End of the World: My Items Can Be Upgraded Infinitely.

Chapter 259: Searching for Qin Hu, Markers, Five-claw Footprints

"This place is almost exactly the same as the real world..."

“It’s more realistic than the AR games I played before.”

A young deputy commander of the regiment walking behind couldn't help but speak as he looked at the world in front of him which looked like hell.

Lin Feng looked back at him. This guy was younger than him. He was Shen Jie's classmate, only seventeen or eighteen years old, and a heavy game fan.

Relying on his obsession with killing monsters and leveling up, this guy's promotion speed was not slow. He became one of the first ten warriors to successfully advance to the late second stage, and was soon promoted to deputy commander of the Gene Corps.

However, Lin Feng was also shocked by the overly real End of the World before him, so he replied:
"This is a hundred times more real than the trial world. Of course, the details are impeccable."

"It's just like a small copy in an ordinary online game and a 3A stand-alone masterpiece. One is just a quick cutscene for gaining experience and equipment, and the other is to build an immersive experience in the real world..."

As he spoke, Lin Feng suddenly remembered Qin Hu's death, and his tone became low:

"So, the touch is so real, even breathing feels like being there..."

“If an accident happens, the pain from the injury will be stronger and more real than the previous artistic conception world, and the sensation will be magnified a hundred times!”

Hearing Lin Feng's other side, the people behind him thought of Qin Hu's death and couldn't help but shudder in their hearts.

The deputy commander of the regiment who had just spoken turned pale, quickly put away his admiration, and became cautious.

At this moment, Long Yi, who was walking in front of the crowd, heard the conversation between the two and turned back to attack with another knife:

"You should worry about something else than these."

Lin Feng frowned slightly, somewhat puzzled.

Ling Yi looked into the distance with deep eyes:
"Because the reality of the Land of the End is higher, whether it is the spine worms condensed by the state of mind or the second-level peak tiger spine worms that enter to participate in the trial, their strength will be stronger than the previous trial world!"

“Not to mention the king-spine worms in the volcano, the top tiger-spine worms participating in the trial have a higher tolerance for the Land of the End, so after the scan, their strength can be about 70% to 80% of their original strength.”

"And you are probably only half of them, and this is the real challenge..."

"They will regard us as invaders, competitors, and kill us here together."

"It's not like before, everyone is working together to help each other. Here, the law of survival of the fittest has been implemented to the end. Even when facing an ordinary first-level black-spine insect, don't take it lightly."

"Lin Feng and I entered with our peak second-order strength. In the Land of the End, we can barely deal with a second-order peak tiger-spine worm that has started the trial..."

"If you encounter more than two at the same time, you can only fight and retreat, escaping back to the trial world."

“Although it is unlikely that you will encounter peak tiger-spine insects in succession in this place shrouded in a murderous atmosphere, you must also be prepared to flee in all directions and face death at any time.”

After hearing what Long Yi said, everyone immediately understood that they came from a lower-level trial world, and their strength level was much weaker than the end of the world in front of them.

Here, any peak tiger-back worm can kill them and cause great losses.

Everyone who realized this became more cautious, always looking around and observing their surroundings.

To prevent tiger spine insects from attacking.

Soon, everyone followed Long Yi's footsteps and came to the middle of the scarlet killing zone, less than ten kilometers away from the blood-red volcano that was more than four thousand meters high.

The killing energy nearby was so strong that it seeped into the inky obsidian on the surface, transforming the originally opaque black glass crystals into blood-red, translucent red crystals.

Combined with the fiery clouds in the sky, it looks extremely weird and strange.

In the distance, the Killer Volcano was already in a state of eruption. At the edge of the crater on the top of the mountain, hot bright yellow magma slowly flowed down along the gap.

On the mountain, it gradually cools down to a dark red.

If you want to deal with the king worm, you must first endure the high temperature of hundreds of degrees on the volcano and always pay attention to the hot magma flowing everywhere like water.

Just as everyone was shocked by the scene before them, a group of tiger-spine insects, about 20 to 30 meters in size, suddenly crawled out of a pit in front of them.

Their strength level is in the early to middle stage of the second stage, which is not too strong. They are the artistic conception spiny worms refreshed here.

In order to avoid exposing his whereabouts, Long Yi carefully led the group to hide in a crack several meters deep, using his spiritual energy to cover up everyone's breath.

Then he turned around and whispered to everyone:

"The area covered by the killing state is several hundred square kilometers. If we continue like this, we will have to avoid the tiger-spine insect swarms and search for Qin Hu everywhere..."

“It may take more than ten days without finding any trace.”

"Do you have any other ideas?"

Everyone looked at each other and fell into deep thought.

Lin Feng looked back at the path the group had taken:

"If Qin Hu dies in this place of end, will he be resurrected at the starting point? That is, the edge of the artistic conception that he just passed through the spiritual tunnel and arrived at..."

