Act.13·[Wake Up·Awakening]

Foreword:

A lapdog is always stricter than its owner.

[--Lu Xun]

[Part 1: The Battle to the Death]

The methane bombs at the Great Baths wiped out a third of the combatants on the Heaven's Ladder.

The hybrid giants were farther from the explosion's epicenter, so their strong bodies were largely unharmed. However, the ordinary frogmen in the unit fared much worse—the intense light and sound nearly destroyed their five senses, instantly robbing them of their hearing and sight. This was followed by a stench-filled gale, with warm air carrying dioxins. Within a minute, their gas masks began to clog and stink.

The defense team stationed in the central square coughed incessantly, and under the eerie spiritual pressure of Niflheim, they began to hallucinate and mutter incoherently.

Cliff stood frozen, his skin and muscles burning with pain, his internal organs displaced by the powerful shockwave. At first, he was just dizzy, but then it turned into violent vomiting, and he completely lost his will to fight.

Right now, at this very moment.

The bullet that came from a hundred meters away startled Cliff so much he almost wet himself.

Those were the scattered notes of pistol fire, which sounded harmless, but the actual results were astonishing.

Among the frogman unit stationed next to the large statue, people shuddered at the sound of gunfire, blood spurting from their torsos and skulls. Dazed, they leaned on the platform before collapsing headfirst into the mud, never to be heard again.

A sharp whistling sound of a bullet whizzing through the air reached my ears--

The bullet grazed Staff Officer Cliff's cheek.

It hit the Puff girl in the right eye. The giant lost his mind under the shock of the explosion, wildly waving his thick arms. Blood flowed from his mouth and nose, and the capillaries in his lungs began to become blocked due to the filthy sludge, making it impossible for him to even breathe naturally.

Cliff saw Puff take two steps forward, covering her eyes with one hand and gently patting her fat, broad jaw with the other, trying to regain consciousness. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't overcome the fatal bullet in her brain.

She collapsed and died like a strong, mature elephant, with a heavy, rumbling sound, never to rise again.

Cliff was terrified. He couldn't hear anything and could barely speak, only able to shout in a hoarse voice.

"Go get backup! Go get backup! Giants! Protect me! I'm so scared! I'm so scared! Someone's shooting at us!"

But the hybrid giants could no longer hear Advisor Cliff's voice. When they saw Puff Sister Puff die suddenly, they were just as terrified as Advisor Cliff.

Fortunately, several veteran frogman soldiers possessed extremely strong fighting spirit and were able to determine the enemy's location by observing the direction of the bullets.

"--To the south!"

One hundred and seventeen meters away, in the row of table tennis activity rooms on the other side of the circular plaza.

9527 was holding up a P320 semi-automatic pistol, having just removed the silencer.

Instead of going to the shrine with Meteor and the others, she stayed outside the room to keep watch, taking on the safest, yet also the most dangerous, task.

When the soldiers of the Heaven's Ladder arrived, Seventh Brother had no way to inform his teammates of the bad news and could only act according to circumstances.

The violent explosion at the bathhouse exposed the soldiers' Gate of Death, so Xiao Qi had no choice but to use her secondary weapon to try and eliminate their remaining forces.

One hundred meters is the maximum range of the P320; beyond that, it becomes inaccurate.

The Seventh Brother has already been exposed, so the silencer is useless. Reducing the bullet speed below the speed of sound will also affect the lethality and accuracy of the ammunition.

At this moment, she was hiding behind two ping-pong tables, wearing heavy armor, with only thirty-one bullets left in her pistol, which was about to run out.

She was waiting, waiting for the enemy's gunfire.

To understand the enemy's primary weapon and ammunition types and their lethality, it's essential to determine their reload time and attack intervals.

The thick, heavy armor pressure plate helmet blocked out most of the sound, making it difficult for her to hear the enemy commander's shrill and anxious commands from a hundred meters away, which sounded like the howling of a wounded jackal.

The bullets have arrived!

Gunfire rained down, incessant and continuous.

Outside the activity room, the walls were blasted with fist-sized craters by steel-core bullets. Xiao Qi, sitting or lying behind the ping-pong table, took the full force of the attack!

Her face was pale, and she held her weapon tightly to prevent her backpack from flying out of her hands.

