Chapter 1 The Cover

The four were worried that the comic book might contain memes, so they didn't show it directly to the camera (although they knew that the live broadcast servers in the real world were equipped with software to counteract the effects of memes).

Instead, Nina used laser beams emitted from her fingers to write out the information, briefly summarizing the comic.

The cover of the ninth installment of the comic series *Qun Xing Gui Wei Zhi Shi* (When the Stars Return to Their Place) featured a coral reef in a dark blue ocean, with a conch shell lying on the reef, from which several strands of green seaweed extended.

The comic was full color, with hard-quality paper and a photo-realistic art style. The colors were bright and layered, making it highly infectious and emotionally charged. More than a children's or young adult comic, it looked like a work of art.

The comic contained no information about the publication date, author, script, or artwork. Only the words [Home Publishing House] were printed on the back of the book.

As for the content...

The ninth comic book began with a red, high-horsepower, license plate-less convertible driving on a wilderness road. In the driver's seat sat a pink-skinned humanoid creature with no hair, nose, or eyebrows, an aged face, and a stern, cold expression. It was muscular, wearing a trench coat and a hat, with a cigar in its mouth, a silver crucifix necklace around its neck, and a revolver hanging on each hip.

It would occasionally quote scriptures, telling mysterious allegories and philosophies of life, possibly a pastor.

And in the back seat of the car sat... a clownfish.

With orange-yellow skin and white stripes around its body, it stood upright on two legs like a human, looking relatively young.

From the way they talked to each other, the clownfish was probably the pink-skinned pastor's adopted son (or daughter. Clownfish are hermaphroditic; they don't show characteristics when young, males can turn into females, and females cannot turn into males. Judging from the art style, this clownfish has delicate features, making it difficult to tell its gender, and the comic doesn't say).

The two "people" seemed to have experienced something before this, and neither was in a good mood.

While chatting awkwardly, they drove through the wilderness. The clownfish finally plucked up the courage to tell the pastor that it didn't want to continue onward and that they should find a place to live, such as an anemone forest.

The pastor was silent for a long time, then said that he would help the clownfish achieve this ideal when the dust settled.

After driving for a while, the vehicle finally arrived at a tall metal fortress.

The fortress gate was tightly closed, and the walls, which were over ten meters high, were lined with machine gun turrets. Outside the gate were barbed wire and trenches, guarding against something unknown.

The clownfish was a little scared and asked if this was really the residence of the pastor's old friend.

The pastor nodded, turned off the engine, and came to the front of the metal fortress with his hands raised, shouting that he had come for friendship.

A machine gun rose up from the fortress, with a large LCD screen installed above it.

The machine gun was loaded with bullets, and a human female headshot appeared on the LCD screen, saying emotionlessly to the pastor that his friend was dead and that she now controlled the fortress.

The comic's plot ended abruptly there.

"In general, the comic has a realistic and delicate style, with skillful use of color, making it a work of art."

Nina concluded, "This may be an artistic work in the style of a road movie. The protagonist experiences various events against the background of a journey, completing life experiences, undergoing ideological changes, and realizing life goals and self-worth.

"Like *Journey to the West*, *The Last of Us Part 1*, *Thelma & Louise*, *American Gods*, and so on.

"However, due to the lack of context before and after the plot, and the unknown names of the characters, we don't know the details of the story.

"The player we defeated earlier was attacked while changing powder. And we got this comic book from the body of the security guard who came to attack.

"If we can get more of the other comics, we might be able to complete the entire comic plot, and then deduce the background story of the Lost World, so that we can survive better."

"That's right."

Eva nodded on the side, "Personally, I think that maybe this comic has a very special meaning for the security guards, so much so that they hide the brand-new comic in their bodies.

"When we have more people and accumulate more power, we will take the initiative to dismantle the waistbands, lure the security guards to attack, get more comics,

"And even track the security guards to their lairs to find..."

As she spoke, the detector in the sky suddenly disappeared.

Eva also slowed down her speech, slowly adding the second half of the sentence, "...potentially existing printing equipment—this comic is too new."

"The detector is gone."

Pei Youzhen frowned slightly and sighed, "I guess the observation time is up, or a battle has broken out somewhere else."

"But we've already transmitted the information. As for how the outside world analyzes it, that's their business."

Qin raised her feet carelessly and placed them on the bench opposite the bamboo basket, saying lazily, "By the way, Eva, can you turn up the ventilation system of the [Yurucamp Bamboo Basket]? It's almost time for dinner.

