Chapter 596: Breaking the Record!

Chapter 596: Breaking the Record!

Li Jinrong was completely stunned.

Xiao Yue, lying beside him, was the same.

The thick haze had dissipated considerably, and the two men held binoculars, staring intently at the battlefield that had been blanketed by artillery fire.

If the earlier barrage had only shocked him with the firepower of the Steel Heart, then this frontal battle had completely overturned his understanding of human beings.

Those guys...

Were they really still human?

He had never seen human soldiers who could fight evenly with mutants in close-quarters combat.

And now, he witnessed a man clad in heavy exoskeleton cleave a two-meter-tall cyborg mutant in two with a chainsaw, then fluidly pull out a scavenged shotgun and blow a green-skinned creature's head off.

What astonished him even more was—

Those beasts were starting to feel fear.

Yes.

Fear was clearly written on the faces of those demons. He could hardly believe his eyes—those beasts who worshipped death and slaughter were being terrified by a bunch of even more reckless bastards.

The sun really was rising in the west!

"...Looks like Brother Chicken has got it handled over there," Fang Chang said calmly, putting away his binoculars from a spot not far from the two.

The battle itself was no longer in doubt.

Earlier, Brother Chicken had held off a thousand-man squad with just over twenty men; now, with a full complement of one hundred and twenty heavy infantry facing a group already crippled by bombardment, if they somehow lost, they might as well delete their accounts and start over.

Even though these guys were much tougher than the previous bunch.

But beasts were still beasts at heart. Even if they used human weapons and learned human tactics, they couldn't shed the savagery in their bones.

The only question now was how many heads Brother Chicken had taken. Some bored folks on the official forum had started a betting pool and wanted him to be the judge.

Too bad the view here was poor—he could only make out vague shapes.

He'd have to ask Brother Chicken himself later how many he'd actually killed.

Xiao Yue swallowed hard, got up from the ground, and looked at Fang Chang, unable to help asking.

"Um... are those the Burning Corps?"

If it was them...

The ones who had captured a monster like the Steel Heart, he wouldn't find it too strange.

Fang Chang paused, scratched the back of his head, and said with a smile.

"Them? Those guys are from the Jungle Corps, though they're a ruthless bunch too."

Jungle Corps?

Li Jinrong and Xiao Yue exchanged bewildered glances, sharing the confusion in each other's eyes, as a hint of awe gradually spread across their faces.

He vaguely recalled merchants from the north mentioning that the Alliance's trump cards in the battle against the Legion in Luoxia Province included the Burning Corps, Storm Corps, Death Corps, Skull Corps, and others—but he had never heard of the Jungle Corps.

A corps with no reputation could still fight like this...

How formidable must the legendary Burning Corps be?

But come to think of it, the man before him seemed to be from the Burning Corps.

Probably remembering this, the two NPCs looked at Fang Chang with a different expression.

Xiao Yue excitedly shot Li Jinrong a look.

'Haiya Province is saved!'

Li Jinrong nodded with equal excitement.

'Yes!'

With such a powerful neighbor as an ally, how could they fail to reclaim Haiya Province!

The grand ambition of driving those evil cultists from their homeland...

He could finally see hope of its realization!

...

By the abandoned water tank on the other side, the hunter from Hope Town stared dumbfounded at the battlefield where the dust had settled.

The terrain here was relatively higher, offering a better view, and he could see the center of the battlefield that Fang Chang's group couldn't.

There, the green-skinned monster, flailing wildly, was impaled through the chest by a long, thick chainsaw. Blood and shredded flesh were flung several meters high by the spinning teeth.

Sunlight pierced through the thinning gray-green haze, faintly forming a colorful bridge in the spattering mist of blood.

Standing before the green monster, the ruthless man raised his left arm, drenched in blood that mingled with the blood-smeared steel armor.

Liu Youxiong was stunned, his mouth wide open, unable to close his jaw, let alone believe his own eyes.

After a long moment, he forced out a single sentence from his frozen throat.

"...We won?"

A human—if that guy could still be called human—had killed a cyborg mutant in one-on-one hand-to-hand combat!

And from the looks of it, the one he'd killed seemed to be a leader like a centurion or even a chiliarch among the mutants.

Gradually, the disbelief in those eyes turned into admiration.

Just then, an aged voice sounded in his ear.

"Do you envy him?"

Liu Youxiong was startled, quickly glancing to the side, but the rusty railing was empty—nothing there.

The voice seemed to be inside his head.

He swallowed and answered honestly.

"I... I do envy him."

The air fell silent for a moment.

Just as he awkwardly thought he'd imagined it, the voice returned, to his surprise.

