Chapter 77: Various Escape Parties

Such professional and swift reflex actions made Shen Lie's eyelids twitch, and he immediately concluded that this group must belong to the military—most likely the cream of the crop, as ordinary survivor squads could not possibly possess such high standards of discipline.

The sound of gunfire grew increasingly loud and dense. It was estimated that a well-armed detachment had collided with a massive horde of monsters, and judging by the sound, they seemed to be heading in this direction!

Shen Lie glanced at Elder Long, who was tightly shielded in the center, and noticed that the old man showed no signs of panic, still standing there with furrowed brows and deep in thought, as if he had yet to recover from the intelligence regarding the Dawn Base.

"All personnel, fall back to your units immediately! Fall back immediately, prepare to evacuate, prepare to evacuate!" After descending from the upper floor, the man in the yellow jacket immediately shouted into the communicator in his hand, his expression extremely grim.

When Shen Lie caught sight of the communicator the man was using, he became even more certain of their military identity, because this device was identical to the one Yang Weiguo had used back in Dongfeng Town. According to Yang Weiguo, these communicators had been developed by the military research institute just as the apocalypse began to rear its head. They were short-range communication devices specially designed to counter the interference of the grey mist, and their numbers were extremely scarce.

Yang Weiguo had been fortunate enough to be allocated a few units because he was dispatched to Dongfeng Town to receive Professor Liu. Professor Liu was a heavyweight expert in national genetic pharmaceutics research, and his importance became even more pronounced after the end of the world, so it was only natural that he received high-level protection. However, the security detail protecting Elder Long before his eyes surpassed Professor Liu's by countless margins, both in quantity and quality. The old man's identity was undoubtedly even more astounding.

Not long after the man in the yellow jacket finished shouting, more than twenty people hurried back from various directions of the small town, and these individuals then clustered around the old man, beginning their transfer out of the town. Shen Lie lost the desire to continue observing as well, choosing a path of his own to walk out of the town.

Just as Shen Lie and Xia Ke's figures faded into the distance, the small squad from Yangcheng University—whose leader had been killed by Shen Lie—panicked and bolted out of the hotel. A fair number of survivors also rushed out from various storefronts, clearly having been jolted awake by the gunfire.

"Commander, we can't hold them anymore! We have to fall back right now!"

"No! The orders from the command post are to hold for twenty minutes. We must complete our mission!"

"Commander Lu, all our brothers are going to die here! The people at the command post are human beings, but aren't our soldiers human too? Why do they get to eat well and drink well, and when danger strikes, they run first while we cover the rear? If this is how it goes, to hell with wearing this military uniform!"

"Wang Xiaoqiang, say that to my face one more time! Do you really think I won't put a bullet through you?"

"Commander, I just can't stomach this! The youngest of our soldiers is only eighteen years old, and they're forced to slaughter monsters here, yet those bastards drafted all the awakened ones from our regiment to act as their bodyguards! What kind of world is this? Commander, I'm begging you, please leave some seeds for our regiment!"

"Damn it! Hold out for three more minutes, and then we retreat!"

In the narrow mountain pass, a military detachment of about a thousand men was locked in a fierce battle with a massive swarm of spider monsters amid flying artillery fire and deafening cries.

Although these soldiers possessed ferocious firepower, the complete absence of awakened individuals among their ranks caused them to suffer terribly under the monsters' charge. Weakened by the grey mist, the efficacy of their conventional firearms was halved, leaving them unable to deal sufficiently lethal damage to the spider monsters.

A Tier 2 spider monster rampaged through the crowd, claiming the life of a soldier with every single strike. Fresh blood splattered into the air, staining the atmosphere a crimson red.

"Stop picking up those damn rocks and fall back, all of you!" A company commander kicked a soldier who was bent over picking up spider monster crystals, roaring in bitter frustration. What time was it? What use were these things anyway?

