Mission Attendant, Part Four
Foreword:
This is clearly a burrowing bird, but it insists on acting like an eagle.
[Part 1: Mental Breakdown]
As the weather changed, a biting cold wind swept through the streets and alleys of Huacheng Bay.
Almost instantly, the sudden cold air froze the buckets at the feet of the anglers on the sea boat, causing the fishermen to scream in fright.
"Oh! My legs! My legs!"
Frost spread upwards from the trickle between the planks, specifically targeting the most humid and desolate spots. Water droplets swept in by the wind and waves accumulated into small puddles on one side of the ship's side.
The fisherman's calloused feet were frozen to the puddles. Although his legs were still full of blood and had a pale reddish hue, the slightest movement would tear off bloody flesh from the soles of his feet.
The bitter cold and snow, along with the frost and hail, arrived almost simultaneously. When the big Black Bear on the roof of the floating dock sensed something was wrong, it quickly released the tripod of the weather telescope, causing the glass panel of the balance instrument to shatter instantly due to the violent temperature difference.
Standing up from the chair, Brother Xiong looked at the tripod with lingering fear and noticed a layer of glistening dew on it. The sea breeze and moisture instantly clung to the metal object, turning it into ice. If he hadn't dodged quickly, his fingers would probably have cracked from the cold.
The temperature plummeted from 31 degrees Celsius to minus 13 degrees Celsius in just a few seconds, causing everyone in the temporary command post to experience a collective mental breakdown.
"--Qi Ji!"
Brother Xiong realized something was wrong. He climbed back to the command post from the wooden ladder and saw his comrades shivering and huddled together in their respective groups.
At first, a few spirited young men continued their work of sending messages and ringing bells, but after a few breaths, a strong rush of cold air entered their nasal cavities and tracheas. The excessively dry and cold air quickly took away their body heat, forcing them to cough. The dust from the salty sea breeze, along with the deadly cold current, shattered the fighting spirit of these Homo sapiens in an instant.
The sound of rain, snow, and hail hitting overhead came from above. Hailstones, almost the size of basketballs, pounded on the wooden scaffolding of the floating dock, making five or six holes in them.
"Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!" Qi Ji shouted loudly.
Amid the chaos, some command teams remained unwilling to leave the Summoning Bell, like stubborn calves that wouldn't budge no matter how hard they were pulled.
"Where are we going? This is the command post you chose! Qi Ji!"
"Scout teams eight and ten are awaiting orders; any delays could affect our attack."
People often do all sorts of stupid things under pressure, including this one.
The sixteen decision-making units of the temporary command were in an uproar. Although they had conducted a preliminary assessment of the spiritual energy disaster caused by the "Snow Maiden" in the Southeast Theater, they had not expected that Axue could cause such powerful destruction.
Qi Ji chose the floating dock as his base because it offered a wide view. Being near the coastline, meteorological observers could have a comprehensive view of the entire area at any time and judge the changes in Axue's soul power by observing the state of tides, ocean currents, and clouds.
But when the real, bone-chilling cold arrived, the young people who had just put on their winter clothes faced the predicament of morale collapse.
The little mole, who had never seen blood before, was terrified. She witnessed a burst of ice flowers erupt at the feet of the messenger sitting next to her. The debris from the wooden shed, like scattered porcupine bristles, pierced deeply into the senior's back. The Summoning Bell and the senior's fingers were frozen together, and no matter what they did, they couldn't be untied.
"Move out first!" Qi Ji grabbed two comrades by the collar and shoved them out of the command post, "To the first floor of the floating dock."
"The sand table I just set up," one colleague still fondly recalled the topographical map and the sand table wargames.
Qi Ji commanded his spirit to move the entire table and chairs towards the door, "Go first, don't rush."
"The scouts will surely receive our orders. The weather is terrible, and it's the same for the Blood-giving Monster; their body temperature is lower than ours. The hail just won't kill them—it doesn't mean these ogres are immune to this weather disaster."
Upon hearing this, the previously desolate crowd gradually quieted down.
