Charging In

Chapter 8: Charging In

Lu Yuanming was taking a helicopter for the first time.

It was a pretty unpleasant experience. The wind was strong, and the noise was deafening. He had a mild fear of heights. Planes didn't bother him much, but he really couldn't bring himself to look down from a helicopter.

Then he heard a voice beside him. The Expert Woman sat at his side, speaking nonstop. "Things in CD are very bad. On June 1, there were already reports of people going missing. But a Monster Field had appeared in WH by then, and we were focused almost entirely on WH. Reports of missing people come in every day, and our country is so vast that we didn't become alarmed at the time. By the time a Monster Field appeared on Chunxi Road, it was too late. It expanded to cover more than a square kilometer just minutes after appearing, and it happened right around dinnertime..."

Lu Yuanming immediately understood how terrifying the Monster Field in CD was.

Chunxi Road was right in the heart of the city, and it was always crowded. It had also happened right around dinnertime, when the streets were packed. This wasn't a matter of a few hundred or a few thousand people. If the Monster Field appeared in one of the busiest shopping malls or plazas, covering more than a square kilometer, then there could be tens of thousands of people inside. With all the floors in the buildings, the number might even reach tens of thousands more!

The Expert Woman seemed to understand what Lu Yuanming was thinking. Her voice was pained as she said, "We don't have the detailed figures yet, but our rough estimate already exceeds a hundred thousand. And the monster in CD is... cruel and cunning. It's unlike anything we've encountered before. It seems to have intelligence. Every half hour, a few people come out of the Monster Field. But those who make it outside either suffer severe mutations or are so badly mutilated that nothing can be done for them. The first group dies quickly from rejection, and the second dies soon after from their injuries. They all died..."

Lu Yuanming listened in silence. He said nothing and made no move, but his hand clenched tight. The Woman continued, "We know they're bait. We know it's a trap. But it also means the people inside haven't all died yet. So we have to go in, even if there's only the faintest hope... First the police, then us, then the armed police, and after that, the PLA. Since the Monster Field appeared in CD, more than five thousand soldiers have gone in. The two commanders at Front Command went in with them. We're out of options."

The Woman started crying again, but she was stubborn and proud. She simply let the tears fall in silence and turned her face away.

Lu Yuanming still said nothing. The Woman gathered herself and continued, "These shoulder boards were rushed here. All communications fail inside the Monster Field. We have no way to contact the soldiers who've entered. Aside from one emergency squad, three others and I will go in with you. But we have no idea what it's like inside. We don't know whether we'll stay together after entering, or whether we'll die quickly. If we all die, no one can prove who you are. The surviving soldiers might then stand in the way of you killing the monster. These shoulder boards will identify you. They have a specially designed encrypted lock, and the army's communications specialists can decode and verify it as quickly as possible—if they're not all dead."

Lu Yuanming took the shoulder boards. They were black, with a single gold star and no stripes. Beside the star was an ornament of wheat ears. Unfortunately, he wasn't familiar with Z Country's military ranks, so he had no idea what rank they represented. He pinned them to the front of his shoulder, where they would be easy to see.

When the Woman saw him put them on, she let out a huge sigh of relief. Then she handed him a bulletproof vest and a Type 54 pistol. Lu Yuanming put on the vest and took the pistol. The Woman began explaining how to fire it, its ammunition, and the precautions he needed to take. Lu Yuanming had already used plenty of firearms, but he listened carefully and committed it all to memory.

Once she finished, the Woman began telling him about the people who had entered the Monster Field, including the identities of the two commanders. Then Lu Yuanming suddenly interrupted her. "You... have friends who went in?"

The Woman froze, then shook her head. "They're all my friends. They're all my comrades. They're all my family."

Lu Yuanming nodded silently. The helicopter began to descend, and he saw Chunxi Road below, a place he had once visited as a tourist.

The Woman suddenly grabbed his hand tightly. "Comrade Lu, what I'm about to say comes from Elder Wang and the central leadership. If there's a way forward, do everything you can. Whatever happens, we'll take responsibility. If there's no way forward, preserve your strength. You don't need to feel guilty. If the people live, the land lives. If the people are lost, the land is lost."

Lu Yuanming felt both grief and gratitude.

He believed these words were meant for him alone. Even if that was because he had shown Supernatural Power, under the circumstances, it meant that everyone going in with him would become a wall of flesh standing between him and danger, while he could flee at any time. They were staking everyone's lives on him—the lives of everyone with him, and of the hundred thousand people swallowed by the Monster Field.

Had things really become this bad?

