Apocalypse Star House Hoarding-Chapter 238

“Look over there,” Lin Wu suddenly pointed in a certain direction, his voice suppressed to the lowest volume but filled with urgency.
Yu Xi followed his gaze and immediately spotted something mixed in among the swarm of massive black scorpions.
The eerily long neck, the deathly pale, expressionless face, and the twisted limbs were all too familiar—it was the same black creature from the train station platform. But now, blending in with the mutated scorpions, it didn’t seem out of place at all. In fact, it appeared to be leading them.
Yu Xi took out her phone and typed a few words for Lin Wu to see: it’s commanding them.
Lin Wu nodded. Scorpions feared many things, and fire was one of them. Yet these scorpions showed no hesitation around the campfire, attacking in waves. It could be due to their mutation or because something was controlling them.
The two groups of scorpions had already engaged the travelers, but the black creature—the
Black Crawler
, as Lin Wu temporarily named it—remained at the rear of the swarm, hiding in the darkness beyond the fire’s glow.
The travelers, already struggling due to the surprise attack and the fact that one of them was poisoned and unconscious, found themselves completely overwhelmed. Their strength wasn’t lacking, but they were vastly outnumbered. Worse still, they noticed that the number of scorpions kept increasing.
Lin Wu typed on his phone and showed it to Yu Xi: that thing—the Black Crawler—will keep summoning more scorpions.
Yu Xi glanced at the fresh wave of scorpions emerging and typed back: if this keeps up, we’ll be discovered too. You stay here.
She put away her phone and took out the Air Hair Dryer, motioning briefly before silently moving across the rocks.
Her movements were controlled and soundless. In just a few leaps, she climbed higher, circling around to the other side of the travelers’ campsite.
She crouched at the edge of a rock, carefully aiming the Air Hair Dryer at the Black Crawler hidden in the darkness. It was highly alert, immediately sensing something as soon as the red targeting light locked onto it.
Its elongated neck shot up, golden slit pupils staring directly at Yu Xi’s position.
But it was already too late. The moment she locked on, she fired. The Air Hair Dryer’s air blast was incredibly powerful, tearing a massive hole through the Black Crawler’s thin body. Black, putrid liquid splattered in all directions as it writhed on the ground, convulsing for a few moments before going completely still.
Only then did the travelers notice the Black Crawler lurking behind the scorpions.
“Why is this thing outside the station too? This is disgusting!”
“Who fired that shot?! It came from over there!”
“Don’t worry about that now! Whoever it was, they just helped us. The scorpions are still here—stay focused!”
“Wait… they’re not attacking as aggressively anymore!”
Sure enough, the scorpions, without their commander, had lost their relentless drive. Their coordinated assault faltered, and as the travelers pushed forward, the remaining scorpions scattered. Some even recoiled from the fire, retreating. Once the travelers fully gained the upper hand, the entire swarm dispersed into the cracks and shadows beneath the rock formations.
Among the travelers, an older man stepped forward and called out toward where the attack had come from. “Whoever helped us, we really appreciate it! We’re all travelers here. If you’re interested, we’re forming a team to explore this place together!”
No one responded.
Yu Xi had already slipped back into the hidden crevice where she and Lin Wu had set up camp.
Their campsite was in a completely different direction from where she had fired, and they were high enough that the travelers had no chance of spotting them unless they spent the entire night searching the surrounding terrain.
But Yu Xi knew they wouldn’t.
As expected, after calling out a few more times with no answer, the man gave up.
He figured the shooter might be cautious, fearing betrayal from a larger group. Given how discreet they were yet still willing to help in a crucial moment, he didn’t want to pressure them.
Meanwhile, the poisoned traveler’s companion took out some medicine to treat his wound while the others cleaned up the aftermath of the battle. Several dead scorpions lay sprawled on the sand, their exoskeletons cracked and oozing venom. One had fallen directly into the fire and was now burning, filling the air with an oddly savory, charred scent.
The smell made a few of the travelers, who had only eaten instant noodles and canned food, instinctively swallow in hunger.
One of them eyed the roasted scorpion hesitantly.
Before he could say anything, another traveler immediately warned him, “Don’t even think about it. These things are venomous as hell. One sting knocked a guy out cold—you want to put that in your mouth? Let’s just get some rest and head out tomorrow.”
With that, the group settled in for the night.
