217: Chapter 218 Bird Knight

"Holy shit!! My crops!!"

He thought of the Jinkela wheat and various other crops he had painstakingly planted in the fields outside the city, which were just about ready for harvest, as well as the plump, sturdy cattle raised in the pens...

If they were ruined by the bugs, all the hard work he had poured in during this time would go completely down the drain!

He didn't care about anything else anymore.

With bloodshot eyes, Penny ran straight out of the hall, straddled his mutated land bird, and dashed out of the city in a frantic rush.

By now, the sky had darkened completely.

Through the thick acid rain clouds, a massive number of biological drop pods, resembling dense raindrops, could be faintly seen falling at high speeds through the air, trailing fiery friction plumes!

On the walls of Town 233, the anti-air cannons and multi-barrel close-in weapon systems controlled by the Auxiliary Forces had already begun firing one after another.

Plumes of green blood mist erupted continuously in the sky as many drop pods were shot down, but this still could not stop the massive swarm of bugs from landing.

The city was in utter chaos at this moment.

Auxiliary trucks rumbled through the streets, transporting troops everywhere.

Women and children, carrying basic daily necessities on their backs, made their way toward the underground air-raid shelters with terrified expressions, supporting one another.

Meanwhile, under the temporary organization of the guild players,

most of the native men who had just crossed the poverty line spontaneously took up the lasguns and Bolters issued by the factories, looking ready to fight to the death on the front lines of the city walls.

Penny, riding his giant bird, was blocked in the streets by the surging crowd.

Sweating profusely with anxiety, he forced his way through the crowd and finally managed to reach the towering city gates.

At that moment, amid the grinding of gears, the heavy metal gates were just about to be completely closed and locked.

"Wait! Don't close it! I want to go out!"

Penny shouted, riding his bird as he charged toward the gap in the closing gate.

Since Penny was usually passionate about agriculture and often wandered around the farmlands outside the city,

and because this wealthy lifestyle player had a very easygoing personality, often giving away surplus high-yield food to the poor civilians in the city,

most of the native residents in City 233 actually knew this approachable lord.

Because he often rode a giant bird no matter where he went,

everyone privately referred to him with respect as the "Bird Knight."

The title of "Knight" was a big deal in the culture of the Warhammer Universe, which was filled with class oppression and brutal laws.

Unlike those who called themselves knights, someone whom the commoners called a knight from the bottom of their hearts usually represented noble virtue and the strength to protect the weak.

As a modern person, Penny naturally found this title too chuunibyou and embarrassing, often waving his hands to deny it.

But in the eyes of those simple local residents, this was merely a sign of a great knight's modesty and low profile.

As a result, the glorious title of Bird Knight spread even wider and became deeply rooted in people's hearts.

The auxiliary guards responsible for guarding the gate recognized Penny at a glance.

"My Lord!"

The guard quickly raised his gun to block him, anxiously trying to dissuade him,

"Many monsters have already landed outside the city; it's far too dangerous! The gates must be locked immediately. Please, you must not go out!"

Being stopped made Penny rather anxious.

He patted the bird's head.

"Oh, come on! Move aside, move aside! My thousands of acres of land and dozens of cattle are still out there! That's my hard work, it can't just be destroyed like this!"

With that, Penny ignored the guard's protests.

He squeezed the bird's flanks and forced his way through the closing gap of the city gates, galloping toward the farmlands outside.

However,

just as the city gates were about to slam shut with a resounding boom,

among the crowd of civilians behind him, several young workers holding weapons and wearing overalls smelling of machine oil saw Penny riding out alone.

"It's too dangerous for Lord Bird Knight to go out alone!"

A worker covered in coal dust gritted his teeth and shouted,

"My life was saved by that bag of flour he gave me! I'm going to protect him! I'm a steel mill worker, I've got plenty of strength!"

"Count me in! I'm going too! We can't let the knight who protects us die out there!"

Swept up in a rush of adrenaline, several workers seized the last opportunity to slip through the gap in the gate, raising their weapons as they chased after Penny's receding figure.

...

Penny galloped all the way on his giant bird.

When he finally arrived at his farmland, over ten kilometers outside the city,

the sight before him made his heart sink straight to the bottom!

