“Why aren’t you moving? Are you planning to stay there forever?”
Qin Feng snapped coldly. Still, he could not get past Liu Xue’s mannerisms and how she dealt with things.
How hesitant and irresolute!
“Ah! Right, right!”
Liu Xue hastened to keep up with Qin Feng’s pace. It was at this moment that her admiration and respect for Qin Feng had solidified.
It was not just that. The civilians who were in hiding moments ago all came running out and trailed behind Qin Feng.
With Qin Feng taking point, all was right with the world.
These insectoids did not pose too much of a threat to the group. Qin Feng slashed through them effortlessly while leading the way forward until they reached Liu Zhenshan’s equipment store.
The store was currently in tatters, with glass shards littering the ground. Within the store itself were three blade mantises that somehow snuck their way in, unwelcomed of course.
Lying motionless on the ground, were two corpses. Liu Xue felt as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest and thrown off a cliff, down into a bottomless abyss.
Even before Qin Feng could make his move, Liu Xue rushed forward and killed off those mantises with a few strikes from her palms.
The good news was that neither of these two corpses belonged to Liu Zhenshan. Instead, one seemed to be Liu Zhenshan’s storekeeper while the other was presumably a customer, a G-tier aptitude user at that.
It was a shame, his fate dictated that he would lie here forever!
“Go to the basement first!” Qin Feng ordered.
“Right!” Liu Xue marched to the front and took over in leading the way even though Qin Feng had complete knowledge about the building’s layout. While he followed the girl closely, the people behind him had other ideas in mind. Their eyes lit up at the sight of the abandoned store and picked up one or two pieces of loot as they went along their way.
These combat equipment did a pretty good job at resisting attacks from ultra beasts. Though, in normal times, they were worth at least ten thousand yuan a piece and could reach up to a hundred thousand for a really good set, hence explaining why nobody bought these items.
Qin Feng paid no heed to the greedy bunch. Following Liu Xue, they arrived at an underground parking space where a secret door was found.
At that moment, the door seemed to have been locked from the inside. Liu Xue rapped her knuckles loudly on the door.
“Dad, mom, are you still inside?”
“Liu Xue, little Xue’s back!” Qiao Yan exclaimed in a delighted tone. Soon after, the heavy and impenetrable steel door groaned open, revealing the scene inside.
Apart from Qiao Yan and Liu Zhenshan, there were three other women and a man, all of whom were employees of the store. They too ran out to check out the commotion.
The locked space was dimly lit but the thick, reinforced steel door gave everyone a sense of security, something hard to come by these days. Even before Qiao Yan could celebrate her daughter’s return, the civilians from the other side swarmed into the safe space like rats down their burrow.
Although the basement was a mandatory facility, it was quite obvious that it was not designed for public use. The total floor space available was a mere hundred square meters and with the addition of twenty-odd people, the place became packed to the brim in the blink of an eye.
“Quick, shut that door up!” Someone from the group urged.
Qin Feng ignored them.
“Uncle Liu, where’d you place the equipment that I wanted refined?”
Back then, Qin Feng was confident that he could have stopped the tragedy from occurring and so he did not take with him the item in question. However, things rarely went according to plan as he had learnt later on. Still, he did not wish to let a beast-king-tier item slip out of his grasp that easily.
Liu Zhenshan appeared stunned, followed by his expression changing for the worse.
“Bad news, it’s still inside the decomposition furnace!” Liu Zhenshan replied.
Qin Feng’s brows furrowed before he continued, “It’s alright Uncle, we’ll retrieve it later on. Be rest assured, as long as I’m here, I will do my best to guarantee your safety. What’s more is that the situation outside has taken a turn for the worse. We’ll need food supplies, and I’m afraid the rations here are not enough to support a group of this size!”
Liu Zhenshan’s expression turned dead serious upon hearing Qin Feng’s words. His teeth remained tightly clenched before decisively saying, “Alright, I’ll go with you!”
“Honey! I beg of you, don’t go out there!” Qiao Yan immediately blocked Liu Zhenshan’s path and turned toward Qin Feng with teary eyes.
“Young man, how much money do you need? I’m willing to pay whatever price you state but please, don’t let my husband go out there!”
“Ma’am, please calm down. I assure you that nothing will happen to Uncle Liu!”
