Charge In

Chapter 8: Charging In

(PS: Book recommendation: Dust Under the Curtain, a fanfiction of the Honghuang Calendar. You can check it out if you're interested.)

This was Lu Yuanming's first time on a helicopter.

He didn't feel good about it at all. The wind was too strong, the noise too loud, and he had a slight fear of heights. It was okay in an airplane, but he really didn't dare to look down from a helicopter.

Just then, a voice sounded from beside him. The Expert Woman was sitting next to him, constantly talking, "The situation in CD is very bad. Reports of disappearances started on June 1st. But at that time, fields had already appeared in WH, and our attention was mostly focused there. Plus, there were daily missing person reports across the country, so we didn't raise an alarm. By the time the field appeared on Chunxi Road, it was already too late. It took only a few minutes for it to expand to its current area of over a square kilometer, and it happened right around dinner time..."

Lu Yuanming immediately understood how terrifying the monster field outbreak in CD was.

Chunxi Road was the bustling center of CD, with a huge flow of people on a normal day. And it happened to be around dinner time, so the number of people was astronomical. This was probably not a matter of hundreds or thousands of people. If the field had appeared within a busy mall or plaza, and its range was over a square kilometer, it could have been tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands if you considered multiple floors!!

The Expert Woman seemed to understand what Lu Yuanming was thinking. She said painfully, "We don't have the most detailed data yet, but the estimated number of people is already over a hundred thousand. And the monster in CD is very... cruel and cunning. It's different from any monster we've encountered before. It seems to have intelligence. Every half hour, a few people leave the monster field and come to the outside. But these people who come out are either severely mutated or so physically crippled that they are beyond treatment. The former die quickly from rejection, and the latter die quickly from their injuries. They all died..."

Lu Yuanming listened in silence, not speaking or moving, only clenching his fists tightly. The woman continued, "We know these are bait, and traps. But it also means the people inside aren't all dead yet. So we have to charge in, even if there's only a sliver of hope... First the police, then us, then the armed police, and then the PLA. Since the CD field appeared, over five thousand soldiers have already gone in. And the two commanders from the Front Command went in with them. We're truly out of options."

The woman started to cry again, but her personality was stubborn and proud. She just wept silently, turning her face away.

Lu Yuanming remained silent. The woman composed herself and continued, "This is an emergency-issued rank insignia. All communication methods are invalid within the field. We can't contact the soldiers who went in. Besides an emergency detachment team, I and three others will accompany you. But we have no idea what the situation is inside. So we don't know if we'll be together once we get in, or if we'll die quickly. If we all die, no one can prove your identity, and the surviving soldiers might become an obstacle to you killing the monster. This rank insignia can prove your identity. It has a special program and password lock. Military signal soldiers can decipher and confirm it as quickly as possible, if... they're not all dead yet."

Lu Yuanming took the rank insignia. It was black with a single gold star and no stripes. The gold star was decorated with ears of wheat. Unfortunately, he was not familiar with Z Country's military rank system, so he didn't know what it represented. He immediately pinned it to the front-side of his shoulder, where it could be easily seen.

Seeing Lu Yuanming put on the rank insignia, the woman breathed a huge sigh of relief. She then gave Lu Yuanming a bulletproof vest and a Type 54 pistol, along with other equipment. Lu Yuanming put on the vest and took the pistol. The woman began to explain how to fire the Type 54, its ammunition, and precautions. Although Lu Yuanming had used many firearms before, he still listened and took notes in silence.

When all that was done, the woman started to brief Lu Yuanming on the personnel composition that had already entered the field, and who the two commanders were. At this point, Lu Yuanming suddenly interrupted her, "Did... did you have friends go inside?"

The woman was stunned. She shook her head, "They are all my friends, all my comrades, all my family."

Lu Yuanming nodded silently. Just then, the helicopter began to descend. Lu Yuanming also saw Chunxi Road, where he had come for vacation before, on the ground ahead.

Suddenly, the woman tightly grasped Lu Yuanming's hand and said, "Comrade Lu, what I'm about to say is the will of Elder Wang and the Central Command. If there's a chance, do what you can. We'll take responsibility for anything that happens. If it's impossible, preserve yourself. Don't feel ashamed. If the person is here, the place is here. If the person is lost, the place is lost."

Lu Yuanming felt both sadness and emotion.

He believed these words were directed only at him. Even though he had displayed extraordinary power, in the current situation, it meant that everyone who followed him in would become a human shield for him. He could escape and retreat at any time. This was using the lives of everyone, including the hundreds of thousands of civilians swallowed by the field, to protect him alone...

Had the situation really deteriorated to this point?

