52: Chapter 52 The Cleaner Squad

Gray Mist Town.

Thirty-five kilometers from the border line.

This place seemed like land abandoned by the Gods.

The eerie gray mist never dispersed, and the physical Laws were severely distorted here.

The sodium street lamp poles by the road looked like wax candles scorched by high temperatures, twisted into corkscrews hanging toward the ground. Lamp oil that shouldn't have been there dripped onto the asphalt from the lampshades.

The sewer covers were missing, and the filthy black water defied gravitational pull, coalescing into massive spheres of water that hung silently in mid-air.

Zhao Tiezhu waved away a floating piece of rubble in front of him, and the hydraulic rods of his exoskeleton armor emitted a slight mechanical hum.

"Company Commander, the gravity here is wrong. My stomach is churning. In just a short while, my lunch has shot back and forth between my throat and my rear end three times."

On the radio channel, the voice of the new recruit Li Two Ox sounded a bit shaky.

"Then tighten your sphincter muscle," Zhao Tiezhu flicked open the safety cover of his assault rifle. The readings on his tactical eyepiece were jumping wildly. "If you soil yourself, you can wash the inner lining of your exoskeleton yourself when we get back."

This was the Third Search Squad.

Ever since the Golden Gate opened, Zhao Tiezhu felt like he had inexhaustible energy. It wasn't just him; the entire company was energized as if injected with adrenaline.

The order from above was to advance thirty kilometers outward, but these seasoned veterans, high on the thrill of battle, had pushed an extra five kilometers, arriving at this cursed place.

The gray mist grew thicker.

Directly ahead was an abandoned church. The originally pointed cross was stuck upside down in the mud nearby, looking like a drunken man who had fallen headfirst.

"Movement," Deputy Captain Old Li signaled.

The entire team instantly fell silent.

Through the shattered stained-glass windows, one could see over a dozen people lying haphazardly in the church hall. More accurately, they were people wrapped up like zongzi (rice dumplings).

Dark red vines were burrowing out from the cracks in the floor tiles, tightly binding these survivors. Sharp thorns pierced their blood vessels and were rhythmically sucking away their life force.

They were refugees.

There were men and women, and even two children who looked no older than five. Their faces were already white as paper, clearly on the verge of becoming mummies.

"Save them?" Old Li lowered his voice, his fingers resting on the trigger, his knuckles white.

Logically, the most rational course of action now was to retreat.

This was a heavily contaminated zone; communications were completely cut off, and there was no support.

Carrying a group of people who couldn't walk, in this land infested with monsters, was practically delivering takeout—the kind that came packaged.

Zhao Tiezhu didn't speak; he just stared at the child whose eyes were rolling back from the constriction of the vines.

That child was still tightly clutching half a rotten apple.

In an instant, Zhao Tiezhu felt a ball of fire burning in his chest. The fire didn't burn, but it prevented him from being cold-blooded, from watching his own kind turn into fertilizer right before his eyes.

It felt like his Old Ancestor had slapped the back of his head, cursing: "To watch someone die without helping, do you even deserve to be a Dragon Summer soldier?"

"Damn it," Zhao Tiezhu spat out a mouthful of saliva. "Let's go!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he charged out.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three-round bursts precisely severed the vines wrapped around the child's neck.

"Two Ox, cut the vines! Old Li, stand guard! The rest, carry the wounded!"

The squad moved extremely fast. Daggers flashed, and in a few quick motions, they pulled the people free from the pile of vines.

As soon as the refugees hit the ground, before they could even cry out, the soldiers covered their mouths and hoisted them onto their backs.

"Move! Don't look back!"

Zhao Tiezhu covered the rear, cautiously watching the depths of the church.

No monsters chased them out.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

However...

Just as the squad pulled out of the church entrance, the surrounding air suddenly became viscous, as if they had fallen into a bucket of glue.

Zhao Tiezhu's scalp tingled.

Six dark shadows emerged silently, as if growing out of cracks in the air, surrounding them.

They were six humanoid creatures wearing fully sealed black battle armor, with faint blue energy halos flowing around them. Their weapons were neither guns nor blades, but some kind of buzzing particle cutters.

"Ark Alliance, Scavenger Squad."

The leading armored figure didn't even speak; the voice was synthesized electronic sound from an external speaker, cold, carrying condescending arrogance.

Data streams were rapidly refreshing on his tactical eyepiece.

[Scan complete. Target: Dragon Summer Patrol Team.]

[Average Energy Level: C-Rank.]

[Equipment Level: Obsolete Exoskeleton.]

[Threat Level: 0.]

This A-Rank expert, codenamed 'Black Mamba,' let out a sneer beneath his faceplate.

