Invasion - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The last warrior who was discovered had died while standing.

His dead body had become vastly larger than that of a normal human.

Like a jigsaw puzzle of strange creatures, or a distorted giant statue. In short, he completely lacked human features.

Only half of his face, with its scar, remained the same. His eyelashes were lowered, as if he was calmly gazing at his late-arriving comrade.

Ni Ji stood in the shadow of the giant tower, looking up at that familiar face.

Everyone on the training field followed Ni Ji’s gaze, and together, they watched the warrior’s final form.

This sentinel had gone berserk.

Everyone was silently reciting the words in their hearts.

In the final battle, this sentinel had overused his power, exceeding his own limits.

Once he crossed that boundary, he lost control of his mental strength and slipped into the abyss, falling into complete madness.

In that world of madness, his mental body and his physical body merged, turning him into a complete monster.

Berserking. It was a nightmare hanging over the heads of every low-level sentinel.

Every sentinel was like a dancer dancing on the edge of a knife. No one knew when they would lose their footing.

With a snap, the fuse would be blown.

And they would become twisted monsters like this.

That berserk sentinel had long since died.

But he seemed like a giant black tower gazing down at them, shrouding everyone in front of the screen in a shadow.

Some small noises could be heard on the training field.

Some of the worthless new recruits were quietly crying.

Some people started to curse.

More people were whispering, seriously and solemnly discussing the reasons for the soldiers’ tragic deaths.

The world on the screen was still deathly silent.

That captain quietly pried open the hands of his fallen comrade, picked up the gun from his hand, and loaded the bullets one by one.

He was silent and didn't say a word.

He picked up his gun, loaded the bullets, stepped over his fallen comrades and continued forward.

At the feet of his dead brothers, were three words carved with blood,

“Researcher.”

The scene lit up again.

It appeared at the border of the contaminated zone, just a few hundred meters away from the "door" that was the exit.

The researcher was holding his backpack tightly. He stood in front of Ni Ji, sweating profusely, with a fake smile on his face.

His expression wasn't even that panicked, as if he felt that everything was still under control and could be solved through negotiation.

“I’ll talk, I’ll talk, just put away your gun.” He wiped the sweat from his brow, opened a corner of his backpack, and showed it to Ni Ji. “Do you know what this is? A worm jade. A live one. A really big one.”

He looked around, and even though there was no one else around, he was still afraid of being spied on. He lowered his voice and moved closer to Ni Ji. “It’s very rare, priceless. The bigwigs above heard about it, and they specially appointed me to come in and get it.”

Worm jade was a special kind of ore that was only born in heavily contaminated areas. Some people said they were the core of the contaminated zone, and some people said that they were eggs laid by a distorted deity. Those monsters would not allow anyone to take away the worm jade.

Regardless of the reason, as long as someone carried the worm jade near the location of the “door,” all of the monsters within the contaminated zone would be awakened by something, start to become collectively frenzied and restless, and rush towards the location of the worm jade one after another.

This is why worm jade is so rare in the hands of humans. Only a very few people knew about the properties of worm jade.

Ni Ji's calm voice sounded, “So that's how it is. I was wondering why they had to transfer the entire sentinel outpost to protect you, and even give you more compensation than before.”

His voice sounded the same as before, calm and clear, as if it didn't carry any particular emotion.

“That little bit of money is nothing, just a drop in the bucket, it was just to fool people.” The researcher laughed, “We’ll get all sorts of good stuff once we take this worm jade out. Money, positions, or even a guide if you want? Let me tell you, it’s all possible.”

His greedy and triumphant face filled the huge screen.

The drop in the bucket he spoke of was the hope in the hearts of countless soldiers. For this, they risked their lives to protect him all the way here.

“Why didn’t you tell everyone beforehand?” Ni Ji asked.

He always had to ask about things thoroughly.

“That’s standard practice. You just don't know it.” The researcher stretched out his fingers and rubbed them together. “This is private work, you know? It’s for those big shots’ pockets. How could they publicly announce it? Besides, it would be easier to spoil everything if the soldiers found out beforehand.”

Perhaps it was due to Ni Ji’s calm attitude, or perhaps he really didn't think that a few dead sentinels were a big deal.

As he spoke, he even dared to reach out to Ni Ji’s shoulder.

“Captain Ni, you’re very capable. I’ll introduce you to the higher-ups. Do you want to transfer to the capital?”

“Or your soldiers are strong. I heard that the teams who came in before all failed.”

“You didn't see it, did you? One of your soldiers turned into a giant iron bear at the last moment. He was as tall as a tower, which scared me. He’s the one who killed the rest of the monsters, so that I could make it here.”

A sudden gunshot interrupted him.

The man screamed, clutching his bleeding knee as he fell to the ground.

The priceless worm jade rolled out of his backpack and into the dust by his feet.

Ni Ji’s black gun barrel moved and aimed at the lower half of his body.

“No, no. You can’t do that.” The researcher’s voice was hoarse with fear. He quickly said, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I’m being forced to, I can’t disobey those people…ah!”

The second shot triggered an even more tragic scream.

The broken wails didn’t carry far. They couldn't comfort the souls of the countless dead.

They only made the male sentinels in front of the screen feel a tingle on their skin, and some of them awkwardly clamped their legs together.

The following scene had been looped many times in front of everyone.

It was just that the perspective had been changed.

When they watched it the first time, everyone felt that the dying man who was begging for mercy was very pitiful.

Now that they had a different perspective, everyone just felt that Ni Ji hadn’t been harsh enough.