She staggered from the blow, hearing the mournful wail of her heavy armor and helmet.

The bullet fragments bounced around the room, striking the pressure plate mask and immediately leaving a horrifying spiderweb-like crack.

"It's the sound of a chainsaw! It's an MG42 general-purpose machine gun! It's 7.92x57mm Mauser rifle rounds! Oh no!"

Xiao Qi screamed in alarm. Her armor was almost dented and deformed by the barrage of fire, turning it into an iron coffin.

She crawled on the floor, completely unable to fight back. The continuous firepower of this heavy machine gun could fire 1,500 bullets per minute, making it impossible for her to retaliate.

She had no choice but to crawl slowly on the smooth floor. Judging from the impact points in the room, at least three machine guns were firing at her.

With a "pfft--" sound.

The scorching bullet shattered her thigh armor, burrowing into the connecting partition between her thigh and calf, like a highly elastic molten iron mud, carrying half of her body toward the door of the scoring room on the north side.

She was in so much pain she almost fainted. The sudden impact had almost taken half of her leg. At this moment, her left tibia was broken into three pieces, and her right leg was split open from the femoral artery near the hip bone. Even her heavy armor couldn't stop the terrifying machine gun fire.

"Good luck! Good luck! Good luck!"

Xiao Qi felt lucky; the deadly iron pellet only shattered her leg bone and missed her skull. The pressure plate helmet was useless against this kind of ammunition; it wouldn't withstand more than two bullets before exploding.

She pulled down her mask, took out the Universal Elixir, her face pale and her limbs weak, and injected it hard into her neck.

Then she heard the gunfire outside the room stop for a moment—

--A sharp, vehement curse came from Cliff.

"I smell blood—that bitch is injured! Giants! I want her alive! I want to eat human flesh sashimi!"

Xiao Qi was overjoyed.

--You actually want to live?!

It seems the enemy doesn't have many of White Lady's products in stock!

They had to find what they needed on the spot and capture people to eat in order to replenish the vital energy they had lost in battle!

"What incredible luck! Hehehehe! A smiling girl is always lucky!"

She frantically removed her twisted and deformed shin guards and skirt armor, squatted under the projection screen of the table tennis teaching class, and struggled to pry open the buckles on her legs. Just then, she heard the sound of footsteps "thump thump thump" coming from the square.

That was a giant running, breathing, and roaring.

The moment Xiao Qi removed the helmet, she swiftly pulled the steel helmet visor of the Flash Butterfly Armor outfit from her backpack.

The enraged giants first threw stun grenades into the room, and Xiao Qi had already touched Ash—but hesitated to pull the pin and fire.

The sonic boom of the three stun grenades instantly destroyed all of the girl's hearing, but there was no sign of panic on her face; the light emanating from her Steel Heart was the source of her courage.

The sonic boom of the stun grenade triggered the gunshot, the bullet entered the chamber and locked, the giants couldn't even hear the deadly pre-fire note.

Then they saw the hybrid giant, like a small truck, smash through the wall and rush into the room.

This unlucky guy bumped right into Xiao Qi's first magazine.

The 12.7mm bullet, carrying terrifying kinetic energy, slammed into the guy's bulletproof plate, almost caved in his entire sternum.

Xiao Qi's hands trembled, making it impossible for her to aim. Her body was about to lose water and become incapacitated due to the need to produce blood. The stun grenade had robbed her of muscle control, and she could only rely on the outline of the mask's thermal imaging to control the exaggeratedly caliber close-range combat weapon in her hands, pulling the trigger violently at the huge target.

The hybrid giant who led the charge never expected that the enemy in the room would possess such a strong fighting spirit. His eyes rolled back, his entire chest was shattered, Kevlar and bulletproof plates were embedded in his heart and lungs, and his spine was broken into several pieces. Within seconds, he knelt on the ground and never made a sound again.

The steel magazine hadn't even hit the ground yet, Xiao Qi was still reloading.

Two giants, one on the left and one on the right, immediately followed. They couldn't let their companion die in vain. They carried harpoon knives over two feet long and shotguns—they intended to use riot control salt bombs to subdue the evil spirit in the room.

"My luck has run out."

Xiao Qi dropped the heavy ASH--

Behind these two targets, another enemy was providing support with a gun.

