SCOM - Chapter 43
Chapter 43
The night was heavy, and the once-peaceful First Military Academy was now shrouded in the deepest darkness.
An Yingjing watched the masked figures closing in around him, and his heart went cold. These people had come prepared. Even if he could escape, he absolutely could not head north. That area was full of Alphas; if he went there, he would only bring harm to the people of the First Military Academy.
However… An Yingjing smiled bitterly to himself. Whether he could even get out was another question entirely.
The students from the three military academies all had some weapons they had brought with them, and An Yingjing was no exception. He felt for his lower back, where an SL-7 light gun was hidden. This was the most compact model in the SL series, only the size of a palm, and a small energy block could power a hundred shots. The school had given it to him specifically before they set out. It wasn't just him; every member of the joint military academies participating in the exercise had one, for self-defense in case of an accident like this.
An Yingjing glanced at the people on the floor above, then looked into the distance, drew his light gun, and fired at the Gashiro Empire agents.
Hopefully, they could hold on until someone discovered them.
“The students from the joint military academies have light guns?” Luo Shaoyuan, dodging a Gashiro agent’s attack on the floor above, glanced down and noticed that the agents below were unusually strong, able to even dodge light gun shots.
“Where’s Hui Bing!” Cha Lili’s hoarse shout came from the floor above Luo Shaoyuan. “Is she on this floor? Are there any other students from the joint academies here?”
Hui Bing was a member of the Northern Military Academy’s team and an extremely skilled marksman. Hearing this, Luo Shaoyuan immediately replied, “Over here with me!”
Saying “with me” was a bit of a stretch. Hui Bing was currently surrounded by Gashiro agents, and Luo Shaoyuan was half a corridor away from her.
Luo Shaoyuan kicked one Gashiro agent after another, completely ignoring their slashing blades as she used both hands to snatch their weapons. Seeing Hui Bing call out in acknowledgment, she also shouted, “I’m here!”
After a moment, replies came one after another from the third floor: “Here!”
“Over here.”
“I’m from the joint military academies.”
“Give the light gun to Hui Bing, let her do it! The people downstairs can’t hold on,” Cha Lili yelled.
The Gashiro agents could understand what they were saying. As soon as Cha Lili spoke, they naturally wouldn't let the cadets succeed. However, the Gashiro agents on the upper floors had the sole objective of killing these cadets and hadn't received any detailed information. Now that everyone was shouting, they couldn't tell who was who. At most, they could only distinguish that one of the joint academy students had a light gun.
The only student from the joint academies who hadn't managed to retreat yet had only a light gun as a weapon, but he still shouted to the floor below, “Catch!” and threw the gun down.
An Yingjing’s floor only had him and two Alpha cadets. One of them leaped out from the corridor, caught the light gun, and jumped down to the next level.
The Gashiro agents couldn't tell who was who, but they could identify Hui Bing’s location by the sound of her voice.
As the Alpha landed, he kicked down an agent. He was still some distance from Hui Bing, but on the other side, Luo Shaoyuan seemed to have gone berserk, and there were few living Gashiro agents left around her.
The cadets still on this floor now shared a common goal: get the light gun to Hui Bing and protect her while she fired downwards.
As for Cha Lili and the other person on the upper floor, they were heading up to support the student from the joint military academies.
“Your arm is injured,” the Alpha said, finally reaching Hui Bing’s side and noticing her wounds.
“It’s nothing,” Hui Bing said, wiping her face. “Give me the light gun.”
The Alpha handed her the gun and stood behind her, blocking the pursuing Gashiro agents.
Hui Bing felt the light gun, extended her arm, and aimed at the Gashiro agents below.
These people hadn't deployed any robot dogs, likely because they couldn't smuggle them in. The capital’s control over robot dogs was too strict. Seeing the varied attire of the Gashiro agents on the upper floors, it was impossible to know how many years they had been lying in wait in the capital. This time, it seemed they had mobilized their entire force.
Downstairs, the energy in An Yingjing’s group’s light guns was nearly depleted, yet only half of the enemy forces were dead. The others were completely unaffected, and some cadets had even been captured.
The largest group of people surrounded An Yingjing, protecting him.