So much happened in those few dozen seconds; some people even lost their will and started thinking about how to abandon the mission and save their lives.
The leader at the second table in the command post was the owl-faced hybrid crowman. Just now, because the situation had gotten out of control, the crowman had angrily swung his sharp claws at his distracted companion at the table, scratching several bloody wounds on his comrade's face. He had no other choice; in the moment when his companion's will collapsed, he could only resort to this desperate measure, using violence to maintain his comrade's sanity.
At that very moment, the other two colleagues at the table simultaneously drew their guns and pointed them at the alien beast, completely forgetting the hailstorm overhead and the impending blizzard in the midst of the high-pressure situation.
It wasn't until the supreme command that Wood Plark entrusted to Qi Ji began to take effect that these frontier soldiers, bearing the battleband's label, calmed down a little—they regained their discipline and didn't let the terrifying spiritual pressure completely destroy their minds like primitive people.
The second-level preparedness team withdrew from the weather platform in groups. Amidst the atmosphere of panic and fear, they returned to the ferry platform on the first floor of the floating dock. When Qi Ji found the fishmonger, he saw a cold corpse lying in the bathtub.
The owner of the floating dock was born into misery and died in misfortune. He had just earned more than 20,000 Hui Stone Currency from the foreigners and happened to be taking a bath in the bathroom when the first wave of cold air rich in moisture took away all his body heat. His eyes turned red from the cold, and he froze to death in the frozen wooden tub.
The waves near the shore rise and fall, and the highly fluid, salty seawater is not easy to freeze. Instead, the fishermen who make a living along the coastline suffer greatly. Looking from the floating dock to the seaside street, as far as Qi Ji can see, there are countless cries of despair.
His breathing became rapid; he couldn't immediately process the mental shock.
However, just twenty meters away on the beach, a family went out to collect shellfish and catch fish. The father and mother were looking for sandworms and catching crabs in the shallow mud and sand. The strong cold current hit them and froze their legs. When they got out, only two frozen ice sculptures were left lying on the way they came.
The family's children remained in a small sandpit on the side of the beach facing the road; two swings suspended in mid-air, like a photograph, forever froze the boy and girl in place like ice sculptures.
--Smack!
Hailstones struck and created pink petals.
Qi Ji gasped, only to be grabbed by the epaulettes on his coat by his colleagues and dragged back to the living room on the first floor of the floating dock.
Scouts conducting espionage and reconnaissance activities in the city were protected by buildings, preventing them from freezing to death on the spot. After the cold front crossed the coastline, it was diluted by the buildings in residential and industrial areas, so it did not cause many civilian casualties.
But for the people living on the coastline, in that instant, because of Axue's one thought, more than 180 innocent lives were lost silently.
The gunsmith instructor and the soldiers of the combined arms brigade had told these students many cases of Spirit Calamity in Galahad. But seeing the images from the books and videotapes in front of them was a completely different feeling.
The cold, hard numbers in the streaming media became a source of deep pain; this mental pressure felt like a heavy mountain to everyone present.
"You can't stay focused." The young man with the crow-like appearance flipped open the eyelids of his fellow soldiers, observing their eye movements based on the nameless man's combat experience. "Take the Air India Express 812 crash as an example. You just lost consciousness, and your body entered a deep sleep mechanism for self-protection."
Qi Ji finally came to his senses and checked his partner's mental state according to the rules and regulations.
The crow-man then proceeded to perform elemental analysis on his comrade.
"You still have some inertia from deep sleep. The gunsmith teacher used this example to tell us that willpower alone is rarely enough to conquer the physical body—this Serbian captain slept too deeply during his rest period, and when he woke up, he had lost most of his judgment, ultimately leading to a plane crash during landing. We need to listen to Qi Ji."
"All combat tasks are temporarily suspended. The four groups will take turns conducting elemental analysis. We will deploy the Summoning Bell and sand table in three minutes."
The mole girl found the Universal Elixir, covered her companion's bloody wound, and glanced outside.