There's no chance anymore.

There's no chance left.

She dropped her rifle but did not surrender. She pulled out a large shield and a steel mace from her pack, preparing to raise the shield to meet the enemy, and changed the magazine of her pistol.

The straight-line distance to the enemy is seventeen meters.

How many more seconds can I hold on?

--If they can stall for time, maybe Meteor and his team can break through that low-lying area and escape the absolute disadvantage of fighting from below.

The moment Sigsauer was thrust out of the great shield, she felt a burning pain.

The impact of the rock salt bomb nearly ripped her right arm from her body, leaving half of her body swaying to one side. As her side waist was exposed, she was hit hard by another bomb.

Riot ammunition ripped open the fabric beneath the seams of her heavy armor, and a chill and poisonous fumes rushed into her nostrils. The spiritual pressure of Niflheim began to erode her brain.

By the time Xiao Qi came to her senses, the Sig Sauer P320 in her hand had been reduced to a pile of shreds.

These enemies don't talk nonsense, and they don't make demands.

They were well-equipped and had extensive combat experience.

Compared to that Staff Officer Cliff, his dogs, who only bite and don't bark, are far more ruthless.

Xue Ming--

How can we defeat these giants?

Xiao Qi's eyes were bloodshot; the continuous high-pressure battles were pushing her mental strength to its limit.

Holding a steel mace and a large shield, she retreated step by step, enduring the impact of each volley of bullets, striking the shield with the mace as if issuing a challenge.

Let's delay a little longer.

Let's delay a little longer.

My hands and feet obeyed.

There was a large bruise on my wrist and neck, and I didn't have the time or opportunity to get the Universal Elixir.

The two giants in front of them were taking turns firing—the guns in their hands were the M870s that Ning Guang's father had mentioned, the best-selling furniture guns in North America; they could reload and fire at the same time.

"I'm sorry, Dad. My luck has run out."

Xiao Qi wanted to cry because her body was in so much pain. Pain makes people cry involuntarily. She was unsure of the extent of her injuries. The next two rooms were the kitchen and the storeroom. The storeroom had a back door that led to West Street, but there were probably other enemies guarding the outside.

Xiao Qi thought as she retreated.

The reason they didn't surround me from both sides was probably just to get a bite of something fresh, to exhaust my strength, and to leave me with little bruising or broken bones.

"I'm sorry, Amin."

The large shield also became fragmented, the metal becoming brittle and soft in the sub-zero environment.

Xiao Qi stopped in front of the loop in the kitchen and backed away little by little. The two giants on either side did not immediately follow. They were huge and were wary of the iron mace in Xiao Qi's hand as they passed through the door. These beasts knew that it was the bone of Ming De weapon that could kill with one blow.

The moment she lowered her mace slightly to reach for the Universal Elixir, the giant would immediately close in, giving her no chance to catch her breath.

[Part ② Thunder]

Xiao Qi could feel the warmth and energy gradually slipping away from her.

The adrenaline had given her little courage left; she couldn't even shout. To open her mouth and let out a few terrifying, shrill roars was impossible. Just moving her throat brought out the stench of blood, and the maddening itching from her trachea spasms.

The ribs must be broken and embedded in the lung.

--Cannot make a sound, cannot speak.

The huge kitchen didn't even have a gas cylinder. The explosives in her hand included a dozen or so mortar shells with inertial fuses, but she couldn't use them unless Xiao Qi wanted to commit suicide.

But she didn't want to die; her will to live was incredibly strong.

"Perhaps Lady Luck will continue to favor me," Seventh Brother thought to himself, as he squeezed into the warehouse and kicked aside the shelves to block the way.

But these two giants were like iron towers; they only needed to gently push their shoulders and necks to topple the collapsing steel beams to the other side, without slowing down at all.

Their steady marching posture resembled that of an armored vehicle.

Bai Qingqing could no longer hold the shield. The moment her left arm gave way, she dropped the shield and ran wildly towards the back door.

She felt like her heart was about to explode, and even the slightest deep breath caused her lungs to spasm with pain.

With a loud "boom".

The blast of shrapnel sent plumes of smoke and dust from the rock salt bombs splashing onto her back.

She was knocked off her balance and fell to the ground, half of her face was scratched, but she got up and continued running.