Liu Xue came in and patted her mother on the back as if to give her more assurance. “Mom, what Qin Feng said is correct. Don’t worry too much, it’s the least you could do to maintain our morale. He’s a seasoned veteran and without him, we would not have made it back here alive. Now it’s our turn to wait here patiently for their return, alright?”
Liu Zhenshan continued with a beaming expression, “A businessman must be a man of his words! It’s just a journey to a place a few steps away and the material we’re retrieving is worth up to a billion yuan! I cannot afford to lose this deal so you best stay out of my way!”
With these words, Qiao Yan lost the argument. She had no choice but to be ushered back into the basement by Liu Xue.
“Xiao Li, you stay here too, I’ll leave this place under your care now!”
Qin Feng left Xiao Bai inside the safety of the basement. Knowing that Qin Feng was not going to wander too far off, it nodded its head while flexing its paw back and forth, a gesture of waving goodbye.
“If there are any hiccups, ring me up!”
Qin Feng smiled and replied, “Of course! Relax, I’ll call you when the need arises!”
In actuality, the distance between the two was not going to be too far apart. Both of them could still communicate telepathically but owing to Bai Li’s curiosity toward anything novel, even using the communicator came as something extremely fun.
Without any more words exchanged, the steel door clamped shut. And thus, the duo that was Qin Feng and Liu Zhenshan marched forward toward their destination.
“Let’s go! The smelting facility’s right behind the backyard. We’ll go up there from this position!”
Liu Zhenshan led the way and Qin Feng followed behind cautiously. Qin Feng worked here for half a month before his rebirth so it was not surprising that he already knew the layout of the land here.
Soon, they went into the elevator of the car park which brought them up onto the surface.
The landscape above ground was in a complete mess. Though, this area did not seem to have been ravaged by the insectoids. Evidently the spread of insectoids was guided by the main trunk road so places away from it were relatively unaffected.
However, when Qin Feng arrived at the doorway of the smelting facility, his expression darkened.
The smelting facility was an essential spot. Liu Zhenshan had always been here, forging rune equipment, so no one was allowed to get too close. The items stored here, regardless of whether it was material made from ultra beasts or automated machinery, were all of extremely high value. It followed that the defense system built in place was extremely robust.
So how was it possible that there was a massive half-meter-wide hole on the reinforced, anti-looting door?
The anti-looting door was now like an optical illusion to Qin Feng. Taking aim, his foot smashed against the area right around where the door handle was, kicking the entire door frame down. The scene within was enough to make Qin Feng gouge out his own eyes.
All types of materials littered the floor but evidently, the racks which once held the most prized ones were now empty shells.
Clinging onto the side of the massive smelting furnace, was a crystal-like see-through beetle the size of a gallon bucket.
“Crystal armor beast!”
Liu Zhenshan yelled out in astonishment.
Who would have thought that this creature would appear here out of all places.
On second thought, it should not have been too surprising. The crystal armor beast was interrupted by human activity when it had just started feeding on energy fluids. However, since the crisis hit, nobody cared about where the grubby creature went.
And for now, within the entire Han Town, was there an even better material than what Liu Zhenshan originally had in store?
It should be kept in mind that the material within the smelting furnace that Liu Zhenshan was forging, was an F-tier beast king item.
The reason why the crystal armor beast snuck its way here was no coincidence.
While the forging process within the furnace was already completed, it was still radiating an immense amount of heat. The beetle was left with no other choice but to wait it out, until the furnace cooled down before chomping its way in to obtain the prize within.
However, it never crossed the armor beast’s mind that the pesky humans who once interrupted its feeding process, would turn up here again.
“Nice, this fella fell into our laps willingly!” A smile cracked across Qin Feng’s face and without hesitation, a beam of darkness enveloped the crystal armor beast’s body.
Dark Shroud.
The beast lost all its senses for a moment.
Qin Feng once again unleashed his ability.
“Dark ray!”
“Hellfire!”
Zoom! Zoom!
A series of explosions followed. The crystal armor beast simply could not withstand Qin Feng’s attacks which had been blessed and enhanced by the dark stone. A few seconds later, it collapsed lifelessly onto the ground. It had been weakened to such a degree that it failed to dodge the incoming hellfire attack, which instantly carbonised its brain, killing it right then and there.
The culprit that caused the destruction of Han Town had now been taken out by Qin Feng’s own hands.
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