Chapter 119: Lost in the Snow Mountain 22

Chapter 119: Lost in the Snow Mountain 22

The zombie on the right took Qin Fei up and flew through the crowd of snow monsters, successfully meeting up with the Dawn Squad.

Wen Ren Li Ming experienced the same breakdown as Mi Yang.

He couldn't understand why, in a snowy mountain copy filled with mystery and nameless terror, a zombie would suddenly appear out of nowhere?

And it was that kind of zombie that hopped around when walking, with yellow talismans fluttering in the wind on its body, and a long tongue hanging out.

It was exactly like the image from Hong Kong zombie movies.

"You said before that no one could possibly guess the truth about Zhou Li's death except you. You didn't mean this, did you?"

As Wen Ren Li Ming dodged the attacks of the snow monsters, he painfully questioned Qin Fei.

If Zhou Li's cause of death had something to do with zombies, then Little Qin wasn't wrong.

Who could have thought of it if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes?

There were no signs at all in the early part of the copy!

This was the first time Wen Ren Li Ming had encountered such an unscrupulous situation after going through so many copies.

Yes, there were many unexpected things in various copies.

But those were within the realm of possibility. After the truth was revealed, players would lament, "Why didn't I think of that back then?"

Not like this—

Wen Ren Li Ming's gaze strangely flicked towards the zombie on the right. The zombie was wreaking havoc ahead, flipping over a snow monster with one claw and biting down, its long fangs instantly piercing through the opponent's neck.

When a zombie suddenly appeared in the snow mountain, what Wen Ren thought wasn't "Why didn't I think of that back then," but rather "Is the copy going crazy?"

When Qin Fei heard Wen Ren Li Ming's question, he stumbled, almost tripped by his thoughts that were far off the mark.

But Qin Fei didn't explain.

He was busy running for his life and fighting, too lazy to talk. What if he got out of breath?

A single zombie on the right could be equivalent to the combat power of two players. As soon as it joined, the situation immediately turned around.

The players' battle against the enemy became much easier, but this was still not a sustainable solution.

The narrow terrain of the snow mountain gorge squeezed the players' survival space to a minimum.

Countless snow monsters were still lurking, even if they duplicated the player team, it would still take a long time to break through the snow monsters.

"Has the copy set up a dead-end situation?"

Wu Meng's mood was like a roller coaster, rising and falling.

He thought he was about to meet King Yan just now, but then he escaped death again. But now he realized once more that even if he survived, it wouldn't be for long.

Captain Wen Ren was right.

They would be dragged to death.

The only one among this group of players who seemed to have a chance to escape was Mi Yang.

On the cliff, the snow monsters were still agile, but unable to attack. Mi Yang could proceed along the cliff wall in spider form until leaving the gorge.

But Mother Sheep was very loyal and never intended to desert her comrades.

Wu Meng felt that in this copy, they would all die in the gorge, one by one.

The audience on the other side of the light screen watched with excitement.

"Who do you think will be the first one to log off?"

"Start the betting, start the betting!"

"I wonder how they'll feel when these players realize that as long as one person dies, the rest of the snow monsters will retreat?"

Yes, just like the dense forest that had chased the players in panic all night, the snow monsters in the gorge that relentlessly pursued them could also be dealt with by sacrificing a teammate.

In previous snow mountain copies, because they knew the rule that "once the dense forest devours a player, it will stop attacking," players easily made the same connection in the gorge.

As long as they sacrificed a teammate, either actively or passively, they could buy enough time.

To traverse the entire gorge, all it took was one or two lives.

But this copy was different.

After Qin Fei saved the Dawn Squad without any casualties from the dense forest on the first night, the players in this copy inexplicably twisted into a strange rope.

Although they didn't say it outright, they strangely formed an alliance, and the upright character of the Dawn Squad members added a double guarantee to this agreement.

Whether being chased by the dense forest, rushing through the cold, or encountering snow monster attacks in the gorge, the players always watched each other's backs.