If she runs fast enough, the lethality of the shotgun shells will visibly decrease.

If we stop, it's all over.

Right now, at this very moment--

Xiao Qi suddenly felt despair.

Because heavy footsteps could also be heard coming from the street behind the warehouse.

Like the sound giants make when they run.

In the empty warehouse, three pursuers grinned at Xiao Qi in the cold, dark environment, revealing their white canine teeth.

The giant on the left spoke to her.

"You are a respectable soldier, but your journey is coming to an end."

The giant on the right said to her.

"You actually killed Sister Puff! I'm going to turn you and her into a dish! I'll make you pay for it!"

The giant in the middle didn't speak, continuing to load bullets. Even when the prey stopped moving, he wasn't in a hurry; he wouldn't feel at ease until the magazine was full.

The two giants on the left and right slowly paced forward, preparing to smash Xiao Qi's right arm and send Mingde's remains flying further away.

"Why did you stop running? Did you hear the noise outside the door?"

"You have nowhere to run—I never imagined you'd seize the opportunity to kill so many of our brothers."

Xiao Qi raised her hands high.

"--I surrender!!! I surrender! Cough... cough cough vomit!--" She used the last of her strength to shout at the enemy, and then began to cough, spitting out dark blood.

The only response she received was violence and bullets.

These giants showed absolutely no intention of treating their prisoners well.

They completely ignored the cunning Homo sapiens's sweet talk.

Xiao Qi's legs went weak, and her lower limbs, no longer protected by heavy armor, were sent flying by the impact of the rock salt bullet. She was knocked back several meters and crashed into the back door of the warehouse, but she had not yet lost consciousness.

The hybrid giant warriors passed through the narrow warehouse corridor, preparing to come up and collect the ingredients.

Immediately afterwards, he felt Hot Wind on his face—

--A steel monster crashed in through the second-floor platform of the door.

It was like a lithe Tibetan antelope, leaping up from the main road at the west entrance and smashing through the warehouse walls.

The dust and stones that were thrown down made the giants cover their faces and protect their eyes, still not understanding what was happening.

It nimbly leaped over Xiao Qi, and when its two mechanical walking legs landed, they crushed the enemy into a bloody pulp. The giant's round head was crushed by the steel, and its skull flew out with the enormous pressure. It shattered the warehouse's safety lights, and suddenly the environment became pitch black, and nothing could be seen.

When the muzzle of a quadruple machine gun is pointed at the enemy --

The remaining two giants heard the hum of the diesel engine and saw sparks and thunder in the dust.

The enormous shadow, over six meters tall, was now revealed, its true form visible through a pair of bright yellow round fog lights that resembled its eyes—quite adorable.

The Big Frog crouched down, protecting Xiao Qi behind it.

"We surrender!" the mixed-race soldier on the left echoed.

"You don't kill prisoners, do you?!" the mixed-race soldier on the right asked instinctively.

History always repeats itself.

Xue Ming had already climbed down from the rack to deliver medicine to Xiao Qi.

Ms. A Ling jumped into the driver's seat and spoke to the two enemies.

"My goodness! You guys are so tall!"

The giants' faces changed, and when they looked up at the steel monster, they lost all courage.

No, no, no

"You're so tall! You're so tall and strong! We're just little kids in front of you!"

A Ling: "Wrong answer!"

The machine gun roared, turning the one on the left into mincemeat.

A Ling then asked, "Do you know what the correct answer is?"

The lucky survivor on the right is racking their brains to survive.

"--I still have ten brothers! I know their weaknesses, please spare my life! I'm useful! I'm useful!"

A Ling: "Wrong answer!"

All that could be heard was a sob coming from the mixed-race soldier's throat. He knelt in front of the Big Frog and waited for a long time, but no machine gun fire came.

A Ling remained expressionless, forcing a smile, "Hmph. Hehehehehehehehe!"

The giant immediately looked up and asked, "You're not going to kill me? I thought so! You're a good man! How could a good man kill a surrendered soldier! It must be that my two brothers didn't shout their surrender fast enough or loud enough! That's great! I'm so lucky."

A-Ling gave up her position and sent her apprentice up. She smoothed the ferocious smile on her face and turned it into a cold and ruthless one.

