Chapter 7-1

Bugs, especially the hopper bugs. Their attacks were horrifying. A quick glide with a hopper bug’s wings cut off a dozen heads from the warriors of Anubis and turn them back into sand. Fortunately, there were several hundreds of these warriors that a dozen wasn’t a big deal. Numerous big swords slashed at it and soon cut this bug to pieces. Then another one charged into them.

The scene depicted the fight of quality versus quantity. As long as the difference in quality wasn’t night and day, like that of humans against ants, or humans with guns against monkeys, then there was no possibility of a single being destroying countless other lives. Even with Zheng’s power, dead was the only thing that awaited him if he were to fought thousands of hopper bugs.

Similarly, when the number of bugs had become so little in contrast to the hundreds of warriors, those dozen remaining bugs got cut to pieces as soon as they charged into the army. Their agility and strength were futile in front of such numbers.

On the other side, Xuan finished the hundred bugs that swarmed him. Kampa and Gando shredded dozens with their coordination. Only two bugs left but before they got to do anything, bang! A powerful bullet shattered both of them.

Zheng made an effort to absorb the remaining Qi and blood energy from the two rings. A few seconds later, he stood up. He recovered about 20% of Qi and 30% of blood energy by now. Not enough for a whole fight in Explosion but enough for him to move.

Zheng quickly ran back to the cave and yelled. “WangXia, take out the Sky Stick! Fuck, more bugs are coming!”

Under the psyche scan, several larger bugs were coming their way. Fortunately, rocks blocked their large bodies. They could also see that all the hopper bugs were cleared. Now they just had to levitate within a minute to free themselves from danger.

Kampa rushed out from the cave carrying Lan on his back. WangXia and Zero followed carrying the Sky Stick and basket on top. As soon as they threw the two items on the ground, Zheng stepped on the Sky Stick. Lan, WangXia, and Zero entered the basket. Right at this crucial moment, the damaged robot suddenly rolled on the ground and cried in Fumoffu.

Lan yelled. “It’s bad! Gando unlocked the genetic constraint in the fight and he’s suffering the after effect. His whole body is spasming. He can’t breathe, almost going to suffocate. He can’t even get himself on the basket!”

Zheng was going to get down but then he saw Xuan’s action and lifted off. “Lan, spend some attention to scan the surviving squads. We need to find a target to merge into. Oh, and don’t ease on monitoring the sky. Tell me when you find the rescue ships.”

The bear robot was facing their side as it rolled. Gando clenched his teeth tightly. The extreme pain had made him bite them so hard that his mouth was full of blood. His muscles twitching violently. He couldn’t even find the strength to move. His breathing was getting shorter and shorter. He was almost going to faint. The pain from unlocking the genetic constraint for the first time wasn’t something a normal person could withstand.

Gando slowly closed his eyes in this pain. He could only breathe when his body twitched from the pain. Then he felt the cockpit shook and opened his eyes to look at the screen. Xuan and Kampa were carrying the robot from both sides to the basket. This robot was small but it still took them twenty seconds to walk the eight-meter distance. Kampa gave a shout and threw it into the basket. Xuan then stepped onto the Sky Stick and flew up. The ground began trembling.

Kampa laughed out loudly. He had returned to normal from the werewolf transformation and slapped the bear robot on the shoulder. “Nice kid. Never expected you to unlock the genetic constraint in your first fight. It seemed like chasing you with the electric stick for so long didn’t go to waste. Haha. That was thanks to you or we wouldn’t have been able to kill so many bugs in such a short period.”

Gando didn’t reply. He adjusted the screen to look down at the ground. A mound rose from the ground after the trembling. Then a seven-meter-tall and ten-meter-long huge red bug dug itself out. It aimed its mouth at the air and shot out a pillar of fire. The fire got up to fifteen meters. They could feel the heat despite being so far from it.

Kampa and Gando looked at each other. Then he aimed the overheated EMP rifle down. Xuan said. “There’s no need. Five more seconds.”

