Mission ⑤ · Coin, Part One
Foreword:
Rich people spoil their dogs, poor people spoil their children.
[Part 1: Inner Demons Arise]
The fighting in the Krum District went more smoothly than expected.
Hasben took over command of the Snowy Owl Militia. These community security guards were originally tasked with extorting ordinary citizens with the help of gang members. Now that they were to fight side by side, they still retained considerable fighting strength.
Fighting their way from the underground shelter into the main street, the machine gun squad immediately boarded military vehicles and, under the cover of infantry, opened up the situation, shooting down the apostle monsters on the street one by one.
There's no need to scrutinize their forms—whether they're beasts or transformed psionic beings—that's irrelevant. The key point is that the M2 heavy machine guns they wield can kill the vast majority of carbon-based life on Earth.
A 12.7mm machine gun bullet can unleash 14,000 joules of kinetic energy; however, the data may not provide a clear sense of its power.
If we consider the full-force charge of an ancient knight, with its lance thrusting and stabbing, as a projectile, then this attack would have the equivalent of four thousand joules of kinetic energy. The lance could pierce a wooden shield and crack any plate armor except for a frog-shaped helmet. This was the golden age of knights, the immense offensive power unleashed when fully armed in jousting.
But it is far less effective than a single machine gun bullet from an M2; this is the difference between the industrial age and the agricultural age.
Scorching bullets were fired from the 34-kilogram machine gun. Only three people needed to operate this sophisticated and deadly weapon to turn enemies weighing between 400 and 1,700 pounds into pieces.
The freaks emerging from the zoo fell like wheat when they encountered this groundbreaking sword of the industrial age. They attacked from the streets and alleys, hearing the crackling of bullets, rushing to their deaths, only to have their bodies pierced by the scalding iron torrent.
At the tail end of the procession, a hairless monster resembling a rhinoceros charged forward. It climbed the slope, panting heavily. Standing over three meters tall, it weighed more than four tons, and its head was covered with a thick layer of bony armor.
These mythical units were something that Homo sapiens simply could not confront head-on two hundred years ago. No matter how brave a warrior was, it was difficult to gain an advantage against the Apostles. Even the Morpho Butterfly, which possessed the power of the soul, had to find ways to outwit and outmaneuver them, using factors such as terrain, firearms, and explosives to win.
Just as it began its charge, a green tracer round marked its location. Immediately afterward, three machine guns followed the command and changed their firing range, unleashing over fifty bullets. The rhinoceros monster's hard skull was shattered, leaving more than a dozen bloody holes from head to tail.
The scene of zombie monsters being impervious to bullets, like in novels and movies, did not appear—these little toys assembled by the Flash Butterfly are composed of carbohydrates and proteins. Unless the Flash Butterfly performs a flesh-and-blood ascension and transforms them into steel monsters, they would not be able to withstand the direct fire of the M2.
It's only a possibility, because Lao Gan Ma (a popular chili sauce brand) was originally designed to shoot down tanks and planes.
The only thing to be careful about is the psychological harm.
Since arriving in the city from the underground parking garage, Hasben has experienced tinnitus twice, and his eyes have unidentified butterfly-shaped patches, resembling floaters.
The same was true for the brothers in the surrounding combat squads. Every few minutes, someone would let out a piercing wail and fall into a seizure, only to be roused again by the encouragement of their squad leader.
In this kind of Spirit Calamity environment, the stress response of psychics will be greater. Hasben had been hiding in the radar vehicle. He could feel that the skin around the spine on his chest and back was starting to itch. He switched his phone to mirror mode to take a picture of the skin under his neck and saw a bright red patch below his Adam's apple.
That was the Vita Imprint that was born under abnormal circumstances.
He felt a dull pain in his chest, and a strong sense of dizziness made everything seem to melt. The vehicles and streets he saw became rounded, slowly writhing and deforming, trembling with the intermittent gunfire.
"Kid, you need to take your medicine," Little Canaan reminded its host. "If this continues, you'll go crazy."
This is the most severe psychological trauma Hasben has suffered since joining the army. He has not yet faced his true self as the Flash Butterfly, and his physical body is about to betray him.
