The big-headed lizard didn’t yet know that danger was right in front of it; it was still struggling desperately to squeeze out.
Its advantage lay in its incredibly tough, keratinized outer hide. Even the highly aggressive Gland-Tiger could only damage one layer of its armor with a full-force strike. An adult big-headed lizard’s armor was four layers thick, and between the layers, a large amount of sebaceous glands secreted corrosive oil, which was why many carnivorous mutated beasts preferred not to provoke it.
Having grown accustomed to being tough and damage-resistant, the big-headed lizard’s evolution had become increasingly extreme. This lizard’s head was encased in thick armor, and its brain capacity was compressed to the absolute minimum—it could clearly have bitten through the safety chain by lowering its head, but it couldn’t find the target. It just kept foolishly shoving its massive head against the gap in the warehouse iron door, logically getting itself stuck.
Lin Xia: “…So stupid.”
But dealing with it still took a great deal of effort from Chi Zheng.
Chi Zheng had no suitable tools on hand, and he didn’t want to expose his anomalies in front of Lin Xia, so he was stuck hacking away miserably with a fire axe.
The big-headed lizard’s armor was much stronger than the Gland-Tiger’s. Chi Zheng broke three axes just to cut through the first layer of armor, and the large amount of sebum secreted beneath the hide dissolved the metal of the fire axes almost instantly, filling the air with a pungent odor.
“This isn’t working!”
Lin Xia threw something toward Chi Zheng.
“Try this!”
When Chi Zheng caught it, he saw it was a crudely made hook-claw knife.
The Gland-Tiger’s hook-claws were extremely sharp and certainly not suitable for use as food ingredients, but they were very labor-saving for cutting things. Lin Xia, who hated to waste anything, had repurposed them: he had dismantled and polished the armor plates from the front claws, fastening them with rivets and diamond drill bits. While it looked very primitive and shabby, its performance was outstanding.
With the “assistance” of the Gland-Tiger, Chi Zheng finally caused effective damage to the big-headed lizard.
He hadn’t really taken the lizard seriously, which was why he had been patiently hacking away, thinking to drain the blood first to try and maintain the quality of the lizard meat—though it was already poor to begin with.
As a result, things didn’t go as planned. Just as the fresh ingredients were about to be secured, the sky outside suddenly changed—one after another, ribbons of light appeared in the sky, twisting, entangling, swirling, and shifting, illuminating Green Bay City at dawn as if it were broad daylight.
An aurora!? Lin Xia frowned. How could there possibly be an aurora in Green Bay City!?
Before he could figure it out, a sudden high-frequency sonic wave resonated throughout the entire city. Lin Xia’s mind went blank for a second; he discovered he couldn’t hear sound anymore, his vision began to distort, and his heart beat as if it were about to burst out of his chest.
No, this isn’t right…
It was unclear how much time had passed before the distorted world finally returned to normal.
But Chi Zheng was in trouble.
Chi Zheng had lost consciousness, and blood was gushing wildly from his ears, nose, and mouth. Meanwhile, the big-headed lizard not far away acted as if it had been injected with a stimulant; it shoved the safety chain aside with one hit, and the corrosive sebum poured down like rain. Lin Xia hurriedly transferred Chi Zheng into the car, which kept him from being drenched into a soggy mess by the corrosive liquid.
Beep—
The stall cart issued an alert. The car’s durability was taking damage and was rapidly declining.
The good news was that, apart from the big-headed lizard, no other mutated beasts remained alive in the warehouse; he wouldn’t be attacked from both sides for the time being.
The bad news was that the stall cart had no power system and could only serve as a temporary shelter.
Furthermore, as its durability declined, this shelter would become increasingly unsafe. The big-headed lizard on the other side was already rearing its hindquarters; given its size, if it slammed into the cart, how many hits could his Defense-30 stall cart take?
Abandon the car and run? The outside was covered in highly corrosive liquid.
Hide in the car? He would soon be crushed or die inside.
Lin Xia gritted his teeth.
Take a gamble. There’s no other choice anyway!
With that thought, he collected all the unused Gland-Tiger claw-plates, fixed them onto the spots most likely to suffer impact, then dragged Chi Zheng under the folding bed, protected his head with his own body, and held his breath, waiting for the impending impact.
Perhaps it was an illusion; perhaps it was intuition. Lin Xia found that his vision had changed. His attention became highly focused on certain spots—like a point on the big-headed lizard’s facial bone where something seemed to be, drawing his attention intensely.
He thought for a moment, then got out of the cart to adjust its orientation, making sure the thinnest part, the windshield, faced the big-headed lizard, with the sharp hooks of the fixed Gland-Tiger claw-plates pointing toward the lizard’s facial bone.
In just those ten-odd seconds, Lin Xia’s shoes were completely corroded. In the end, he had to jump back into the stall cart barefoot, his fair toes burned into large, agonizingly painful blood blisters by the corrosive liquid.
But he couldn’t care about that anymore.
If he and Chi Zheng were lucky, the moment the windshield shattered, these claw-plates would be driven into the big-headed lizard’s brain by momentum. He just hoped that some of these claw-plates would deal a fatal blow; otherwise, he would be forced into hand-to-hand combat in the next round!
Bang—! A first impact.
Bang—! A second impact.
The windshield already had cracks.
