Fatal Shot
chapter-319

Bang!

“-4200!”

A gunshot rang out, and a C-grade Deflagration Armor-piercing Bullet hit the body of a flying Level 42 Elite Mutant Bloodthirsty Bat!

After the powerful impact and heat of the Armor-piercing bullet tore the bat’s translucent wings apart, they completely destroyed its 30cm long body in the air, turning it into a ball of fire!

At the same time, the high energy flammable liquid inside the bullet nose splashed everywhere upon impact, hitting the other two Normal Bloodthirsty Bats flying beside it. Their fur-covered wings began to burn, turning them into balls of fire too while they squealed in the air!

However, these three balls of fire were immediately devoured by a dark blob!

Over 150 Level 40 Mutant Bloodthirsty Bats charged at the group of players. Their fangs were bared, and they made fox-like sounds indiscernible to the human ear in the dark ancient tunnel.

However, as the black swarm of bats flew within a dozen meters of the players from Nightless City, a yellowish wall condensed through Earth Energy rose from the ground and shielded the tunnel with a bang, leaving only a gap of around half a meter at the top.

The Level 30 Earth Manipulator skill, Earth Wall!

Although it was possible for the bats to determine the position of obstacles through supersonic waves, they were caught off guard by the wall that appeared so unexpectedly!

Bang, bang, bang!

At least 30 Bloodthirsty Bats rammed into the Earth Wall, and due to their high speed, damage ranging from the double-digits to triple-digits appeared above their heads!

However, only the Bloodthirsty Bats at the front were caught in the trap. The bats in the middle and the rear reacted quickly. They flapped their powerful, muscle membrane wings as they changed direction and headed towards the half-meter gap at the top of the wall.

After getting through, they quickly gathered and charged towards the players again!

Boom! Boom!

However, just as they gathered in an empty space, two plate-sized highly condensed high-temperature fireballs greeted them!

Not only did fireballs condensed by Fire Manipulators have extremely high damage, but after exploding, they could also deal splash damage. Two fireballs practically filled the entire two-meter wide tunnel!

In an instant, all the Bloodthirsty Bats that got through the gap were devoured by fiery red flames!

However, not all the Bloodthirsty Bats were low-HP normal bats; around one-third of them were Elite Grade monsters. That was why even after most of the Bloodthirsty Bats that got through the gap were fried, a bunch of Elite Grade Bloodthirsty Bats was still charging at the group of players!

At the same time, after sustaining the charge of the bats and the powerful impact of the fireball explosion, the Earth Wall crumbled.

The remaining 70 or 80 Bloodthirsty Bats followed the Elite Grade bats and charged towards the players!

Tatata!

However, what greeted them next was a rain of bullets.

Rare Grade Six-barrelled machine gun bullets, paired with hydra-like gun flames, created a death zone in the sky!

“-534, -498, -502…”

One after another, Bloodthirsty Bats dropped to the ground in quick succession. There were also bats that were torn to pieces in the air by the flurry of bullets. Blood and gore splashed through the sky!

In the end, only four Elite Grade Bloodthirsty Bats with limited HP reached the group of Nightless City players, squealing and biting violently.

Bang!

“-878!”

Mister Meng swung his Rare Grade golden broadsword, which was as thick as a door panel, and easily pushed the Elite Bloodthirsty Bat with around 20% HP left into the wall!

“Ha!”

“-998!”

Feng Luo swung his arm, and the Ghost Weep military knife drew a curve in the dark environment, cutting an Elite Bloodthirsty Bat that tried to attack him in half!

The remaining two bats were taken care of by Mu Zi and his submachine gun as well as Rose Thorns with her shield.

The swarm of over a hundred Bloodthirsty Bats was annihilated!

However, the battle had not yet ended.

With every turn they made in the tunnel, there was another swarm of bats charging at them!

…

“Mu Zi, how much of the distance to the source of the signal have we covered?” Feng Luo asked Mu Zi, putting Ghost Weep back into his tactical belt.

Mu Zi had a B-Grade Scouting talent, so he spent a lot of effort in Detection, and he had already reached Expert Level 83%. Throughout the entire game, there weren’t many Scouts who were better than him!

