Chapter 10: Never giving up!
Translated by: Chua
Edited by:TN, XRCO and Elkassar
Henrik grit his teeth and attempted to stand after hearing Reef’s bellow, but immediately fell back down. The frail physique of a support contestant was revealed; a clear gruesome wound could be seen on his calf, half of it had been chewed up by a zergling. Blood gushed on excessively forming a blood puddle. If not for Reef delivering out his powerful repelling attacks, the two of them would have been swallowed by the arachnid wave.
“Hurry up to the middle of the hall Reef! We’ll cover you!” Crazy Harnik and Qiaoer were currently shouting towards him. “Henrik is a lost cause, don’t risk your life for him!”
Reef flared out.
“NO! I’ve sworn before that I’ll never abandon a party member!”
At present, the remaining zerglings had frenziedly charged forward, enveloping over Reef and Henrik. In this breeching space, they formed into an immense chaotic ball of zergling! A short 3 seconds felt as long as 3 years. But when they thought hope was lost, Reef’s voice suddenly roared out in berserk.
“NE-VER!”
This two words were earth shattering towards the heavens; clearly displaying Reef’s emphasis on loyalty. The earth started vibrating before a formless shock wave swept out, slicing everything in its path with Reef as its core!
The earth-shaking vibration expanded over hundreds of metres, sweeping through the 50HP weak zerglings producing shocking results. The zerglings exploded into greenish blood pools instantaneously, even 2-3 hydralisks were not spared. Their carapace were shattered beyond recognition, dripping with greenish blood; totally stunned on the spot!
In that instance, everyone was stupefied. Sheyan couldn’t help but recall his encounter with that ability ‘Witch’s howl’; it was obvious that in both destruction might and range, it far exceeded it. Immediately after, the magician Henrik released another of his ‘Oil techniques’, successfully hindering the incoming zerglings from approaching. A group of SCVs speeded over, activating its emergency engine as it managed to shift a metal fence over the breached gap; temporarily patching it up.
From the central hall, another hundred machine gunners rushed out in a straight line. With this huge amount of manpower reinforcements, they finally had some breathing space. However, as long as the tremendous amounts of hydralisk were not taken care of outside, then even this group of reinforcements would soon be wiped out. Once there wasn’t enough suppression power slaying the zerglings, then undoubtedly another infiltration would be inevitable.
But at this very moment, a clear hydraulic pressure sound of metal clanging against each other echoed through the base; along with the ear-piercing whistle of steam discharge. Turning around, a surprise awaited them.
In their vision were two brand new refurbished heavy siege tanks majestically stationed in the middle of the base. The two previously collapsing shambles now had new thick and strong wheels, heavily cruising over the ground. White steam eagerly spurted out of the air vents. Their Mjolnir artillery cannons revolved a round, and angled 30 degrees up; the pitch-dark cannon holes facing the sky.
BOOM! BOOM! Their gigantic cannons resounded, as the earth tremored along with it. These two heavy siege tanks escaped from the powerhouse Bearing base; their technology was advanced, and their firepower maximum. With every volley of gunfire, they could clear an area of 30 square metres. Neither the zerglings nor the hydralisks could withstand it! When the heavy siege tanks entered siege mode, their range was incomparably terrifying; at least thrice of a hydralisk. It was as though its firing range encompassed the entire assaulting battalion of arachnids!
After a consecutive firing of 10 cannons, at least 30 hydralisks and close to a hundred zerglings were decimated under the irresistible might of the cannon; greatly reducing the pressure on the machine gunners and the fort. The wildly aggressive zerglings at the steel perimeters were being slaughtered. Under this turnaround, seme armoured SCVs even dared to speed out and conduct emergency repairs onto the steel forts. The flares of the gauss rifles as well as the fiery tongues of the machine guns intertwined, obviously the defenders were slowly regaining ground in battle. Only the arachnids maintained their berserking red eyes, determined to die rather than retreat.
Through Qiaoer’s meticulous assaults, the exterior hydralisk fell one after another; reduced into pools of blood. Even the heavy siege tanks had started to target the exterior hydralisk. Once the arachnid force lost their long range capabilities with the hydralisk extermination, their persistent efforts at destroying the base were now futile. Yet these zerglings were operated by beastly instincts, never ceasing until death.