On the other side, after returning to her spot, Yu Xi checked the countdown on her phone and motioned for Lin Wu to rest, taking over the remaining night watch.
Lin Wu insisted that she continue resting, but he couldn’t argue against her—between the two of them, she was the one who made the decisions.
However, the remaining hours of the night were far from peaceful.
Yu Xi had only made it halfway through a movie, listening with one earbud in, when commotion broke out again at the campsite below. Once again, a swarm of scorpions was being driven by a Black Crawler, this time coming from another direction.
The travelers were already on high alert. Having learned from their previous encounter, they worked together—while some distracted the scorpions, one fighter with a special ability circled around to take out the Black Crawler first. Only then did they manage to scatter the scorpions once again.
This swarm seemed different from the previous one, but both had been lurking near the rocky mountains. It was unclear what was attracting them—or rather, what was attracting the Black Crawlers.
After some discussion, the group of travelers decided to extinguish their fire. In the pitch-black desert night, firelight and warmth were too obvious as a beacon.
This time, the scorpions did not return.
Instead, something else came.
Yu Xi noticed the disturbance below just as the battle had already begun. In the pitch-darkness, a dozen pairs of glowing eyes flickered and darted, fixated on the travelers.
As she focused, she recognized them—hyena eyes. These night-vision predators had either been drawn by the travelers’ scent or by the charred aroma of roasted scorpion meat. They attacked in a coordinated pack, completely unfazed by the travelers’ weapons.
Eventually, one quick-thinking traveler reignited the fire and hastily crafted torches, using them to drive the hyenas away.
After that, none of the travelers dared to sleep.
The Desolate Land lacked water and all basic resources. This scarcity had made the creatures here even more aggressive.
By dawn, they had packed up their campsite and waited for sunrise.
An hour later, the sun rose from behind the rocky mountains. Using the sunrise as a reference, Yu Xi synchronized the time on both of their phones to 6:00 AM.
Below the mountains, the travelers ate a simple meal of bread and water, packed up their supplies into their item slots or storage spaces, grabbed their weapons, and set off in the direction they had decided on the previous night.
Meanwhile, inside the tent, Lin Wu was waking up. He hadn’t slept well in the second half of the night, being repeatedly disturbed by the sounds of battle below. But since Yu Xi had been on watch, he had only peeked outside the tent briefly each time before deciding it was safe enough to go back to sleep.
Before Lin Wu had even fully woken up, Yu Xi had already finished her morning routine. She pulled a bottle of sunscreen and a few pairs of cooling arm sleeves from her storage, preparing for the brutal daytime heat.
Lin Wu placed steaming bowls of beef ramen and a few tea eggs on the camping table, while Yu Xi poured a small basin of warm water for him to wash up. His limited storage space was mostly filled with drinking water, and he hadn’t planned on wasting any on washing.
“Don’t,” Yu Xi said, stopping him from declining. “We’ll be sitting in the same car all day. You should at least wash up—this much water won’t make a difference.”
Lin Wu: …
**
Half an hour later, after another quick survey of their surroundings, the two of them descended the rocky mountain. Yu Xi pulled out the Jeep, switching places so that Lin Wu drove while she rested in the passenger seat.
The Jeep followed the direction of the rocky mountains, with Lin Wu occasionally checking their heading against the compass.
Yesterday, when they had arrived at this station, it had been just before sunset. The temperature had already exceeded 40°C, making the heat feel suffocating.
Today, three hours into their journey, the Jeep’s dashboard showed an outside temperature of 46°C.
And the sun had not even reached its peak yet.
Yu Xi estimated that from noon to the late afternoon, the desert heat could exceed 50°C, possibly nearing 60°C.
It seemed that the other travelers had also scouted the terrain, as almost all of them were heading toward the black silhouettes on the northern horizon.
If this station was meant to function as a survival-based endurance test, then many real challenges were already in play—water scarcity, relentless nocturnal attacks from creatures, and the sheer size of the terrain, which meant finding the hidden departure station would require a long and grueling trek.
Judging by the B-rank difficulty of this station, it was unlikely that there would be additional extreme obstacles along their path.
Otherwise, if so many travelers struggled to reach the north only to find they had gone in the wrong direction, most of them would end up trapped and dying from lack of food and water. That would no longer be a B-rank difficulty.
Since they were all heading the same way, encounters between travelers were inevitable—especially for Yu Xi and Lin Wu, whose Jeep made them both highly visible and a noticeable target.