It was also Mu Zi who detected an odd energy signal using the recon meter when he was using Detection on top of the ruins. After that, he triggered and started the ancient ruins exploration mission!

Mu Zi used Detection and looked at all the flashing data on his arm. “Around two-fifths!”

“Two-fifths. Not bad progress. Our supplies should be sufficient for us to complete this ruins exploration,” said Chairman Jiao.

“I’ve only got 27% left on my MP bar. I need to recover a bit,” said Little Witch, signaling with her hands. Her crowd attack skills as a Fire Manipulator were excellent, but they weren’t sustainable for long periods of battle!

“Me too! I only have 20% MP left!” exclaimed another Fire Manipulator in the team.

“Alright, then. We’ll rest here for five minutes!” said Feng Luo, nodding.

…

It had been an hour since Feng Luo’s group started their ruins exploration, and they were less than halfway in.

This was mainly due to the MP constraints of the three Manipulators in the group. When their MP reached a certain level, they had to wait for the MP potions usage to cooldown, so they were not progressing very quickly!

However, through their past exploration, everyone understood that the ruin was probably an underground research facility, and it seemed extremely important!

They knew this because they had gone through several mechanical alloy doors since they entered the ruin, and there were even more tunnels installed with fully automated self-defense systems.

The good thing was that these automatic weapons had already been destroyed by someone else. Apart from that, the intelligent control system of the base had not yet appeared. It was as if the entire place had entered hibernation!

For the players, that was definitely good news. After all, fighting against living creatures was a lot easier than fighting mechanical robots with artificial intelligence.

Of course, when one said easier, it was only in relative terms. Although the monsters inside the underground ruin were all in the Level 40 range, their numbers and density were incredible.

At the moment, Feng Luo’s group had only encountered Mutant Rats and Mutant Bloodthirsty Bats. However, every time they encountered the creatures, there were hundreds of them.

Although social monsters normally possessed weaker combat strength than normal monsters, their numbers were more than enough to make up for that deficiency!

Moreover, these monsters could appear from any of the gaps and holes spread all over the facility. They could appear without any warning. A group could even suddenly appear from both the front and the back to create a sort of pincer attack!

If the Nightless City’s party did not have two Fire Manipulators who were excellent in dealing with these sorts of situations, as well as an explosive Machine Gunner and an Earth Manipulator like Chairman Jiao who could change the terrain, they might have already lost someone.

Even if they did not lose anyone, the players were still feeling somewhat depressed. Neither the Mutant Rats or the Mutant Bloodthirsty Bats had dropped a single item. The only thing Feng Luo’s group had gained was decent experience. However, everyone other than Mu Zi was at the max level, so experience was simply meaningless!

That was why, at that point, the group had gained nothing from the exploration.

Thankfully, the group had gained a number of nice items from the previous group battle, which could make up for their huge expenditure during the journey!

Moreover, Feng Luo felt that the lack of item drops might indicate that the end reward of the exploration was not something simple!

Suddenly, a yellow light started flashing on Mu Zi’s recon meter while making warning sounds!

Beep! Beep! Beep!

At the same time, everyone who was resting suddenly felt dizzy as continuous damage numbers appeared over their heads. “-40, -25, -33…”

“Careful! It looks like some tough bastard has arrived!” Mu Zi’s face stiffened as he shouted a warning.

Just as he finished speaking, a dark red bat that was several times bigger than a normal bat appeared at the entrance of the tunnel. At the same time, the disgusting and dizzy feeling increased in intensity!

[Mutant Bloodthirsty Bat, Level 45 Commander. Species Code: SBF-00945. HP:30,000]

[Talent: Bloodthirsty (B): After consuming blood, attack increases substantially, and also recovers HP quickly]

[Skill One: Viral Infection: Anyone bitten will be infected by the virus the Mutant Bloodthirsty Bat carries]

[Skill Two: Supersonic Attack: Able to detect all enemies in a certain range and cause dizziness, increased heart rate, and other status effects on enemies]