Chapter 584: Brute Force Works Wonders!

Chapter 584: Power Creates Miracles!

In the southernmost part of the Central Continent, there was a beautiful place, with lush jungles, colorful seas of flowers, and glowing coral and sea.

Its name was Haiya Province.

It was said that many years ago, this land had been even broader, and that glowing sea had once been dry land, upon which a prosperous city stood.

Yet one day, something fell from the sky, erasing it and the ground beneath it entirely.

Li Jinrong had never truly seen what this land once looked like; he had only heard fragments from his grandfather's tales.

It was said that two hundred years ago, that glowing sea was even more extraordinary—a sheet of azure arcs, like burning flames.

They called it the flames of death.

All who saw it perished.

Most people, with the help of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, migrated northward, but a few, even so, refused to leave their homeland. After all, the world had already been destroyed—what difference did going north make?

Death was inevitable.

Better to leave with dignity.

When he was very young, Li Jinrong could not understand why people thought that way. How could such a resilient creature as man be wiped out by something so trivial?

Even where grass could not survive, humans could.

And wasn't that the truth?

If those people had truly all died, how could he exist?

What he did not understand was not only the despair of those who stayed, but also why others chose to flee. In his childish eyes, there was clearly a better way.

"Why didn't everyone unite and extinguish the flames of death?"

He remembered asking his grandfather that.

But the old man, always so wise, showed rare hesitation when faced with this question.

"Not every problem has a solution. Some have none at all, and even those that do have solutions, there is a matter of priority..."

"Then... which category does our problem fall into?"

He remembered pressing further, and his grandfather only answered with a helpless expression.

"Sorry, child. I don't know either."

The events of two hundred years ago were too distant.

Not to mention two hundred years—even a hundred, fifty, or twenty years ago, if no one deliberately recalled, recorded, or spread the memory... soon, few would remember what truly happened.

Just like that glowing sea.

Even though it had once claimed millions of lives in an instant, there were still those who, without reason, worshipped its vast might and mercy.

Fortunately, those azure arcs had sunk to the bottom of the sea, only faintly visible on pitch-black nights.

Actually, more than the origin of the glowing sea, young Li Jinrong was more intrigued by the Post-War Reconstruction Committee his grandfather spoke of. In the old man's words, that organization seemed omnipotent.

Even though Haiya Province had no planned settlements from that organization, and even though they considered the survivors here a bunch of "self-abandoned" folks, they never gave up on those who had chosen to stay.

The signal towers standing in Haiya Province were traces of their presence.

It was said that for a long time, even after the committee disbanded, those iron towers still broadcast self-rescue knowledge to nearby survivors, over and over, calling on residents of shelters to fulfill their original vows.

During that time, many good people in blue coats appeared in the settlements. The knowledge and tools they brought helped many settlements in Haiya Province live decent lives.

The Iron Tower organization was born then.

Locals and shelter residents who had been helped by the Post-War Reconstruction Committee decided to unite and help more people, to end the wasteland on a larger scale and rebuild the collapsed order.

It could be said that until twenty years ago, the Iron Tower played an important role in Haiya Province.

Li Jinrong could no longer recall the exact day.

He only remembered being very young when, one day, the folks in the settlement stopped believing in those who called themselves the Iron Tower and instead embraced the Torch Church.

First, the iron towers left by the committee were dismantled and smelted into steel. Then, invisible high walls rose between villages, and one by one, settlements became isolated plantations.

He didn't know why it had come to this.

He only remembered that from that day on,

everything changed...

...

"...Mutants."

Holding binoculars, Li Jinrong stood at the edge of a hill, gazing at the rolling dust clouds rising from the plains a few kilometers away, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

The number was uncertain—at least five hundred, but probably no more than two thousand.

There were quite a few vehicles; this bunch was actually a motorized unit—half the greenskins rode on trucks and off-road vehicles, while the other half panted and ran behind.

