15: Chapter 15: Evacuation from the Abandoned Service Station, Critical Hit Heavy Machine Gun Blueprint

Chen Chen silently pushed open the iron door and slipped sideways into the utility room.

The five people's attention was entirely on the area outside the window and their channel chat; no one noticed an invisible grim reaper had appeared behind them.

He looked around.

On the inside of the utility room's anti-theft iron door, there was a thick bolt, and the screws next to the keyhole were half-loosened.

Chen Chen picked up a three-centimeter-long piece of wire from the ground and bent it into a U-shape.

His left hand silently pushed the bolt into the slot.

His right hand inserted the wire into the keyhole, twisted it hard, and jammed it.

The sound of the bolt clicking into place was extremely faint, completely drowned out by the thugs' raucous laughter.

The escape route was sealed.

Chen Chen drew the armor-piercing military dagger from his legging holster.

The black iron-grade high-carbon steel blade did not reflect light in the dim environment, and the edge was as thin as paper.

He walked behind the short, fat thug who was laughing the loudest.

He was less than half a meter away.

He could smell the mix of cheap cigarettes and overnight sweat on the man.

Strike!

His left hand covered the short, fat thug's mouth, while his right hand swept the armor-piercing military dagger across the carotid artery.

There was not the slightest resistance.

The effect of the entry ignoring 20% of basic physical defense was even more exaggerated on humans—the sensation of the blade slicing through skin and flesh was smoother than cutting tofu.

Arterial blood pressure was extremely high.

With one strike, blood sprayed directly out, drenching the face and neck of the bald man crouching by the window.

It was warm and metallic.

The short, fat thug's body went limp, the cigarette butt rolled from between his fingers, bouncing twice on the ground.

The entire process was silent.

The bald man reached up to wipe his face, his fingertips sticky and burning hot.

He looked down—his hand was covered in red.

He turned his head—

The short, fat man was lying on the ground clutching his neck, blood gushing from between his fingers, his eyes wide enough to pop out.

"Fuck!"

The bald man sprang up.

He leveled his crossbow, scanning the empty room frantically.

There was nothing.

Not even a shadow.

"Who! Who the fuck did that!"

The remaining three thugs also exploded.

They huddled back-to-back, holding steel pipes above their heads, swinging wildly at the air.

The flat-headed thug's crotch was soaked, and the smell of urine quickly permeated the confined space.

"Ghost... there's a ghost!"

Chen Chen did not waste any more attack opportunities.

He had four remaining chances; he needed to save them.

He kicked the corpse that hadn't yet stopped breathing; the short, fat thug's body slid two meters away, smashing into the clutter piled in front of the ventilation duct, jamming his upper body into the metal louvers of the exhaust fan.

The carotid artery was still spraying.

Fresh blood dripped down the ventilation duct, the thick, pungent smell of blood shredded by the rotating fan blades, turning into countless tiny blood mists that drifted out through the ventilation grille on the first-floor ceiling.

The effect was immediate.

Downstairs, the Elite-grade Aberrant suddenly raised its head.

Its turbid eyes turned crimson, its nasal cavity flared violently, and it let out a roar capable of shattering glass.

Fifteen low-level monsters followed, rioting.

Heavy footsteps converged from all directions, pouring into the first floor of the supermarket.

The floor began to tremble violently, and dust fell in flurries from the cracks in the ceiling.

"They're coming up! Run!" The bald man lunged at the iron door, pulling hard on the bolt with both hands.

It didn't budge.

He looked down and saw the bent wire in the keyhole, and the color drained completely from his face.

"The door... the door is locked."

Someone had walked in, killed someone, and locked the only exit without them noticing at all.

From start to finish, they hadn't seen a thing.

The sound of bones hitting walls came from the stairwell. The gray-purple head of the first low-level Aberrant poked out from the corner.

Taking advantage of the moment when all four were facing the iron door, Chen Chen bent down and snatched something from the waist of the short, fat thug.

A pure black metal tag.

A coiled black dragon was engraved on the front, and a serial number on the back.

[Black Dragon Society Elite Token]

He shoved it into his pocket.

The window.

There was an old sliding window on the west side of the utility room, and outside the window was the exterior wall of the second floor, with the gas station canopy below.

Chen Chen pushed open the window and climbed out.

The cement surface of the exterior wall was rough, with plenty of footholds.

With 40 points of Constitution and 21 points of Agility, his movement sliding down the exterior wall was as light as a cat.

His boot soles landed on the sheet metal of the gas station canopy, and he leaped down from the edge.

He landed with knees slightly bent to absorb the impact, silent.

The first floor was empty.

All the monsters—including that Elite-grade big guy—had squeezed into the supermarket and were rushing up the stairs to the second floor.

The Bronze supply box was sitting next to the abandoned fuel pump, lonely, without even a fly around it.

