Chapter 223
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The sounds of gunfire and explosions intensified, tearing apart the night into a mixture of day and night.
“…Report! Team 3 has been annihilated!”
“…Report! Team 16 has been annihilated!”
“Flybird 8 is about to crash, wishing you safety!”
“We’ve lost contact with the armored team!!! I repeat, we’ve lost contact with the armored team!”
“The armored team has been annihilated. I personally saw anomalies getting into the tanks, and they were all killed!!!”
“Report! Team 9 is about to be annihilated, comrades, wishing you safety!”
“Flybird 13 is about to crash, wishing you safety!”
“Flybird 12 is about to crash, wishing you safety!”
“Report! Artillery Team 2 has been annihilated!”
“Fire!!! Fire!!!”
“Have all the anomaly interference devices been activated?!”
“…Hurry up and replenish them, quickly.”
Row after row of soldiers fell in battle, and the soldiers behind them hesitated without a moment and moved up to replace them. Humans slowed down the progress of the anomalies at the cost of becoming corpses, but it only slowed them down by a bit.
Amidst the piles of corpses and blood, an old soldier anxiously pulled his comrade into a trench, vigorously slapping his comrade’s face. “Old Zhang, Old Zhang, wake up! Snap out of it!”
Old Zhang laid on the ground in a daze, his pupils constricted, his face turning blue, and his mouth wide open. He had been hit by the mental shock of the anomalies. If he wasn’t saved in time, he would be scared to death!
The old soldier slapped Old Zhang’s face hard, pulling his ears and shouting loudly the names of Old Zhang’s wife and son. But Old Zhang showed no reaction, his breathing becoming weaker and weaker. The old soldier crawled and rolled to the box containing mental recovery syringes, grabbed a syringe, and injected Old Zhang several times. Finally, Old Zhang took a deep breath, recovering his senses from the state of mental collapse. He looked at the old soldier blankly and hoarsely asked the first question, “Did we… win?”
Upon hearing this, tears streamed down the old soldier’s face. “No… but it’s coming soon! We will definitely win!”
Old Zhang revealed a smile uglier than crying. “Okay… okay… Old Wen, help me up. Let’s continue. We will definitely win.”
The old soldier pulled the stiff Old Zhang up, but his body still hadn’t regained mobility. In the distance, screams of comrades could be heard.
When the two looked up, they saw an anomaly with four legs and a body covered in black jumping into the crowd, biting off half of a soldier’s head. The anomaly turned its head and crawled towards the two.
The old soldier wanted to run, but his legs felt weak, and he couldn’t carry another person. Old Zhang said, “Old Wen, you go! Leave me behind, run!”
“Old Zhang, I promised your son to bring his father back!”
“Never mind me, just run.” Old Zhang’s lips trembled, struggling to roll off the old soldier, “Old Wen, check the pockets of my clothes.”
The old soldier choked back tears, reached out and found a bundle of tightly wrapped money from his companion’s chest. Old Zhang grinned, “If you can survive, if our world can return to normal, give this money to my wife. Tell her it’s the tuition I saved for our son. Tell her to take care of my mom. Old Wen, my mom is disabled, she can’t run fast, my wife is fat, she can’t run fast either, we must win, we can’t let the anomalies kill our families!”
The old soldier was driven away by Old Zhang, who stuffed the still warm money into his own chest and turned to look. The anomaly chased after him, but Old Zhang desperately grabbed its foot, shouting at the old soldier, “Run!”
“Ah! I’ll kill you, you anomaly!”
The four-legged anomaly lowered its head and bit off half of Old Zhang’s body, then continued to chase forward. But after chasing for two steps, the anomaly slowly stopped, lowering its head strangely to look at its foot.
Just now, even though the human whose body had been half-eaten was dead, his hand was still tightly gripping the anomaly’s foot, using his remaining half of his body to try to slow down its pace.
…
The loss of life on the battlefield never ceased. After Li Sanxin strangled an anomaly with surgical thread, he heard through his earpiece, “The first line of defense has been breached!”
Li Sanxin looked up abruptly. In the midst of the gunfire, the soldiers of the first defense line had already been killed.
Human bodies piled up everywhere, ashes floated in the air, and some anomalies were devouring human bodies.
Not far away, more anomalies were approaching, and a breach had already been opened in the second defense line in an instant.
