"What's happening?"
The trembling voice of the old professor sounded feeble in the darkness.
Boom—
Boom—
After two more infected monkeys were turned into piles of flesh by the sniper rifle through the scope, Taylor disappeared in the darkness, even the drone couldn't capture his figure.
Taylor had managed to escape again.
Lucas sighed and put away the sniper rifle.
At this moment, he had a strong intuition that Taylor would reappear one day, and it would be a powerful appearance in front of humanity.
However, Lucas didn't know whether Taylor's reappearance would be a disaster for humanity.
As for the term "half-infected being" that had inexplicably come to his mind, Lucas felt that the system was hinting at something.
In the previous apocalypse, Lucas had never seen a situation like Taylor's, nor had he even heard of it.
But Lucas thought it was normal. After all, this apocalypse was different in many ways from the previous one.
Lucas turned around and helped the collapsed old professor back into the bus.
He asked Mata Hari if the infected crow flock had discovered Taylor's whereabouts, but they hadn't.
Lucas was well aware that this human-cat duo's method of controlling infected beings was different from Mata Hari's.
Thinking about the scene where the infected monkeys bowed down to Taylor, Lucas felt a bit uneasy.
"Professor, here's the situation. You don't need to worry about your grandson. He's strong, so strong that even the infected monkeys worship him."
"What you should worry about is not his life, but the fact that he might become unrecognizable to you, and even become an enemy of humanity."
Lucas handed a cup of hot coffee to the professor and explained Taylor's situation to him, including some of Lucas's own speculations.
At this moment, Lucas wasn't comforting the professor but telling him the truth, including why Taylor suddenly changed and whether it was due to the core of the insects.
"Are you suggesting that Taylor might have become like this because he possesses the core of the insect monsters? In the past, he didn't change because there was nothing external to activate some kind of energy or virus inside him?"
When Lucas shared his speculation with the professor, the professor's concerns about Taylor's life or death lessened a bit, and he immediately started analyzing.
"That's about the gist of it."
"It's precisely because of these unknown factors that I need scientists like you to help me."
"If we can understand these monsters outside and find a solution sooner, perhaps this world will have a chance to return to normal."
Lucas was more generous this time, directly giving a yellow core to Kayla Mead and the old professor for research, while he took the curved blade and the mute girl to dig for cores.
Unfortunately, Lucas was disappointed. The cores inside the insects killed by the black cat had mysteriously disappeared, not a single one left.
Not only that, but even the insect shells were torn into too many pieces, and the system only counted them as half shells each.
In the end, Lucas exchanged two blank yellow sheets for the corpse of an infected wild boar, one that looked like a tiger, and three insect bodies.
This trade was the most disappointing one for Lucas.
The disappeared cores and crystalline cores inside the infected beings reminded Lucas of how the black cat absorbed the red cores.
If the disappeared ones were absorbed by the black cat, how powerful would it become?
"I hope Taylor won't turn against humanity."
Having searched in vain for the corpses of the three infected monkeys, Lucas sighed and returned to the bus.
The infected crows spread across the entire plain, and not a single bug or infected creature was found. The bus successfully drove away.
On the return journey, Lucas chose not to take the same route as before but planned to take a detour of over a hundred kilometers to return.
Seeing that the intelligent infected beings had already appeared, Lucas didn't dare to cross the river using the same route. He couldn't be sure that there wouldn't be infected beings waiting for him in the water.
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If something went wrong while crossing the river, even the bus might not survive.
Lucas couldn't afford to take such a risk.
The new route also involved crossing the river, but at least the possibility of being ambushed by the intelligent infected beings was much smaller. After planning the route, Lucas began chatting with the group.
Just as he took a sip of water, the chubby man took it upon himself to approach Lucas.
His request was simple: he wanted to go back. Unlike Mata Hari, he had a wife and children, so he had to go back.
After inquiring about Mata Hari's condition, Lucas let him go without silencing him.
Lucas didn't bother thinking too much about the potential dangers this might bring. If some force wanted to cause trouble for him over such a trivial matter, Lucas didn't mind playing along with them.