The two were confused for a moment then looked below. Aside from the first tanker bug, countless bugs also dig out from the ground. If they were just twenty seconds slower, these bugs would have devoured them.

“Time’s up!”

“Time.” On the other Sky Stick, WangXia was holding onto the pulse on his wrist and said to the others. At almost the same instant, blue light flashed and numerous blue plasma spheres shot out. All the bugs that got in contact were vaporized and anything nearby was burned to ashes. These plasma spheres were much more powerful than lightning or electrical attacks. They were a phenomenon of highly concentrated electricity.

The bundle of one timed bomb with several plasma mines created enough spheres to fill a hundred-meter area. The heat extended up to two hundred meters. Two more tanker bugs dug out from the ground. Then the series of explosions wiped a large area of them. WangXia’s points suddenly jumped in hundreds and was nearing a thousand. They were still in danger but he still couldn’t contain his laughter.

Zheng was controlling the Sky Stick. He received the explosion images through Lan. He let out a sigh of relief seeing so many points were killed. Then asked. “Lan, have you found any surviving squads? What about Platoon 6?”

Lan sighed. “Platoon 1 landed first and had been wiped. Then Platoon 2 and 3 followed. Our Platoon 4 only has a thousand remaining behind a hill. Platoon 5 is almost done. Though there’s a group of a few hundred gathering scattered troopers. They are moving toward Platoon 6. Platoon 6 has the most people but also a lot of bugs chasing them. They are heading our way.”

Those who landed first died the earliest. Zheng nodded. He knew they underestimated the bugs. Over a hundred thousand casualties within just a few hours, most were from the ground units. This was partially caused by abnormality in their weapons. This sci-fi universe didn’t have a mechanical ground unit. Furthermore, it was dangerous for the seven of them from just several hundred hopper bugs.

“Zheng, I found something interesting. Where do you think the team that just scanned our location is at?” Xuan voice appeared in his mind. He knew Lan had connected Xuan through soul link.

Zheng thought for a moment. “Platoon 6? You think we are going to meet them when we arrive at Platoon 6?”

Xuan said. “No. They can’t be in Platoon 6 because this will lead them to meet us face to face. You have to know that their biggest advantage is arriving in this world earlier than us and was able to create their ‘influence’, not in fighting us directly. We are stronger than them. The most likely outcome in a direct team fight is we wiping the two teams.”

“If I am in their place, they won’t want to enter a team fight now nor expose their location so we can find them. The battlefield is also dangerous. We can barely protect ourselves here so as the weaker teams, they won’t be able to survive the sea of bugs easily while fighting us. The only possibility that made them search for us under such situation is they believe they are currently safe. If that’s the case, the safest place in this battlefield isn’t next to the main character but rather among the bugs!”

Zheng as shocked. A safe place among the bugs? What did this mean? He quickly said. “Do you mean that God put them…”

Xuan said with certainty. “Yes. God put them on the bug’s side, just like how team India was on the side of Imhotep. One of the teams is an ally of the bugs!”

Zheng exhaled deeply. “If that’s true then are those hopper bugs sent by the team after they scanned us? Aren’t we in great danger now?”

Xuan shook his head. “There wouldn’t be too much danger. They probably shouldn’t have the influence to order an army of bugs. Or it wouldn’t have been just several hundred bugs. My speculation is they belong to the bugs but don’t have the authority to order any bugs. All they could do was give the results of their scans over to the brain bug via soul link. We are in danger because the brain bug knows our location but it won’t give up the lives of the rest of the federation force for us. So once we reach Platoon 6, we will be much safer. However, there are two questions that can’t be answered.”

“One is where’s the other team? Are they not in this battlefield?”

“Two is God wants us to survive twenty days. Under what conditions? Can we just live through these twenty days like a trip? No, based on our understanding of God, something that wasn’t in the movie is bound to happen. Something that will force the three teams fight. But what is it? There’s definitely a detail that I haven’t found out. I can’t continue the analysis without it. What is this detail?”