Chapter 105: Wounded Competitors |
Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense
105 – Wounded Competitors
The Gobi Desert, located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, 400km northwest of Beijing, the capital of China.
In the vast desert where not even a village exists within a radius of 50km, the land has been abandoned for a long time.
It’s not a place with land suitable for farming, water, or any resources worth exploiting.
It’s the land where the primordial soil, untouched by human feet for thousands of years, lies dormant.
If the traces left by humans on the earth were to be described as a painting, this land, where not a single line has been drawn, could be called a blank canvas.
However, now that blank canvas was being filled with various traces left by humans.
Tire tracks stretching to the horizon.
They were things that could be seen anywhere humans lived, but there was something peculiar about the landscape of this desert.
Bloodstains.
Rather than the red blood of life on Earth, there were various blood stains that looked as if they had been sprayed with ominous colored paint.
They were not created by life from this world, but by monsters.
“We need support at the 3 o’clock position on the defensive line!”
“Additional monster appearances, 34 units! Estimated rank: 4 or higher!”
“Commence artillery support! Combat engineers, reconstruct the damaged defensive line immediately after the artillery barrage ends!”
The People’s Liberation Army of China, with a reserve force of 4.25 million, ranks third in global military strength.
Among them, the Special Operations Unit ‘Transcendence’, belonging to the Central Military Commission’s Records Department, was known for its elite soldiers who could only be selected from the most elite.
And true to its reputation, the soldiers of the Transcendence Unit were all equipped with special weapons specialized in hunting monsters, different from ordinary Chinese soldiers.
And among them, there were soldiers who swept away monsters with abilities that could not be believed to be of human origin, wielding weapons that were completely different from modern weapons.
The Special Operations Unit ‘Superiority’, belonging to the Records Department of the Central Military Commission.
Composed entirely of Awakeners, the Superiority was truly an elite among elites, where soldiers who had experienced countless brushes with death in the Transcendence Unit had to transcend human limits to become Awakeners.
And now, the Transcendence and Superiority Units were joining forces to surround the gate in the middle of the Gobi Desert, facing the endless stream of monsters pouring out.
A catastrophe of unprecedented scale that occurred in the Amazon.
To recreate the Gate Overflow in the middle of the Gobi Desert.
“Captain! 3 o’clock direction! Distance: 400 meters!”
As a soldier shouted to a man with his eyes covered by black goggles, the man spread his hands wide and shouted back.
“Everyone, cover your ears! Ten Thousand Annihilation Sound (萬滅天聲)!!”
As the man clapped his hands, a powerful wave of sound surged out in a straight line, so strong that the space seemed to ripple, bursting numerous monsters rushing towards the man like meat balloons.
At that moment, the soldier who had informed the man of the distance and direction earlier removed his hands from his ears and approached the man, handing him a small bottle.
“Well done!”
“Am I supposed to drink this again?”
“There’s no choice! Captain, your ability, the Great Skill of Li Chenhao, is essential to defend this defensive line!”
As the man named Li Chenhao reached out hesitantly, the soldier quickly opened the bottle cap and handed it to him.
Li Chenhao hesitated for a moment, then with a grim expression, swallowed the contents and threw the bottle on the ground.
– Clang! –
“I’ve always been curious, what does it taste like?”
“The taste of blood.”
“What?!”
“Sometimes when you bite your tongue or the inside of your mouth while eating, you know how it tastes bitter? Think of it as that taste, but about a hundred times stronger.”
“…You have quite the appetite.”
“I’m not the one consuming it.”
“Pardon?”
“It feels like your body is forcibly absorbing it when you put it in your mouth. How many bottles are left?”
In response to Li Chenhao’s question, the soldier examined the box containing the bottles and replied, “Three bottles!”
“I’ve already had two bottles so far, right? It’s been said that it’s as difficult to obtain as catching a star in the sky these days, yet somehow we managed to acquire five bottles.”
“It seems like the Records Department exerted some effort.”
The mysterious drug Li Chenhao consumed.
It was a drug called ‘Awakening Ability Enhancer’ developed by the Gate Research Institute under the EDA of South Korea.
A special drug that even in its country of origin, South Korea, one had to wait in line to obtain due to its limited supply not meeting the demand.
At the same time, 800 meters behind Li Chenhao’s location, on the rear line of the front line, there were as many as nine bottles of this rare drug rolling around.
“Grr…”
The man who was about to consume his tenth bottle of enhancer.
Zhai Tianlin, an Awakener also known as the ‘Toxic Emperor’, created by the Chinese Communist Party, slammed the bottle he was holding roughly to the ground, shattering it.
Then, with eyes swollen with blood and turned green, he gazed at the scene of slaughter unfolding in front of him.
At this moment, the battlefield seemed about to collapse under the overwhelming tide of monsters.
His eyes, tinged green with congestion, didn’t seem human, and the unrestrained toxic aura was manifesting as green veins spreading across his entire body.
Zhai Tianlin’s appearance, which seemed like it could explode into a massive bomb at the slightest provocation, instilled such a sense of terror in the observer that they might prefer to leap into the front where the monsters were pouring out rather than continue witnessing it.
And finally, Zhai Tianlin, who judged that his body had reached its limit, wearing a biohazard suit, shouted towards the soldier who was keeping an eye on him from a distance.
“Is it time yet?!”
“We have to wait for Seeker’s signal!”
“Hurry up! It’s getting unbearable!”
The soldier glanced anxiously at the man sitting next to him in a horse-riding posture, who, amidst the screams and gunfire in this place, had closed his eyes as if he were taking a leisurely stroll, with a comfortable expression on his face.
Seeker Xiaozhan, belonging to the ‘Superiority’ just like Li Chenhao and Zhai Tianlin.