Ever since Dragon Summer caused successive major disturbances and even sent people outside the Golden Great Wall, the higher-ups of the Ark Alliance had been unable to sit still.

Their infiltration this time was originally intended to capture a few informants to study Dragon Summer's secrets.

Unexpectedly, they ran into a bunch of trash.

"These are the soldiers of the Eastern Nation?" Black Mamba's voice was full of mockery. "Primitives without even an energy shield dare to run around wildly?"

Zhao Tiezhu narrowed his eyes and tossed his assault rifle aside.

The opponents had those blue energy shields; bullets would only make a sound when they hit.

"Company Commander, these sons of bitches look quite flashy," Li Two Ox, still carrying a child on his back, even had the mood to joke. "Are those LED light strips? They look like a LAN cafe computer case."

"Quickly finish this," seeing that they still had the leisure to chat, Black Mamba's face darkened, and he said coldly.

He raised his hand and made a gesture for 'Eliminate.'

"Three seconds. Send them on their way."

Swish!

Two B-Rank assassins wearing light battle armor instantly vanished from where they stood.

This was the optical camouflage plus short-range burst-propulsion that the Ark Alliance prided itself on. To ordinary eyes, it was practically teleportation.

The next second, two high-frequency vibrating daggers were already pressed against Zhao Tiezhu's carotid artery.

Too fast.

If it were the old Zhao Tiezhu, his head would already be gone by now.

But now...

Just as the daggers were about to touch his skin, the world in Zhao Tiezhu's eyes suddenly changed.

Time seemed to have been set to 0.5x speed by someone.

No, time hadn't slowed down.

It was his brain that had sped up.

The [The Passing of the Torch] BUFF granted by Su Yun exploded in his mind with a buzz. A stream of cool air instantly washed over every neuron.

Thought Supercharge.

In that instant, Zhao Tiezhu felt he was no longer a brute, but a precision supercomputer.

The angle of the enemy's assassination, the resistance of the airflow, and even the vibration frequency of the daggers were transformed into the most intuitive data in his mind.

[Target on the left, center of gravity shifted 15 degrees to the right, old injury on the meniscus of the knee joint.]

[Target on the right, striking speed 0.12 seconds, 3-millimeter gap in the armor seam under the armpit.]

[Recommendation: Beat the hell out of them.]

The thought came inexplicably, but Zhao Tiezhu's body reacted first.

He didn't turn around.

He casually threw a punch backward, as if swatting a fly.

This seemingly ordinary military boxing strike generated a terrifying sonic boom the moment it was thrown.

Smack!

At first, it was the sound of the fist colliding with high-tech battle armor.

But what followed was the grating sound of bones cracking.

"What?!"

The assassin on the left felt an unreasonable, savage force smash into his chest. The nano-armor, capable of withstanding heavy machine gun fire, actually caved in like paper.

He was hit like he was struck by a locomotive, thrown back over ten meters, and smashed fiercely into the brick wall of the church, stuck so tightly he couldn't be pried out.

The assassin on the right had it worse.

Zhao Tiezhu's other hand had already been raised at some unknown point, his palm gripping the assassin's wrist like an iron clamp.

With a slight exertion...

Crack.

The wrist shattered, and the dagger fell to the ground.

Before the assassin could even scream, Zhao Tiezhu followed up with a kick to the stomach.

Boom!

This single kick directly blew out the energy shield and sent the assassin bouncing seven or eight times on the ground like a skipping stone, finally hanging motionless on a street lamp pole.

The entire area fell silent.

Black Mamba, who had been full of arrogance moments ago, now had his eyeballs nearly popping out from behind his faceplate.

His tactical eyepiece was screaming warnings:

[Warning! Warning! Target energy level erupting! Data error! Data error!]

How could this be?

These were just a bunch of C-Rank cannon fodder!

Even if the leader, this dark-faced brute, was B-Rank, he shouldn't be this powerful.

These were two elite B-Rank assassins! They could hold their own against an A-Rank expert, so how could they be instantly killed by someone of the same Rank?

"Is that all?"

Zhao Tiezhu shook his wrist.

"All those flashy lights, can't you bring something practical?"

His confidence had surged. The enemies before him were riddled with flaws; no matter how they fought, they would lose.

"You're asking to die!"

Black Mamba was enraged.

He no longer held back, drawing the particle battle saber over a meter long from his back, engaging his thrusters to full power. His entire body transformed into a black lightning bolt, rushing straight toward Zhao Tiezhu.

An all-out attack from an A-Rank expert.

This single strike was capable of cleaving through a heavy main battle tank.

The air was warped and distorted by the scorching high-temperature particles, emitting a sharp screech.