Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 604 Rescue
The advance team members immediately began their work, while Sun Hang walked to the edge of the "ice sheet" and put down his backpack.

He opened his backpack and took out a folded "skateboard".

This is a personal mobility device that the equipment department of Tian Shu Tower has been urgently developing in the past month specifically for the desert environment. When fully deployed, it looks like a surfboard. With the small vector thruster installed at the tail, its maximum speed for a short period of time can even surpass that of a sand boat.

This speed is enough for Sun Hang to make two round trips from Cairo to the Nile estuary within the five-and-a-half-hour "activity window".

Of course, this is on the premise that Sun Hang does not lose his way in this desert where there are almost no landmarks.

Stepping onto the skateboard, Sun Hang glanced again at the armband on his right arm. The surface of the armband was neatly arranged with hundreds of square particles that looked like chips.

These particles are encased in a protective shell of carbon fiber, while the core inside constantly emits subtle low-frequency vibrations. This entire armband is the "Nephthys" device modified by Professor Cao. With this device, as long as a safe distance of 300 meters is maintained, the wearer can become invisible to the giant sand worm.

However, this 300-meter safe distance requires the wearer to be in a "silent" state, that is, not to actively use any memetic abilities.

Once the ability is used, Nephthys' shielding effect will be greatly weakened. When Zhulong participated in the testing of the new model of Nephthys, Nephthys' safe distance was increased to two kilometers when he only released a liquid shield. However, when Zhulong used his full power, Nephthys' shielding effect was completely lost.

In other words, the infected in the advance team are strictly prohibited from using their abilities unless absolutely necessary—and even if they do use them, they must restrain their power as much as possible.

Fortunately, apart from the giant sand worm, most of the other strange creatures in this sea of ​​sand have been hunted down. Strange creatures like the strange bird that Sun Hang saw being devoured by the giant sand worm can be dealt with using guns and bullets, without the need for infected people to take action.

In fact, given Sun Hang's ability to conceal his aura, he didn't need to wear Nephthys at all. However, Professor Cao said that the improved version of Nephthys had a much higher production rate compared to the original. In the past month, the Tian Shu Tower had directly produced more than fifty sets of Nephthys, enough to give each member of the advance team two sets and still have some left over. So, Sun Hang naturally took one set to try it out.

Adjusting the power output of his skateboard to the endurance mode, Sun Hang slid down a sand dune at high speed. When he looked back, the sand dune behind him had moved dozens of meters and its shape had changed dramatically.

The wind is very strong in this area, and the sand dunes are like a real ocean, constantly flowing. It is impossible to determine direction by the terrain. The only thing that can be considered a directional indicator is the sun in the sky.

However, in occupied territories, placing too much faith in the sun can easily lead to deception—although, for now, the sun over Egypt appears perfectly normal. Past records of explorations in occupied territories suggest that the sky there is a mixture of truth and illusion, and that an unseen force may even interfere with conventional human perception.

Just as satellites in low Earth orbit cannot see the details of the ground in the occupied area, it is the same when looking up at the sky from the ground in the occupied area. When Zhulong and his team were exploring the occupied area, they encountered abnormal celestial phenomena such as "long days" or "long nights" that lasted for dozens of hours, day and night reversal, and stars being disordered more than once. Not to mention the strange solar and lunar eclipses, some mission records even mentioned a "green sun".

To ensure that Sun Hang would not get lost in the desert, the advance team and he carried high-powered communication equipment. In addition to communication, this thing could also be used for positioning—although it could only determine the relative positions between the two sides, it could at least ensure that everyone would not get separated in the desert.

The maximum range of communication equipment is 60 kilometers without relay stations and without the aid of ionospheric reflection. If there are terrain obstacles between the equipment, the signal will be further weakened.

As agreed beforehand, once the signal of the communication equipment weakened, Sun Hang was to immediately stop the exploration and return to the advance team.

After glancing at the full signal strength, Sun Hang slightly increased his speed.

Ten kilometers, twenty kilometers, thirty kilometers... Just when Sun Hang and the advance team had spread out to a distance of thirty-five kilometers, something different finally appeared on the sea of ​​sand, which was nothing but yellow sand.

On the top of a sand dune several kilometers away, Sun Hang saw the wreckage of a "sand boat".

On that fallen "sail" lay a "person" on the verge of death.

"Good heavens!" Sun Hang hadn't had high hopes for this free exploration, but who would have thought that he would find one of the goals he most wanted to find on this trip after running such a short distance.

"Is this what they mean by 'searching high and low without finding it, only to have it come to you effortlessly'?"

Without hesitation, Sun Hang informed the advance team and then sped towards the sand dune.

The sand barge appeared to have struck something; half of the hull had disintegrated, and the person lying on the sail was unconscious.

This is indeed a person—all physiological characteristics conform to human standards, and there are no memetic reactions on the body.

He was not just a person, but also an "ordinary person" who had never been infected.

This was a young man, probably between twenty and thirty years old, lean and shirtless, with a piece of leather of unknown origin around his waist. Several sharpened bone javelins were scattered among the wreckage of the sand barge.

"The target is severely dehydrated and has very weak vital signs," the AI's voice rang in Sun Hang's ears. "Immediate treatment is needed, otherwise the target's life will be in danger."

"Now that things have come to this, let's save lives first."

Sun Hang took out a water bottle, poured some water into the other person's bottle, and secretly transferred a small amount of diluted "materialized life force" to the other person... After these measures, the survivor's condition recovered a lot and he was about to wake up.

Only then did Sun Hang have the mind to examine the dilapidated sand boat.

Sun Hang had been wondering where the survivors would find materials to build sand boats when there were no resources in the desert. But upon closer inspection, he discovered that the sand boats' skeletons were made from the bones of some kind of animal-like creature, and that the skeletons were covered with a thick layer of leather.

The survivor's "clothing" and the huge sail were both made of the same type of leather.

Similarly, the bones used to make the sandboat skeletons are the same type of bone used for those bone spears.

(End of this chapter)