The detector remains permanently on, and now the "safe" indicator on the lens has turned orange-red.
This indicates that wherever Li Zheng looks, danger is present.
"Ha, do you think hiding in the dark means I can't find you? Naive..."
Li Zheng grinned madly, raised his gun, and shot.
Boom!
A loud gunshot echoed, an energy bomb was shot into the darkness.
Pfft.
A soft thud was heard, something got hit.
"..."
Li Zheng was momentarily stunned, then started digging his ear: "Ah... hmm... cough, damn it, I'm deaf again, shit!"
Flap flap!
The dense flapping of wings echoed, as shadows flew and hovered outside the light of the lantern.
The horde of horror bats was startled, attacking as a group, circling around the light of the lantern, flying to and fro, but too afraid of the light to get close.
"Whoa, there are so many of them!"
Li Zheng couldn't hear temporarily, but the vaguely visible dense shadows still made his scalp tingle.
"At least fifty to start with!"
Crouching down, he put down the Desert Eagle, and with one hand, grabbed a handful of Snake Grass Needles from his capsule residence and threw them on the ground.
Then he picked up the gun again, switched to special shooting mode, aimed the gun.
"These things fly too fast, aiming at the shadow is useless, I have to shoot based on the detector's prompts."
Although there were many horror bats, each was only as big as a regular owl. Even if they were all circling the light, it was still impossible to hit one with blind shooting.
With previous lessons, these horror bats were smart and never hovered in one place for too long.
So, this was a battle of reflex and patience.
Li Zheng relied on his reflexes, firing the moment the detector changed color.
The bats relied on patience, waiting for the light to disappear, intending to swarm in and share the spoils.
Unfortunately, their plans were doomed to fail.
After all, the mysterious lantern theoretically had almost unlimited oil, as long as Li Zheng held it, it could shine forever.
Indeed, the lantern only lit up when someone held it, so Li Zheng had to operate with one hand.
Shooting and reloading were both done this way.
He also had to be careful not to stab himself when loading the Snake Grass Needles.
Swoosh!
The Desert Eagle fired, launching a Snake Grass Needle at an invisible speed.
Thud!
Another bat hit the ground.
Li Zheng remained unswayed, turned his head, locking his gaze on the detector. As soon as orange-red appeared, a Snake Grass Needle would shoot out.
Swoosh swoosh swoosh...
With the special shooting mode engaged, the once terrifying recoil of the Desert Eagle was nearly gone, allowing Li Zheng to comfortably shoot single-handed and even fire rapidly.
Thud thud thud...
As each bat flew by, they were penetrated by the Snake Grass Needle, the terrifying muzzle energy of the Desert Eagle causing significant damage.
For mere flesh, a single shot through, or hitting a bone and bursting inside the bat, the poison seeped into the body.
Most bats would struggle for a while after falling before dying from the venom.
Swoosh swoosh swoosh...
[Lack of special ammo.]
Twenty Snake Grass Needles in the full magazine were soon fired off. Li Zheng carefully reloaded with one hand while observing his surroundings.
From the density of orange-red feedback from the detector, he estimated that he hit about six to eight bats in the previous round of shooting.
"This accuracy... is quite high."
Li Zheng was quite pleased with himself.
Considering he had hardly handled a gun outside of playing games, maintaining close to a fifty percent hit rate on fast-flying targets was quite an achievement.
Click.
With a crisp sound, the magazine reset, and Li Zheng raised his gun once more.
"Wait a minute..."
About to shoot, he suddenly paused, checked to ensure the Desert Eagle hadn't switched back to normal mode during reloading, then breathed a sigh of relief.
"Continue!"
Swoosh swoosh swoosh~
Thud thud thud~
Swoosh swoosh swoosh~~
Thud thud thud~~
Another magazine emptied, and only then did Li Zheng's hearing return, with long-missed sounds finally reaching his ears.
As Li Zheng reloaded the Snake Grass Needles, he glanced at the system interface in the lower left corner, "Right on time, another three minutes have passed... but from the time, it seems about time for dinner."
His hands worked faster, becoming more adept at single-handedly reloading the Snake Grass Needles.
However, just as he raised his gun again, something unexpected happened.
The horror bats suddenly scattered, and soon there was silence.
"...Ran away?"
Li Zheng was taken aback, using the detector to inspect, scanning 360 degrees without any blind spots. Except for some slight changes near the metallic doors possibly leading to the next room, the lens remained white indicating safety.
He was puzzled.
How could... monsters in the Matrix Game escape?
"Do these monsters also have Identity Cards? How did they leave this room?"
Li Zheng carried the lantern, cautiously walking around,
Finally arriving at a now-open metallic door, the detector showed the room beyond was orange-red danger.
Staring at the flashing red light on the Identity Card reader, Li Zheng pondered.
"If I remember correctly, the reader's light was blue when swiping in the previous rooms."
"So does this mean the monsters in the matrix could have territory in more than one room, and they're not restricted from moving back, so they can wander back and forth between rooms?"
This perspective made sense.
Monsters are living beings, naturally afraid of death.
When facing an unbeatable target, fleeing is the best option.
Monsters that persistently battle players without regard for their own safety aren't monsters.
They're called program code...
"If they ran, they ran. It saves me the trouble of laboriously killing them all. I'm not sure if the meat of monsters killed by Snake Grass Needles is even edible."
He turned back, holding the lantern, and located a ground full of horror bat corpses.
The appearance was similar to the illustrations, with miniature dinosaur heads, bat-like bodies, and webbed wings on their backs.
[Horror Bat Corpse (Highly Poisonous) can be decomposed.
Bats killed by poison, their flesh is already filled with toxins, inedible, though perhaps useful in other ways.]
"As expected, it's inedible, let's decompose and see."
[Decomposing horror bat corpse (Highly Poisonous), yielded: Toxic Horror Bat Meat*2, Toxic Horror Bat Blood 50ml.]
"Small in size, and the items obtained after decomposition are few. Though the danger level isn't high, they're not easy to kill."
Li Zheng looked at the ground littered with horror bat corpses, decomposing them one by one.
"It's thanks to finding the lantern in the last room that I'm safe. If it were someone without a lighting tool, fifty-plus bats attacking at once would probably shred them instantly."
Despite the initial victory, Li Zheng remained vigilant, actively reflecting on his battle's outcome.
Horror bat corpses lay scattered, and it didn't take long for Li Zheng to find them all and finish the decomposition.
"A total of sixteen horror bat bodies, the first shot luckily blew one's head off, killing it instantly. The other bats all carried some poison, making the meat from decomposition inedible."
"But..."
Li Zheng turned his hand, retrieving several items from his capsule residence.
A piece of fresh meat smaller than the palm, a small bottle of purple liquid, and a pigeon-sized round object with a rough surface.
[Fresh Horror Bat Meat, Black Iron Level, Ingredient.
Dry, tough texture, low nutritional value.]
[Fresh Horror Bat Blood, Black Iron Level, Material.
Fishy and smelly, usable for making certain things.
Direct consumption can replenish a small amount of water, but may cause diarrhea.]
[Level 1 Genetic Core, Black Iron Level, Material.
Decomposing a Black Iron Level elite Genetic Beast may yield this, used to upgrade same-level Genetic Beasts to "elite."]
"New stuff found."