Chapter 118: Concerted Attack From Within And Without
“You don’t seem to be surprised. Have you expected this earlier?”
Emmus looked at Cillin in surprise. Cillin appeared as indifferent as ever as compared to Wa Qing.
“It was one of my guesses. I’ve never underestimated the army.” Cillin said.
When Cillin was still a Shadow Hunter, a rather famous Hunter on Planet Brown Earth who was detained by the local military and sent to jail once said: never underestimate the army, for they might have planted their spies long before you realised it.
Cillin did not know if this line was meant for his Hunter comrades hidden amidst the crowd, or simply his own solique. Regardless, Cillin accidentally heard this while he was passing through and had since etched it into his mind.
The army was formidable not only because of the Four Heavenly Edict Generals. It only appeared that way on the surface.
Cillin tossed a pill at Emmus, “Here. Insecticide.”
Emmus looked at the pill in his hand and asked, “You have a subspace container with you, don’t you?”
“What do you think?” Cillin answered the question with a question.
Emmus said nothing. He thought yes, but his scanners did not pick up any abnormalities at all.
“Keep hesitating. Those things will soon enter a period of exponential growth in another minute and thirty seconds.”
Emmus’ face twitched. Everything was within the kid’s calculations. After staring at the pill for another two seconds, he raised his head and swallowed the pill resolutely.
“I’m not telling you to die. Stop looking like you’re going to die a martyr.”
“I must thank you for your mercy then!” Emmus said through gritted teeth. He hadn’t drunk the fruit tea because he was sure that they were mixed with something as well. He wondered how Carranio was feeling right now.
Wa Qing listened to their conversation vacantly, “What… what’s entering a period of exponential growth again?”
“Worms.”
Wa Qing: “…” Didn’t that mean that he was infected as well?
“You’re fine. I’ve already injected the meds into your body.” Cillin added knowing what Wa Qing was thinking about.
It was only then Wa Qing recalled the moment when Cillin had walked towards his side quickly when he was first brought into the hall. At the time, Cillin wasn’t just inspecting his condition but injecting him with meds. No wonder he felt as if his back was stung by something back then. But how on earth did Cillin manage to pull it off?
After a pause, Wa Qing said again, “Cillin, Akayi and everyone…”
“They should be on a spaceplane headed for the Sixth B Squadron right now.”
The connection he shared with the gray cat informed Cillin that everything was progressing smoothly. He had planned to act separately from the gray cat in the first place. While the cat would act stupidly sometimes, it should not have any problems assessing time as a cyborg as long as everything was planned out properly beforehand. Plus, it wasn’t difficult for the gray cat to track down people. By sticking itself onto a spaceplane, it could conduct deep scans and biosign verification to the building complexes beneath it from high altitude. All it took was a spin around the area to know exactly where the hostages were imprisoned at, and even if it failed, it could still analyse and determine the best approximate location. This was without accounting its super sensitive nose.
“How’s the Sixth Squad doing?” Wa Qing had been anxious the entire time; he could still remember clearly how the battle went that day.
“You’ll know once you get back.”
Wa Qing did not ask further seeing that Cillin wasn’t willing to tell more. Cillin was too extraordinary, and to be entirely honest with himself, Wa Qing was a bit afraid of this kid who hadn’t even hit the twenty years old mark yet.
Emmus looked at the timer on his hand and asked Cillin, “What do we do next? Do we just wait for the things you ‘planted’ to work?”
Cillin shook his head, “That will be letting them off easy. I’ve specially prepared them another gift.”
“What is it?” Both Emmus and Wa Qing asked at the same time.
“Bird of Paradise.”
They did not know what Cillin meant by ‘Bird of Paradise’, but when they saw his eyes, they both felt a chill travelling down their spines. It wasn’t because that Cillin had revealed some sort of dark emotion, or because he was overflowing with killing intent; in fact, Cillin still wore the usual indifferent and inexplicable expression with eyes that were as calm as the stars of the deep universe, but utterly indecipherable. That was why it was even scarier.