"If that's the case, we just need to wait here for a while longer, and maybe we can run into Qin Hu who has been reborn again."

Hearing Lin Feng's speculation, Long Yi shook his head:
"It's difficult. If he had been infected by the power of the laws of this place before his second death, that is, he had been eroded by the killing state in front of him and completely turned into a spinal worm that had lost its mind, then the place where he would be reborn after death would be randomly refreshed in the place covered by the killing state."

"Usually at the edge, but at least not at the initial point we arrive at."

"Because the space there is not stable, the influence of the laws of the End Land is the weakest there. Generally, rebirth requires an energy-stable environment to provide aggregation conditions."

Lin Feng frowned slightly. In this case, it was really hard to determine where Qin Hu might appear.

The murderous aura here is hundreds of times stronger than the murderous state of mind that Shen Jie had formed alone. Even if Qin Hu could resist it a little, he would definitely not be able to avoid being assimilated by the murderous state of mind and losing his mind.

Now facing such a vast and dangerous land of the end, how can we find Qin Hu's trace...

After Long Yi rejected Lin Feng's suggestion, everyone fell into deep thought for a long time.

Until one of the members under Qin Hu seemed to remember something and said:

"General Qin has a very strong will. Even if he enters the Land of End, it is unlikely that he will be affected by the murderous atmosphere here and lose his mind instantly."

"Before he fell into confusion and lost himself, he would definitely realize when he regained his consciousness that he must leave some traces and tracks to guide the next trial-taker who would die and be reborn in the trial world."

"Lead us to him! Join him!"

After hearing what the soldier said, everyone's eyes lit up, and they all obviously felt that it made sense.

Lin Feng nodded and said:
"That's right! Qin Hu was an extremely professional special forces soldier before the apocalypse. After years of training, his awareness of reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance has become deeply ingrained in him. It's impossible for him not to have thought of leaving clues to guide the resurrected people behind."

"But he probably didn't guess that we would all come here to look for him."

Long Yi hummed and agreed:
"Okay, let's go back to the resurrection point and stay in this area. I think even if Qin Hu is resurrected, he won't run too far out of caution."

"After all, it seems that the resurrection point in the space shattered is obviously safer than the foot of the volcano full of spiny worms."

"He is alone. If he is still alive and has not met with any accident, he must be nearby!"

Just like that, after everyone reached a conclusion through discussion, under the leadership of Lin Feng and the others, they left the middle area covered by the killing atmosphere, took another path, and returned to the resurrection point.

On this return trip, everyone did not follow each other, but lined up in a row, looking around at the terrain near and far, not missing any details or corners.

Finally, in the broken space near the scarlet killing and invasion, near the original resurrection point, a careful member found a regular and complete triangular saw blade on the ground.

The palm-sized saw blade is made of the giant jaws of the tiger-backed worm, and its shape and appearance are exactly the same as the tiger-tooth chain saw swords in everyone's hands.

The genetic warriors under Qin Hu were also equipped with the tiger-toothed chainsaw sword developed by Ding Chenghai, but in terms of properties, they were not as powerful as the one synthesized by Lin Feng. In fact, the manufacturing process of the tiger-toothed chainsaw sword was not complicated and advanced, but because a large number of basic industries in the Jincheng base were moved to the rear, the production of chainsaw swords of the Salvation Army has always been very low.

In the defense of the northern capital, the Quartet Corps only needed to collect a large number of tiger-backed insect corpses to mass-produce tiger-tooth chain saw swords.

Although it is impossible for every second-level awakener to have one, hundreds of mid-to-late-stage second-level melee elites can still be equipped with this powerful melee weapon.

So this time when they entered the artistic conception world to take part in the trial, Qin Hu and his thirty-six genetic warriors, after undergoing mental scanning, brought in the tiger-tooth chainsaw swords they were equipped with.

Later in the trial world, after Lin Feng's upgrade, it has transformed into a level 29 tiger-tooth chainsaw sword.

With the subsequent attribute blessing, it can easily break the armor of the second-level peak tiger-spine worm.

The saw blade in the team members' hands at this moment obviously did not reach the sharpness of the twenty-nine-level saw blade. After Lin Feng took it, he also found that the texture of this saw blade was at most from a second-stage mid-stage tiger-spine worm.

But the shape is very regular, and it is definitely not something that can be forged by these crazy spiny worms that only know how to fight.

After several confirmations, it was finally determined that the saw blade in the corner was left by Qin Hu!
It was also the only thing in his hand that could leave an obvious mark, apart from a large-caliber hand cannon.

Lin Feng put away the saw blade, looked around and said:

"Look again. There are very few spiny worms here. There should be other markers nearby."

Everyone scattered and searched everywhere.

At this time, Lin Feng saw the bloody land infected by the scarlet slaughter, and the volcanic ash falling all over the sky, covered with a layer of black and red gray snow, like a decaying ruin...

