Chapter 750: The Fist Comparable to an Electromagnetic Cannon

Chapter 750: The Fist Comparable to an Electromagnetic Cannon

On the Broken Blade Mountain position.

A squad of Corporation soldiers was resting.

Amid the mud stained red by blood and corpses, Tang Feng sat by the trench, panting heavily, his right hand never leaving his rifle, index finger pressed against the safety.

Strictly speaking, this was his first time on a real battlefield.

At first there was tension, even a hint of panic, but later came utter numbness—even sitting beside a pile of corpses stirred no feeling.

This was nothing like the virtual reality training system; those mutants and goblins were nowhere near as dull as the program simulated. They were as cunning as monkeys in a zoo, yet more bloodthirsty and cruel than a hyena starved for three days.

A single small mistake could get them killed, and in fact, without the bionic implants and plug-ins inside his body, he would have died countless times already.

Damn the Council—so the outside world had already become this hellish.

And how the hell did those wastelanders survive outside Ideal City?

Tang Feng felt his helmet sticky inside, soaked with sweat, but he dared not take it off.

Only now did he realize how well their officers had been protecting them.

Just then, sounds came from the southern foot of the mountain. Hearing the order to assemble, he immediately grabbed his rifle and stood up, following the squad members as they gathered there.

“Fuck… what’s that?” A faint panic flickered in one soldier’s eyes as he saw hideous monsters crawling out of the distant fog.

The most common kind had four hands on the ground, half-human, half-spider.

Others had human forms but shuffled forward like the “zombies” from Skull Studio’s games.

The squad leader made a gesture, and they all raised their rifles, aiming at the monsters.

Just then, a shout came from the fog.

“Don’t shoot! We’re friendlies!”

As the voice fell, a group of soldiers in exoskeletons emerged from the fog.

The uniform “Type-5” exoskeletons and LD-47 rifles were all too familiar to these young men who had impulsively enlisted after a few rounds of PUBG.

It was the Death Corps brothers!

They lowered their muzzles, staring at the monsters emerging from the fog, still with obvious doubt in their eyes.

Tang Feng sized up the monsters, then looked at the leading man, confirming in a strange tone.

“…Friendlies?”

Bian Yuan Huashui nodded and explained.

“The hive on Blood Mountain has been assimilated by us. These are Xiao Yu’s fruiting bodies. We plan to use them to disperse the Heaven here—that is, the spore clouds formed by the Nago mycelium.”

Not just Tang Feng, but all the soldiers around were stunned.

“Can that be done?”

Bian Yuan Huashui shrugged.

“Got to try.”

Exploring ways to deal with mutant slime mold—that was exactly why the Slime Mold Research Community existed.

At that moment, the squad leader who had earlier reported to higher-ups finally got a reply. He walked up to Bian Yuan Huashui and said seriously.

“We’ll help you get through this position as quickly as possible. Follow me!”

With that, he gestured to his teammates.

“Let them through!”

Bian Yuan Huashui looked back and nodded, then led a few intelligence-type players from the Corps, following the Corporation soldiers along the narrow path through Broken Blade Mountain.

At the same time, the “ee-woo” sounds echoed across the mountainside among the fruiting bodies, using the intelligence-type players—equipped with neural connectors, biological implants, and communication radios—as “node organisms” to transmit unified information and commands.

Now on the Broken Blade Mountain position, the Corporation lads stared at the ocean of fruiting bodies, their faces filled with shock and amazement.

A thousand… no, maybe ten thousand!

What stunned them wasn’t just the sheer number, but that the hive had hatched them all in such a short time.

One soldier couldn’t help swallowing.

“Is this the Wave?”

Another soldier muttered hoarsely.

“Probably… even worse.”

Though he’d never actually seen the thing, he’d heard that Skull Studio’s latest release, Zombie Crisis, was inspired by it.

He’d played the demo—the insane difficulty and suffocating fear of death made adrenaline surge, leaving those “soft” sandbox games on Endpoint Cloud far behind.

