Red Zircon and Zi Ying Shi huddled in a corner of the mall.
A sniper rifle was propped inside a broken supermarket window. Red Zircon tentatively poked her head out to observe the situation outside, then quickly pulled it back in.
“How is it? Did you see anything?”
“I bet Hyacinth and her team are waiting out there. You two definitely shouldn’t go out.”
“Don’t listen to Gan Lan Shi. Now is the time to mobilize quickly, otherwise if Fenrir sneaks over…”
The voice of her teammate echoed in Red Zircon’s mind as she expressionlessly lay back down beside Zi Ying Shi.
Before entering the mall, the Hailanshi Team encountered the BOSS unit Hellcat.
However, Hellcat did not stop the four members of the squad from going to get the gold. After a brief exchange of fire, she retreated from the school teaching building, leaving the four a bit bewildered.
But no one expected that just as the four were carrying the gold and sneaking into the mall, they suddenly encountered the Hyacinth Squad in the corridor.
Both sides engaged in fierce combat. Hyacinth was heavily wounded and fell to the ground, and Iris’s armor was completely destroyed, while Hai Lan Shi and Gan Lan Shi both turned into boxes.
“That was a real shame just now. We almost took out Iris.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t expect to be able to observe from a teammate’s perspective after turning into a box. It’s quite interesting.”
Hai Lan Shi, who had become a fountain commander, said with a smile, chatting with Gan Lan Shi in the teammate channel.
But this voice chat in her head gave Red Zircon quite a headache.
“Can you two please be quiet!”
Red Zircon finally couldn’t help but complain in her head,
“And don’t always chat with me! Isn’t it better to chat with Zi Ying Shi?!”
“Because Zi Ying Shi is a sniper, it wouldn’t be good to affect her shooting.” The fountain commander Hai Lan Shi said.
“So affecting my observation is fine?!”
“Oh dear, anyway, there’s no one around right now, a little chat won’t affect you—”
“Wait, quiet, something’s happening.”
Before she finished speaking, the sharp-eyed fountain commander Gan Lan Shi suddenly called a halt.
The three people chatting in the squad channel immediately fell silent, looking in the direction Gan Lan Shi indicated.
“…Zi Ying Shi, can you hear us?” Gan Lan Shi connected to the team’s public channel, speaking softly.
“Yes.”
“Your three o’clock direction, the window in that corridor, turn your muzzle.”
The M200 sniper rifle immediately adjusted its muzzle, pointing to the position Gan Lan Shi indicated.
In the observer’s binoculars and the sniper’s optical scope, two figures, one pink and one gray, appeared.
Zi Ying Shi and Red Zircon narrowed their eyes.
“It’s Fenrir. What’s that big pink thing next to her?”
As if to confirm the four’s doubts in the team channel, a broadcast suddenly blared from the mall speakers:
“It seems the last squad has also entered the mall. Did everyone have fun today? Have you collected enough gold and are you ready to head to the extraction point?”
Xin Yuehu’s soft, sweet voice carried a hint of a smile, but her words made everyone a little terrified,
“In that case, Fox Fox is going to turn up the heat a bit for everyone~”
“Next, a hunting squad made up of BOSSes will appear in the mall. Everyone must be careful of Catcat Rabbitrabbit’s whereabouts~”
The voice on the broadcast switched to an electronic tone, reciting a more terrifying line:
“Warning.”
“All units, attention, heavy unit deployment detected.”
“【Full Armor Hellcat】, 【Super Heavy Cheshire Rabbit】, 【Armored Greatshield Fenrir】, deploying immediately.”
Hearing the voice from the broadcast, the Super Heavy Rabbit Girl and the Armored Greatshield Gray Wolf, who were chatting, exchanged glances and began to walk in a certain direction.
Red Zircon saw the exaggerated full-protection armored greatshield on Fenrir’s back, and naturally also saw the Browning heavy machine gun on Cheshire Rabbit’s back.
“I say, can we really deal with this level of heavy unit?”
