Chapter 181: Black Kite Special Operations Team
After breakfast, he ordered to set off.
Liang Kuan went to prepare for the train’s startup, while Hu Shuo conducted the final verification and docking work with the station.
Boxes of processed materials were carried onto the train by station workers, and they quickly got off the train before it departed.
A total of three hundred people were left at the temporary station, all skilled workers with families.
In addition to daily life, they had to continue construction on the unfinished parts of the station, plant iron-eating trees, repair living facilities, guard against forces around the station, monitor the movements of zombies and mutated beasts, and conduct external transactions in place of the armored train.
The train’s points system was used internally, and after a period of time, it would connect when arriving at the train manufacturing base.
The station master was an armed soldier who was already somewhat old and had a family, so he stayed behind.
With supplies supported by the train, the sentry post formed a guard team of twenty people.
Plus a light machine gun using 7.62mm bullets, there was no need to worry about safety issues in the short term.
Moreover, threats within a three-kilometer radius had been completely cleared by He Jie.
“Toot toot toot—”
The cigar in He Jie’s mouth turned into a metal whistle.
Hearing this sound, the survivors all shivered.
Although only two hundred people were ultimately selected, more than one thousand two hundred participated in the screening, and most of the young and strong adults experienced He Jie’s perverted training.
As a result, the whistle triggered a stress response in a thousand people.
The combat group members on alert nearby tensed up.
Soldiers undergoing daily training, carrying 100 kilograms of equipment on their backs, quickly ran over and lined up.
These two hundred people belonged to the armed corps and were different from the combat group; they were considered He Jie’s direct subordinates.
But there was no real difference; among all the combat personnel on the entire armored train, except for Su Huan and a few core members, He Jie trained whoever he wanted, and even Lin Jin couldn’t escape.
Later, Xiao Ba joined in as well.
He Jie had originally refused, but seeing his persistence, after asking Su Huan, he brought him in.
At first, there was still some care given to Xiao Ba.
But later it was discovered that this child had extremely strong resilience, and He Jie was delighted to find such a gem, secretly increasing the training volume, but no matter how much he added, Xiao Ba gritted his teeth and completed it.
His willpower and ability to endure pain were simply astonishing.
He performed the best among everyone.
This even included evolvers like Lin Jin, Goat, Qu Hang, and others.
With Xiao Ba setting such a high standard, He Jie’s demands on everyone became even stricter, especially for Qu Hang, who would rather go out to fight and battle mutated beasts than participate in his training.
Strict to others, but to him, it was humiliation.
In just a few short days, the “wheelchair kid” became everyone’s nightmare.
He Jie rhythmically tapped his palm with the electric baton, exactly thirty times, precisely thirty seconds.
More accurate than a clock.
The armored train behind him slowly started up.
Looking at the neat crowd, He Jie showed a satisfied smile.
The crowd not only did not relax but stood even more upright, with muscles tensed all over, preparing to receive the sudden blow.
Every time before speaking, He Jie would pick out two unlucky ones who made mistakes to make an example of them.
He Jie walked casually into the crowd.
Those with experience secretly exerted force with their feet.
No matter how the train hummed in front, there was no rush at all.
He Jie repeated his old trick, casually bumping into a few and finding them standing steady, then came to the woman, grinned and said, “Didn’t expect the little cat to sneak through.”
“Report! That’s strength!”
The woman said resolutely.
“Bang!”
The electric baton in He Jie’s hand flipped and directly hit the woman’s lower abdomen, the strong current causing her muscles to spasm.
But her body only swayed slightly, without stepping back half a step.
He Jie roared ferociously, “Did I let you speak? Huh?!”
“Everyone, run to keep up with the train!”
“Yes!”
The soldiers began to run in formation.
He Jie strode toward the train, accelerated a few steps, and leaped onto the over five-meter-high front of the train, standing there looking at the soldiers behind.
……
Northern part of the acid rain area, edge of Guangren City, Qingchuan Province.
Three all-terrain land battle vehicles tore through the rain curtain, tires making sticky squeezing sounds as they crushed debris on the asphalt road.
The lead vehicle slowed down, ignored the no-entry road sign, drove the vehicle onto the roadside sidewalk, crushed large stone slabs, and drove directly into a small mall through a broken hole in the glass curtain wall.
