Chapter Sixty-Eight: Scarlet Machine Gun

The eerie strangeness of the Ayat Ruins gave Wu Hua a firsthand experience of the wonders and vastness of the Star Wars world.

As soon as they entered the Cat’s Mouth, they were met with a long corridor. Oil lamps hung above, and iron walls surrounded them on all sides, making the place look like an ancient prison. The floor, however, was paved with large, square iron plates.

Just as the Farmwife was about to step forward, Passerby A pulled her back. “Don’t move. There’s a trap ahead.”

“Huh? Where?” the Farmwife asked in curiosity. “I don’t see anything.”

Passerby A explained, “Look at the iron plates on the ground. Below them are spike traps. The moment you step on a plate, one second later it retracts into the wall. Watch, I’ll show you.” As he spoke, he dashed forward like the wind. Sure enough, the iron plates retracted into the walls one after another, revealing a long, deep pit beneath, lined with several-meter-long steel spikes, their tips gleaming coldly. Anyone could see that if you fell in, no matter how tough you were, you’d be skewered like a ragdoll.

Passerby A stopped fifty meters ahead, and only then did the plates extend back into place. Beads of sweat gathered on the Farmwife’s forehead. “That’s a nasty design.”

“You can run over now, but you have to move fast and not stop for anything. If you stop, you’re dead,” Passerby A shouted from across the corridor.

“One, two, three!” Wu Hua and the Farmwife dashed forward, making it through the trap unscathed, though both broke out in a cold sweat by the time they joined Passerby A. This dungeon was truly sinister.

“Now we crawl forward on our bellies. Don’t lift your heads, whatever you do,” Passerby A commanded.

Wu Hua and the Farmwife obeyed. The iron plates on the ground were indeed treacherous. As soon as the three of them lay down, the wall above their heads split open, and a wall bristling with spikes dropped down at a perfect ninety-degree angle, stopping just above their heads. Even a slight movement upward would result in a fatal impaling.

Lying flat, Wu Hua sighed, “This really is a ruin—traps everywhere.”

Passerby A added, “In a moment, the spike wall will rise. As soon as it does, we crawl forward. If it comes down again, stay still.”

Wu Hua and the Farmwife nodded vigorously. After crawling for at least a hundred meters, they finally left the range of the spike wall.

Passerby A stood up. “Just these two traps have claimed at least a thousand players here.”

The Farmwife was aghast. “There aren’t more traps ahead, are there?”

Passerby A replied, “Not for now, but soon we’ll run into an American leopard, a level 30 guard — consider it a mini-boss, with thirty thousand HP. Its defense isn’t high and it respawns about once an hour. Get your weapons ready. I’ll lure it out, you two cover me. If things go south, we’ll crawl back under the spike wall, and it won’t be able to reach us.”

Wu Hua hadn’t expected Passerby A to be so sharp, but it made sense—years spent here had taught him the best tactics.

“Alright, little brother, you lure it out. I can handle it myself,” the Farmwife said carelessly. She took off her backpack and pulled out a massive heavy machine gun.

Both Wu Hua and Passerby A were stunned.

The Farmwife’s machine gun could only be described as “domineering.” It looked like a giant mop—just the sight of it radiated power.

“MG3, the fabric shredder!” Passerby A exclaimed.

The Farmwife grinned. “You’ve got a good eye.”

The MG3, made by Germany’s Rheinmetall, used NATO 7.62mm rounds. Though an old model, heavy machine guns weren’t sold in the shops anymore, so getting one was impressive. One thing was certain: it was leagues ahead of the M249 in the hands of “Shoot You With Impunity.”

The gun’s greatest strength was its formidable firepower. It was belt-fed, meaning bullets were supplied via an ammo belt, each holding five hundred rounds, greatly reducing reload time. Once it started firing, it could unleash fifteen rounds per second—up to five hundred bullets a minute. Its effective range was three hundred meters, and the muzzle energy reached an astonishing 3880 joules!

Of course, the drawback was its weight—a hefty fifteen kilograms, 1.3 meters long, and too bulky to fire except from the hip. To use it, a shooter had to invest at least forty points in strength specialization, drastically limiting other attributes.