Somewhere in a building outside the hall, Carranio injected himself with a kind of inhibitor drug. He did not know how much longer it could suppress the things inside his body, but as long as it worked, it was acceptable.
There were plenty of surrounding Poison Fang members who were beginning to display symptoms of discomfort. Moreover, the discomfort only worsened over time, and it was only after a medical inspection that they discovered that a huge number of tiny parasites had appeared out of nowhere inside their bodies and were feeding on their internal organs!
The few mad enthusiasts within Poison Fang were already beginning to research it, but surely no good news could be expected within a short time. Therefore, Poison Fang could only inject themselves with inhibitors for the moment and wait. Their virus resistance was good, but they had nothing on parasites at all. They once spread viruses on Sector V, but they had never researched parasites and thus could not endure a parasitic attack.
Carranio’s feelings were really, really terrible at the moment. Right now, he finally understood that Cillin had been planning to delay from the beginning. That was why he purposely acted like he was in a hurry unconsciously at times. The brat was sure that Carranio himself would take the opposite standpoint and conduct the latter business in a leisurely manner, and so he delayed whenever possible, such as when he sent his men to to bring Wa Qing or the energy ores over. Not only that, the brat might not necessarily be ignorant to Sector V’s language!
The more Carranio thought, the angrier he became. His let out bursts of low, animalistic growls from his throat.
It was fake, it was all fake! Everything about that brat was faked from the start!
“King, the prisoners are gone! The guards have all fallen unconscious!” someone reported.
“King, a spaceplane had flown away from the planet. The guards tried to focus their firepower and shoot it down, but they received some sort of unknown interferences and were unable to aim properly. It has now escaped beyond the planet. Should we pursue them?” another person reported.
“King, six fighters had exploded for some unfathomable reason…”
Carranio let out a bellow of rage as he listened to the streams of reports from the communicator.
The fact that the guards had only fallen unconscious and were not dead meant that whoever did this took measures to preserve their lives, even though they obviously had the opportunity to kill them outright. Just like that Cillin kid, this person was keeping them alive because they wanted to torment them!
The GPS system must’ve been tampered by Emmus, which was why they could not lock down the enemy from long range right now. If they wanted to attack the hall, they could only physically carry the weapons over now. As for the weapon system aboard the spaceplanes and fighters…Now that he thought about it, all these things were more or less related in some way to Emmus. Emmus was probably in cahoots with Vanguard, or there was no way they could’ve coordinated so well with each other.
The fact that the prisoners were saved meant that Cillin must have a second companion. But they had checked and confirmed that he was the only one who arrived on the planet. So that meant that there was still another traitor in their midst! Carranio’s mind went wild the second the doubt began. He began to doubt everyone around him. It was a shame that the prisoners had escaped, but the most important thing right now was to sort out the internal strife.
At the same time, the gray cat continued to emit the soundless high energy sound waves to affect the spaceplanes and the fighters in air after the spaceplane Akayi and the other prisoners were safely away. Then, while holding mini grenades in its mouth it began playing a game called ‘BANG!’ and blew things up wherever it went, causing every Poison Fang members to worry both for the parasites inside their body and the mysterious explosions that came without warning.
The scanners could not detect the gray cat. When the gray cat rescued Akayi and the other prisoners, it also found some grenades and some good stuff that would entertain it for some time. These little tricks were the only thing it could pull off to entertain itself in order to keep itself from being exposed too quickly.
After counting the time once, the gray cat hid itself in a safe place and spat out an oval-shaped ball about the size of a quail egg. The shell of the oval-shaped ball slowly melted after it came into contact with air, slowly revealing the contents inside it. There were many small worms about a centimeter long each. They did not wriggle on the ground and instead moved swiftly by bending their bodies and bouncing forwards.
While watching the worms running far, far away, the gray cat stuck up its butt and stretched.
Mm, it’s time to go look for Cillin.