"Poor soul..."

The voice carried a hint of pity, but Liu Youxiong felt no comfort. He lowered his head and muttered.

"You don't need to tell me that. I know."

Hope Town's greatest lack was hope. Being born there was the worst luck imaginable—he didn't need anyone to tell him that.

His father had been eaten by a bear, so his mother named him Youxiong—"Have Bear"—to remind him to always be wary of the wild bears in the forest.

But when he shouldered his hunting rifle and ventured beyond the village, he realized that a few wild bears were hardly the real danger. Creatures far more terrifying than that roamed the wasteland everywhere.

Yet he had no choice but to go out.

The only thing his father left him was that hunting rifle that often misfired. He had no other skills; if he didn't hunt, he'd starve.

The voice fell silent for a moment, as if pondering.

After a brief pause, the aged voice continued.

“If you possessed that power, what would you do?”

Liu Youxiong answered almost without hesitation.

“Make a lot of money!”

He had heard that those mercenaries could earn plenty—whether golden coins or those colorful slips of paper, they could buy many things he couldn’t get with his game.

But he had no skill in fighting, nor those fine weapons.

If he had that mighty power...

He imagined he could be like those mercenaries sitting in the Bear and Lantern Tavern, devouring meat in great mouthfuls and guzzling fine wine.

To him, that was what living as a man truly meant.

The voice did not mock his ambition; it simply asked calmly,

“And then?”

Liu Youxiong was taken aback.

“Then... buy a piece of land?”

The voice pressed on.

“And after that?”

Liu Youxiong grew a bit irritated—since this fellow could pop into his head out of nowhere, why not just pry open his mind and see for himself?

“There’s no endless ‘and then’...”

He no longer wanted to play along with that pretentious voice, but unfortunately, he couldn’t find a button to shut it off.

The voice ignored his frustration and continued as if talking to itself.

“The strong devour the weak, and once the weak gain power, they never think to end this wasteland—they just become the next devourers... I’ve studied your past, and the past of Boulder City. Everywhere we go, we search for that nearly impossible possibility, but sadly, all we see are things uglier than beasts—creatures who should live like men have turned themselves and others into animals of the forest.”

Gradually losing grasp of the man’s words, Liu Youxiong swallowed hard.

“Who are you, really...”

“I...”

The man paused, as if hesitating to reveal his name, but finally said frankly,

“I am Luo Qian.”

Usually, he would tell mortals he was the Saint, and tell the apostles he was the Forerunner, because it saved unnecessary and cumbersome explanations.

Without realizing it, he too had slipped into the role of a deity, replacing humanity with divinity in all his thoughts.

But now, he changed his mind.

Using the technology left from the era of the Human Union, they had built an almost perfect system for that grand plan, sacrificing themselves before sacrificing others to gain eternal time to ensure the plan’s step-by-step execution.

Yet ironically, he—who should have made no mistakes—felt a flicker of hesitation at the final moment.

Was it really necessary to tear down the whole house just to get rid of a mouse that had slipped inside?

What shook him was not the mockery of that Union administrator; he truly despised those head-pain-treating pragmatists.

They seemed to solve every problem methodically, but never touched the core.

That Union administrator was no greater than the first administrator of Boulder City—and what had that settlement become later?

Singularity City was no different.

From some unknown day onward, the noble ideal of saving everyone, relying on heaven and earth but ultimately on oneself, had compromised with reality into an unforeseen shape. Those fellows were even worse than the nobles of Boulder City—at least those human-faced, dog-hearted creatures didn’t use stew pots when they devoured people.

The Torch Church’s methods might be extreme, but Luo Qian thought they were far more merciful compared to the real Torch Plan devised by the pre-war elites.

At least they didn’t intend to kill all life on this planet to create a pure paradise.

They truly meant to save everyone, to elevate humanity into a higher existence, and to make the wasteland vanish completely.

Luo Qian had no doubt he was doing the right thing, and he cared nothing for the sneers of those who understood nothing.

Yet just as he was about to cut off that voice, he thought of the little girl lying in a pool of blood.

He had left many chips in this diocese, but only that one was special to him. He had split his divinity into countless pieces scattered across this land, but he left his only humanity with her.

When that chip, carrying the memory of death, was reactivated and the severed data flowed back into him, his soul could not help but tremble uncontrollably.

The voice echoing in his ears, refusing to fade, interrogated him repeatedly.

Over these twenty years, the lives they had methodically sacrificed in batches—were they more or fewer than the monsters and demons of the wasteland?

In that moment, Luo Qian suddenly realized that on this road to utopia, he himself had become part of the wasteland.

