Chapter 100: The Lurking Arena (Part 2)

Chen Hao parted the bushes with a branch and only relaxed after seeing the player's corpse from the side. After absorbing the enemy's identity card, the number on his own card changed to 2.

The identity card was taken away, and Fat Dragon's corpse also vanished. Chen Hao parted the bushes and hid into the tree hollow. He rearranged the thatch at the entrance and cleverly used some leaves to cover the fresh soil. Tree hollows in the jungle were indeed good hiding spots, but this one was still rudimentary. As long as someone spotted the thatch gaps and aimed at the entrance to fire, the player hiding inside would be like a frog in a well—stuck there. The player from just now was killed that way.

Of course, Chen Hao would not repeat Fat Dragon's mistake. He took out his hatchet and began digging. The soil near the tree roots was relatively soft, and excavating a half-person-high pit would not take long. Half an hour later, Chen Hao entered the dug pit and, after squatting to check, began studying the tree trunk above his head.

In the jungle, the tree hollows of large trees usually had decaying wood in the middle, and expanding the space upward was not difficult. Fat Dragon, feeling the tree hollow was already safe enough, had been too lazy to expand the space in the up and down directions, and thus suffered a miserable death at Chen Hao's hands.

In Chen Hao's memory, the essentials for hiding in a tree hollow were to expand the space both upward and downward. Digging downward to create a half-person-high space was for defense; if multiple enemies discovered someone hiding in the tree hollow, they could half-squat in the pit below. No matter how they fired at the entrance, it would be useless. Expanding the space upward was to widen the view; one could crawl from the tree roots up to the center of the large tree and even to the treetops, taking in everything around and killing more enemies.

It took Chen Hao more than two hours to expand the tree hollow space, but it was worth it. An expanded tree hollow became a headache for players in the later stages of the game, let alone now. From inside the large tree, he climbed to the treetop position and made a hole in the trunk. He discovered that within a fifty-meter range, five players were hiding.

Players encountering a large tree with dense foliage would surely observe it carefully. However, since Chen Hao had climbed up from inside the tree, the players who had checked the large tree had not noticed him. During the expansion of the tree hollow's internal space, gunshots rang out several times outside, but they were all players who could not endure the patience and got eliminated first. The remaining five players were steady and did not dare to act rashly.

More than half of Chen Hao's body was inside the tree hollow, with his head hidden among the branches and leaves. He was outlasting these five players in patience. Including Chen Hao, six people did not move. Ten minutes later, a player refreshed in the grass less than ten meters from the large tree. Chen Hao immediately aimed at that player and pulled the trigger.

"Bang."

Players in the hiding field had a shooting attribute as high as 80. At ten meters, it was almost a one-hundred-percent hit. The unlucky player who just refreshed was killed by Chen Hao. After firing, Chen Hao immediately withdrew back into the tree interior and slipped back to the roots. He parted the thatch and crawled to the side of the just-killed player to take his identity card, then crawled back into the tree hollow.

Other players hiding observed the thatch and knew someone was hidden under the large tree, but they did not know about the tree hollow. Players nearby could not endure it anymore. He crawled close to the large tree and, when still twenty meters away, fired three shots in a row at the thatch by the large tree.

The player who fired did not know if those three shots hit the target. He had earlier confirmed that the player hiding under the large tree had taken an identity card and slipped away, thinking the hit probability was very high. If killing an enemy without taking the identity card, he would never feel at ease. So he crawled close to the large tree. There was no corpse in the thatch by the large tree, giving him a foreboding feeling...

After slipping back into the tree hollow, Chen Hao immediately half-squatted in the dug pit. Bullets fired by players passed over his head through the tree hollow. Hearing the rustling sounds, he could confirm the enemies were at the edge of the tree hollow, but he did not open fire because there were likely more than one players near the large tree.

