Chapter 145: Cooperation Among Monsters

Chapter 145: The Monster's Cooperation

The sun had already risen, but for Chen Jian's squad, stealth did not necessarily have to be tied to darkness.

The agile Holy Blooded aside, Chen Jian and his companions, relying on the high speed of the cat cart and the pre‑scouted route, quickly reached the vicinity of the Central Hospital.

There had originally been a sizable demon camp here, but two consecutive assaults had already destroyed most of it.

Furthermore, the joint attack of the Machine God Sect and the Holy Blood Hall had driven all the demons to the front lines, so when the Huaxia army squad arrived, only a few scattered demons remained.

Hiding in the grass two hundred meters from the Central Hospital, Chen Jian finally observed the structure of the target building and then gave the decisive order:

"Lei Jie, Shen Yue, He Shuo, follow me into the building to conduct the clearing operation."

"Zeng Yi, Xie Liu, operate the automatic grenade alarms for defense."

"Li Shi, Ji Xing, are responsible for clearing scattered targets on the periphery."

"Our speed must be sufficient; if we spot the leader returning, perimeter personnel must immediately sound the alert and organize interception at once."

"Understood!"

With the order given, Chen Jian sprang to his feet.

The four of them, armed with 191 assault rifles suited for indoor combat, moved in a standard single file toward the Central Hospital.

The drones had already identified all abnormal heat sources; Chen Jian's team did not actively seek enemies but followed the shortest route straight to the hospital's main entrance.

The doors were already damaged, saving them the trouble of breaching.

Just a dozen seconds later, the group reached the doorway.

Chen Jian raised his hand in the "prepare to assault" gesture, then fell back to the second position; Lei Jie stepped forward holding two grenades, briefly confirmed, then threw one left and one right into two directions inside the hospital.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

The grenades exploded instantly, and the four surged into the building in a wave.

As the point man, Chen Jian first aimed at the dangerous corner to the right of the main door, where the sentry had not even reacted yet; after being knocked down by the blast's shockwave, he still dazedly looked around.

Chen Jian gave him no chance to retaliate, instead gently pulling the trigger.

"Pop!"

The bullet pierced his skull, spraying a plume of blood onto the wall behind the enemy.

Meanwhile, He Shuo and Shen Yue each cleared the enemies in their respective sectors, and the Central Hospital lobby was instantly emptied.

"Go up the stairs on the right side!"

Chen Jian gave the simple order, and the squad of four, rifles lowered, hurried forward.

As they moved through the corridor, they checked each room on either side in turn, leaving no blind spot unexamined.

The corroded, broken doors gave their search great convenience; they didn't even need to enter actively—just by drone reconnaissance they could know beforehand whether any living creature was inside a room.

The advance was astonishingly fast; after only thirty seconds they had already reached the upward stairwell.

At that moment, the people of Huadu inside the building finally realized they were under attack.

Shouts and commands echoed inside the building, while the demons outside sprinted wildly, trying to storm the building, but were held back by the four guards left outside, who showed no mercy.

They used as quiet weapons as possible, which also ensured that the fighting in the Central Hospital could not be detected immediately by the main forces engaged far away.

Everything proceeded smoothly; Chen Jian stepped onto the second floor.

But just as he poked his head out—

"Pop!"

"Pop-pop-pop-pop!"

A dense hail of bullets suddenly shot down the corridor; the drones darted aside, while Chen Jian ducked sideways and hastily retreated into the corner.

"Four enemies! All armed with automatic weapons!"

"Lei Jie, grenades!"

"Understood!"

Lei Jie immediately stepped forward, swapped positions with Chen Jian, pulled the pin on the blast‑overpressure grenade, then, taking cover from the direct fire, lobbed the grenade down the corridor.

"Clink!"

After a crisp sound, the grenade's safety lever flew off.

But Chen Jian keenly heard that the sound was not just one!

"Enemy grenade! Take cover!"

He shouted the warning; the team quickly withdrew to the corner, and only a moment later the end of the corridor near the squad erupted in two massive blasts.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

The shockwave, carrying dust and smoke, swept over; Chen Jian hesitated not at all, almost riding the explosion's aftermath, he charged straight up the corridor.

The grenade Lei Jie had thrown from afar detonated just then, and Chen Jian's sights locked onto the enemy trying to take cover.

Then—

"Pop!"

"Pop!"

One shot each, two unarmored enemies fell instantly.

