Eyes filled with shock and hatred, the four-eyed man never closed his eyes until his life ran out completely. He hadn’t expected his “comrade” to deal him the killing blow without any hesitation or mercy, even if he himself had wanted to kill the big man a long time ago. He didn’t think that the big man was harboring the exact same idea.
The fatal attack had been swift and clean. There was no hesitation, or even killing intent. By the time the four-eyed man realized what was happening, his windpipe had been cut open, and his cervical vertebra had been nailed to the wall.
Assuming that this base was made of the same material as Neo’s base, it should be pretty hard to leave a scratch on it. However, the big man’s blade had penetrated the four-eyed man’s neck and dug a hole in the wall, proving that it was no ordinary weapon.
The brownish gray-colored blade wasn’t big, and it was non-reflective. From afar, it looked just like an ordinary weapon. Cillin saw the big man toying with his blade earlier, and he could tell he had used it for many years.
Some people’s killing intent grew more and more withdrawn past a certain amount of kill count. This big man was like an old hunter standing in the dark, waiting for the perfect moment to deal the fatal blow to his prey. That was how Cillin knew that this fearsome-looking man had killed at least a thousand people in his life, unless he was literally born this way.
The two enemies had been taken out in less than five seconds. A fight to the death between experts normally ends extremely quickly.
When the four-eyed man finally gasped his last breath, the big man walked over and pulled out his blade. The blood quickly dripped off the tip of the blade, leaving no mark behind whatsoever.
Cillin watched the big man warily. He didn’t point his gun at him, but he was ready to attack the second he noticed something amiss.
The big man folded his blade and raised his hands slightly after seeing Cillin to show that he meant no harm to him.
“Are you the reinforcement the kid called over?” The big man asked.
Instead of answering, Cillin looked at the room behind him and shouted, “Come out, Hei Dou! I need you to talk with Neo for a bit.”
Hei Dou had hidden herself in a corner after hearing the commotion outside, but her eyes lit up immediately when she heard Cillin’s words. The big man shifted away from the door to give way to Hei Dou, and after shooting him a careful glance she walked out of the room and stared at Cillin. Step by step, she made her way toward Cililn.
Cillin threw Neo’s list into Hei Dou’s hands as she was walking toward him. “Neo is looking for these.”
Hei Dou relaxed when she saw the familiar writing on the paper. After jiggling her bracelet a bit and sending a message to Neo, she walked into her lab to prepare the chemicals Neo requested.
Now, Cillin, the big man and the two cooling bodies were the only people left outside the lab.
Wheeze leaped onto the two bodies and started scavenging for tools. However, it couldn’t find anything except two modified guns and a blade of unknown origin.
“The guns belong to the girl,” the big man said.
“Where’s yours?” Cillin hadn’t noticed any gun on his person.
“I don’t have one.” The big man shrugged before continuing, “They didn’t trust me, so they forbade me from owning a gun. I ran into them in the forest and killed a couple of wild animals for them. They said they found a safe place and invited me to join them, so I followed them here. Oh right, the girl would’ve died if I hadn’t stopped them.”
The big man sat on the floor after that, paying no heed to Cillin’s obvious caution. He didn’t try to unfold his blade either.
Cillin watch him quietly before asking, “Who are you?”
The big man gave him a self-derisive smile before answering, “I’m just a prisoner, that’s all.”
“How did you come here?”
“I don’t know. When I woke up, I was already here in this strange place. If I still didn’t have this blade with me, I would’ve been eaten by the wild animals in the forest a long time ago.”
The big man sat cross legged on the floor with one hand on his thigh and the other propping up his chin. He looked a little depressed for some reason.
Inside the lab, Hei Dou felt a lot better after she was done communicating with Neo and learning that her rescuer’s name was Cillin.
“Cillin, I’ll come with you two in a moment! I’ve prepared everything you need, and there are some spares left in the lab. We’ll carry them all together when we leave,” Hei Dou said happily.
“You’re going too?” Cillin asked while looking a little troubled. He wasn’t sure if the bird could carry two people, a cat and all these supplies at once.