Though by mutant standards, such discipline and equipment could be considered elite—after all, those beasts didn't rely on such things to fight—he still wanted to say they looked less like they were going to war and more like they were rushing to a banquet.

The man leaning against the motorcycle yawned and said,

"Don't these greenskins ever sleep? It's three in the morning, and they're still out roaming."

The man's name was Xiao Yue, Li Jinrong's subordinate, who had been rescued with him by the Alliance's plane that night.

Old Li suspected there was a traitor in the organization, so he didn't rejoin them.

Though Xiao Yue thought Old Li was a bit paranoid—after all, those were comrades who had been through life and death together—he couldn't bear to let the man act alone, so he stayed with Old Li.

These past few days, they had been lurking near the Qi tribe, investigating clues about the Holy Domain in various settlements, and also cooperating with Alliance people to gather intelligence on the Torch Church.

Those northerners were generous.

With them, information could even be exchanged for food and ammunition.

If not for the fact that the Torch Church also came from the north, and that Qingshui City was called a holy land by those madmen, Old Li might have had a slightly kinder view of the northern wastelanders.

"...They're clearly not just out for a stroll. So many of them moving together must have a clear target."

Lowering his binoculars, Li Jinrong took out a map and unfolded it. His index finger moved along the grid lines for a moment, then stopped at a red circle, his brow furrowing.

He muttered under his breath,

"Pinecone Farm."

Hearing the name Pinecone Farm, Xiao Yue couldn't help but click his tongue.

That was their first stop when they arrived at Jinshi City, and it had perfectly summed up all his bad impressions of the settlements in this area.

That arrogant farm owner hadn't even deigned to meet them before driving them away without reason, shouting that Pinecone Farm only negotiated with truly powerful factions, not with homeless drifters like them.

"That bunch is hopeless. This is a mutant force of one to two thousand—the settlement's soldiers might not even number that many... I doubt there are enough people there to feed those mutants."

"Whether it helps or not, we have to warn them. At least let them prepare."

Returning to his motorcycle, Li Jinrong started the engine and looked at Xiao Yue.

"Are you coming with me, or staying here?"

Xiao Yue sighed, then swung himself onto the motorcycle.

“Although I think you’re wasting your breath… never mind, I’ll go along with you for a stretch.”

Li Jinrong grinned, twisting the throttle of the motorcycle.

Thick black smoke belched from the long exhaust pipe, and just as he was about to head down the slope, a dull roar suddenly came from the sky.

He looked up at the pitch-black night sky.

Through the gaps in the dark clouds, faint moonlight revealed shadowy cross-shaped silhouettes.

Xiao Yue, standing beside him, also noticed the anomaly overhead and muttered to himself while staring upward.

“…What is that?”

Li Jinrong wanted to know too.

His Adam’s apple bobbed slightly, and just as he was about to speak, he saw those pitch-black crosses break free from the edge of the clouds, diving under cover of darkness toward the mutants on the plain.

With such a commotion from above, the mutants clearly sensed the anomaly as well; the convoy moving across the plain stirred in momentary chaos.

Standing half-exposed on an off-road vehicle, the burly Kulu looked up at the sky, furrowing his brow, sharp fangs protruding from the gap in his lips.

The buzzing roar stirred a primal sense of threat within him.

Yet at that moment, he clearly hadn’t grasped the gravity of the situation—what it meant for a rapid-marching force to be caught in an airstrike on open ground.

In that instant of hesitation, the crosses flying in the sky began to dive toward the ground, accompanied by the piercing shriek of buzzers, dropping bombs one after another.

Hundreds of kilograms of bombs rained down from the air, and bursts of fire erupted across the plain in an instant.

The shockwaves flipped trucks over, and the mutant warriors in the beds were either killed outright or thrown clear by the overturned vehicles.

The dazed mutants had no idea what was happening, especially those trailing behind the trucks, huffing and puffing as they watched the vehicles blow up.

