Chapter 48
The members of Class 6 saw Qin Su set off at once, enter his mecha, and disappear from view.
As they watched Z-X307's enormous form shoot off the platform, Qin Su's icy, unyielding command reached their ears once more:
"Everyone, gear up and stand by where you are. Wait for my word."
As he entered the mecha, Qin Su had glanced around and noticed that a small number of Team 2's students were still carrying their helmets in the crooks of their arms.
Faced with a bug far beyond their abilities, acting rashly would be no different from wishing for a quicker death.
He had to investigate, analyze the situation, and make the decision that would benefit them most.
"Yes, sir!"
Their hearts pounding, everyone stared in shock at the horrifying scene before them.
"Judging by how calm Qin Su was, he really did know there was something terrifying underwater! I even suspect he reported it to the school after finding it, but... why didn't they let us leave right away?"
"Exactly! The school... seriously overestimates us! Did they forget we're just rookies?"
He Muzhi said nothing. Thinking of Qin Su's appointment as class president, he had a vague idea of what the school intended.
Many people at the school and above wanted to "get to the bottom" of Qin Su once again.
"Even if the school won't let us leave for whatever reason, Qin Su is the class president, and the school told us to follow all his orders. He could order us to leave right now instead of making us stand here scared out of our minds. Qin Su is strong enough to stay calm, but we're not Qin Su. What's the difference between keeping us here and waiting to die?"
Among all the "frightened" voices in the crowd, Anthony's words stood out.
A noticeable silence fell over the group.
No one wanted to die in the face of danger. A small number clearly agreed with Anthony and silently looked toward the spacecraft some distance away.
"Surrendering without a fight." He Muzhi looked at Anthony and sneered coldly. "If that's how you think, Anthony, the Fourth Military Academy... no, not just the Fourth Military Academy. No military school is suited to you. You'd better pack your bags and get out sooner rather than later."
"I trust Qin Su," Raymond said solemnly.
Qin Su had even assigned warships to all 136 of them individually. He clearly had a plan and would never recklessly throw other people's lives away.
Anthony was left speechless. It took him a long moment to force out, "I'm only thinking of everyone..."
"Qin Su is risking his life scouting ahead alone for our safety, and you're back here saying things that shake everyone's confidence. You call that thinking of everyone?" With that, He Muzhi sneered and ignored Anthony.
After seeing what happened to Anthony, the others who shared his thoughts kept quiet.
Qin Su reached the edge of the whirlpool and stood facing the gale whipped up by the enormous waves.
A closer look made things clearer. Judging by the skin exposed above the water and the way it moved and "fed," it was indeed a Kisslip Tree Armadillo.
But it was a mutated Kisslip Tree Armadillo that neither the teachers in class nor the data provided by the system had described.
A normal Kisslip Tree Armadillo resembled an octopus and had smooth tentacles. Each tentacle on the enormous creature hidden in the water before him split into countless new tendrils at its tip, with new mouthparts and fangs growing in the center, like a plant forming a crest at its tip.
More than one giant snake was being strangled. Towering waves churned across the surface as though the water were boiling. Tentacles of varying thicknesses that had originally clung to tree trunks tightened coil after coil around several giant pythons weighing tons, then dragged them toward the center of the whirlpool.
Qin Su still remembered vividly how the platinum-colored giant snake had swallowed the Kisslip Tree Armadillo's shattered, piled-up flesh.
Now the situation was reversed. No matter how large the pythons were, the even larger Kisslip Tree Armadillo was tearing them apart and devouring them.
"..."
Watching the bloody, brutal scene, Qin Su's eyes darkened.
Sure enough, as long as one was strong enough, any species could be added to the menu. Those who weren't strong enough could become a meal at any moment.
Just like him now, with the Fourth Military Academy... and even more people using this perfectly legitimate reason to test him.
The giant pythons were easily flung into the air. Several towering trees, each an estimated hundred meters tall and around ten meters in diameter, were snapped and uprooted by its tentacles. A turtle-shell-like bug more than twenty meters across was bitten in half and sucked into the whirlpool...
The whirlpool continued to expand. The Kisslip Tree Armadillo was stirring up the abyss, drawing every creature in the water into it and feeding greedily.
At this terrifying rate, it was only a matter of time before it destroyed the platform at the Jump Point.