"No, I have two liters of Universal Elixir in my backpack, but I can't use it here. I can't drink the medicine in front of the soldiers until the source of the contamination is completely eliminated."
Hasben rejected Canaan's offer outright.
He repeatedly patrolled the streets, and whenever any team member showed signs of lethargy, he had to step in to boost morale.
"These soldiers are also afraid, Canaan."
He strode toward the source of the screams, immediately pulled up a soldier next to the sand and gravel blast wall, opened the soldier's eyelids to listen to his heart rate and check his condition, and then immediately gave the wounded man with a head injury Universal Elixir.
The wounded soldiers regained their senses in an instant, becoming even stronger and braver. Seeing their commander personally come to the group to treat the wounded, the other gang members and soldiers rallied and erupted in a fervent battle cry.
"If I leave the battlefield, even for just a few seconds, I can't guarantee these soldiers won't mutini. If I drink the poison in front of them—they'll start to doubt my leadership. The impact on morale is unpredictable, and that's something I can't accept."
Hasben's eyes were blurry, covered by a layer of mist.
Then he heard the sound of wings flapping in mid-air, Hasben knew that the Flash Butterfly had arrived!
He didn't look up; following the direction of the Spirit Calamity indicator and the Inspiration, he and his squads issued firing commands in turn.
As it surveyed the low-rise buildings, Flash Butterfly, fluttering its four wings, and happened to pass by the two blocks of houses between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Bloom—it flew a little lower, only about eighty meters above the ground.
A fierce barrage of bullets erupted from the more than 400-meter-long street from the middle to the end of the residential area!
It was battered and trembling, its body covered in wounds! The first squad's firing elevation was insufficient, and they were about to end the fire. The second squad immediately followed, fearing that the monster wouldn't be completely dead!
It was lifted up by the scorching metal jet, unable to land at all. Each subsequent bullet delayed its descent. Three seconds later, its shattered flesh fell like a meteor shower onto the battlefield, crashing into the exterior walls of the buildings in the block, disappearing from the world and leaving behind only a bloody mural.
"Well done!" Hasben Madison roared. "Well done! Well done!"
Meanwhile, on the other side of the seaside street.
9527 had arrived outside the Eureka Armory base and, through the Snowy Owl Militia's armored vehicle channel, she addressed the defense personnel inside the base.
"The governor requests reinforcements! Requests fire support! Eureka Volcano City is now suffering from Spirit Calamity. I..."
Playful banter could be heard coming from the Armory channel.
The telephone operator in charge of the liaison answered immediately.
"You bastard, where did you get the guts to impersonate a militiaman? Women from Eureka Volcano City are not qualified to join the army!"
9527's expression changed, and he suddenly lost his temper.
She first switched to Cantonese and delivered a graceful and charming performance, then switched to English and tried to negotiate in a friendly and polite manner.
"Never mind who I am. The governor wants you to take heavy firepower to deal with the monsters. So, are you going or not?"
The guard at the checkpoint picked up his gun and drew a heart with the bullet holes next to the military vehicle, taking this crude yet romantic declaration as his answer.
9527 rolled his eyes, slammed the walkie-talkie shut, and yelled, "You won't listen to soft tactics, huh? Just you wait!"
The entire armory is guarded by more than one hundred soldiers.
--Including the base's reserves, administrative staff, and others, there are nearly four hundred people.
They had no desire to get involved in the Spirit Calamity of the Flash Butterfly. The Armory was the most heavily fortified stronghold in Eureka; if they could survive this Spirit Calamity, this rich place would become a ghost town. The soldiers with weapons would become the new masters of this unclaimed land. These bandits would not help the governor; they were all opportunistic parasites.
Hasben's concerns were not unfounded. Without a commander with strong willpower on the front lines, the Madness Butterfly's gang and militia had little fighting power; they were better at dealing with the weak than challenging the strong.
If Hasben relaxed even for a moment, the troops fighting in the Bloom area would collapse in morale and scatter under immense psychological pressure.
Xiao Qi was ruthless and taciturn. She drove to the blind spot of the machine gun post, picked up the Galaxy, a gift from her lover, and tapped on each of the post's firing positions, turning off all the bright lights. As soon as the searchlights came on, they were shattered by the VSS bullets.
