Chapter 24: Return to the Gas Station
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In the desolate woods outside the gas station, the Humus Soil was mixed with the faint scent of blood and oil.
Gu Su leaned against a half-withered old tree, a piece of fragrant, roasted wild chicken pinched between his fingers. Grease dripped through the gaps, staining the ground with a small, dark patch.
He chewed the tender chicken, but his gaze remained locked on the dilapidated gas station in the distance. There wasn’t a hint of relaxation in his deep eyes, only calm assessment and calculation.
Surrounding him at this moment was the entirety of his available combat force.
Aside from the ten Ordinary Skeletons left behind on the supply line at the mall ruins to handle Scavenging and transporting materials, he had brought all his remaining Elite Skeletons and the majority of his Ordinary Skeletons here.
The forest wind swept past, swirling dry leaves. Faint spectral flames flickered in the Skeletons’ empty eye sockets. Their bodies were rigid yet perfectly orderly as they waited quietly for commands, not making a single sound of clattering bones.
Ten Elite Skeletons formed a semicircle around a crackling bonfire.
In their blackened bone hands, they clutched iron weapons Gu Su had hastily fashioned.
Rusty iron Cleavers and sharpened iron spears. The blades and tips were tightly wrapped with shredded plastic fragments.
Between the plastic and the iron, a bit of solidified Corpse Oil was smeared, making them extremely flammable.
They stood silently by the firelight. With a single command from Gu Su, they could instantly turn their weapons into highly lethal flaming armaments.
Directly in front of Gu Su, another squad of Skeletons was fully prepared, arranged neatly in a single file line.
The Skeleton at the very front held a torch in each hand. Dry wood wrapped in rags and soaked in Corpse Oil burned with unusual vigor, its orange-red flames swaying in the wind.
The few Skeletons following it carried heavy Beast Skin pouches on their backs. From the mouths of the pouches, white crystals could be faintly seen—industrial salt that Gu Su had scavenged from the supermarket ruins.
At the end of the line, a slightly shorter Skeleton was steadily pushing a rusty shopping cart filled with viscous, white Corroding Mycelium.
No one would mistake these Skeletons for the main assault force.
Gu Su himself knew they were test subjects, pawns to probe the Oil Monster’s weaknesses. More than that, they were cannon fodder destined to be sacrificed in this battle.
Their mission this time was simple and brutal: take the materials they held, charge the gas station without hesitation, and use their own bones to verify whether the methods devised to deal with the Oil Monster would actually work.
Gu Su tossed aside the cleanly-picked chicken bones and wiped the grease from his fingertips on the rough bark of the nearby tree.
Looking up, his gaze swept over the nearby branches. When he saw the small animal carcasses hanging upside-down, picked clean to the bone, a faint smile touched his lips.
He remembered when he first arrived in these woods, the branches were laden with desiccated corpses—wild rabbits, sparrows, and a few unidentifiable small beasts—hanging densely and exuding an eerie, deathly silence.
Now, those dried corpses had been devoured, leaving nothing but bare skeletons.
Without needing to think too hard, Gu Su could guess that the Harpies had prepared this food specifically for the Oil Monster.
Just as a herdsman stores fodder for livestock, the symbiotic relationship between the Harpies and the Oil Monster could be glimpsed from these carcasses.
Gu Su gently rubbed his chin, silently calculating his escape routes.
’If the three methods I’ve prepared—flames, industrial salt, and Corroding Mycelium—all fail against that bizarre Oil Monster, then I’ll have to find another way.’
’These hanging bones right in front of me might just be the best opening.’
At this thought, Gu Su gave a direct command: "Go."
The moment the command was given, the Skeleton holding the two torches moved.
Its form was rigid, yet its movements were swift. It gripped the torches tightly in its blackened bone hands and charged forward.
The distance from the edge of the woods to the gas station was only a few dozen meters. The ground was covered with loose gravel, weeds, and scattered, discarded car parts.
The Skeleton’s feet crunched on the gravel, producing crisp sounds of clattering bone. It sprinted along, but its approach was unusually smooth, triggering no reaction whatsoever.
The gas station was dead silent, as if it hadn’t heard a thing.
But as the Skeleton neared the main entrance of the gas station, something suddenly changed!
From within the previously empty gas station, a mass of black, viscous fluid suddenly surged forth. The liquid, as if possessing a Life of its own, instantly coalesced into a giant black wave. Reeking of acrid oil and decay, it shot up from the ground and lunged straight for the torch-bearing Skeleton!
The torch-bearing Skeleton showed no hesitation, not a shred of fear.
It had no consciousness to begin with; only Gu Su’s command was etched into the depths of its bones.
The instant the Oil Monster shot up, the Skeleton fiercely hurled one of its burning torches at the colossal, viscous black wave.
The torch, trailing orange-red flames, cut through the air and struck the Oil Monster’s body with precision.
However, the anticipated inferno never erupted. When the torch landed on the Oil Monster’s viscous body, it merely made a heavy impact with a muffled PLOP.
The flames were instantly enveloped by the oil and extinguished, not even leaving behind a single spark. It was as if it had just thrown a regular piece of wood, causing no substantial damage to the Oil Monster.
Instead, the enraged Oil Monster swelled violently. Its black body, like a surging tide, instantly engulfed the Skeleton still holding the other torch.
The crisp sound of shattering bones was drowned out by the GURGLING flow of the Oil Monster. In just a few short seconds, the Skeleton was completely corroded and dissolved by the viscous oil, not leaving even a single intact bone fragment behind.
Back in the woods, Gu Su watched this unfold. He slowly furrowed his brow and sighed softly. His tone held no surprise, only the calm of someone who had already anticipated this outcome. ’Flames are useless, inside and out.’
He had long suspected that as a bizarre creature whose very body was made of oil, the Oil Monster would surely have a defense against fire, its greatest weakness.
’Although I don’t know what kind of method it’s using, fire is probably useless for now.’
Without much of a pause, Gu Su’s gaze immediately shifted to another Skeleton in the line. He pointed a finger, his voice cold and decisive as he commanded, "You’re up."
The Skeleton moved at once, carrying two bulging Beast Skin pouches in its bony hands. The pouches were tied tightly with hemp rope and were so heavy that they made a faint rustling sound as it walked.
A large bundle of industrial salt, wrapped in a plastic sheet, was also strapped to its torso. The plastic was wound tightly with hemp rope, as if to prevent any spillage during its run.
Its mission was identical to that of the torch-bearing Skeleton from before.
To use its own bones and Life to test whether salt had any effect on the bizarre Oil Monster.