Suddenly I remembered something and asked my neighbor:

"Wait, you said before that the time flow rate in our trial world is a thousand times faster than that in the outside world..."

"Then this place of final destination in front of us is even larger in scale and has more realistic laws..."

Long Yi also realized something and immediately replied:

"Since the Land of the End is 10% the size of the Divine Realm, then logically speaking, the speed of time should be a hundred times faster than that of the Trial World, which is one thousandth of the size. So the speed of time here is a hundred times faster than before."

"We have been in the trial world for more than an hour..."

"Then four full days have passed in the Land of the End!"

"This thing was also left behind four days ago?!"

Lin Feng nodded, looking at the half-cut saw blade in his hand that was infected by the killing energy, and whispered with difficulty:
"In four days, even if Qin Hu has a strong will, he can't withstand the erosion of the killing state of mind."

"Now, he has either been deformed into a human-insect monster by the killing state, or has reopened somewhere else."

"Even if we find the mark he left behind, the possibility of finding Qin Hu himself is very slim..."

However, before Lin Feng could finish, a nearby genetic warrior suddenly spoke in a startled voice:
"Everybody come here! I found it!"

The person who spoke was the team member who had just been brave enough and careful enough to find the first saw blade.

When everyone came closer to take a look, they found that he had found another saw blade based on the direction in which the tip of the triangular saw blade was aimed.

"The Federation-made Tiger Tooth Chain Saw Sword has a total of twenty-four saw blades, and twenty replacement saw blades are usually carried in the equipment bag in case of emergency."

Another warrior under Qin Hu raised the tiger-tooth chainsaw sword in his hand and began to explain.

Lin Feng and Long Yi looked at each other and kept the conclusion drawn from their previous conversation deep in their hearts.

After all, we have come this far. Instead of telling everyone this inference, we might as well take it one step at a time and see if these saw blade marks can provide more clues.

If we could really find Qin Hu, there would be no need to dampen everyone's enthusiasm.

So the group continued to move forward in the direction indicated by the tip of the saw blade and soon arrived under a huge rock.

The boulder was covered with a thick layer of volcanic ash.

There seemed to be no signs of activity at all.

But after a careful search, they soon discovered that the bottom of the huge rock, which had been dyed bloody by the murderous mood...

There was a hidden narrow pit opening half a meter wide, blocked by a piece of obsidian.

After everyone moved it away, there were obvious signs of excavation at the entrance of the pit.

"Qin Hu should have rested here before. After all, he was alone and couldn't rest and stand guard at the same time. He had to find a shelter to hide."

Thinking of Qin Hu struggling alone for several days, Lin Feng couldn't help but speak.

As he approached, he smelled a faint smell of blood coming from the cave entrance. Several people around him also smelled this unusual smell and frowned slightly.

Because this smell is not like the bloody smell that permeates this place, it has a strange smell of sulfur.

But it is the pure smell of human blood.

The soldiers under Qin Hu were extremely anxious and volunteered to go into the pit. In the end, they crawled out of the cave with only dozens of irregular Zerg scales.

Lin Feng took a look and found that it should be the Zerg outer armor that proliferated and grew on the body surface of the genetic warrior in the assimilated form.

Obviously, this was Qin Hu's fear of complete assimilation when he was still rational, which made him, like Shen Jie and Zhang Liying in the past, tear off his flesh and blood, and then grow pieces of insect armor on his skin to prevent the spread of deformity.

Looking at the dried blood and flesh remaining on the back of the insect armor, everyone became even more worried.

"Let's go and look around. If the shelter is still there, Qin Hu should be active around here."

After finding Qin Hu’s camp, Lin Feng took a deep breath, stood up and looked around.

He led everyone to conduct a carpet search centered on the boulder pit.

It wasn’t long before a new discovery was made:

The deputy commander of the regiment who had lamented that the Land of End was too real, immediately called everyone over after observing the strange terrain somewhere.

When everyone gathered together, he pointed to the thick layer of volcanic ash and the broken rocks in front of him, and said in a deep voice:

"There was a fight here, and General Qin was most likely one of the parties involved."

"Look, there are several red crystals nearby. The way they are broken and the degree of their shattering are very different from those that fell naturally nearby. They must have been damaged by heavy blows during a fierce fight."

"Look here..."

As he spoke, he half-knelt down, stretched his body, and moved forward, using his hands to wipe away the layer of volcanic ash that had accumulated on the ground.

The next moment, a bizarre and strange scene appeared, making everyone hold their breath and their pupils tremble violently!

All I saw was this obsidian surface, covered by volcanic ash...

Suddenly, a claw mark half a meter in size appeared!
Through the broken obsidian that had sunk deep into the ground, one could see these huge claw marks, which looked like human hands, with five long claws of different thicknesses and lengths...

And this is obviously not something the spiny worms can leave behind!

At this moment, everyone present was stunned, until Lin Feng, with a look of doubt on his face, turned around and looked at Long Yi beside him:

"This is……"

(End of this chapter)