"Qi Ji, there are many people."
Qi Ji immediately replied, "I saw it."
"Is that guy really lapis lazuli?" Brother Xiong slumped on the floor, his arm around an old classmate's shoulder, carefully examining his eyes and pupils. "Axue?"
Information obtained from the scouts and the Spirit Cloud Squad indicates that Axue is either a Lapis Lazuli Guards, an individual who received blood from the Wolf Mother, or a descendant of the Wolf Mother.
"Why would the Lapis Lazuli Guards help the Guiyi Sect?" A girl in the group was sobbing, trying hard to control her emotions; her sobs sounded like she was wiping a window. "Why?"
"I don't know, and I don't want to know." Qi Ji frowned. "What she was before is unimportant; now she is Spirit Calamity —she must be destroyed."
After completing the metaphysical analysis for the other three members of the group, the crow-man reluctantly plucked a few bird feathers from around his eyes to fully open his pupils, which were covered by a bird's nictitating membrane.
"--Give me a checkup, old classmate."
The instructor, who was in the same class as Hao Bro, cleaned the bloodstains around the eyes of the crow people with a cotton cloth and conducted a metaphysical analysis on the hybrid of the disaster beasts.
Don't think this process is too complicated. Gunsmiths have a set of ridiculously strict mission execution standards for decision-making units. If they can't pass this elemental quality review and can't guarantee that their mental state can withstand the test of spiritual pressure, these commanders will kill the soldiers on the front lines, just like the example that the crow-man guy mentioned before.
Each combat team needs remote command and dispatch, and drones are used as "sky eyes" to conduct terrain reconnaissance, to find out the tactical resources and combat capabilities of both sides. Knowing yourself and your enemy will ensure victory in every battle.
The scout team is like the passengers on an airplane, while the command team is the brain, the captain.
Besides the Air India Express 812 example, the captain of Aeroflot 593 even allowed his underage son to fly the plane, taking all Sixty-Three passengers with him to their deaths.
The causes of these air disasters mostly stemmed from obvious character flaws; they were tragedies resulting from overly lenient enforcement standards.
For decision-making units, the discipline of a modern military should be even stricter than that of the aviation industry. For these officers and soldiers with active minds, the strongest enemy is not the demons and monsters of the Guiyi Sect, nor the powerful psychics.
The Wings of Light can also be dealt with using light weapons. These monsters, created by the Vita Imprint, still possess the weaknesses of carbon-based life forms. The gunsmith has compiled a complete set of effective monster-killing techniques.
The most pressing problem and the strongest enemy for decision-making units is often their own character flaws—the need to remain calm and deploy offensive strategies under high pressure, and to strictly adhere to execution standards to complete tasks.
"What's the status of each group sending and receiving emails?" Qi Ji asked, timing his watch.
After the four-person teams from each department completed the meta-analysis, five people fell behind due to physical stress and mental disorder. These decision-making units temporarily left the command system.
The mole girl replied, "There are eleven more."
Qi Ji immediately ordered, "Reassign decision-making units. Do you have redundant mental calculation capabilities?"
"My iPhone won't turn on." Black Bear held up his tactical template. "Not only the phone, but the tablet is also in low temperature and low pressure protection mode. It's too cold in here."
"It's been almost three years and you're still using an Apple?" a fellow soldier in my group muttered. "Using a Chinese product, huh?"
Qi Ji managed to steal a moment to reply, "Their styluses are still the best, there's nothing we can do about it. Try to warm them up and get your external brain back online."
The remaining eleven people took almost only a minute to reconstruct the deployment positions of the Summoning Bell on the rooftop.
These young people have extraordinary mental arithmetic and memory abilities. After becoming nymphs, the most obvious difference between psionicists and ordinary people is their calculation ability—this ability gradually weakens with age. This is why tactics use newcomers, while strategic policies use veterans.
Many of the Summoning Bell were still covered in frost, so the children warmed them up one by one before they rang again—
"--Channel connection is clear! Ten groups are still online!"
