Toward Meat Mountain
Li Qing spent a considerable amount of time confirming Tonio's identity and contacting his companions by phone.
After successfully reaching an agreement with Tonio, he immediately drove away from the devastated city ruins and approached the port warehouse not far from the coast.
This modern port lacks the rich historical atmosphere of the old city of Naples, but it is also unlike the old town, which is densely packed with houses and has narrow, winding roads.
The terrain here is relatively flat, and the view is more open.
Rows of massive warehouses stood side by side in front, with wide, flat roads laid out in an orderly fashion.
Even though a strong earthquake had just occurred, these modern warehouse buildings withstood the test perfectly, unlike the old houses in the old town which were reduced to ruins.
Near this vast port warehouse, right next to the natural deep-water harbor of the Bay of Naples, lies the naval base where the main force of the US Military. Sixth Fleet is permanently stationed.
In the past, all the way back to Roman times, this was the busiest and most bustling harbor in the Mediterranean.
But now.
In the distance, Mount Vesuvius is spewing flames, and the azure sky is stained gray by volcanic ash.
A faint smell of sulfur lingered in the air, and even the distant blue sea was shrouded in a layer of dust.
Even more terrifying, right between the port and the warehouses, next to the neatly arranged cargo warehouses, stood a Meat Mountain.
The previous "hero" helicopter has been destroyed.
Having lost its target, the Meat Mountain wandered aimlessly through the empty warehouse, slowly crawling forward and devouring everything it could reach.
Wherever they went, all they saw was a blank expanse of land.
At this moment, Li Qing drove up in his car with the wounded, approaching unhurriedly.
"That."
Tonio nervously swallowed.
As the car got closer to the Meat Mountain, the visual oppressive feeling brought by its enormous body grew stronger.
He finally couldn't help but ask:
Should we continue forward?
"Could you please stay away from that monster? It's very easy for something to happen here!"
Because the Meat Mountain, now encased in a layer of magma, had become a "Molten Giant Beast" visible to ordinary people, Diavolo felt comfortable allowing Tonio to question it.
In fact, the opinion put forward by his cowardly second personality at this moment was also Diavolo's true thought.
Diavolo had recently narrowly escaped death, and he knew all too well how terrifying that monster was:
With its endless speed, towering size, and boundless power, even the King Crimson was powerless against it.
He is now seriously injured, and his fighting ability is greatly reduced.
If he could, Diavolo would like to get as far away from this monster as possible.
However, Li Qing, who was far weaker than him, was not flustered at all:
"Don't worry, it'll be fine."
"Don't let its size fool you, it's just a brainless idiot."
Just as the zookeeper wasn't afraid to approach the tiger, Li Qing, familiar with the habits of the Meat Mountain, had unknowingly lost his awe of this giant beast.
As he calmly drove closer to the Meat Mountain, he generously shared some tips with Tonio on how to deal with it:
"It has no intelligence; it will only mindlessly chase after the fastest target within its perception range."
"As long as we stay at least 100 meters away from it, it is unlikely to attack us."
I see
Just like a remotely controlled stand-in, the Meat Mountain's behavior pattern is predictable.
Diavolo quickly understood the monster's modus operandi, but
How could Li Qing know so much about the monster's habits?
Does he know the origin of this monster?
Could it be that the appearance of this monster was not a coincidence, but that someone else was working with Li Qing to cause trouble?
Diavolo, who was almost swallowed as a snack by that Meat Mountain, couldn't help but feel the urge to find the "mastermind" and make him into human slices.
Finally, through Tonio's words, he subtly asked the question that had been on his mind:
How do you know all this?
"Didn't this monster just emerge from the volcano?"
"This."
Li Qing frowned, but in the end, he told Tonio the truth in a perfunctory manner, as if telling a story:
"I just encountered it two hours ago, but it wasn't this big then."
"Actually, it's a stand-in for a fat guy. That guy is an assassin sent by the Mafia to hunt me down. Never mind, you wouldn't understand even if I told you."
"."
Diavolo fell silent for a moment.
He seemed to vaguely understand who the culprit was that almost caused him to be swallowed by the monster.
Li Qing was about to say a few more words to comfort Tonio and calm this "naive young man" when a series of crisp and rapid gunshots suddenly rang out from a large warehouse in the distance.
With the cracking sound of shattering cargo window glass, a series of supersonic bullets shot out from the cargo hold.
And these bullets just happened to fly towards that Meat Mountain.
The Meat Mountain reacted instantly.