"I have hamburgers, pizzas, iced cola, and many other national dishes in my space storage equipment. What do you want to eat?"

"Are you here to fight or to camp?"

Eva's eyes twitched, and she reprimanded, "Although the [Yurucamp Bamboo Basket] can block odors, the stronger the ventilation system, the more spiritual energy it consumes.

"Just eat some high-energy drinks and food, and bear with it."

"No way!"

Qin wailed, "Those drinks and foods are too disgusting, like a hybrid of slime, snot, and slugs. There are also hard energy blocks like peanuts inside. Every time I eat them, I feel like I'm going to lose ten years of my life.

"Are you hoping I die early so you can become the leader and take over my talent?"

"Tch."

Eva sneered, "With your cheerleader's brain, I could buy a bunch of roses, put some poison in them, and then lie to you that they were sent by your admirer.

"You would sniff them happily and show them off to us, right?"

Qin looked shocked, "What?! You actually poisoned me!?"

"No! I'm just saying this hypothetical..."

"You really want to poison me!"

Qin looked wary and said firmly, "I knew I couldn't trust you!"

"...Sigh, there's no possibility of communication with a brain like yours."

Eva sighed and rubbed her forehead.

Nina, who was originally smiling as she watched all this, suddenly felt her tablet vibrate on her lap, and a circle of red light lit up around the edge of the screen.

The four girls instantly calmed down from their playful state. Nina's fingers frantically tapped on the tablet, and she whispered a location, "Three o'clock, 2.5 kilometers. A drone has been destroyed."

"2.5 kilometers,"

Eva's eyes flickered, "That's almost the limit of the reconnaissance drone's range...

"How was it destroyed? Can we know?"

"Yes."

Nina nodded, "Before the drone was destroyed, it transmitted back the last video."

The other three girls approached and looked at the tablet. The screen already showed the night vision view—

The drone was flying steadily along the tunnel, and the scanning device below the fuselage was scanning the spacious tunnel back and forth, measuring the terrain and detecting enemy traces.

Suddenly, the drone seemed to detect something and rotated its camera sharply.

On the far wall of the dim tunnel, it saw a winged creature.

The creature was crouching above a hanging ladder. Its back was covered with a layer of chitin and metal mixed armor, which was covered with thorns and chimneys.

Below the wings, which were nearly three meters wide, were parasitic objects in the shape of tentacles, like missiles on an armed aircraft.

The creature's mouth was wide open, and it extended a hollow, pipe-like tongue.

From the middle of the tongue, a nail silently shot out.

The nail pierced the air, instantly crossing nearly a thousand meters and hitting the drone—causing the latter to not even have time to turn on its defensive machine gun.

The picture stopped abruptly.

"..."

Eva looked at the ferocious and brutal creature on the screen, which didn't seem like an Earth species at all, and murmured, "What exactly is this thing..."

————

Lost World, 47th floor.

"What's wrong?"

Liu Wudai, who was riding on a hover motorcycle and wearing a fully enclosed protective suit, turned his head and looked at Li Ang, who was riding on a Fear Steed and suddenly turned his head.

The Fear Steed was the same size as a normal horse, but its fur was black, its eyes were red, and it was spewing a sulfurous gas from its nostrils. The places where its hooves stepped would burn with a non-temperature, dark blue flame that would last for 30 seconds without burning objects.

In terms of speed, the Fear Steed's maximum speed was comparable to a sports car, and its ability to adapt to terrain was far better than conventional vehicles.

It just didn't have stirrups or a saddle—the Fear Steed extremely hated those two things, so the riding experience for low-level players was not very good.

Players with weaker physiques could even have their internal organs injured by the bumpy ride.

However, with Li Ang's current physique, subduing the Fear Steed was like playing around. The latter seemed to know this as well, and after Li Ang fed it a carrot, it obediently carried him through the constructed city.

"It's nothing."

Li Ang turned his head and smiled.

It had been several hours since he released the Zerg hive. The Zerg hive had absorbed the biomass from the landfill on the 46th floor and began to expand upstairs and downstairs, looking for more biomass sources.

Some newly produced Scout Bugs had also flown to the 50th to 40th floors, scouting the terrain and searching for enemies.

In this process, it was inevitable to encounter Machine Beasts and other players.