For three whole days, apart from Diao Ming, who deliberately sought death and couldn't be saved, the rest of them had miraculously lived until now!

What a bizarre thing!

Anyone who had watched the snow mountain live stream knew that it was impossible to clear this copy without dying five, six, seven, or eight people.

Unfortunately, these players had persisted until now, but were still trapped in a dead end.

The system had not left them the possibility of passing through unscathed when designing this section.

The audience watched with bated breath, their eyes glued to the screen. "The first one to die should be that player who lost his arm." A person with such weak combat capabilities and grievous injuries would have been thrown out as bait in other instances. How could he possibly still be alive? He's lived long enough! "Not necessarily. Guliang and San Ya are being protected by the Dawn Squad. I think it's those few players over there who won't last much longer." The viewer was referring to Ding Li and company. "Anyway, even if everyone dies, Little Qin and Spider Sheep will survive until the end." Regardless of the sheep on the cliff for now, after the zombie on Qin Fei's right had appeared for so long, some viewers gradually recognized it. "Isn't this the gatekeeper zombie from Shouyin Village?" "How did it appear in the Snow Mountain instance?" Did Little Qin bring it here?? It was fine with the ghost baby—it had already accompanied Little Qin through several instances, and familiar viewers were no longer surprised. But now, they were suddenly told that the zombie had also been lured away by Qin Fei. How many monsters had Little Qin contracted in that instance?! Was he trying to empty Shouyin Village? The audience wore shocked expressions. A spirit muttered to itself, "No wonder, no wonder the Shouyin Village instance was closed for maintenance for a long time after Little Qin cleared it for the first time..." It hadn't reopened until now. It turned out that all the NPCs had run away from home. This time in the Snow Mountain Canyon, Qin Fei's misfortune was much lower than before. Although the snow monsters still favored Qin Fei, they didn't just focus on attacking him. Compared to when he was chased by a group of monsters in the mass grave of Shouyin Village or the Ghost Building No. 14 in the Werewolf Community, Qin Fei felt that his presence this time was as low as it could get. The reason for this was probably due to the ring on his hand. The black crystal ring could conceal the existence of the pollution source, and it seemed to suppress the aura on Qin Fei's body that drove the instance monsters crazy to a certain extent. In the half hour since the zombie on the right appeared, the players successfully moved forward nearly a hundred meters, but the end of the canyon was still far away. Qin Fei knocked another snow monster away with his steel pipe, but the monsters in the canyon kept coming. What should they do?! On the cliff, Mi Yang watched the chaos below, scratching his head anxiously. With his broad field of vision, he could clearly see that a snow monster was approaching Qin Fei from behind. "Be careful!" Mi Yang shouted. Qin Fei was currently grappling with the snow monster in front of him. Mi Yang was in a panic. His position was too high, and it was definitely too late for him to go down now. The ghost baby was hiding its figure; only Qin Fei and the audience on the other side of the screen could see it. Mi Yang naturally shouted at the zombie on the right, which was closest to him: "Help!" He didn't know if the zombie on the right could understand human speech. The zombie on the right wasn't looking this way originally, but it turned its head after hearing Mi Yang's shout. The zombie couldn't fly or teleport, and there were two snow monsters between it and Qin Fei. It was impossible for it to rush to Qin Fei's side within a second. The zombie tilted its head, and a faint expression of contemplation appeared on its green face. Its two withered, wrinkled eyeballs rolled around in their sockets. Then, it raised its hand. In the next moment, the snow monster seemed to be controlled by something, suddenly jumping up on the spot. This disrupted the snow monster's rhythm, allowing Qin Fei to turn around and hit it with his steel pipe, sending it flying half a meter away. Mi Yang: "...?" Eh? Eh??? What did he just see?? How did that pose, identical to the zombie on the right, appear on the snow monster?! Qin Fei looked at the zombie on the right with an equally strange expression. "You—" Qin Fei looked the zombie on the right up and down. Recalling what happened in the room of Xu Family's old residence in Shouyin Village, the left zombie seemed to have acted under the orders of the right zombie to a certain extent. "Can you control other zombies?" Qin Fei pointed at the nearby snow monster. "Can you control these snow monsters too?"

