Li Qingyu waited on the first floor for about three minutes. Convinced that the monster was indeed stuck, he began to ascend, holding his shotgun at the ready.
He moved cautiously, step by step. Reaching the fifth floor, he carefully peeked out from behind the corner of the stairwell.
The head and upper torso of the Chem-swine went into the gap. Now it could neither move forward nor retreat. A precarious situation.
Li Qingyu checked his shotgun, ran up, and pressed the barrels against the unprotected left ham of the monster. Fire!
With a bang, the flesh on the Chem-swine's leg burst into shreds. The creature let out a heart-wrenching shriek and began to thrash wildly.
Li Qingyu hastily fired a second round into the same spot, completely shattering the knee joint. White bone protruded outwards.
The Chem-swine thrashed even harder, desperately trying to pull its head free. The metal around it creaked and groaned under the strain.
Li Qingyu opened the breech, reloaded, and fired the third and fourth rounds into the same left knee.
The 35-millimeter buckshot had monstrous power, especially at point-blank range. These four shots had effectively amputated the Chem-swine's left lower leg.
"A-a-a-a-a!!"
The savage pain made the monster roar. It jerked with such force that with a terrible screech of metal, it finally pulled its head free from the trap!
Li Qingyu quickly retreated, reloading his weapon on the run.
Having lost a leg, the Chem-swine still crawled towards him – and quite quickly, at the speed of a fast-walking human.
Retreating, Li Qingyu continued to fire at it, but the armor on its torso was too thick. The buckshot, lacking armor-piercing properties, did not inflict serious damage.
Having fired more than a dozen double-loads and seeing their futility, Li Qingyu stopped firing. He decided to simply buy time, hoping the one-legged monster would bleed out.
He led the Chem-swine in circles, but after a couple of laps, he noticed that almost no blood was flowing from the stump. If there was bleeding, it was very weak.
It seemed that some coagulants were circulating in the creature's body, preventing it from dying of blood loss.
Scratching the back of his head, Li Qingyu took out three detonators, tied them in a cartridge pouch, estimated the fuse length and the speed of the crawling monster. He lit them, threw them on the floor, and ran for his life.
The Chem-swine roared, realizing its prey was escaping, and redoubled its efforts, writhing its fat body. It completely ignored the bundle of dynamite lying in its path and crawled directly onto it.
At that moment, the detonators went off.
An explosion thundered. The limbs it was using to support itself were torn off, its abdomen and chest were ripped open. Guts and entrails spilled onto the floor in a bloody mass.
Coughing from the dust kicked up by the explosion, Li Qingyu approached. The Chem-swine was deader than dead.
"Area cleared!"
Announcing this loudly, he began to collect trophies, humming a cheerful tune.
First, the Chem-swine. It had no clothes or pockets, but Li Qingyu needed proof for the black market trader.
This was a Chem-swine, a huge carcass! He couldn't turn it in like an ordinary gang member for 200 talons. Killing such a creature should be worth at least 2000!
Examining the carcass, he decided to cut out the helmet with a knife, along with the metal strip along the spine.
It was a single unit: a helmet and a "spine" with many needles that injected the "Fury Serum" directly into the nervous system. A gruesome device in the grimdark spirit of Warhammer 40k.
Examining the trophy, Li Qingyu noticed seven small protrusions on it, resembling hatches.
He pressed them, and seven cylindrical glass ampoules, the size of a thumb, popped out.
Two were empty, but five contained an unknown red liquid.
Li Qingyu picked up the ampoules, and after consulting his internal database, exclaimed joyfully: jackpot!
Name: Fury Drug.
Cost: 800 talons.
Description: A medicine that grants immunity to pain and maintains a state of intense fury. Also contains components for blood clotting.
Note: You can use the Fury Drug in the Shelter's Medbay to create advanced medicines or injectors.
The Fury Drug was an improved version of the Toxic Needle. High-level preparations could be made from it. What exactly – would become clear after the medical station was built.
Li Qingyu packed the "Spine of Wrath" and the ampoules, then went down to the first floor and cut off all the tattoos from the corpses of the Chem-swines.
Having finished with that, he began a total sweep of the location. Chemical production once operated here, and perhaps valuable items remained.
On the first floor, he rummaged through all the boxes and found a set of test tubes and flasks worth 200 talons. Most importantly, it was a component for upgrading the Medbay. Take it!
On the second floor, a real treasure awaited him: the "Chemical Purification Device." The size of a half-suitcase, worth 25,000 talons! His most expensive find.
And this was also a module for upgrading the Medbay, allowing the purification of substances for creating medicines.
He hit the jackpot! In his joy, Li Qingyu performed a "Thomas spin" on the spot, praised the Emperor, and carefully put the find into his backpack.
On the third floor, there was nothing but trash.
On the fourth, in one of the boxes, he found three unused biofilters. They were suitable for purifying water from microbes and viruses – they would go towards upgrading the water purifier in the shelter.
On the fifth floor, he found a power drill. Heavy, powerful, when connected to power, it could penetrate most of the hive's building materials. Cost – 3200 talons, almost the price of an automatic rifle from the Public Safety Service (PSS).
Having collected the loot, Li Qingyu prepared to leave. He opened the map: the evacuation point was on the 5th floor, near a ventilation pipe.
But he became curious about where the breach in the wall, made by the Chem-swine, led, so he lingered.
Leaving his backpack and drill on the fifth floor, he ran down to the first and found the breached hole.
As soon as he approached the breach, a green timer appeared above his head.
Transition to map: Chemist Gang Base. 10, 9, 8…
Li Qingyu whistled mentally. So, from here, one could get directly into the enemy's lair. He hastily retreated, and the timer disappeared.
Remembering this path, he returned to the fifth floor, picked up his things, and stood by the ventilation. The countdown ended. A brilliant operation! Loot worth 32,500 talons was extracted.