Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 109: Emergency
The soldiers, although filled with various doubts, followed Zhu Yanchen’s instructions and dispersed as planned. As expected, the three large Erosion Swamps paid no attention to this small human team. They were like industrial production machinery on an assembly line, ceaselessly spewing out nightmares.
In theory, Zhu Yanchen shouldn’t have personally taken such a risk. He was, after all, the overall commander of this war. If he were to fall here, Zhu Sheng might not be able to handle the situation, let alone Yi Ning.
To be honest, they hadn’t fully recovered from the shock of Zhu Yanchen’s resurrection until now. It was only that the war diluted this chaos. Suddenly receiving such an absurd and ludicrous command, it was impossible not to feel anxious.
Team C, as agreed upon, launched purification grenades at that thing. The old-style purification grenades dented a significant portion of the Erosion Swamps, obstructing their movement and causing them to slowly rotate in the direction of Team C.
At the same time, Zhu Yanchen adjusted his mask, connected his respirator, and activated the suppression device in his hand.
The appearance of this device was a bit strange. Instead of a firearm, it looked more like a peculiar whisk. As the attention of the Erosion Swamps was drawn away by Team C, Zhu Yanchen climbed to a nearby elevated position and jumped down together with the device.
The person in charge of Team C nearly cursed aloud—the Erosion Swamp was particularly viscous, completely different from ordinary liquid. Even without considering the erosion, if something went wrong, they might suffocate inside. They couldn’t make heads or tails of Zhu Yanchen’s actions.
Zhu Yanchen didn’t carry any threatening weapons and didn’t cause any additional destruction. Consequently, the Erosion Swamps remained vigilant against Team C and attempted to incorporate them into the trajectory of their creations. While they clumsily adjusted their bodies, Team C received an extremely faint signal.
This time, they used launchers with greater penetrating power and fired purification grenades at one of the spherical Erosion Swamp.
The purification grenade slammed into the largest Erosion Swamp, bursting open abruptly. The spherical Erosion Swamp, caught off guard, sustained damage to its brain. Immediately, it was unable to spew out countless small spheres and could only barely maintain its external shape.
The signal came again.
Although the human forces didn’t understand the principle behind it, seeing that the attacks were effective and Zhu Yanchen was still alive, they became more decisive in their actions. Several purification grenades were launched consecutively, and the spherical Erosion Swamp finally couldn’t hold its unique form any longer. The viscous Erosion Swamp flowed to the ground, resembling melting ice cream in a dish.
However, even after that portion of the erosion substance had drained away, they still didn’t catch sight of Zhu Yanchen.
Immediately after, a signal appeared inside the next spherical Erosion Swamp. Moving within the Erosion Swamp was no simple task; no one knew where this guy got his stamina from.
Team C followed the same procedure and wounded another one. This time, the Erosion Swamp learned its lesson. The spherical Erosion Swamp, responsible for creating the “horde”, split from the one that received injuries and began acting separately. The injured spherical Erosion Swamp couldn’t produce erosion spheres anymore but managed to preserve its mobility. As for the largest Erosion Swamp that was responsible for creating ground monsters, it remained intact. It had become smarter and began using the injured spherical Erosion Swamp entities as alarm signals, moving quite diligently.
They caught the Erosion Swamps off guard. From the results, both of the troublesome irregular Erosion Swamp spheres disappeared, which meant the pressure on Yi Ning’s side should be significantly reduced.
The problem lay with the final large Erosion Swamp
The two Erosion Swamp spheres weren’t large in size and had regular shapes. However, they had no idea how Zhu Yanchen identified their “vital points” amidst their exaggerated irregular shapes. Moreover, the thing in front of them was just too enormous, and finding its vital point was probably as difficult as fishing out a coin from a swimming pool.
What was worse, the injured Erosion Swamp spheres detached itself from the large Erosion Swamp causing the flow of erosion on its body to suddenly accelerate, as if it intended to drown Zhu Yanchen within its own body.
This time, no signal came out.
The Erosion Swamp spheres hung in the air, and something fell gracefully from its bottom. Zhu Yanchen still held the suppression device in his hand. Judging by the condition of the device, it was nearly broken.
Zhu Yanchen didn’t waste any time. He propped himself up and ran towards the elevated position where Teams A and B were located. Since the Erosion Swamp sphere couldn’t produce spheres anymore, they directly pursued Zhu Yanchen, attempting to eliminate this particularly troublesome bug.
As a result, this pursuit led them directly into the encirclement formed by Teams A and B. Several elite teams had followed Zhu Sheng for many years and had good reaction speed—they didn’t wait for Zhu Yanchen’s orders and launched an indiscriminate concentrated attack against the pursuing Erosion Swamps.
The poor Erosion Swamp spheres might have evaded the first hit, but it couldn’t escape the subsequent attacks. It barely avoided Zhu Yanchen’s comprehensive destruction of its brain, but it couldn’t dodge the relentless bombardment. No matter how powerful its size was, it couldn’t withstand the elite teams’ relentless and indiscriminate assault.