The zombie on the right nodded obediently, almost nodding his head back onto the ground again.

He was the Zombie King painstakingly concocted by Xu's ancestors.

Coincidentally, the snow beasts in the snowy mountain instance were all corpses controlled by gray moths after their deaths.

Wasn't this right up his alley?

The zombie on the right could easily manipulate other zombies, and it didn't take much effort to control the snow beasts either.

Mi Yang: Holy shit!!!

Damn, he really was the Zombie King.

Mi Yang felt that he shouldn't continue being a mental thief. He should have become a divination player instead.

Qin Fei, whose face was usually calm, showed a slight crack in his composure. "How many snow beasts can you control at most?"

The zombie on the right couldn't speak, but Qin Fei read a certain message from his eyes: It wouldn't be a problem for him to handle all the snow beasts in the canyon at once.

Qin Fei gritted his teeth. "...Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

The zombie on the right had an innocent look on his face: You didn't ask me.

After being summoned into the instance by Qin Fei, the zombie on the right received the command to help fight the snow beasts. He followed the lead of the other players around him, never considering that there might be more convenient methods.

If it weren't for Qin Fei being in danger and not having enough time to rush forward, the zombie on the right would still only use his mouth and claws to attack the snow beasts.

Qin Fei suddenly felt as if something was stuck in his throat.

A zombie's thought process was truly different from that of a living person.

Qin Fei covered his face wearily. "Go and take control of all these snow beasts."

"As many as you can."

He emphasized the latter part of his sentence.

The zombie on the right was very obedient.

Since Qin Fei had given the order, the zombie on the right moved swiftly. Soon, the players in the canyon realized that the pressure around them had significantly lessened.

Wen Ren Liming leaned against the cliff wall of the snowy mountain.

At one point, he was startled to realize that his bow and arrows seemed to have become useless.

Looking around, through the layers of insect silk that obscured his vision, he couldn't find a single solitary snow beast.

"Snap—"

As the final sound of a blade slicing through a snow monster's neck echoed, Wu Meng retracted his long knife into his palm.

Lifting his head, he saw nothing but an empty ravine, strewn with remnants of corpses and shattered snow.

More than ten players stood dumbfounded within the ravine.

Not far from them, a greenish-blue zombie was jumping repeatedly with its arms raised high, emitting peculiar sounds from its mouth.

In the legends of Huaguo's Xiangxi region, one could only lead nine corpses at most during a corpse escorting ritual; exceeding that number would result in loss.

But this rule seemed not to apply to the zombie on the right.

The snow monsters before him had lined up like a long dragon, suddenly behaving as obediently as kindergarten children.

Jump, land, jump, land.

No mischievous tricks were played.

Qin Fei stood behind the zombie on the right, his clear and handsome face wearing a smile, like a mastermind directing the actions of the zombie: "Very good, just like that, don't stop. If there are any more snow monsters, have them join the queue."

What a horrifying scene!

Captain Wen Ren, slow to react, finally came to his senses.

A zombie couldn't possibly be a native creature of the snowy mountain instance.

He looked at Qin Fei in astonishment. "Is this your contracted NPC?"

A master-servant contract.

An existence that instance players could only dream of reaching.

Many people envied and resented it, yet they could only catch bits and pieces of information about it through rumors and gossip.

Wen Ren Li Ming himself had been a player for so long, yet he hadn't seen a single player who had contracted an NPC.

The price of a master-servant contract paper wasn't exorbitant, and almost every player who had left the low-tier worlds had one in their possession. But without exception, everyone's contract papers remained unused, gathering dust in their inventories, serving no purpose.

Wasn't Little Qin just promoted from level D? How did he acquire such formidable strength?

Wen Ren Li Ming looked back at the snow monsters queuing behind him with uncertainty.