That man was weeping and wailing as he crawled on the ground, picked up the worm jade that had been purchased with the lives of countless sentinels, and thought that he could use it to trade for his life.

“I’ll give this to you, I’ll give it all to you, just spare me.”

“If you take it out, you can exchange it for a lot of money, a lot of money. You can be promoted to an even higher position, and go to the capital where there are no monsters.”

“People always have to do things for themselves. Why get angry for the sake of those low-level sentinels? They always die quickly anyway…”

The third gunshot rang out in the silent contaminated zone, hitting that amber-colored stone.

It shattered the priceless stone, and it pierced through the person who had been holding it and begging for mercy.

Amber-colored fragments of stone scattered on the ground, and an unformed strange creature let out a sharp cry. It crawled out of the fragments, dragging its strange umbilical cord, and crawled a few steps on the gray-black ground. Then, it gradually lost its vitality, and it froze into place.

The scene ended here, and after that, it was all static.

“Good heavens. It was really true! He really smashed the worm jade!” The officer by the window jumped up, clapped her hands and cursed, “That idiot, that fool. No, he’s a madman!”

She had watched the entire process. She was indifferent to all the deaths, sacrifices, and injustices. Only when she saw that the stone was broken, did she clap her hands and shout, feeling heartache.

The sentinels on the training field were also stunned by Ni Ji's actions.

“My god, he smashed the worm jade.”

“Was he that stupid? That thing was very valuable, right?”

“You’re the stupid one. If that thing were taken out, it would have eventually fallen into those people's pockets. Why let them get their way?”

“Or do you think Ni Ji would have taken this jade out and handed it over, using the bodies of his brothers as a stepping stone for his promotion? Captain Ni isn’t that kind of person.” The sentinel who said this forgot that he had said that Ni Ji was not a good person not long ago.

Soon someone reacted.

“He was wronged, release him!”

“That's right, you people are framing someone, release him now!”

“That’s too much, you people tortured him like this!”

“Release him. Release him now!”

A lump of yellow earth hit the glass of the second floor office.

One clump of soil after another hit the glass.

The anger of the sentinels had already been ignited, and with the wind, it had spread throughout the entire place.

Someone immediately lifted their leg and started walking towards the rack.

The officer in charge of the interrogation tried to stop them, but that female sentinel, who had been the loudest in the chorus before, walked up and slapped him on the ground.

“You moron, where did you say you were going to send him?”

She rode on the fallen officer and raised her palm, slapping him across the face several times until his face was swollen.

“You guys are framing people like this. A powerhouse like him was almost tortured to death by a petty person like you. It makes me so mad. I’ll show you how I’m going to slap you!”

She completely forgot that she had joined in with the chorus and had even made lewd jokes about his business earlier.

Another old soldier who had once been a captain walked over, put his hand on her shoulder and whispered, "Not here, drag him to the corner."

So, three to five people dragged the officer, who now had a swollen face, towards the corner.

The rest of the people surged towards the rack and started smashing the chains, wanting to release the almost-dead Ni Ji.

More people, filled with nowhere to vent their anger, surged towards the office building of the military administration office.

They smashed the glass and demanded for his release and an explanation.

The crowd was in an uproar, burning like fire.

They were all ordinary sentinels from the lowest rungs of society.

At this moment, when they gathered together and shouted, they made the high-ranking officials, who were sitting in their offices, feel afraid.

The officer’s timid voice quickly sounded on the radio,

“It really was a misunderstanding. We were also misled. We will release Ni Ji immediately.”

“Yes, he will be released immediately. Everyone please calm down.”

It was not until after this chaotic farce was over that Lin Yuan's entry and departure procedures were barely completed.

When she came out, it was already the time of sunset.

Roy led Lin Yuan to wait for the public transport car outside the gate of the military administration office.

He was still a bit out of it as he looked at the orange sunlight on the street.

“I say, Xiao Yuan,” Roy asked, “I always feel like something is not quite right. Did you intentionally help him?”

“No,” Lin Yuan said calmly. “Everything is the truth.”

She was still the same as before, quiet and calm, and not interested in anything.

After a while, she raised her small, pale hand, and used her index finger and thumb to make a gesture. “I just helped him conceal a little bit.”

“Really?” Roy’s eyes lit up. “I thought that there were some scenes that were abruptly cut off. Tell me, what was it?”

Lin Yuan didn’t answer his question.

She turned her head to look at the alley where the side door of the military administration office was located.

Roy’s gaze followed.

In that narrow alley, a small door opened.

Two people were supporting a wounded sentinel as they came out. They quickly put the obviously injured sentinel down and closed the door.

The sentinel, draped in a soldier's coat, leaned against the dark earth wall for a while, unable to support himself. He slowly sat down along the wall, supporting himself with one hand.

Roy squinted for a moment, and he was very surprised. “It’s him, that Ni…Ji?”

“The military officers have really gone too far. They tortured him like that, and after finding out they framed him, they just bandaged him up and threw him out like that.”

Roy was a very compassionate person, and he discussed with Lin Yuan, “He doesn’t seem to have any family who will come to pick him up. Xiao Yuan, should we give him a hand?”

Lin Yuan looked at the dim alley.

There, the sentinel was leaning against the earth wall, sitting in the semi-lit light, his expression unclear.

Lin Yuan looked at him for a while. Something hidden returned to her side from the direction of the alley.

“I think, it’s not necessary.” Finally, Lin Yuan withdrew her gaze. “The person he wants to wait for, isn't us.”

Previous Contents Next