“Seatbelt check. Ready to depart.” Chu Nan closed the hatch.
“Don’t worry, I checked already.” Jiang Chen, wearing the kinetic skeleton, pointed at his shoulder and smiled.
“This is procedure… Okay, lift off.” Chu Nan opened the engine switch while signally the “apprentice” in the co-pilot position to keep an eye on the monitors on the right side.
Woohoo-!
Outside of the helicopter, high voltage static began to hum. Under the push of the furious vortex flow, the 51 helicopter began to lift off slowly.
Sitting across Jiang Chen was the gunner. The young man wearing orange protective gear felt shy with the base leader sitting across from him.
“Don’t be anxious.” Jiang Chen gave him a friendly smile.
“Yes!” The young man shouted out, just as he wanted to stand up to salute, he was comically pulled back by the seatbelt.
Jiang Chen laughed as he waved his hand signally there was no need. Then he focused his gaze on what was happening outside the window.
It stopped snowing, but the snow had yet to melt.
It was the first time overseeing the entirety of Wanghai City in the sky.
A frozen world. The city at dawn shone brightly. The glittering colors seemed to have fended off the gloom of the radiation dust in the air.
If it was not for the occasional zombie, as well as the unhealthy colored smog, he could almost forget that he was in the apocalypse, and was instead in a snowy city in the Northern kingdom.
“From this view, the city is quite beautiful,” Jiang Chen exclaimed while looking through the window.
“The first time is indeed powerful. But if you fly every day, you’ll get used to it.” Chu Nan laughed.
“Yeah?” Jiang Chen smiled as he didn’t disagree.
5 Tigers, one armored vehicle carrying supplies, 30 light infantry carrying Reaper assault rifle, as well as two snipers equipped with ghost sniper rifles.
The destination was Shenxiang Town. This was Fishbone Base’s first attack on the mutated humans.
Jiang Chen didn’t need to come but considering they needed the seven hundred captured survivors at the base. It would be best for the Fishbone leader to stand out and say something.
Also, to observe the battle from above was something he looked forward to.
“About to be in contact with radiation dust. Put on the mask,” as he spoke, Chu Nan pulled the mask down over his helmet.
“Received.”
Jiang Chen pressed a few buttons on the kinetic skeleton, picked up the helmet on the chair beside him, and connected the extension to the slot.
…
It snowed, but this level of coldness was as indifferent as the spring breeze to the mutated humans.
Even if they were fully exposed to the external conditions, they could still stand tall in the chilling snowstorm, ignoring the furious wind, and unleash the full firepower of the guns in their hands.
They were natural warriors. Viewing highly of themselves, they were the terminators of the old civilization.
Even if their bodies were unafraid of the cold, long winter journeys were still extremely difficult for them.
Additionally, the stronger the body, the higher the supply consumption. Since west of Zhufeng Road had been entirely blocked by the snow, it meant it was nearly impossible for vehicles to traverse across it and this fact put the already short supply line under more pressure.
There were only two options in front of the mutated humans.
One, send a team to Shenxiang Town across the Taifu river bank to establish an outpost, and then send the primary force to Wanghai City.
Two, wait till next spring to invade Wanghai City.
There was no possibility of the mutated humans and humans to reach a peaceful negotiation. Once they encountered each other, it would be a bloodbath. As for the decision to invade Wanghai City and engage in conflicts with the local human force, the mutated human leader was cautious. Different from the scattered survivors in Jia City, as the hotspot during the war, Wanghai City had multiple survivor camps that inherited frontier military technology before the war.
If they had to engage in conflict with the human force, the mutated human would rather have it happen during the winter.
If they waited for spring, the advantage of the mutated humans being able to fight in harsh climates would be non-existent. At the same time, hungry mutants would wake up from hibernation which would make the trip into city center more problematic.
Because of the above reasons, the mutated humans decided to go with plan one for now.
Although the highway between 7th area and Shenxiang Town was completely blocked by snow, the road condition from Shenxiang Town to Wanghai City was relatively smooth. As long as they establish an outpost to store supplies, the pressure of the supply line would be greatly alleviated. A winter crusade would be possible.
Therefore, the captured survivors in Shengxiang Town were not immediately escorted back, but rather were forced to construct defensive structures by the mutated humans there.
Outside Shenxiang Town, the outline of the reinforced concrete wall was starting to become visible.
The sides of the road were piled with wood chips and were placed as obstacles and barriers to block the major roads outside of the town. But when the mutated humans arrived, the flimsy barrier could not bring even the slightest sense of security to the survivors hiding behind cover. The monster wielding steel carried machine guns and the bullet storm destroyed the mental fortitude of every defender.