Li Sanxin clenched his fists, his eyes turning red as he looked at the scene, gritting his teeth to find Lin You. Lin You was dealing with an anomaly monster, and Li Sanxin ran over, using the cry of the ghost baby in his belly to make the monster pause, allowing Lin You to use his wolf claws to remove the anomaly’s head and then stuffing a grenade into it.
The grenade exploded the monster’s body, but the shattered monster body hadn’t died yet. The shredded flesh wriggled and tried to regroup. Lin You quickly found the heart of the monster in the shredded flesh, lifted his foot, and crushed the heart. After the heart was crushed, the monster finally died completely.
“Lin You,” Li Sanxin asked anxiously, “Are the anomalies advancing too fast?”
Lin You looked at the group of anomalies with a serious face, “That’s right, there are more of them than I anticipated, and they’re faster.”
“If they keep up at this rate, the second defense line will soon be finished! Lin You! Quickly get the talents and half-anomalies from the third defense line to help. These ordinary people have too high casualty rates, they shouldn’t be the main force against anomalies! They simply don’t have the power to deal with anomalies!”
Conventional weapons might be useful against some low-rank anomalies, but for most anomalies, conventional weapons attacks are futile. Only special powers can deal with anomalies, and only by completely destroying their hearts can anomalies be killed.
Li Sanxin felt extremely distressed by the deaths of the soldiers because in his eyes, they died too heavily and too easily. They were all heroes; they shouldn’t have died so helplessly!
They shouldn’t have died; this shouldn’t have been their battlefield!
Lin You’s face showed struggle and hesitation, but ultimately he shook his head heavily and said, “No. Their task is to protect the body of the anomaly Lord.”
Li Sanxin was filled with anger, “The anomalies killed so many of us, yet we still have to protect the body of the anomaly Lord. What the h*ll is this joke!”
Lin You insisted, “This is something we must do.”
“Lin You, let them destroy the body of the anomaly Lord, and then come out together to kill the anomalies!” Li Sanxin said sternly.
“No,” Lin You smiled bitterly, “Li Sanxin, I understand your thoughts, and I am also in pain. But no. What use would it be for them to come out? They can kill one anomaly, ten anomalies, a hundred anomalies… but can they kill all the anomalies? They can’t kill them, and we can’t kill them either. Letting them come out just means they’ll die sooner or later. But look at these anomalies—”
Lin You pointed to the anomalies who were constantly approaching the Anomaly Control Bureau, “The fact that so many anomalies have come for the body of the anomaly Lord proves how important the body of the anomaly Lord is to them! So we must protect the body of the anomaly Lord better. The half-anomalies and talents of the third defense line cannot kill all the anomalies, but perhaps the body of the anomaly Lord hides the secret to making all the anomalies disappear!”
So, they must protect this last hope better. So, until absolutely necessary, they cannot destroy the body of the anomaly Lord.
Li Sanxin knew that what Lin You said made sense, but he couldn’t help but feel the pain in his heart, “Do you think there’s still time for us to discover the secret hidden in the body of the anomaly Lord? We’re running out of time!”
Lu Haoxiu ran over panting, his face covered in blood. Without pausing to catch his breath, he said anxiously, “Brother You, Brother Duan asked me to ask you if there are any other talents and half-anomalies besides the third defense line? What about those cultists? Those cultists we captured? Brother Duan said there are also useful people among those cultists!”
Lin You was taken aback, immediately took off his earpiece, and said, “Bring those cultists we captured over immediately! Wait—!”
Lin You glanced at Duan Zege, who was killing anomalies in another direction, covered his earpiece, and asked Lu Haoxiu, “Has Duan Zege ever divined who among the cultists can be used and who cannot?”
Lu Haoxiu shook his head with a bite of his teeth, then turned around to find Duan Zege, “I’ll go ask Brother Duan!”
“No need!” Li Sanxin listened carefully and quickly said, “I heard what Duan Zege said. He said Zhou Wuxin can be used! Zhou Wuxin is on the side of humanity. Let Zhou Wuxin choose the useful cultists. The cultists he picks out definitely won’t betray us.”
Zhou Wuxin?
Lin You had some impression of this person, seemingly a very calm and reserved person with high intelligence. Upon hearing this, he immediately repeated the message into the earpiece.