It's like a shark that has caught the scent of blood; its seemingly slow and heavy body suddenly bursts with terrifying speed.
The massive, high-speed body instantly pushed aside tons of air, and the resulting high-pressure air waves surged in all directions like a tsunami.
Before long, the bullets were all swallowed up by the Meat Mountain flesh.
The Meat Mountain stopped moving, but it had unknowingly gotten much closer to the warehouse.
"What?"
Li Qing was slightly taken aback and couldn't help but be somewhat surprised:
"Someone in the warehouse over there is firing at the Meat Mountain."
"Could it be those meddlesome Americans again? This... this is suicidal!"
Firearms cannot cause any damage to the Meat Mountain.
Those supersonic bullets could serve as bait to distract the Meat Chunk, but the side effect of this method is that it will inevitably bring the Meat Chunk closer and closer to the person who fired the shot.
"Use this water gun to fight monsters."
"Have they watched too many movies?"
Li Qing sighed helplessly to himself.
There's no way to save someone who's stupid; he's powerless to change that.
He could only cautiously follow nearby, carefully maintaining a distance of more than a hundred meters from the Meat Mountain, and steel himself to watch everything unfold.
Soon, gunshots rang out again.
The Meat Mountain continued to move forward along the trajectory of the bullet, getting closer and closer to the warehouse.
Li Qing also drove closely behind, moving slowly forward in sync with the Meat Mountain.
"Isn't this too close?"
Looking out the window at the monster that almost filled half of his field of vision, Tonio, true to form, nervously advised:
"Could you please not get so close to me? I'm a little scared."
Li Qing remained unmoved.
The previous events had made him realize that this Meat Mountain could be affected at any time by the Americans' haphazard operations, and could run uncontrollably to any place.
Thanks to the sacrifice of the previous "hero" helicopter, it was able to finally leave the city.
If something goes wrong again, and this Meat Mountain inexplicably leaves the harbor and enters the city, the consequences would be almost unimaginable.
Only by getting a little closer can Li Qing intervene in time to make amends if an accident occurs.
So he boldly stuck to the side of that Meat Mountain, moving forward parallel to it.
Don't worry!
While listening intently to the movements of the Meat Mountain, Li Qing casually gave Tonio his assurance:
"It only looks close; we're actually over a hundred meters away from that Meat Chunk!"
"Trust me, nothing will happen."
And so, following the footsteps of the Meat Mountain catching bullets, he and Tonio gradually approached the warehouse where someone had fired shots.
"Won't Zhenzhen get into trouble?"
For some reason, both Tonio and Diavolo had a very bad feeling at that moment.
"Real!"
"With me here keeping watch, that thing absolutely cannot get within 100 meters of us."
Li Qing was getting a little impatient with the harassment.
"Besides, even if something happens, it'll be that idiot who just fired the gun in the warehouse who gets hurt first!"
"What are you afraid of if there are idiots 'actively' attracting hatred?"
He pointed to the warehouse not far ahead and growled a couple of times in annoyance.
As he spoke, Li Qing deliberately shifted his focus from the Meat Mountain to listen to the sounds coming from inside the warehouse, wanting to "see" the fool who had fired the gun earlier and tried to get himself killed.
However, what he heard was...
Boom!!
It's like bending down to pick something up in class and accidentally smelling the fart coming from the student in front of you.
A deafening explosion, loud enough to shatter clouds and split rocks, suddenly erupted from the warehouse, nearly knocking Li Qing unconscious as he was intently listening.
A burst of flames erupted, and a blast of air shot into the sky.
The warehouse walls collapsed instantly in the violent explosion, and bricks and rubble were blasted into the air by the powerful shockwave.
The Meat Mountain immediately got incredibly excited.
It chased after the flying pebbles in the air, but unfortunately...
The fastest flying shard of pebbles was heading straight for Li Qing.
In just a few breaths, the distance between the Meat Mountain and Li Qing was reduced dramatically in an unexpected way.
To make matters worse, several pieces of debris were sent flying further and further away by the blast wave, and unfortunately, one of them landed on the hood of Li Qing's car, damaging the vital engine.
The car he had just borrowed a few minutes ago was now stuck on the spot, emitting white smoke.
Damn it! Why?
What exactly were those Americans doing in the warehouse?
Isn't this just an ordinary port warehouse? How could it have exploded out of nowhere?
The explosion was so powerful, just how much explosives were hidden inside!
Li Qing had endless questions in his mind.
However, at this moment, these questions are no longer meaningful.
The Meat Mountain has arrived.