It was a weight impossible to measure...

Only one step remained before the arrival of the heavenly kingdom, and the Union seemed unaware of what this fog meant.

But at the very end, he could not bring himself to act.

He wanted to ask an ordinary person’s opinion as Luo Qian.

As a man, not a god.

It had been a long time since he last did that.

“...Luo Qian?” Liu Youxiong looked bewildered at the name.

He had never heard it before, yet vaguely felt he had come across it somewhere.

Was it from the priest or the mayor?

Luo Qian didn’t mind and asked patiently,

“Why do you believe in the Torch?”

Liu Youxiong scratched his head in confusion.

“I... don’t know. Actually, I used to believe in the Great Antler God, but the big shots in town told us believing in this was good, that the mutants wouldn’t bully us, so we believed.”

Right.

It was so the mutants wouldn’t bully them.

He had almost forgotten!

A fire burned in Liu Youxiong’s heart.

He felt deceived, because things were nothing like those fellows had said.

Those green-skinned creatures didn’t care what they believed or didn’t believe; that lofty Saint didn’t care about them either—instead, he used divine punishment to terrorize them. Was it the deception that came first, or their wavering?

He was just a hunter. Why did he have to go to that so-called heaven? What was wrong with wanting a better life once he had power? Was it a crime that the sky was blue and the clouds were white?

Luo Qian ignored his anger and calmly asked further,

“Then do you want to go to the heaven the Saint described?”

Having no goodwill left for the Saint, Liu Youxiong dared not curse aloud, but couldn’t help sneering in sarcasm.

"Kingdom of Heaven? Ha, you mean this stinking fog? If it's as misty there as it is here, I really pity the people living there!"

He waited a long time without hearing a response, and a trace of panic stirred in his heart.

That Luo Qian...

Could he be an apostle sent by the Saint?

Would he rat him out?

Anxious in that silent atmosphere, a cold sweat slowly trickled down Liu Youxiong's forehead.

And at that moment, a soft sigh reached his ears.

"I understand."

So my cultivation is still insufficient...

Luo Qian mused silently to himself, then moved away from his side.

"What do you understand?"

Hearing that cryptic remark, Liu Youxiong looked around blankly, but saw no one except the empty ruins.

He was sure he hadn't gone mad.

Someone had indeed been here, but after failing to gain his approval, they seemed to have left in disappointment.

As if they had never come...

...

At the center of the battlefield.

Staring at the chainsaw lodged in his chest, Kuru slowly raised his stiff neck and looked at the iron lump standing before him.

That guy's condition was hardly any better—after dozens of rounds of back-and-forth brawling, his blood-soaked armor was covered in dents and cracks, and the chainsaw in his hand had come within a hair's breadth of splitting this fellow in two.

Yet, that was no consolation to him.

A warrior granted a name by the chieftain, yet defeated by a human.

And in the very strength and courage he prided himself on most.

Tonight, he would surely become the laughingstock of all his people.

A cruel grin curled at the corner of Kuru's mouth as he fixed his gaze on the helmet with only a slit, speaking in a hoarse voice.

"What's your name?"

"Twenty-one."

The eyes beneath that helmet stared at him coldly and mercilessly, and from the narrow gap came this muffled reply.

Kuru didn't understand what he meant, taking it as a self-introduction.

Lowering his green-black head, he muttered under his breath.

"Twenty-one... huh?"

He would remember that name.

When he reached the land of the dead, he would wait there for this guy to come down, and then have a good fight with him again...

Next time, he definitely wouldn't lose.

Shrrrk—!

With a grating, teeth-clenching screech, bones and flesh were flung into the air by the spinning saw blade.

The man of few words and ruthless actions, Midnight Chicken Killer, abruptly raised the chainsaw welded to his left arm and sawed Kuru in two from chest to shoulder.

The towering, massive body crashed heavily to the ground, and the gushing blood quickly seeped into the muddy black soil.

Seeing their thousand-man commander die at the hands of that human, the remaining mutants could no longer hold back their panic.

Just as they had charged in with howls, now battered and bruised, they fled desperately toward the city center of Jinhe.

These guys weren't human—

They were demons!

And that only hastened their rout!

"Crush them!"

Midnight Chicken Killer roared, raising the 19mm barrel on his right arm, ejecting the jammed feeder and loading a high-explosive round.

Bang—!

A mutant soldier was hit in the back, and a blinding spark burst from his chest. Before he could even scream, he was slammed to the ground by the brutal force.

"Charge them!"

"Think you can run? No way!"

"Oooh!"