“Holy shit…”

“Fighting this thing for two hundred years… those are some tough bastards.”

Though they knew a single shell could wipe out a huge chunk, they couldn’t help feeling awed.

Especially thinking of Clear Spring City’s terrain—Alliance brothers fighting these things in urban ruins where artillery couldn’t easily deploy—the shock in their hearts only grew stronger…

At the same time, on the peak of Black Cloud Mountain, the Vland people, who had just dealt with a sudden attack by mutants and goblins, were also watching the fruiting bodies winding along the mountain road.

Every face was etched with surprise.

Unlike the fools in Ideal City, they were no strangers to slime mold.

On the wasteland, it was one of the four scourges, alongside aberrants, raiders, and mutants.

The Legion had conquered vast territories but had little way to deal with hives within their borders.

Yet the Alliance, with territory no larger than a single province, had not only conquered the thing but tamed it?!

It was utterly unbelievable.

“The gray fog seems to be thinning…” Watching the massive swarm of fruiting bodies, the adjutant beside General Modlin showed a look of excitement.

General Modlin said nothing, only frowning as he stared, speaking tersely.

“It’s not thinning. Look closely—there’s a clear boundary between the fogs.”

The Alliance had shared relevant research at the Slime Mold Commonwealth meetings: when tracing the origin of Nago, they found that the B-type original strain from Baiyue Province had a clear inhibitory effect on the J-type strain modified by the Torch Church.

The principle of this inhibition was still unclear, and the investigation of the Baiyue hive had just begun, with many theories still being explored. But even without knowing the principle, that didn’t stop them from using the research results.

If nothing unexpected, those fruiting bodies had been inoculated with the B-type strain, or had similar gene fragments inserted into their spore-secreting organs.

He was just an officer, not a professional biologist, so he could only make rough inferences.

What surprised him wasn’t the Alliance’s bio-tech, but that they had actually “eaten” the hive on Blood Mountain.

In Alliance terms, that was called “assimilation.”

This was probably the closest they had ever come to the Alliance’s highest secrets—but unfortunately, they were still too far away to witness the assimilation process.

A flicker of regret crossed General Modlin’s face, but then he seemed to snap back, a glimmer of understanding in his eyes.

“…Now I finally understand why the Academy, which usually likes to stay in the rear, suddenly insisted on taking on the assault mission for Blood Mountain.”

Among all the peaks of Ten Peaks Mountain, the highest summit, Blood Mountain, was undoubtedly the most perilous.

They would never do anything that was thankless and unrewarding.

The adjutant looked at him in astonishment.

“…You mean they knew from the very beginning that there was a mutant slime mold hive there?”

“I recall that it wasn’t the Alliance that first set its sights on the Torch Church, but the Academy… This hive has existed for two hundred years; it’s possible they obtained the relevant data back in the War Construction Committee era.”

After a pause, General Modlin added indifferently, as an afterthought.

“Of course, this is merely my speculation.”

…

A gray-green torrent advanced along the winding mountain road, through the fog-laden night, toward the Weifu military base.

Wherever they passed, the gray-green mist roiled as if boiling, and the gray-green hyphae that had burrowed out of the soil drooped as though withered.

“Paradise” seemed to be contained.

And it was collapsing at a visible rate!

The rat-men corroded by the Naguo stared blankly at them, letting the ominous mist envelop them without the slightest movement.

And the corpses that had emerged from the soil let a trace of fear seep from their hollow pupils.

These awakened dead lacked complete consciousness; they were merely puppets driven by the Naguo hyphae.

Thus, their emotions were nothing but a projection of the countless Naguo hyphae’s terror.

“Hiss…”

The corpses let out a hoarse cry, as if trying to intimidate the creatures closing in.

But the crawlers and gnawers paid no heed to their threats; instead, the noise drew their gaze toward them.

The hunger for feeding blazed from those amber eyes. The crawlers did not stop; they quickened their pace, uttering excited “ee-woo” sounds as they pounced on the corpses.