It was true that the small spacecraft they had taken through the Jump Point didn't carry enough energy to sustain 66 consecutive hours of flight and take them to either of the other two Jump Points.
But in reality, as long as they left the Jump Point aboard the spacecraft and ignored everything happening here, the safety of every member of Class 6 would be absolutely guaranteed.
Yet the Fourth Military Academy hadn't done that.
After deliberating, they had decided to make him Class 6's class president. They hadn't said whether the students could leave the Jump Point, placing every decision in his hands.
Faced with the situation, he could choose to leave early, or he could stay and command Class 6 in battle until reinforcements arrived.
If he chose the former, the omnipotent image he had cultivated would be severely diminished in the eyes of the Fourth Military Academy and even more people.
If he chose the latter, the people watching him could use his command and combat skills to reassess his strength.
They would benefit either way. Qin Su suppressed his dissatisfaction for the time being. When another huge wave came crashing toward him, carrying a bug that looked mutated and was over ten meters long, its belly torn open beyond recognition, he maneuvered Z-X307 a hundred meters away and began moving swiftly alongside the Kisslip Tree Armadillo's tendrils, which "bloomed" at their tips.
From the way several tendrils extended and retracted, Qin Su determined how quickly they fully or partially extended, curled around their prey, and returned to the central whirlpool.
He then maneuvered the mecha over nearly every part of the water where there was movement, roughly three times, mentally matching what he saw to the number of "roots" clinging to the trees he had counted earlier.
The tentacles that had appeared so far numbered eight more than the 136 he had originally counted. The churned-up water was too murky to make out the exact size of the Kisslip Tree Armadillo's "mouth" at the center of the whirlpool, and more tentacles might still be hidden underwater.
But...
It was enough.
From watching it feed, Qin Su was now certain that no matter how large the whirlpool grew, its center was always the mouth of the Kisslip Tree Armadillo hidden in the abyss, the central part it used to swallow food.
Using the usual size of other Kisslip Tree Armadillos as a reference, and judging by the tentacles rolling above the surface, Qin Su could roughly estimate the size of the portion hidden in the deep water and how far it needed to be pulled to expose his target.
Having gathered enough information, Qin Su maneuvered the mecha high into the air and looked down, his mind made up.
He took a picture centered on the whirlpool, then promptly divided the picture and personnel into front and back sections based on the speed of Team 1's warships and the abilities of their pilots.
"What's Qin Su doing?"
"It's already been half an hour. The whirlpool is getting closer and closer. Why isn't he back yet?"
On the platform, everyone had turned the magnification on their Visual Helmets to the maximum. They saw Qin Su's mecha darting through towering waves one moment, flying alongside column-like tentacles several times larger than the mecha the next, and hovering high overhead to look down at other times...
The longer they waited, the more uneasy they became, and their anxious discussions never stopped.
Whenever Qin Su disappeared from view, their hearts involuntarily clenched.
Without Qin Su, they... could only abandon the Jump Point and fly away. They couldn't understand why the school hadn't ordered them to leave, but soldiers had to obey orders. With no other choice, they prayed that Qin Su would be as Raymond had said and wouldn't abandon them.
As they waited anxiously, Qin Su finally swooped down toward them from high above.
When his mecha came to a hover not far away, every discussion around them stopped at once. Everyone's eyes were drawn to Qin Su, and they instinctively breathed more quietly as they waited for his orders.
Qin Su stopped before his classmates and swept his gaze over them all.
Was it starting?!
Even through the mecha, the pressure of Qin Su's gaze bore down on them as tangibly as ever, making them hold their breath and focus completely.
After confirming that everyone was "properly equipped," Qin Su sent the annotated picture to each student's Optical Brain and issued his instructions in an orderly manner:
"All Team 1 members, take your positions according to the picture. At any cost, do everything you can to lead each tentacle assigned to you in the indicated direction. Lead it as far away as you can."
"All Team 2 members, form groups of two or three and kill the small Kisslip Tree Armadillos around Team 1. Keep Team 1's members safe."
Although Qin Su had marked everything clearly on the picture, before the operation officially began, he deliberately lowered his voice and asked sternly one more time to make sure nothing went wrong: "Any questions?"
"No!"
"Understood!"
Some still didn't quite understand what Qin Su meant, but they answered and followed his orders.
No one dared ask Qin Su, "What about you?"
