Chapter 178: Go and invite Chairman Qin quickly |
"Guild Leader Qin, it's bad, something's happened." Zhou Xiaqing jogged over, her jacket slightly disheveled from the hurried run. With rapid breaths, she gently patted her chest to calm her full vitality.
Qin Ziwen stopped the shovel in his hand and spoke kindly, "Don't rush. Organize your thoughts and speak slowly. What exactly happened?"
Zhou Xiaqing's language expression skills were quite good, and she quickly clarified the sequence of events.
On their student union side, after the sandstorm, they had dispatched several teams to investigate the situation within the canyon.
Most teams had returned one after another, but one team had been missing without any news.
In the evening, others went to search for that team and finally found the missing classmates on a hillside—they were trapped on a highland.
The area around the highland was all sand dunes, and beneath the dunes, more than one Desert Giant Worm was hidden.
Now they couldn't come down, and rescuers couldn't get in.
Teacher Luo then told her to quickly go and invite Guild Leader Qin.
A flicker of anticipation flashed in Qin Ziwen's eyes.
Speaking of which, up to now, he had never dealt with a target from a Level 2 challenge task!
He also didn't know how many shots from the giant crossbow this Desert Giant Worm could withstand.
"Alright, lives are at stake. Wait for me downstairs, I'll go back and prepare."
...
"We can prepare to wait for death." A young man squatting on a rock massaged his numb right leg, looking somewhat despairingly at the sand dune beneath his feet.
Half an hour ago, one of their team members wanted to gamble.
He tried running down the sand dune, but just after walking a dozen meters, he was swallowed whole in one bite by the giant Desert Worm lurking at the base of the dune.
"Have you all written your last letters?"
"Wrote it long ago. If they ever get a chance to return to Earth in the future, my parents might have a chance to see it."
An atmosphere of despair permeated the rock.
The giant worm beneath the sand dune was very patient, like an experienced hunter.
"I see Old Luo."
They pointed into the distance, over a hundred meters away from them, where the open ground was filled with people.
In this area, sand had piled up into thick dunes along the outer west side of the canyon. Outside the dunes, the environment was relatively sparse.
Although based on current speculation, this giant Desert Worm would only move within the sand dunes, a distance of over a hundred meters was still an insurmountable chasm for them.
"Hey, brothers, I might not be able to hold on much longer. I'm too thirsty. Rather than waiting for death up here, we should find an opportunity, and when the time comes, we all run down together, split up and flee. I don't believe this monster can eat all of us at the same time."
"What if there's more than one down there?"
"Then let me go first to lure it out, buy you guys a chance, you escape earlier."
"Wait, look, what's that?" On the rock, someone pointed into the distance, where two vehicle-mounted crossbows were being pushed over. Compared to ordinary weapons, the vehicle-mounted crossbows looked particularly eye-catching in this wilderness.
......
"Is this the vehicle-mounted crossbow?" Beside Luo Gang, some students who hadn't seen the vehicle-mounted crossbow in the afternoon cast curious glances.
They had the weapon, and they had the target.
"Now the biggest difficulty is how to lure it out."
As Qin Ziwen spoke, he surveyed the surrounding environment. On the sand dunes, there were raised marks.
If a snake sliding over sandy ground would leave a depressed scratch mark, then these raised marks were the traces left on the surface after the worm passed through the interior of the dune.
This Desert Giant Worm didn't even show its head, making it impossible to know where to shoot.
"I've found bait, the bait will be here soon." Luo Gang said, "But there's one thing I'd like to ask for your help with now."
"What is it?"
"My students are probably hungry and thirsty. I'd like to ask your pet to help deliver some food and water over to them."
"That's not a problem."
Qin Ziwen readily agreed.
The Crowned Eagle grabbed a bag and delivered it from the sky to the people on the rock.
Receiving the bag and seeing the water and food inside, the students on the rock were moved to tears.
Another hour passed, and the bait Luo Gang mentioned finally arrived.
It was two fresh animal corpses, still carrying residual warmth.
The surfaces were cut open with wounds, letting out large amounts of blood.
The corpses were thrown at the edge of the desert.
The blatant bait was thus placed right in the face of the Desert Giant Worm.
According to their body structure, it was uncertain if they had brains, but they would absolutely not miss such obvious food.
The Desert Giant Worm, which had always lived in the desert, was a local overlord in this Gobi region.
Their living habits made them accustomed to moving through the sand. Apart from perhaps needing to be careful of predators during their juvenile years, they had almost no natural enemies in the desert once they reached adulthood.
Soon, a Desert Giant Worm slowly emerged from the edge of a sand dune, slowly probing out its head.
It had a chrysanthemum-shaped mouthpart, a thick body over one meter in diameter. The surface layer of its body seemed covered in a dark brown hard shell.
Slowly opening its mouthpart, its head expanded to twice its original size, swallowing the prey's head, slowly wrapping around the entire corpse.
"Thud!"
One left, one right, like two heavy drums being struck.
The Desert Giant Worm's head instantly exploded.
Countless yellowish-brown liquid splattered out.
Simultaneously, its body seemed to be fiercely whipped by a tremendous force.
It twisted into an exaggerated arc, and its body side also splashed large amounts of yellowish-brown liquid.
"Keee—"
The Desert Giant Worm's huge mouthpart let out a broken, rasping shriek.
Half of its face—if that chrysanthemum-shaped mouthpart counted as its head—was completely torn apart. A thick crossbow bolt had torn open most of it.
And its body was heavily pierced by another crossbow bolt.
The severely wounded Desert Giant Worm thrashed wildly, its massive body surging out of the sand layer.
Its body, over fifteen meters long, struggled violently on the surface of the sand dune. Each thrash whipped up large clouds of sand and dust.
"Load the bolts, arm the crossbow!" Cao Biansheng grabbed the crank handles with both hands, slowly turning the windlass. The vehicle-mounted crossbow's bowstring was forcibly pulled back bit by bit.
The thick crossbow bolts were loaded again.
"Hurry, hurry."
Cao Biansheng muttered to himself, sweat beading on his forehead as he stared fixedly at the distant Desert Giant Worm.
Beside him, Qin Ziwu was also turning the windlass, reloading the bolt for the other vehicle-mounted crossbow.
The biggest problem with the vehicle-mounted crossbow was the long reload time after firing, taking at least eight or nine seconds.
Finally, the two of them finished reloading the crossbow bolts. The Desert Giant Worm was still struggling in place.
Clearly, the wounds inflicted by these two bolts were not light for it.
Holding their breath and concentrating, the two aimed at the Desert Giant Worm simultaneously.
"Thud!" "Thud!"
Two giant crossbows fired.
One of them grazed past the writhing body of the Desert Giant Worm.
Before anyone could feel regret, the other bolt had already hit its target squarely!
It struck directly the other remaining half of the Desert Giant Worm's face.
On its head, left and right, two thick crossbow bolts were embedded.
The Desert Giant Worm's tail instantly shot high into the air, its tail end rising five or six meters high.
It remained rigid for seven or eight seconds before finally collapsing to the ground with a crash.
It lay quietly in place, three huge arrows piercing its body, nailing it firmly into the desert!
Only when a large number of light spots condensed on its body surface,
transforming into three floating cards above its form,
did everyone finally confirm it was dead.
"F*ING AWESOME!!!"
"So strong, you could actually kill it!" "You are my god!"
The students erupted into earth-shaking cheers.
Cao Biansheng and Qin Ziwu were surrounded by the crowd and lifted high into the air.
Qin Ziwen also received a prompt.
Hunting Ladder Level 2 Task: Hunt Adult Desert Giant Worm (1/3)!