“We have passed through the flood zone and arrived at the acid rain area. All parts, report the situation.”
The combatant in the passenger seat tapped the tactical tablet on her knee, the fluorescent blue light illuminating the tense jawline under her gas mask.
On her left chest was a specially painted number, HT-426, visible only with special tactical glasses. The right shoulder of the tactical suit also had an additional sample collector, with several segments of fluorescent green mutated plant tissue suspended in the glass tube.
“Team Two has arrived.”
“Team Three has arrived.”
Two voices came clearly from the tactical tablet.
The car door slid open, and combatants stepped out of the vehicle, with another ten figures appearing behind them.
A faint whimper suddenly sounded from the dark corner, intermittent, carrying an eager malice.
HT-426’s fingertip moved from the tactical tablet to the pulse handgun at her waist.
The exoskeleton’s servo motor synchronously locked, and without almost aiming, she pulled the trigger.
Because of the exoskeleton, her arm did not tremble in the slightest.
A muffled thud came from the corner as it fell to the ground, and the whimpering completely stopped.
“Conduct environmental detection.”
HT-426 said calmly.
Over a dozen people moved accordingly, starting to work together to conduct comprehensive detection of surrounding mutated plants, air environment, and soil.
Black Kite’s special operations personnel were not pure combatants but a combination of top experts and tactical personnel in various fields.
HT-426 went to the land battle vehicle she rode in, opened the trunk, pulled out a two-meter-long aviation aluminum alloy box, laid it flat on the ground, and opened it after fingerprint and password verification.
Inside the box was not a weapon, but a youth in pajamas, one hand pillowed behind his head, the other on his abdomen, sleeping very peacefully.
The only somewhat discordant thing was an silver iris brooch pinned to the collar of his pajamas.
HT-426 said seriously, “Commander, we have arrived at the acid rain area and can officially begin executing the task.”
A moment later.
No sound at all.
The commander in the aluminum alloy box remained in his original position.
HT-426 frowned suspiciously, her gaze quickly scanning the data on the glass panel of the box.
Only after a moment did she think of a certain possibility.
Her eyebrows furrowed into a “well” shape.
She took a deep breath and said in a gentle tone, “Esteemed Commander Zhao, rest time is over. If you want to sleep so much, after this task ends, I can talk to the doctor and let you sleep in a more comfortable and secure incubator. The laboratory has wanted a Tier 2 live evolver for a long time.”
“426, long time no see.”
Zhao Kuo in the metal box opened one eye, glanced at the suppressing-anger HT-426, and seeing her emotions were stable, slowly stretched lazily.
“Bang!” A muffled sound.
HT-426 punched the commander’s stomach and roared, “We saw each other three days ago, how did the company choose you, this waste, for the Tier 2 experiment!”
“Cough cough…”
Zhao Kuo hunched up, clutching his abdomen and coughing violently several times.
Hearing “Tier 2 experiment,” a trace of obscurity flashed in his eyes, quickly covered by an awkward laugh.
“What was the mission objective this time?”
‘Sure enough, he didn’t even listen to the mission!’
HT-426 clenched her fist, suppressed her anger, and said calmly, “Capture two gene primordiums. Mission time is ten days; we took seven days to arrive at the acid rain area.”
“So rushed, only three days left?”
Zhao Kuo’s eyes showed some doubt.
“Ten days is the time difference the superior fought for for us. Actually, other forces don’t know this news yet. Three days later, it will be formally reported to the company, then discussed and executed, which will take at least two or three days. By the time the company’s second capture team is organized, another half month might have passed.”
“So, we actually have nearly a month, right?”
Zhao Kuo sat up, the loose pajamas falling to reveal a large amount of metal structure below his collarbone.
“That’s right, but I don’t want to stay in this cold damp place for a month.”
HT-426 warned.
“Ah, the acid rain area is already comfortable enough. Do you want to go to the spore jungle?”
“Besides being a bit dangerous, those little mushrooms are quite cute. Maybe the land will really have a new form of life in the future.”
“Alright, alright…”
While the two were talking, the other team members returned one after another.
“Commander Zhao.” A man said without any inflection.
Zhao Kuo sat in the box, raised his hand, and greeted with a light smile, “447, long time no see, still not dead?”
The latter’s mouth twitched, and he turned his head away.