The other blood-soaked players also picked up the bolters they had tossed aside, swapped magazines, and opened fire on the fleeing mutants.

Tracers danced across the muddy battlefield, and the players, advancing while firing, were like so many meat grinders.

Under that hail of bullets, the last few dozen mutant soldiers fell one by one, until none remained.

The battle was over.

Everyone began to count the casualties.

They had come with a hundred and twenty men; now ninety-seven remained. Only twenty-three unlucky brothers had died at the hands of the mutants.

As for how many they had killed, most players couldn't remember, only roughly estimating five or six hundred.

Without a doubt, it was a resounding victory!

Not only had they crushed the arrogant spirit of those green-skinned bastards, but they had also proven to the survivors on this land that those beasts were not invincible!

Cheers of victory rang across the battlefield.

"Brother Chicken is awesome!"

"Haha, that was freaking awesome!"

"Bro! Do we get a chance to be in the promo video?"

"One shot is no problem!"

"Damn, I was so fierce, and I only get one shot?!"

"Hey! You're not satisfied with one shot?"

"The problem is there are too many badasses on this server, one minute of promo isn't enough to share. Let the dog—uh, let the dev make the video longer."

Watching his brothers celebrate victory, Midnight Chicken Killer high-fived the guys who came up—Paratrooper from Piltover, Bookworm, and Prostrate Model Worker.

Before he could catch his breath, Prostrate Model Worker asked excitedly.

"How was it, bro? How many?"

He had also joined the betting pool on the forum, not much, just two hundred silver coins, betting that Brother Chicken would break his previous record this time.

The strength of Brother Chicken-Killer is evident to all.

Though this battle was a smooth one, the remaining kills weren't enough to share among over a hundred brothers, yet this guy never commands in a fight—he charges faster than anyone.

Breaking the record of sixteen kills is still hopeful!

Looking at the corpses on the ground, the now-rational Midnight Chicken-Killer gave a simple smile, raised his deactivated chainsaw, and rubbed it against his helmet.

"Just broke the record."

And he even broke Trash-kun's record.

This time he was truly satisfied!

...

At the door of the medical bay on the Steel Heart.

Standing in the corridor outside, Chu Guang's gaze passed over a porthole, looking down at the gray-green haze in the distance.

Though he couldn't see the surface clearly from here, in every battle there were always players who, seriously injured and annoyed by the trouble, respawned themselves.

Just now, through the official forum, he had already learned the outcome of this battle from the players' posts.

Those players were his eyes.

They could see places he couldn't.

Walking up behind him, Frost, who usually looked not too bright, now bowed his head with a heavy expression.

"Sorry... we did our best."

Chu Guang, with his back to him, sighed softly.

"Don't blame yourself... We've done everything we could."

After that Yinyin was shot, the players stationed there immediately called for a Viper transport, and accompanied by Chen Yutong, sent her to the airship.

Although that little girl was not a citizen of the Alliance, the players wished for her recovery, and Chu Guang took it very seriously, immediately contacting the medical staff dispatched by the corporation to the ship to rescue her.

However, regrettably, she had already lost her heartbeat when she got off the plane, and even an emergency replacement of bionic organs couldn't keep her alive.

He was not a person who liked to express anger with words, nor did he sympathize with that self-inflicted farm owner.

Yet after seeing that bloodless face, he couldn't help but have Eclipse activate the chip in her head and curse out that guy hiding in the Sanctuary.

Frost silently faced Chu Guang's back, unusually unable to say a word.

He still couldn't understand what kind of plan required sacrificing tens of thousands of people to complete.

And when Chu Guang told him that this number was only what they saw, and that the unseen might require adding many more zeros, he almost couldn't believe what he said.

Was this the conclusion humans reached after fruitless thinking?

This was different from mere war.

Even if he couldn't agree, he could at least understand what the Legion wanted to do, but these guys were stubbornly doing something he could never understand.

Frost was momentarily confused.

Xiao Qi, sitting on Chu Guang's shoulder, remained silent without a word.

She could sense that her master was in a bad mood, but didn't know what to say, so she just quietly stayed by his side.

At that moment, the door of the medical bay suddenly opened, and expressionless Eclipse walked out of the room.

Chu Guang looked at him, about to ask what the situation was, but Eclipse, who had walked up to them, spoke first.

"She's dead."

Hearing his announcement of death, Chu Guang was not surprised at all, just sighed softly.

"I see."

Frost's face was full of sorrow.

Eclipse continued to look at Chu Guang expressionlessly, his pupils flickering slightly.

"But she's still alive."

Frost: "?"

Xiao Qi: "???"

Chu Guang: "...?"

What?