Two twisted torrents collided in an instant. Against the battle-hardened fruiting bodies of Qingquan City, these Naguo-corrupted corpses were utterly defenseless.

Especially under the influence of the spores released by the B-type strain, the Naguo hyphae eroding this land withered at a visible rate, finally perishing.

The tide of battle seemed to reverse in an instant. The southern side of the Weifu military base fell entirely under the control of Xiaoyu’s fruiting body army, with an endless stream of fruiting bodies arriving from the rear, pushing the front line to spread toward the base’s eastern and western flanks.

“Well done!”

Sitting in the Thunderbolt fighter, Luoyu caught a glimpse of the ground battle by the light of a flare and shouted excitedly.

“Ee-woo! (Thanks for the praise!)”

A affectionate response came through the communication channel, the voice seeming to say, “Please praise me more.”

At the same time, on the other side of the battlefield.

Kubo, flapping his wings, stared in shock at the southern battlefield, a look of disbelief rising on his hideous face.

Paradise was crumbling!

How was this possible!

He was merely an apostle, though he had assisted the Pioneer codenamed “Human Emperor” in some research work, but his tasks had never touched the core of Paradise—only the containment or capture of materials needed for experiments.

Thus, he was utterly unable to comprehend what was happening before him.

Just then, a sigh reached his ears—the voice of the Human Emperor.

“…Though I anticipated that events might exceed our expectations, I never imagined that fellow wouldn’t last even a month, let alone half a year.”

Blood Mountain had fallen.

The hive there had fallen as well.

They could now be certain that the Alliance had mastered some technology to assimilate hives, and had thus implanted gene fragments of the original Naguo strain from Baiyue Province into the hive on Blood Mountain.

This was indeed a line of thought they had never considered.

Originally, in their speculation, the Alliance would most likely take another technical route—using gene-editing to modify the original Naguo strain into a variety that could be cultivated outside Baiyue Province.

That was the safest approach, and the one most people would think of first.

But if the Alliance had done that, it would have played right into their hands.

Because those fools would soon discover that they had merely retraced the path the Torch had already walked, stepping into a labyrinth with no exit.

But now, it seemed they had bypassed that labyrinth, directly using the slime mold’s fruiting bodies as culture dishes, pulling off a trick of borrowing a hen to lay eggs.

Even he had to admit, these people really had wild imaginations.

Hearing his master’s voice, Kubo, hovering in the air, asked respectfully.

“Pioneer, what should we do?”

The Human Emperor pondered for a moment, then spoke slowly.

“Retreat. It’s meaningless now. Better to preserve some strength for what comes next.”

The Beast King held three cards: one was the hive on Blood Mountain, one was the mutants, and the last was the Paradise buried beneath Ten Peaks Mountain and the Weifu Wasteland.

The first two cards were already torn; the last was only a matter of time before it was torn as well.

Relying solely on his ten thousand bat-winged men to crack the hard nut of the Weifu military base was nothing short of a pipe dream.

It would be far better to deploy these creatures for guerrilla warfare in the mountains between Jinchuan Province and Haiya Province than to let them be cannon fodder here.

A flicker of hesitation passed through Kubo’s eyes.

“But what about the ‘Beast King’…?”

The Human Emperor replied without hesitation.

“He has already lost. Even if we help him, it’s useless. He must pay the price for his arrogance—”

Before his words could finish, they suddenly cut off, as if a remote control had forcibly changed the channel.

As Kubo was still stunned, a frantic voice abruptly intruded into his sea of consciousness, seemingly coming from the biological power armor he wore.

“Give me control of your body… Lend it to me for a while; I’ll return it when I’m done.” The Beast King’s voice carried a note of desperation and exhaustion.

The Bloodhoof Clan was annihilated.

Not only that, but so were his meticulously crafted masterpieces.

Though some mutant underlings still had Torch chips installed, those wretches could never amount to anything—at best, they could serve as eyes.

