Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 368 "Deemed Not to Exist"

"What illusion?" The scavenger squatting nearby was startled by Sun Hang's startled behavior.

"The strange creature is right here, on the second underground floor, in the computer room we just searched." Sun Hang said.

"Ah?" The scavenger stood up immediately and looked outside the store anxiously, "Then... why didn't we see anything just now? Didn't we search the entire machine room?"

"It only existed for a moment...just that moment..." Sun Hang pondered, "Could it be some kind of strange phenomenon? This possibility cannot be ruled out...The signal shielding field can also be attributed to strange phenomena..."

"No, it's still not right." Sun Hang quickly rejected his idea. "If it is a phenomenon-type weird thing, it just appeared for a moment, but the signal shielding field has always existed."

Sun Hang took out his mobile phone, and the signal in the upper right corner was still zero.

However, before Sun Hang could continue thinking, the same strange aura appeared again, and then disappeared again.

Sun Hang's gaze remained on the TV screen.

The next second, Sun Hang grabbed the remote control on the counter and pressed the play button.

The images on the screen began to move backwards, and some of the originally terrifying plots became somewhat funny. For example, the scene in the film where the mysterious masked man chopped down the protagonist's companion with an axe turned into the axe being pulled out from the corpse, and then the man who fell to the ground and died suddenly revived with full blood... The murderer suddenly became the reincarnation of Hua Tuo, and people couldn't help but want to shout "Nice doctor!"

When the picture goes back to a certain frame, the strange atmosphere appears again.

In addition to the strong weird aura underground, there was also a faint weird aura coming from inside the videotape.

Previously, Sun Hang's attention was attracted by the strange aura that suddenly appeared and disappeared. Only now did he realize that even the videotape that was being played was a strange thing.

"I understand." Sun Hang nodded.

"Understand what?" The scavenger looked confused.

"Oh my goodness, could this be the legendary... rule-based monster?" Sun Hang looked at the slot on the player used to play videotapes, "These should be considered two monsters, right? What is this? A nesting doll-type monster... No, to be precise, it should be considered a symbiotic monster, right?"

"Two strange creatures? What nesting dolls? What symbiosis?" the scavenger asked in doubt.

Sun Hang fast-forwarded the movie a little bit and then pressed the pause button.

The familiar aura of weirdness reappeared... This time, it did not disappear.

"This videotape is also a strange object." Sun Hang said, "and it is a very rare Type A - a regular strange object."

"Ah?" The scavenger was startled and subconsciously took a step back, putting some distance between himself and the player.

"But don't worry, this monster is not aggressive, and its rules are simple and very easy to crack," said Sun Hang.

"W-what rules?" the scavenger asked quickly.

"There are two strange creatures in the underground commercial street. One is in the audio-visual store on the first floor, which is this videotape, and the other is in the computer room on the second floor... As for the strange creature that killed the scavenger, it should be the one in the computer room." Sun Hang said, "As for the rules of this videotape, it is very simple. Only when the plot in the movie is played to the special node of 'timeline reset', these two strange creatures will 'appear'... In addition, when the videotape is not played or the non-special node segment is played, these two strange creatures will be regarded as 'non-existent'."

“I don’t understand…”

"I can tell from the looks of it that you're not a computer science major." Sun Hang shrugged. "The logic of using computer language is easy to understand. It's just a very simple if statement."

"I... I just entered the first year of high school..." said the scavenger girl.

"That's fine." Sun Hang said, "You just need to know that these two monsters will only appear when the movie is playing to a certain part, and I just happened to pause the movie at this part, so if we go to the machine room now, we should be able to see the monster that didn't exist before."

The scavenger nodded, not quite understanding.

"I think the guy who was killed... he has probably discovered this." Sun Hang said, "He smashed the TV screen with an axe not because he was angry that the TV didn't work... If I'm not mistaken..." Sun Hang walked to the socket board and directly unplugged the power cord of the TV.

The TV screen did not go out.

"This videotape doesn't need electricity to play."

"Then...then should we leave here as soon as possible? And report this to the Investigation Bureau?" said the scavenger, "Tell them there are strange creatures here..."

"Did you forget something?"

"what?"

"There is a monster hunter right here." Sun Hang pointed at himself, "Why do you think I came to a place like this?"

"Uh……"

"That guy should have discovered the monster in the engine room. I suspect that the monster in the engine room might be able to get up to this floor... Otherwise, his axe should have fallen in or near the engine room, not on the street."

After Sun Hang finished saying this, the scavenger's breathing suddenly became rapid. Every few seconds, she would turn her head to look outside the store, as if a terrifying monster would rush out from the shadows at any time.

"He was very smart. He figured out the relationship between the videotape and the monster in the computer room. But the way he handled it was a little wrong. He smashed the TV instead of the videotape... Oh, it's also possible that his understanding was wrong. He mistook the TV for a monster instead of the videotape... After all, a TV that can play without being plugged in is more like a monster than an ordinary videotape."

Of course, the more important point is that the scavenger is not infected and he cannot feel the breath emitted by the monster.

"He tried to escape after destroying the TV, but unfortunately, he didn't expect that the TV screen could continue to play the movie after a big hole was smashed in it... While he was escaping, the movie once again played to that 'special node', and the strange creature suddenly appeared and attacked him, killing him and dragging him into the underground machine room."

"Then...then will that strange creature...attack us...as well?" The scavenger's voice trembled noticeably.

"Yes, but it won't be so sudden." Sun Hang said, "As long as the movie remains paused, the monster will always exist... At least, it won't appear out of thin air behind you without any warning."