“The corrosion rate in the acid rain area is 12% higher than expected, accelerating wear on various metal coatings.” A busty blonde bombshell walked in and winked at Zhao Kuo.
“428, why did you dye your hair blonde?”
“Looks like Commander Zhao doesn’t care about me at all. It was like this when you woke up three days ago.”
“Is that so, haha…”
“339, how did a 3xx senior like you end up like this?”
“Commander Zhao, you still know how to talk…”
“…”
Zhao Kuo greeted each of the dozen or so people one by one, showing nothing on his face but accurately calling out everyone’s number.
HT-426 and the others were used to it. Not to mention the dozen in front of them; as long as it was a number Zhao Kuo had seen, he could remember it.
The key was that he had not awakened any memory-related ability; his memory was at the average level of a Tier 2 manufacturer.
After the small talk, HT-426 fetched his exclusive exoskeleton from inside the vehicle.
Compared to the minimalist exoskeleton modified from logistics on the armored train, Black Kite’s military exoskeleton had far more functions: overall matte black metal coating, equipped with a matching detachable backpack on the back, added bulletproof armor on the front that could defend against 12.7mm armor-piercing rounds and cover the whole body when deployed, and many weapon mounting points on the exoskeleton.
Even if the power supply ran out, this exoskeleton could still reduce the user’s burden through mechanical structure.
Depending on each person’s evolutionary ability, these exoskeletons had many personalized accessories.
(Exoskeleton reference diagram)
Just like Zhao Kuo’s exoskeleton, no one else could wear it.
The crowd consciously turned away, and Zhao Kuo took off his pajamas, revealing a body combining metal machinery and flesh and blood in front of HT-426, even showing the operating state of some organs.
Not only was there no weakness, but it had strangely grown together with the surrounding machinery.
As if born that way.
HT-426 calmly fitted the exoskeleton onto Zhao Kuo, with various interfaces perfectly matching his body’s machinery.
Accompanied by the sound of the motor turning, Zhao Kuo raised his hand without the lag others felt; the external mechanical support seemed like it had grown from his own body. Once the exoskeleton was fully worn, a cold light flashed in his eyes.
This was the complete Tier 2 evolver, manufacturer domain “Flesh-and-Blood Integration”.
“How long do you plan to dawdle?” A combatant suddenly questioned coldly.
Three people stood beside him, clearly not from HT-426’s group.
Zhao Kuo’s icy gaze swept over, and in the next instant, a storm arose in the room out of nowhere.
The tall combatant who spoke had bulging muscles all over, but before he could adjust to peak condition, he was grabbed by one hand and lifted into mid-air with a boom, his eyes filled with incredulous horror.
Zhao Kuo ignored the other three like startled birds, grabbed the latter’s throat, and smashed him directly into the nearby cement pier.
Gravel flew, flesh and blood splattered.
Only on the second hit did someone shout to stop.
Looking at the three ready to surge forward in support at any time, Zhao Kuo threw the combatant in his hand at their feet, his eyes carrying cold indifference and undisguised ferocity, “Are you planning to attack me?”
The three looked at their injured teammate at their feet and gulped in unison.
When they felt the storm stirred by Zhao Kuo’s movement, they knew something was wrong, but seeing their Tier 1 “Fighter” companion taken down in one move, their hearts surged with shockwaves.
Although they knew Tier 2 evolvers were strong, without clashing hands, they couldn’t feel that despair.
A “Fighter” proficient in close combat taken down barehanded meant they were no different from ordinary people in front of Zhao Kuo.
They were elites among evolvers!
This gap instantly brought back the feeling of being ordinary people.
With some awe, they explained, “We just wanted to remind you of the time.”
“Remember, I am the commander of this mission. Compile all information to me and prepare to execute the task.”
The cold voice rang in everyone’s ears.
Everyone, including 426, felt a chill in their hearts and said solemnly, “Yes!”
The atmosphere immediately became serious.
As if all the previous chit-chat and joking were fleeting.
……
The armored train station was only about 1.2 kilometers from the high-speed rail manufacturing base, and Su Huan’s cleanup order was a three-kilometer radius centered on the station.
In other words, He Jie and the others had already thoroughly scouted the situation at the manufacturing base while clearing surrounding threats.
They knew exactly how many lice were on the people inside.
