Chapter 9: Rupture
Translated by: CHua
Edited by: TN XRCO and Elkassar
Even though Henrik’s fireball didn’t seem threatening in the least, the few zerglings that received it instantly exploded; flames tore out in all directions, lighting up the entire oil field. The flames surged across both sides like a tidal wave, forming into an impressive firewall, fire blazing as it released spirals of thick fumes. The zerglings at the back either had to continue advancing and dive through this sea of flames, or make a huge detour to the sides. This undoubtedly provided much buffer time to the entire party.
Yet the sheer quantity of zerglings was uncountable, so much that it could neglect any form of barriers!
Over the sea of flames, zerglings repeatedly replaced their fallen comrades as they sacrificed their roasted bodies. If one had to describe this advancing wave of beasts, it was like an arachnid tide!
A tidal wave but with repugnant bugs!
That short hundred metres of escape route, had now turned into a bitter struggle against death!
The 4 machine gunners that came over to aid were killed, and the first casualty of the party emerged here. A contestant was carelessly struck down by a zergling, and in a flash was completely drowned out; even his cries could not be heard. It was like a rock falling into the vast ocean.
Tulip’s Alaskan giant bear similar was reduced to a cannon fodder; even if its mighty swipes could instantly delete a zergling, the sheer overwhelming amounts of zerglings simply swarmed over it. Its flesh and fur were swiftly clawed and minced by the merciless zerglings. If not for Tulip utilizing her unique chain weapon to retrieve the item ‘Bear’s horcrux’ when the bear died, then her bear wouldn’t even have any hopes of reviving. But this allowed her to be the first one to escape back into the base.
During the battle, Sheyan’s performance was extremely adequate; not disappointing anyone and not surprising anyone either. On the contrary, Mogensha and Qiaoer exhibited their vast potential. Especially Qiaoer whose last shot was obviously infused with an ability, its might was more explosive than a heavy cannon; producing a massive hundred square metre pit on the ground. That single attack cleared close to a hundred zerglings at a minimum; if not for such a terrifying attack, perhaps their party would’ve sustained another casualty.
Once the two heavy siege tanks crawled back to base, the base’s huge doors were shut tightly. Several SCVs rushed over, hastility conducting repair works on the two tanks. Ear piercing weldings sounds arose, following the blinding sparks. Every armoured gunner was concurrently rushing towards the perimeter of steel whip base, as the five fortifications started operating; frenziedly exterminating these stream of arachnids.
Every contestant received the notification:
“Hidden mission: ‘Rescue’ completed.”
“Bearing base survivals have safely arrived at Steel Whip base.”
“You receive achievement points +2, potential points +1.”
At this moment, the constants naturally would give up such a good opportunity as they flocked towards the top of the base walls, roaring loudly as they to vent their former frustrations. Once anyone killed of an arachnid that dropped keys or ‘Arachnid nucleus’ which could be used to exchange for reputation points, they immediately kept it into their nightmare imprint. Nobody wanted an awkward situation of fighting for loot.
As for Sheyan and Reef, contestants who lacked long distance combat methods, they picked up the gauss rifles and started firing. Such a densely packed sea of zerglings ensured their bullets would never miss. But probably because they were using weapons specially made for the humans; the arachnids they killed could only raise their reputation, and not drop any keys.
Based on Sheyan’s miserable 2 points in charm, killing off an ordinary zergling only earned him a minute 2 points of reputation. Yet Tulip had roughly 25 points charm, and could gain 7 points of reputation each. The difference was that vivid. Fortunately, Sheyan was considered a party member, and every arachnid his members slayed would earn him 1 reputation point; thus his increase was still pretty fast.
Suddenly, he could see his reputation additionally increase by a list of +3 +3, he instantly understood that Mogensha had shared half of the reputation points over after slaying these arachnids. This was already the limits of this temporal party. With Mogensha’s assistance, Sheyan’s reputation soared at an exceptional pace.
Suddenly, Sheyan noticed his reputation leapt by +15, and then the strings of +3 +3 +3 had abruptly halted. It should be that Mogensha had downed a certain high reputation foe, and received its violent backlash or retaliation. Sheyan was about to discard his weapon and charge up to see, but only heard a strange sound from afar. If was as though something was breathing heavily; following that he felt a bone-chilling sensation across his left, without hesitation he dove towards the right with all his might.