When he mentioned the back, the scavenger subconsciously turned his head and looked behind him. "Ah!!"

She was so frightened by the terrifying face that she fell to the ground.

"Don't be nervous...look carefully, it's just a movie poster." Sun Hang looked at her speechlessly.

Behind the scavenger is a cultural wall covered with various old movie posters, including a horror movie poster with a horrifying monster face occupying more than 80% of the picture - as luck would have it, when the scavenger turned around, he happened to come into eye contact with this "weird face".

"Hu...Hu..." The scavenger was breathing heavily, her heart pounding. She looked at the horror movie poster carefully again and climbed up from the ground awkwardly.

"I'll give you three choices," Sun Hang said. "The first choice is to follow me to the underground computer room, where I'll kill the monster. The second choice is to stay here and help me keep an eye on the TV and the videotape. If it automatically resumes playing, rewind the movie or fast forward to the point where the timeline is reset, and then press pause. The third choice is to leave here and go to the surface."

"I choose third..."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you." Sun Hang walked out of the video store and turned to look at her. "The man before seemed to have been killed during the escape... I can't guarantee that the strange creature will bypass me during my trip to the underground machine room..."

"I'll go with you! I'll go to the engine room with you!" The scavenger seemed to have made up his mind and tightly grasped the fire axe in his hand, "I choose the first one!"

"Okay, then... let's go."

The reason why Sun Hang wanted to force the scavenger to go with him, besides intending to use her as bait at the critical moment, was that he was not sure whether the triggering conditions of the "rule-based monster" were really that simple.

What if, in addition to the movie being at a special node of "timeline reset", the triggering condition also requires that there must be a non-infected person at the scene?

The rules of rule-based monsters are all kinds of strange, and their rules cannot be thought of using conventional logic... In order to ensure that everything is foolproof, the best way is to ensure that all variables do not change as much as possible.

If they let this scavenger go, and then go to the underground machine room and find that the monster has "disappeared" again, Sun Hang can't run outside and catch another ordinary person to satisfy the rules of the monster, right?

What if...what if the rules of the rule-based monsters require not only that the person must be non-infected, but also that he must be a non-infected scavenger?

The probability of this happening is low, but not zero.

When faced with rule-based weirdness, one must think in the most ridiculous and outrageous direction.

……

The two walked to the stairs leading to the underground machine room. At this time, the scavenger's face had turned pale - in addition to the strange smell that only Sun Hang could "smell", there was now a strong smell of blood wafting out from the underground machine room... It was as if the place had turned into a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood...

At first, the scavenger wanted to ask why she had to be called along to deal with the monster, but she soon realized one thing - the hunter had just given her the option to leave, but when she thought of the other scavenger who had been killed, she couldn't move her feet.

Perhaps, it is safest to follow this hunter?

"Give me your crossbow." Sun Hang stretched out his hand to the scavenger.

Although a little puzzled, the scavenger still obediently handed the homemade crossbow to Sun Hang.

The structure of this crossbow is very simple, just two cross-shaped wooden strips, nailed together in the middle, and a small iron hook is nailed into the end of the vertical strip to hook the stretched crossbow string. The horizontal wooden strip is the crossbow arm, and the rubber bands used as the crossbow string are fixed at both ends.

This thing is so crude that it doesn't even have a trigger... When firing, you just have to turn the small iron hook with your fingers to release the crossbow string.

Sun Hang used liquid metal to make a simple modification to the crossbow, strengthening the connections of the crossbow body and optimizing the firing structure of the crossbow. In addition, he also made more than a dozen crossbow arrows with liquid metal and threw them to the scavengers together with the crossbow.

"Try it and see if it works?" Sun Hang said.

There was still a hint of surprise on the scavenger's face, but he did not slow down his movements. He quickly completed the action of stringing the crossbow and shot out a crossbow arrow made of liquid metal.

The crossbow arrow instantly penetrated into the wall on one side, and the next second, the crossbow arrow began to expand... With a "bang", a hole the size of a basketball instantly appeared on the hard concrete wall!

"Ah?" The scavenger was frightened by the destructive power of the crossbow arrow. "It...how did it explode?"

"You don't have to worry about that." Sun Hang said, "You just need to shoot accurately... Don't shoot me."

"No... No way!" The scavenger shook his head quickly, "I really, really didn't mean it before!"

"That's the best."

After saying that, Sun Hang walked down the stairs.

With a "bang", Sun Hang kicked open the door of the machine room, and the scavenger standing behind him immediately raised his crossbow.

The military high-intensity flashlight that Sun Hang gave her was also fixed under the crossbow. The high-lumen light instantly illuminated the interior of the machine room as if it were daytime!

I saw that the machines and equipment that had stopped working due to the power outage were now making a "buzzing" sound, and indicator lights of various colors were jumping wildly... and the surface of these equipment was covered with a large amount of irregular biological tissue, which looked like a large amount of crushed meat was wrapped around these machines.

The cables that filled the entire floor of the computer room and could almost trip people to death disappeared, replaced by a large number of wriggling flesh tubes. Sun Hang could even see the substances flowing in the flesh tubes, being transmitted from one machine to another.

"What kind of weird thing is this?" Sun Hang subconsciously thought of the biochemical armor that Song Yarong was developing... This thing in front of him seemed to be a kind of biochemical machine, right?

I just don't know whether it should be classified as "Type C (animals)" or "Type J (objects)"...

But let the experts deal with this kind of thing... All you need to do is to destroy this thing.

At this moment, the scavenger behind Sun Hang suddenly exclaimed: "I... I saw him! That man!"

(End of this chapter)