Winter had already arrived in the city. The hospital where Xiao Lou was in the morning and the renovation company where Lao Mo went at noon both had heating. Instead of feeling cold, he actually felt a bit warm wearing a wool sweater.
Logically speaking, since the city has centralized heating, supermarkets, which have a large flow of people, should also have heating. However, when I entered the supermarket just now, it was even colder than standing on the street. It was so cold that my teeth were chattering.
Xiao Lou initially thought the supermarket's heating was broken, so he didn't pay much attention to the temperature. It was only when Ye Qi said, "This is an insect nest," that he suddenly realized—perhaps it wasn't a coincidence, but intentional!
Seeing the Infected lying on the ground with bloodshot eyes, Xiao Lou immediately took a step back to Yu Hanjiang's side and whispered, "The whole supermarket is full of Infected. The bugs probably like cold environments, so they turned off the heating?"
Yu Hanjiang nodded: "It's definitely unusually cold here."
Ye Qi shivered, her face pale with nervousness: "What should we do? Should we just push the shopping cart out?"
Yu Hanjiang paused for three seconds, then turned to everyone and said, "Let's wipe out these bugs."
Everyone: "..."
Well, this is definitely more like Captain Yu's style.
When they encountered a group of sharks while adrift at sea, while other Challengers were frantically fleeing in panic, Yu Hanjiang fought a bloody battle against the sharks, using a Night Demon military knife to chop down dozens of sharks.
Let him flee in a sorry state? Sorry, Yu Hanjiang prefers a head-on confrontation.
After saying this, Yu Hanjiang took out a card from the card holder— [Madman].
This is an S-rank weapon card that Yu Hanjiang drew while speedrunning levels 5, 6, and 7. It's an all-black submachine gun with extremely fierce close-range firepower, capable of sweeping across a wide area and opening up the battlefield.
Everyone knows that Captain Yu has drawn a lot of S-rank weapon cards, including various firearms, but he has never been seen using them. Perhaps the previous secret rooms hadn't yet presented a challenge that forced Yu Hanjiang to use firearms. Now, facing intelligent Zerg, and with this secret room having no restrictions on card usage, Yu Hanjiang has finally brought out his trump card, an S-rank weapon.
This was the first time his teammates had seen him take out a gun. As a policeman, he would definitely use a gun. With such a powerful weapon, eliminating dozens of Infected didn't seem like a difficult task.
Xiao Lou breathed a slight sigh of relief.
That's what he was thinking too. Although the supermarket had become a nest for the insectoids, the Infected were only about fifty people. This was a parasitic chamber, and within three days, more than 80% of the city's original inhabitants would be infected. Could they escape today, or even 14 days? If they ran away when they encountered Infected, what if they were surrounded by thousands of Infected later? How would they escape then?
Even though we have cards, we can't exactly fly to the sky or dive to the ground, can we?
Therefore, while the number of Infected in the supermarket is not large this time, we can have a real battle and also take the opportunity to understand the characteristics and weaknesses of these Zerg, so as to prepare for a more severe situation in the future.
Xiao Lou looked at Yu Hanjiang with approval and said, "Okay, everyone will follow Captain Yu's instructions."
Yu Hanjiang nodded to Xiao Lou. The two were connected via the Telepathic Connection and naturally understood each other's thoughts—practice, investigation, and experience accumulation. Their ideas were once again in sync.
Ye Qi said, "My musical instrument can control multiple targets at once. I wonder if these bugs will be affected by control skills?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "Wait for my instructions later. Long Sen has a badminton shuttlecock, right? We can test it out first to see if it can stun these bugs and also test their agility. If it works, Ye Qi can then use the crowd control, and I'll take the opportunity to clear the field."
Ye Qi's instrument crowd control skill has a long cooldown and must be saved for crucial moments. Long Sen, on the other hand, can hit dozens of shuttlecocks consecutively, so wasting a few won't be a big deal.
Upon hearing Captain Yu's command, everyone took out their cards, held them in their hands, and alertly scanned their surroundings, entering a state of combat readiness.
After staring at them for a few seconds, the Infected crawling on the ground suddenly launched a simultaneous attack without warning—
Seeing them begin to move, Yu Hanjiang immediately ordered in a deep voice, "All personnel, prepare for battle!"
The seven people quickly stood back to back, forming a circle. Xiao Lou was protected in the middle of the circle, because everyone wanted to give him enough time and space to draw a circle with Compass and release Ring's invincible barrier.
Everyone kept their eyes on the front to avoid being suddenly attacked by Infected.
