Chapter 44: Chapter 44: He Calls It, "Arrow Vehicle
"Charge back out?"
Zhou Mo couldn’t process the words for a moment. His legs were still trembling uncontrollably as he looked out at the darkening sky beyond the City Wall. The Eternal Night would descend in a little over an hour.
Time was tight.
Besides,
He knew the Station Master was a very promising Architect, but an Architect’s skills were mainly for fortifying the camp. Their combat ability outside the camp was practically zero. How were they supposed to charge back out?
"How far are those pseudo-humans from the camp?"
"Not far. Just behind that hill, near Wang Kui’s old camp."
"Let’s go."
...
"..."
Chen Fan walked down from the City Wall and went to the edge of the camp. He looked at the wooden tricycle parked in the Wilderness, then immediately built an Arrow Tower and mounted it onto the vehicle’s flatbed.
He then upgraded it multiple times.
He upgraded it all the way to Level 4 in one go.
For the Level 3 upgrade, he had chosen an Upgrade Direction—
"Crossbow Arrows will be imbued with the Thunder Element, effectively paralyzing enemies and inflicting chain damage on up to three other creatures near the target."
He knew about this type of Ghost Object, the pseudo-humans.
Their defense was weak.
Their main strength was their ability to confuse, and this effect would work very well against them.
And for the Level 4 upgrade, he chose to increase its rate of fire.
Soon—
The Arrow Tower transformed into an Arrow Fortress, shrinking several times in size as it became embedded in the wooden tricycle.
This was a combination of the Arrow Tower and the tricycle.
He called it...
The Arrow Vehicle.
"Get on. You’re in charge of the Power Rod."
Chen Fan was the first to jump on, standing in front of the controls. He looked at Zhou Mo, who was still standing there stunned. "Time is tight. Stop staring."
"Okay!"
Zhou Mo didn’t delay any further. He jumped onto the flatbed, his eyes bloodshot from having witnessed his companion’s death. Veins bulged on his hands as he gripped the Power Rod tightly. Once the Station Master had set their course, he pushed the Power Rod with all his might.
With the power assist,
the Arrow Vehicle slowly drove out of the camp and disappeared into the gloomy rain.
...
"Young Master..."
Chen Fan had left too quickly, without much of an explanation. Only the few of them were left in the camp, but...
"What a genius idea."
Lame Monkey gazed in the direction the Young Master had gone, saying in a daze, "That’s right! If you combine an Arrow Tower with a cart, you get a mobile Arrow Tower! How has no one ever done this before?"
"People have, actually, but it never became widespread for a variety of reasons," Wang Kui replied, his expression complicated. "For example... Arrow Towers can’t attack creatures outside the camp."
"Oh, right. In that case... wait, how can the Young Master’s Arrow Vehicle attack creatures outside the camp?"
"I don’t know, but I’m sure the Station Master has thought of a solution."
"What if he hasn’t?"
Lame Monkey paced back and forth anxiously. The Young Master had left so fast he hadn’t even told them the coordinates of the pseudo-humans. Even if he wanted to chase after him, he wouldn’t know where to find him.
...
The Jiangbei Chen Family’s Station 37 wasn’t very far from Wang Kui’s original station.
After cresting a hill,
they saw the horde of pseudo-humans.
They were currently gathered inside Wang Kui’s old station.
He could clearly see over twenty pseudo-humans, writhing over each other in the gloomy rain, their faces twisted into bizarre expressions of near-frenzied madness.
"..."
Chen Fan stood at the front of the tricycle, watching the scene before him with a silent, expressionless face. He was actually quite furious. Trapped in the Wilderness during the rainy season, every bit of manpower was exceptionally precious.
An absolutely non-renewable resource.
To him, a single person was worth far more than 100 Ghost Stones.
Now that one person was dead, it meant he would have to pull someone from another task in the camp to be Zhou Mo’s assistant.
The camp originally had 10 people, but now there were only 9.
Just then—
the horde of pseudo-humans noticed them. With a piercing shriek, the pseudo-humans hiding inside the Wooden House also rushed out, joining the ones outside as they all roared and charged toward Chen Fan and Zhou Mo!
They were slightly faster than a middle-aged man sprinting at full speed.
Unlike the mother-and-daughter pair he had encountered before, these showed no signs of disguise, simply shrieking as they rushed toward them, their eyes glinting with madness.
One hundred meters.
Eighty meters.
Fifty meters.
In the blink of an eye,
they were less than thirty meters away. However, the Arrow Fortress embedded in the tricycle showed no reaction. Because they were not inside the camp, the Arrow Fortress couldn’t activate at all.
Chen Fan didn’t wait any longer.
As he crushed three Ghost Stones in his palm, the phantom of a Ghost Fire, formed from white lines, gradually materialized on the flatbed and solidified.
By now, the pseudo-humans had charged into the camp’s effective radius.
The previously unresponsive Arrow Fortress now showed a flash of white light from within its dark opening.
The next moment—
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!!
Crossbow Arrows wreathed in Thunderbolt, like Long Spears thrown by the god of thunder, shot out at incredible speed toward the Ghost Objects about to reach the tricycle.
The first pseudo-human to be hit froze in place in the blink of an eye, its body scorched black. It staggered forward a few more steps before collapsing. At the same time, a bolt of lightning erupted from its body and shot toward the three nearest pseudo-humans.
In an instant,
those three pseudo-humans were also turned to cinders.
This was the Upgrade Direction from the Arrow Fortress’s Level 3 upgrade. When a target was hit, it would inflict chain damage and paralysis on up to three nearby creatures.
The main effect was actually paralysis, with the damage being relatively low. But because the pseudo-humans’ defense was so poor, even the low damage was enough to kill them instantly.
Each Crossbow Arrow could easily take the lives of three pseudo-humans.
However...
"..."
Chen Fan’s eyes narrowed slightly. He looked at the new pseudo-humans pouring out of the Wooden House in the distant rain. There weren’t just thirty-odd of them here; there were many more. And this new batch was clearly younger.
If the pseudo-humans outside at the start were all middle-aged, then the ones now rushing out from inside were young adults.
’I see.’
His gaze fell on one of the middle-aged female pseudo-humans, and he thoughtfully turned the vehicle around. While constantly moving away from the horde, he made sure they remained within his Arrow Tower’s attack range, continuously killing the ones at the front of the charge.
After killing all the middle-aged pseudo-humans that had initially charged out,
the Arrow Tower went silent.
He didn’t continue the attack. Instead, he began crafting multiple Beast Traps and placing them in the path of the pursuing pseudo-humans. He was going to capture them alive.
The pseudo-humans had some intelligence, but not much. One after another, they stepped into the Beast Traps as they chased the tricycle in circles, getting caught and left to roar, unable to move.
...
About ten minutes later,
the tricycle came to a stop.
Not a single pseudo-human was left standing. The older ones were all dead, while the younger ones were all caught in Beast Traps, struggling relentlessly with crazed, savage light glinting in their eyes.
"..."
Chen Fan stood on the tricycle and looked at the Wooden House of Wang Kui’s camp in the distance. He had circled it a few times, but no more pseudo-humans had rushed out. He looked back at Zhou Mo and said softly,
"There should be some pseudo-human larvae inside. Go check it out."
"I’ll cover you from out here."
