Chapter 250: Escape Hunt
Half an hour later, the wind and rain eased slightly.
Over three hundred armed soldiers were divided into two parts, with more than two hundred staying on the train to guard the survivors.
The rest were split into more than a dozen five-person squads, landing on Guanchao Island from the east and advancing inward.
Each squad was spaced about hundred meters apart, with the advance route determined by the leader officer.
But the armed corps had limited officers, so combat group soldiers filled in; although they weren’t as versatile as Goat or Pangtu, compared to these soldiers trained for just a few days, their tactical literacy was worlds apart.
In the southeast direction, a five-person squad advanced in single file, with Pangtu at the rear; one hand on the shoulder of the soldier in front, the other propping the gun stock against his shoulder, vigilantly observing the right front.
Many trees on Guanchao Island were artificially planted and originally not hard to traverse, but after the apocalypse mutation, the difficulty increased a lot; plus many potholes were filled with water, and one careless step could land in a deep pit buried by vines.
Drowning wasn’t likely, but getting entangled by mutated plants was still troublesome.
The number one position soldier held a makeshift machete made from a wooden stick, chopping a path while observing the road surface.
The number two position watched the farthest line of sight, served by a Defender with evolved vision.
The number three position was responsible for dangers on trees and at high altitude.
The number four position was responsible for the left front.
During the water bottom and cultivation pod construction period, armed soldiers couldn’t do much physical training, so He Jie gathered a few officers and decided to take turns giving tactical lessons to the soldiers every day.
The Steel Council was cultivating them as officer seeds, so each could handle multiple combat roles; don’t let He Jie’s brute image of always carrying two heavy machine guns fool you—he could handle battlefield driving, sharpshooter, laying and clearing mines perfectly.
It was just that among these seventy-plus combat skills, he excelled most at advanced battlefield command and machine gunner.
His sniping wasn’t accurate—that was relative to Qu Hang; his medical skills weren’t great, that was compared to Pangtu.
Even if thrown into the air force, he would be an excellent paratrooper.
Only in front of Su Huan, who had the prophet cheat, did these soldier kings seem stupid and clumsy.
No matter how much tactics they knew, there was no room to use them in that special place, the armory.
After these soldier kings took turns filling them in, these armed soldiers at least started to look the part.
But the training was too little; once compared to elites, their tactics would still show flaws.
But the advantage was that each had a unique evolutionary ability, and everyone had seen blood, with no psychological issues.
Suddenly, a whooshing sound abruptly rang out.
Pangtu felt a sting on his left cheek, and his whole body jumped up like a rabbit, instantly leaping onto the trunk beside him; shouting “Enemy left front” from his mouth while sweeping a burst of bullets toward the attack source.
The belated soldiers sought cover and began counterattack.
The bushes were like encountering a lawnmower, splattering juice under five muzzles.
Until Pangtu saw a figure fall did he raise his fist.
But the soldiers below were still clicking empty guns in frustration, so he flew down with a kick, pinning the man to the ground and giving him a big slap.
“Cease fire, can’t you read?!”
But considering it was the battlefield with no time to educate him, he could only first command the others to hide and conceal, then educate later.
After a while, with tentative shooting confirming no issue, Pangtu shouted to clean the battlefield.
Squatting behind a tree, he drew his dagger and used the side to check his face.
He saw a black needle stuck in it, with obvious red swelling around, and he was so angry he went numb.
“Captain, are you okay?”
A few soldiers who confirmed the target dead gathered over, looking worriedly at the ten-centimeter-long black needle on his face.
Pangtu took out the emergency medical kit while pointing hatefully at number four, “When we get back, you’re brushing the toilet with a toothbrush for a month!”
Because of the cheek swelling, Pangtu’s voice was somewhat distorted.
Showing the potency of the poison.
Even a Tier 1 Evolver was like this; an ordinary person would die on the spot!
Pangtu poured some alcohol on the dagger, “Someone come pull the thorn out of my face.”
The number two soldier just reached out when the furious Pangtu kicked him flying.
“Idiot! Didn’t you see it’s a poison needle?!”