However, these Infected were not only intelligent but also highly coordinated. Dozens of Infected moved in unison, quickly crawling on the ground and surrounding Yu Hanjiang and his group of eight. Then, like ferocious beasts, they arched their backs, pushed off with their legs, and charged at them in pairs!
Just then, Xiao Lou finished drawing his invincibility circle. The group of Infected hit Ring's invincibility boundary as if they had hit a transparent barrier, and were all bounced back.
Xiao Lou drew an invincible circle for Compass, which was 10 square meters. This was the maximum area that Compass could expand to. Everyone stood back to back inside the circle, while the Infected were isolated outside the circle.
The Infected could not proceed, separated by the transparent barrier. They stared at Xiao Lou and his group with wide, scarlet eyes, like beasts that had spotted prey but could not eat. They scrambled around Ring frantically, trying every possible way to attack, drool dripping from their mouths.
Although they temporarily blocked one wave of attacks, the feeling...
The fact that the infected individuals were so close together sent chills down everyone's spine.
Yu Hanjiang said, " Compass's invincibility time is limited and cannot last too long. Long Sen, move out!"
Upon hearing the command, Long Sen immediately activated the card "Badminton".
He produced a badminton racket in one hand and a cylinder containing shuttlecocks in the other. Long Sen quickly took a shuttlecock from the cylinder and hit it at the back of an infected man.
When a badminton shuttlecock makes contact with its target, it will cause the target to be stunned for a few seconds.
But the Infected reacted extremely quickly, as if it had eyes in the back of its head, and actually dodged it with a jump!
Long Sen, refusing to believe it, unleashed four more attacks in quick succession. Surprisingly, all the Infected nimbly dodged them, and those Infected that were hit on the back of the head even turned around to glare at Long Sen.
Long Sen: "..."
As a sports school student, he thought his ball skills were okay. He couldn't compare to professional players, but he could easily defeat ordinary people. Just now, he clearly aimed at the back of those infected heads and launched a surprise attack, but all five balls were dodged.
Long Sen broke out in a cold sweat: "Do these insects have eyes in the back of their heads too?"
Xiao Lou analyzed, "They occupy the human brain, but their vision should not be captured by the human eye. Judging from the reaction just now, they live in the human head, and it is very likely that they have a 360-degree field of vision without blind spots."
Everyone: "..."
In other words, these infected heads are visible from any angle. Insects can stay on the back of an infected head and attack from behind, and the infected head still has a field of vision!
Yu Hanjiang frowned and said, " Ye Qi, try using a single-target control card."
Ye Qi nodded and immediately took out the flute.
Among his musical instruments, guitar, erhu, and guzheng all have crowd control skills, but their cooldown times are very long, requiring tens of minutes or even hours to use them once. flute, on the other hand, is a single-target control skill with a cooldown of only a few seconds at max level.
Ye Qi targeted the nearest man dressed as a chef, picked up a flute, and began to play.
A melodious tune rang in his ears, and the man paused for a moment before falling into a deep sleep.
Ye Qi excitedly put down the flute and said, "It worked! The sound waves from the flute are colorless, so they can't hide from it!"
Long Sen subconsciously praised, "This is better than badminton. Badminton requires hitting the target; if you miss, you can't control the game."
Xiao Lou said, "You can coordinate with Ye Qi for a combo. Ye Qi's flute can only control for 3 seconds. Use your badminton shuttlecock to hit the target controlled by Ye Qi to add 5 seconds of stun. If the skills are linked well, you can control a single target for 8 seconds."
Long Sen suddenly realized something: " Professor Xiao is right!"
Perhaps this is the most correct way to use badminton.
If you go straight for the shuttlecock and it gets dodged, you've wasted a point. But if your teammate gets control of the opponent first, you can use a shuttlecock to supplement that control, which is like hitting a stationary target. With Long Sen's skill, surely he can hit a target?
Ye Qi also discovered that if he and Long Sen coordinated their skills well, they could almost seamlessly control one enemy at a time. However, with too many Infected, controlling them one by one would make them flustered, and Long Sen's balls wouldn't be enough. It was much more satisfying to control multiple enemies at once.
Thinking of this, Ye Qi said, "I have all my group control instrument cards. When should we make our move?"
Yu Hanjiang calmly said, "No rush. Compass's invincibility will last for a while. Let's take this opportunity to carefully observe the characteristics of the Zerg, figure out their attack methods, and their weaknesses."
Everyone: "......"
The girls at Luoying Pavilion ran away, but Yu Hanjiang stayed in the supermarket. It turns out he wanted to use this batch of Zerg for experiments.
Captain Yu's thinking is indeed simple and straightforward—what are sharks? What are insects to fear? Slay gods and Buddhas alike, that's the right way to clear the Spade Secret Room!
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