for a moment, but seeing that the boss wasn’t joking, they dropped the Gnawer bodies and jumped into the truck bed.

The veteran yanked the steering wheel hard to turn around, stealing a glance at the display on the center console.

Air spore concentration index: 477!

Holy shit, it had jumped 70 in just a few seconds!

Without daring to hesitate, he floored the accelerator and sped down the road toward the open gate behind them.

But just then, dozens of round, fleshy lumps arced down in a parabola, trailing gray-green smoke, and slammed into the ground thirty meters ahead of him.

With a sizzling sound, the round, crimson lumps burst open instantly, exploding into a thick, dense fog like a solid wall.

Never having seen such a strange mutant, the veteran’s eyes went wide.

A Detonator?!

No—

That wasn’t it!

Though a Detonator also released a lot of spores upon exploding, it mainly killed prey through kinetic and thermal energy; it didn’t release nearly this many spores!

Freeing his left hand, he grabbed a gas mask and pulled it over his face, then shouted into the comm channel.

“Put on your gas masks!”

As it turned out, his judgment was correct.

But he had still underestimated the thing’s power.

What burst from those flesh balls wasn’t just spores, but countless digestive droplets less than 1 μm in diameter.

These droplets were rich in organic acids and lytic enzymes, floating in the air and forming a dense aerosol with the spores.

His pickup had barely entered that fog when exposed skin began to sting like needles, then quickly started to ulcerate in large patches.

That prickling, itching pain was right at the threshold for triggering pain suppression—both painful and itchy, utterly maddening.

“Aaaargh—!”

The veteran floored the accelerator, gripping the wheel with both hands.

But just as the pickup was about to break through the fog, a falling flesh lump slammed down in front of the left tire.

The sudden blast force shoved the truck to the right, and it crashed hard into a concrete block by the roadside.

The veteran in the driver’s seat was nearly knocked out by the impact, while the four rookies in the truck bed lurched forward, almost tumbling from the bed onto the hood.

Though the bumper had been replaced with a bucket, people weren’t made of iron.

“Holy crap, man, can you even drive?!” The Strength-type player staggered to his feet, shaking his dizzy head, his face still pale with shock.

“Shut up!”

The veteran scowled and was about to reverse and get back on the road when a tremor that shook the ground came from a nearby alley.

His pupils shrank, and almost instinctively, he grabbed an assault rifle from the passenger seat and chambered a round.

At the same moment, two monsters, their bodies half-covered in crimson flesh, burst out of the alley, opening their gaping maws and roaring at the group.

“What the hell?!”

What kind of thing was that?!

Not only was the veteran in the pickup stunned, but Spring on the rooftop was also frozen in shock.

Another mutant he’d never seen before!

The spore concentration was rising steadily, and it was already impossible to see the ground clearly with the naked eye.

But Spring reacted quickly enough, immediately issuing orders through the comm channel.

“Position 2, prepare. Lock onto the target in the northwest sector. Heavy machine gun squad, open fire!”

“Recon team, unload the corpses from the truck bed and drag one of those big ones back!”

A mutant not in the briefing had appeared outside the defense zone.

They had to figure out what that thing damn well was!

Two crisp, decisive responses cut through the communication channel immediately.

"Roger that!"

Right at the foot of the skyscraper where Fountain stood, a long, thick tongue of flame suddenly erupted from a pitch-black window around the tenth floor.

A strength-type player sat behind that muzzle-flash, operating a 20mm rapid-fire autocannon.

Thick streaks of tracer fire raced toward a corner of the street, and the chest of the monstrosity corrupted by the slime-mold instantly erupted in a mist of blood as it staggered backward.

Watching those tracer rounds, thick as pythons, dancing across the concrete, and hearing the raucous whistle of tearing air overhead, the newbies scattered beside the pickup truck felt a sudden surge of adrenaline.

Before this, they had only witnessed such tense, exhilarating battlefield scenes in the promotional trailers released on the official website.