The surveillance cameras on the outer wall were reduced to a pile of shattered engineering plastic. Then she began her sprint. For the nameless warrior, the two hundred-meter distance was nothing more than an appetizer in physical training.
She climbed up the cliff and silently crossed the protective wall. In the tactical map that Xue Ming had scouted and drawn up in the early stages, she found the heavy weapons warehouse. Without hesitation, she picked up Yinhe and killed the warehouse manager and four patrolmen.
The sharp cries of seagulls echoed from the room, responding to the calls of waterbirds on the beach.
Just two minutes later, a pickup truck carrying rocket fuses and various warheads sped out of the checkpoint, smashing through the railings. The armory's sirens only reacted belatedly as the pickup truck headed to the front lines.
The sergeant in the armory rushed into the warehouse to assess the damage, his face filled with disbelief.
--An enemy was doing free shopping right in front of them at the base. And...
Before I could even finish thinking about it...
The official in charge of checking the number of equipment took two steps into the dark warehouse, then felt a chill on his calves as he broke two tripwires.
One wire ripped off a layer of wooden crates, releasing the safety pins on more than forty RDX explosives; the other wire uncapped a second layer of Molotov cocktails, allowing the cheap and effective incendiary material from the incendiary bomb to be poured out.
Xiao Qi drove to the seaside road and sped back to the city. She heard fireworks behind her and took out sunglasses from the car's storage compartment. She unfastened the gold-embossed helmet with Apollo on it and put the sunglasses on with a grin—she knew that the BOSS loved watching this.
[Part ②·Bone Shattered and Flesh Torn]
Looking beyond the seaside road, there were many shops on the beach hosting cultural events. In the park full of ornamental trees and artificial flowerbeds, our gunsmith, with a will as firm as steel, stood there, motionless.
Xue Ming's Flash Butterfly Armor Suit was covered in blood. Despite numerous battles, he remained in peak condition and had captured three decoy targets.
--There were twin brothers and the owner of a fortune-telling shop; these three were considered prominent psychics in the entertainment center.
Because the psychic Flash Butterfly were attracted to the characteristics of psionicists, Xue Ming tied them up and threw them onto the beach to attract the Flash Butterfly.
These three unfortunate souls were strung back to back on three chairs, their mouths stuffed with cloth, all looking pained with tears streaming down their faces. To prevent them from being harmed by the Spirit Calamity and triggering the Vita Imprint, Xue Ming had blindfolded them.
Many apostle corpses fell onto the beach. They were all monsters made by splicing water birds and human skeletons. Judging from the wounds, they had all been killed by a single shot.
In the gunsmith's hands, the Goddess of the Hunt was a precise and deadly weapon. He had neither Berloberg nor heavy firepower, so he could only watch the plump, spherical angel slowly fly five hundred meters away in the sky. The other avatar Flash Butterfly, which coveted the flesh and blood of the psionicist, was much bolder—it hovered about one hundred and twenty meters away. As soon as the gunsmith turned his gun, this cunning Flash Butterfly would immediately change direction and climb upwards, trying to waste the gunsmith's bullets.
So Xue Ming wasn't in a hurry to deal with the two targets. Instead, he leisurely fished on the beach and dealt with the apostle monsters that came to his door.
At that very moment, three apostles burst forth from the street, their target the psionicist beside the gunsmith—
In that instant, Xue Ming sensed a malevolent intent, a chilling killing intent locking onto them.
The Flash Butterfly wanted to use this opportunity to break through the gunsmith's defenses.
The three grotesque figures made of flesh and blood were not as clumsy and huge as the Apostle Hounds. They seemed to be there only to draw the gun line and divert the gunsmith's fire. They charged in two directions, southwest and northeast, with the agility of cheetahs, their four legs running across the soft sand.
The large, webbed feet dug out dents, and the flying sand stirred up clouds of dust.
The two pitiful psionic brothers immediately screamed, "Help!!!! I don't want to die! Hero!"
The fortune-telling shop owner cursed and swore, "Let me go! I can at least help a little!"
Xue Ming drew his combat dagger, calmly removed his gloves, and cut off each of his left-hand fingers one by one.