Under the command of the zombie on the right, the snow monsters jumped up and down in unison, using all four legs to leap upwards, creating an odd sight.

...And it was somewhat unsettling.

The corner of Wen Ren Li Ming's mouth twitched. "How about we make them stop jumping?"

The commotion was too loud. Captain Wen Ren was afraid they might trigger an avalanche.

The zombie on the right only listened to Qin Fei's words, and would feign deafness when others spoke to it.

Qin Fei gave the zombie on the right a look, and upon receiving the signal, it raised its hand. Indeed, the snow monsters stood still in their places.

With the threat resolved, the players resumed their journey.

The zombie on the right followed far behind the group of players. New snow monsters continuously emerged from both sides of the canyon and behind them, but under the control of the zombie, they obediently joined the procession.

Forty minutes later, Qin Fei finally reached the end of the canyon.

Beyond the end of the canyon lay a lake.

The tranquil icy-blue deep pool was silently embedded in the snow, with the flowing clouds in the sky reflected in the mirror-like lake water.

What a serene and beautiful scene.

If someone had a camera at this moment, they could even capture a landscape masterpiece worthy of gracing the cover of National Geographic magazine.

Qin Fei and the players stopped, and the queued-up snow monsters stopped along with them.

Everyone looked at the lake, not moving forward. Their expressions varied, but none of them showed any signs of ease or joy.

Rule number four of the Ostadia Snow Mountain Climbing Guide.

There are no lakes on the mountain.

Mi Yang transformed back into a normal person standing on two feet, and said solemnly, "Should we go take a look?"

During these three days, the vague rules in the climbing guide had been analyzed by the players to a large extent.

Not being able to shout names in the snow mountain was related to the dense forest.

And the absence of "snakes" on the snow probably referred to the original form of the bugs before the compound-eyed red moths formed cocoons.

But.

There are no lakes on the snow mountain.

Was this sentence a warning, or an attempt to confuse and mislead?

Could they set foot on this lake?

Qin Fei narrowed his eyes slightly, casting a row of shadows on his face from his lowered eyelashes: "We must go over."

The lake is the fifth check-in point.

Looking at the map in his hand, the location of the lake perfectly overlapped with the fifth check-in point on the map.

But that wasn't the worst part.

Obscure light flickered in Qin Fei's eyes.

The canyon was slightly higher than the ice lake, and standing at the exit of the canyon, he could take in the entire outline of the lake.

That elliptical curve with some indentation—

All players had switched to the deceased side, so there was no need for Qin Fei to hide anymore. He took out from his pocket the black stone slab that Guliang had traded for at the cost of half an arm.

He raised it up, lifting it to his eyes.

The outline of the lake matched perfectly with the shape on the stone slab.

"Let's go," said the young man, his tone slightly cold.

Perhaps they would soon be able to leave this mountain.

The canyons on both sides disappeared behind them as a new system notification sounded again.

"Congratulations to the players for successfully reaching the Snow Mountain Secret Realm (5/5), the ice lake deep within the snow mountain!"

This system notification was different from the previous four; there were no additional tasks attached. The players, following behind Qin Fei, couldn't help but look at each other in confusion.

Was that it? What should they do now?

Qin Fei stopped not far from the lake, not moving any closer.

When they were at the end of the canyon, they were too far away. Perhaps the reflection of the ice surface and the skylight concealed the scene below the lake, or perhaps it was a deliberate distraction provided by the instance.

In any case, the players hadn't noticed the hidden undercurrents beneath the calm surface of the ice lake.

But now, when Qin Fei was only dozens of meters away from the lake, he could finally see clearly.

This was by no means an ordinary lake, hidden deep in the snow mountain, its surface frozen over.

Countless compound-eyed moths were trapped beneath the ice layer. These moths, submerged in the water, were not dead but moved swiftly like fish, stirring up ripples beneath the ice layer.

"What is this place?" Mi Yang could tell without needing any additional information that this place was extraordinary.