Machine Beasts had an extremely strong urge to kill flesh-and-blood creatures, but the latest Scout Bugs were covered with several layers of semi-transparent, tight membranes on their surfaces, which could reduce some of the thermal radiation.

The chimney-like organs responsible for absorbing oxygen and dissipating heat also had built-in special parts that could mask the smell of living things emitted during breathing.

This prevented them from being discovered by the Machine Beasts early on, attracting attacks.

As for players—Scout Bugs would not actively attack players they encountered. Instead, they would maintain a certain distance, hide themselves, and continuously observe the other party.

And they would feed the observation results back to the Overmind in the Zerg hive.

If the player became alert, the Scout Bugs would quickly fly away. If necessary, they would even self-immolate, not giving the player any chance to capture biological samples.

The Zerg hive was not strong enough yet and still needed time to convert the biomass into sufficient troops.

Once the Zerg hive had been expanded, the Overmind would change its strategy.

For example, it would allow the Scout Bugs to remove their body restrictions, spreading thermal radiation and the smell of living things everywhere, attracting the surrounding Machine Beasts to attack the players, thereby observing more player data.

Or it would directly send out troops to attack, capture, or even kill enemy players...

Rumble—

A muffled sound came from the ceiling, and the entire constructed city was shaking. Dust was constantly falling from the dome of the sky.

This caused the Fear Steed to sneeze, and it snorted unhappily, exhaling more sulfurous gas.

Liu Wudai immediately looked at his watch, "Six hours, 3.212 seconds... the second tremor."

"The last tremor was three hours after we teleported into the Lost World, right?"

Li Ang frowned, "Does it tremor every three hours here? Is this some kind of signal, or a time prompt?"

In ordinary decryption-type script missions, time hints are often extremely important.

For example, after a certain period of time, the monsters in the mission will be strengthened once. If you don't seize the time to act, you will inevitably be drowned by the monsters.

Or if you don't discover clues and rush to the corresponding location within the specified time, you will suffer a hidden penalty—losing a piece of equipment that you could have obtained.

"Not sure."

Liu Wudai shook his head, looked at the dome, and said softly, "The first sound was heard at around three hours, 3.417 seconds.

"The second time was six hours, 3.212 seconds.

"The time interval is not exactly three hours."

Li Ang raised his eyebrows, "Do you think this time difference has some special meaning?"

"There's a possibility."

Liu Wudai nodded and looked around, "However, the structure of the buildings here is peculiar, and the materials are special.

"It's difficult to judge the distance of the sound from us based on the speed of sound propagation in the building materials.

"Maybe it's just that my position has changed, which caused the time difference."

"Yes."

Li Ang nodded slowly. He was also very concerned about this sound, but the architectural structure of the Lost World was very complex, and the positions of the passages between the floors were not fixed and had to be found by themselves.

So even the Scout Bug in the highest position was only on the 50th floor.

"We're here."

Liu Wudai took a deep breath, stopped the hover motorcycle, and Li Ang also got off the Fear Steed, throwing a carrot into the horse's mouth to end the summoning skill.

In front of the two was a heavy, unimaginably tall metal wall that connected from the ground to the ceiling.

There were no traces of metal plates being pieced together on the entire wall, nor were there any components such as rivets for fixation.

Only in the middle of the wall did it protrude toward the constructed city, forming a giant pipe-shaped outline.

From the pipe outline, tens of thousands of micro-metal conduits extended, covering the entire wall like ivy, extending all the way to the gaps in the walls on both sides, disappearing from sight.

"..."

Liu Wudai was silent, took out a palm-sized instrument from his backpack, aimed it at the wall and pressed the button.

After a long time, he turned his head and said to Li Ang, "The material of this wall is completely different from other building materials. I can't measure the specific thickness.

"This should be the edge of the Lost World."

Li Ang nodded and reached out to break a micro-conduit, but it didn't move.

He frowned, took out the Hegemon's Barricade Halberd, applied more force, and cut off a micro-conduit.

Pfft—

The metal conduit fell down like the severed body of a snake, and amber-colored liquid dripped from inside the conduit.

"This is... oil?"

Liu Wudai frowned, not touching the amber-colored liquid, but taking out an observation instrument composed of a set of eyepieces from his backpack and using the instrument to observe, "No, this is not oil.

"But it also contains high-quality energy.

"I need to collect samples..."

"Don't worry, we have guests."

Li Ang turned around and looked behind him—a large number of humanoid puppets slowly crawled out of the hanging ladders and broken pipes on the edge of the constructed city.