“Yeah, I’ll be bringing my lab with me as well!” Hei Dou said while packing her things.
“Your lab?”
“Mm. My lab’s a little special. It can function as an independent object and fly in the air.”
Cillin was surprised. Wheeze’s scan hadn’t revealed anything out of the ordinary, so he couldn’t know that the lab was actually capable of flight.
“Can I come with you?” The big man said while looking at Cillin. Then, he turned back to Hei Dou before saying, “You promised. Also, this place won’t be safe after your lab is gone.”
Hei Dou’s lab was the heart of this base, so it was only natural that the base’s defensive capabilities would drop drastically after its separation.
Hei Dou nodded before recalling something. She looked at Cillin and asked, “Can we bring him with us?”
Cillin didn’t agree immediately. It was true that they needed more manpower, and this person didn’t look like a heinous criminal, but they were also in a unique environment. There were too many factors to consider, and an internal strife would destroy them all.
Cillin pulled Hei Dou over and whispered to her for a bit. The girl nodded and ran back into the lab. A short while later, she came back out and whispered a reply, which caused Cillin to shoot a curious glance at the big man. Finally, he motioned for Hei Dou to return to whatever she was busying herself with, and told her that they would be leaving immediately after she was done packing.
Cillin walked until he was in front of the big man. The latter had been waiting for him to give a reply.
“Tu Ba?” Cillin asked.
The big man narrowed his eyes briefly before relaxing again. “I didn’t think someone would recognize me.”
“A friend in our base recognized you and told us to bring you. I look forward to working with you.”
The big man paused for a moment before letting out a laugh. “I look forward to working with you as well.”
Hei Dou’s base was only half the size of Neo’s, and when Cillin asked Hei Dou why she told him that it was because Neo was overly demanding, and he had claimed that base immediately when the bases were being distributed, using all kinds of reasons and analyses that came out of nowhere to support his claim.
Cillin thought that it was an acceptable answer. Neo had always been a self-centered person, and words such as humility or tactfulness simply didn’t exist in his dictionary.
Hei Dou also had guns in her base, but they were different from the ones held by the four-eyed man and his companion. She had given them preliminary prototypes instead of real functioning guns, which were locked inside the lab’s secret storage box.
Hei Dou also gave Tu Ba a gun, but Cillin didn’t speak against it. Gu Xin had vouched for Tu Ba, meaning that the latter must be related to the military somehow. Of course, he didn’t know what really happened to Tu Ba, but for now he was someone he could trust and a helping hand they sorely needed.
From the start, Cillin had always thought that humans were the most dangerous creatures on this planet, not the artificial creatures or wild animals. The invasion began when the candidates had gathered into tiny groups, and it was impossible to tell what would happen during the remaining twenty days. That was why Cillin planned to integrate all the power he could gather from his surroundings before these human groups could mature completely.
Once they were done packing, Hei Dou set the base’s systems into hibernation mode and sealed off all doors and windows, shutting down the base completely.
Cillin let out a whistle when they stepped out of the base. Unfortunately, two bio-soldiers hiding inside a nearby cave heard the whistle as well and started running towards them before Mercury could show up. Cillin lifted his gun and fired twice at them.
He used the gun that was equipped with toxic bullets. Although the Tri-Colored Bean’s toxin was useless against the white mice, it had more than proven its effectiveness on the bio-soldiers.
Tu Ba shot Cillin a meaningful look after the two bio-soldiers collapsed.
Mercury finally showed up, and they discovered that the poor fellow was covered in ice and snow, probably because there was no suitable place to hide in. The wind was so cold that it had nearly frozen into an ice sculpture, so Cillin’s signal had been a godsend to Mercury.
This time though, Cillin didn’t fly on Mercury like before. The lab itself was capable of flight after detaching from the base, so there was no point suffering the terrible storm when they could be basking in the warmth of the lab.
Wheeze still chose to sit on top of Mercury though. Sitting on something with wings just puts you in the mood, you know?
On the way back to Neo’s base, Cillin checked the radar in Hei Dou’s flying lab for a bit. The white dots on the radar represented the white mice, the blue dots represented the wild animals, and the brown dots represented the bio-soldiers.