Qin Fei gently spun the ring on his hand, his tone calm: "This is where we're going, the guiding place."

Qin Fei handed the stone slab to Mi Yang, and all the players gathered around to look. Mi Yang was utterly perplexed by the overly abstract images on it.

"The picture on this is of this lake, I can tell, but."

Mi Yang gestured in the air: "What do these two lines in the middle of the lake mean?"

"Doesn't this look like a passage?" Ding Li looked at it horizontally and vertically for a while, "Indicating that we should go to the center of the lake?"

It seemed that they might need to dive into the water below the center of the lake.

Mi Yang's breath caught in his throat.

Diving into an icy lake at temperatures below minus ten degrees Celsius.

It sounded like an extremely challenging extreme sport, but for players, it wasn't something entirely impossible.

But what if this lake was also home to countless piranhas?

Though the compound-eyed moths and piranhas were of different species, their lethality was pretty much the same.

"It's absolutely impossible," Wen Ren Liming shook his head repeatedly.

"Firstly, to dive beneath the ice, we need to break through the ice surface."

The fact that the moths could dive underwater was something the players hadn't known before.

Since they were amphibious creatures capable of living on land, water, and air, who could guarantee that once the ice was broken, the gray moths in the lake wouldn't swarm out en masse?

At that point, the players wouldn't even need to dive into the water; the gray moths would devour them on shore.

And even if the gray moths didn't fly beyond the lake's surface, as soon as the players submerged, they would be treated as bait and devoured within seconds.

Wu Meng and Qin Fei approached the lakeside for inspection. The ice was thick, but with Wu Meng's long knife, cutting through it wouldn't be too difficult.

"Why don't we give it a try?" Wu Meng gestured with his knife on the ice, "Make a small opening to see if the gray moths will attempt to fly out."

This plan was highly feasible and quickly gained unanimous approval from the players.

Wu Meng swiftly drilled a small hole in the ice with the tip of his knife, barely large enough for a single moth to struggle its way out.

The experiment pointed towards the worst-case prediction.

Wu Meng lifted the small piece of ice with the tip of his knife, allowing cold wind to rush into the lake water.

Instantly, countless dark shadows surged towards the breach in the ice like arrows released from a bowstring.

The dense mass of shadows swarmed underwater.

Ding Li looked down at the ice, feeling a chill run up his spine and straight into his brain.

The compound-eyed moths were pushing their way towards this side with such force that they even caused thin cracks to form in the ice layer.

For a moment, Ding Li felt that the moths might break through the ice and burst out all at once.

Wu Meng hastily stuffed the piece of ice back into the hole.

"F*ck." Wu Meng glared at the moths beneath the ice, unable to help but curse.

How were they supposed to get into the water now?

Dreaming, right?

Qin Fei narrowed his eyes.

At this rate, it was indeed impossible for the players to successfully sneak into the lake water.

"When there's a crack in the ice, the gray moths will all gather over there." Cen San Ya suddenly spoke up. "What if we create a second one?"

Wu Meng glanced at Qin Fei and, after the latter nodded, walked to another spot on the ice about ten meters away.

He repeated the trick and chiseled out another small opening.

The results were still unsatisfactory.

The gray moths in the lake water swam toward the holes closest to them respectively.

"There are many gray moths in the water," Ding Li observed the surface of the water, a series of numbers flashing across his glasses before disappearing. "Scattering the moth groups won't work. Even if each of us opens a hole and only one person goes to the center of the lake, he'll still be bitten to death by the moths."

Qin Fei had been standing by the hole, but without any warning, he suddenly squatted down as if something occurred to him.

He took out a dagger from his personal space and sliced his fingertip.

A drop of warm, crimson blood fell into the icy water.

Plop.

The compound-eyed winged moths that had gathered around Wu Meng suddenly turned in unison.

All the compound-eyed winged moths in the entire lake rushed over here with a fervor ten times more intense than before!

Guliang stared at Qin Fei, suddenly shivering violently!