Translator: AnubisTL
"Hmm?"
Chen Jiang frowned slightly, his gaze fixed on the gradually fading corpse. With a calm expression, he raised his gun.
Aim. Pull the trigger.
Bang!
Whether the corpse's sudden ethereal state was due to a human player activating their racial innate ability, Phoenix Nirvana, or not, he'd fire a few shots first.
When in doubt, shoot first.
A few shots cleared his mind.
But after the corpse turned ethereal, it seemed to vanish from the world entirely.
The bullets passed through the translucent form and struck the ground, kicking up dust.
"Resurrection protection?" Chen Jiang murmured. He lowered his gun, cradled his rifle, and patiently sat down to wait and see what would happen next.
Just then—
Beside him, Scar Dog's corpse also began to fade.
Seeing this, Chen Jiang secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Good, it's working.
After all, they had never used a human player's racial innate ability, Phoenix Nirvana, before. No one knew if this innate ability would actually be effective.
However, unlike the other corpses, which vanished completely after turning ethereal, leaving only pools of blood to mark where they had died, Scar Dog's body remained.
Scar Dog's corpse, however, first became illusory before gradually solidifying back into its physical form.
About three or four minutes passed.
Scar Dog suddenly sat up, his hand instinctively reaching for his head. Seeing the wound had completely healed, a flicker of relief flashed in his eyes.
"Damn it, thank God I activated that Race War Declaration Card and gave human players the phoenix nirvana racial innate ability."
"Otherwise, I might have been done for this time."
"Guess what goes around comes around, huh?"
"Oh, right, Brother Jiang, no need to wait anymore. They've already run off."
"Run off?"
Chen Jiang had anticipated this possibility, but he still sighed softly upon hearing the news. "Letting enemies who bear a death grudge escape is like releasing a tiger back into the mountains."
"Yeah," Scar Dog nodded, explaining, "Even after I died, my consciousness didn't fade."
"Instead, I felt like I was falling into a bottomless abyss of pitch-black darkness. The sense of time remained; I could tell I was falling for about two or three minutes."
"Then two options popped up in front of me:"
"One was to revive on the spot."
"The other was to return to my location from the previous day."
"I chose the first option. They must have chosen the second."
"I see."
Chen Jiang nodded thoughtfully. "This is good news for human players. If they could only revive in place, they'd almost certainly be corpse-camped by enemies."
"It makes the human race's innate ability seem rather useless."
"But for our current situation, this option clearly means more overtime for us."
He sighed helplessly, slowly rose, and pulled a small LCD screen from his pocket. His gaze fixed on the blinking red dot on the screen. "Let's go. Time for overtime."
Scar Dog stared at the LCD screen in Brother Jiang's hand, momentarily stunned. "Brother Jiang, you put a tracker on them?"
"Yeah."
Chen Jiang stared at the motionless red dot on the screen. "I figured, if they didn't revive in place, it would leave us with a potential threat."
"So I casually slipped a tracker into the woman's stomach wound."
"I wasn't even sure if it would stay in after they revived and the wound healed, but surprisingly, it did."
"Looks like the human race's exclusive innate ability is pretty easy to counter."
"Alright."
"It's getting dark. Let's hurry and clear the battlefield, then work late tonight to find them."
"Got it!"
These resurrected individuals had been transported elsewhere, their bodies restored to life, but their items remained behind.
Guns lay scattered across the battlefield, a chaotic array of discarded weapons.
For Chen Jiang and his companion, this was an unexpected windfall.
Working swiftly, the pair cleared the entire battlefield with remarkable efficiency.
All the items were packed into Chen Jiang's space bracelet, a 3x3x3 meter, 27-cubic-meter storage device capable of holding a considerable amount.
After three months in this world, Chen Jiang and his companion had become exceptionally skilled at battlefield cleanup.
Before long, under the cover of darkness, they hurried toward the red dot on the LCD screen, their destination a mine roughly two kilometers from the wasteland.
This abandoned mine had served as a refuge for many human players when the world first descended.
Of course, they only learned this later.
Upon their initial arrival, communication was impossible, transportation nonexistent, and survival a daily struggle. By day, they were hunted by the mechanical race; by night, they were pursued by mutated beasts.
Food and fresh water were scarce.
Clothed in rags, homeless, and barely surviving—that was their reality.
In such circumstances, simply staying alive was a remarkable feat.
They needed to move faster.
While mutated beasts typically avoided areas cleansed by the mechanical race, the phrase "typically" always implied exceptions.
"We're here," Chen Jiang said, exchanging a glance with Scar Dog.
They silently approached a mine shaft, each gripping their weapons as they took up positions on either side of the entrance.
The shaft was located halfway up the mountain, possibly a tunnel dug by mutated beasts, but that didn't matter now. What mattered was that it was a cave.
Behind this mountain lay the abandoned mining area. When they had passed through last month, they had spotted several human players in the distance, but their current whereabouts remained unknown.
"This doesn't feel right," Scar Dog muttered, licking his lips as he tightened his grip on his shotgun, his expression wary.
The group they were tracking was inside the adjacent mine shaft.
They could faintly hear voices, likely about seven or eight meters away.
Peering into the shaft, they saw flickering shadows cast by firelight on the walls.
This meant the tunnel wasn't straight but winding.
If they tried to enter the cave and kill the men inside, they would inevitably make noise, alerting the group and allowing them to prepare an ambush.
What was meant to be a surprise attack would turn into a frontal assault—hardly an ideal situation.
Moreover, this was the group's home turf. Who knew what traps or hidden positions might be lurking within?
Rushing in blindly would be tantamount to suicide.
"Should we wait another day?" Scar Dog instinctively pinched the tiger's mouth acupoint on his hand to maintain focus. His meaning was clear: since they couldn't charge in, they might as well wait here for a day. The group would have to come out eventually, right? Then they could catch them off guard.
"No," Chen Jiang said, his brow furrowing slightly as he shook his head. "The longer we wait, the more complications could arise. We won't be able to sleep soundly until we eliminate this threat."
After narrowing his eyes in thought for a moment, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and placed it near the cave entrance.
Pfft!
A small flame flickered to life.
(End of the Chapter)
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