72: The inland demon school harbors evil; iron fists punish the Japanese scoundrels.

Chapter Seventy-Four: Evil Hidden in the Inland Demon School, Iron Blood and Iron Fists Punish the Japanese Fiends

The Eastern Army Group's advance came to a sudden halt outside an abandoned county town on the West Zhejiang Plain.

Chen Hao stood in the temporary command tent, his fingertips tightly gripping the encrypted report brought back by the scouts, his knuckles turning white from the force. The air in the tent was so oppressive it was almost suffocating; the faces of several Special Ops Battalion officers were uglier than the last, the fury in their eyes almost ready to erupt.

“The Division Commander's order was for us to clear the remaining Mutants along the coast and investigate the movements of the Skeleton Serpent, but who would have thought that such a cancer was hidden here in the heart of the inland!” Chen Hao slammed the report onto the table, the chill in his voice dropping the temperature in the tent by several degrees.

The contents of the report were written in blood.

On the outskirts of this abandoned county town was a Japanese-style international school left over from before the apocalypse. When the scouts infiltrated to investigate, they found that the school had long been occupied by a group of Japanese right-wingers calling themselves the “Sakura Society,” who turned out to be the Serpent Skeleton Research Institute's secret minions in the inland. In the school's underground laboratory, nearly two hundred civilians kidnapped from surrounding villages and towns were imprisoned—elderly, women, and children alike. The people of the Sakura Society used them as live experimental subjects, injecting them with unstable Mutant viruses to observe the mutation process in the human body. Failed experimental subjects were either executed directly or thrown into the valley behind the school to be fed to the Malformed Mutants they had bred.

Even more horrifying, the scouts also found pre-apocalyptic records in the laboratory's archives—this school, from its very inception, was a secret base for the Sakura Society and the Serpent Skeleton Research Institute, secretly collecting China's population genetic data to prepare for their mad experiments.

“These beasts!” A Special Ops Battalion officer punched a tent pole. “They had ill intentions before the apocalypse, and after it, they became even more unscrupulous! What right do they have to harm our compatriots on our land?!”

“Calm down!” Chen Hao took a deep breath, suppressing the towering rage in his heart, though a fierce murderous intent still burned in his eyes. “Anger won't solve the problem. What we need to do is raze this demon's den to the ground, rescue all our compatriots, and make these demons pay for their blood debts!”

He immediately pulled up a satellite map, his fingertip tracing the outline of the Japanese-style school—the school was surrounded by a three-meter-high wall covered in barbed wire and surveillance cameras, with armed militants guarding the gate. Several teaching buildings on campus had been converted into fortifications, and in the valley behind the school, traces of Mutant activity could be faintly seen.

“Orders!” Chen Hao's voice was as cold as a blade. “The First Special Ops Company, equipped with Sonic Jammers, will infiltrate from the valley behind the school to deal with the Malformed Mutants there and cut off the enemy's retreat; the Falcon Attack Aircraft squadron will take off and stand by—once any sign of an enemy breakout is detected, immediately carry out fire coverage; the remaining troops will follow me in a frontal assault! Remember, our primary goal is to save people. Try to avoid damaging the underground laboratory; those experimental records are ironclad evidence to indict the Sakura Society and the Serpent Skeleton Research Institute!”

“Understood!” The officers took their orders in unison, the murderous intent in their voices almost breaking through the tent.

The operation began late at night.

The night on the West Zhejiang Plain was terrifyingly quiet. There was only the rustling of wind through the wild grass and the occasional roar of a Mutant. The soldiers of the First Special Ops Company, wearing Stealth Combat Suits, silently made their way into the valley behind the school. A pungent smell of blood permeated the valley, where dozens of Malformed Mutants were crouched on the ground, gnawing on something.

“Do it!” The Special Ops Company Commander gave the order, and the Sonic Jammers were instantly activated.

Pale purple energy waves spread out, and the Mutants' movements suddenly slowed down as they let out painful wails. The soldiers took the opportunity to pounce, their Bone-Spur Long Knives accurately piercing the Mutants' cranial cavities, finishing them off cleanly.

At the same time, a violent explosion rang out at the school gate.

The main assault force, led personally by Chen Hao, blew open the closed school gate with explosives. Soldiers wearing Second Generation Scale Armor Power Armor charged into the school like tigers descending from a mountain.

“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!”

Members of the Sakura Society inside the school rushed out of the teaching buildings in a panic, their modified rifles firing wildly. But their firepower was like an itch compared to the Second Generation armor. The soldiers' Sonic Rifles roared in unison, firing waves of energy; Sakura Society members fell screaming, and bodies soon piled up in the open space at the school gate.

“Charge in! Save our compatriots!” Chen Hao, holding an enhanced Sonic Rifle, led the charge into the teaching building.

