Chapter 16: Head to the Most Bustling Place to Grind!

Xu Xiao did not want to burn bridges with Wang Xuyan, so she replied indifferently:

"I am fine. I called you over earlier because I wanted you to save him, but then..."

Xu Xiao pointed at Chen Hao's corpse, intending to say, "but Lu Li killed him." However, the words died on her lips, and she changed her tune:

"...but he couldn't hold on and died from excessive blood loss."

He Shufen, who had been hiding at the back, immediately squeezed through the crowd to take a look. Upon confirming that Chen Hao was truly dead, she dragged her lame leg forward and spat twice at the corpse.

"Pah! Good riddance! You bastard, how dare you shoot me..."

"What about Ying Zi'an and Tian Yuhan? How did they also..." Wang Xuyan swept her gaze over the other two corpses, her eyes narrowing.

"Ying Zi'an was killed by Chen Hao's gun, and Tian Yuhan, he..."

At this point, Xu Xiao hesitated again, preparing to invent an excuse for Lu Li. But Lu Li spoke up and admitted it directly:

"I killed Tian Yuhan, and I killed Chen Hao as well."

Everyone turned their heads in unison, staring at Lu Li with expressions of utter disbelief. Lu Li, a loser who had awakened the [Detection] ability, could actually kill people? And he had killed two of them in a row!

Cheng Duoduo poked her head out from the crowd and whispered:

"But Chen Hao was ranked first on the leveling leaderboard just a few minutes ago. How could you, a Lv.0 player, kill him..."

Having said that, she realized she shouldn't have spoken at this moment and shrank back in fear.

"He was careless and didn't dodge."

Lu Li spoke absolute nonsense with a straight face. Taking advantage of the crowd's confusion, he hurried to Wang Chao’s side and traded five Tier 2 crystals for the Tier 3 elemental crystal.

"If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going. We can talk about anything else another time. Alright everyone, the mountains are high and the roads are long, we shall meet again in the world!"

With that, he strode toward the door. It wasn't until his figure completely vanished from their sight that the crowd finally snapped back to reality.

That’s not right!

Lu Li’s awakened ability is [Detection], and he doesn't have a weapon. How could he have killed Chen Hao and Tian Yuhan?

Just as they were about to ask Xu Xiao for clarification, the class monitor lowered her head with a gloomy expression:

"Everyone, let's drag these three corpses to the back hill and bury them. After all, Tian Yuhan and Ying Zi'an were our classmates..."

He Shufen was the first to disagree:

"If you want to bury them, go do it yourself. That bald bastard shot me twice earlier; he deserves to have his body left out in the wilderness!"

Wang Xuyan smiled awkwardly:

"Sister Xiao, I actually agree with you about handling the funeral arrangements for our classmates. But going to the back hill is too dangerous. I don’t have any self-defense capabilities and would only hold you back. Why don’t we just wait for you in the classroom..."

The other girls also shook their heads, showing no intention of helping. On the contrary, the timid Cheng Duoduo raised her hand:

"S-Sister Xiao, I can help. My ability is [Storage Space], I should be able to help carry the bodies..."

...

Leaving the teaching building, Lu Li walked straight ahead. While searching Chen Hao’s body earlier, he had found a set of car keys. He surmised that the man had driven to school, so he went out specifically to look for the vehicle.

He soon found the Hummer that had smashed through the main gate. Although Lu Li was only a high school student and did not have a driver's license, he had done plenty of "unlicensed driving" in his previous life. He had driven various luxury cars until his hands were numb, so the Hummer before him was a piece of cake.

Closing the door, he started the engine. Lu Li stepped on the gas, left the school, and headed toward Tianyi Square.

As the most densely populated commercial square in Yongcheng, Tianyi Square had the highest concentration of monsters after the apocalypse began. It was Lu Li’s first choice for grinding monsters.

On the way to Tianyi Square, he kept encountering humans being hunted by monsters. Lu Li released his soul soldier mantis to kill them all. Whenever he encountered a larger group, he would get out of the car and handle them himself. With the combination of [Swarm Deterrence] and [Lightning Bolt], Lu Li secured a kill with almost every strike.

Along the way, he intermittently accumulated 20 spirit points. His talent ability [Blade Arm] also triggered a new advancement mission.

[Mission: Kill 500 insect-type creatures within 48 hours!]

[Reward: Challenger Treasure Chest ×3, ability 'Blade Arm' advances to Emerald grade!]

[Kills: 0/500.]

"Five hundred insect creatures... is this never-ending?"

Lu Li’s mouth twitched, but he wasn't overly worried. If he was lucky enough to find a few insect nests at Tianyi Square, the mission would be easily completed.

Accompanied by the roar of the engine, the Hummer slammed into a blade-armed mantis that was chewing on a corpse by the roadside, and charged aggressively into Tianyi Square.

The once-bustling commercial street was littered with broken corpses, and blood stained the ground, almost turning the entire square crimson. Lu Li got out of the car, looked around, and chose the direction where the bodies were piled the highest.

He activated his soul-devouring ability continuously, and his spirit points soared rapidly!

The abilities he plundered became more numerous, though the vast majority were of Black Iron or Bronze grade. There were very few instances of anything above Silver. Furthermore, because the bodies had been dead for some time, there were no options to retain their soul consciousness.

Lu Li didn't care about that; after all, the corpses on the road were just extras. His purpose in coming here was to grind monsters.

However, after circling around several times, other than the blade-armed mantis he had killed with his car at the beginning, Lu Li didn't encounter another monster. The entire Tianyi Square felt lifeless, as if Lu Li were the only living creature left.

"What is going on? Could it have been cleared out by someone else beforehand?"

Lu Li frowned and opened his panel to check the global announcements. There were no changes. The list of people on the leveling leaderboard hadn't changed much either. The only difference was that after Chen Hao’s death, the top spot on the list had changed to a Lv.3 player named Qi Ze.

Lu Li checked this person’s location and found that he was in the northern part of Yongcheng, quite a distance from Tianyi Square. It shouldn't have been him who cleared the monsters here.

Could it have been cleared in advance by those powerful families? That shouldn't be the case either!

According to Lu Li’s memories from his previous life, Tianyi Square eventually became a massive insect nest. Logically, if a family had come to clear the monsters, it would be equivalent to nipping the problem in the bud, and the giant nest would never have formed.

So, what caused the current situation?

Lu Li struggled to recall information from his past life, trying to find a clue.

"Insect nest... what kind of insects were abundant at Tianyi Square in my previous life... it seems like it was the Burrowing Bee. Wait, Burrowing Bee?"

Lu Li seemed to have realized something and immediately started searching the square. Not long after, he stopped in front of a subway entrance.

Burrowing Bees, as the name suggests, are monsters that love to burrow underground. When the apocalypse game first began, these creatures erupted in large numbers in urban underground facilities such as subways and sewers. Unlike the blade-armed mantis, which appeared singly, these creatures were gregarious from the start and were unusually united! Often, killing one would invite the retaliation of the entire hive.

If his guess was correct, all the monsters in Tianyi Square were likely hiding underground.

He stepped into the subway station, and before he had gone down very far, Lu Li caught a foul, acidic stench. The number of corpses in front of him increased sharply, but they were not human. One by one, they were all Burrowing Bees...