Chen Chen walked over, hooked his hand around the metal handle on the side of the box, and lifted it.

Heavy, at least forty or fifty pounds.

He hoisted it onto his shoulder, turned, and left.

Behind him, a piercing metallic scream of the anti-theft iron door being torn apart by immense force came from the second floor of the supermarket.

Following that were four shrill, distorted screams—

That sound, it didn't sound like something a human could make.

It was the final vibration of vocal cords under extreme tension when being torn apart alive.

Then came the chewing sounds.

Dense, wet, skin-crawling chewing sounds.

Chen Chen didn't look back.

Carrying the Bronze box, he strode toward the heavy-duty RV behind the sand dune.

The stealth countdown hit zero.

His figure appeared in front of the RV door, the ripple patterns fading from his skin.

"Knock, knock, knock."

Three knocks.

The door opened from the inside.

Shen Wanxing poked her head out, and her eyes widened when she saw the large box emitting a dark cyan glow on Chen Chen's shoulder.

She looked at him again—his tactical vest was clean, not even a loose thread out of place.

In the distance, the screams from the second floor of the supermarket hadn't stopped, intermittent, like a broken radio.

Shen Wanbing sat in the passenger seat, watching through the protective mesh as Chen Chen threw the box into the vehicle and brushed the dust off his hands.

"Done."

Just one word.

There were fifteen monsters plus one Elite in that supermarket, along with five armed thugs; from leaving to returning, it was less than five minutes.

Without a scratch.

Shen Wanbing suddenly felt how ridiculous her warning to him last night— "Don't you dare move your hands or feet" —sounded.

If this man really wanted to make a move, she wouldn't even have a chance to react.

The Bronze box was lifted by Chen Chen with one hand and tossed steadily onto the metal anti-slip mesh in the vehicle.

The box's shell had a dark cyan metallic luster, with raw copper rivets embedded in the four corners, and a twisted rune engraved on the front latch.

Compared to those ubiquitous black iron wooden boxes from before, the texture was more than a grade higher.

Chen Chen tapped the box wall with his boot tip and tilted his head toward the old mattress.

"Come here."

Shen Wanxing got up at the sound.

She stepped barefoot onto the metal floor and walked quickly to the box, crouching down.

Chen Chen's gaze shifted downward.

Because she had been tortured all day by those ill-fitting high heels yesterday, there were several red marks on the arches and heels of her fair, delicate feet.

Her pinkish-white toes curled uneasily, crystal clear, painted with light nude-pink nail polish, which, combined with her defenseless crouching posture, was very eye-catching.

"Don't hold back this time." Chen Chen withdrew his gaze, looking straight ahead. "It's a Bronze-grade supply box; what it drops depends entirely on your hands. Use all the strength you've got."

Shen Wanxing pouted: "I can't control the probability..."

Complaint aside, her fair, tender palms still obediently pressed against the hard bronze surface.

The latch clicked open, and the lid flipped to the sides.

System prompts popped up in her mind one after another.

[Detected that the beauty Shen Wanxing has triggered the exclusive talent "Lucky Critical"!]

[Triggered 2x reward probability!]

[Triggered 5x reward probability!]

[Triggered... 10x reward probability!]

Three critical hits.

Beams of gold and purple light erupted from inside the box, illuminating the dim vehicle brightly.

Shen Wanxing subconsciously shrank back half a step, covering her eyes with her hands.

The light faded.

The supplies in the box piled up into a small hill, spilling onto the metal floor.

Chen Chen reached out to sort through them, counting one by one.

Two scrolls with a cold blue luster, when unfolded, depicted intricate mechanical structural diagrams—dual-mounted rotating gun mounts, belt-fed ammunition systems, electric-drive fire control modules.

[C-grade RV Heavy Machine Gun Blueprint * 2]

Five palm-sized frosted black disc devices, with light purple multi-faceted crystals embedded in the center.

[Consumable Item: Primary mental shielding device * 5 — After use, generates a mental shielding field around the vehicle, lasting for the entire night. Players within the field are immune to all low-level mental pollution and sanity erosion.]

At the bottom, ten complete crystals emitting a lustrous blue light were neatly arranged.

[Primary Vehicle Core * 10]

Chen Chen held those two heavy machine gun blueprints, the rough parchment texture coming through, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

Firepower.

This heavy-duty RV had survived from the start until now entirely by him relying on the armor-piercing military dagger in his hand for close-quarters combat.

The defense stats were maxed out, but the offensive side was zero.

He could still go cut down a lone Aberrant, but if he really encountered a massive horde of hundreds or thousands, stabbing with a knife?

A hundred lives wouldn't be enough to fill the gap.

Vehicle-mounted heavy machine gun—long-range firepower suppression, high-speed mobile shooting, a tool for harvesting hordes.

This was the proper standard equipment for the apocalypse.