Some mutants thought they had awakened some incredible power, blowing the trucks away with a single breath, until the next second they saw nearly every truck hit, and only then realized it was an enemy attack.

An expression of disbelief appeared on every ugly green face.

The moon must be rising from the west!

Someone actually dared to pick a fight with them!

And they came out swinging, beating them this badly!

Most survivors on this land were pushovers, born that way. Those two-legged beasts had always been the ones running from them; even if they occasionally pulled out some impressive trinket, it was quickly snatched away. They had never seen anything so terrifying, and so many at once.

No—

That wasn’t entirely true.

Actually, back that night, they had already tasted the Alliance’s missiles, but none of them had taken that weak thing seriously.

After all, not many were killed then; the sturdy mutants just shook their heads and got back up.

Later, Ogg’s crushing defeat clearly taught them no lesson either; they just thought he was a coward, unable to handle a bunch of soft human things, too afraid to return after failing.

Facing those unreachable planes, the bewildered mutants wore blank expressions.

They couldn’t reach them, couldn’t aim at them.

For a moment, they didn’t know what to do.

Meanwhile, high above the night sky.

One by one, the W-2s completed their dive-bombing runs, pulling their noses up and climbing back to a safe altitude, ready for the next dive.

“Hahaha! That’s fucking thrilling!” Sitting in one of the planes, Mosquito watched the bursts of fire blooming on the ground behind him, his face flushed with excitement.

Ever since the war in Luoxia Province wound down, he, as a pilot, had been sidelined, bored enough to dabble in the liveliness of life-skilled players.

Later, he got tricked by teammates into blowing up the camp kitchen.

This time, the brothers from the neighboring brigade had stirred up trouble, and finally it was his turn to clean up their mess.

At last, he got his chance to shine!

The comm channel crackled, and soon Feng Qing’s voice came through.

“…Captain, what now? Head back for resupply or?”

Mosquito chuckled slyly.

“Resupply? Resupply my ass! Use the cannons and blast those bastards!”

“But it’s too dark, can’t see a thing on the ground.”

Even with flares, visibility was quite limited.

Without ground support, a pure airstrike was still a stretch.

Feng Qing figured that from that last dive, maybe only a hundred or so mutants were actually killed.

As for light or heavy injuries, there was no point counting. Given the mutants’ regenerative abilities, as long as they weren’t killed outright, most would recover.

Still, killing a hundred or so wasn’t bad.

At least their primary goal was achieved—crippling the mutants’ vehicles, stopping those green-skinned beasts from marching on Pinecone Farm.

As long as the mutant force lost mobility, even if not many died, the pressure on the allies at Pinecone Farm would ease considerably.

Mosquito clearly understood that too; their mission was done.

But—

Calling it quits after finishing the job? That was hardly his style.

“Doesn’t matter! Can’t see? No problem! Just spray roughly where they are, and we’re good! Brothers, follow me! Gah gah gah—”

With a wild cackle, Mosquito yanked the control stick to the side, leading the turn and charging back, strafing the ground with a burst of cannon fire.

Meanwhile, on the ground that had just been hosed with cannon rounds, the stunned mutants finally snapped out of it, scattering to dodge the returning planes.

Watching the little flies swirling in the sky and the burning scrap metal on the ground, Kulu, standing on the off-road vehicle, nearly ground his teeth to dust.

Forty armed trucks!

Equipment he had painstakingly gathered by raiding over a dozen caravans—gone in one round of bombing, more than half destroyed!

His heart seemed to bleed; enraged beyond reason, he roared at the sky.

“Kulu! Open fire! Everyone open fire! Shoot down those noisy sparrows!”

Blinded by fury, he grabbed the machine gun welded to the roof and sprayed wildly into the night sky.

Long tongues of flame and streams of bullets chased after the planes’ tails, the tracer rounds drifting everywhere looking terrifying, but he didn’t realize the muzzle flash had given away his position.

Without the slightest warning.