In the shack not far away from this place, the painted concrete wall was cut in half by the coilless cannon. On the shambles were terrifying bullet holes, and the blood stains on the wooden floor in the room were still clearly visible.
The survivors defending behind cover could not cause a single casualty to the attacking mutated humans. But when the first mutated human passed through the wooden barrier, tens of bodies were already on the ground, which forced the survivors to raise the white flag and surrender.
The recalcitrants’ body was pierced by wooden spears, hung in the snow being eroded by the snowstorm, and eaten by the mutated rats. Just like a flag, declaring the cruelty of the victors.
Wang Pin, with cold eyes, stared at the frail humans as they dragged concrete and steel through the snow with difficulty, building up their outpost.
“Move quicker you damn pests. Who said you could stop, mhmm?” A horrific looking mutated human held a whip as he cursed at the slaves. His whip regularly beat at the weak figures, without any care if they actually made a mistake or not.
The frightened faces instinctively made him feel joyful.
Since he couldn’t acquire pleasant sensations physiologically, the body full of male hormones could only be alleviated through primal violence.
“Luke, don’t accidentally kill them. Even if they are pests, they still have value in entertaining us.” Wang Pin strolled beside the supervisor as he flashed his mouth full of fangs. Looking at the boy lying in the snow, he did not hide his eyes full of disgust and disdain.
The mutated human after being “reborn” would rename themselves, abandoning the ancient ethics along with their name.
“Haha!” Luke flung the whip in his hand as he laughed. “Cowards, all eyes on me.”
The people carrying bags of concrete all stopped.
Men, women, elderly, and children.
The white snow circled around them, but it could not hide their terrified looks. They could not scream, nor be anger. The chilling cold already caused their facial nerves to lose any sense of feeling. The bloodthirsty mutated humans made them forget the dignity they had.
He looked at the numb faces with satisfaction. Luke lowered his head and looked at the boy trembling in the snow. With a grimace, he lifted his foot and stepped on the youthful face.
“Ahh…”The suppressed scream came from the bottom of his foot, as the frozen fingers tightly grasped onto the ground as he crashed into the freezing snow.
The father of the boy stood on the side with his shoulders trembling. His bloodshot eyes widened at the scene.
The mutated humans on the side carried their rifles as they mockingly looked at the slaves being humiliated. The lack of entertainment meant that the thing they loved to do the most was to humiliate the helpless slaves.
FEV virus was magical. The magical part was that it would make the modified person forget any previous reluctance and experience the sensation of evolution. They would forget about their hatred towards the mutated humans and willingly join the new party, and in term shift their hatred onto the old species unwilling to accept evolution.
“No-!” A deafening scream broke the silence. A woman with messy hair leaped onto the snow as she tightly held onto the mutated human’s foot while desperately trying to save the boy being stepped on.
“Mom…” The boy’s eyeballs were protruding because of pressure, his mouth weakly moved.
Luke apathetically observed the woman from above. Coldly staring at the plea and despair in her eyes.
“Get out.” The cold words left his mouth.
Luke lifted the foot stepping on the boy’s face as he kicked her chest mercilessly and sent the woman flying.
She struggled to stand up from the snow, the edges of her mouth had blood dripping down as she coughed.
But her eyes didn’t look at Luke, and instead looked at the boy freed from under his foot.
A tender smile appeared on her face as she crawled to the kid.
For some reason, the expression on the woman’s face enraged Luke.
“Stop,” he arrogantly ordered.
The woman ignored him as she shakingly moved her arms in the boy’s direction. Seeing his mom was getting closer, the boy looked relieved.
But then, a rifle was pointed at her head.
She blankly looked at it as despair appeared on her face.
“Could, could it not be here,” She used her trembling voice to plead.
The second she leaped out from the crowd, she knew her fate.
The people who dared to defy them all died, no exception.
If possible, she didn’t want to die in front of her child.
Luke’s face held a disdained grimace. This person wanted to discuss terms with him?
“Let her go.”
A man stood out, but his legs and shoulders trembled. Luke scorned.
“I am willing to die for her.” This sentence seemed to have taken all of his courage.
The woman looked at the man with eyes wide open as the sign of life began to vanish from her face.
The cracked mouth opened as a powerless voice whispered out.
“N…no-”
“Then go die.” Luke immediately fired. The bullet penetrated his chest, and even hurt the elder behind him.
“Ahhh-!”
The crowd howled. The woman’s scream was filled with heartbreak, and the boy’s eyes opened wide as he watched his father fall into the snow.
Seeing the woman on all four scrambling to crawl to her husband, Luke’s face revealed a psychotic but satisfied smile.
He lifted his gun again as he was about to execute the woman that dared to dirty his feet.
But just at that moment, Wang Pin, standing on the side, gently put his hand on the lifted rifle.