Chapter 167
"Little Black, you can do it, right?"
On the back mountain, Lin Tu stared with shining eyes at the metallic dandelion fluttering around her. Overwhelmed by her unreasonable request, it seemed to suffer a CPU overload. After a moment, it coalesced into a small ball.
"No, no, smaller." Lin Tu held the model in her hand and directed. After who knew how long, the 'ball' Little Black formed finally resembled the object in Lin Tu's hand.
"Alright, let's try it."
Lin Tu placed the target over a hundred meters away, attempted it seven or eight times, and had Little Black change shape, barely managing to succeed.
Just then, Lin Tu's phone rang. It was the person Pai Daxing had sent to pick her up.
Lin Tu packed a few toiletries and headed out with her backpack. Civilian flights had completely ceased during this period, so she hitched a ride on a cargo plane and soon arrived at the capital's airport.
After landing, Pai Daxing specially arranged an empty military transport vehicle to take her. Although the capital's security was excellent, Pai Daxing still arranged for five active-duty armed police to escort her—she was nothing if not cautious.
Despite Lin Tu's repeated insistence that she didn't need to waste so many resources, no matter how she refused, Pai Daxing insisted on this arrangement. Whether she had received a direct order or had heard some strange rumor, Lin Tu could only accept it.
The transport vehicle moved at a moderate pace along the wide road. Though it was the suburbs, tall buildings lined both sides, all newly constructed, and locust trees hadn't been planted here yet—clearly a newly developed area.
Along the road, bundles of shrubs awaited planting at intervals, and parked vehicles could be seen nearby. Residents worried about earthquakes were opening their trunks, pulling out tents, drinking water, and other supplies.
"At 3 a.m. today, nuclear-radiation-mutated creatures appeared on the southeastern coast! Our reporter brings you real-time updates..."
Several police officers had been on leave and were returning to duty when they received orders to give Lin Tu a ride. Such a task in the capital was a breeze, so they were still in vacation mode.
The officer in the passenger seat was scrolling through a short-video app; the trending content was all disaster-related videos.
"Shocking! What really happened in Han City? In just a short time, we're back in Han City..."
"Why did nuclear radiation suddenly appear east of the Yellow Sea? Are those monsters even scientific? Let the host analyze it for you in detail..."
Lin Tu wasn't scrolling through short videos. She was used to surviving long-term in disasters, staying alert and vigilant, ready to respond to any potential crisis at any moment.
Just then, the sound of the short videos from the front seat suddenly stopped. It seemed he had opened some other livestream platform, and a mix of male and female voices filled the vehicle. Lin Tu directed extra attention to discern it—this should be the official platform.
"Huh? This is..." She heard the front-seat passenger mutter as his expression changed.
"Turn the sound off!" Lin Tu reached over and snatched the phone from the front-seat passenger.
Her speed was swift, and the phone was taken before the man could react. He was about to get angry when he saw Lin Tu simply mute the volume, then, like a wary little animal with perked ears, she looked out the window.
Her unusual behavior made the officer pause and also glance outside—
The sound of an engine rose in the silence, and the shrubs and pedestrians occasionally visible outside the window seemed normal.
"What do you mean?" The officer looked at Lin Tu with annoyance. Seeing that she was still watching the window warily, he thought about his orders and figured maybe her mind was off, deciding not to make a fuss and just count it as bad luck. "Give me back my phone!"
Lin Tu was certain something was off in the surroundings. She only wanted the front seat to stay silent so she could figure out where the problem was, so she handed back the muted phone. Before returning it, she glanced at the screen—
Sure enough, it was the official livestream, showing the disaster map.
Lin Tu also looked at the map and, as she handed the phone back, tapped on the capital's location: "Look here."
"Where?" The man took the phone, his tone initially dismissive, but when he saw the deep yellow patch over the capital, his expression changed drastically.
At the same time, Lin Tu finally spotted the source of the crackling sounds—the shrubs!
A long, furry limb extended from a bush, as if testing the situation outside. In a nearby parked car, a five- or six-year-old child noticed the oddity, stuck his head out the window, and babbled while pointing at it and laughing.
"Stop the car!" Lin Tu quickly grabbed the driver's shoulder and said to the front passenger, "Call for backup now!"
The officer in the passenger seat came to his senses and quickly nodded.
Meanwhile, a sudden change occurred—the bundles of shrubs exploded, and the shattered branches stabbed into the nearby tents with such force that a thermos was blown to the ground, sending boiling water splashing everywhere, making the sheltering crowd scream in pain.
The limb stuck in the bushes finally revealed its true form—it was a giant spider, dozens of times the size of a normal one!
The screams nearby, the music from radios, and the harsh screech of brakes all made it feel an unprecedented threat, and it immediately charged toward the nearest campsite.
Ordinary people had never seen such a sight; one person collapsed to the ground in fear, their scream caught in their throat. Only a few people by the car were still laughing and teasing the child, completely oblivious to the approaching danger.
"Watch out!" The officer in the passenger seat drew his sidearm and tried to roll down the window to shoot at the spider, but he wasn't fast enough, and realizing this, he only stuck his head out of the partially rolled-down window and shouted, "Watch out! Hide!"
The military transport vehicle screeched to a halt, and Lin Tu pushed open the door and jumped out.
Those people turned in terror, and when they saw the giant spider, as tall as a one- or two-story building, their hearts nearly leaped out of their throats.
At that moment, Lin Tu closed the distance to within a few dozen meters with an inconceivable speed, then raised a black revolver engraved with dim golden patterns.
The front-seat officer watched as she raised her right hand, grabbed at the air with her left, and a black mist appeared and condensed in her palm. She flicked the solidified mist toward the revolver in her right hand, and six bullets, as if with minds of their own, loaded into the cylinder one by one.
Then, the dim golden patterns on the revolver activated.
She aimed at the spider's back and fired a shot. Golden sparks burst from the muzzle, and the enhanced bullet pierced the spider's body, punching straight through it.
The giant spider crashed to the ground, and Lin Tu breathed a sigh of relief.
Having been through so many disasters, she could tell at a glance that this spider was C to B level. Her S-level revolver could handle it easily, so she didn't use explosive bullets. Instead, she used the bullets Little Black had condensed in the earlier test. The effect was pretty good, and thanks to Little Black's S-level strength, its penetration was even stronger than the explosive bullets.
The ordinary people in front of the spider hadn't seen the magical bullet-loading scene; they only stared in shock at the spider's corpse before being comforted by the police officers who arrived and evacuated quickly.
But the officers behind Lin Tu had seen the whole supernatural display.
As they muttered among themselves, more giant insects erupted from the shrubs nearby. The military units that arrived didn't rely solely on guns to deal with them; they used some odd items similar to what Lin Tu had just used.
For example, a meteor hammer that could burst into flames, snacks that could temporarily befuddle insects, and a flashlight that could suddenly make a soldier grow to be bigger than the insect...
Lin Tu, who had seen plenty in Dong Huadan's shop, recognized most of them, but there were a few she didn't. Sitting in the car, she watched the military handle the giant insects along with the others, silently wondering.
—It seemed the military was already using props; she didn't need to worry too much about the capital's disaster.
The transport vehicle set off again. In the same car, the others exchanged glances, completely baffled—what was this world coming to after just a short leave?