Wasteland Development Diary

Currently, the company's core industries consist of three parts: the Mushroom Forest, Sweet Potato fields, and Peanut fields.

To ensure stable production of Blast Shrooms in the Mushroom Forest, further cultivate Monster-Attracting Shrooms, and protect the newly reclaimed farmland from destruction, the Winter Beast problem must be solved.

Zhou Yi specifically inquired with Sun Chonglai.

Logically, the Bone Clan has lived in the Mushroom Forest for 70 years, and their knowledge and understanding of this area far exceeds that of Maogu Town residents.

Sun Chonglai did indeed know some unknown information.

"It's a highly resilient Light-Na species. Even the explosion of a Blast Shroom can hardly hurt it. It can hop or walk quickly on the ground like a bird, and it can also glide in the air."

"Our main method is to hide. When the Winter Beast arrives in winter, we hide inside the Emerald City underground—at that time, it can't move. After winter passes, we come out of the Emerald City."

The Bone Clan said, "But there is one very strange thing."

"When it first descended, the Winter Beast was very strong. Its body was huge, covering the sky and the sun, but it didn't attack the Mushroom Forest, it just flew over. In the second winter, the Winter Beast attacked the Mushroom Forest, killing many Black Hand Shrooms, but Black Hand Shrooms can't produce Light Seeds. Under normal circumstances, Light-Na species wouldn't do such a meaningless thing. But it seemed like it didn't know, and it felt a lot dumber. It also killed all kinds of Light-Na species this time..."

"Also, the Winter Beast has become smaller."

"I personally guess there are two Winter Beasts, one large and one small. The large Winter Beast is an adult, experienced, and the small Winter Beast is still growing and learning. The adult chose the Maogu Town area and used it as a place to train the little Winter Beast's hunting skills."

The Bone Clan said, "The possibility of the large Winter Beast still existing cannot be ruled out."

……

One must go all out against enemies.

Zhou Yi was ready to mobilize the Emerald City at any time and engage in a field battle with the Winter Beast.

He also reminded all parties in the company to prioritize safety, and to let the Farm Machinery Brothers and the Mushroom Forest team led by the Bone Clan pay attention to hiding, with safety as the top priority.

The Kestrel patrolled back and forth between the Mushroom Forest and the Emerald City every day to ensure that the Winter Beast could be detected as soon as possible.

Under normal circumstances, the Winter Beast would descend two or three days after the first snow.

However, the Winter Beast was late this winter for some reason.

Zhou Yi thought of the Accordion.

In the wasteland era, neither New Humans nor Light-Na species seemed to be very punctual.

On the fifth day, the Kestrel sent an unexpected message.

"A Spine Hunter has been discovered in the Claw Pig territory in the northern region."

"It is hunting the Claw Pig group."

Zhou Yi felt a headache.

If they don't come, they don't come, but when they do, they all come together, huh?

Never mind.

Let's kill this one first.

Claw Pig feces are a key raw material for Monster-Attracting Shrooms and are a link in the industrial chain. This group is also an important natural resource for the Wasteland Development Company, and their survival and safety must be ensured.

Zhou Yi immediately ordered: "Target the Spine Hunter."

"Emerald City, start!"

As the order was issued, the elevator building slowly rose, its bottom propped up by iron bones entwined with steel bars, and a large amount of soil wrapped it into a pair of thick sand-soil boots. Unlike the last time's light, weightless steps, this time it was traveling on the earth waves, making it more stable and efficient.

The Emerald City initially maintained a uniform sliding speed, but soon began to accelerate. The huge body turned into a huge shock wave across the ground, leaving two wide and uniform trenches in the soil.

Inside room 3101, Zhou Yi observed the outside through the window.

It faced north, and the sandy land and rocks on both sides kept receding.

Fortunately, information exchange with the Emerald City was carried out at the consciousness level, with extremely low and precise delay. Otherwise, just commanding the movement and direction of this behemoth would be an extremely challenging problem in terms of technology and proficiency.

The bumpiness inside the house was very light.

The only shortcoming was that the Emerald City had no water or heat in motion, and everything was focused on maintaining the machine's movement.

The Sand-Sliding Giant arrived at the scene 20 kilometers away in 18 minutes. Its peak speed could reach 100 kilometers per hour, about the same as a normal express train, but it could not maintain high speed for a long time.

Zhou Yi was stunned by the Emerald City at full power.

He realized belatedly that he could drive the Emerald City for land travel. Apart from the high consumption, the speed was quite good.

……

Arrived at the target location.

Through the Kestrel's camera, Zhou Yi saw what the Spine Hunter looked like.

In the illustrated book, it looks like a big white flower.

