Chapter 596: 421
Yara imagined the scenario as Dong Tianyu had just described. If in the real world, a group emerged that could grow infinitely strong and revive endlessly after being killed, that would be a horrifying affair. At that thought, Yara couldn’t help but shiver.
After calming her mind slightly, Yara then continued to speak to Dong Tianyu, "The last wave of the Calamity Bug Race has already appeared, and this round it’s the skeletons. Skeletons can be regarded as Undead, so following those patterns of calamity you just described—
the next disaster might well be the Righteous Protocol, which is the IA robots uprising, or it could be the descent of players."
"Actually, if it were the descent of players, it would be quite good. After all, they are human, and they might even offer us help."
Hearing Yara’s naive thoughts, Dong Tianyu couldn’t help but shake his head and then directly asked her, "The ones controlling the player characters might not necessarily be human; they could be some kind of extraterrestrial beings."
"Besides, even if the characters are controlled by humans, their attitude towards the NPCs in the game is not certain. After all, to them, the world we live in is just a game."
"Moreover, players have a strong urge to destroy. Unless they are invincible creatures or buildings explicitly defined in the game’s core rules, players will try their best to destroy them. This behavior even has a grandiose name—it’s called strategizing."
"Do you know what is a widely circulated saying among players? ’As long as it shows a health bar, there’s no monster they can’t kill, no building they can’t destroy.’"
Yara, startled by what Dong Tianyu had said, shuddered and then asked him with a skeptical tone, "Really? Can playing a game create such strong malice?"
Seeing Yara’s disbelief in his words, Dong Tianyu didn’t say much but simply rolled his eyes at her as a response.
Yara, seeing Dong Tianyu’s gesture, realized that her own distrust had earned his disdain. She thought about leaving right away, but after thinking it over, she decided not to get up. Instead, she continued to ask Dong Tianyu, "Let’s not talk about things that are still in the shadows. Let’s talk about the current disaster instead."
Hearing Yara decisively change the subject, Dong Tianyu didn’t dwell on the previous topic but casually said to her, "What’s there to talk about with this disaster? It’s just skeletons appearing in the wilderness, not the kind of Undead that ignore physical attacks like vengeful spirits."
"Skeletons can be destroyed through physical attacks, so even without destroying the Soul Flame, it is hard to kill skeletons, as they can revive indefinitely.
"However, once the Soul Flame leaves the protection of the skeleton’s body, it is very fragile. Normally, as long as you smash the skeleton’s skull, either sunlight or even some strong natural wind can extinguish the Soul Flame."
"If we were still in the ancient era of cold weaponry, then those skeletons in the wild would pose a significant threat to humankind. After all, even with metal weapons, it would take great effort to shatter a skeleton’s skull."
"But what era are we in now? Let’s not even talk about Martial Artists and Awakeners. Even if the skeleton disaster emerged before, it wouldn’t cause much impact and would end up as mere experimental subjects in laboratories."
As Dong Tianyu spoke, his face was filled with confidence. After listening to his words, Yara pondered for a moment and then agreed with his opinion.
After all, compared to the skeletons still engaging in close-quarters combat at night, Yara had a great deal of faith in China’s modern weapons.
Having come to understand this, Yara didn’t linger at Dong Tianyu’s place and, after exchanging a few more words, left Dong Tianyu’s house with a cartful of tea leaves.
After seeing the guest out, Dong Tianyu returned to the tea room and sat down, sinking into contemplation.
Even though Dong Tianyu had seemed almost overconfident during his chat with Yara, deep down, he wasn’t as confident as he had appeared.
Putting other matters aside, while conversing earlier, they had, whether inadvertently or intentionally, forgotten about the creatures buried in the soil before the calamity, considering only the skeletons in the shape of those creatures that appeared after the calamity on screens.
Based on the information provided in the video, these skeletons, whether crawling out from underground or sneaking into the ground, generally did not do so through physical means but by methods akin to magic.
Moreover, logically speaking, there is a limited number of bodies buried underground in one place, and there are no mass graves around the capital suburbs. So normally, even if the number of buried bodies is substantial, after two or three days of continuous revival, all those buried should have been resurrected already.
"Then, during the nighttime battles, their numbers should be dwindling. Even though Yara only brought one video, from the skeletons seen in the video, their numbers involved in the night battles were not low."
Although Dong Tianyu did not know how many days this night battlefield had been ongoing, a week had passed since the first snowfall from the sky, and Dong Tianyu truly did not believe that these skeletons had just started appearing at night.
With these thoughts, Dong Tianyu shook his head and sighed subconsciously. It seemed he would have to go out at night to see the actual situation for himself.