Lu Yuanming looked out and caught sight of a faint spatial rift that seemed out of place against its surroundings. As the helicopter landed and its rotors slowed to a stop, the Woman pulled him out. A military jeep was already driving toward them. The driver was a Burly Officer. He said nothing, saluted Lu Yuanming, and drove the two of them toward Chunxi Road.

On the way, Lu Yuanming saw soldiers setting up positions. Heavy weapons he had only ever seen in movies had been brought out, and more than twenty tanks were already aimed at the Monster Field. A hundred meters from its edge, a formation of around five hundred soldiers was lined up. As the jeep approached, an officer led them at a jog toward the Monster Field. Another tall, thin soldier leapt onto the jeep beside them. He said nothing, carrying what looked like a high-end rifle or sniper rifle. He simply saluted Lu Yuanming, then stared silently ahead.

Several times, Lu Yuanming tried to speak. He wanted to tell them that he could go in alone. But looking at these people—their resolute faces and their silence—he couldn't get a single word out.

Not even a minute later, the jeep drew level with the jogging formation. As the soldiers at the front disappeared, the jeep drove straight in. Lu Yuanming immediately felt something like the Dark Matter World, and his Soul Body appeared behind him at once.

The moment it emerged, the Burly Officer, the Tall Thin Man, and the soldiers in formation all lit up. Tears welled in the eyes of quite a few of them, but not one moved. They let the tears roll down their faces in silence. The Army Array didn't waver, and no one changed direction.

Inside the Monster Field, there was no sign of Chunxi Road. This wasn't even a city. They were on a beach beside an endless sea. It looked like a small island, but the island was tiny—perhaps only a thousand square meters. At its center was a sunken cave that sloped underground.

The entire beach was covered in severed limbs and corpses. There were bodies of civilians in ordinary clothes, as well as soldiers in uniform. The bodies carpeted the sand, and even the water beside the beach had turned red.

The formation continued forward in silence, without a sound or any other movement. The Woman said to the Burly Officer driving the jeep, "Follow the major general's orders!"

Lu Yuanming immediately looked around. The Woman, the Burly Officer, the Tall Thin Man, the officer leading the formation, and the soldiers nearby all turned to look at him. He was taken aback. Before he could ask what was going on, his expression changed, and he leapt from the jeep, sprinting toward the sea.

Tentacles began to emerge from the ocean. Each was more than a hundred meters long and three or four meters thick. They writhed toward shore from a hundred meters out.

As soon as Lu Yuanming jumped from the jeep, his Soul Body carried his physical body toward the tentacles. At the same time, the soldiers behind him formed ranks and opened fire. Among their weapons were FGM-148 anti-tank missiles, which Lu Yuanming had used before. Explosions rang out in quick succession, turning the sea into a sea of flames.

But Lu Yuanming's dynamic vision let him see everything clearly. The bullets punched bloody craters into the tentacles, but they healed almost in the blink of an eye. Even when RPGs blew the tentacles apart, they grew back within a second or two.

Lu Yuanming had already moved to intercept them. The closer he got to the tentacles, the stranger they felt.

The tentacles themselves felt weak—very weak, far weaker than monsters like the Man-faced Dog. But whatever they were connected to exerted an immense pressure on him. It felt like standing before a mountain peak or a cliff thousands of meters high, a presence so overwhelming that it made him feel tiny and powerless just to sense it.

This was the projection of an indescribable power!

Lu Yuanming immediately had that intuition. But he also sensed that the indescribable thing was very far from this Monster Field. And just as he couldn't return to the Dark Matter World, this thing couldn't come here either. That was why the soldiers could look at the tentacles without undergoing any mutations.

Just then, the tentacles swept toward Lu Yuanming. Dozens of people behind him cried out in alarm. His Soul Body, nearly three meters tall and clad in Steel Armor, swung its fists wildly just before the tentacles reached him.

"ORA ORA ORA ORA!"

Lu Yuanming knew it was ridiculously over the top, but seeing the soldiers, the corpses strewn across the ground, and the tentacles rushing toward him, he just wanted to roar.

His fists blasted forward with tremendous force. With every punch, White Light Particles rose from the severed tentacles. The parts smashed by his fists never healed again.

A few seconds later, a heap of mangled tentacles lay before Lu Yuanming. The remaining stumps immediately withdrew into the sea. Once again, he sensed the terrifying roar and fury of the indescribable being, but it was too far away to cause him any discomfort.

Only then did Lu Yuanming turn around. "Come on. We're going to that cave. I've already sensed where the monster is!"

"We're going to kill those monsters that have been slaughtering people!"