His dominion over the mortal world had never been so diminished; even his peers no longer heeded his voice.

Fortunately, he still had one last trump card.

The biological power armor he had made still retained his chips.

Though this apostle named Kubo was a subordinate of the Human Emperor, the biological power armor he wore was of the Beast King’s own making.

“…Wait, what have you done!? Let me go!” Kubo’s voice was laced with terror as he found himself losing control of his body, watching helplessly as he plummeted downward.

His body no longer seemed to belong to him; another was controlling it.

And that madman, not content with seizing his body, had also beguiled other mutants wearing biological power armor.

It seemed he had no desire to waste words on him; the Beast King paid no heed to the creature howling impotently in the Sanctuary, steering his body into a direct dive toward the military base.

"Attack!"

"Charge!"

"Use your fangs, use your claws, rip open the chests of those humans! Adorn this land with their flesh and entrails, make them regret ever setting foot here!"

He shouted through the communication channel, while simultaneously issuing the order to attack to all bat-winged men via the mental interference module.

Under the influence of that mental interference ripple, each bat-winged man instantly fell into a frenzy, letting out piercing shrieks as they charged recklessly at the nearest enemy.

Gazing at the ground battlefield, which resembled a hellscape, Kobo, now under the Beast King’s control, a cruel sneer curled across his face.

He had nowhere to go, and no place to flee to. His comrades wanted to abandon him, but he wasn’t about to wait idly for his doom.

This was his parish!

Forever and always!

Since the fall of the Celestial Kingdom was inevitable, there was only one thing he could do.

That was, before the Celestial Kingdom crumbled, to stake everything on a final strike.

If he could dismantle the coalition’s command system, he would still have a chance to stage a comeback!

By the way—

The Alliance’s Administrator seemed to be here too!

If he could take that one out, everything would be fine!

At some point, he had forgotten the ideals he once swore to fulfill.

But that sort of thing no longer mattered anyway.

He had lost everything, and was even about to lose the Celestial Kingdom he had built.

He could not let that happen!

If the new world had no place for his name, then what meaning did that new world hold for him?

The Torch Plan was irrelevant now; all he wanted was for those who had ruined his plans to die!

Everyone must die!

On the other side, at the Wei Mansion military base, the temporary research institute where the Alliance and corporate researchers were stationed.

Kakarot, gathered near the institute, stared at the bat-winged men above who had suddenly gone berserk, exclaiming in astonishment.

"Holy crap... did these guys pop some pills?!"

Just half a minute ago, they had maintained a steady, measured assault rhythm, and then, as if struck by madness, they all swarmed forward in a chaotic rush.

"...But on the flip side, it shows they’ve exhausted their tricks and have nothing new left."

The Spring Commander wiped the blood off his helmet, swapped the magazine of his 20mm "Lance," and continued firing at the oncoming targets.

Not far from them, the Hound Special Forces had already suffered over half casualties, seeming unable to withstand the increasingly ferocious assault, with faint signs of a rout beginning to emerge.

The Empire’s officers seemed to be over there too,

Though he had no idea why those guys had come here, if they were trying to flee, they had clearly chosen the wrong place.

The Torch Church seemed to have sensed something, as their assault on the temporary research institute grew ever more violent.

For a moment, the Spring Commander couldn’t tell whether the bat-winged men were drawn by the Administrator or by the researchers here.

Or perhaps, through combat instinct, they had perceived that the coalition’s defensive forces here were extraordinary, and thus deduced a high-value strategic target.

But such things no longer mattered.

Since the enemy had already gone all out, they only needed to counter with full force and crush them.

All cards had been laid on the table, both sides’ stakes pushed forward; now there was no room for finesse—it was purely a clash of raw power.

Whoever had greater strength would pin the other’s wrist to the table!

Ten-Fist Superman drove a semi-convertible truck to the vicinity of the temporary research institute, the quad-mounted anti-aircraft autocannon in the trailer quickly raising its barrels.