Soon, the Erosion Swamp spheres couldn’t protect their brains anymore. It attempted to abandon its damaged body, struggling to preserve its incomplete brain. Unfortunately, Marshal Zhu was watching closely. The moment the brain was exposed, he commanded the two teams to concentrate their attacks.
Soon, the sentient Erosion Swamp returned to its primitive state—a thin puddle of erosion substance accumulated on the ground.
“Join up with Team C,” Zhu Yanchen decisively ordered, removing his heavily eroded mask and showing no intention of resting.
“As for the remaining one…”
“Their learning ability is not bad. That one remaining won’t fall into the same trap. It’s most likely adjusting its instructions to have its creations take us out first.”
The soldiers were taken aback. The theory of “lurking and then ambushing” was theoretically feasible, but once they were targeted by the enemy’s large army of monsters, the enemy could also turn the tables by overwhelming them in numbers. They had just defeated the enemy through superior numbers, and now they faced the prospect of history repeating itself—it was truly an unpleasant feeling.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you go to your deaths.”
“But…”
“Run,” Zhu Yanchen said concisely. “The newly spawned army of monsters will target us, and there won’t be any reinforcements near Y City. Moreover, this Erosion Swamp has witnessed our attack methods and won’t stay too far from its army of monsters. Take the opportunity to shift the battlefield elsewhere.”
“We have limited weaponry. We can’t keep playing this cat and mouse game forever.” The leader of team A’s voice became sharp as he glanced at the indistinct horde of monsters in the mist. He had considerable courage, but when faced with an unknown enemy, fear was an instinct for most beings.
“Go over there.” Zhu Yanchen pointed to the black wolf that was currently engaged with Sigma.
Shu Jun had never expected that they would have a chance to meet again on the battlefield.
To stabilize the structure of the black wolf, he used almost all of his available abilities. Through “Creation”, he had manufactured lightweight yet hard erosion bones, and the erosion vines filled the interior of the black wolf, replacing its organs and muscles, preventing the giant wolf from collapsing under its own weight. Sigma had also used numerous powers. During their fight, he sensed at least fifty different abilities.
However, not every ability had sufficient offensive capabilities. The majority were used as distractions to divert his attention. Among them, there were only about three abilities that possessed significant destructive power—
“Spiderweb”, “Paralysis”, and “Bite”.
These abilities weren’t complex. The function of “Spiderweb” was quite straightforward—Sigma could construct a large number of erosion threads in a very short time. These threads were extremely sticky, and even though Shu Jun could suppress the erosion substance, once he was touched by this stuff, his movements would be affected to some extent. Sigma was much larger than the black wolf, so he couldn’t afford to be distracted removing the erosion threads all the time.
“Bite” and “Paralysis” were as their names suggested. Sigma combined them together. Giant jaws would appear in the area where Sigma made contact with Shu Jun and desperately consumed the erosion that Shu Jun had gathered. Once bitten by Sigma, Shu Jun could feel the erosion from his wounds becoming chaotic, no longer obedient, making it difficult to quickly restore his body’s structure.
Sigma used “Spiderweb” and “Paralysis” quite diligently. The black wolf was also trapped between the ruins of two high-rise buildings and could hardly move. Shu Jun was afraid that Sigma would bypass him and attack Y City, while Luo Duan was afraid that Shu Jun would turn around and destroy the Erosion Swamps with brains that Sigma had released. The two giant Erosion Swamps were stuck on the outskirts of Y City, entangled with each other, in a deadlock.
In this manner, both sides fought their own battles, and the battlefield was clearly divided. However, just as Shu Jun shook off the threads from his body and prepared for the next assault, Monday, who was behind his true body, suddenly showed a sign of agitation. “Zhu!”
At this level of battle, Monday was almost useless. However, it had the advantage of having the instincts of a small animal—acute perception and a natural sense of smell for special life forms in its surroundings.
Zhu Yanchen was nearby.
Shu Jun was initially taken aback, but then he couldn’t help but smile. In the past, he never imagined that A’Yan would resort to such tricks.
“Did he bring an Erosion Swamp with him?”
“Yes.”
“Sure enough, he must have led the Erosion Swamp to a crucial location. Let me see… The water tower by the left hind leg of the wolf. Let me know when the Erosion Swamp arrives.”
Monday twitched a few times, indicating that it had heard. Sure enough, Zhu Yanchen rode his motorcycle and led the team straight there. They agilely evaded the black wolf’s massive claws and lured the Erosion Swamp towards the water tower.
“Bah! Bah! Bah!”
Monday made three spitting sounds at the maximum volume, deliberately spraying erosion onto Shu Jun’s neck, afraid that he wouldn’t hear it.
Almost in the next second, Shu Jun manipulated the black wolf to take a half-step back. Taking advantage of Sigma’s lack of response, he stepped on the Erosion Swamp that was chasing behind them with one paw.
