Chapter 224: Shadow Stalker Viper

An hour later, the fire in the clock tower area was finally extinguished. There were burn marks everywhere, the unfinished power generator had been completely destroyed, and the collapsed clock tower had created an area of ruins. This place had become a mess, adding to the burden of cleaning missions.

The area nearby was fenced off. Huang Yu took charge of the scene that was in a complete mess. Fortunately, the players did their best to clear the ruins, so the situation was slightly under control.

Thousands of players gathered afar and looked at the broken scene. These black shadows had stomped on the brick floor and left a string of cracks with their footprints. The footprints had three claws that were long and thin. The name of the creature was unknown.

At the time, those black shadows had disappeared and returned to the river tunnel, which was clearly their nest, and no one dared to mess with these unknown monsters.

“What kind of beasts could create this level of damage?”

“The monsters that we met these few days were LV 20 something at most. I thought there are no strong monsters, so this is where they’re hiding in.”

“I heard from the experienced people that the results of their scan were all question marks, and the danger level was ‘Extremely Lethal’.”

“Wow, that should mean it’s at least LV 40.”

“Let’s wait and see. Maybe there will be missions for us in a while.”

Huang Yu finished arranging the jobs, and he activated the communication device. “Your excellency, the situation is temporarily under control.”

“How’s the damage?” Han Xiao asked calmly.

“Not good. The power station that we were building has been completely destroyed, together with the construction materials and engineering machines inside.”

Han Xiao had expected this to happen. Since the sanctuary was a main storyline, there would very likely be twists and turns, and it really did come without any warning. He had not expected the Graymetal Ruins to have powerful monsters in it. The loss of construction materials and engineering machines was not the most important problem, but the construction period would be largely slowed down if there was no solution to these beasts.

“What is the species of these beasts?”

“It’s still under investigation, but they are hiding in the drainage pipes that we have no knowledge about, so it is very dangerous.”

“Wait for me to go over.”

Ten minutes later, Han Xiao arrived at the scene. The people came to him and reported the situation. Han Xiao listened for a while and waved his hands to tell them to quiet down, then walked to the footprints and observed them in detail.

“Able to crack open the brick floor with their feet, which means the leg power of these beasts is very high, and they are monstrously heavy. Likes to live in damp and dark places, lives in a herd, aggressive...” Han Xiao took out his laptop. He searched through the Planet Aquamarine beast database and found many matching species.

After some thought, Han Xiao lifted up his coat, and about seven spider detectors slid down his legs and landed on the floor. They slowly crawled into the tunnel and started surveying its internal structure. The laptop was showing the night vision and infrared vision of the detectors.

While waiting, Han Xiao asked casually, “Are there any other powerful beasts nearby?”

“No,” Huang Yu replied immediately, “this is the only place. The clearing tasks at the other areas have all been completed.”

The shocking incident that had taken place here did not slow down the other construction projects. The construction of the walls, residences, garages, power stations, internal life support facilities, greenhouse farms, and so on were all progressing well. Han Xiao was the only one that could do this because he had tens of thousands of players to help him, unlike Sanctuary Two, where they were still exploring the city, progressing at a much lower speed than him.

The image of the tunnels was relayed by the spider detectors. The walls were covered in a strange mucus in the deep area of the river tunnel. It was sticky and looked disgusting, and it was dripping continuously.

One spider was covered in the dripping mucus. Its machine legs twitched, and it shut down completely, like being covered in amber.

As the spiders went deeper, an even more shocking scene came into sight. The beasts had dug countless split paths at the end of the river tunnel. Under Han Xiao’s control, the spiders entered the different paths, and as more images got sent back from the spiders, the people became more and more shocked.

Under the surface of Graymetal Ruins, there was an enormous sized underground nest! It covered more than half the West Area!

These beasts had been living in this abandoned city for many years!

“Holy...” Han Xiao felt a slight chill up his spine.

The hidden beasts’ outline was shown under the infrared vision. Han Xiao hastily opened the database, and this time, he was finally able to narrow down the target.

“Scientific name, Nygaro Shadow Viper Beast, also known as Shadow Stalker Viper. It is oviparous, born with six feet and three claws, and covered in chitin exoskeleton. Adults can grow up to four meters long. Usual forms of attack are through its claws, tail, and teeth, and it is able to secrete a type of corrosive slime from its mouth and anus, which is used to dig its nest. It likes dark, warm, and damp places, usually underground near volcanoes...”

Other than not having a bug that jumped onto people’s faces, this thing looked really alike to aliens ¹ !

After studying the database entry, he realized that the vital signs of these Shadow Stalker Vipers were at around LV 40, which meant that every one of them was a mini BOSS to the players at the moment.

There were roughly more than a thousand Shadow Stalker Vipers in the nest, so this was a huge hidden danger to the sanctuary. If it is not resolved, accidents like today would continue to happen and slow down the construction of the West City Area.

Han Xiao suddenly noticed something abnormal.

Despite the fact that Shadow Stalker Vipers like hot environments, they are still attracted to the underground of the flatland, which should be cool and damp. That is really weird. Could it be that... there is abandoned reactors or high energy waste underground? He contemplated and decided it was best to have the players detect the radiation strength inside.