The player did not discover the corpse. He fired another shot at the tree roots, then reached out to part the thatch. Looking at the tree hollow before him, he hesitated for a moment, took out a tool shovel, and drilled inside, wanting to occupy this good hiding spot.

Chen Hao suddenly stood up. The player had just bumped into him. After swinging his hatchet to flip over the enemy, Chen Hao did not rush to take his identity card but instead blocked the body at the entrance. More than ten meters from the large tree, another enemy pulled the trigger and fired several shots in a row into the body.

Chen Hao squatted back into the pit, took the enemy's identity card and fused it, then listened upright to the surroundings. Soon, the player who had just fired reached the entrance. This time, Chen Hao did not wait for the opponent to enter the hole. In the gap of the opponent's six shots toward the tree hollow, he straightened up and pulled the trigger to eliminate the opponent...

Chen Hao obtained the fourth identity card. After returning to the tree hollow, he no longer squatted in the pit but climbed to the treetop to observe. The sounds near the large tree attracted the attention of the hiding players. The remaining three players were all approaching the large tree, and their distances were not far.

Chen Hao sat on the treetop, aimed at the nearest player, and pulled the trigger. Two shots killed that player in the grass. While the other two players were stunned, he raised his gun again and aimed, killing them in the same way.

Confirming that no players were hiding nearby, Chen Hao slipped down to take the identity cards from the three players. Each time he took an identity card, he would first observe the surroundings because players might refresh at any time. When he stood up to take the second player's identity card, a tall, blonde, blue-eyed player suddenly appeared in front of him.

The player looked panicked, raised his gun to aim, but Chen Hao had already fired first and headshotted him. After collecting all the identity cards, the number on his own identity card changed to 8. He just needed to kill two more players for the first hiding attribute point to be obtained.

This map, the jungle, was clearly a suitable location for hiding. Players would appear at any time nearby, so Chen Hao did not go elsewhere but sat on the treetop observing the surroundings. He discovered three more players refreshed one hundred meters away, and these players immediately tried to slip into the jungle to hide. He entered the tree trunk and hid.

The three players crept forward from three directions. They did not know they had been spotted and cautiously entered the bushes. The large tree where Chen Hao was located was extremely conspicuous. The three players first observed the treetop, and only after discovering no one was on the tree did they dare to advance. Just as the three discovered that others existed and became vigilant with each other, Chen Hao returned to the treetop and raised his gun to aim again, obtaining three more identity cards.

The expanded tree hollow was extremely safe. Chen Hao hid in the tree hollow for more than ten hours, and continuously players fell into his claws. Looking at the number 99 on the identity cards, and then at the hundredth identity card on his right hand, he could not help but mutter, "So fast, I have already taken down one hundred. I wonder who the tree hole I painstakingly dug will benefit..."

After obtaining an identity card in the hiding field, if it is not fused with one's own identity card, one will disappear upon leaving the hiding field, eliminating the possibility of players cheating. After placing the two identity cards together, the number on Chen Hao's identity card changed to 100. A system prompt rang in his ears: "Player Chen Ba Xian, your kill count has reached the upper limit of 100. You have been kicked out of the hiding field. Congratulations on increasing 10 hiding attribute points."

Returning to the north gate of Penglai County Town, Chen Hao shook his head somewhat regretfully. If he could keep killing indefinitely, how good it would be to kill 400 players at once and obtain 40 attribute points in one go? Unfortunately, the system setting that obtaining 10 attribute points would forcibly kick one out of the hiding field. The next time entering, to obtain the eleventh hiding attribute point, he would have to kill 110 enemies. Even if he could chain kills, he would have to kill 1,100 people to obtain 10 attribute points again.

The lowest-level hiding field had 1,000 players inside. Players like Chen Hao who had obtained 10 hiding attribute points, the next map entered would refresh 10,000 people, and the competition ratio would be even more brutal than the low-level hiding field. However, for expert players, an increase in hiding field numbers was not entirely a bad thing. As long as one could survive, the speed of killing enemies would also be much faster.