This quad anti-aircraft gun had been dismantled from the southern air defense position of the base—they no longer needed it there, but it was just the thing to relieve the pressing crisis here!

Under the operation of an agility-type player, the four barrels belched out a furious barrage of *bang-bang-bang* into the sky, streaks of tracer fire weaving an impenetrable net!

No aiming was necessary.

Those winged creatures were charging in a chaotic swarm.

In just a few moments, the open ground before the field research institute was littered with severed limbs and gore, while a dense rain of blood drifted down from the air.

The arrival of the anti-air vehicle boosted the morale of the soldiers near the institute, turning the precarious situation around once more.

Yet just then, another accident occurred.

A biological power armor suddenly plummeted from the sky, crashing heavily into the outer wall of the institute, smashing a large hole in the concrete.

Two guards crouched by the window firing were instantly killed, and the others were forced back by the rubble, thinking they had been hit by artillery.

Only when the dust cleared did they see what had broken in.

Without hesitation, two guards raised their rifles and opened fire.

But the monster moved so fast they couldn’t track it; before their muzzles were even fully raised, a barbed tail lashed out, striking the exoskeleton chest plate.

The bulletproof inserts shattered instantly, and the two were sent flying like baseballs hit by a bat, spitting blood as they crashed heavily against the wall, unconscious.

The remaining six guards showed a flicker of surprise, but only for a moment.

They were all the Alliance’s most loyal warriors, long prepared to lay down their lives for the Administrator. Not one stepped back; all faced the monster and pulled their triggers with death-defying resolve.

The sudden burst of gunfire wove a curtain of orange-red bullets through the corridor.

Yet the monster, clad head to toe in biological power armor, seemed unfazed, simply charging through the hail of gunfire toward the stairwell at the corridor’s end.

Its nose could detect that rich life aura—a "scent" that made it tremble with excitement. It longed to rush before that figure, to drag him out of that azure power armor.

Not only that, but the unknown disturbance sensed by the mental interference module, along with the coalition’s determination to defend this position, all confirmed this—

The coalition’s supreme commander and the Alliance’s Administrator were here!

How fortunate—those troublesome nuisances were probably still stuck in the cave of Blood Mountain.

And this time—

No one would stand in his way!

"I know you’re here! Hahahaha! Didn’t expect this, did you? I’ve come for you!"

He laughed wildly, roared, and with a sweep of his claws, instantly killed two men. The other four were flung away by his frenzied assault, crashing hard against the ground, the wall, or thrown out the window.

Like a mad beast, he thrashed his serpentine tail, destroying everything in sight with reckless abandon, sweeping through one floor like a thunderbolt, then charging down the stairs to the next.

The flames of war had suddenly blazed into the research institute.

No one had anticipated this sudden turn of events.

The researchers taking refuge in the basement stared at the surveillance footage, terror etched on their faces.

Whether from the Alliance or from Cloud University in Ideal City, such monsters were something they had only ever seen in a zoo.

No—

The aberrations in the zoo had nowhere near that kind of destructive power; even a Deathclaw would have to concede defeat.

Heya’s face paled slightly, and she swallowed involuntarily.

Though Clearspring City was hardly safe, her companions from Vault 404 had always kept her well protected.

Since leaving Vault 117, this was the first time she had been so close to danger…

Standing at the edge of the crowd, Lü Bei cast a hurried glance around him, intending to lead the Administrator away from here, when he suddenly realized the Administrator had vanished.

And just then, the rampaging biological power armor on the surveillance screen, as if struck head-on by a train, howled and flew backward.

The violent blast of air scattered the dust, revealing the figure standing at the end of the corridor.

Struggling to his feet, the Beast King shook his hideous head violently and stared down the corridor, trying to figure out what the hell he had just collided with.

Yet the moment he made out that figure, his dark green pupils contracted sharply.

Azure blue power armor…

No mistake!

That was what Seven Villard had worn—the Administrator’s legacy.

“Looking for me?”

