SCOM - Chapter 113
Chapter 113
All the advertising light screens in the capital lit up, appearing extremely strange on the quiet roads. Zuo Luohuan and Ji Yuezhi looked up to see only one person on all the screens—Ren Pingbo.
Just like before, he was sitting in a study. As usual, no identifying information could be seen. The light pouring in from the window illuminated the man, mature and handsome. No one could imagine this was a person who would toy with the lives of tens of millions of Federation citizens simply because he was bored.
Ren Pingbo twirled a pen between his fingertips, looking nonchalantly at the camera. "How many people are in the Exoskeleton Legion in total, fifteen thousand? With so few people, I'm very curious how you plan to save the capital."
Zuo Luohuan stared at the person on the advertising light screen, not missing a single detail within the frame.
"Zuo Luohuan, aren't you going to the Military Committee to save them? Ji Xixiu and your mother are both there." Ren Pingbo stopped twirling the pen, feigning distress. "If you don't go soon, I'm afraid they won't be able to hold on much longer."
"This guy's a psychopath, isn't he?" Jiang Hong ran over from behind, his face wrinkling in disgust upon hearing Ren Pingbo's words.
Ren Pingbo raised his hand and switched to another communication feed. The advertising light screens on the street immediately displayed the situation at the Military Committee. Fallen soldiers from the army group and various broken robot dog parts were scattered everywhere. The brutality of the scene was clearly visible.
"Oh, right," Ren Pingbo added with 'kindness.' "A large number of bombs have been placed beneath the Military Committee. They will detonate in five hours. Good luck to you."
As he finished his last sentence, all the advertising light screens went completely dark, and the streets returned to silence.
Soon, Instructor Jiao Ji walked over and said to Ji Yuezhi and Zuo Luohuan, "It's highly likely a trap."
Ji Yuezhi asked calmly, "You've had contact with Ren Pingbo before. Would he use such words as a trap?"
Jiao Ji fell silent. Anyone who had come into contact with Ren Pingbo had the same direct impression of him: proud and unrestrained. And Ren Pingbo had always possessed the ability to back up such arrogance.
"I'm more inclined to believe that a large number of bombs have indeed been planted at the Military Committee," Ji Yuezhi said faintly, as if his father wasn't among those trapped. "The Twenty-sixth Army are traitors. They've been entering and exiting the Military Committee for years. It wouldn't be difficult for them to plant explosives underneath."
"The Twenty-sixth Army?" Jiao Ji couldn't help but take a step back. "Where did you get this information?"
The Twenty-sixth Army had been building its strength for years and struck suddenly. No wonder the Military Committee was silenced overnight, unable to send out any signals.
"Guan Yuan was secretly contacting his father, and we found out," Jiang Hong explained from the side. "Moreover, the Twenty-sixth Army's munitions expenditures in recent years have far exceeded those of the Seventeenth Army."
"The explosives are real," Zuo Luohuan said suddenly. "But the detonation countdown isn't necessarily five hours."
Only an army group that frequently entered the Military Committee could have placed so many bombs underneath it. But Ren Pingbo... if he could abandon the Federation back then, he could certainly abandon the Twenty-sixth Army now.
Zuo Luohuan had a faint feeling that Ren Pingbo wanted to watch the Twenty-sixth Army, everyone else at the Military Committee, and of course, them, all perish in the explosion.
"Then we..." Jiang Hong hesitated. "Should we go now?"
If the five-hour countdown was a lie, then no one knew when the bombs would be detonated.
"We go now." Zuo Luohuan lowered her head and rotated one of her wrists. "Since he said there's a countdown, it means there's still time."
"There were a lot of robot dog fragments on the ground just now. The Twenty-sixth Army must have relied on them to surround the Military Committee so quickly," Ji Yuezhi said. "Bring all the jammers."
There were too many of those robot dogs on the ground earlier. The possibility of hiding a large number of full-sized robot dogs in a place like the capital was too low. Connecting this to the compression technology used in the fourth-generation robot dogs, it wasn't hard to imagine that the fourth-generation was just a prototype. The real application was compressing large robot dogs into palm-sized spheres for easy transport and storage.
How long had the Federation possessed compression technology? Even if the Gashiro Empire had obtained it, they wouldn't have had it for very long. Ji Yuezhi was betting that these large robot dogs using compression technology also had flaws.
Time was tight. With a group of instructors present this time, Ji Yuezhi personally led the Exoskeleton Legion team toward the Military Committee.
They split into two groups. One group boarded aircraft, while the other drove to the Military Committee.
On the way, everyone's vigilance was at its peak, guarding against attacks from robot dogs and Gashiro soldiers. However, the journey was eerily quiet, as if they were being awaited at the Military Committee.
Half an hour later, the first group from the Exoskeleton Legion arrived by aircraft. Guan Xue and Cha Lili led their people to place the jammers in various locations and activated them all before quickly entering the Military Committee grounds.
The moment Cha Lili entered, he couldn't help but curse under his breath. There were too many robot dogs inside, packed so densely that he couldn't even see the figures of the Seventeenth Army.
"Are the jammers working?" Guan Xue asked Cha Lili.
"Wait."
The Military Committee covered a large area, surrounded by a dozen high-rise buildings, all encircling a central military and government building. They were currently only on the periphery, yet they had already seen so many robot dogs.
Cha Lili pointed upward. "You take a team up. We'll charge in from the side. The General Captain and the others will probably take another twenty minutes to arrive."
Guan Xue nodded, waved a hand behind her, and led her people to find a building to ascend.
There were also snipers in each building, but they were all from the Twenty-sixth Army. As soon as Cha Lili and his team members showed themselves, snipers from above continuously fired down at them.