When the battle of the base had concluded, the dense air polluted with an awful nose piercing stench; probably the odour from the arachnid’s body fluids. If not for that thick smoke diluting it, it really gave off a neausetic sensation. The frontlines armoured machine gunners had slowly scattered about; holding their bloodied helmets beneath their armpits as they congregated to have a smoke. Laughing and playfully teasing each other, loud rough and vulgar languages were shared of their glorious victory; and some about woman.
From outside, occasional gunshots could be heard. Those were from the soldiers sweeping through the battlefield as they finished off the dying arachnids. The corpses of zerglings had been piled up orderly to heaps of 3-4 metres, forming a tragic meat slope. SCVs were busy going through their familiar base, seeming like shovelling rubbish; digging, moving and burying. It seemed like such battles were common, the SCVs were extremely reactive as though extremely familiar.
To the contestants, not losing any members during a defensive battle was really something fortunate. Although magician Henrik was protected by Reef, but his frail physique had caused even the zerglings claws to sustain fatal injuries. Even crazy Harnik had this left hand chewed through. The good news was that after this epic battle, the party members had their reputation directly lifted from ‘cold’ straight to ‘amiable’ and some were even at the ‘respected’ level. This signified that they could utilize the medical and cultivation facilities in the central hall.
The facility method was directly immersing the human into a raw liquid that looked like embryo amniotic fluid; afterwards the biological properties will restore the grave and severe wounds, through catalyzing of cells at the injuries. Hence, it could even rapidly treat dismembered limbs, and only required a short 2-3 hours! With such developed speedy treatment, it allowed the casualty rates to restore to an acceptable degree.
After a day of fierce battle, everyone’s battle prowess within the party was pretty clear. Although Sheyan’s performance was neither hot nor cold; no matter his formidable support ability, or his close combat presence as a contestant was extremely important to the party. In additional to not committing any errors, he had already been determined by the group as a core party category member. Instead, crazy Harnik and Qiaoer both took a huge dip in their reputation amongst the party. Naturally it was them that shouted for Reef to abandon his comrade in utmost crucial moment, and received critical judgement. Everyone saw Reef as their party leader, even Tulip who was reprimanded severely by him previously had no objections.
At this moment, a soldier ran over to transmit a message to the contestant; informing them that Commander Tommy Kevin wants to meet them. In a flash, the gloomy complexion of this irritable Lieutenant Colonel stood in front of them, pacing back and forth with his hands behind him.
“Even though I do not like you lot, yes! I admit this fact. But I have to admit, you guys did pretty fine. Not only did you rescue those morons from the bearing base, you even got rid of the crafty hydralisk commander flagellum. Through that you foiled their biggest mechanism, causing the nearby arachnids to lose any further developments in the next few months. You, step forward!”
(TN: Flagellum should be the queen hydralisk that reproduces more)
Tommy Kevin was pointing at Qiaoer. Qiaoer’s face flushed with jubilation as he stood forward. The commander directly retrieved a medal from his pocket, raising his voice to announce.
“This is your reward, a special award for slaying the flagellum!”
Next, the commander pointed at Sheyan.
“Soldier, step forward!”
Sheyan stood forward, and indeed also received a purple star medal. He then realized that the giant scourge he had killed was named ‘Skeleton wings’, and was a rather infamous character classified highly by the base. Although he didn’t really deal most of the damage to it, Sheyan was the first to latch onto it and even saved a soldier from its clutches; thus it was deemed as an achievement.
The purple star medal had only one attribute: Buying any ‘reputation’ military props had a 5% discount. It was probably the lowest rank allocation.
Next, Tommy Kevin was again pacing back and forth.
“Just in, the headquarters transmitted a piece of news. They have dispatched strike-aircrafts to provide assistance to the Roughnecks at Whiskey base, further sending in air-drop supplies. Thus, enduring till the next morning is no problem. The south side, ‘Iron cabinet’ base has dispatched 3 Vultures to coordinate with your operation. If nothing else arises, 3 hours later is the departing time. Your comrades should have recovered fully by then. That will be the optimal time to set out.”