Chapter 374: Crayon

The stones dug into the soles of his feet as Zhang Wenda walked along the zoo path. He gripped his flashlight, held his breath, and moved cautiously forward through the treacherous zoo.

He saw that the monkeys had already released many of the animals. The gates to several enclosures were wide open. An encounter with any one of them would be big trouble.

Looking up again at Jinfeng flying overhead, Zhang Wenda felt a little calmer.

Just as Zhang Wenda was about to say something to his only friend, a cry suddenly rang out from the sky. “CAW~ CAW!! Danger, danger! Danger!”

Zhang Wenda immediately turned and ran toward a nearby thicket. Not long after he dove into the bushes, a herd of upright black goats appeared.

They hopped along the road like zombies, their mouths a bloody mess as they chewed on something. The sight was utterly bizarre.

He wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but the black goats’ shadows seemed to dance wildly with their hops. Staring at the shadows for too long even made his head start to ache.

A few minutes later, after he saw the animals had all left, Zhang Wenda finally let out a breath of relief and emerged from the bushes. He looked in the direction the black goats had gone, his heart still pounding with fear.

‘Damn it,’ he thought. ‘If the monkeys represent people from the Big Circle, then what in the world do these other animals represent? When did the swamp get so many dangerous things?’

Zhang Wenda considered himself a “03,” which meant he was already quite powerful. The three people who had surrounded him weren’t weak either.

But the strange thing was, after arriving here, neither he nor the monkeys were any match for these other animals.

If the power scaling between the two worlds was consistent, it would mean the swamp was hiding, at minimum, several hundred creatures with power comparable to a “03.”

That was absolutely impossible. If the swamp truly held such dangerous creatures, there’s no way it would have attracted so many people to live there. The entire area would have become even more desolate than the plains of Area 4.

Therefore, these animals had to represent something else entirely.

“CAW~ CAW~” Hearing the parrot’s crow-like caw from overhead once more, Zhang Wenda pushed his confusion to the back of his mind and continued following it forward.

‘First, find the aquarium. First, get out of here. As long as I can escape, I can compare notes with Maomao and the others. Then I’ll definitely be able to figure out what these animals are.’

After closely following the parrot in three circles around several enclosures, Zhang Wenda heard the sound of water, but he couldn’t see any nearby.

Just as he was feeling happy about his imminent escape from this hellhole, a chill ran down his spine. He whipped his head around and saw a monkey with a bloody mouth squatting on a lamppost, staring straight at him.

Its eyes were filled with extreme hatred, and it furiously drummed its claws on the road.

It clearly hated Zhang Wenda, but for some reason, it didn’t dare approach him. It could only watch from a distance. Zhang Wenda guessed it was probably one of the Big Circle’s “03” masters.

“You just wait. When I get out of here, this isn’t over between us. I’ll definitely get revenge for Ouyang!” Zhang Wenda forcefully gave it the middle finger, then turned and continued following the parrot.

Soon, the sound of water grew louder. After rounding one more enclosure, Zhang Wenda finally saw the so-called aquarium. However, the “aquarium” was completely different from what he had imagined.

It was an area where large and small water-filled tanks were piled up and arranged on both sides of the path.

Zhang Wenda walked in and saw the aquarium animals inside the tanks. There were many kinds: lions, elephants, tigers, and even zebras.

They were all lying motionless in the tanks, clearly drowned.

Each tank even had a price sticker on its upper-left corner: 3 yuan a piece, 1.5 yuan a piece, 2 yuan a piece.

Zhang Wenda was stunned by the sight. ‘No way, what is this? You can just stuff land animals into water and force it to be an aquarium? What the hell is going on?’

Rather than an aquarium, it looked more like the seafood section of a supermarket. A mother might be able to trick a three-year-old into believing this place was an aquarium, but anyone older would never fall for it.

Suddenly, the parrot swooped down from the sky. It landed on the edge of a glass tank and began to forcefully peck at the eye of the zebra in the water with its beak.

“Stop eating! When we get out, I’ll treat you to an all-you-can-eat feast. We’re at the aquarium. Where’s the door?” Zhang Wenda tilted his head up and urged in a low voice.

Just then, a violent tremor suddenly ran through the ground. When Zhang Wenda felt the vibration and looked to his left, he saw the monkey from before leading a stampede of bizarre animals, kicking up dust as they charged toward the aquarium.

As the tremors made the water in all the tanks slosh around, Zhang Wenda sucked in a sharp breath. He shouted anxiously, “The door! Where’s the exit door!!”

Amid a cacophony of trumpeting elephants and roaring tigers, the glass of the aquarium tanks was continuously shattered underfoot. Water and broken glass poured onto the ground, and the beastly horde surged toward him like a tsunami.

There were no bushes to hide in here. Zhang Wenda was forced to run, darting deeper into the area along the rows of tanks.

But his speed was obviously no match for the horde. He could only watch helplessly as the strange beasts drew closer and closer.

‘What do I do? What do I do!?’ In this desperate situation, Zhang Wenda’s thoughts raced in despair. ‘What the hell is this “yellow” ability?! Did it just throw me into this damn place to die?!’

Just as Zhang Wenda could feel the hot breath of the beasts on his back, his hand brushed against the three crayons in his pocket. In that instant, it felt as if he had grasped a life-saving straw.

‘Crayons?! Crayons must be for drawing!’ Treating it as a last-ditch effort, Zhang Wenda pulled a blue crayon from his pocket and swiped it forcefully through the air. A simple crayon streak appeared in midair, frozen in place.

As Zhang Wenda sprinted forward, the blue crayon line quickly fell behind him.

When the charging animals slammed head-on into the blue line, they were sent tumbling.

When Zhang Wenda saw this, he was completely stunned. The power the blue crayon demonstrated in this world was far greater than he had ever imagined.

‘Maybe…’ A thought struck Zhang Wenda. He quickly drew a line, then pulled down, then drew another line across. After a few simple strokes, a three-dimensional cube appeared in midair.

Moments later, the cube slammed directly into the body of a hippopotamus. Amid the hippo’s agonized cry and the crush of the horde behind it, the cube embedded itself deep into the animal’s abdomen, squeezing its internal organs right out.