Chapter 81 - 80: The Electric Car Won’t Explode
A dump truck.
If he had to describe the feeling of his Life Value reaching [600]...
It was probably like being run over by a dump truck on a concrete road, getting stuck between its wheels, and being dragged for 500 meters...
It wasn’t just physical agony; it was mixed with that familiar scorching, electric-current-like sensation!
It erupted from the depths of his marrow, surging through his entire body and making it impossible for him to control his own limbs!
But even so, as long as Lin Fan could still move a single finger, he wasn’t someone a low-health zombie could mess with.
He equipped the Sharp Crystal and, with a single poke from a finger wreathed in Sharp Energy, killed the zombie.
This was the self-rescue method Lin Fan had thought up in his moment of desperation, and he didn’t have the luxury of worrying about how shocking the scene would be to the people behind him...
Seeing the zombie’s health bar hit zero, he resolved the immediate crisis. With a thought, he swapped the Sharp Crystal for the Activation Crystal.
As the Activation Crystal took effect, the pain in his body gradually subsided. The rampant, scorching current seemed to find a guide, channeling up his spine.
It felt like it broke through some kind of barrier, vanishing inside his body in an instant. A few breaths later, the pain that had wracked his entire frame quietly disappeared without a trace...
"Whew... Huff..."
The ringing in his ears subsided, and Lin Fan could finally hear the shouts from behind him. A moment later, Liu Bin’s face appeared in his field of vision.
"Brother Lin!... What happened! Are you okay?..."
He anxiously gripped Lin Fan’s shoulders, trying to see what was wrong, but then something drew his gaze backward, his eyes filled with terror.
"I’m fine..."
Lin Fan was surprised. ’I can’t believe upgrading to [600] Life Value has this kind of side effect. It definitely didn’t happen at [300]...’
’If I’d known, I would have found a safe place to upgrade no matter what.’
Still, it had been a close call with no real harm done. The pain and burning sensation had only lasted a few seconds before vanishing completely, and he was back to normal.
Lin Fan extended a hand, pushed Liu Bin aside, and used his spear to prop himself up.
Only upon closer inspection did he notice that the energy bar below his Life Value had become [199/200]...
’My Energy Value increased by one hundred points!’
’Did it increase along with my Life Value, or was it related to that scorching current that just disappeared...?’
These two speculations surfaced in Lin Fan’s mind, but a sudden muffled crash shattered his train of thought!
BANG!
The low wall of a first-floor balcony was smashed apart by a tremendous force. Countless brick fragments flew out, striking cars parked on the roadside, setting off a cacophony of alarms that blared incessantly.
The entire section of the road was shrouded in smoke and dust. Lin Fan could only tell from the sound of its footsteps that a massive monster had just charged out.
[1940/2000]!
’A Mutated Zombie with two thousand health!’
’And it’s not just the two thousand health!’
Below its health bar was a blue bar, identical to Lin Fan’s. The value was low, only [4/10], but it was recovering quickly—at a rate of about one point per second!
The monster that had charged out crashed into a car with its alarm blaring, creating another deafening boom!
While the monster hadn’t yet noticed them, Lin Fan quickly instructed Liu Bin:
"You’re no use here. Fall back! Go block the zombies coming from the west, drawn by the noise! Go now!"
With that, he shoved Liu Bin toward the rest of the group while he himself, spear in hand, slowly advanced on the monster.
That recent bout of agony hadn’t just brought him one hundred energy points.
As the pain dissipated, it felt as though every muscle in his body had been completely realigned, each fiber now possessing astonishing resilience and vitality.
Lin Fan looked at his arm. There was no outward change, but judging by the feel of the spear in his hand, he figured his current strength was probably enough to flip a small car!
BANG!
CRACK!
Drawn by the car alarms, the monster in the dust cloud rampaged about, wildly smashing the vehicles that were making noise.
"HISS—"
Before Lin Fan could get close, a strange sound, like something leaking air, emanated from the dust. It was immediately followed by a dazzling white light that illuminated the monster’s towering figure.
Then, a series of "BANG! BANG! BANG!" sounds erupted. Each explosion was accompanied by a jet of flame several meters high—sometimes blue, sometimes orange—as thick black smoke billowed out from the dust cloud.
The monster, enraged by the flames, began to battle the "monster" before it that was also on fire. Every time it was hit by a jet of flame, a layer of its skin was scorched to a blackened crust...
Seeing the monster "fighting" with an electric car, Lin Fan silently took a couple of steps back.
’The smoke from a burning battery is highly toxic. Even with my strong constitution, I don’t want to be breathing in that secondhand smoke...’
’Nine... ten... zero!’
He watched as the monster’s blue bar had just refilled, only to be instantly depleted!
An enraged roar came from within the smoke, followed by a massive BOOM!
A colossal, incandescent white fireball, many times brighter than before, lit up from within the cloud like a miniature sun, engulfing the monster’s silhouette!
At the same time, countless fist-sized, red-hot fragments shot out in all directions like shooting stars!
They shattered the windows of nearby buildings and flew inside. Before long, plumes of smoke and flickers of fire began to emerge!
"Holy shit... it’s on fire!"
Lin Fan swung his spear to deflect a chunk of metal hurtling toward him. Seeing smoke begin to rise from some of the apartments in the residential buildings on both sides, he quickly retreated further.
He saw that Liu Bin and the others had already ducked into a storefront on one side to take cover from the "shrapnel," so he called out to him:
"Is there anyone in these buildings?"
"No... Everyone was moved to those two buildings over there..."
Liu Bin pointed toward two buildings closer to Lin Fan’s home. Lin Fan followed his finger and saw scattered figures standing behind their balcony windows, watching the scene unfold.
Among them were Su Qing and her group.
"You guys aren’t so dumb after all,"
Lin Fan couldn’t help but marvel at how quickly Liu Bin had acted. Fortunately, there weren’t many people left, so a few apartment units were more than enough to house them all.
’In that case, let them burn. These old buildings are all brick-and-concrete structures; they won’t collapse from a fire.’
With that settled, Lin Fan refocused his attention on the black smoke.
The dust cloud the monster had initially kicked up had mostly dissipated. What now blanketed the street was the smoke from the burning car.
The monster’s figure was completely obscured by the black smoke, impossible to see clearly.
[926/2000]...
’Only a little over nine hundred health left?’
’So that’s it. This must be the punch Liu Bin and the others mentioned—the one that "shattered" Wang Zhengyang.’
’It was just incredibly unlucky that this punch, which empties its entire blue bar, landed on a lithium battery that was already undergoing thermal runaway...’
’A powerful blow capable of shattering a person completely disintegrated the battery’s structure, causing all the electrolyte to instantly combust, burning its health down to just over nine hundred points...’
’Or maybe, this monster’s hide is just that thick. The thousand-degree temperature of the incandescent fireball and the spray of molten metal and shrapnel weren’t even enough to one-shot it...’