444: Cleaning up the infected

The uninfected clones scattered in fear, only to be quickly tackled and torn apart by their mutated counterparts, their blood staining the grey-black earth.

The Imperial Soldiers instantly tensed, raising their purification weapons and aiming at the mutated infected, awaiting only the Command Center's order—this life-or-death experiment had finally entered its most critical phase.

As soon as Li Yang's command was given, the Imperial Soldiers, seeing the situation, swiftly began their cleanup operation.

A Soldier gripped the special long blade in his hand, his figure flashing like lightning, the blade cutting through the air with a sharp whoosh; with a mere 'swish,' he effortlessly severed an infected's body.

Green, foul-smelling blood splattered out, instantly covering his battle armor, but it was blocked by the energy shield on the armor's surface. This specially made battle armor not only resisted physical impacts but also completely shielded against the erosion of infection rules, allowing the Soldiers to remain unharmed amidst the blood and gore.

Above, starships hovered like silver leviathans, and streams of energy beams, like flowing rivers of stars, precisely landed on the battle armor of the ground Soldiers, continuously supplying them with energy.

This was a measure of last resort; although the starships' main cannons possessed astonishing power, they dared not fire them easily.

This was because the infection rules were overwhelmingly potent; any weapon directly attacking an infected would trigger a rule backlash, and the starship would instantly be infected and corroded, transforming from a precise war machine into a pile of rusted scrap metal. Even Universe-class starships could not escape this fate.

This was the absolute power of the rules, allowing no transgression.

As for whether the highest-tier Imperial-class starships could be immune to this rule, Li Yang had no answer in his heart—their two divisions' formations simply did not include such high-level equipment.

On the ground, the genocidal cleanup continued.

Though these infected were vast in number, their individual strength was exceptionally weak, proving no match for the well-equipped and highly trained Imperial Soldiers.

Blade light constantly flickered, green blood dyed the earth, and the originally grey-black surface was scoured with strange patterns.

The Soldiers cooperated seamlessly, advancing, slashing, and parrying, their movements crisp and clean, as if harvesting a patch of weak weeds, with startling efficiency.

This shocking cleanup operation, devoid of earth-shattering clashes, demonstrated the powerful combination of technological equipment and rule-based defense with an almost crushing force, silently proving the infected's vulnerability.

Not to mention Imperial Soldiers, even the basic firepower of a Level 1 civilization could easily tear apart the bodies of these infected—their flesh and blood were like paper against gunpowder weapons.

But the true horror of the infected was never their individual combat power, but their infectiousness, like a persistent malady. Just a trace of body fluid could instantly turn someone into a new source of contagion, and even killing them would lead to infection.

However, for the Imperial Soldiers in their specialized battle armor, this confrontation could barely be called a battle; it was more like a one-sided massacre.

The Soldiers wielded specialized weapons; their blades sliced through the infected bodies without a trace of resistance, green, foul-smelling blood splattered onto the battle armor, and the infection within the corpses was instantly eliminated.

Li Yang's 7 regiments, plus the 11 regiments led by Oliver, totaling nearly a million troops, surged into the infection zone like a tide.

To control the situation before the infection spread further, Li Yang had almost drawn all available combat power, leaving only logistics personnel to maintain communication and supplies in the rear.

Yet, even so, the numbers on the data panel were still alarming—Imperial Soldiers were harvesting infected at a rate of millions per second, the hum of weapons and the roars of the infected intertwining into a hellish symphony.

But when his gaze swept over the total infection count, a string of numbers with over a dozen zeros, even the most elite Soldiers couldn't help but feel their hearts sink.

A cleanup rate of millions per second, against hundreds of billions of infected, felt like trying to empty an ocean with bare hands.

The uncleared infected were still spreading wildly, green bodily fluids flowed through the ruins, and every second, new bodies fell and then rose again, becoming walking sources of contagion, dragging this tug-of-war into an endless abyss.

"Leave a few tens of thousands of uninfected; transfer all others to the starships!"

Li Yang stared at the rapidly escalating infection data on the light screen, his tone urgent but with an undeniable decisiveness.

If this continued unchecked, the number of new infected would eventually exceed the cleanup rate, and previous deployments would become futile.

As soon as the order was given, the starship fleet in the sky immediately responded.

Hundreds of pale blue teleportation beams, like colossal pillars, precisely enveloped the uninfected intelligent beings.

With a flash of light, large numbers of figures on the ground instantly vanished, teleported into the starships' isolation cabins.

In just a few minutes, the once-crowded continent was left with only tens of thousands of intelligent beings, surrounded by layers of Imperial Soldiers. They huddled in the safe zones created by the Soldiers' energy shields, their eyes filled with fear of the roaring sounds around them.

With the new sources of infection cut off, the data curve on the light screen finally showed a slight leveling—the red line for new infections no longer sharply ascended, while the blue line for cleanup numbers began to steadily climb.

But Li Yang's brow remained tightly furrowed, his fingertip tapping heavily on the data panel.

"No, the speed is still too slow."

Although no new infected were joining, the existing hundreds of billions of infected were like an endless black tide.

The Soldiers' efficiency of clearing millions per second, while seemingly astonishing, was like a drop of water falling into a boiling oil pot when faced with such an enormous base number, barely able to create a ripple.

The hum of weapons never ceased, green blood gathered on the ground in winding streams, but looking out, the distant horizon still surged with dense figures of infected, as if they could never be fully eliminated.

"At this cleanup rate, we won't keep up with the next infection."

Oliver's voice held a trace of anxiety, his gaze sweeping over the uninfected protected by the shields.

Li Yang watched the infected on the ground, surging like a tide, his knuckles tapping an urgent rhythm on the control console.

A faster cleanup method had to be found, otherwise, this experiment would ultimately devolve into a protracted war of attrition, and what they could least afford was time.

"Quick! Transmit my order—have those civilizations continue to conscript intelligent beings and transport them here immediately! Not only that, have their Soldiers join the battlefield; we'll provide the battle armor and weapons, they don't need to worry about it!"

Li Yang urgently ordered into the communicator, beads of sweat sliding down his jawline—if they delayed any longer, the rules would reset in an hour, and the infection range would inevitably expand again. The current manpower wasn't even enough to make a dent.