No matter how indifferent Lucas appeared in the apocalypse, he wasn't someone who indiscriminately killed people. Unless he truly felt threatened, he wouldn't hesitate to take action.
The chubby man expressed his gratitude and left, relying on his own luck to determine whether he could return.
Mata Hari genuinely wanted to go to Lake Blue Sky. She felt a sense of freedom.
She had entered the club at a young age before the apocalypse, and even after the end of the world, she hadn't experienced true freedom in body and mind.
Perhaps it was because her boss considered her obedient that he hadn't used anything to threaten her.
In this situation, once Mata Hari made up her mind, no one could stop her.
Lucas didn't expect that he had unintentionally gained a diligent girl to help him.
From the start of the return journey, Mata Hari served the group diligently, doing things like pouring tea, fetching water, and cooking. She even cleaned the dirty parts of the bus.
Based on what Mata Hari did, even if she wasn't an evolved individual, Lucas was satisfied.
Kayla Mead, on the other hand, was carefree. She chatted with Lucas about various energy-related knowledge and developed a strong interest in the bus. She even had a desire to dismantle and examine the high-tech items on the bus.
Among everyone, only the old professor remained silent. Perhaps he hadn't fully recovered from the departure of his grandson.
No one tried to console him because some things had to be figured out by oneself, and nobody could help.
Seeing the old professor holding the yellow insect core and staring blankly, Lucas thought it was a good thing. This way, the old man would probably devote himself to researching these things, saving Lucas a lot of talking.
Strictly speaking, this type of researcher would become increasingly important in the apocalypse because they were related to the hope of human survival.
Over two hours later, after Mata Hari set up small tents inside the bus for the two experts to sleep in, the bus had reached the riverside.
There was still a bridge crossing the river, but it was half the size of the one they had taken before, and the river was much narrower.
The bus suddenly stopped in a grove by the river, maintaining silence because the drone had spotted a military convoy about one kilometer away on the other side of the river.
The convoy consisted of around seventy to eighty vehicles, with most of them being large trucks that appeared to be transporting supplies.
It was currently 3 a.m.
Although the world was in darkness, humans still followed their pre-apocalypse daily routines.
If Lucas crossed the bridge, he would definitely come face to face with the convoy since the surrounding terrain wasn't suitable for the bus to detour around them.
Lucas also considered hiding the bus here and waiting for the convoy to leave before continuing, but if the other party stayed for several days, it would be pointless, and he wanted to return to Lake Blue Sky as soon as possible.
However, ten minutes later, Lucas realized that he didn't need to ponder this issue anymore. Seven or eight vehicles arrived, surrounding the bus.
It seems that when the bus arrived, it was already spotted by the other side, either by a drone or reconnaissance troops.
"All passengers, please disembark for inspection!"
Lucas and the others did not get off the bus voluntarily.
They repeated the announcement three times, but the bus remained unresponsive. Instead, someone noticed dark clouds floating in the sky above, and these clouds were making "cawing" sounds.
Mata Hari summoned a flock of infected crows, and several of them swooped towards the convoy.
Chaos ensued.
Lucas had no intention of engaging with them, but avoiding them was another matter.
After the entire flock of infected crows launched their attack, the bus suddenly started and crossed the river.
Fortunately, the opposing force was a supply convoy, and they didn't have many heavy weapons, so they didn't pose a significant threat to Lucas.
After the infected crows attacked the seven or eight military vehicles, they flew towards the larger convoy transporting supplies, causing chaos there as well.
Lucas manually drove the bus past the convoy transporting supplies.
Knowing it would be so easy to leave, Lucas felt that his previous contemplation was completely unnecessary.
The only thing that puzzled Lucas was where this supply convoy was headed.
So far, Lucas only knew about the shelter city in Annan, which seemed to be under military control.
As for other shelter cities, they hadn't appeared yet, but they were probably under construction.
And what about the coastal city? In the previous world, the leader of the shelter city in the coastal city was in Lake Blue Sky. Who was in charge of the shelter city in the coastal city now?
"Never mind, why bother about all that? The important thing is to focus on Lake Blue Sky."