Lin Xia even calculated the big-headed lizard’s attack power: one hit was equal to about three mutated crows.
Bang—! This was the third time. The windshield shattered instantly.
Suddenly losing its obstruction, the big-headed lizard’s massive head rammed into the car due to momentum. Unfortunately, the claw-plates Lin Xia had fixed in place were useless, only leaving a shallow wound on the lizard’s eye socket.
Only I can do this!
Lin Xia gripped his homemade blade tight, bracing the handle against the wall of the stall cart. Taking advantage of the moment the lizard’s head was stuck, he timed it perfectly and thrust with both hands, precisely driving the final claw-plate into the center of its facial bone.
Squish—!
The recoil dislocated Lin Xia’s right arm, but in a life-or-death moment, who cared about pain? Gritting his teeth, he braced his shoulder against the blade handle and used all his strength to drive the plate deep into the monster’s head.
The big-headed lizard, in pain, swung its millstone-like head frantically, smashing one dent after another into the interior of the stall cart.
Lin Xia hid in the corner, staring at the big-headed lizard in trepidation, thinking that if this didn’t work, he would figure out a way to jump out of the car with Chi Zheng, even if it meant being corroded, he had to get him onto a shared car.
Fortunately, after struggling for a while, the big-headed lizard ran out of breath. Its heavy body collapsed to one side, with only slight nervous twitches remaining in its hind legs and tail.
Having survived the ordeal, Lin Xia finally let out a sigh of relief.
Actually, the moment the claw-plate went in, he had an inexplicable premonition that he had definitely struck a fatal spot on the lizard.
Drip, drip, drip.
Lin Xia rubbed his ears and touched blood, but his hearing had returned.
He snapped his right arm joint back into place, then tentatively poked the lizard on the ground to make sure it was completely dead.
This was the first time since the Cataclysm that Lin Xia had killed a mutated creature independently. Although it was a one-hit kill, the price paid was considerable.
The stall cart was completely ruined; durability was only 58 and was still continuously declining. The corrosive sebum all over the ground was like a poison debuff, constantly eroding the stall cart’s remaining durability.
Chi Zheng was still unconscious; clearly, the impact of the aurora on him was far greater than on anyone else. Fortunately, his vital signs were stable for now, and there were no signs of immediate life-threatening danger.
Beep—
The shattered windshield suddenly displayed a prompt.
—Ingredient detected. Start one-click collection?
Seeing this, Lin Xia was slightly stunned.
He had already completed two upgrade tasks, and each time he had processed the ingredients himself—there had never been such a thing as “one-click collection”!
He took out the manual again and found a new discovery under the “Ingredient Collection” section.
—After completing an upgrade task for the first time, the stall cart can unlock the automatic ingredient collection function. The collection range is limited to targets killed independently by the cart owner. A kill can be considered complete mastery over the ingredients; therefore, the stall cart can collect any part based on the owner’s wishes and provide rough processing services (Fee: 1 unit of energy and up; for specific prices, please view the price list).
—Note: Independent kills are limited to the car owner; passengers inside the vehicle are not included.
Hmm, understood. It meant that kills made by Chi Zheng didn’t count; it had to be his own handiwork.
Lin Xia pressed the confirmation key, and the panel in front of him flashed, jumping to a complete price list.
“Spine, 1 energy unit; hind leg, 1 energy unit; sword-bone meat, 2 energy units; jaw meat, 2 energy units…”
A long list of the big-headed lizard’s body parts appeared, each with different prices.
Although Lin Xia had saved up some energy, his daily expenses were quite high, and he had to be frugal.
“Does the automatic acquisition range include the crystal core? Hmm, found it… under the energy extraction fee section.”
Lin Xia first selected the energy extraction service. In an instant, many items on the price list turned gray. It turned out that “extraction” didn’t just include the crystal core, but also the energy that could be harvested from the ingredients themselves.
However, doing this destroyed the parts that could have been used as ingredients. Currently, only a few options remained, such as hind legs, abdominal muscle, and jaw meat. However, with this extraction, Lin Xia harvested 18 units of energy, 10 of which came from the big-headed lizard’s crystal core, and the remaining 8 units were purified from the lizard’s fat, bones, and organs. After deducting the mandatory energy extraction fee, he still made a net profit of 12 units of energy.
“30%—that’s really expensive.”
Lin Xia’s teeth ached at the cost.
But it was bearable; after all, if he had to do it himself, he wouldn’t be able to collect that free-floating energy.
Besides, there was an advantage to the high price. After choosing to collect the energy automatically, he received an anatomical structure chart of the big-headed lizard, which contained a lot of useful information that could help him choose more delicious parts.
Lin Xia chose the hind legs and jaw meat, spending 3 energy units.
The jaw meat was high quality, but there was only 10 catties of it; the remaining gap still had to be filled by the large, filling portions of hind-leg meat.
As for the lizard’s abdominal muscle, although the collection fee was 1 energy unit, according to the structure chart, this area constantly rubbed against the ground, and its elasticity was very poor. It would likely require a long time of stewing to absorb flavor, and he didn’t have that much time to spare.
Now the third-floor corridor was covered in corrosive sebum; wanting to get off the cart meant risking having his legs burned off. It would be better to take advantage of the stall cart’s remaining durability to complete the orange-level upgrade task as soon as possible and refresh the status of the stall cart.
Lin Xia, keep going!