"Cen Yuan." Qin Su fixed his gaze on the blond Omega in Team 2 at the back.
"Here!"
Cen Yuan hadn't expected Qin Su to call on him so suddenly and answered loudly by reflex.
"You'll pilot the spacecraft. Adapt to the situation until I give the order, and keep your mental power from dropping as much as possible. Once I give the order, go straight to the designated location and stand by."
Cen Yuan's mental power, reactions, and other abilities were good overall. His physical condition was just a little weak; otherwise, he would have been a member of Team 1 as well.
The warships carried by the spacecraft and stored in the warehouse for this trip were all Open-Air Types. Every student was exposed outside the warships, which had none of a spacecraft's defensive ability to withstand the impact of nearly a thousand tons of explosives.
In the end, every student on a warship would have to board the spacecraft. No one could be better suited than the kindhearted and thorough Cen Yuan to pilot it and carry everyone to safety.
"Move!"
After checking everything repeatedly, Qin Su gave the order in a low voice, his Optical Brain linking to the Jump Point's program at the same time.
The lighting on the Jump Point platform was instantly adjusted to its maximum.
Under the intense light, the boundless waters became as bright as day in the blink of an eye.
Even now, Qin Su had shown no intention of reporting anything to the Fourth Military School.
Since they had chosen to test him by putting pressure on him, there was naturally no need for the Fourth Military School or anyone higher up to know about his plan and its execution, much less interfere.
Amid the light that made it seem like daybreak, Qin Su's silver-white mecha charged ahead toward the center of the whirlpool.
Behind him, the 136 members of Team 1 scattered around the whirlpool in an instant as ordered. The members of Team 2 formed their own groups and followed Team 1 of their own accord.
From the Comic Perspective, all of Class 6 spread out almost evenly around Qin Su like sparks filling the sky, densely surrounding the whirlpool...
[Ahhh it's finally starting, I'm so nervous]
[Can a mere five hundred people really do it? When they killed the Kisslip Tree Armadillo in the bonus scene, which was even smaller than this one, the people surrounding it were packed together and attacked nonstop for three whole hours before they killed it. But now there are only five hundred people!]
According to Qin Su's arrangement, the stronger members of Class 6, including He Muzhi and Raymond, were positioned in the "back half" of the picture, closer to the Jump Point platform.
The other, relatively slower warships and the less powerful students were positioned in the direction opposite the Jump Point.
The scattered members of Team 1 quickly selected their target tentacles. Following Qin Su's orders, they lured the selected tentacles in every direction at any cost...
"Phew..."
Looking at the enormous tentacle seven or eight meters across before him, its tip split into several tendrils roughly a meter in diameter, with a hole-like mouth full of sharp teeth growing in the middle, He Muzhi's fear of enormous objects flared up. He crossed himself, exhaled heavily, and steeled himself. Raising the weapon he had practiced with hundreds of times, he moved farther away, aimed, and fired.
Bang—
The Laser Round struck and exploded over a small area, leaving only a little hole in the tentacle that was seven or eight meters wide.
He Muzhi: "..."
It was like a mayfly trying to shake a tree!
The next second, the "tickled" tentacle came crashing down on He Muzhi.
"!"
He Muzhi's eyes widened. As he maneuvered the warship out of the way, he quickly switched to a more powerful weapon and prepared to fire. A series of familiar screams came from not far to his side.
He Muzhi briefly paused before attacking again. Between shots, he glanced quickly toward the source and saw Raymond on a distant warship, seemingly "doing all his damage by screaming."
Apart from Z-X307, which Qin Su was piloting, they had tacitly left the remaining warships to the other students who were also at the back but weaker than them.
"Ahhhh!!! Stay away from me, ahhhh!!! Help, get away, you stink!!! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, bleugh, bleugh, bleugh, bleugh..."
With a huge cannon propped on one shoulder, Raymond stood on the warship, screaming in terror at the enormous creature as he retreated and fired wildly without stopping.
"Raymond, you're hurting my eyes with all that noise!!!"
Jeffrey's voice roared over the channel.
"Shut up, ahhh, don't talk to me, help, why is there another one!!!" Raymond answered Jeffrey with screams of terror, each louder than the last.
Qin Su, who was keeping a close, all-round watch on nearly every student's movements, conserving his strength for the final fatal blow, and staying ready to deal with emergencies at any moment: "..."