"No, it's difficult for me to explain to you with your level of intelligence, but life is short, so let my apprentice explain it to you in detail in the last few minutes."

The giant warrior looked up and saw 9527 looking down at him with an excited smile from behind the armor plate of the driver's seat.

"From this height! Are you happy watching me flee in such a sorry state?! I fought you to the very last second before surrendering! How can you be so cowardly?! So weak?! Get up and keep fighting! Let's continue! This time it's your turn to run, and I'll chase you! If I catch you, I'll... hehehehe!"

"No, no, no! No, no, no! I won't fight you! Please! Please!" the giant warrior pleaded.

Before Xiao Qi could figure out how to operate the Big Frog, she punched a button on the dashboard.

The 88mm cannon flew past the enemy's forehead, piercing through three walls.

--After vomiting up the human flesh he had swallowed, Staff Officer Cliff had just straightened up when he was blasted by a shell into the bright red paint on the statue, adding a patch of red to the Soviet leader's body.

"Are you serious? You really want to kill me?" the giant asked before he could finish.

Xiao Qi pushed the lever, and the Big Frog took a step forward, almost breaking the giant's manhood.

The guy was so scared he wet himself, dropped his gun, and started running for his life.

He smashed through the wall and rushed out of the square, only thinking about getting back to his companions as quickly as possible—he had no time to think about where the walking armor had come from.

The machine gun swept across the square like a whip urging a horse, kicking up a thick cloud of dust.

The people on the Heaven's Ladder were still figuring out how to get the mangled Cliff down from the statue—this guy was kind of firewood, not so easy to kill.

The soldiers heard the sound of machine guns, but could only see a huge black shadow in the billowing smoke. From a distance, they couldn't make out the shadow's true form. Perhaps it was their comrades from the Birch Tree Unit wasting bullets and celebrating their victory.

The machine gun crew's sentries turned their guns around and finally realized something was wrong.

Cries for help and a woman's sinister laughter echoed from the fog.

Until the bullets pounded against the blast wall of the outpost, until the dust cloud swept in like a whirlwind.

Until the steel monster in the dust roared—

"--Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I want to live! It's me! It's me! Comrades, don't shoot!"

The giant hybrid warrior's cries for help were strong and sounded perfectly healthy.

The people on the Heaven's Ladder were now completely bewildered. What was going on? What had happened? What was he running away from? What had this comrade experienced?

Was it Niflheim's spiritual pressure that turned him into a mad giant?

Where are his companions? Why does he look like this?

So tall? So big?

A young sentry was smoking a cigarette while asking questions to the uncle next to him.

"Did this Birch Tree warrior steal some prey? Is he starting to grow taller? He looks so tall!"

Before my uncles and aunts could even laugh out loud--

--The steel legs that fell from the dust turned the two ogres into human flesh biscuits.

The hybrid giant, scrambling in panic, ran into the Birch Tree barracks to find equipment to fight the enemy.

Xiao Qi squinted, following the clumsy giant shadow as it shifted the cannon's muzzle, the artillery fire shattering the ammunition depot of the Heaven's Ladder.

Finally, someone came to their senses and saw the steel monster in the dust and mist.

The soldier picked up the megaphone, preparing to unleash a piercing scream to warn his comrades to be on their guard.

The raised arm, like a rootless blade of grass, was severed in two by the terrifying shadows in the fog.

Jiang Xueming wiped the blood off the short sword in his hand, making it sharp and warm again.

--Get close to the soldier, catch the severed arm and speaker, and place them securely on the platform of the Monument to the People's Heroes.

With one hand making a gentle shushing gesture, he had already gripped the frogman soldier's throat and vocal cords with the other.

The soldier drew his pistol, ready to fight, only to find that the slide had been unlocked and removed by the enemy in an instant.

This was followed by a sudden feeling of weakness and dizziness in the limbs.

The soldier tried to call for help, but found the enemy was right next to him.

Xue Ming's eyes were calm yet gentle as he slowly laid the soldier in his arms down.

He raised the knife as if embracing a lover, and, aiming at the young man's neck and spine, severed it in two.

Today is Lazy Camel's birthday! I was originally planning to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, but I don't have much time now!

So I went to an internet cafe and wrote a chapter!

Happy birthday to him!