The 20mm cannons were faster than the sound of gunfire; almost the instant he heard the whistling roar, a hail of bullets clattered into the vehicle beneath him.

Large holes punched through the hood of the off-roader, crawling all the way to the mud-caked trunk. Drenched by the screaming rain of fire, the driver in the front seat died instantly, followed by the co-pilot in the back.

“Ah—!”

Muddy flesh and blood splattered noisily inside the cabin, drenching Kulu; bathed in that gory rain, he fared no better—the machine gun in his hands was shredded into scrap.

Thrown from the out-of-control off-roader, Kulu screamed, about to curse, when he saw his vehicle drive a short distance before a plane chasing it and strafing blew up the fuel tank, leaving it stranded on the open field, exploding into a fireball.

A bead of hot sweat rolled down his caterpillar-like brow to the ground. Kulu’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he finally realized he had cheated death.

He struggled to rise from the ground, saw the half arm lying beside him, instinctively reached out his right hand to pick it up, but caught sight of the remaining half he had lifted.

The pain, slowly returning to his senses, crawled through his body along the wound, and that hideous, twisted green face instantly contorted into a knot.

Lifting his eyes to the chaotic battlefield around him and the mutant soldiers who had fallen dead or wounded in an instant, he could no longer contain the shock and fury in his heart.

"Ahhh!!!"

At the same time, the mosquito, having completed a sweep, pulled the nose up again.

Glancing back at the surface with sporadic flickers of firelight, a hint of surprise crossed his face. Having seen all kinds of bizarre opponents, he still felt a trace of astonishment at the courage of these green-skinned fellows.

"What a bunch..."

Firing into the sky, huh.

As if he was afraid he couldn't see well and didn't know where to sweep?

...

On the other side, beside a hill several kilometers away.

Staring dumbfounded at the blossoming flames on the distant plain and the mutant soldiers scattering in all directions, Xiao Yue couldn't help but swallow, finally forcing a word from his throat.

"...It's the Alliance's plane."

Li Jinrong's mouth hung half-open, silent, his eyes fixed straight on that plain.

He had heard earlier that an organization called the Alliance had fought with the Legion in the northwest, but he had no concrete idea of either the Alliance or the Legion.

Now he understood.

That roaring rain of fire left an indelible impression in his heart.

The mutant troops, murderous and arrogant just a moment ago, were instantly swallowed in a sea of flames. The green-skinned beasts lucky enough to survive fled for their lives under the dancing tracer fire.

After a long silence, Xiao Yue looked at Old Li beside him and said with difficulty.

"...Do we still need to go to that farm?"

It seemed like a pointless question.

Li Jinrong was silent for a while, then nodded.

"Let's go."

Of course.

Not to deliver news or anything—those people clearly already knew about this group of mutants leaving the city; they didn't need them to report.

What was interesting was why these mutants were rushing to Pinecone Farm in the dead of night, and why the Alliance's plane appeared above them.

As everyone knew, Pinecone Farm was within the Torch Church's sphere of influence, and the Qi tribe was an ally of the Church.

Li Jinrong vaguely guessed something, and a flicker of joy rose in his heart.

Could it be that the Alliance had officially declared war on the Torch Church?

This was an incredibly good piece of news...

...

Pinecone Farm.

The brainwashing from the mental interference device had been lifted, but the chaos in the settlement was far from over.

However, the players still in the settlement had no time to tend to those madmen. Some guarded the villa, while others, led by Brother Night Ten, charged toward the settlement's church.

"Open up! FBI! No, we're here to deliver warmth!"

Kicking open the half-closed door, the kidney warrior, rifle in hand, charged in first, sweeping the area with murderous intent.

Seeing the man with only half a body, the priest hiding in the church was terrified on the spot. The grenade he had intended for a mutual kill fell to the ground, the pin unpulled.

He knew nothing.

The people outside had suddenly gone mad, biting anyone they saw.

And at that critical moment, the esteemed apostle had disappeared. The gunfire outside sounded like firecrackers, and he was so panicked he didn't know what to do except pray.