No wonder the viewers compared Raymond to a dog. Right now, Raymond really did look like a destructive Husky barking his head off.
As he thought, charging finished, and Particle Pulse Cannon blasts fired from Z-X307's various weapons struck the tendrils that were just short of hitting his classmates.
The branching tentacles a meter in diameter were blasted clean off, exposing writhing, ragged cross sections of red and white.
That familiar particle pulse light—it's Qin Su!
The students who had been saved had only enough time for that thought to flash through their minds. They had no opening to turn and look at Qin Su.
The enormous thing thrashing and waving before them gave them no such chance. They already needed Qin Su to save them without looking away; if they dared spare an extra glance, they'd be dead.
In the intervals between carrying out his orders, He Muzhi caught sight of Qin Su flying rapidly back and forth above the whirlpool, controlling the entire situation and even rescuing Anthony from a tentacle just like everyone else. He Muzhi's red eyes grew more resolute.
Qin Su was already busy enough. He absolutely... absolutely couldn't drop the ball and give Qin Su one more thing to worry about.
Anthony: "..."
Anthony hadn't expected Qin Su to blast apart the tentacle that had accidentally wrapped around his neck.
Qin Su saved him... Qin Su actually saved him! Not long ago, he...
"Anthony, are you out of your mind? Do you want to die?!" Seeing Anthony lose focus after narrowly escaping death with Qin Su's help, a Beta on the same warship shouted at him furiously.
"...Ah, right, okay." Anthony shook the jumbled thoughts from his mind and focused on what was in front of him.
What had just happened told him that if he lost focus again, he really would die! Who knew whether Qin Su would save him next time!
[Raymond provided today's laughs, hahaha]
[The air is full of cheer (not)]
[Help... how exactly is Qin Su multitasking and using one mecha to fire the cannons on its different parts? And every time, he hits the tendrils about to injure the students precisely enough to knock them off course at the critical moment? Is he even human?!]
[New here, commenter above? That's just routine for our Boss 1 (head held high, nose in the air)]
[Damn it, why save Anthony? Did Qin Su not see clearly?]
[When life and death are on the line, all grudges are minor, OK?]
Qin Su: "..."
Of course he had seen clearly. Within the limits of his ability, there was no way he could stand by and watch a companion die.
Whatever Anthony thought of him, they were teammates fighting side by side at this moment.
While keeping track of his classmates' safety and movements, Qin Su found a moment to glance at the time on his skin.
Comic World: 11:12 p.m.
After checking, Qin Su surveyed the waters, lit as brightly as day, churning ceaselessly with a deafening roar.
At his classmates' current speed, it would probably take another forty minutes or so before things reached the point where he could act.
Thinking this, Qin Su took a deep breath and looked again through Z-X307's field of vision at the nearly thousand tons of "explosives" on the Jump Point platform.
Plans couldn't keep up with changes. His classmates were taking too long to "stretch" it out, and if the timing was exact... unable to "test" it in full view of everyone, he decided that injecting all five at once was the safest way to ensure nothing went wrong.
Rat-tat-tat—
Dudududu—
Bang, bang, bang—
Thud, thud, thud—
Boom, boom, boom—
The sounds of all kinds of weapons continued for more than an hour. As the Kisslip Tree Armadillo fed indiscriminately, the submerged portions of its hundred enormous tentacles gradually spread out in every direction, just as Qin Su had expected, following their natural habits.
Qin Su watched as his classmates' condition deteriorated over the hour, growing worse and worse compared to the beginning, and they spent more and more time in a daze.
Fortunately...
Qin Su stared at the sharp fangs below. They had yet to emerge fully from the water, but he estimated they were already over three meters tall.
That should be about enough.
It was now 23:53 in the Comic World.
Qin Su issued another order to the classmates with slower warships: "All Team 2 members, listen up. Head for Cen Yuan's location at full speed and board the spaceship under Cen Yuan's control to await further orders."
"Cen Yuan, pick up as many people as you can, everyone except me."
"Yes, sir!"
"Copy that!"
One tired voice after another answered, and countless tiny dots moved farther away from the Jump Point platform in the light.
Except Qin Su? Cen Yuan had instinctively acknowledged the order, only belatedly realizing what Qin Su had said. An ominous feeling immediately rose in his heart, but he had no time to dwell on it. He couldn't let them fail; he had to follow Qin Su's orders and pick everyone up.