“Wear gloves!”
By the time the needle was pulled out, the swelling on Pangtu’s face was fist-high; his originally rugged facial lines were puffy like a steamed bun.
No antidote was found on the survivor who attacked them; perhaps the other side never thought to prepare one.
Pangtu could only chalk it up to bad luck, steeling himself to cut a cross on his face, squeezing out the pus and blood, then using his Tier 1 Doctor profession to mix a hemostatic anti-inflammatory medicine from carried evolved plant and apply it.
“Where’s the corpse?”
“Up ahead, I’ll drag it over.”
“I’ll drag you…”
Pangtu cursed with his unclear speech for a full minute before holding onto a tree to stand up.
Not because he ran out of words, but because he was dizzy.
But now wasn’t the time to rest.
With these idiots, even heading back now he might not make it alive to the train.
He had to find teammates for support.
Real teammates with tactical literacy, not these half-assed ones.
At the corpse, he cautiously checked surroundings for reflective objects, booby traps, explosives, and other tricks before stepping up to give the corpse two more shots, then flipping it over face up.
The corpse wore modified jeans shirt, with obvious stains and heavy grassy stench; face painted with colorful oils, holding a PVC pipe, a cowhide bag at the waist filled with densely packed black needles and a lot of dark green powder.
At this time, sporadic gunshots came from the distant jungle, clearly other squads engaging these Priest.
Perhaps his ointment worked, as his face regained some sensation.
From numb to itchy and painful.
“Captain, do we keep advancing?”
Pangtu gave him a glare, not forcing speech again, pointed to a direction with gunshots, and quickly moved to join.
Ten minutes later, Pangtu linked up with Goat.
They got a wave of harsh mockery right upon meeting.
Goat’s side had rich spoils, having killed five Priests.
Pangtu irritably said, “What the hell are you laughing at? I’m a doctor; your ability is like cheating. Without using ability against him, you’d probably get taken out too.”
Goat chuckled, “Who the fuck fights them head-on? This isn’t patrol duty; I directly over-level suppression. See those three? Taken out by one grenade.”
Pangtu was about to speak when he saw Goat’s eyes go blank, bullet body leaping up, rifle in hand without a waver.
Until a two-note bird call came from the jungle did the two relax a bit.
This was the signal they matched before departure to avoid friendly fire.
A man in standard armed soldier raincoat emerged from the jungle, nose like a gallstone, with a sharp temperament.
It was Lu Xiao.
“You got injured too?” Goat asked.
Lu Xiao glanced over, pointing at the corpse on the ground, “This one fled from our side; I chased a couple extra steps.”
Pangtu lowered his gun, casually asking, “How many did you kill? Any tough ones?”
“Three, all ordinary people; they blanked at the muzzle. Only this one ran when he saw it was bad, making me run extra.”
Lu Xiao shook his head; rustling came from behind as Miao Qi and Xiao Ma brought people over.
“Be careful; there are quite a few evolvers among them, and poison users; not like the previous survivors.” Pangtu reminded.
Lu Xiao looked at the wound on his face and nodded.
“Continue advancing; try to link up with the main train side before dark.”
After Goat spoke, he led into the jungle.
He didn’t use Pangtu’s tactical advance moves; with Probability Judgment, he just needed to move fast, and the ability would naturally handle scouting.
Pangtu’s squad followed behind.
Lu Xiao’s side changed direction, continuing the advance task.
……
A disheveled figure fled through the jungle.
Shoes slipped off from running, flipped to the ankle, but the man didn’t dare stop, occasionally tugging messy hair covering his eyes to reveal terrified gaze, stumbling deeper into the jungle.
Only upon finding a big tree did he relax, holding the trunk and panting heavily.
“You think because it’s their turf, I won’t dare enter?”
An icy voice came from overhead.
The man felt like falling into an ice cave, stiffly lifting his head.
Only to see above him pairs of dark green, fluorescent yellow beast eyes curiously overlooking; one pair especially large and round.
“Bang!”