Those sons of bitches at command headquarters—heaven knows what they wanted those worthless stones for. They actually forced soldiers to risk their lives collecting these trinkets while dangling food as bait. How many more men had to die because of this? It was utterly inhuman!

Over a thousand men were reduced by a third in the blink of an eye, and the highest-ranking officer—the regiment commander—was reaching his breaking point. These men were his loyal subordinates; once they were gone, his career as commander would also come to an end, and nobody in this apocalyptic world was going to replenish his troops. Glancing at his watch and ignoring whether three minutes had passed, he immediately ordered his bugler to sound the horn of retreat.

"Pour all available firepower down on them! Don't let these beasts follow us!" The commander's voice was hoarse from shouting, but fortunately, they were in a mountain pass; retreating across an open plain would have been utterly impossible.

The retreat was even more brutal than the combat itself. After sacrificing two reinforced companies to hold the rear, the remaining personnel managed to escape to flat terrain, scramble onto the personnel trucks left behind, and flee wildly into the distance!

A convoy was speeding along the highway, flanked in the front and back by troop-filled trucks, with a large bus positioned in the middle. Heavily armed awakened soldiers guarded the front and rear of the bus, while the interior was partitioned by a barrier, seating three young men and two young women dressed in lavish attire.

Suddenly, a soldier keeping watch at the rear of the bus made a hand gesture. The expression of the thick-browed officer inside the vehicle shifted instantly, and he strode rapidly to the back of the bus, picking up a telescope to scan the horizon.

"How the hell did Lu Zhendong manage things? We agreed he would hold out for twenty minutes, and yet he's running away with less than ten minutes elapsed? When we reach the capital, I'll make sure he faces a military court-martial!" The thick-browed officer on the bus lowered his telescope, having just caught sight of Commander Lu and his men fleeing in disarray, closely pursued by a horde of ravenous monsters. He broke out into furious curses, especially since a portion of the monsters had already spotted their convoy and was charging directly toward them.

The thick-browed officer's curses caused the pampered young men and women in the middle of the bus to frown slightly, though they remained silent. One of the girls appeared relatively calm, but while the others maintained placid outward expressions, their tightly clenched hands betrayed their inner tension.

"Chief of Staff Han, come over here and explain what's going on." A slick-haired youth gestured lazily, summoning the thick-browed officer with a commanding tone.

The thick-browed officer's brow twitched imperceptibly, but by the time he turned his head, the expression had completely smoothed out. Wearing a smile, he walked over to the young people and said with a hint of ingratiating flattery, "It's nothing, Chu Shao. It's just those same spiders we encountered earlier. A small fraction broke through the rear blockade and is chasing in our direction."

"What! Those monsters are chasing us?" The thick-browed officer's words startled the young people. The one addressed as Chu Shao instantly leaped to his feet, terror plastered across his face.

Realizing a moment later that his reaction had exposed his cowardice, Chu Shao hurriedly masked it with a couple of dry coughs, glared at the thick-browed officer opposite him, and said, "Ahem! How many of them are there? Just how do you people manage things, failing to stop even such a tiny handful of monsters? It's one thing if the few of us are frightened, but if Miss Ruobing is startled, your career as Chief of Staff is finished!"

A flash of dark gloom crossed the thick-browed officer's eyes, but he still nodded subserviently. "Rest assured, Chu Shao, the monsters in pursuit are few in number. With over twenty awakened warriors on our side, we will certainly not allow Miss Ruobing to be disturbed!"

Hearing that the pursuing monsters were few in number, the young men and women relaxed slightly. Chu Shao even swaggeringly threw a punch in the air and said, "Then we'll be counting heavily on Chief of Staff Han. Once we arrive in the capital, the few of us will be sure to speak of Chief of Staff Han's contributions before our families."

The thick-browed officer seemed to have been waiting precisely for those words. As soon as they were spoken, a bright smile bloomed across his face. He then ordered the convoy to halt and disembarked to deploy a second rear-guard detail.