Throughout their journey, they came across several groups of travelers, most of whom were on foot. Some waved, hoping to hitch a ride, while others, with more ruthless temperaments, attacked as soon as they realized the Jeep wasn’t stopping.
The first time they were attacked, Yu Xi was about to roll down the window to retaliate, but Lin Wu stopped her. Instead, he pulled out the “Iron Rod,” which had once been a bound weapon but was now considered a skill, and activated its shield.
A translucent energy arc immediately enveloped the Jeep, blocking the attacks from behind.
Once the “Iron Rod” exhausted its defense points, it required a defense skill card to recharge. Ever since entering this world, all of Lin Wu’s accumulated defense skill cards had disappeared, leaving him with only two, which took up two of his inventory slots.
Like Yu Xi, he was careful to save powerful attack or defense tools for when they were truly necessary.
The Jeep accelerated again, quickly leaving the furious travelers in the dust.
At noon, they ate a simple lunch of hamburgers and iced coffee inside the car.
They had no plans to stop. The car’s air conditioning worked best while in motion, and outside, the temperature had already soared to 55°C. Even with Yu Xi’s physical endurance, she had no desire to step out into the relentless desert heat, where there wasn’t a single patch of shade.
By 3 PM, they finally crossed the vast expanse of rocky desert. The once-solid ground gradually turned to sand, and sand dunes began appearing more frequently on both sides. Fortunately, a faint trail was still visible, winding its way north.
Both Yu Xi and Lin Wu frowned at the sight of this road.
“In a place this desolate, a road means people,” Yu Xi pointed out. “No… not just people. This isn’t a footpath—these tracks were made by vehicles.”
“Be careful,” she warned. “Don’t drive too fast. Watch the terrain.”
Lin Wu nodded. The Jeep continued forward at a cautious pace. After another half hour, they had fully entered the desert. The ground became increasingly soft, and alongside the sand dunes, they saw more oddly shaped rock formations.
The mountains here had been heavily eroded by the wind, their surfaces pitted with craters and jagged edges. Some rose over 100 to 200 meters high, with thick layers of sand accumulating at their bases. They steered clear of these areas to avoid getting stuck in the sand and being forced to continue on foot.
The attack came without warning.
A massive plume of sand erupted just ahead of the Jeep, swirling into the air before crashing down onto the windshield.
Yu Xi’s first thought was a sandstorm.
But in the next second, every hair on her body stood on end.
“Reverse! Back up! Now!” she shouted, gripping Lin Wu’s arm with urgency.
Lin Wu rarely saw Yu Xi like this—especially after their reunion, where she had become even more composed than before. Even when they had been surrounded by Black Crawlers at the station, she had remained calm and vigilant. But now, she was issuing an order with an almost frantic urgency.
At this critical moment, Lin Wu’s body reacted faster than his mind. Before he could fully process her words, his hands and feet were already moving—a quick shift to reverse gear, an immediate hard brake, and a rapid acceleration backward.
The next second, the sand in front of them began to shift violently.
A thin, raised trail of disturbed sand streaked toward them, keeping perfect pace with the Jeep’s retreat.
It looked as if something massive was lurking beneath the thick sand, slicing through the surface with an enormous blade. The speed and force of its movement sent sand flying high into the air, forming a clearly visible track.
“Faster!” Yu Xi kept her eyes locked on the sand ahead, not daring to blink.
Lin Wu frowned—he had already floored the gas pedal, but the desert terrain limited their speed. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he spotted a large rock formation sloping upward, leaning against a towering mountain.
Without hesitation, he yanked the steering wheel hard and pressed the accelerator to its limit, sending the Jeep racing in reverse up the rocky incline.
The vehicle escaped the soft sand, climbing onto the solid rock slope.
“Get ready—I’m putting the car away!” The Jeep’s backseat and trunk were filled with supply crates from Yu Xi’s inventory space. She grabbed Lin Wu’s arm, and just as the Jeep reached the end of its momentum and was about to slide back down, she swiftly stored it in her inventory.
Both of them landed lightly on their feet, instantly leaping further up the rock slope.
Lin Wu activated his defensive shield, standing protectively in front of Yu Xi.
But in the very next second, the ground beneath them trembled violently.
A deep, earth-shaking roar echoed through the desert as the massive rock they had just landed on shuddered—and then, as they were thrown upward from the impact, the thing hiding beneath the sand finally revealed a portion of its body.