The battle inside the teaching building was far more intense than imagined. The core members of the Sakura Society were hiding on the second and third floors, using the terrain to their advantage to put up a desperate resistance. One Sakura Society member even charged at the soldiers holding a bundle of explosives.

“Seeking death!” Chen Hao's eyes sharpened as he raised his gun and accurately hit the explosive pack.

“Boom!”

The explosion rang out, and that Sakura Society member was blown to pieces.

The soldiers took the opportunity to charge to the second floor, wiping out all the resisting Sakura Society members. When they kicked open the iron door of the underground laboratory, the sight before them made everyone's eyes turn red.

In the laboratory, under dim lighting, nearly two hundred civilians were chained to iron racks, each one emaciated and hollow-eyed. Some civilians had IV tubes inserted into them, with dark green liquid flowing through; some had already developed slight mutation symptoms, with fine scales growing on their arms. In the corner of the lab, a dozen cold corpses were piled up—all victims of failed experiments.

“Compatriots! We are the army of Dawn City! We've come to save you!” Chen Hao's voice trembled slightly.

The civilians on the iron racks slowly raised their heads, looking at the armored soldiers. Their eyes were first blank, then erupted with intense emotion.

“Reinforcements! It's reinforcements!”

“We're saved!”

Cries, shouts, and cheers instantly filled the entire laboratory.

The soldiers scrambled to unchain the civilians, while medics immediately stepped forward to treat the wounded and inject Anti-viral Serum.

Just then, rapid footsteps came from deep within the laboratory. A Japanese man wearing a white lab coat and a toothbrush mustache was clutching a code box, trying to escape through a secret passage.

“Stop!” Chen Hao recognized him at a glance as the Sakura Society leader recorded in the files, Matsumoto Ichiro.

Matsumoto Ichiro's face was pale. He turned and drew the katana at his waist, screaming hysterically: “Shina-jin! Don't you dare think of stopping the Great Japanese Empire's magnificent experiment! Lord Skeleton Serpent will avenge me!”

He brandished the katana and lunged at Chen Hao.

Chen Hao sneered, stepped aside to dodge the attack, and slammed a fist into his chest. Matsumoto Ichiro's ribs shattered instantly, and he flew backward spitting blood, crashing heavily onto the ground as the code box fell to the side.

“Magnificent experiment?” Chen Hao stepped forward, looking down at him with eyes full of murderous intent that almost consumed him. “Experimenting with the lives of our compatriots is worthy of being called magnificent? You remnants of invaders should have known from the moment you stepped onto this land that this day would come!”

Matsumoto Ichiro was scared out of his wits by Chen Hao's gaze. He knelt and begged for mercy: “Spare me! Spare me! I'm willing to hand over all the experimental data! I'm willing to defect to Dawn City!”

“Too late!” Chen Hao's voice was bone-chillingly cold. “From the moment you harmed your first compatriot, your fate was already sealed!”

He raised his hand and pulled the trigger at Matsumoto Ichiro's head.

The gunshot rang out, Matsumoto Ichiro's head burst, and blood splattered across the floor.

In the code box, the soldiers found all the evidence of the collusion between the Sakura Society and the Serpent Skeleton Research Institute—pre-apocalyptic genetic data, post-apocalyptic experimental reports, the distribution of the Serpent Skeleton Research Institute's inland bases... These records were enough to make the crimes of the Sakura Society and the Serpent Skeleton Research Institute known to the world.

By dawn, the battle was completely over.

The rescued civilians boarded the Eastern Army Group's transport trucks and headed toward Shuguang New City. Chen Hao stood on the ruins of the Japanese-style school, looking at the rising sun with a determined gaze.

He took out his Walkie-Talkie and reported to Lin Zhou: “Division Commander, the Japanese school demon's den in West Zhejiang has been cleared. All two hundred compatriots have been rescued, all Sakura Society members have been executed, and all data on the Serpent Skeleton Research Institute's inland bases has been seized!”

Lin Zhou's voice, carrying the energy waves of Battlefield Command Amplification, came through clearly: “Well done, Chen Hao! Rest and reorganize on the spot for three days and replenish supplies! In three days, the Eastern Army Group will launch a general offensive against the Serpent Skeleton Research Institute's inland bases!”

“Yes, sir!”

Chen Hao's roar echoed over the West Zhejiang Plain for a long time.

Thousands of miles away on the deep-sea mobile platform, the Man in the Suit looked at the report of Matsumoto Ichiro's death and the seizure of the experimental data, his face so dark it could drip ink. He smashed the wine glass in his hand and growled through gritted teeth: “Lin Zhou! Chen Hao! I will make you pay a heavy price for Matsumoto's death!”

He turned to the researcher behind him and said word for word: “Activate the self-destruct sequence of the inland bases! Also, send out the 'Shadow' squad. I want them to go to Dawn City and take Lin Zhou's head!”