Immediately after, Lei Jie, standing, fired a follow‑up shot; the enemy who had just picked up his weapon to retaliate burst into a blood mist in the chest and ceased all movement.

"Fall back to the stairwell and keep moving up!"

"Their people should all be on the top floor; we go up first and then clear them one by one."

"Understood!"

The squad no longer bothered with the few enemies rushing from the corridor direction; after throwing a grenade they quickly returned to the stairwell.

Accompanied by the roar of a grenade, the men hurried up the steps.

But their heavy footsteps had already betrayed their intent; as they kept climbing, enemies on each floor surged toward the stairwell, trying to block their way.

Upon reaching the third floor, they could go no higher.

A barrage of grenades rained down from above, explosions continuous, even the stairwell itself was shattered into fragments.

Forced to change route, when they charged toward the opposite side's rooftop, the situation was the same!

Obviously, the people of Huadu inside the Central Hospital were clever.

Knowing they could not gain an advantage in a frontal fight, they could only use this tactic to delay the squad's four‑man advance, waiting for the peripheral demons to come to their aid.

They could not afford to drag it out.

Chen Jian issued the decisive order:

"Blow up the building!"

“Lei Jie deployed the explosives, others provide cover!”

“Understood!”

At the command, Lei Jie sprang onto the rotting table in the room, barely supporting his weight.

Then he placed the explosive charge on the ceiling, pulled the fuse, and the four leapt out of the room together.

“Bang-bang-bang-bang—”

A volley of sustained fire pinned the lurking Huadu forces back into the corner, and immediately—

“Boom!”

The explosion rang out, the ceiling collapsed, and the heavy floor slab fortuitously formed a climbable slope.

He Shuo, unencumbered by an exoskeleton and more agile, was the first to climb to the upper floor, then he lowered a haul line and pulled the others up one by one.

Cover, breach, ascend.

Their movements were absurdly swift; in under two minutes they had reached the top floor.

Meanwhile, the Huadu inside the building had not yet reacted; they were still searching the room the squad had just vacated, when a grenade tossed from above blew them helter-skelter.

Only then did they see the gaping hole in the ceiling, they shouted a warning, but it was already too late.

Chen Jian and his team left the room, raced down the corridor, and, guided by the drone, surged into the vast hall atop the building.

No one in sight, the grenades flew first.

Both sides independently adopted the same tactic; explosions erupted at the hall’s entrance in a continuous roar, as dense as firecrackers at New Year.

Smoke filled the hall completely, obscuring anything beyond a meter; the hall echoed with ragged coughs, while Chen Jian’s squad quickly donned their rebreathers and lowered their night-vision goggles.

Through the fused thermal view, the interior of the hall lay bare.

The four simultaneously lobbed grenades into the hall, and, at the instant of detonation, they filed in one after another!

As they emerged from the smoke like fiends, every Huadu in the hall froze instinctively in place.

A hundred gazes locked onto the four, yet the squad’s motion did not cease.

They did not halt in the crowd’s center to fire; instead, they rushed with suppressed weapons toward the wall’s corner, shooting while seizing advantageous positions.

Then the weapons rack unfolded, and three Type-201 squad machine guns opened fire together.

Crossfire!

A wall of bullets instantly blanketed the entire room, leaving not a single dead angle.

Under the hail of lead, no carbon-based life could remain upright.

How long would it take to kill a hundred people?

If they were in open terrain, perhaps the answer would be forever.

But if those hundred were all packed inside a single room, with no cover around?

The answer: thirty seconds.

When one ammo box of the Type-201 was expended, only four living souls remained in the room.

Chen Jian wasted no time reloading; he bolted from the room, sprinting down the corridor and stairs, clearing from top to bottom.

This was hardly a textbook CQB; faced with enemies holed up in a room, Chen Jian’s choice was not to storm in for close combat, but to open distance and shatter the wall with a single breaching round!

A deafening blast echoed within the building, while simultaneously another explosion sounded outside.

“The demons are returning! We’ve got at most one minute!”

“Understood!”

Zeng Yi’s voice crackled over the radio; after a brief pause, Chen Jian issued his order decisively:

“Ji Xing, go to the roof and rig the ropes to cover our rappel exfil!”

“The rest of you, establish a defensive line here and hold for one minute!”

“Copy that!”