In the vast wheat fields he had painstakingly planted,

dense swarms of Tyranid Termagants and Genestealers were frantically devouring the plump ears of wheat, gnawing the golden waves of grain down to a barren, muddy wasteland.

On the other side,

the mutated Brave Cows raised in the farm pens had huddled together after sensing danger, but their proud size was completely useless against the bugs.

The swarm surged forward, their razor-sharp claws and teeth instantly tearing through the cowhide, devouring the flesh in massive bites.

Having eaten and drunk their fill, the bugs immediately ran toward the back of the wheat field.

Without hesitation, they dove headfirst into a spawning pool steaming with green heat and acid, which had formed from the crash of a drop pod.

Using the high-quality starch and beef protein they had just consumed, they converted it into biomass raw materials to spawn more troops!

Sitting on the bird's back, Penny finally realized what was happening.

"Fine, fine, fine! So you beasts ran all the way to such a remote place just to eat my land and steal my crops to replenish your troops?!"

Because this vast farmland was far from the sturdy city walls, it was on the edge of the defensive fire network's blind spot.

The bugs that landed here met almost no decent military resistance.

It was as if they had entered an unattended buffet, eating and drinking to their hearts' content, frantically replenishing the massive biomass they had consumed during the previous space battle.

Watching the fruits of his labor, which he had planted bit by bit with his own hands to exchange for game points, being ruined like this—

how was this any different from having his own son beaten right in front of him?!

Penny's blood rushed to his head instantly, and his rationality evaporated completely.

He completely failed to realize that he was just a pure lifestyle player who stayed in the rear year-round and had absolutely no movement or combat experience!

"I'll screw your ancestors, you damn bugs!"

Penny roared, drawing a large cleaver from his waist and squeezing the bird's flanks, preparing to charge forward and fight for his life.

But the mutated giant bird beneath him, which usually only knew how to eat feed, saw the hideous bugs radiating the terrifying aura of apex predators.

Terrified, its feathers puffed up, and it froze in place, shivering violently. No matter how much he kicked, it didn't dare take a single step forward.

Helpless, Penny could only jump off its back in a huff.

"Cowardly piece of trash! I'm stewing you when we get back!"

Penny cursed, then gripped his large cleaver with both hands and charged into the wheat field all by himself.

He spotted a Termagant that was bowing its head to feast on the carcass of half a cow, raised his blade, and slashed down!

*Clang!*

The large cleaver struck the Termagant's hard chitinous shell, only chipping off a layer of skin, leaving Penny's hands numb from the impact.

The Termagant, which had been eating enthusiastically, was instantly enraged by this sudden interruption.

It whipped around, and its thick tail, covered in bone spikes, lashed out like a whip!

*Thud!*

Caught completely off guard, Penny took the tail whip squarely in the chest.

He flew backward like a broken kite for over ten meters, crashing heavily into the mud. Feeling a sweet taste in his throat, he spat out a mouthful of blood.

Right after, the Termagant opened its bloody maw, dripping with slime and fangs, and lunged with a roar at the fallen Penny!

Lying on the ground, Penny stared at the rapidly expanding, terrifying maw.

Even though he subconsciously knew that he was just a player and could respawn twenty-four hours after dying in this game,

at this very moment, faced with the primal terror of predation deeply rooted in his genes, Penny still felt cold all over, his mind going completely blank.

"Fuck, I've been farming for so long that I actually thought this game was Stardew Valley..."

Just as Penny closed his eyes, expecting to go back and wait out his respawn timer,

*Sizzle! Sizzle! Sizzle!*

a dense barrage of lasgun beams suddenly erupted from behind him!

Over a dozen weak but concentrated red beams locked onto the Termagant mid-leap with precision!

The high heat instantly burned through its vulnerable abdominal carapace, cooking the Termagant to death right in mid-air.

The bug's carcass slammed heavily onto the ground less than a meter away from Penny, oozing foul-smelling fluids.

By now,

because of the commotion from the firefight,

the surrounding bugs that had been scattered about eating the wheat ears also noticed that fresh food had appeared.

They stopped eating and turned their heads one after another, beginning to rapidly gather and flank toward Penny like a rising tide.

Only then did Penny realize how bad things were, breaking out in a cold sweat.

He scrambled to his feet, ran back to mount the terrified bird once more, and prepared to flee.