Standing here now, fully immersed in the actual scene, it was an entirely different sensation.

The soaring adrenaline made their whole bodies tremble involuntarily, every single cell excited to the absolute limit.

It was just that there seemed to be absolutely nothing for them to do here.

The fire support from the rear had taken care of the variant that had rushed into their faces, and just as that strength-type player was hesitating whether to go up and deliver a few finishing blows, a veteran player ducked out of the driver's seat and threw him a bundle of rope as thick as a thumb.

"Tie the rope to that monster's right leg! Tie it tight!"

The strength-type player was taken aback.

"But the machine gun is still firing—"

"Trust your teammates! They have eyes! Move it!" Curtly interrupting his words, the veteran player grabbed his own bundle and ran crouched toward the monster's left leg.

Though still somewhat afraid, seeing that the veteran had already gone, the strength-type player gritted his teeth and rushed up after him.

Sure enough, just as their leader had said, the moment they rushed forward, the massed gunfire shifted its trajectory ahead of their footsteps.

That thick tracer fire was like a protective barrier guarding them, suppressing the variants in the alley and preventing them from crossing that dense web of firepower.

The strength-type player quickly tied the rope, and seeing his leader, who had already finished tying his, rushing back toward the pickup truck, he gave chase.

Yet at the exact moment he returned to the main road, a pitch-black figure suddenly tore out from the thick fog that loomed like a wall.

Its silhouette slightly resembled a crocodile, with a flat and elongated mouth, lower limbs as thick as an ox, and a tail extended straight backward to balance its body.

However, it had no scales, only a crimson flesh membrane and scars wrinkled like burns, and its skin tone was so ugly it looked like a plucked turkey.

The creature's speed was simply too fast.

So fast that he didn't even see clearly what it looked like before the veteran player was sent flying through the air.

It seemed that in this game, an Awakened's life wasn't much tougher than an ordinary person's; when things went south, you still crashed and burned.

Perhaps things would have been much better with an exoskeleton, but unfortunately, his leader wasn't wearing one.

Without even having time to let out a scream, the veteran player's neck was snapped by a bite.

Then the crocodile-like variant pounced on his body and began to feast ravenously.

"Crack—!"

Distinctly hearing the sound of fracturing bone, the strength-type player felt his hair stand on end, his hands and feet turning cold involuntarily.

In a mere single breath, the big brother who had been helping him level up was instantly killed.

Was this what the wasteland was truly like?

But at this critical juncture, there was no time to daze off.

Looking at the two ropes tied to the rear truck bed, he immediately understood his task, ignored everyone else, and rushed desperately toward the driver's seat.

A sharp screech echoed from behind him, followed immediately by a sharp scream.

The female player who had deployed with them seemed to have been dragged into the thick fog by something.

The other two saw this and wanted to help, but before they could fire more than two shots, they were also dragged in by a large hand reaching out from the thick fog.

The supporting machine gun from the rear unleashed ferocious firepower into the thick fog, yet those tracer rounds seemed to be swallowed up, returning not a single sound.

Watching all of this from the rooftop, Fountain Commander's face was etched with gravity.

These slime-molds seemed to have grown clever.

They didn't launch a massive assault on the human defensive line like before, attempting to crush them with numerical superiority; instead, they used a cooperation with a clear division of labor.

It was as if a noose-clicking noob who only knew how to select all and attack-move had suddenly learned micro-management.

"...Is it the brain that got enhanced this time?"

Realizing this, his expression grew increasingly solemn.

He would have to share this piece of news on the official website in a bit!

Meanwhile, the battle on the ground was still ongoing.

Seeing that his teammates were already dead and gone, the strength-type player dared not linger in the fight, rolling and crawling into the cab of the pickup truck.

Although it was his first time driving this thing, fortunately, the alliance's vehicles didn't require highly sophisticated driving skills.