“Save him,” An Yingjing said through gritted teeth to a student from Yundong Military Academy beside him. “He’s one of your own.”
“We are all people of the Federation,” the other person said without hesitation. “Your life is more important than ours right now.”
An Yingjing couldn't accept that. He stepped out from the center and shot the Gashiro agent holding the cadet, but in doing so, he exposed himself.
A masked Gashiro agent immediately spotted the opening, seized An Yingjing, snatched his light gun, and restrained him from behind. The tip of the curved blade aimed to dig into the gland on the back of his neck.
The blade was sharp. An Yingjing felt an icy, sharp pain on the back of his neck as the Gashiro agent was about to gouge out his gland.
Just then, a light gun blast shot down from the floor above, piercing straight through the Gashiro agent’s hand. Not just that one shot. Hui Bing held her breath and fired several more shots in succession, hitting the Gashiro agent in the wrist and the back of the knee.
She didn't have time to aim for the head, as her own rear was not secure. But An Yingjing below seized the opportunity, turned, caught the falling curved blade, and swung it horizontally at the Gashiro agent's neck.
Hui Bing dodged an attack from the side, returned to her position, and fired downwards. She had a clear line of sight, and her marksmanship was extremely accurate. In less than two minutes, the Gashiro agents around An Yingjing were forced to retreat, and she had shot three of them in the head.
Instantly, the pressure on An Yingjing and his group below was greatly reduced.
But this advantage only lasted for a moment, as more Gashiro agents continued to emerge from the surroundings, and An Yingjing’s gun had fallen into their hands.
The Gashiro agent holding the light gun glanced at An Yingjing, who was once again surrounded by cadets. The mouth beneath the mask twisted into a smirk. He raised the gun and aimed at Hui Bing on the floor above, firing instantly.
As the light gun blast flew halfway, Hui Bing's scalp tingled. Instinct told her that the blast was heading for her forehead, but her body’s reflexes froze her in place.
“Bang!”
The sound of a gunshot, not from a light gun, rang out from the south, tearing through the night sky around the building.
The bullet was just ordinary ammunition and naturally no match for a light gun blast, but it was more than enough to knock it slightly off course.
That split-second deviation allowed Hui Bing to snap back to her senses. She grabbed the Alpha beside her and ducked, dodging the blast, which ended up hitting one of the Gashiro agents instead.
“Wow, so many of you ganging up on our Federation students. Have you no shame?” Guan Xue still had a pistol in her hand, which she tucked into her belt. She was also carrying a rocket launcher on her shoulder.
“You think too highly of the Gashiro people. Do they even have shame?” Qian Mao chimed in, standing beside her.
The Gashiro agent holding the light gun stared at Guan Xue for a moment before his gaze finally settled on Ji Yuezhi in the center.
Upstairs, Cha Lili finally made it up and rescued the student from the joint military academies. The student couldn't hold on any longer; his whole body felt like it had been hacked with a knife.
“Hang in there, someone’s here to rescue us.”
“Captain…”
“An Yingjing is fine,” Cha Lili said, helping the student up and looking down below, comforting him. “Don’t worry, if anyone’s going to die, it’ll be us from Yundong Military Academy first, then it’ll be your captain’s turn.”
The student from the joint military academies leaned weakly against him. “…” He didn't feel comforted at all.
“Thank goodness it’s Ji Yuezhi and his people who came, not Zuo Luohuan’s group.” Cha Lili looked down, half-relieved. They were on the upper floor, some distance from An Yingjing, and were already gradually being affected. If the Alphas from the First Military Academy had come, forget about helping, they would probably lose their ability to fight just by smelling An Yingjing’s pheromones and be harvested by the Gashiro agents.
Ji Yuezhi nodded to the cadets behind him, and everyone sprang into action. With their help, the Gashiro agents’ situation was instantly reversed, putting them in the same predicament An Yingjing’s group had been in.
“How is he?” The moment Ji Yuezhi got close to An Yingjing, his vision blurred for an instant, as if he smelled the scent of ice and snow. His fingers curled, and he had to bite his tongue to clear his head. Seeing the large patch of blood on the back of An Yingjing’s neck, his heart sank.