But in reality, this flower was a little too big, about the size of a basketball court.

It floated in the air, and its petal-like limbs captured Claw Pigs on the ground. Like a claw machine, it skillfully twisted them and took out the bones inside and stuffed them into its three-lobed mouth-like digestive cavity.

The discarded flesh and internal organs left a trail of blood on the snow.

The Claw Pigs tried their best to scatter and escape, but in the face of a Spine Hunter with the ability to fly, their speed was too slow.

The only thing that took a little time was extracting Light Seeds from the corpse.

Some Claw Pigs even deliberately went to their deaths to buy time and space for their companions to escape.

The Spine Hunter enjoyed its killing spree.

With [Alertness] applied, Zhou Yi saw the Spine Hunter glowed red, indicating that it was extremely dangerous.

The Kestrel said: "Spine Hunters are accustomed to honing their skills by killing prey."

"In addition to absorbing Light Seeds, they specialize in hunting fresh bones, especially vertebrae. This species has a relatively special physiological structure. It is shaped like a mollusk, but the entire body is covered with a layer of soft cartilage. When attacking, the Spine Hunter can twist, harden, and even sharpen its body, and its multi-legged limbs can become sharp weapons."

"They devour the bones of other lives to further expand and strengthen their bodies."

Zhou Yi immediately thought: "How does it feel a bit like a Bone Fish?"

"Because it is an advanced direction of Bone Fish evolution."

The Kestrel said: "This Spine Hunter doesn't know if it's weak or injured. The machine itself is very unstable and cannot be completely regarded as a B-level creature. It should be the one that hunted Long-Neck Crocodiles in the Northern Dead Sea."

These observations and communications were completed in an instant.

Zhou Yi's combat instructions had also been issued long ago.

The Emerald City shone brightly, and with it as the center, the ground around it slowly rose into the prototype of a house. In less than 1 minute, fifteen flying houses had been formed and lifted into the air.

The Spine Hunter also paid attention to this building life.

But instead of leaving, it dropped the Claw Pig and flew towards it.

The Kestrel judged: "The Emerald City's own machine strength is very attractive to Spine Hunters. They always want to hunt the vertebrae of powerful machine life."

Zhou Yi's face turned cold.

Then let's have a head-on confrontation and see who is harder.

Warm-up complete.

The Falling Flying Houses drew red trajectories, completely blocking the Spine Hunter's range of activity and detonated instantly.

In the huge rumble, a beam of light rose from the center of the explosion.

The light dispersed the original concentrated bombardment of the majestic energy in all directions, creating a radioactive area like a meteorite crater, and generating heat-emitting glassy substances on the ground.

In the pit was a glowing spherical object.

The Spine Hunter turned into a milky white giant glass ball form, and there were several cracks on the smooth surface, oozing some light blue viscous liquid from it.

Being injured seemed to make it even angrier, and it rushed towards here quickly.

"This is [Light Prism Exoskeleton]."

The Kestrel performed a real-time data comparison of the scene screen: "This ability will disperse and weaken external energy impact, and its effect depends on the mastery and degree."

Zhou Yi thought it was a pity.

This damage reduction characteristic is a bit tricky.

The Flying House bombing itself is a wide-range fire coverage. When encountering opponents with this type of special defense mechanism, the weakness of the single-point breakthrough ability is exposed.

In flight, the Spine Hunter's form quickly changed to a structure like a triangular prism.

After closing the distance, a strong light from the front mirror directly hit the Emerald City, seemingly wanting to directly penetrate this huge Dead Sea alien. This sudden attack caused wave-like oscillating light and shadow to appear on the surface of the Emerald City, and a large amount of white smoke rose.

Zhou Yi wasn't panicked at all.

The Emerald City was the least afraid of this kind of direct energy impact.

As he expected, the damage caused by this point-to-point attack was limited, and a considerable part was absorbed into the machine body as energy reserves.

Finding the attack ineffective, the Spine Hunter stopped decisively.

But it didn't seem to want to give up, and hovered around the Emerald City, returning to its spherical form and continuing the confrontation.

Zhou Yi also had a headache.

The Spine Hunter has the ability to fly, and [Light Prism Exoskeleton] makes it an integrated attack and defense.

The strength of a quasi-B-level monster still exceeded his expectations.

The visitor is unkind...

I have to think of a way to kill this guy.

Unexpectedly, the other party spoke first.

"You monster, why are you breaking into my hunting ground? What exactly do you want to do? I will never let you steal my prey here! Do you want to start a war with our family!"

Zhou Yi was stunned.

The Spine Hunter could actually talk directly.

Its hunting ground?

Does this mean... I'm the intruder?