Chapter 279: The Swarm Returns

They only cared about the spoils, completely oblivious as to whether the person offering the advice belonged to one of their three families.

Perhaps seeing an unfamiliar face, they automatically assumed he was from one of the other two families, and didn’t even pay attention when he left.

After confirming the matter, the three families returned to their respective allocated areas to await nightfall.

By this time, Liang Yu had already launched the military Satellite into space. More importantly, Liang Yu did not launch just one Satellite; he launched twenty-four Satellites for good luck, aligning with the twenty-four solar terms.

With the Satellite, Liang Yu generally understood the surrounding situation.

As he estimated, these people were indeed living quite miserably.

Only the area near him, where three ice mountains had been placed, saw some relief, but at most, Liang Yu would need to replace them the day after tomorrow.

The situation in one city could no longer be described as merely bad.

The streets, squares, and financial centers of yesteryear were already dilapidated and, exposed to wind and sun, the buildings lost their vitality, quickly crumbling and collapsing into ruins.

Furthermore, the commercial residential buildings were almost entirely empty, with only one remaining unit having occupants, but these occupants were not human; an incense altar held melted electronic incense sticks and a small jar.

Many buildings had their foundations damaged due to the cold wave and high temperatures, and countless buildings had already collapsed, with only a few still standing.

Some individual buildings could even be seen leaning but not yet collapsed, though it was only a matter of time.

However, such buildings reminded Liang Yu of a building abroad, jokingly referred to as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

When he went shopping last time, he briefly glanced at it, but comparing it now, Liang Yu felt that the buildings in front of him had a greater degree of tilt.

Such dangerous buildings were entirely supported by rebar, and no Survivor dared to live inside.

Liang Yu searched around and finally found traces of Survivors in the public underground areas.

Finally, Liang Yu actually found them in the subway station where the three families were located.

He was very surprised when he saw these people; he had not expected that so many living people would gather together in this small city.

Counting those just discovered, the total number of Survivors was less than eighteen hundred.

However, he quickly shook his head. For a small city like this, which wasn’t even ranked, the population was probably only around tens of thousands.

With only eighteen hundred Survivors, not even two thousand, the survival rate was truly too low.

While Liang Yu was sighing, the Satellite named ‘Rain Water’ (the second solar term) captured a scene that made Liang Yu realize why only so few people were left.

In the image provided by Rain Water, Liang Yu discovered a large number of Zerg, so numerous that it made his scalp tingle.

The most crucial point was that these Zerg could now operate in broad daylight.

Liang Yu remembered that the Etch Insect swarm he encountered last time could only operate at night.

Liang Yu zoomed in on the Zerg and observed them carefully, feeling that these insects were somewhat different from the Etch Insects.

Just the color of their carapaces’ patterns was different from the Etch Insects.

So Liang Yu mobilized the Satellite ‘Awakening of Insects’ and prepared to deal with this Zerg.

It was at this moment that an anomaly occurred; the Zerg, originally gathered in one area, were stimulated by something unknown.

They instantly dispersed, forming a semicircle around a two-story Western-style house below, surrounding it.

If it were just like this, Liang Yu wouldn’t have thought much of it; he would just destroy the house along with the Zerg.

But these Zerg only surrounded the house without launching any attack, which made Liang Yu very puzzled.

Inside, there was either something the Zerg feared, or there was a device that the Zerg could not approach.

If it was the latter, then there must be people in the house, and a generator providing electricity to power that device.

This made Liang Yu indecisive for a moment.

In the first scenario, the worst outcome would just be discovering an artificial monster, similar to what happened underground.

In the second scenario, if Liang Yu obtained that device and modified it slightly, he could completely place it around his RV to repel the Zerg.

Although he had insect repellent in his backpack, insect repellent always had the drawback of limited efficacy time.

If needed, it must be sprayed regularly and in specific amounts to provide protection, and the effect might not be very good, especially against these flying insects in the air.

Another point was that with long-term use, they might quickly evolve drug resistance, and in the current situation, no one could say for sure.

As Liang Yu was deliberating, something seemed to have happened inside the small Western-style house, instantly disrupting the original order of the Zerg surrounding it.

More so than before, they seemed to have received a huge stimulus, unable to maintain even their basic formation, and all the insects quickly moved away from the small Western-style house they had surrounded.

In a short while, the Zerg disappeared.

Seeing this, Liang Yu was quite satisfied with the effect; the only drawback might be that it couldn’t cause fatal damage to the Zerg.

If this was the only flaw, he could completely accept it. After all, he did not lack means of attack now; he could directly use the Satellite to attack these Zerg, without needing to construct something like a mechanical dome as before.

Although the power was impeccable, the only problem might be that the wind-up time was too long.

The people in the small Western-style house had no idea that their belongings were being coveted.

Liang Yu put this matter into his future plans, mainly because he was not in a hurry to use it now, and the demand was not very high.

And now, the most important task was to find those Zerg that had just disappeared; letting them go was not Liang Yu’s style.

Liang Yu stared intently at the Satellite image on the large screen.

Six Satellites shuttled through space, constantly scanning the area below.

He knew that these vanished Zerg posed a great threat to the Survivors, and if they could not be found in time, the consequences would be unimaginable; humanity might truly face extinction.

Little did he know that he was currently very conflicted: on one hand, he watched Survivors die, and on the other hand, he wanted humanity to at least continue to exist.

Time passed minute by minute, and Liang Yu’s mood began to grow a little tense.

Suddenly, the system’s alert sounded, indicating that the Zerg had been found.

Liang Yu quickly brought up the image, and sure enough, the screen showed a dense cluster of bright spots, which were the vanished Zerg.

However, Liang Yu quickly noticed something was wrong; the number of Zerg was only one-third of what it had been before.

Although Liang Yu had questions at this moment, he couldn’t afford to dwell on them; eliminating some was better than none.

Even eliminating one-third of the current number would be a good thing.