Spotting the priest cowering in a corner of the church, Kill Dagger, with fists like excavator buckets, strode forward, planting those two massive fists beside him, grinning fiercely.

"Where's the apostle here? The Torch Church's apostle. Don't play dumb and say you don't know."

"I, I—" The priest's lips trembled, unable to force out a word.

"Don't waste words with him."

Night Ten walked up to him, pressing the muzzle of his gun against his forehead, staring into his eyes.

"Tell me, where is the basement of this church?"

"I, I'll take you there."

Pointed at by that dark gun muzzle, the priest ultimately lacked the courage to keep secrets. Trembling, he led the group to the church's basement.

It was pitch black there.

Just as the kidney warrior was about to pull out a flashlight, Quit Smoking beside him noticed a button on the wall and reached out to press it. The dark basement was instantly illuminated by incandescent light.

Embarrassed, the kidney warrior put away the flashlight and coughed. "Is there really an underground passage here?"

It seemed to be just an ordinary study, about seven or eight square meters, with two bookshelves and a desk against the wall. The desk was clean, with nothing on it.

Night Ten looked at the priest standing nearby. The priest's face turned pale under his gaze, and he frantically shook his head like a rattle.

"I, I don't know. This is the apostle's study... I've only been in here a few times."

"Usually, you have to find the mechanism to open the door..."

Quit Smoking rubbed his chin, crouching beside the empty desk, feeling around left and right, but after a long while, he found nothing.

Seeing him fiddle with the bookshelf again, Kill Dagger couldn't stand it anymore. He clicked his tongue and moved forward with hands and feet.

"Move aside, I'll do it!"

Quit Smoking stepped back instinctively and glanced at him.

"What are you trying to do?"

"Heh, need to ask? Brute force works wonders!"

Kill Dagger grinned. He had been wearing this exoskeleton for so long, and finally found a chance to put it to use.

Without another word, he swung his excavator-like fist, putting all his strength into smashing the wall.

That punch was indeed heavy, but the wall wasn't made of mud. With a dull thud, his fist bounced back.

The plaster was knocked off, and even the cement underneath was chipped, but the wall didn't budge at all. From the sound, it was clear the wall was probably solid, and even if there was a secret door, it wouldn't be here.

Feeling everyone's eyes fixed on him, Kill Dagger felt awkward himself. He coughed, wanted to scratch his head, but gave up after looking at his hand.

"Uh... not this wall. I'll try another."

He realized this method wasn't very smart, but the problem was he had already put on a show. Turning back now would be hard to save face.

As Kill Dagger moved toward another wall, Night Ten, standing at the door, was dumbfounded.

"Bloody hell... What if you can't find the door and block the passage instead?!"

And what if there were traps—

Before his words could finish, the fist as big as a wok slammed into the wall, but this time it was different—a crack appeared beneath the crumbling plaster.

Killer Dagger was startled, then said joyfully.

"There's something behind it!"

He raised his fist to strike again, when suddenly a commotion came from outside the basement.

The player guarding outside shouted loudly.

"…Freeze! Put down your gun!"

As he spoke, two gunshots rang out—bang, bang.

Before the shots even sounded, Night Ten had already dashed out like an arrow, and the other players followed closely behind him.

After a moment, the gunfire outside ceased,

and voices from teammates came through the comm channel.

"We've got him… That guy came straight in through the church's front door, ran right into me, heh heh."

"Damn, turns out their intel was half a beat slower than our mission—they hadn't even entered the tunnel yet…"

"Four Apostles!"

"We've hooked a big fish!"

"Who's going back to the villa? Tell Old Bai to turn off that psychic interference device—the signal keeps cutting out, it's unbearable!"

So this…

is the end?

Listening to the voices of his teammates over the comm, Killer Dagger stood by the wall, dumbfounded. It took him a long moment to squeeze out a single word.

"Fuck!"