He was currently deeply infiltrating into the battlefield, borrowing the eyes of a flying hawk.
In the trance, as the hawk’s vision scanned the battlefield, the animalistic senses sent by the controlling hawk constantly sounded alarms in his ears.
“It’s dangerous here. We need to flee.”
“Let’s move further in.”
“It’s too risky. I’m scared of the smell of blood.”
“Don’t be afraid. You are the King of the Sky.”
“It’s terrifying. Let me go.”
“Just wait a little longer, and I’ll set you free.”
Constantly soothing the consciousness of the hawk and scanning below, Xiaozhan finally found what he was looking for.
A crimson gate continuously spewing out monsters like a giant tunnel pierced through the air.
Inside the ominous undulating gate, a gigantic being was slowly emerging as if it could explode at any moment.
“What in the world is that! We have to flee immediately! Let me go! We have to run!”
In response to the hawk’s vehement cries, Xiaozhan murmured quietly.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?!”
In an instant, the signal flare attached to the hawk’s body exploded, detonating a massive green flame in the sky 500 meters above.
As Xiaozhan’s connection with the hawk was severed, he opened his eyes, tears of blood streaming down his face.
“It’s time.”
“All unit members retreat! Commencing Ascension Operation from now on!”
At that moment, the new form of Zhai Tianlin, who had been waiting, disappeared from his seat.
In his place, only the toxic mist lingering like clouds was melting the steel chair that had been in place.
Transformed into the form of toxic mist, Zhai Tianlin shot out towards the center of the battlefield at lightning speed in a dark green haze.
“Kieeeek!!!!!”
“Kraaaaack!”
The green cloud transformed by Zhai Tianlin made the skin of the monsters it touched burn like boiling, bubbling their flesh.
Just a slight brush against the skin was enough to change the color of their entire body and pour out thick green blood onto the ground, such was the intensity of the deadly poison.
With Zhai Tianlin already possessing formidable abilities, consuming the enhancer to the limit, his destructive power was beyond imagination.
And that destructive power was causing equal damage not only to the monsters on the battlefield but also to the allied soldiers.
“Kraaaaack! The protective suits!”
“If you don’t want to die, run! Gas masks are useless!”
“Abandon the contaminated! If a drop of blood splashes, you’ll die too!”
Watching countless comrades dying around them, the soldiers realized that their gas masks were of no help.
Then, to lighten their bodies, the soldiers threw everything from gas masks to weapons on the ground and started fleeing madly.
“Aaaaah! Run!”
“If you get caught in that cloud, you’re finished!”
While some fleeing soldiers trembled in fear, amidst those who died under the feet of the monsters, those who managed to escape successfully fled the battlefield at full speed in prepared vehicles.
Meanwhile, the artillery units at a distance blocked the pursuit routes of the monsters with supporting fire.
“Detonate the First Defensive Line!”
“Detonate the First Defensive Line!”
As the pre-buried explosives detonated, creating huge craters, a circular encirclement, surrounding the center of the battlefield, was finally formed. Inside it, the soldiers who failed to escape were swiftly dealt with by the enraged monsters’ teeth and claws.
After a while, excluding the monsters, all life within the encirclement was eradicated, leaving only thousands of monsters and Zhai Tianlin.
“Roughly 8,000. Not bad.”
Returning from the toxic cloud to human form, Zhai Tianlin murmured.
“Cha Myung-jun captured about 3,400 of these creatures in Manaus. If I clean up within three minutes, it means I’m stronger than Cha Myung-jun.”
Saying so, Zhai Tianlin stood defenselessly without holding a weapon, yet not a single monster rushed towards him.
With only instincts and no reason, emitting an aura of nauseating malignancy, his presence made the beasts hesitate to attack.
Among the thousands of monsters trapped inside the encirclement, the only being approaching him was a gigantic dinosaur-like creature that had passed through the dimensional gate just moments ago.
“A dinosaur? No, it has wings, so is it a dragon? It has wings like a pterosaur on its head, a body like a crocodile. I don’t know what to call it. It doesn’t matter.”
As Zhai Tianlin adjusted his posture, the approaching creature took a step back, and seeing this, he couldn’t help but smile faintly.
“After the fight is over, you’ll also become ‘essence’ like the others.”
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In battles with monsters, the balance of power is of utmost importance.
In that sense, the compatibility between Zhai Tianlin, who handles poison, and the biological-type monsters was so extreme that he was able to easily eliminate the swarming monsters poured out from the overflow.
Except for one individual.
While all the surrounding monsters fell, spewing blood from every hole in their bodies, the dinosaur-shaped monster was the only one maintaining its form.
From the outset, due to its incredibly robust physique, which rendered ineffective to the toxic mist sprayed lightly,
However, even such strength could not help but be damaged by the concentrated poison spewed out by Zhai Tianlin.
“Ten Thousand Annihilation Poison Pellets!”
As Zhai Tianlin bent his finger, dense black poison beads sprang from the tips of his five fingers.
The creature, upon seeing this, moved its body like lightning to avoid the poison beads, but its large wing area could not avoid the poison pellets.
As the affected area quickly rotted and melted away, Zhai Tianlin smiled with satisfaction.
However, the creature’s next action left Zhai Tianlin’s face tinged with astonishment.
– Wooddduk. –
With the sound of bones breaking and flesh tearing, the creature tore off its own wings and threw them far away.
Then, new bones and flesh sprouted from the torn wounds, reconstructing its massive wings.
Instant regeneration.
Amidst the fierce clash between the power to take life and the ability to protect life, their battle was evolving into a terrifying form that was almost impossible to comprehend with the naked eye.
