The steak knife was slowly but firmly inserted into Jia Lai's eye socket. Just as the tip of the knife was about to touch his eye membrane, Zhang Heng suddenly withdrew the knife in his hand and stabbed it into the sand at his feet without warning.
On the other side, Jia Lai did not feel the joy of escaping death. Instead, a look of horror flashed in his eyes.
At this time, Zhang Heng could finally see what the thing under the sand looked like. It was a rattlesnake, one of the most terrifying venomous creatures in the desert. Unlike other venomous snakes, its venom produced a special enzyme after entering the human body, causing muscle decay and nerve fibers to be destroyed. Once it entered the nervous system, it could even lead to brain death.
After being bitten by a rattlesnake, if the venom injected exceeded a certain amount and the antivenom couldn't be injected in time, the probability of death was very high.
Judging from its tail ring, the rattlesnake that Zhang Heng nailed to the ground should have just reached adulthood. Its body length was about a meter, and with its tawny skin, it was hard to spot it in the sand.
Under normal circumstances, rattlesnakes were not very aggressive, and they rarely took the initiative to attack humans. Unless they were cornered or angry, their first choice was to escape. Now that the sandstorm outside was so strong, rattlesnakes wouldn't risk being swept away to hunt for food.
Therefore, there was only one possibility for this rattlesnake to appear here.
"You don't really think I'll believe what you said, do you? The item you found on Nancy that allows you to communicate with animals in a certain area hasn't reached its final usage, right?" Zhang Heng said calmly.
"So, you've been guarding against this all this time?" Jia Lai was surprised, and then he remembered something. "Last night, when we encountered a coyote, you didn't abandon us and run away. Was it because you suspected that the situation had something to do with me?"
Zhang Heng nodded.
"Tsk tsk, what a troublesome opponent."
While talking, Jia Lai seized the time to recover his strength. He greedily took a few breaths of air, but then the sand in his throat made him cough violently again.
"Ahem, well, this round is a draw. Next round … I will find a way to kill you in the next round."
"There is no next round," Zhang Heng said calmly. "This is the end. If I didn't wait for you to use your last trump card, do you really think you can fight me until now with your skills?"
Zhang Heng grabbed the rattlesnake's tail and cut its head open with the sharp steak knife. He then threw the rattlesnake's carcass far away, pulled out the knife from the sand, put it back in his hand, and walked towards Jia Lai. His stamina did not seem to have been depleted at all.
"What kind of monster are you?" The latter smiled bitterly. "This is my eleventh round of the game, and my fifth solo round. I've seen all sorts of players, and there are some powerful ones among them, but it's the first time I've met someone as versatile as you, and you don't seem to have any weaknesses at all. How is this possible? Just how many games have you played?"
"If you don't count this time, there have been four rounds." Zhang Heng paused.
"But for me, these four rounds are long enough."
Jia Lai raised his eyebrows, and a look of surprise flashed in his eyes. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but when Zhang Heng walked in front of him, Jia Lai suddenly jumped up from the sand, and at the same time, smashed an apple-sized stone in his hand at Zhang Heng's temple.
Zhang Heng's expression didn't change. He just moved sideways, and the next moment, Jia Lai's stone missed him. His whole body staggered two steps under the inertia, and he fell to his knees in the sand again. But then, Jia Lai discovered something that horrified him. The clothes he wrapped around his face to block the sand and dust had disappeared.
Almost at the same time, he swallowed a mouthful of sand, and his coughing became more and more intense. Jia Lai knew how dangerous it was to expose his mouth and nose to the sandstorm, and he couldn't care less about how funny he looked right now. He quickly tried to take off his pants, but Zhang Heng did not give him the chance.
He used the same method Jia Lai used on him before, strangling the latter's neck from behind. Jia Lai tried his best to open his mouth, but the more he tried to breathe, the more sand he inhaled. Jia Lai's expression became more and more horrified.
He wanted to pry Zhang Heng's arm away, but the lack of oxygen made him lose strength even faster, and his brain was getting more and more confused. Just before Jia Lai lost consciousness, he heard the faint roar of the jeep's engine. This meant that NASA was not far from them. The captain was also shouting their names, but his voice was blown away by the strong wind before it could travel far.
Jia Lai never thought that he would be so desperate to be found by NASA at this moment. He used the last of his strength to open his mouth, desperately trying to make a sound. Zhang Heng, who was behind him, also heard the sound of a car approaching. Zhang Heng grabbed a handful of sand from the ground with his other hand and covered Jia Lai's mouth to make sure he couldn't make any more sound.
He was very patient, waiting for two and a half minutes until Jia Lai's resistance became weaker and weaker. When there was no more sound, Zhang Heng finally let go of him.
The expression on Jia Lai's face froze at the last moment. His panic, unwillingness, and despair were all gone. By this time, Zhang Heng had been in the sandstorm for almost half an hour, and he began to feel discomfort in his throat and skin.
The sand in the wind was almost all-pervasive, flowing along his collar, the seam of his shoes, and even through the clothes covering his face. The wind had now reached more than 100 kilometers per hour.
Zhang Heng checked Jia Lai's body as fast as he could, taking away the game items on him. After that, he grabbed the emergency backpack he threw aside and walked back to where he stood. Judging from the sound of the jeep's engine, the jeep should not have found them in this area and was driving away. Zhang Heng took out a flare gun from the emergency backpack and fired a shot at the sky above him.
The red flare rose rapidly in the sandstorm, and the loud noise made by the flare gun traveled far.
After a while, the jeep finally began to turn around. The roar of the engine was getting closer, and Zhang Heng could see the headlights through the yellow sand.
Half a minute later, the jeep stopped in front of him. Because the visibility was too low, the driver was shocked to see Zhang Heng suddenly appear in front of him. Fortunately, he stepped on the brakes in time, and the captain immediately opened the door for Zhang Heng to get in.
"Where are the others?"
"I didn't see them. The sandstorm was too strong, and we got separated."
The captain nodded and patted the driver's seat in front of him. "Gibson, let's take a good look around and see if we can find them."
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