As he rode the bird back to the edge of the wheat field,

he saw the young workers holding hot, civilian-grade lasguns, panting heavily from exhaustion.

Still shaken, Penny couldn't help but scold them loudly,

"What are you civilians doing running out of the city?! Don't you know it's fucking crawling with monsters out here? Are you trying to die?!"

The leading worker, whose face was covered in coal dust, wiped away his sweat, but his gaze remained incredibly firm.

"It's dangerous for my Lord to be out here alone."

The worker panted,

"You gave us food. We came to protect the Bird Knight!"

Penny was stunned on the spot, an indescribable mix of emotions welling up in his heart.

He glanced back at the massive swarm of bugs frantically lunging at them from all directions—they were already less than a few hundred meters away.

"Run! Back to the city!"

Penny roared anxiously,

"I'm an immortal Starsea Soldier! Who needs protection from you NPCs! Get the hell back and hide in Shelters!"

The workers glanced at the hideous, terrifyingly numerous bugs in the distance.

To say they weren't afraid would be an absolute lie; their legs were trembling violently.

However,

among them, a rather thin steelworker who looked to have just turned eighteen

did not retreat. Instead,

he pulled a sharp tool normally used to clean furnace slag from his waist.

He lunged forward and, without hesitation, stabbed it hard into the rear of the giant bird Penny was riding!

"Screeech—!!!"

In searing pain, the giant bird let out an extremely shrill shriek.

Instantly triggering its survival instincts, its two thick legs kicked the ground furiously, carrying Penny on its back as it bolted like an arrow from a bow, sprinting madly toward the distant city walls!

"What are you doing! Let me down!"

Penny yanked desperately on the reins on the jolting bird's back.

But his strength as a pure lifestyle player was completely insufficient to pull back a startled, rampaging mutant beast.

In Penny's line of sight,

those young workers did not run away with him.

They simply stood in a line on the dirt ridge at the edge of the wheat field.

With their bodies of flesh and blood, they blocked the only path of the pursuing swarm.

The leading worker raised the worn lasgun in his hand and roared as he pulled the trigger.

"They're going after the Knight! Fire! Hold them back!"

Lasgun beams flickered within the swarm, like tiny pebbles thrown into an abyss.

Penny was forcibly carried toward the city by the giant bird.

He gripped the saddle tightly, never looking back.

As an adult, he had long been accustomed to suppressing his emotions with the composure of a grown man.

He did not cry out hysterically like a child, nor did he break down in heart-wrenching screams.

He just sat coldly on the bird's back, letting the howling wind whip against his face.

He covered his ears tightly with both hands, as if doing so could block out the screams coming from behind him.

Before he knew it,

the giant bird finally reached a safe zone less than a kilometer from the city gates.

Only then did Penny slowly lower his hands from his ears, turning his head to look back at the distant, once-golden wheat field.

The figures of those workers in overalls had long since vanished.

On that dirt ridge, only a few mutilated corpses, brutally dismembered by the Termagants, remained.

At that instant,

Penny's nose suddenly tingled.

The psychological defense line he had thought was indestructible collapsed in an instant.

Tears welled up uncontrollably and silently poured from his eyes, streaming down his mud-stained cheeks.

He had always treated this place as a virtual playground purely used to make money and farm points.

He had treated those native residents as mere strings of data, NPCs meant to drop gold coins.

But today,

these few strings of data had willingly died in the mud of this alien planet just to protect a player like him, who could revive at any time.

Moreover, other players had already researched and confirmed that the NPCs in this game could not be resurrected.

Penny messily wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve.

Gritting his teeth, he patted the neck of the giant bird beneath him, a coldness never seen before glinting in his eyes.

Riding the giant bird, Penny passed through the heavy adamantium gates and returned to the interior of City 233.

By now, the streets inside the city no longer had the headless-chicken chaos of the beginning.

Some of the native workers had been integrated into the Auxiliary Forces, mounting the towering city walls with guns in hand;

others had been sent home to lock their doors and windows.

Meanwhile, under the command of the Adeptus Arbites Arbiters, the women and children had orderly entered the deep underground air-raid shelters and were properly settled.

On the empty streets, only the distant, rumbling sound of anti-air artillery could be heard.