Most of the blue dots and brown dots were concentrated in several locations that were probably well insulated from the cold. The white dots were more scattered, however.
By the time they finally reached Neo’s base, seventeen white dots had appeared on the radar. Their numbers were a lot more numerous than the time he first took off to Hei Dou’s base, and it looked like he needed to finish the gun modifications as quickly as possible.
Hei Dou’s lab joined up with Neo’s base from the cliffside before fitting itself into the exterior facilities.
Neo was extremely displeased because Hei Dou’s lab had messed with his territory, and he hadn’t stopped complaining since the moment they met. Interior stability, harmonious development, local factors and macro-control; he just couldn’t stop shooting his one hundred reasons why the lab was a dysfunctional addition to his base. No one gave a damn about his complaints, however. Everyone except Tu Ba had gotten used to Neo’s antics by this point, and the man’s protest was completely ignored.
Hei Dou had her hands full merging and refitting her lab to Neo’s base upon arrival. Cillin also started working on creating new explosive bullets after obtaining all the materials he needed.
Erty felt very frustrated when he heard that the four-eyed man was dead. Revenge was meaningful only when it was completed by his own hands, or the unpleasant feeling would linger for a long time to come.
Gu Xin was the most welcoming of Tu Ba out of everyone. Tu Ba had a military background, and he was even a high ranking military officer for some time. But a couple of things happened, and he was thrown into the imperial prison and sentenced to life imprisonment.
“Three years. Three years is all it takes to destroy a person completely, wipe out all of their merits and turn them into a person who was spurned by everyone. Three years,” said Tu Ba with a sigh during a conversation with Gu Xin.
“It’s not your fault. The empire is too big, and it’s inevitable that some parts of it are corrupted,” Gu Xin consoled.
“I used to wonder if my belief was wrong, and that the oath everyone had sworn to uphold was a lie while I was inside. I stopped thinking about it after some time though.”
“Why?”
“It’s because you can’t afford to think about such things in prison. Look away for a second, and you may be dead in the next.” Tu Ba pointed at his own chest when he said this. Multiple times he was nearly killed by a blow to the chest.
“How can this happen in an imperial prison?!” Gu Xin exclaimed in shock.
“Imperial prison? Heh,” Tu Ba rubbed his forehead before continuing, “There are many kinds of imperial prison, you know.”
Gu Xin stopped asking and gave Tu Ba a friendly slap on the shoulder after seeing that the latter had no wish to elaborate. He felt a lot more comfortable now that there was another person with a military background.
“Oh right, there’s something I want to ask you about,” Tu Ba asked.
“What is it? Before you start, you should know that I have no idea about this place just like you. I was here the moment I woke up.”
“No, that’s not what I want to ask. Do you know who that Cillin guy is?”
“Him?” Gu Xin shrugged and said, “I don’t know either.”
“A person like him should have a file in the military, shouldn’t he?”
“I haven’t seen him in my area of responsibility at least.”
Meanwhile, Wheeze was rolling on top of the table until it caught sight of Gu Xin’s queue. Feeling an itch in its paw again, the gray cat grabbed Gu Xin’s queue and started playing.
Tu Ba looked at Wheeze with interest before poking it once in the body. He was immediately scratched in the arm.
“Wow. It’s pretty fast!” Instead of getting angry, Tu Ba’s interest in Wheeze only grew stronger.
Gu Xin elbowed him lightly before saying, “Don’t provoke it. It’s stronger than you think.”
Tu Ba didn’t give up immediately, however. He kept trying until Wheeze finally persuaded him to stop with a scratch on the face.
The materials Hei Dou’s provided him were excellent, and they perfectly created the effect he wanted. Although there were only so many types of explosive bullets he could create, it should be enough to deal with the white mice.
Cillin had created three types of explosive bullets in total, and all of them had different explosive power and penetration power. It was so that they could effectively attack the white mice from any angle.
Hei Dou and Neo worked together to reconfigure the base’s defenses and create a small batch of mini surveillance devices scattered around the nearby forest. They also set up some scanners further away and made sure that both the surveillance devices and the scanners were concealed to a degree. As long as the animals didn’t come too close, they shouldn’t be able to detect the equipment.
