Apocalypse: I pick up trash in a survival game

Chapter 431 Scavenger, Craftsman!

After an unknown amount of time, Su Ning suddenly opened her eyes, and a tearing pain instantly swept through her body.

"Hiss—!" She gasped, cold sweat immediately soaking through her tattered clothes.

Every muscle and every bone felt as if it had been crushed and then pieced back together; even the simplest breath brought excruciating pain.

"Where am I?"

She turned her neck with difficulty, and what came into view was a deathly gray world.

The air was filled with a musty, stale smell, mixed with some indescribable metallic odor, which made Suning instinctively frown.

The ground was covered with a thick layer of grayish-white dust, and each of her faint breaths stirred up tiny particles.

The dust was inhaled into his lungs, making him feel very uncomfortable. "Cough cough."

Despite the excruciating pain, Su Ning used his trembling arms to support his body.

This simple action caused Su Ning's vision to go black for a moment, and she almost fainted again.

"Even my self-healing talent can't heal my current body?"

She was horrified to discover that the familiar healing energy within her body seemed to be suppressed by some force, and could only repair her injuries at an extremely slow pace.

Even more terrifying, when she looked down at her body, she saw a scene that sent chills down her spine—

My arms are covered with dense red lines that move across my skin like living things, sometimes contracting and sometimes expanding.

They looked like cracks in flesh, yet they eerily emitted a faint red glow.

Su Ning touched the patterns with trembling fingers and immediately felt a burning pain.

"What...what's going on?"

She frantically checked her entire body and found that the red lines had spread all over her torso and limbs, and even her neck showed signs of their spread.

As her emotions fluctuated, the light from these lines flickered, as if responding to her fear.

Looking around, the desolate scene made her heart sink.

This was clearly not the Cloud Island she was familiar with, nor did it resemble any other system instance world.

The sky was a sickly leaden gray, devoid of sun and clouds, with only an unsettling, uniform light enveloping everything.

"The last moment of system transmission."

Su Ning tried hard to recall the scene before he lost consciousness, the red energy that rushed into his body—the core power of the Minor Rule Destruction Dragon.

It now appears that this force caused the changes in her body, and it is also very likely the reason why she ended up here.

She tried to access the system interface, but found it completely empty.

There was no familiar blue light screen, no mission prompts, and not even the most basic attribute panel could be brought up.

This feeling of being completely out of the system's control terrified Suning even more than the physical pain.

Fortunately, Suning can still utilize its own resources.

She wanted to enter the space and have Oleni heal her.

"We must find a safe place first."

Su Ning gritted her teeth and forced herself to stand up.

Just as she staggered to her first step, the red lines on her arm suddenly began to flash intensely in response to her intense emotions.

At the same time, a low, eerie buzzing sound came from afar, like a warning from some creature. She looked up sharply and saw several blurry figures moving towards her in strange movements on the horizon.

Their movements are not like those of humans, but more like those of puppets controlled by invisible threads, each step carrying an unsettling puppet-like quality.

The scavenger's eye swept over.

[Monster: Puppet]

Talent: Puppet making.

Skill: Silk Entanglement.

Description: A puppet created by some kind of force, who may have been human in life!
"Oh no." Su Ning's eyelids twitched when he saw these puppets.

Suning instinctively wanted to hide, but found that he had nowhere to escape.

The wasteland was completely exposed, without even a decent piece of cover. To make matters worse, the red patterns seemed to be reacting to something in the distance, their light growing increasingly intense, almost seeping through the skin.

At this critical moment, a hoarse voice suddenly rang out behind her:

"If you don't want to die, don't move. And don't enter the space, or you'll die an even more gruesome death!"

Su Ning froze, and before she could turn around, she felt a cold hand on her shoulder.

The next second, the surrounding scenery twisted and changed like ripples on water, and when she came to her senses, she was already in a dark underground cave.

"The aura of the system on your body will attract scavengers and craftsmen." The old man's hoarse voice echoed in the cave. He slowly lifted the hood of his tattered cloak, revealing a wrinkled face.

Those green eyes stood out starkly in the darkness, like two eerie will-o'-the-wisps, openly scrutinizing Su Ning as if admiring a rare treasure.

"I never imagined that after so many years, players from other dimensions would reappear in this forgotten world!" The old man's voice was filled with barely concealed excitement, and his withered fingers unconsciously rubbed his chin.

Suning cautiously took a half step back, his back pressed against the cold stone wall.

She secretly activated her Scavenging Eyes to try and find out the old man's background, but found that her abilities were like a stone sinking into the sea, and she could not see through him at all.

What alarmed Su Ning even more was that the old man seemed to be fully aware of her actions.

"Hehehe," the old man let out a hoarse laugh. Instead of stopping Su Ning's investigation, he took a step forward with great interest, his green eyes flashing with an eerie light. "Look if you want to. I haven't met such an interesting little fellow in a long time."

Just as Su Ning was filled with doubt and surprise, the green light in the old man's eyes suddenly intensified, scanning her from head to toe as if he were scanning her.

When the old man saw the three terrifying forces intertwined within Su Ning's body, he was clearly taken aback.

But what shocked him the most was the [Scavenger] talent hidden deep within Su Ning's soul!
"Huh? You little girl, you actually possess the talent of a scavenger?" The old man's voice suddenly rose, and an incredulous expression appeared on his wrinkled face. "You really can't judge a book by its cover! No wonder you're in this world. Are you also a player banished by the system?"

Su Ning was shocked. The Heavenly Lock should have blocked all detection, and even Mu Feiyu's top-notch appraisal talent could not see through her secrets.

But this strange old man saw through her secret at a glance!
"Old man, where is this place?" Su Ning suppressed his shock and prepared to change the subject and ask about other things.

The old man laughed heartily, his laughter echoing through the cave. "Little girl," he said, "your little secret lock won't fool the gravedigger in the Land of Exile." He pointed to his glowing green eyes. "These are the Eyes of True Sight, capable of seeing through all disguises and seals. As for here..."

The old man suddenly lowered his voice and leaned closer mysteriously: "Welcome to the world's junkyard, the final destination of all things discarded by the system."

Seeing that Su Ning still looked bewildered, the old man sighed and turned to walk deeper into the cave.

“Come with me, this is not the place to talk. Those scavengers and craftsmen have very keen noses and eyes, they will find this place soon.”

"Old man, what are the 'scavenger' and 'craftsman' you just mentioned?" Su Ning couldn't help but ask. "And why did my scavenger talent surprise you so much?"

The old man answered without turning his head: "Here, scavengers are beings who possess the [Scavenger Talent] just like you, while craftsmen..." He suddenly stopped, turned around, and revealed a strange smile, "are madmen who try to use their craftsman talent to create and rewrite systems."

Suning was shocked after hearing this!