Sang Luoluo nodded.
"I found one too!" someone else exclaimed.
Sang Luoluo dared not stray far and walked through the places they had passed. There was a crystal core thirty centimeters underground.
This one was not deep, so Sang Luoluo took out a hoe and dug a few times. It was brown, the same color as the soil, and about the size of a piece of peanut candy. The moment she touched it, she tossed it into her space.
The garage unlocked instantly.
!!!
Didn't that mean she could use the excavator, along with the other vehicles in the garage?
It seemed this crystal core contained a lot of energy.
Her thoughts turned to the crystal cores in the rat burrow from earlier. There were so many there.
With a bird's cry, three enormous eagles swooped down and snatched Li Tai away. Li Tai was rather fat, which might have made him more conspicuous. A mutant giant eagle grabbed him and carried him straight into the air.
"Ah!"
Everyone heard only a scream from Li Tai. When they turned to look, they found that the giant eagle had already carried him high into the air.
The other two provided cover. The moment the squad reacted, they opened fire on those two giant eagles.
Li Tai was so frightened that his heart nearly leaped out of his chest. The giant eagle was much larger than him, and its talons were extremely sharp. By the time he realized it was approaching, it was already too late. It was all his fault for focusing entirely on finding crystal cores and letting his guard down.
The giant eagle was very clever, flying high after grabbing him. Li Tai struggled fiercely too, holding his laser gun and firing dozens of shots overhead.
Unfortunately, the mutant giant eagle could dodge as well. It even switched to holding Li Tai with one talon, using the other to grab the laser gun, snap it in half, and throw it down.
Chapter 43: They all ran off. Deaths in the wild were perfectly normal...
"Captain, save me!!"
Li Tai was beside himself as he dangled high in the air. From this height, falling meant certain death, but up here, the mutant giant eagle would drop him to his death sooner or later.
As he watched the ground grow farther and farther away, and saw that they were gradually leaving the eggplant grove, Li Tai grew extremely nervous.
He steeled himself and struggled even harder. Sensing its prey struggling, the mutant giant eagle grew agitated and tightened its grip. But the human beneath it was too nimble and tried to grab its thigh, so it wheeled around and flung him down.
Li Tai was a strength-type Evolved Human, after all, and Yan Lang usually valued him highly. Yan Lang hurried after him with the others.
Looking at Sang Luoluo and Jian Cheng, who could not keep up behind them, he said, "Lei Qi, you're the fastest. Hurry and catch Li Tai. An Ping, stay behind and watch these two. Don't leave the eggplant grove. We'll go save Li Tai."
"Yes, Captain Yan," An Ping immediately replied.
Although Lei Qi disliked the members of the S16 Squad, a life was at stake. He did not want to see a teammate who had fought alongside him end up like this, either. He immediately ran at his highest speed toward the spot where Li Tai was falling.
Yan Lang followed close behind Lei Qi with the others.
Everyone left at once, leaving only Sang Luoluo, Jian Cheng, and the evolved An Ping where they were.
Sang Luoluo looked at the sandbag-sized eggplants hanging overhead nearby and scanned them with her wristwatch.
"Beep, beep, beep! Radiation level: 47. Moderate radiation. Recommended for consumption!"
She really had found an edible eggplant.
That meant points too.
Since they were staying here anyway, they might as well find some edible food.
An Ping merely glanced over and cautioned, "Don't go too far from me."
Then An Ping turned to scanning the mutant eggplants.
Seeing this, Jian Cheng also scanned the nearby eggplants. The three moved in the same direction, staying close to ensure their safety.
Sang Luoluo was now covered tightly in her protective suit, with exoskeleton armor over it. Ordinary bugs could not pose much of a threat to her.
Looking up, she saw a large grass nest in a fork of an eggplant plant overhead.
Sang Luoluo could not see inside.
She took a ladder out of her space and quickly climbed up to look. Inside were three bird eggs, each as large as an ostrich egg. Sang Luoluo brought her wristwatch close.
"Beep, beep, beep! Radiation level: 33. Moderate radiation. Recommended for consumption!"
"Beep, beep, beep! Radiation level: 44. Moderate radiation. Recommended for consumption!"
"Beep, beep, beep! Radiation level: 31. Moderate radiation. Recommended for consumption!"
They were actually edible bird eggs.
Sang Luoluo touched the nest and stored it in her space along with them.
While standing on the ladder, she also scanned the mutant eggplants beside her.
She did not find any edible ones.
So she continued forward.
One after another, she found three more nests, with ten bird eggs in total. Sang Luoluo stored them all in her space.
All these bird eggs actually had moderate radiation levels.
Jian Cheng naturally saw the later bird eggs too. "I found a nest over there as well. I need to borrow your ladder."
Sang Luoluo handed him the ladder so he could scan them.