Not even a second later, the place where he was standing previously was engulfed by a rustling sound, like rain pouring down from above. Closely following that was a huge puddle of deep greenish fluid, it looked like horrifying acid; even the metal railing that it splashed on was frothing in bubbles. Originally sleek and firm, the steel railings quickly corroded into a clump of twig like object, and finally rotting fully. As the wind raged on, the dust was carried into nothingness.
“F***!” Although Sheyan managed to anticipate the danger with his perceptive sensing, several droplets of the green fluid had sprayed onto his skin as it started festering. His nightmare imprint directly notified him of his acidic venom infection, causing damage over time; every 5 seconds meant 3 HP lost, duration for 15 seconds.
Simultaneously, he could hear the surrounding perimeters of the base echoing with blood-curdling shrieks; naturally even the gunners suffered casualties. Sheyan gazed towards the exterior arachnids, he could see several clearly larger arachnid creature closing in from the outskirts. Their carapace appeared brown, looking a little half-human; its symmetric ash-grey spur over its massive tail continually pierced into the ground and pushing forward, allowing it to wiggle and advance. Its head had two obvious cheeks, spitting out and delivering the acidic juices with its muscular cheeks; as it inhaled and exhaled, secreting out disorderly.
“That should be a Hydralisk.” Sheyan had previously recognized it through a picture exhibited in the base. It was a higher level arachid over the zerglings, its secreted acid was extremely repulsive and deadly. Once a pack of Hydralisk opens fire, even a steel structured fort would not resist, and could easily catch fire and explode.
More importantly, with the firepower cover of these hydralisks, the ferocious zerglings were able to fanatically claw at the metal wall. Once they breach open a hole, then the entire base would be in a catastrophe.
But at this time, Qiaoer’s sniping once again displayed its mighty benefits. Following the deafening gunfire, a hydralisk instantly exploded into mutilated fragments and died. If not, it would at least be struck far away, and unable to continue battling. Of course the arachnids sheer quantity remained boundless, the sniping frequency wasn’t as fast as rifles.
After enduring another few minutes, a metal bunker on the far left side of the wall could no longer resist under the combination of the hydralisk and zerglings; it combusted and finally exploded. The few gunners hiding within didn’t even get the chance to recover from the explosion and were immediately torn apart by the rummaging vicious zerglings!
Following closely, the steel wall on the right starting swaying, releasing a cringing sound amidst the rhythmic and concentrated clawing of the zerglings! Solely hearing it could cause the heart to palpitate!
The magician Henrik was coincidentally standing above that steel wall; he didn’t even have a chance to react as they steel wall groaned and collapsed! The sea of zerglings rushed in, pouncing ferociously like a tidal wave; crumbling everything around him.
Henrik roared thunderously, his body erupting out a cluster of scarlet flaming hoops; wrecking havoc all around him like a violent storm. The nearby zerglings were instantly engulfed and turned into ashes without making a sound.
Yet this spell had exhausted all his MP, as he sluggishly knelt to the ground. The unceasing waves of zergling poured in like a raging waterfall, without the slightest hesitation nor fear. They carried a insane bloodlust, rummaging through everything cruelly!
But in the nick of time, a sudden muscular figure appeared from the nearby roof of the metal wall. A silverish glowing huge shield was firmly locked in his left hand, the shield had a strange shape like the skull of a long faced creature. His right hand was a dagger with black lingering over it; it was indeed Reef! A layer of glow covered his entire body, as though a invisible armour flowing over his periphery.
He bluntly leapt down from his 4 metre tall, his twin legs aiming for the core middle region. Although this wasn’t a great height, his landing was sublime and peaceful; completely capable of comparing to a transformer jumping from a skyscraper. His landing created a huge resounding impact, causing the several zerglings still in mid air with their bare fangs exposed to be blown away; crashing 7-8 metres away to the ground.
“Go!” Reef’s bloodshot eye penetrated towards the magician Henrik as he yelled out.