Everyone sprang into action; Chen Jian’s quartet ascended the stairs to the roof, while Ji Xing, just arrived, had already finished rigging a simple rappel line using rope taken from the cat‑vehicle.

She nimbly leapt between floors, while Chen Jian’s team slid swiftly down the line.

The instant they touched down, He Shuo dropped to a prone position and set up his anti‑material sniper rifle.

A monster chieftain happened to wander into his sight; the next second—

He squeezed the trigger; the bullet left the barrel.

“Bang!”

One of the creature’s arms was torn away, blood spraying forth as a horrific howl rent the air, and the beast vanished once more into the woods.

Chen Jian exhaled slightly, turned to meet the demons and Huadu warriors charging out of the central hospital, but soon he noticed something amiss.

In the distance, a blanket of smoke spread across the forest, nearly obscuring all vision.

Chen Jian tried to peer through the smoke with his thermal imager, only to discover, to his astonishment, that the smoke blocked heat signatures!

A hulking monster revealed a heat signature where the smoke thinned, but then vanished completely.

Ordinary demons were still locked in a tense firefight with the Mechanic God Cult, gunfire and shouts rising and falling there, while the spot where Chen Jian’s squad of four stood was eerily quiet.

A grim premonition stirred in Chen Jian’s gut.

He realized the monsters were evolving.

No, not their bodies—it was their tactics!

They had, in an extremely short time, distinguished two distinct styles of attack and swiftly decided on a course.

The demon chieftains fell back to reinforce the central hospital, shielding the Huadu allies there, while the ordinary blood‑skulls kept pressing the Mechanic God Cult, buying them time!

All the demon chieftains present were intelligent, high‑IQ species, so they could not possibly launch a reckless assault like mindless beasts!

“Zeng Yi! Lay down a barrage on those suspicious targets—flush them out!”

“Understood!”

Zeng Yi answered at once.

The automatic grenade launcher spat out rounds, explosions rattling in succession.

The smoke was blown apart, and in that instant a monster wielding a massive shield loomed into view.

And as Chen Jian’s squad spotted it, the creature’s rear erupted with a huge tubular object.

Accompanying the long pipe as it tore through the sky was a trail of white smoke.

“Take cover!”

Chen Jian bellowed.

Then the steel pipe hit the ground, and an explosion rang out.

“Boom!”

The white smoke billowed outward, and Chen Jian immediately donned his rebreather.

“Poison gas!”

“Hold your breath and advance upwind!”

“Understood!”

At Chen Jian's command, everyone began to maneuver straight ahead.

Just as they moved, the artillery fire from the monster leaders already sounded.

The modified-trigger mortars they gripped in their hands were aimed like hand cannons at the squad's direction.

Shells fell one after another, fragments piercing straight into Chen Jian's chest bulletproof plate.

“We must fight quickly and decisively!”

“Concentrate fire, limited, to smash the shield!”

Chen Jian gave the order again.

He realized these leaders were absolutely not easy opponents.

Although they were not as huge as the ‘wild’ monsters, nor did they possess sonic-like ‘abilities,’ their quality was fairly average, and their intellect was no different from ordinary people.

This gave them the possibility to use custom tools and execute effective coordination.

And this coordination indeed produced a remarkably powerful effect!

If we don't take out the front line immediately, and they charge straight at us, we're truly doomed!

Ammunition resource management had become meaningless; Chen Jian unfolded the weapon rack, and two rockets shot out instantly.

The metal jet pierced the giant shield, then splashed onto the head of the monster hidden behind.

It screamed, dropping the giant shield, revealing the humanoid monster behind it that was hurling poison gas grenades.

He Shuo seized the opportunity; a 12.7mm caliber bullet pierced the monster's chest.

After a few seconds of struggle, the monster collapsed helplessly, but at the same time, more similar ‘assault teams’ had closed in on the squad's position.

It's too late.

Chen Jian steeled himself, having prepared to go all out and then withdraw immediately.

But just then, several projectiles suddenly flew in from afar.

Boom!

Boom!

The explosion's sound was not loud, but when a metal projectile struck the monster's body squarely, it collapsed limp.

Large-caliber smoothbore cannon!

Chen Jian looked up; the Sanctuary Guard Brigade had already pursued to nearby.

The forces on both sides exchanged a glance, and the guns originally aimed at each other silently shifted direction.

There was still a more important enemy ahead.

Let's set aside hatred and differences for now.

Pincer attack!

(End of chapter)