Hai Lan Shi continued chatting in the team channel.
“Who knows what Xin Yuehu is thinking, but we still have to find a way to evacuate. We can’t give up until the very end!”
“That’s right, the heavy burden of evacuation is on you, Zi Ying Shi! It would be even better if you could take out the BOSSes along the way!”
“Huh? Me?”
The sniper looked up blankly at a certain position in the void, pointed to herself, and then pointed to the Cheshire Rabbit wrapped up like an armored can in the distance.
…
At the same time, somewhere else in the mall.
Squirrel Mai Sui huddled behind a bank counter in the mall, secretly peeking out the door.
—Intense gunfire and grenade explosions, stray bullets flying everywhere, whizzing past Mai Sui’s helmet, nearly blowing her head off on the spot.
“Waaah!”
Squirrel Mai Sui hurriedly pulled her head back, not daring to look again.
“What’s going on outside? Are they fighting?”
Guinea Pig Lü Luo asked softly beside her.
Fancy Rat Zi Luolan did not dare to make any rash moves, clutching her rifle and trembling in the corner, also flinching whenever stray bullets hit the counter wall.
“Probably.” Mai Sui nodded.
This was a bank vault inside the mall.
Five minutes ago, Squirrel Mai Sui’s Magic Rodent Squad had entered this vault, taking all the gold inside, instantly becoming the only fat rodent to have eaten from two vaults in the entire game.
But just as they were about to sneak away to the extraction point after getting the loot, the Hyacinth Squad, who had set up a gun at the bank entrance, gave Mai Sui and her three teammates a big surprise.
However, the Bai Lili Squad, who arrived upon hearing the commotion, engaged in a fierce firefight with the Hyacinth Squad.
From the conversation and deployment of both sides, it seemed they had a brief skirmish elsewhere just now.
“We have to find a way to sneak out.”
“But how do we sneak out? There’s only one entrance and exit here. We can’t just run through their line of fire, can we?”
“…How about using a smoke grenade for cover?” Groundhog Xue Ronghua said.
“Are you kidding? A smoke grenade can at most obscure the main entrance. What if we can’t find cover once we go out?” Fancy Rat Zi Luolan then raised an objection.
The four members of Mai Sui’s team looked at each other, none of them able to come up with a good solution.
But just as everyone was at a loss, the gunfire outside suddenly stopped.
This made Mai Sui even more terrified.
Two teams of hunters had set their sights on a plump rodent, and they suddenly stopped fighting without any casualties on either side. Were they discussing splitting the spoils?
The fear of being the fish on the chopping block enveloped Mai Sui’s heart. She silently took the backpack filled with two stashes of gold from her teammate, ready to offer it up at the first opportunity.
But two large searchlights suddenly illuminating deep within the mall made the battlefield situation turn strange:
“Clank.”
“Thump-thump, thump-thump.”
Heavy, solid footsteps.
The metallic clanking of a bullet belt being loaded.
And the simultaneous shouts of Hyacinth and Bai Lili.
“No good! Find cover quickly!” “Watch the flank!”
“Clank-clank-clank-clank-clank-clank!!”
Heavy machine gun fire.
The 12.7mm machine gun rounds roared through the mall, the muzzle flash illuminating a tall, pink figure like a fearless warrior, and also illuminating the gray, full-protection armored greatshield in front of her.
“Hahahahahahaha! Don’t run! Hyacinth! Stop right there!”
“Why are you chasing me! Isn’t it better for you to chase Bai Lili and her team?!”
“Hmm? Catcat went to chase Bai Lili, so we two are chasing you!”
Cheshire Rabbit’s wild laughter and the heavy machine gun’s roar gradually faded into the distance, mixed with Hyacinth’s wails and strange shouts.
Squirrel Mai Sui stared blankly at the bank entrance, which had returned to silence, and swallowed.
Between Hyacinth and Bai Lili, whose pressure was greater?
Mai Sui fell into deep thought, but still took the opportunity to slip into the mall corridor, quickly disappearing into the darkness.