Turning around, she sensed the pull of a crystal core inside an eggplant.
Sang Luoluo immediately took out a chainsaw, cut down the entire eggplant tree, and stored it in her space.
Using her consciousness to cut the eggplant open inside her space, she found a crystal core the size of a peanut kernel. She tossed it into her space, but nothing changed.
She threw the cut-open eggplant tree back out.
A large grasshopper suddenly leaped out. A laser gun instantly appeared in Sang Luoluo's hand, and she fired two shots, killing the mutant giant grasshopper.
Sang Luoluo stepped forward and scanned it.
"Beep, beep, beep! Radiation level: 59. Moderate radiation. Recommended for consumption!"
Oh, it was actually edible! Although its radiation level was 59, just a little short of being inedible, this showed that her luck was quite good.
She promptly stored the grasshopper's corpse.
"Sang Luoluo, come here a moment. Some of these bird eggs are edible. Three of them. Store them for me, and I'll give you one."
Sang Luoluo nodded and hurried over to store them for him.
An Ping called out to Sang Luoluo, and she hurried over. An Ping's haul was even richer: a full three eggplants and two edible bird eggs.
Sang Luoluo stored them all for her.
The three slowly moved forward. Sang Luoluo suddenly felt that something was wrong, though she could not describe the feeling. She abruptly stopped and called to the other two, "Don't go any farther yet."
"What is it?"
Sang Luoluo said, "I have a bad feeling."
It made her heart beat a little faster.
An Ping noticed something amiss and warned, scalp prickling, "There are mutant snakes. More than one."
Sang Luoluo looked around. About five meters away from her, an enormous snake's head slithered out from the base of an eggplant plant.
Sang Luoluo jumped in fright. What was she supposed to do?
An Ping and Jian Cheng gripped their laser guns and began firing lasers at the approaching mutant giant snakes.
Sang Luoluo also gripped her laser gun and fired at the nearest mutant giant snake.
An Ping had already called Captain Yan and the others for help at the first opportunity.
An Ping said, "Cover your ears!"
Sang Luoluo and Jian Cheng hurried to comply. An Ping suddenly screamed loudly. The powerful sonic attack stunned the mutant giant snakes for a second before they continued attacking.
An Ping said, "It's not working. Run!"
Sang Luoluo took off running. An Ping held off the mutant giant snakes pursuing them, rolling nimbly. Even Jian Cheng could run swiftly in the wilderness. She was soon left behind, and her shots did little against the mutant giant snakes.
She finally managed to land two shots, but unfortunately, those two tiny holes had no effect whatsoever on the mutant giant snake.
Growing anxious, Sang Luoluo looked back and saw that An Ping and Jian Cheng had already run far away. She could only see their backs.
What happened to protecting her?
A mutant giant snake was already lunging at her. She could not outrun it at all and was caught in its coils. She fired several shots at it with the gun in her hand, but that only made it coil tighter.
"H-help!"
In the distance, Jian Cheng saw Sang Luoluo being swept away by the giant snake with his own eyes. An Ping's expression was unpleasant too. The other mutant giant snakes pursued the two of them. Worried about the specimens, Jian Cheng said, "All the experimental materials are with Sang Luoluo. Aren't we going back to save her?"
An Ping rolled his eyes. "We can barely save ourselves. How are we supposed to save her? My evolved ability doesn't work on the mutant giant snakes. If we don't escape now, we'll end up just like Sang Luoluo."
Jian Cheng still felt somewhat guilty. "Are we just going to abandon her like this?"
An Ping sped up, leaving Jian Cheng behind. "If you want to help, go help her yourself. I want to live. Who cares about that damned girl? She's about to be eaten by a mutant giant snake. Even if she dies, what can the base do? Deaths in the wild are perfectly normal."
Jian Cheng fell silent.
Faced with a choice between life and death, his own life really was more important.
Meanwhile, Sang Luoluo was being squeezed so tightly that she could barely breathe. Was she really going to die here today?
But she couldn't accept that.
Touching the mutant giant snake's skin, she wondered what would happen if she brought it into her space.
The next instant, Sang Luoluo and the mutant giant snake vanished together. In a clearing inside her space, the mutant giant snake was stretched straight, unable to move. Sang Luoluo sat on the ground and caught her breath.
Right, her space was her absolute domain. Inside it, she could control everything. No matter how powerful the mutant giant snake was outside, inside her space, a single thought was all she needed to manipulate it however she pleased.
Sang Luoluo fetched the chainsaw to cut up the ten-meter-long mutant giant snake. When it had coiled around her earlier, she had sensed a faint pull. Now that she could get close, she first used the chainsaw to sever its head at the seven-inch point, making certain it was dead. Only then did she examine its body, locating that pull near its tail.