Encouraging news came from the front lines, and almost at the same time, the Spirit Elemental Worm in the Summoning Bell delivered the signals that the scout team and the Spirit Cloud Squad had been holding back.
Without the help of drones, they have to rely on their rich imagination to plan routes based on city topographic maps, like unseen ghosts following the scouts, continuing to issue the next order.
"Let's go back online." Qi Ji returned to his desk, and like the delayed messages, anger finally welled up in his eyes. "Prepare for the next encirclement."
The temporary command post was out of contact for a full ten minutes. During this time, the scout teams lurking throughout the city were also affected by the weather and had to find nearby buildings to take shelter.
The Spirit Cloud Squad was unable to move an inch due to the interference of hail, rain and snow. Bu Liuxing had not yet received any new instructions after obtaining the Summoning Bell and could only wait in place.
[Part ②: The Gap with the Main Force for the Offensive]
The three-person group, also scouts from the sixth group of the Dragon Cavalry Corps, were heading towards the East Horse Grand Theatre from the northwest side of Huacheng Bay Market. They were clinging to Jason Megan's frail body, blocked between two wide roads by the cold snow and hail.
According to the original plan, Mr. Jason was supposed to receive immediate treatment, as his physical body might still retain the essence of the Flash Butterfly, posing a risk of the Vita Imprint re-emerging. However, having suddenly lost communication with the command center, they could only wait anxiously and remain inactive.
As time ticked by, the wind and snow showed no sign of stopping, and huge hailstones pounded the road, leaving shocking craters.
The team leader took out the topographic map again and checked it repeatedly.
"Go through the sewers."
"Aren't we waiting for orders?" a team member asked.
"Delivery must be completed within sixteen minutes. The VIP's safety is of paramount importance," the team leader ordered. "Eight hundred meters ahead, behind the East Malaysia Grand Theatre, are the Governor's Mansion and the hospital. Team Seven has left two medics there to wait for us; any further delay will be too late."
They were in front of an old silversmith's shop. After discussing their matters, a woman dressed in elegant and luxurious clothes emerged from the inner room behind the shop—that was Gloria Sebastian.
Master Feather, holding an umbrella to shield himself from the intense sunlight refracted by the snow crystals, observed the group of strange foreigners with amusement in his eyes.
She didn't recognize Jason Megan, and had never heard of this shameful fellow from the Nobody's Club, so she didn't pay him any mind.
However, the Wings of Light were ambushed in the market and seemed to have lost a key soldier. These little guys' exquisite teamwork and advanced firearms allowed them to force their way past the protection of [Sing For Me] and shoot the soldier dead on the spot—this was what Gloria cared about.
Axue's psychic powers are indiscriminate; Gloria intends to trap and starve the General of Tears in the market for several hours. In this weather condition, the soldiers who came to East Horse Port to rescue the General of Tears will probably be unable to produce high-quality firearms.
He looks very weak.
Gloria raised an eyebrow, glanced at Jason's emaciated body, and suddenly felt a surge of appetite.
"How about I help you treat him?"
The Immortals remained unaware of the approaching deadly crisis, and for nearly half a century, she remained unharmed— Judas had done an excellent job protecting the council members.
East Horse Port is a place with favorable weather and abundant harvests, untouched by the flames of war in the Central Plains. Apart from these few Wings of Light, Gloria has no conventional military force around her. She doesn't need personal guards or assassins to protect her. With the blessing of the [Sing For Me] dice, and the fact that Hunter King once created an environment for her to think at supersonic speed, given her abundance of elemental essence, she can always gain the first-strike advantage—this chaotic world is her playground.
At this moment, the three brothers of the sixth group of Dragon Cavalry were already drenched in sweat and reacted with rapid fire almost immediately.
The moment the gun was pointed at Gloria, the bullets, affected by the wind and snow outside, flew up and down amidst the continuous sound of dice rolling, making crisp clanging sounds as they struck various parts of the silversmith's workbench, but not a single one hit Gloria.
