Chapter 8: The Expert on the Eighth Floor

Chu Yunsheng didn't know if the red-armored beetle could calculate the height of the building based on the stairs. He thought that with the beetle's intelligence, it probably hadn't evolved to the point where it could find his room from the hallway. The last red-armored beetle might not be directly targeting his door, so even if the door was open, the beetle might not rush in directly!

More importantly, the people who had just gone upstairs had certainly been detected by the red-armored beetle, and it might already consider them as enemies who had killed its companions.

Therefore, he decided to take a risk. If this beetle were to rampage through the building, he wouldn't know when it might suddenly appear from the ceiling or the walls. After all, these creatures had an incredibly strong corrosive ability!

The speed and reaction time of the red-armored beetle far exceeded Chu Yunsheng's expectations. When the creature appeared at the stairwell, Chu Yunsheng didn't even have time to pull the trigger. The beetle immediately detected the lurking Chu Yunsheng, hesitated for a moment, and then lunged at him with a strange cry, leaving only a trail of shadow!

In that life-or-death moment, the entire process took less than a second. Chu Yunsheng reacted just in time to pull the trigger, but he didn't have time to see if he had hit it. With his other hand, he hastily fired the handgun, panicking and firing about 5 or 6 bullets.

Bang, bang, bang—the bullets, carrying fiery elemental energy, shot into the wall. These were the sounds of missed shots. After the smoke cleared, Chu Yunsheng saw that the ice arrow had fortunately hit.

Although it was a lucky shot, hitting the pincer, it had already frozen a large part of the red-armored beetle's body. The fire-elemental bullets from the handgun also hit a few times. Chu Yunsheng was almost out of elemental energy, and the bullets fired from the handgun, powered by the elemental symbols, were far less powerful than the full-force ice arrow!

The red-armored beetle, having experienced both ice and fire, was now dead beyond any doubt. The most severe crisis since the sun's disappearance had finally been resolved!

Chu Yunsheng used the remaining cold energy from the ice arrow to extinguish the fiery elemental bullets that had hit the wall. In just a short time, these flames had burned several large holes in his walls.

Chu Yunsheng didn't dare touch the beetle's corpse. He was worried about potential viruses or strong corrosive substances from this unknown creature. After much thought, he finally used the storage elemental symbol to store the corpse, cleaning up the mess.

The crowd on the street had mostly run away. Under the heavy weapons of the military, dozens of red-armored beetles, after killing hundreds of people, left fewer than ten corpses behind before quickly disappearing into the darkness.

No one knew when they would reappear. The scattered convoys, though incomplete, still followed the military's armored units, rumbling forward. No one knew how many more of these nearly invincible beetles were waiting for them ahead.

Killing three red-armored beetles in one day had severely drained Chu Yunsheng's elemental energy and mental strength. The legendary cultivation techniques that claimed one could replenish sleep through meditation were, he now understood, impossible. Cultivation was cultivation, and sleep was sleep; they were completely irreplaceable. As long as he was still a normal human, he needed to eat, drink, urinate, defecate, sleep, and fart—none of these could be spared.

Chu Yunsheng had a dream, a cliché dream. Like all the nauseating plot points, he used the elemental bow to kill a red-armored beetle and rescued a goddess-like beauty. After a quick resolution, the beauty, to thank him for saving her life, offered herself to him. Just as the climax was about to happen, he woke up, feeling very depressed.

The electricity in the neighborhood had been completely cut off, and there was no natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas. After waking up, Chu Yunsheng was very hungry and wanted to make some hot food.

He originally planned to use the alcohol stove stored in the storage elemental symbol. But with his growing sense of crisis, he had a sudden idea. He removed the magazine from his handgun and used the last bit of elemental energy in his body to shoot a flame at a piece of wood, successfully igniting it. The energy of the elemental energy was very powerful. Looking at the ice that hadn't melted from the dead beetle outside, Chu Yunsheng guessed that the burning power of this flame was extremely strong.

Saving the alcohol made the frugal Chu Yunsheng very happy. He quickly made a bowl of noodles using the flame from the wood. Just as he was halfway through his meal, he heard someone knocking on the door!

Chu Yunsheng was always very cautious. Through the peephole, the person outside cooperatively used a candle to light up the entrance. He recognized the man from the 10th floor, the one who had narrowly escaped.

Chu Yunsheng's first reaction was, did they know that he had killed three red-armored beetles?

It was unlikely. When the first beetle was killed, they were in a panic and couldn't have identified the shooter. They hadn't seen the deaths of the second and third beetles at all!

After some thought, Chu Yunsheng opened the door. Even in this dark, dangerous era, humans were still social animals. Besides, his home was clean, and the third beetle had been stored away, so there was no risk of them discovering anything unusual.

Standing outside with the 10th-floor neighbor were three other people: a middle-aged man, a young guy, and an ordinary-looking girl.

"Hmm, what's the matter?" Chu Yunsheng asked, feigning confusion.

The group stretched their necks to look inside Chu Yunsheng's apartment, as if searching for something.

"Nothing, just that a beetle came up earlier. Didn't you see it?" The 10th-floor man actually had no idea who had killed the beetle. If not for the insistence of the others to find the person who could kill the beetle, he wouldn't have been forced to knock on every door. After all, he was a resident of the building and more suitable for the task.

Seeing that Chu Yunsheng didn't react, the young guy quickly explained:

"Brother, it's like this. A few red-armored beetles were chasing us, and one was shot dead right outside the door by an expert. Another one followed us into the building. We were just running up, and then we heard gunshots. After a long while, there was no more noise, so we guessed the monster had been killed by the expert. We came to ask if you saw anyone!"

Of course, the young guy found it hard to associate the disheveled, ordinary-looking man with noodles still hanging from his mouth with the image of an expert or a remarkable person, so he automatically ruled out Chu Yunsheng as a suspect.

"Ah, what? The monster came in? I didn't know. I just woke up and heard you knocking!" Chu Yunsheng feigned shock, even nervously looking out the door. "Really? What should we do?"

"Don't worry, there's an expert hiding in this building, so it's very safe. Just be sure to contact everyone if you see anything unusual. We'll be going now!"

The middle-aged man frowned, also finding it hard to believe that this person was an expert. He comforted Chu Yunsheng a bit and then quickly left with the other three.

The news that there was a powerful expert on the 8th floor who could kill red-armored beetles spread quickly, and the entire neighborhood was in an uproar. For a long time, even the military had no effective way to kill the beetles, and people had been in a state of helpless crisis.

The feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness had even led some psychologically fragile people to commit suicide to escape. The only thing the survivors could do was pray that they wouldn't encounter the damned beetles.

Now, the sudden appearance of an expert who could "easily" eliminate the beetles, and who was hiding in the 8th floor, gave the entire neighborhood, and even nearby neighborhoods, a sense of security.

Currently, food and safety were the two key issues directly threatening people's lives. Food, due to some initial reserves, could still last for a while, but safety was uncertain.

Those demons that roamed in the darkness could appear at any moment. In Chu Yunsheng's neighborhood, there had already been at least three red-armored beetle attacks.

No one survived! No one was left intact! Their brains were completely sucked out! The horror of the deaths was so extreme that those who saw them were psychologically devastated!

Only by staying near the expert could one feel safe. The expert was on the 8th floor, but who was this expert? Find him and ask for his protection! That's what everyone was thinking.

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End of Chapter 8