Chapter 31: Burning the Spiders

Fang Heng temporarily set the flamethrower on his shoulder on the ground and asked for final confirmation, "Are you ready?"

Liao Bufan gave Fang Heng a thumbs-up.

"Mm!"

Fang Heng controlled his zombie clones to leave the basement passage.

He cautiously took five steps into the passage and pulled a small stone from his backpack.

*Swish!*

Fang Heng threw the stone forcefully toward the end of the corridor.

*Clack! Tap-tap-tap...*

The stone hit the ground, making a series of sounds.

One second, two seconds...

*Scritch, scratch...*

Three seconds later, the sound of something scraping against the walls immediately echoed from within the passage.

Fang Heng turned and ran.

He grabbed the flamethrower from the ground, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and turned to aim the nozzle toward the front of the passage.

*Scritch, scratch...*

The sound approached in an instant.

A bead of cold sweat rolled down Liao Bufan's cheek as he stared intently at the entrance of the passage.

Damn it! How could it make such a huge commotion?

Just how many spider zombies were in this passage?

Liao Bufan's heart began to race uncontrollably.

The first spider zombie rounded the corner and appeared in their line of sight.

It climbed along the left wall, approaching them directly from the side.

It was incredibly fast!

The distance of barely thirty meters was covered in the blink of an eye!

Liao Bufan's face turned pale as he shouted, "Fang Heng!"

Fang Heng did not move.

His eyes were fixed tightly on the corner.

There, zombie spiders were continuously crawling out from all four walls in a frenzy.

There were too many of them, and they were too fast.

Rushing blindly, they even knocked away several wooden frames blocking the intersection!

Wait a little longer!

Fang Heng pressed his index finger against the trigger.

He could hear his own heartbeat.

He wanted to wipe out as many spider zombies as possible in one go!

A massive swarm of spider zombies surged from the corner.

The first spider zombie to burst from the corner had already smelled the scent of living flesh.

With a burst of strength from its twisted limbs against the wall, its entire body suddenly leaped off the ground.

*Sshhh!*

The spider zombie lunged toward Fang Heng.

Liao Bufan screamed, "Fang Heng! Quick!"

Just as the spider zombie was about to swing its sharp claws, Fang Heng held the flamethrower steady and pressed the trigger.

"BOOM!!!!"

The flamethrower roared.

A long stream of pale blue, high-temperature flame erupted from the nozzle.

The spider zombie, which had been lunging directly at the nozzle, was hit head-on by the flames!

"Skreeee!!!"

The spider zombie let out a shrill cry; its entire body was instantly ignited and burst into violent flames, sending its whole body flying backward.

*Thud!*

The zombie crashed to the ground.

Its body continued to writhe and struggle on the floor, but the flames on its body would not go out, emitting continuous, agonizing shrieks.

To be scorched head-on by a flamethrower and still not be dead!

Mutated zombies were truly troublesome!

Fang Heng gritted his teeth inwardly.

He had no time to worry about how much damage the scorching had actually caused.

More spider zombies rushed past the burning, rolling zombie on the ground.

They lunged toward Fang Heng one after another.

"Fang Heng! There are too many!"

Liao Bufan's forehead was drenched in sweat; he immediately turned the fire valve to its maximum setting.

Fang Heng heard him.

But he had no time to answer. Gritting his teeth, he controlled the spitting tongues of fire, pushing the lunging spider zombies back.

"Skree, skree, skree!!!"

The incoming spider zombies were fearless of death, leaping one by one into the sea of fire, only to be incinerated by the concentrated high-temperature flames, rolling backward while engulfed in fire.

"Fang Heng!"

Seeing that the spider zombies were increasing in number, Liao Bufan shouted, "It's not working, prepare to retreat! There are too many of them! We've already used half the fuel!"

Fang Heng's eyebrows twitched.

Retreat my ass!

There was no word "retreat" in this plan at all!

The flamethrower had strong output and fierce firepower, and it felt great to use.

But why was the fuel being consumed so quickly?

In the video Fang Heng had seen in his memory, that player had used a focused flamethrower for nearly half an hour before finishing a single tank of fuel.

How long had it been now?

Could it be that Wirtel had sold him inferior goods?

"Why is it being used so fast?"

"You call this fast?"

Liao Bufan was anxious. He shouted, "We've been running it at maximum power the whole time! Otherwise, we would have been overwhelmed long ago!"

"Understood!"

Fang Heng quickly realized.

In the video he remembered, the player was dealing mostly with ordinary zombies, with only an occasional mutated zombie appearing.

Dealing with that kind of situation didn't require the power to be set to maximum.

But he was currently facing nothing but spider zombies!

Fang Heng had originally wanted to grind for a bit longer.

But there was no choice; fuel was running low.

Fang Heng had no choice but to tilt the flame nozzle and aim it at the gasoline he had set up on the other side of the ground.

*Boom!*

The gasoline on the ground ignited.

The flames surged forward rapidly along the gasoline.

The wooden frames that had previously blocked the corner at the end of the passage were also instantly ignited, burning fiercely.

The burning wooden frames formed a raging wall of fire within a short time!

Spider zombies were extremely afraid of fire.

The entire burning corner of the passage cut off the subsequent waves of incoming spider zombies.

Seeing this, Liao Bufan's eyes lit up.

He understood!

So that's how those wooden frames were meant to be used!

That was freaking brilliant!

Everything had been part of the big boss's plan.

The corners of Liao Bufan's mouth curled up, and his tense nerves relaxed slightly.

Damn it, he had worried for nothing!

With the continuous stream of spider zombies cut off from joining the battlefield, the pressure on Fang Heng and the other was drastically reduced!

Now, they only needed to deal with the remaining spider zombies that weren't quite dead yet.

The flamethrower had reached a dangerous temperature of 91%.

Fang Heng was forced to temporarily close the valve.

If he continued to force it, the durability—and even the maximum durability limit—of the focused flamethrower would drop significantly.

The flames subsided slightly.

Liao Bufan watched the spider zombies before them warily.

His ears were filled with the skittering shrieks of the spider zombies, and the air was thick with the stench of rot and burning flesh.

It was like hell.

Some of the zombies, engulfed in flames, were rolling on the ground struggling, while others tried to flee, attempting to run back, only to be blocked by the wall of fire behind them.

The remaining group was the most troublesome; even while burning, they continued to charge madly toward Fang Heng.

"Boom!!!"

Less than half a minute later, the flamethrower nozzle was still at a dangerous temperature of 89%. Fang Heng had no choice but to press the trigger again.

"Fang Heng, only a quarter of the fuel is left!"

As Liao Bufan spoke, he quickly adjusted the flame efficiency slightly lower.

Fang Heng's brow furrowed deeply.

Mutated zombies were truly a pain!

Even spider zombies with low health and low fire resistance were this difficult to handle, even with a flamethrower in hand!

Leveling up was truly too hard!

Fang Heng was glad he had planned ahead and used an artificial fire wall to block off the entrance to the passage behind them.