The drastic change in spiritual pressure caused the Flash Butterfly in mid-air to lose its mind.
Seeing such delicious essence fall into the flowerbed, it couldn't resist and wanted to end the battle in one round.
A circular needle was inserted into the neck, Universal Elixir restored the finger, while the gunsmith's spirit power also regained some of its maneuverability.
In that instant, Xue Ming abandoned his spear and drew his Jingguang sword to meet the enemy.
As the muzzle flashes erupted with bursts of gunfire resembling thunder, the fist-sized craters that appeared on the cheetah-like apostle unit's body were all from the muscle connections between its two forelimbs and neck—weaknesses discovered by gunsmiths through repeated testing and hammering of other apostle units' bodies, data that would later be written into the Great Rift of All Things.
These grotesque creatures rolled and fell to the ground, their hind legs still stubbornly paddling, trying to carry their mangled bodies forward.
The six-winged angel in mid-air suddenly swooped down, its strong arms outstretched, wanting to pull Xue Ming into its embrace and cherish her fiercely.
--Without time to reload, Xue Ming abandoned his pistol and dodged with a flash of insight.
He moved two or three body lengths to the side like a ghost, and heard the wine rack in the shop building smashed to pieces by the Flash Butterfly. It was like the duel between a bullfighter and a bull had come to a conclusion. The Flash Butterfly attack failed, and it immediately used its wings and limbs to stir up the broken wooden planks, and then swooped down towards Xue Ming.
The Iron Knight drew his rapier and thrust it straight in! The Flash Butterfly was swift and steady, as if it had retained some of its human consciousness, and managed to grab the blade, gripping it tightly in its hands with both arms.
In this confrontation of pure power, only a second or two passed before laughter emanated from the hundred evil eyes that Flash Butterfly, and wildly joyful mockery could be heard from the throats and tongues in the palms of the arms.
Xue Ming felt that the Iron Knight's rapier was completely still, as if it had been embedded in the rocks.
The Flash Butterfly was quite smug, believing that by seizing the enemy's blade, it could defeat the warrior's fighting spirit.
But the next second, Xue Ming raised the Hunting Goddess, took the spear from [Fragrant Dream]'s hand, and sprayed bullets at the faceless head that Flash Butterfly, promoting a "no martial ethics" package.
Linden Van Persie's face gradually emerged from the shattered skull of the Flash Butterfly. It could no longer smile, its legs went weak and it was about to kneel down when [Fragrant Dream] raised the Iron Knight's Warhammer and smashed its jaw. Its body immediately stood up!
It tried to run away, but Xue Ming stepped on its foot, a move that seemed like a child's fight, yet it was surprisingly effective.
In the blink of an eye, the Goddess of the Hunt smashed the Flash Butterfly's head to pieces, nearly causing it to collapse to the ground. Then, it was struck again by the combined attack of [Fragrant Dream]'s warhammer, repeatedly emptying its magazine.
This Flash Butterfly, which was over two hundred centimeters tall, was as fragile as a child in front of the gunsmith. Its physical body finally began to perish, turning into ashes.
Having done all this, Xue Ming began to wait again, waiting for the round, chubby guy in the sky to land and have a final battle, perhaps finding the astrology shop owner too noisy—
He removed the blindfold from the astrologer's shop.
The astrology shop owner glanced at the Human Hell and was immediately terrified, his blood pressure soared, his eyes glazed over, and even the whites of his eyes turned blood red.
"No, no, no, no! I'll just sit here, I can stay here! Hero! I can't help! I was wrong!"
Xue Ming put the boss's blindfold back on, took out his combat dagger, and prepared to cut off the fingers of his right hand as well.
He didn't utter a word, wasn't affected by any Spirit Calamity, and didn't even waver for a second. The monsters that drove ordinary Homo sapiens and psionicists into a state of madness were, in his eyes, just monsters that were relatively difficult to kill—but the ironclad rule that monsters die when they are killed still applies.
There are still sixteen minutes until the next reinforcement arrives.
That's another Black Stone Man from the Nameless Ones; Teacher Su Ling is coming.
Xue Ming was still very scared; he feared his companions wouldn't survive the darkness before dawn.
--As long as we can shatter the Mercy of Eros, the future will be bright.