Guan Xue moved quickly up the building, set up her rifle, and lay prone before a window. Calming herself, she observed the snipers on the opposite side. Every time they fired a shot, they would reveal their position.
Guan Xue gazed into the distance, her index finger slightly bent. With a firm press, a beam of light shot out. She was certain she had hit the sniper on the other side.
At the same time, the other team members also opened fire. The number of Twenty-sixth Army snipers was suddenly halved.
Although the Twenty-sixth Army was an army group, it didn't have as many snipers as the Exoskeleton Legion. After all, Ji Yuezhi's unit had gathered the best from four military academies.
"Reinforcements have arrived," Ji Xixiu suddenly said from within the military and government building.
The military and government building was filled with people, all staff from the surrounding buildings. That night, when Ji Xixiu noticed that the patrol guards had been replaced, his first reaction was to secure the port.
Ren Pingbo hadn't shown his face for so many years, yet now he had suddenly appeared before them. Based on Ji Xixiu's understanding of him, it was clear he had made some kind of preparation.
Therefore, the moment he sensed something was wrong, Ji Xixiu had already prepared for the worst. The most important port had to be defended. If anything happened, reinforcements would still have a chance to get in.
The Seventeenth Army couldn't make a move. Only the Scavenger Army, which acted with more freedom, wouldn't arouse suspicion. Ji Xixiu used Doctor Fang Yong to lure the Scavenger Army to the port and then notified the Seventeenth Army to hurry over.
Guan Yuan's father was not in the military and government building. He had originally intended for the robot dogs to kill everyone in the Military Committee, but the Seventeenth Army had already arrived. However, all the surrounding signals and alarms had been dismantled.
Many staff members in the surrounding buildings had lost their lives. It was all thanks to the Seventeenth Army charging in and leading people to retreat step by step toward the military and government building.
There were too many robot dogs. After several days and nights of fierce fighting, their numbers didn't seem to decrease. The Twenty-sixth Army was also hiding in the shadows, taking potshots. The Seventeenth Army was almost at its breaking point.
"Reinforcements?" The people inside the military and government building stirred into a commotion upon hearing Ji Xixiu's words.
Ji Xixiu pointed to the sky outside. "They're here."
A deep red smoke flare suddenly lit up the sky outside. It was the type of signal flare favored by the First Military Academy, recognizable to anyone who had graduated from there.
"Is it students from the First Military Academy?" someone asked.
Ji Xixiu didn't speak. Instructor Jiao was at the First Military Academy, so it wasn't impossible that she had brought students out, but there were other possibilities as well.
The person who fired the signal flare outside was none other than Ji Yuezhi. He had finally arrived near the Military Committee. It wasn't just the flare; there was also a loudspeaker on a continuous loop, informing Guan Yuan's father that Guan Yuan was in their hands.
It was only then that the people in the military and government building realized it was the Exoskeleton Legion.
"Go find the bombs." Ji Yuezhi drew a map for his team members, marking several possible locations where the explosives could be hidden. The members from the weapons department went with them.
Now, they had to get the people from the Military Committee out.
"What's going on with those robot dogs?" Guan Yuan's father, positioned in the tallest building, stared at the dense swarm of robot dogs below. He finally realized something was wrong as their speed slowed. "Are they low on power? How many are left? Deploy all of them! I want every last one of them dead right here."
"There are only four hours until the explosion," the person next to him said. "Shouldn't we retreat first?"
Guan Yuan's father shot his subordinate a cold glare. "Rescue my son before we retreat!"
"Yes, sir."
The previously hidden Twenty-sixth Army poured out in full force to surround Ji Yuezhi and the others. They dumped out box after box of compressed robot dogs, smug smiles on their faces. Even the Seventeenth Army had been forced to retreat under the assault of so many robot dogs; what could these military cadets who hadn't even fully graduated possibly do?
"I'm so scared," Jiang Hong said exaggeratedly, hugging his shoulders as he looked at the robot dogs.
"What's happening?" The Twenty-sixth Army finally discovered that the robot dogs' speed had dropped by more than half, making it seem as if they were marching to their own deaths.
Ji Yuezhi looked up toward the building where Guan Yuan's father was, a faint, mocking smile playing on his lips.
The Twenty-sixth Army had no idea why the perfectly fine robot dogs were malfunctioning, each one wobbling unsteadily. But with the Exoskeleton Legion right in front of them, they could only grit their teeth and fight.
However, An Yingjing stepped forward and released a large amount of pheromones, catching the Twenty-sixth Army completely off guard.
An Yingjing was on the Federation's side. After defecting, the Twenty-sixth Army had never expected that someone like him would come to deal with them.
"Move out," Ji Yuezhi said to his team members.
On the other side, after the jammers took effect, Cha Lili led his team to carve a path through the robot dogs, shouting for the Seventeenth Army and the people in the military and government building to come out.
"There are a large number of explosives underneath?" After coming out, Ji Xixiu's expression changed upon hearing Cha Lili's words. "Tell everyone searching for the explosives to come back immediately. Evacuate the Military Committee. Since Ren Pingbo planted the bombs, he won't let us disarm them."
Cha Lili thought for a moment. "We'll go notify them. You all leave this place first."
The Military Committee already had aircraft. Guan Yuan's father had planned to use them for his own army's escape and hadn't destroyed them, which inadvertently allowed Ji Xixiu and the others to leave.
"Those aircraft are ours!" Guan Yuan's father finally began to panic, ordering the Twenty-sixth Army to shoot them down.
However, the Twenty-sixth Army was too busy to fend for itself.
Guan Yuan's father could only watch as the people from the Military Committee left one by one, while the robot dogs and his own army group continuously fell.
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