Chapter 288 - Prey

Words : 1534 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

Fang Heng’s high physique attribute and the vampire bloodline’s night vision ability made him largely immune to the effects of ‘dark fear’. Soon, when he was close to the coordinates, Fang Heng noticed that there was a flash of fire in the Gobi Desert not far ahead. There was a cave entrance in the middle of the Gobi Desert’s bare rock. The fire was coming from inside the cave. Fang Heng didn’t go in to investigate immediately. Instead, he hid behind a rock and tried to send a message to Deng Xin to ask about the situation through the survival radio. Fang Heng: “I’m outside the cave. Are you inside the cave? How’s the situation?” Deng Xin: “Yes, my team and I are now gathered in the cave. Old Black didn’t show up for this operation. The operation is headed by Liu Keyi. After entering the iron mine, she gave us a shovel and asked us to dig inside the iron mine.” “Dig a cave?” Seeing Deng Xin’s reply, Fang Heng became even more curious. He tried to feel in the direction of the rock wall. “Eh? What’s that?” Fang Heng narrowed his eyes slightly. With the help of the vampire bloodline’s night vision ability and high perception attribute, Fang Heng noticed that two black shadows were hiding behind the desert rocks not far away. They were players! Who could they be? Fang Heng was puzzled. He lowered his footsteps and activated his aura concealment skill, carefully approaching the two players. The two players did not notice that someone was approaching from behind. They were hiding behind a rock, carefully observing the cave ahead through binoculars. As they got closer, Fang Heng heard the two of them whispering to each other. “Hiss, this godforsaken place, why don’t we light up a bonfire, it’s so cold.” “What are you thinking about? Light a bonfire? Aren’t you afraid that others will see you? This mission is very important. Superiors have warned us not to disturb them.” “I know. I’m just saying. You said that they have been in there for so long, but why haven’t they made any movements? What are they doing in there?” “Don’t worry about it, as long as the investigation records are fine… once they leave the cave, immediately notify the shelter.” Fang Heng stopped in his tracks and gave up on the idea of going over to say hello. He dodged into the darkness. Were they from the Federation? Thinking about it carefully, it seemed to make sense. The current game environment was still in the early stages of the game. Other than a small number of players with special talent attributes, most of the other players could not move at night. Only the Federation and some large gaming companies could find such a player to conduct investigative work. And there was only the Federation’s large-scale shelter within a radius of a hundred miles. Listening to the conversation between these two players, the Federation had already discovered traces of Night Owl. Moreover, they had not made a move at the first moment. Instead, they were hiding outside the iron mine to observe? Fang Heng felt that this was getting more and more interesting. After retreating into the darkness, Fang Heng put on a mask and activated his aura concealment state. He circled from the side and approached the cave entrance. There were two player guards outside the cave entrance. Fang Heng leaned against the rock wall and slowly approached. He hid in the blind spot of the two player’s field of vision and once again sent a message to Deng Xin via the survival radio. Fang Heng: “I’m at the side of the rock wall outside the cave entrance. You think of a way to come out so that we can have a chat”. Deng Xin: “I’ll give it a try.”. In just a moment, Deng Xin walked out of the cave. Deng Xin said to the two players guarding the cave entrance, “The next group of players will take the shift in ten minutes. Go back and report the situation to Liu Keyi. I’ll watch for you for a while.” “Thank you.” The two player guards didn’t think much of it. They just thanked her casually and walked into the cave together. In the cave, there were still a few pairs of eyes staring at Deng Xin. Deng Xin didn’t leave the line of sight of the others. She pretended to want to breathe fresh air and walked out of the cave casually. Soon, she heard a soft shout from the side. “Deng Xin.” Deng Xin stopped and pretended to be casual. She stretched and responded in a soft voice. “Fang Heng, I’ve checked. The interior of the cave used to be an abandoned laboratory of the Meteorite Company. For some reason, it was completely blocked by the Meteorite Company. The passage was completely blown up.” “Liu Keyi wants us to dig out the entire passage and enter the laboratory.” “I just saw the construction map provided by Liu Keyi. Given our speed, it will take about two days to completely dig through the passage.” Fang Heng frowned when he heard that. Meteorite Company? Abandoned laboratory? Sounded like a fancy business! What tricks was Night Owl up to this time? Deng Xin said as she turned around and threw a piece of paper in Fang Heng’s direction. “This is the construction map that I drew based on my memory. Also, this rock is very strange. My team members accidentally dug it when they were digging the passage.” “Liu Keyi also told us to try our best to collect these rocks.” “Okay, I got it.” Fang Heng picked up the piece of paper that Deng Xin threw from the ground. When he opened it, he saw that the map on the paper was hand-drawn. He could roughly tell that this was the interior structure of the cave. There was also a small piece of shrapnel wrapped in the paper ball. Fang Heng held the shrapnel in his palm and observed it. [Item: Special small rocks.] Description: This is a relatively special rock. Upon closer inspection, one could see that there was a blue fluorescent light coming out from it. It looked very strange. Additional description: You can feel that the rock seems to contain some kind of special energy (Perception attribute greater than 20, additional information obtained). Was it an ore? Fang Heng was even more puzzled. “I heard that this operation is related to the Federation.” “Night Owl is planning to use this opportunity to strike hard at the Federation’s influence in Server 8.” “Also, I just noticed that there’s a large number of explosives hidden in the cave.” “The power of the explosives is enough to blow up the entire cave.” Explosives again! What exactly was Night Owl trying to do! Fang Heng became more and more perplexed. “Fang Heng, Liu Keyi might get suspicious. I have to go back first.” “Okay, if there’s anything, contact me through the survival radio.” The two of them exchanged a few simple words and left. Fang Heng glanced at the Federation’s surveillance team’s location in the distance and returned the way he came. He was not sure if the Federation people had noticed him. But this wasn’t important. Fang Heng decided to return first. The Federation might know something, so he first found a safe place and went offline to ask Chen Yu about the situation. If it didn’t work out, at least Phase II of the Licker transformation experiment was about to be completed. When the time came, he would directly bring the Lickers over and crush them all the way! … “So, Fang Heng, our Federation is the same as you. We were all ruthlessly tricked by Night Owl!” “Sigh!” On the other end of the phone, Chen Yu felt a heavy sense of powerlessness. He was unwilling to accept this fact and sighed deeply. “The possibility of continuing with the main storyline mission in District 8 is not high anymore.” “I suggest that you focus on other missions and not fight to the death with the main storyline mission.” Chen Yu thought that Fang Heng was here to ask him about the main storyline mission, so he persuaded Fang Heng to give up. Fang Heng nodded. What he learned from Chen Yu was about the same as what he had guessed. The first-generation meteorite had been destroyed. When the Federation came back to their senses, they realized that most of the great engineers in Server 8 had already died. Chen Yu said, “But it doesn’t matter. If the main storyline mission cannot be completed, it won’t affect the players too much. The Federation will do its best to protect the safety of the people and completely eradicate Night Owl.” Fang Heng didn’t call because of this matter. He immediately redirected the conversation to the main topic. “Alright, do you have any news related to the Night Owl organization recently?”

Chapter 288 - Prey

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