When his teammates reloaded, in order to conceal their movements and move quickly, the team leader, who was only equipped with a pistol, did not choose to support his teammates in providing continuous fire support. Instead, he quickly rang the alarm to send a signal, then abandoned his gun and took out throwables. Two stun grenades were thrown in a wall to attack Gloria from behind, while he, with three F1 defensive grenades in his arms, rushed forward and pounced on the source of all evil and the leader of all enemies, pulling the pin without hesitation.
This moment--
--Gloria's pupils contracted slightly, her gaze unfocused.
She didn't quite understand what these mortals were doing, and why they would risk their lives to harm God.
As Judas's garrison stationed in East Horse Port, every living being in this land had to kneel before her. She didn't need to be commanded or directed; naturally, people would come to protect her, and the offerings in the church were endless.
She doesn't even need to cry for help; whenever a crisis comes, the Wings of Light will become her scapegoat, shielding her from one weak and feeble assassination attack after another, manipulated by the dice.
The team leader skipped two advantageous dice, and Lady Luck seemed to finally be on his side.
The two soldiers grabbed Jason Megan and fled without looking back, searching for the sewer entrance along the walkways and eaves around the silversmith's shop to continue their mission.
They worked together seamlessly, never uttering a single wasted word. It was as if a similarly taciturn Death God was silently watching these warriors.
The explosion scattered the snowflakes and ice flowers outside the house.
--Raging shockwaves raged through the wooden building, flames and shrapnel blasting all the windows skyward.
The scout team leader threw the bomb too quickly, too ruthlessly, and too decisively.
The reason he couldn't join the frontline assault team in the southeast was simply due to a personality flaw—his will to survive was too weak—but it didn't affect his fighting spirit at all.
Gloria Sebastian is severely injured!
Her glamorous fur coat and gold and silver jewelry were blown to smithereens, and her hair was burned off!
Her eyes were burned by the magnesium powder blast from the stun grenade. The scout team leader, clutching a defensive grenade, went from charging forward to mutual destruction in just two seconds—he had no intention of reasoning with her at all.
Shrapnel and human bones were embedded in her body, with more than sixty bones still remaining in her flesh. Her skirt was torn to shreds, and her upper arms and thighs suffered fractures of varying degrees. Her overly sturdy body was blasted from the first floor of the silversmith's workbench to the second-floor accounting room, flying out of the window and crashing into the rocky platform of the low hill before finally coming to an end.
She felt something she hadn't felt in a long time.
"It hurts."
She cried from the pain, lost control of her bladder from the pain, and her hands and feet convulsed from the pain. Her body was healing rapidly, and the charred skin on her body left terrifying scars that turned into dark brown scabs.
Only the twisted and deformed Summoning Bell, half a skull, scattered carrying equipment and a shattered gun barrel, along with human bones and flesh strewn all around, seem to tell a silent story—a reckless warrior once lived bravely here.
"Damn it!"
Gloria limped back to the first floor of the silversmith's shop, while the other two scouts had already run off with Jason.
She saw the Summoning Bell still vibrating and emitting psychic energy waves, and realized that a scout team was hiding in the shadows—a group of incredibly young children, some of whom were still undergoing metamorphosis, playing hide-and-seek with her.
"You ungrateful wretch!"
She pulled over the curtain from the accounting room, barely managing to cover her body and shout angrily.
"That's clearly a burrowing bird! But it insists on acting like an eagle! It's really overestimating itself!"
Qi Ji gasped, "Group Six has gone offline."
At almost the same time, the mole sister was translating the ringtones of six secondary intelligence units.
"Two are still alive! The team leader has been killed! VIPs are currently safe!"
"Did you leave any last words?" Qi Ji asked.
"It's complicated, and time is too tight. They met Gloria." Mole Girl translated the final words of the three Summoning Bell of the six scout leaders according to the translation table. Many of the chaotic bell sounds were invalid information.
"Gunsmith teacher, you always say that taking it slow is faster."
"I have no choice but to take a shortcut."