Li Sanxin ran to kill another anomaly, and couldn’t help but look at Duan Zege with a complex gaze.
Just now, Duan Zege was so far away from them, yet he responded to Lin You’s question as if he had heard it. Such keen hearing can only be achieved by half-anomalies, so Duan Zege is also a half-anomaly?
But Li Sanxin never knew that Duan Zege was a half-anomaly, and he never told them.
The more Li Sanxin thought about it, the heavier he felt, and couldn’t help but glance at Duan Zege again. But what he saw was Duan Zege’s fingertips flying out a thin and tough surgical thread, mercilessly piercing through an anomaly’s chest.
Surgical thread?
Surgical thread!
Why does Duan Zege have surgical thread!
Li Sanxin’s pupils shook, and he was stunned.
On the battlefield, such a moment of distraction is enough to lose one’s life. The anomaly raised its scythe-like arm and charged straight at Li Sanxin—when Li Sanxin finally reacted, he was already too late to dodge.
A violent impact came from the right, and someone hugged Li Sanxin to avoid the anomaly’s attack, rolling on the ground several times. When Li Sanxin regained his senses, he saw Duan Zege standing up from him, helping him up, somewhat angrily and somewhat helplessly, “Are you still distracted during the fight?”
Li Sanxin stared straight at Duan Zege’s fingertips, “Why do you also have ‘surgical thread’?”
Duan Zege’s expression changed, his lips tightly pressed together, and suddenly he said with some apology, “Sorry, Sanxin.”
His voice was low, hoarse, and unpleasant. Li Sanxin looked up at Duan Zege, deadlocked in his gaze, his fists clenched tightly, his palms even torn open, “What do you mean?”
Duan Zege took a deep breath, then used the surgical thread to tie up the anomaly that still wanted to attack them. Li Sanxin saw it very clearly; Duan Zege’s manipulation of surgical thread was much better than his.
“You…” Li Sanxin’s voice was dry.
Duan Zege avoided Li Sanxin’s gaze, smiled bitterly, and said, “If I said that my talent ability is not divination but copying the abilities of others, and your ‘surgical thread’ was also copied by me… would you believe it?”
“Duan Zege! We’re all going to die, humanity is about to fucking perish, and you still refuse to say what secret you’re hiding?” Li Sanxin growled lowly.
Duan Zege paused in his steps as he was about to leave, turning to look at Li Sanxin, stubbornly saying, “Perhaps we may die, but humanity will not perish.”
“Humanity will never perish, Li Sanxin. When this battle is over, I will explain everything to you. But for now, you cannot be distracted anymore.”
Duan Zege took off his hat and squatted down, covering the face of a soldier’s corpse lying at his feet, looking towards Zhou Wuxin and the other cultists who were being led out of the Anomaly Control Bureau with handcuffs, “No, perhaps we won’t die either.”
As long as they can hold on until Lou Yan and Fu Xuezhou arrive, they won’t die.
Suddenly, the anomalies howled excitedly, and everyone still alive on the battlefield looked towards the group of anomalies. In the center of the group of anomalies, a gigantic anomaly, resembling a spider, was slowly approaching them.
Countless tentacles waved in the monster’s abdomen, and its crimson eyes were full of madness. Its eight sturdy arms supported its body.
Saliva dripped from the monster’s mouth, and with each step, the ground trembled.
“Yi… uh…”
Humans looked up, shocked and bewildered, at this giant monster and at Wen Jiu seated on top of its head.
The incomprehensible murmurs from the monster’s mouth carried strong mental contamination, instantly causing the soldiers closest to it to either die of fright or rush towards the giant anomaly like madmen.
Li Sanxin looked at the anomaly in a daze, feeling a sense of powerlessness rising from the depths of his heart, “Duan Zege, are we really not going to die?”
Duan Zege’s eyes were full of fear, his teeth trembling as he almost shivered with fear of the gigantic anomaly, his entire body stiffened in place.
But he still made an effort, a desperate effort, to suppress the urge to turn and run away, speaking in a trembling voice, “We won’t die, as long as Lou Yan and Fu Xuezhou can arrive, we can survive.”
Lou Yan.
You must come back quickly, even faster.
***
Author’s note:
Wuwuwu, Duan Zege is really scared
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