Watching the convoy getting farther away, Lucas instructed Mata Hari to disperse the flock of infected crows.
Lucas had never allowed the infected crows to attack people before; their purpose was to create chaos.
After crossing the river, they were not far from Lake Blue Sky. In less than two hours, the bus would enter the range of the Lake Blue Sky Resort, and the drone footage already showed a bustling crowd there.
Lucas enthusiastically held the drone control panel and showed it to Kayla Mead and Mata Hari, saying that Lake Blue Sky was being developed rapidly and would be no less impressive than the shelter cities in those big cities once it was completed.
However, as he continued watching, he noticed Mata Hari's expression changing, while Kayla Mead burst into laughter.
"Huh? What's going on?"
Lucas quickly shifted his gaze back to the footage.
Indeed, the Lake Blue Sky Resort was still under construction.
However, the faces of those whom Lucas was familiar with were being held at gunpoint by more than a dozen armed individuals at the moment.
At a glance, Lucas recognized that he didn't know any of the armed individuals.
Creak—
The bus abruptly came to a screeching halt, and Lucas started manually controlling the drone.
The drone flew at high speed directly above the Lake Island in the middle of the lake.
A few minutes later, Lucas had a rough idea of what was happening.
Lake Blue Sky had been occupied by outsiders, and their numbers didn't exceed three hundred.
These people were not part of the military, which meant there was only one possibility: there were powerful evolved individuals among them, and their numbers were significant.
Lucas didn't immediately rush over to kill them; instead, he analyzed the possible reasons behind this situation.
Anna, cobras, Gehring, Reed.
Lake Blue Sky had at least four evolved individuals, and their strength was not to be underestimated during this period.
Most importantly, Lake Blue Sky had quite a few heavy weapons. So how did three hundred people manage to capture it?
Lucas parked the bus by the roadside and instructed Mata Hari to protect Kayla Mead and the old professor. He also had the mute girl hide near the bus while he rode his motorcycle towards Lake Blue Sky.
As he approached the resort, Lucas's shadow clone separated from his body and infiltrated the resort.
Lucas had a simple plan: he would disguise himself as a lone adventurer and gather information upfront, while the shadow clone would search for Anna and the Cobras to find out their whereabouts.
Fifty meters away from the Lake Blue Sky resort, the motorcycle was forced to a stop by a burst of bullets.
Lucas watched as seven or eight people approached him. Instead of getting off the motorcycle, he lit a cigarette and took a puff.
"Don't shoot, it's just me!"
After shouting at the people, Lucas remained still.
He didn't have his sniper rifle with him at the moment, only a heavy knife and a machete.
Lucas portrayed himself as an evolved individual with strength-based abilities, and the heavy knife looked like a weapon that an ordinary person couldn't handle.
The incoming individuals were perceptive and immediately noticed that Lucas was not an ordinary person. They raised their guns towards him but maintained a friendly attitude when speaking.
"You're not an ordinary person, right? What brings you here?"
"If you're here to join us, I'll inform my big brother and the others. If you're just passing through, please leave."
The young man who seemed to be the leader among the group spoke to Lucas, but the barrel of his gun was aimed at Lucas's head.
"Oh? You know I'm not an ordinary person. Does that mean there are others here who suddenly gained special abilities like me?"
Looking at the young leader, Lucas suddenly exaggerated his expression, appearing pleasantly surprised.
"I'm from the coastal city. I've been hiding in the nearby mountains with a few friends for over a month. But just a dozen hours ago, we encountered some monsters, and all my friends died in the mountains. I'm the only one who managed to escape."
"I'm willing to join you."
"But can you provide me with some food now? Meat would be great. I haven't had any meat or vegetables for a month. My stomach is filled with instant noodles and biscuits."
As Lucas spoke, he got off the motorcycle and, in front of the group, took the heavy knife down from his back, showing his sincerity.
"I'm good at fighting. My ability is to increase my strength, and now I can lift a car with my bare hands. So if I join you, I can be of great help."
At this moment, Lucas's words matched his actual age quite well, without any loopholes.