“There’s a white mouse 1.5 kilometers away. Do you guys want to take it out?” Suddenly, Hei Dou shouted at the people sitting in the living hall.
Cillin had just finished making a batch of explosive bullets, so he swiftly distributed the weapons to everyone.
“Let’s take out that mouse, or it might damage the base if it gets close.” Hua Li grabbed the gun and the bullets Cillin spread across the table.
“I’m going.” Erty grabbed a gun and immediately went outside. He had made a full recovery, and he felt like venting the vestiges of his frustration.
“Let’s leave this to Erty, Gu Xin and Tu Ba. You should stay here because you haven’t recovered completely, Hua Li. The three of them can take care of it,” Cillin said.
Hua Li frowned and tried to say something, but Neo interrupted her like a gust of icy wind and said, “A wounded like you would only be wasting bullets.”
Ignoring the bickering Hua Li and Neo, Erty stepped out of the door. Gu Xin made a hand gesture meaning “don’t worry” before catching up to Erty. Tu Ba was the last person to follow them to the lift. Cillin grabbed Neo by the collar before dragging him into lab, saying, “Go check the new bullets’ power and summarize the data, will you?”
Data was more important than Hua Li, so Neo abandoned her and went to his instrument. Hei Dou moved closer to get a better look at the screen, while Ah Shou and Hua Li watched from the living hall.
On the screen, Erty, Gu Xin and Tu Ba quickly reached the marked coordinates and spread out towards three directions. It was a good idea to encircle the white mouse so that two people at least would be able to shoot it no matter where it escaped to.
Bang!
The first bullet brushed past the white mouse’s eye socket, penetrated its epidermis and destroyed its entire eye in a fiery explosion. Before the white mouse could even summon its anger, another two bullets hit the same spot from two different directions and destroyed its entire head. The third bullet was probably unnecessary because the second bullet was already enough to kill it.
“Judging from the data, the first shot dealt pretty good damage. The target froze for a moment because its brain nerves were damaged, which made it easier for the shooters to follow up with a second and third shot,” Hei Dou explained excitedly.
“But if my guess is correct, Erty was actually aiming for its eyes, so he actually missed his shot,” Neo fired of a merciless criticism.
“That’s because the white mouse had reacted too quickly. The old bullets couldn’t have destroyed its entire eye.” Cillin recorded the summary data on the screen to serve as a reference for future modification.
Ah Shou was drinking her fruit juice at the living hall when she suddenly blinked her eyes and said, “The sky’s clearing up soon.”
Erty had just stepped through the door when he heard Ah Shou’s comment. He asked, “How long will it take to clear up?”
“Two days.”
“So, those things will come out in two days again,” Erty said while spinning his gun around his finger. He wasn’t afraid of those things any longer because he had both the weapons and the manpower this time.
Cillin told everyone to take a good rest after hearing that, knowing that rest could very well be a luxury two days later.
What would happen after the sky clears up? According to Ah Shou, the temperature would start rising very, very quickly, so the thick snow was sure to melt into ponds and swamps. Who knew what other strange creatures would emerge after that?
Moreover, Cillin couldn’t help but feel a lingering sense of unease. He had a feeling that something bad was about to happen soon, so he needed to prepare as much as possible before the inevitable arrives. Be it the white mice, the wild animals, the bio-soldiers, the humanoids Hua Li encountered or those enemies who hadn’t shown their faces yet, some conflicts could only be solved with violence.
Two days later, the new defense system Hei Dou and Neo were collaborating on was more than half finished, and Cillin hadn’t been idle himself. Sometimes, he would head out and improve the disguises of their surveillance devices.
Erty and the gang weren’t the type to stay idle either. Without forgetting to get enough sleep every day, they weathered the storm in protective clothing and practiced their skills on some wild animals in the forest.
When the last snowflake fell from the sky, the sun finally showed its face.
The hailstorm had ended as quickly as it came, and the rising heat quickly flooded some low-lying areas. Then, flat, round heads suddenly appeared on the water surface of these areas and started running towards higher ground.