Cen Yuan piloted the spaceship and began picking people up.
By now, the 136 students were thousands of meters from the Whirlpool Center. Even with their extraordinary Visual Helmets, they couldn't make out what one another looked like, only tiny silhouettes.
From so far away, they could see even less clearly what the center being "pulled and spread open" looked like, but the viewers and the Team 2 members already heading from the rear to the front could see it perfectly.
As the Abyssal Maw at the center rose from a depression into a bulge, the Giant Kisslip Tree Armadillo's cavernous, black-hole-like mouth gradually came into view. Inside it, countless chilling fangs were clearly visible, each several meters long.
It was impossible to imagine how long they would be once they were fully exposed. Anyone unlucky enough to fall in would be torn into scraps of meat in an instant...
At the sight of this terrifying scene, everyone swallowed, their scalps tightened, and cold sweat poured down their backs. Their legs, fastened to their warships, went weak.
If they had known from the start that something so terrifying lay beneath them, they would have broken down long ago. How could they have held on until now? No wonder Qin Su hadn't told them anything at first. It had been to keep them calm.
[I finally understand why Qin Su didn't say what that thing down below was at the beginning]
[It's like countless sharp swords stuck in the ground below. Fall in and you'd be in pieces. No wonder it could swallow a python weighing several tons so easily, and no wonder eating a meal could churn up such a terrifying whirlpool]
After giving Team 2 their orders, Qin Su gave the members of Team 1 almost the same instructions and piloted his mech toward the Jump Point platform.
Suddenly, something went wrong.
"Fuck, Jeffrey, watch out!"
As Raymond shouted, he piloted his warship into the enormous tentacle, over five meters in diameter, knocking it off course without hesitation.
Boom!
With a tremendous muffled crash, the warship knocked aside the tentacle that had been about to pierce straight through Jeffrey's waist.
Hearing Raymond's sharp shout over the channel, Qin Su halted in mid-flight toward the platform and spun around. Seeing the situation around Raymond, Qin Su narrowed his eyes, assessed the circumstances and came up with a solution as quickly as he could, then piloted Z-X307 toward Raymond at full speed, moving almost too fast for the naked eye to see...
The warship shook violently, and flames sprang up. Damaged by the collision, it lost the gripping function that worked with the Combat Suit. Raymond fell from the warship, narrowly brushing past the fangs on the tentacle he had knocked sideways.
Srrrip...
The Combat Suit scraped against a sharp fang with a tearing sound. It was ripped all the way through, destroying its ability to keep him suspended briefly in midair.
The tentacle Raymond had been responsible for attacking waved its pitted tentacles and spread out in all directions beneath him, exposing the pitch-black mouth at the center.
A feeling of weightlessness swept through Raymond's body, and his eyes widened in terror.
This time, his fear was so extreme that he couldn't make a sound. His throat felt as if it were stuffed with cotton, his whole body shook like a leaf, and his eyes were red and wet.
[!!! No!]
[The mercilessness of the battlefield is on full display at this moment]
[Boo-hoo, someone save him. Even though he's a 2D character, I really don't want Raymond to get killed off so soon! He hasn't even succeeded in showing off yet!]
[Help, I don't dare scroll down. Fate is so unpredictable. Can someone tell me if Raymond died?]
[Sure enough, you shouldn't raise flags carelessly. Raymond made a bet with He Muzhi before the battle, saying he'd ignore Jeffrey, but now he's died for Jeffrey. I'm crying so hard]
I'm done for! I don't want to die!!!
Death didn't care what Raymond thought. Raymond saw the pitted tentacles, their broken ends jagged and uneven, close in on him at the center...
At the critical moment, as Raymond shed involuntary tears of despair, something sped in.
A huge Silver Mechanical Arm slipped precisely beneath
Raymond's body, just centimeters before the sharp teeth could pierce him.
Having caught Anthony's falling body, Qin Su looked up and saw the cavity at the center of the tentacles, lined with sharp teeth, closing. His brow furrowed, and several Particle Pulse Cannon blasts fired from Z-X307...
Boom, boom, boom!
The simultaneous Particle Pulse Cannon blasts blew the closing tentacles to pieces.
Under Qin Su's control, Z-X307 shot out through the flying flesh like a bolt of silver lightning, holding Raymond's body.