If Han Xiao had guessed correctly, there should be a wild BOSS level Beast King in a herd of Shadow Stalker Vipers, and he was the only one that could deal with that thing.

The complicated nest was the Shadow Stalker Vipers’ territory. Han Xiao didn’t want to deal with an entire herd himself as he would suffer tremendous damage even with his mechanical guards.

The players would be able to kill a normal Shadow Stalker Vipers by overwhelming them with numbers, and since so many players were present, he might as well make full use of them.

Come to think of it, the corpses and eggs of Shadow Stalker Vipers are both used in manufacturing drugs. Han Xiao’s eyes twinkled, and a plan formed in his mind.

Huang Yu was actively giving suggestions on the side and said, “I think we could use a large number of explosives in the empty spaces underground to create a landfall and destroy the Shadow Stalker Vipers’ nest. Although the ground of the West City Area will also sink because of that, it shouldn’t be a problem because this is an abandoned city, and it can also be used for modifications...”

“Good idea.” Han Xiao’s eyes twinkled. He always liked to maximize the benefits to the best of his ability. All the Shadow Stalker Vipers would go to waste if he simply blew everything up, but Huang Yu reminded him that Shadow Stalker Viper would turn extremely aggressive if they were disturbed and by doing so would lure them out of their nest. Han Xiao could then plant traps in advance so that he could deal a large amount of damage once they were lured out.

Han Xiao was someone who was action-oriented. He immediately gathered all the patrolling Generation 2.5 Rangers around the river tunnel before ordering the people of Dark Net to move the mini batteries over and lay out a battle frontier that aimed at the river tunnel.

“Throw in a flashbang.” Han Xiao gave a mission to Frenzied Sword. Frenzied Sword dashed in immediately without saying a word.

Seconds and minutes passed by. Everyone waited, completely focused. It was quiet. Players watching from further away occasionally chatted among themselves while staring at the scene.

Fearsome growls broke the peace, and with a short scream of pain, the ground started quivering. The sound from the tunnel got closer and closer; something was coming out.

Booooom!

A huge number of Shadow Stalker Vipers galloped out of the tunnel, they were covered in black carapace and had hideous bone spurs. There were three pairs of tiny, bloody red eyes hidden between their exoskeleton that was filled with fury and wrath. At least a hundred Shadow Stalker Vipers showed up. They noticed the group of humans gathered far away instantly and stampeded over with a loud growl.

Tu tu tu tu!

The next second, they were faced by a thunderstorm of bullets and cannons that overturned these Shadow Stalker Viper and stopped them from charging any further. The steel core bullets penetrated and tore open their chitin carapace. Thick and sticky bodily fluids splashed all across the place as growls turned into wails. They struggled to stand up but were beaten by the hail of bullets pressing them again the floor and shattering them into pieces.

The flashing gunfire reflected onto Han Xiao’s face. He lit up a cigarette and watched as more than a hundred Shadow Stalker Vipers broke into pieces.

Not long after, the magazine was cleared, and bullet shells covered the ground.

The smell of smoke pervaded the air, and the scene turned silent. The corpses of Shadow Stalker Vipers were all over the ground, shattered into pieces.

The faces of many players who were watching turned pale. They were disgusted by this image of monster parts scattered all over the floor.

“Collect the corpses and keep them in the frozen storage,” Han Xiao ordered.

Everyone cleaned the battlefield quickly. Han Xiao gave the flashbang mission to Hao Tian this time, but the Shadow Stalker Vipers did not fall for it again. They killed Hao Tian and stayed in the nest, refusing to come out no matter what.

The mechanical guards became temporarily useless because of that as this tactic worked best in open areas—they would one by one be torn into metal waste if they entered the narrow nest. But tricking the enemy once was good enough.

The players had been watching for quite long, so it was time to give them something to do.

“I need some people to clean this nest, within three days,” Han Xiao yelled. He then set the mission quickly and gave it out.

“Prize-Pool Mission: Clean the Nest!”

Many days had passed since Han Xiao had last issued a prize-pool mission, and he realized that prize-pool missions were the easiest way to draw out the players’ enthusiasm, and as he expected, the rubbernecking players immediately dashed toward him to accept the mission.

The prize-pool accumulated more than 1,000,000 EXP very quickly, and it was still growing. The mission requirements were to hunt down Shadow Stalker Vipers and bring back their eggs—these two tasks would give them contribution points, and the ten teams with the highest contribution points would be rewarded.

The players were all excited and ready. They swarmed into the nest to kill Shadow Stalker Vipers, making up for their difference in strength with numbers.

Han Xiao turned and said to his four spare tires, “Take this device and detect the radiation strength of the nest. At the same time, be wary of any strong Shadow Stalker Vipers—that will be the Beast King. Notify me immediately if so. Also, if there are any other discoveries, let me know as well.”

The four people nodded and entered the nest together.

Looking at the passionate players, Han Xiao pondered.

Shadow Stalker Vipers are too strong for the players at the moment, but in order to reach higher positions in the prize-pool mission, they will definitely have more demand for better weapons. There will definitely be someone who is interested in my group of mechanical guards after seeing them. Han Xiao had more than enough spare parts to build and sell weapons to earn him another fortune.

This again showcased his innovative business philosophy. If customers don’t have a demand, just create one!