Though equipped with a tripod, its sighting system was mechanical, with a bead front sight and a U-shaped rear sight, giving it an accuracy of only 33%. Still, this gun was the ultimate tough guy among heavy machine guns, earning it the nickname—“The Destroyer.”

The Farmwife hefted the Destroyer, ammo belts coiled all around her, then lit a cigarette and flicked her head back with flair. “Go lure it out. Mini-bosses are nothing—watch me.”

Passerby A nodded nervously and ran ahead.

At the end of the corridor was a flight of stairs descending into darkness. Passerby A hadn’t been gone long when a leopard’s howl echoed from the shadows, and soon he came scrambling back up.

In an instant, the entire stairwell was lit by gunfire. Cigarette dangling from her lips, the Farmwife opened fire. Calling the Destroyer’s gunfire “intense” didn’t do it justice. With most guns, you could make out the rhythm of shots, but this was just one continuous roar—a single, unending “BOOM”—and Wu Hua and Passerby A could only stare, not even firing their own weapons.

“-1998, -2001, -1982, -1971…”

Fifteen seconds!

In just fifteen seconds, Wu Hua watched as the snarling American leopard was pinned mid-staircase by the barrage, its face torn to shreds by the Destroyer’s fire like meat in a grinder. The leopard didn’t even get a chance to roar before it exploded into loot.

Crystals and potions littered the stairs, clinking as they fell.

“Incredible!” Wu Hua was ecstatic—a mini-boss with thirty thousand HP was obliterated with a wave of her hand.

“Red gear, right?” Wu Hua asked.

The Farmwife flicked away her cigarette. “Yeah, red gear. Plus, I invested twenty points in ranged specialization, so my attack power is way higher—otherwise I’d waste too much ammo.”

Wu Hua sighed. “I bet only intermediate bosses or higher could withstand that gun.”

“No kidding!” the Farmwife said, lighting another cigarette. “I’m here to hunt big bosses—wasting bullets on these small fry is beneath me.”

Passerby A ignored their banter, jumping down the stairs to gather loot.

In truth, the mini-boss didn’t drop much. It wasn’t that it couldn’t, but countless players had already farmed this mandatory passage, so there was little left to get.

Veteran players knew that an untouched boss would usually drop better loot the first time.

So, neither Wu Hua nor the Farmwife cared much. They both had high-end gear and didn’t need to fight Passerby A over scraps.

Gradually, the three ventured deeper. At first, small groups of players followed behind, but soon, almost no one else was around. The dungeon was just too dark, and many came unprepared. Wu Hua’s group had powerful flashlights and pressed on cautiously.

This dungeon was a thousand times more complex than the Muline Tomb. Wu Hua had always thought a labyrinth was just a mess of branching paths, but now he realized how wrong he’d been. His previous impressions were all two-dimensional; this was a true three-dimensional maze, with passages, corridors, and grates stretching up, down, left, and right. Traps were everywhere—spikes, crushing walls, blade arrays, spiral spikes—and occasionally, they’d run into scorpions, vipers, leopards, and other monsters.

The farther Wu Hua went, the more unnerved he became. His sensor recorded their path. At first, it was a straight line, but soon the route twisted and overlapped, forming an irregular polyhedral hexagon that made his head spin just to look at.

Who knew how many players had died in the Ayat Ruins? You could say that with every step Passerby A led them, at least one life had already been lost there.

“I think this place will drop good loot,” the Farmwife said suddenly.

“Why do you think that?” Passerby A asked.

“Because the terrain is too complicated and there are too many traps—there are barely any monsters,” she replied.

Passerby A nodded. “Yeah, most people come here just to complete quests or to guide others for money.”

The Farmwife chuckled. “Haha, little brother, you don’t get it. Would the system design a useless map? No gear, no leveling, and a trek this arduous?”

Passerby A was taken aback—he had to admit she made sense.

Wu Hua said, “That’s why you should lead us to the core area. There’s no way intermediate bosses or higher wouldn’t drop good gear.”