Chapter Three
“That’s strange. Who would come by at this hour?” Yan Zimo wondered aloud.
She shot Ye Qianxue a glare. “Hurry up and get dressed. What would it look like if a guest saw you like that?” Yan Zimo gently scolded her younger sister.
“Hello, I’m from the General Staff. I have a letter for you.”
The General Staff? Yan Zimo and Ye Qianxue both froze. They’d never had any dealings with the General Staff!
But Yan Zimo knew there was no time to waste. She quickly got dressed and went to answer the door.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Yan Zimo opened the door and saw a soldier in a military cap standing outside at perfect attention.
The soldier at the door seemed surprised to find someone so stunning answering it. He froze for a moment, then quickly recovered.
“This is your letter. Please take it.” After handing it to Yan Zimo, he hurried off to deliver the next one.
Yan Zimo looked at the letters in her hand. There were two: one addressed to her and one to Ye Qianxue.
Inside the envelopes were several photographs and a USB drive. Ye Qianxue’s package contained the same.
“Big Sis, did the General Staff assign us a mission?” Ye Qianxue called from nearby.
Yan Zimo looked at the photographs. “Huh? What kind of monster is this? Is it a new species?”
“Let me see.” Ye Qianxue came over to take a look.
The monster in the photographs looked like a mantis, so for now, they’d call it a Mantis Monster. Its body was made of bare white bones, and the bone blades on its arms were half as long as its body. It was a terrifying sight. The photographs in Yan Zimo’s hand showed it from several different angles.
The photographs didn’t tell Yan Zimo much, so she turned her attention to the USB drive.
Sure enough, when she plugged the USB drive into her computer, she found two videos. Yan Zimo opened one of them. It began with a close-up of a military officer with a face full of stubble. She recognized him: Huang Tao, the top military commander at Jiangning Military Base!
Huang Tao began speaking in the video. “Recently, the Beian Military Administrative District received an urgent request for support from the Yongjing Military Administrative District. The Huaguo Government has assigned the Xihai Military Administrative District, the Sanqin Military Administrative District, and our Jiangning Military Administrative District to carry out the relief operation. Everyone who received this letter is required to take part. Anyone who refuses will be expelled! We assemble at seven in the morning on July 26. Anyone who’s late will be treated as a deserter. I’ve recorded the details of the situation in the Yongjing Administrative District in the second video. You may watch it at your discretion. The contents of the video are strictly confidential. Do not let any part of it get out, or you will face military punishment.”
As Yan Zimo watched, her heart grew heavy. Had things really gotten this bad? They were sending support across provincial borders.
July 26… Yan Zimo checked the calendar. It was tomorrow.
Time was tight. She still had to buy everything she’d need for the expedition, like weapons and first-aid kits.
After making a list of what she needed to buy, Yan Zimo opened the second video. It showed a battle between the Gansu Military Administrative District and the mutated species.
The people of the Yongjing Military Administrative District had run into the mutated species at the first line of defense, thirty kilometers outside the base. When Yan Zimo saw the size of the horde, she couldn’t help sucking in a sharp breath. There had to be nearly a million of them! What could possibly be in Yongjing Province to draw so many mutated species into a coordinated attack?
In the five years since she’d arrived at Jiangning Military Base, the largest monster siege she’d ever seen numbered only three hundred thousand. Of course, that was because the Jiangning Military Administrative District was powerful enough to spend years clearing out the monster nests around it, one by one.
A sizable number of Espers had also joined the fight. The moment the battle began, the cannons roared. Shells rained from the sky, and the fierce explosions turned the surrounding land into scorched earth. The Espers unleashed their abilities and coordinated with the military’s artillery fire. For a while, the nearly million-strong horde was driven back, step by step.
Watching this, Yan Zimo couldn’t help but marvel. The Yongjing Military Administrative District ranked tenth among the thirteen fortresses, putting it near the bottom, but it was still a military fortress! Even though they were only at the first line of defense, the military’s formidable fighting strength made it seem like they could repel the mutated species without a problem. But then Yan Zimo’s heart sank. If they’d sent out an urgent request for support, something must have gone wrong.
And sure enough, just as the people of the Yongjing Military Administrative District were about to tear through the mutated species’ formation, the Mantis Monster from the photographs appeared from the forest behind them. There was only one, but it stood over seventy meters tall! The monster raised its bone blade and swept it sideways. Turrets, tanks, and armored vehicles were all sliced clean in two. As for the people, a single sweep of its two bone blades left a swath of severed limbs.
The Mantis Monster was incredibly fast, too. It had dozens of pairs of joints in its legs, packed together like a centipede’s. One moment it would dart away; the next, it would be on the other side of the battlefield, slaughtering again.
Worst of all, the shells couldn’t hurt it at all. Its tough white bones blocked every single one. Only when an Eighth Tier Esper risked their life to attack did the monster lose more than a dozen pairs of legs, giving the people at the military base a chance to retreat. But the Esper was struck by a bone blade and lost an arm.
The military was beaten back again and again at each successive line of defense. In the end, only the final two remained, one of them the walls of the Yongjing Military Administrative District. With no way to fight back, the Gansu Military Administrative District had no choice but to ask the Huaguo Government for support. That was how things had come to this.
After watching the video, Yan Zimo’s heart sank to the bottom. A monster this powerful couldn’t even be hurt by planes or artillery, and they expected them to go help? What could they possibly do to it—tickle it?
“Big Sis, calm down. There’s no way they’d send us to take down a monster that powerful. I think the military just wants us to escort them and help hold off the smaller monsters.” After thinking it over, Ye Qianxue offered her take.
“Oh? What makes you say that?” Yan Zimo wanted to hear her reasoning.
“Big Sis, didn’t you notice? The Yongjing military never once used its most powerful weapon!”
Yan Zimo froze. An answer came to mind, and she blurted it out. “Nuclear weapons!”
“That’s right. The big, black, thick one—an incredibly hot, cone-shaped object.” As Ye Qianxue spoke, a flush spread across her face. She couldn’t help sticking out the tip of her little tongue and licking her lips until they glistened. The whole room was suddenly filled with a suggestive atmosphere.
Yan Zimo ignored her completely and asked, “Then why didn’t the people at Yongjing Military Base use nuclear weapons?”
Right—why hadn’t they? At the very start of the apocalypse, the Russians next door had carpet-bombed everything with nuclear weapons, proving that nukes didn’t cause any mutations in the mutated species. No matter how tough that Mantis Monster was, surely it couldn’t withstand a nuclear weapon. Even if it didn’t kill it, it would at least leave it badly wounded! And yet the Yongjing military hadn’t used one.
“I don’t know. There must be some special reason they can’t use them.” Ye Qianxue was just as puzzled.
Yan Zimo wanted to know the answer, but she didn’t have much time. She had just one day to prepare everything she needed, including weapons.