With the Nitrogen Power Hammer in hand, Chu Guang stared expressionlessly at the creature before him.

“Hahahaha!” After half a second of eye contact, the Beast King suddenly burst into loud laughter.

His twisted expression carried a hint of madness, like a lunatic who had lost everything at the gambling table.

Over twenty years…

Was it twenty-three or twenty-four?

They had left that vault too long ago; all he remembered was that around the year 190 of the Wasteland Era, the residents of Vault 117 had split into the Gravekeepers and the Torchbearers.

After leaving that vault, too many things had happened since—compared to them, the petty grudges between the Gravekeepers and the Torchbearers were utterly insignificant, so much so that he could barely recall that stubborn old man.

Thinking back, that old man wasn’t really that bad, just a bit too obstinate.

From Boulder City to the Death Coast, they had seen plenty of man-eating horrors along the way. Compared to those fiends, their Administrator had been a decent sort…

“…Yes, I’m looking for you. I’ve been looking for you so hard, esteemed Administrator.”

A chilling grin spread across his mouth as he curled his long, razor-sharp claws, his tail rising like a rattlesnake’s, assuming an offensive stance.

Then, he spoke slowly and deliberately.

“You shouldn’t be wearing that power armor… The last one who wore this thing lost to us twenty-three years ago.”

Chu Guang paid it no mind, merely staring impassively at the monstrous, neither-human-nor-ghost creature.

“You talk too much.”

Before his words had even faded, the monster suddenly shot toward him like an arrow from a bow.

Those words were meant to distract him, to make him reveal a momentary opening.

His explosive legs crushed the corridor tiles beneath him; the screech of his charge rattled the still-intact windows, like a sweeping hurricane.

This biological power armor was the crystallization of his life’s work, and its terrifying destructive power was the masterpiece he took the greatest pride in!

Even a Nitrogen Shield could never block a blow comparable to an electromagnetic cannon!

“Go back to hell!!!”

An excited roar surged from his throat, but his howling claws reached Chu Guang even faster than his scream.

Yet—

Before he could cheer for victory, before he could bathe in the blood of his foe, a kinetic force like a cannonball slammed into his face, crushing his ugly features into his skull.

That terrifying power seemed to pierce through his spirit, making his consciousness flicker for an instant, nearly sending it flying out of the stolen body.

But his body soon caught up with his fleeing soul, and together they soared backward, crashing heavily to the ground.

The Beast King was utterly stunned.

He clearly saw the Nitrogen Power Hammer still standing on the floor, never having moved.

He wasn’t the only one stunned—Kubo, who had been led here by the nose, was also dumbfounded.

But the latter saw clearly: what had struck his face wasn’t that hammer, but a fist like an iron cannon.

And not only that—

Beneath that man’s feet, the corridor tiles were covered in spiderweb cracks; large chunks of concrete crumbled inch by inch, the entire hallway looking as if it had been shelled.

This guy was the real monster!

Despair filled Kubo’s heart as he desperately fought the Beast King for control of the body, trying to escape from here.

There was no chance at all in this one-on-one duel! It would take at least five to even hold this guy back!

Fighting like this was no different from throwing away his life!

He wasn’t one of those old relics hiding in the Sanctuary—that guy couldn’t die, but he only had this one life!

Watching the monster writhing on the ground in its death throes, Chu Guang lightly shook his right fist.

This thing tried a sneak attack?

Truly lacking in martial virtue.

But he wasn’t limited to using a hammer; his fists could punch too.

“…After all that blabbering, I think I know who you are. The ‘Beast King’ hiding in the Sanctuary, right?”

Prostrate on the ground, the Beast King glared at him, white mist leaking from his mouth, his dark green eyes flashing with malice.

Clearly, this creature was still unyielding, still waiting for a chance to strike again.

But that was fine.

Even if it begged for mercy, he had no reason to spare it.

Glancing at the inch-deep dent imprinted on the steel knuckles of his gauntlet, Chu Guang looked coldly at the so-called Beast King.

“That’s it?”