Mongoose jumped down from the tree, directly stepping on the man’s shoulder to knock him down, drawing handgun to press against the back of his head, pulling the trigger before pleas could escape.
The small figures on the tree seemed startled by the gunshot.
After a long time, with no danger found, they poked out furry heads to look at Mongoose.
It was a group of black-gray “little cats”.
These little cats were exceptionally petite, but not like ordinary kittens in ignorance; each had lively eyes and swift moves, jumping through the canopy even more fiercely than adult big cats.
They were the overlords of this area.
Managing it so clean not even a bug remained.
Anything that moved would be caught by them.
Perhaps due to beast transformation, these little things didn’t attack Mongoose.
But they didn’t show much enthusiasm either, merely not rejecting her approach to their territory.
Mongoose searched the man, spotting his tightly gripped hand; military boot stomped down, crushing it open to reveal a bright red crystal inside.
Mongoose’s beast eyes narrowed.
This thing she found when killing her third person, though much smaller than the one in the man’s hand.
That person, cornered, bit and swallowed it.
Combat power instantly surged, more exaggerated than adrenaline.
Somewhat like instant beast transformation effect.
She guessed it was some dangerous new material, planning to bring it back to the train for the experts to examine.
Until researched clearly, she didn’t want to stuff these inexplicable things in her mouth.
Pocketing the crystal, Mongoose flashed a bright smile at the canopy, then turned to walk another direction.
“I’m off.”
At first, Mongoose refused this pure hunting task.
After being tormented by He Jie so long, she still held her principles.
But after seeing these Priests madly hunting each other, Mongoose temporarily set aside her moral shackles.
Using violence to curb violence—wasn’t that a virtue too?
The mutated jungle crisis-filled for others was like home to her.
Almost without techniques, she instinctively blended with the jungle, sensing seven or eight out of ten where mutated beasts or mutated plants were.
The remaining one or two via small jungle warfare tricks taught by He Jie.
This man was her twelfth hunting goal.
Old Wu’s side was even more straightforward.
As a professional soldier, he had no morals.
Not even finishing one base of ammunition, he had already taken out over thirty!
Because Priests started from the west, personnel here was denser.
But now cleared out by him directly.
Combat group’s equipment was better than armed corps to begin with, ammo allocation nearly unlimited; plus short-term task, Old Wu carried a full forty magazines just in case.
Sixteen hundred bullets!
Enough to cover all participants and still have a base left to shoot birds.
Under this strangling, New Eden kill-sacrifice Priest participants dwindled.
……
The resort hotel on Guanchao Island was one of the island’s few intact buildings.
Others were either invaded by mutated plants or modified into ragged messes by survivors, losing all original appearance.
Only this standalone luxury resort hotel largely retained its pre-apocalypse look.
Only two shattered glass panes added a touch of decay to the hotel.
Second Priest sat on a luxury sofa, pinching a tall champagne glass filled with red wine, swirling it.
Three confidants sat in the living room playing cards; a thin tall figure stood quietly in the room corner like a dead man.
“How many left?”
Second Priest suddenly asked.
A confidant playing cards suddenly closed his eyes; after a moment, he surprisedly said, “Just over a thousand.”
Second Priest’s eyes lit up, “Just a thousand? This batch so high quality? Are those key marked ones still alive?”
“Two dead, the remaining three alive.”
Second Priest drained the red wine in his glass, excitedly standing, “Good, good; only more intense fighting selects stronger warriors for my use.”
The confidant glanced at the figure in the room corner, grinning, “Those fools still think it’s to please the divine; didn’t expect you to be that god!”
Another confidant chimed in, “I say we skip the hassle of sacrifices; just let Priest pick.”
Second Priest’s face cooled slightly, “What do you know? Too many people on the island, not enough things to feed them; only fighting selects the strongest death gods.”
The three confidants chuckled.
Second Priest looked out the window at the dense forest; for some reason, his heart suddenly skipped.
A faint unease.
“Right, what is High Priestess doing now?”
The confidant paused, “That old hag’s gone senile, muttering that god’s proxy prophecy every day…”
Second Priest calmly said, “Go check on her.”