This step caught the large Erosion Swamp off guard. It was certainly large enough when facing humans, but compared to the black wolf, its size was equivalent to that of a watermelon to a human. When Shu Jun’s paw came down, it struggled to withstand the impact and almost burst open.
Not to mention the simple-minded Erosion Swamp, even Luo Duan was momentarily stunned. Shu Jun and the humans who had just arrived hadn’t communicated at all. It was already difficult enough for him to perceive the Erosion Swamp, let alone precisely step on it with a single paw.
This step nearly flattened the large Erosion Swamp into a donut shape. It desperately mobilized the erosion in its body, trying to move its brain to a safe corner. Zhu Yanchen didn’t miss this opportunity to observe closely. This time, he didn’t need to infiltrate the Erosion Swamp’s interior. He directly indicated the approximate location of its brain.
The human soldiers lived up to their elite title, launching another fierce attack like a storm.
By the time Shu Jun withdrew his paw, the large Erosion Swamp followed the fate of the two Erosion Swamp spheres—it had also reverted to its original form, crawling on the ground like an ordinary Erosion Swamp.
Zhu Yanchen didn’t delay and had no intention of giving Sigma any time to attack them. The moment the large Erosion Swamp was destroyed, he started his motorcycle, made a sharp turn, and led the team back towards Y City.
But before he could get far, something swept over his head. The black wolf’s large tail drooped, and its tail tip lightly brushed against him in dissatisfaction.
At this moment, the soldiers were busy fleeing the scene, running as fast as they could. Zhu Yanchen intentionally landed at the rear, where no one could see, and clumsily but earnestly blew a kiss.
“Thank you.” He removed his mask and mouthed the words.
A strand of erosion struggled and climbed onto his motorcycle, eroding a line of words in the middle of the handlebars—
“You’ve learned to slack off, A’Yan. What happened to being an upright gentleman?”
“To defeat it, I still have two or three independent battle plans. But regardless of which one, I might get seriously injured… You wouldn’t like that.” Zhu Yanchen gently touched the strand of erosion and replied softly.
Even if Shu Jun couldn’t hear it.
“Also, it’s only fair to return the favor. I’ve left you a little gift.” He smiled and added, “You’ll definitely find it.”
Shu Jun indeed discovered the “little gift” from Marshal Zhu. It was lodged in the pad of his wolf paw.
That was a suppression device in the process of activation, about the size of an apple. Shu Jun hadn’t seen this model before, and he estimated that Zhu Yanchen had created it using the power of the command center during the time they were apart.
He quietly used erosion to hook it into the black wolf’s body and took it into his hand.
It was a sophisticated explosive device that resembled a smoke bomb more than a lethal weapon. On the thick metal casing, a short sentence was engraved—
[For short-term and high-efficiency suppression. If the situation becomes extremely critical, please escape.]
“Meddling fool,” Shu Jun laughed and cursed, tossing the explosive device into the weapons bag behind him. Monday also sensed the oppressive feeling from the object and immediately voiced its discontent.
Luo Duan’s face looked grim.
The entire process happened quickly, taking less than half a minute for the human team to complete the process of impact—killing the Erosion Swamp—and retreating. By the time he realized it, Zhu Yanchen’s group had already gone far away. The surroundings were filled with debris, and the terrain was complex, making it difficult for him to find them.
Moreover, Shu Jun was blocking his way ahead.
He felt a sense of anger, tinged with a hint of grievance—even in such circumstances, humans dared to brazenly use Shu Jun. As a member of the synthetic people, Shu Jun had no resistance to such behavior.
Luo Duan clenched his fist, pressing his hand against Sigma.
“According to the Erosion Swamp’s intelligence, you hid the synthetics and the settlement humans east of Y City, wanting to completely avoid this war.”
His voice was amplified by Sigma’s ability, and Shu Jun could hear it clearly.
“The humans over there are aberrations who won’t live much longer, and the synthetics are my kin, so I won’t let Sigma harm them. And I can understand why you cooperate with humans to protect the synthetics from Sigma. We will have a fair fight… I have to admit, that was my thinking until just now.”
Luo Duan’s voice gradually lowered, and he made no effort to conceal the anger in his tone.
“But now, you’re obstructing me, and it’s not just for the sake of your kin, right?” He growled. “Since you’re so fond of humans, then make a proper choice. Transmit the command—tell the mutant beasts and Erosion Swamps east of the city that they can move.”
The author has something to say:
Shu Ge left a huge paw print on the large Erosion Swamp.
Marshal: Shu Jun is a true warrior (?), he must have sensed the explosive device beneath the thick pad.
Well, that explosive device is not even as big as a pea… Shu Ge, the prince of explosives in Marshal Zhu’s eyes* (…
*Clarity: Referring to the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, where a princess slept on a bed with twenty mattresses and a pea placed at the bottom. In the morning, the princess complained that she had been kept up all night due to something hard in the bed. This made the prince realize that she was a true princess, and the two happily married.
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