“The wound at the edge is a bit deep, but only the surface skin of the gland was broken,” said a female cadet from Yundong Military Academy who was supporting An Yingjing. She was a Beta and wasn't much affected by the dense pheromones now surrounding him. “It won’t be a major problem once it’s treated.”
The area around the gland was sensitive. Although An Yingjing’s gland hadn't been gouged out, the pain left his face pale and drenched in sweat. He struggled to speak, and his first words were, “Your First Military Academy gets its nest raided, and not a single instructor noticed?”
Ji Yuezhi remained silent. An hour had passed since the attack began. What worried him more now was that an instructor might have noticed something was wrong but was unable to come over.
“What’s that?” someone suddenly shouted, pointing to the roof of a building to the north.
A large fire had suddenly erupted on the roof of that building, burning with a dazzling glare in the night.
“Hello, hello!” The First Military Academy’s broadcast system suddenly crackled to life, interspersed with a few voices. “Can you hear me? You Gashiro mutts, see that fire on the building to the north? That’s your dog-like companions lighting up your future with their lives. Next, you can all go to hell together. Grandpa here will personally chant scriptures to send you off.”
“That’s Jiang Hong’s voice,” Qian Mao said, looking at Ji Yuezhi. “The broadcast station isn’t in the north.”
The building with the fire on its roof was an old one, located at the farthest point north, quite a distance from the Alpha dormitory building. Ji Yuezhi immediately knew who was where.
“Jiang Hong didn’t set that fire on the roof,” Ji Yuezhi said in a low voice, supporting An Yingjing and taking the hemostatic gel someone handed him. He lowered his eyes. “It was Zuo Luohuan.”
“I was wondering why…” An Yingjing gasped in pain. “Zuo Luohuan didn’t come. Turns out she ran into Gashiro agents too.”
Ji Yuezhi took an alcohol-soaked cotton ball from the medical kit and pressed it directly onto the wound on An Yingjing’s neck.
“Hiss—” An Yingjing sucked in a sharp breath, forcing himself to speak quickly. “Captain Ji, we’re both Omegas. Can’t you be a little gentler?”
Ji Yuezhi said with a deadpan expression, “Even if she came, she couldn’t save you. You would only endanger her.”
“Just a casual remark,” An Yingjing said, sitting down to let Ji Yuezhi treat his wound. The skin around the gland was too sensitive; all sensations, including pain, were magnified tenfold compared to other parts of his body. Although his gland wasn't damaged, the area nearby had been deeply pierced by the blade’s tip.
Ji Yuezhi had brought too many people. The cadets from the Dark Department were all skilled, armed with guns, and were all Omegas and Betas, largely unaffected by An Yingjing’s pheromones. The number of Gashiro agents was finally at a disadvantage. Armed only with curved blades, they were no match for so many guns.
“Guan Xue, third person on the right flank. Kill him.” Although Ji Yuezhi was bandaging An Yingjing, he was also observing everyone. The person he pointed out was the one who had almost shot Hui Bing earlier.
Perhaps because Ji Yuezhi had spotted him, or perhaps because the Gashiro agents could no longer hold on, they began to flee.
The one Ji Yuezhi had pointed out was the fastest, on the verge of escaping.
“Trying to run?” Guan Xue shouldered her rocket launcher, finally willing to load her long-treasured ammunition. She muttered, “I’m doing this to kill Gashiro agents. Damaging school property is truly unavoidable.”
With that, a deafening roar erupted as the rocket shot towards the Gashiro agent, exploding in the distance and even creating a small mushroom cloud.
“Sweet—” Guan Xue kissed the still-hot rocket launcher as if it were a treasure, then led her people over to find the Gashiro agent.
However, all they found was a mask, an oxygen tank, and some shredded cloth mixed with blood.
“He actually got away,” Guan Xue cursed under her breath upon seeing the scene.
“He’s probably badly injured,” a cadet next to her said, picking up the shattered oxygen tank. “There’s a piece missing. It’s probably embedded in that Gashiro agent.”
Guan Xue frowned. “Stay close. Let’s search the surrounding area.”
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