He gritted his teeth and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, and the pickup truck started rapidly, dragging the mangled corpse of the monster toward the deepest part of Defensive Line 06.

The variant wagging its tail chased him for a couple of steps, seemingly wanting to prevent him from taking the monster's corpse away.

But just then, heavy machine gun fire pinned down toward the creature; after pacing a few rounds without success, it decisively abandoned the pursuit, turning around to plunge back into the grey-green thick fog.

The strength-type player didn't dare to look back, his right foot welded firmly to the accelerator.

Managing to make it before the main gate closed, he drove the truck inside, then slammed on the brakes to park the pickup by the roadside.

Several soldiers wearing exoskeletons rushed over, used daggers to cut the ropes at the back truck bed, then put a body bag over the mangled monster corpse, using a forklift to transport it to the rear.

The alliance's biological research institute would be responsible for performing an autopsy on this corpse.

Combined with the tissue fluid smeared on the left tire and the scoop, they could at least figure out two of the hidden cards in the Broodmother's hand this time.

Sitting in the driver's seat, the strength-type player panted heavily, listening to the continuous gunfire in the distance behind his head, his heart pounding violently.

Ten minutes ago, he still felt the monsters in this game were too weak, yielding no pressure to kill.

Yet in a mere three minutes, the entire five-person squad was left with only him...

This game was just way too real, damn it!

While he was catching his breath, a man wearing a heavy exoskeleton walked over from the distance.

Seeing that tortoise shell carrying a cannon barrel, he recognized the person's identity at a single glance—it was precisely the commander of the Storm Corps, Fountain Commander.

The man hurriedly got out of the vehicle, looking at the dented and battered transport, his expression somewhat awkward as he lowered his head in shame and spoke.

"Sorry, I... only I came back..."

"No need to apologize, you did very well under those circumstances; for most people's first time on the battlefield, just figuring out what they ought to do is already quite good," instead of blaming him, Fountain patted his shoulder encouragingly and said with a smile, "What's your name?"

Newbie: "Shengdan Laoren!"

Fountain froze for a moment.

Santa Claus?

Was there still such a normal ID around these days?

But regardless, he still had high hopes for this fellow's potential, so he casually extended an olive branch.

“Interested in joining our Storm Brigade?”

That newbie was taken aback, thinking such good fortune existed, and immediately nodded excitedly.

“Yes! Of course!”

Quanshui said with a smile.

“Alright! From now on, you're our probationary member! Once you reach LV10, I'll formally recruit you.”

That strength-attribute newbie's heart blossomed with joy; the lingering terror on his face from a moment ago vanished completely, leaving only an upward-curving grin.

First he drew the one-in-ten-thousand closed beta qualification, then an invitation from the server's top-tier brigade!

What the hell kind of protagonist treatment is this!

Wait—

According to the usual web novel tropes, as the protagonist, wouldn't it be better to refuse indifferently at this point?

Unaware of what this guy was daydreaming about, Quanshui simply thought he had taken in a little leek with passable potential.

Brave and resourceful, unflappable in crisis—he had a bit of that Battlefield Guy's shadow from when he was a newbie. Good enough to use for now, no big problem.

Nodding with satisfaction, Quanshui prepared to return to the position.

Watching Commander Quanshui's retreating back, the daydreaming Brother Leftover suddenly remembered something and called out to stop him.

“By the way... what will happen to them?”

Quanshui stopped in his tracks and turned to look at him.

“Them?”

Old Man Leftover swallowed his saliva.

“The ones dragged into the fog...”

“...Hard to say.” Commander Quanshui was silent for a moment, then shook his head.

He had been captured by the slime molds in the tide before, but that mother entity quickly lost interest in him and instantly killed him; he hadn't even clearly seen how he was killed.

This time it was a completely different mother entity, and he couldn't say what would happen.

But a blessing in disguise was that this time three were taken.

Once on the forum, perhaps he might hear some clues that interest him...