The Trembling World
chapter-450-30041322

TL: LifeisaJourney

Any frustrations will have to stay verbal, as they had to focus on their dance routine. They could only comfort themselves by saying it was for the quest.

The prior night they had found a nearby building that had not collapsed yet to be their camp. It wasn’t worth the trip back to their original base camp. In the middle of the night, they scouted the area for firewood, as they still had to be wary of the vile creatures that might ambush them. They had six piles of bonfires surrounding them to illuminate their surroundings. Only when that was complete were they able to relax.

Bonfires were a necessity. In this instance, it was especially cold at night. If they didn’t want to succumb to hypothermia in their sleep, then they would have to put in the extra effort.

Aside from Liu Gan, the other nine players were split up into two teams, with Ana and Cai Hao Chen as the team leaders. One team had the first half of the night, while the other team had the second half of the night. They had to watch on their surrounding and keep the bonfires from going out.

***

It was around 1 AM, as Cai Hao Chen and Ana were switching off their shifts, that they heard a sound… a growl that seemed to carry quite a distance in their quiet environment. Their hair stood up, and shivers went down their spines. The creature sounded like it was far away, but they could hear it clearly.

They felt slight tremors coming from the ground. It was a rhythmic pace, stopping for a brief moment before moving again. As the tremors intensified, they could tell that their camp was in its path.

Right as Cai Hao Chen and Ana wanted to wake Liu Gan up, he had already risen. They found him with his ear to the ground. His complexion changed, he ordered everyone to remain silent and head towards the lakeside.

Nobody knew what Liu Gan had heard that made him panic like that, but it made everyone tense. No one said anything, quietly following behind Liu Gan. They descended to the lakeside, which was just along the shallow waters by the rocks. After walking a hundred meters downstream, they came upon a silt-rich area by the lakeside.

This silt-rich mud contained a lot of rotting bodies. Some were recognizable, others were undeterminable due to the amount of decomposing they had been through. A simple step would kick up the stench.

They were trembling from being in the cold water for so long, yet they didn't question why they had to tread through the water, or even why they had ended up in the muddy section. Liu Gan’s last order was to not speak or produce any loud noise. No one asked anything, they just followed orders.

“Cover your body with mud, don't move too much.” Liu Gan shoved his hands in a thick pile of mud and smeared it his face and body.

Reluctantly, they smeared their faces regardless of how they felt about it. Since it was his order, everyone followed obediently, wiping the stinking mud all over themselves. The good news is that they exceeded their previous tolerance for filth, mostly from killing zombies and gore being splashed onto them. Their sense of cleanliness was almost nonexistent if you compared it to their former selves from the real world.

Liu Gan had to check every member to ensure that their scent had been masked by the foul stench. Those who didn’t have enough mud had more applied by Liu Gan. This step was necessary for them to hide their scent.

The rhythmic tremors drew closer, then came an ear-splitting roar. Needless to say, everyone tensed up and their hearts were racing with adrenaline.

“Crouch down, don’t move at all and don’t talk!” Liu Gan whispered just loud enough for the furthest person to hear. Then he crouched down along the lakeside, while applying more mud to cover his head. He stared in the direction of the camp, still illuminated by the bonfires.

What Liu Gan did, all other players imitated. They also observed the situation over at the camp. The intensity of the tremors increased. Every time the ground shook, the player’s scalps would go numb. With the flames lighting up the area, they soon witnessed a thirty-meter tall King Crocodile sniffing the camp. Its head alone exceeded ten meters!

This King Crocodile was surrounded by a layer of thick black fog. When the flames flickered, it would cast a shadow as if it wasn’t real, like this creature was just a phantom of the past. The moment of truth came when it breathed; the gust of wind blew out the fires and scattered the objects on the ground. That was enough to prove that it wasn’t a mirage, but it actually existed.

Upon seeing a King Crocodile appear in the middle of their camp, the players were terrified. They were lucky that Liu Gan had made such a quick decision, and led them to hide in the lake. If they hadn’t had such a great leader, then the King Crocodile would’ve discovered them. Just from the sheer size of the creature, they knew that no one would’ve survived its attack.

Perhaps, when Zhao Nan Shan and Qiu Zi Tao first saw the Crocodile, it wasn’t an exaggeration to name it Evil Dragon. Based on Zhao Nan Shan and Qiu Zi Tao’s levels, they could’ve easily accomplished all the quests. It must have been this King Crocodile that disrupted their progress. They must have lost all hope of accomplishing this instance, and decided to restrict access to this area in the village.

The King Crocodile followed the scent of the players. It followed all the way down to the lakeside and didn’t continue further. With every step it took, it would leave behind a giant footprint and the ground would tremble.

Seeing it so close by, the players were scared pale. No one dared to make a sound, they sank deeper into the mud to avoid being discovered.

The King Crocodile reached the lakeside, and became irritable as it roared at the lake. The shockwave from the roar produced a meter-high wave that nearly landed on the players in the mud.

Clearly, the King Crocodile couldn’t continue any further once it lost the scent of the players, explaining why it was so angry.

Now the players understood why Liu Gan ordered them to follow quickly behind, and then made them walk downstream for a hundred meters. It was all to eliminate their scent! If Lord Liu hadn’t had this foresight, then everyone would’ve fallen victim to the Crocodile’s claws.

The King Crocodile paced back and forth on land for quite some time, occasionally roaring futilely. Eventually it departed, heading off into the distance until it could no longer be seen or heard.