Global Collapse

Chapter 320 Vulnerable Zone
【warn! 】

[The instance is suffering an unknown attack!]

For your safety, all players will be removed from the instance within ten seconds. Please be prepared.

【10, 9, 8...】

What? An Zhitinglan's eyes flashed with astonishment as she looked at the game panel that suddenly appeared in front of her.

She was prepared to stay in this instance for three days, but she didn't expect this to happen halfway through.

This saved her a lot of trouble...

"But this instance was fine before, why did it suddenly become like this?"

The tremors beneath my feet continued, and the distant buildings trembled violently, as if they were about to collapse at any moment.

Anzhi Tinglan quickly calmed herself down amidst the turmoil. She gazed at the shaking world, countless thoughts flashing through her mind.

Dungeons don't collapse for no reason; something abnormal must have been mixed in to cause them to suffer unknown attacks.

And this abnormal thing...

The strangest thing in the dungeon seems to be that odd doctor.

There was no time for her to think.

The countdown on the panel was ticking away like a death knell, and soon the ticking numbers turned into a large circle.

Anzhi Tinglan stared intently at the number "0" on the panel.

Half a second after the round circle emerged, boundless darkness surged forth, blotting out the sky and obscuring all light.

Gu Mian is in the same situation.

Just after those numbers, which looked like duck eggs, appeared, he was enveloped in darkness.

In the instant she was enveloped in darkness, Sweet Teacher's mouth was still opening and closing, but no one could hear what she was saying anymore.

Gu Mian only saw the fortune teller's terrified expression frozen on his face, and then that frozen face was swallowed up by darkness.

But not long after being surrounded by darkness, light reappeared.

It seems we've returned to the real world.

A beam of light shone from ahead, illuminating the surroundings.

Just when Gu Mian thought the light would fill and illuminate the surroundings, it stopped moving.

After waiting for several seconds, there was only this one beam of light.

Gu Mian blinked before realizing that she hadn't been thrown into any special place, but that it was already late at night in the real world.

Because it's a special instance, Gu Mian entered the instance on a hearse, and naturally returned to her original location when she left.

Fortunately, Chu Changge and Fatty didn't drive the hearse away—of course, neither of them were driving, so they couldn't have done it even if they wanted to.

It was already late at night.

A flashlight was placed on the front seat, and the light came from it.

Gu Mian first glanced at the time; it was 2:35 a.m.

It's already so late...

A faint fragrance lingered in the air; I wondered who had sprayed perfume while I wasn't looking.

There was a snoring sound coming from below my feet.

Gu Mian lowered her head slightly and saw a fat man sleeping like a dead pig lying at her feet. Her arrival had no effect on him at all.

A scene that could be described as a midnight horror unfolded on the windshield not far ahead: a few strands of hair hung down from the roof of the car, dangling on the glass, which looked quite terrifying at first glance.

Without a doubt, Xiao Hong must have gone to the roof of the car to enjoy the breeze again, just because she couldn't stand being alone.

Chu Changge is not here?
Gu Mian looked left and right, up and down, and almost lifted the fat man's blanket to see if Chu Changge was hiding inside, but she couldn't find him.

Vanished into thin air, is that even possible? Just as Gu Mian was hesitating whether to wake the sleeping fat man and ask him about it, a figure appeared on the road ahead.

"Chu Changge?" Gu Mian frowned and looked in the direction where the figure had appeared.

Because the headlights were off, the figures outside the windshield were extremely blurry.

However, not long after, the figure walked in, and Gu Mian recognized that it was indeed Chu Changge.

Strangely, he was wearing a mask when he went out in the middle of the night. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be the "Daily Life Type D-Barrier" mask that Gu Mian had bought in the medical supplies section of the supermarket not long ago.

This type of barrier mask has a shelf life of one month after opening and can isolate common viruses when worn.

It's not cheap for the average player.

Gu Mian didn't think Chu Changge was wearing the mask simply to keep warm.

Seemingly seeing Gu Mian return to the real world, Chu Changge quickened his pace, walked swiftly to the hearse, and pulled open the door to enter.

A cool breeze blew in, and Chu Changge quickly closed the car door to block it.

The strands of hair hanging from the roof swayed slightly, then fell silent.

Chu Changge ignored Xiao Hong lying on top of him and looked at Gu Mian: "You're back."

"Hmm," Gu Mian nodded thoughtfully, "What did you do when you went out in the middle of the night?"

“This,” Chu Changge said, taking off her mask with one hand and taking out something from her pocket with the other, “a map.”

Gu Mian took it and glanced at it.

It is indeed a map.

He had previously teased Chu Changge about being a map expert, but he never expected Chu Changge to be so passionate about drawing maps. How come he hadn't noticed this hobby of Chu Changge when they were younger...

Chu Changge handed over a detailed map of their area, which covered an area roughly the size of a county town; it was hand-drawn.

The buildings are clearly marked, including existing buildings as well as the ticket hall and supermarket added after the game starts.

How could Chu Changge have traveled to all the places on the map in such a short time?
Gu Mian continued reading.

The colors of the hand-drawn map were somewhat glaring to him.

No one knows where Chu Changge got the colored pencils, but he managed to paint a small county town in all sorts of colors, making it look like a rainbow after a storm.

Gu Mian frowned. He knew that Chu Changge's aesthetic sense had never been so flashy, so there must be a reason why it was painted like this.

As he pondered this, he pointed to the map in his hand: "This is where we are, right? You've colored this area yellow. What's the point?"

At the center of the map was their dilapidated hearse. Chu Changge was quite skilled at drawing, and Gu Mian recognized their hearse at a glance.

Chu Changge glanced in the direction Gu Mian was pointing and said calmly, "Yellow is the area most susceptible to infection."

Just hearing the term 'highly susceptible area' tells you it's not a good area.

If the world were not gamified, but rather turned into a global zombie apocalypse, the 'vulnerable zone' would be an extremely dangerous place.

Gu Mian wasn't stupid; she immediately realized, "Is there an infectious disease here?"

No wonder Chu Changge was wearing a mask to block the view; I never expected something like this to happen while I was in the dungeon.

Chu Changge nodded slightly: "I'm afraid the virus started spreading a few days ago, and I suspect that the area attacked by the virus is not limited to this place."

Gu Mian looked down at the map in her hand again.

So-called natural disasters and man-made disasters, there is a high probability that man-made disasters will follow natural disasters.

Most of the time, it's because the handling of natural disasters was inadequate, leading to the decomposition of corpses and the spread of viruses through contaminated water sources.

"I've observed that because the virus hasn't been spreading for very long, we've only seen the initial symptoms. But it's clear that the symptoms of this infectious disease are significantly more severe than before the game started, and it could even develop into something terrifying..."

Chu Changge paused for a moment when he said this: "It's most likely a virus deployed by the game."

(End of this chapter)