At the vanguard of the Helldivers Company, a small squad of disheveled cultists fled for their lives, with players in hot pursuit. These cultists were clearly not elites; along the way, besides leaving behind a few bodies hit by laser fire, they barely put up any effective resistance. Their only goal seemed to be to flee deeper into the dark and complex tunnels.
Just as they were about to wipe them all out, the group of cultists suddenly turned into an inconspicuous side passage.
"Follow them! Don't let them get away!" Joker roared, leading the other players to follow without hesitation.
However, the moment they stepped into the passage, everyone froze.
"Holy crap? What's going on? Is it a rendering bug?"
At this moment, the scene before the players was truly bizarre—the entire passage ahead, including its top, bottom, left, and right walls, was covered in the signature high-contrast white of the friend-or-foe identification system.
At a glance, this tunnel, which should have been dim and lightless, had become a vast expanse of white, as if the entire space had been designated as an "enemy target." It was no wonder that player blurted out, suspecting a rendering bug in the game engine.
Joker, who was also at the very front, narrowed his eyes. After observing for a moment, he said in a deep voice, "No, look closely, the four walls... are all covered in mushrooms."
"Mushrooms?" a player repeated in confusion. "Are mushrooms enemies too?"
As he spoke, he raised his lasgun and fired a shot at the nearest section of the wall. The cluster of mushrooms directly hit by the high-energy beam carbonized and lost its vitality due to the instantaneous high temperature. Simultaneously, a small portion of the white representing friend-or-foe identification in the player's vision also disappeared.
However, this small patch of extinguished white was as insignificant as a mayfly compared to the vast area covering the entire tunnel.
Clearly, it was impossible to clean it all up by firing laser guns one shot at a time.
"Those cultists are hiding in there; we have to go in after them," a player stepped forward. "I'll go in and scout ahead first."
With that, he boldly walked into this eerie "mushroom passage," relying on his ability to respawn infinitely.
As soon as he walked in, after only two steps, his movements became strange. He began to sway from side to side, his lasgun firing at empty walls without warning, and he shouted, "I see them! Over there!"
Seeing that something was wrong, Joker, who was outside the passage, immediately shouted, "Hey! Are you okay? What are you shooting at?"
He definitely could hear him from that distance, but the player seemed to be caught in some kind of hallucination, ignoring his teammate's shouts, still staggering forward and shooting wildly.
Just then, a cultist suddenly darted out from behind a dense cluster of mushrooms, his rusty machete, propelled by the player's forward momentum, flashed across his neck like lightning.
The player's body stiffened, then he collapsed to the ground like a puppet with cut strings, falling asleep on the spot.
The players who hadn't entered exchanged glances, instantly realizing the danger within.
"Young people sure sleep well," someone couldn't help but quip.
"So, it's hallucinogenic spores... Those cultists are ambushing us in there, waiting for us to inhale the spores, hallucinate, and then they'll sneak attack."
"How long will it take us to deal with this stuff , until GTA 10 comes out?"
"Stop kidding yourself, they announced that game 10 years ago..."
"Or... should we just brute force our way through by resetting our status with death?"
"What about our Company Commander? The Company Commander can't die!"
This question stumped everyone. They could force their way through using the respawn mechanism, but Robert couldn't. This path had to be cleared.
Just as everyone was at a loss, a player squeezed out from the middle of the team, letting out a hearty laugh: "Haha, it's my turn to shine!"
Everyone looked over to see the guy wearing a heavy, full-body protective suit, holding a massive weapon integrated with the suit's power system—a Promethium Flamethrower.
It turned out that when this guy first entered the game, he was attracted by this majestic flamethrower suit in the store.
Perhaps because a flamethrower could be operated by just one person, albeit with some hassle, the official system lowered its usage authority to the regular soldier level, allowing individual players to operate it. So, this player saved every last bit of his exp to buy this dream equipment.
However, after he bought it, he discovered that it was truly a pain in the neck.
First, by the time he bought this equipment, the Chemical Refinery assault had already ended. This meant he perfectly missed the defensive battles and secondary assault battles where the flamethrower would have excelled, and instead had to wear this incredibly heavy flamethrower suit for fast-paced, mobile assault battles.
After several charges, let alone achieving great feats, just keeping up with the main force was already the result of his utmost effort.
Moreover, he had originally thought that after taking down the Chemical Refinery, Promethium fuel would be produced in abundance, right?
But this mission was a long-distance rescue escort far from the front lines, which meant they had no logistical supplies. While normal players using laser guns and melee weapons were fine, he was in a dire situation—every drop of fuel consumed from the Promethium fuel tank had to be paid for with his own merit points.
But now, he had finally found the perfect scenario for himself—a place with narrow passages, dense enemies, and the need for large-scale environmental threat clearing. Wasn't this the stage tailor-made for a heavy flamethrower soldier like him?
All the frustrating experiences of the past seemed to find their answer at this moment. Sure enough, there was a reason why the official system put this equipment up for sale in the system store. There were no useless weapons, only useless operators!
So, he pulled the trigger without hesitation.
"Whoosh—!!!!"
A viscous, orange-red fire dragon roared, breaking free from the shackles of the nozzle, instantly engulfing everything in its path. The scorching dragon's breath, nearly a hundred meters long, violently filled the entire tunnel.
The sizzling sound of combustion, the crackling of air being scorched, and the desperate wails of those hiding in the mushroom clumps, emanating from their incineration by the flames, blended together to form a furious symphony of destruction.
On his display panel, the white markers representing enemies rapidly melted away like snow under a scorching sun, and constant "ding, ding, ding" system kill notification sounds echoed in his ears. The crisp sounds now seemed like the most beautiful symphony in the world.
This player felt that everything he had endured was worth it.
All the frustrations of the past, like eating dirt while lagging behind the main force, the heartache of watching his hard-earned merit points flow away like water for fuel, and the teammates' strained, yet not quite mocking, glances... at this moment, all vanished in the raging inferno!
He straightened his back, which had become somewhat hunched from prolonged heavy loads. An unprecedented sense of satisfaction and power surged through his limbs. The expression hidden beneath his full-coverage helmet gradually turned wild.
"Woohoo hahahaha! Let the flames purify everything! Bathe in holy fire!"
He let out a long-suppressed, maniacal laugh, took a step forward, and his flamethrower once again spewed angry tongues of fire, transforming this passage, which bred filth and illusion, into a scorching furnace leading to hell.