Lu Yuanming looked out and indeed saw a spatial rift that was out of sync with its surroundings. As the helicopter landed and the rotors stopped, the woman pulled Lu Yuanming and jumped off. A military jeep had already driven over. A Burly Officer (he) was driving. He didn't say a word, saluted Lu Yuanming, and drove them towards Chunxi Road.

As they drove, Lu Yuanming saw many soldiers setting up positions. All sorts of heavy weapons he had only seen in movies were deployed. Over twenty tanks were aimed at the field. A hundred meters outside the field, a team of about five hundred people was lined up. As the jeep approached, this team, led by an officer, jogged towards the field. At the same time, a Tall Thin Man (he) leaped from beside the jeep. He also said nothing, carrying a rifle or sniper rifle that looked very high-end. He simply saluted Lu Yuanming and then silently looked ahead.

Lu Yuanming wanted to speak several times. He wanted to say that he could go in alone. But looking at these people, at their determined faces, at their silent demeanor, Lu Yuanming couldn't utter a single word.

In about a minute, the jeep caught up with the jogging team. Then, as the personnel at the front of the team disappeared, the jeep directly crashed in. Lu Yuanming immediately felt a sensation similar to the Dark Matter World, and his soul body immediately emerged from behind him.

The moment this soul body appeared, the Burly Officer (he), the Tall Thin Man (he), and the soldiers in the nearby formation, their eyes lit up. Tears immediately welled up in many of their eyes. But they remained completely still, letting the tears fall. The army formation did not change, and everyone's direction remained the same.

Within this domain, the slightest trace of Chunxi Road was completely invisible. This wasn't even a city anymore; it was a beach by the sea, with endless waves stretching out. It seemed to be a small island, but it was very small, estimated to be only about a thousand square meters. In the center of the island was a downward-sloping pit and cave.

The entire beach was covered in severed limbs and broken bodies, all corpses and remains. There were bodies of ordinary citizens in casual clothes, as well as bodies of soldiers in uniform. The corpses piled up on the beach, even dyeing the seawater red.

The team continued forward in silence, without any sound or other actions. At this moment, the woman said to the dark-skinned soldier driving the jeep, "Follow the Major General's orders!"

Lu Yuanming immediately looked around. Then, whether it was the woman, the dark-skinned soldier, the tall thin man, the officer leading the formation, or the approaching soldiers, they all subconsciously looked at him. Lu Yuanming was stunned by their gaze. Before he could even ask, his expression changed instantly, and he jumped out of the jeep and rushed towards the sea.

At this moment, tentacles began to emerge from the sea. Each tentacle was hundreds of meters long and three to four meters thick. They churned from a hundred meters offshore and surged towards the shore.

As soon as Lu Yuanming jumped out of the jeep, the soul body behind him, along with his physical body, lunged towards the tentacles. Simultaneously, the army behind him immediately formed ranks and began firing at the tentacles. Among the weapons used by the army were FGM-148 anti-tank missiles, which Lu Yuanming had used before. A barrage of explosions erupted, turning the sea surface into a sea of fire.

However, Lu Yuanming's dynamic vision saw very clearly that when bullets hit the tentacles, they did create bloody pits. But in the blink of an eye, the tentacles healed completely. Even RPG attacks, which directly blew off tentacles, caused them to regrow within one to two seconds at most.

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

The tentacles themselves felt very weak to him, extremely weak, far weaker than monsters like the Man-faced Dog. However, the entity connected to the tentacles gave him a tremendous sense of pressure. It was the feeling one gets standing on a mountain peak or a thousand-meter cliff, a feeling that made one feel insignificant and powerless just by sensing it.

This was a projection of Unnamable power!

Lu Yuanming immediately had this intuition. However, he also felt that the Unnamable was very far from this domain, and just as he couldn't return to the Dark Matter World, the Unnamable couldn't come here. Therefore, the soldiers looking at these tentacles did not experience any mutations.

Just then, the tentacles coiled towards Lu Yuanming. Dozens of exclamations immediately erupted from behind him. Lu Yuanming's soul body, his nearly three-meter-tall form clad in the armor "Steel," also frantically swung his fists as the tentacles approached.

"Ora Ora Ora Ora!"

Lu Yuanming knew it was cheesy, but seeing the soldiers, the ground littered with corpses and remains, and the attacking tentacles, he just wanted to roar.

His fists shot out with immense power. With every punch, White Light Particles emerged from the broken ends of the tentacles. The tentacles he smashed did not heal again.

Seconds later, a pile of tentacle gore appeared in front of Lu Yuanming. The remaining severed tentacles immediately retreated into the sea. Lu Yuanming once again felt the terrifying roars and fury of the Unnamable, but due to the immense distance, it did not cause any discomfort.

Lu Yuanming then turned around and said, "Let's go into that cave. I've already sensed the Ghost's location!"

"Let's go take care of these monsters that kill people!"