Green Beasts

Just how troublesome were the Green Beasts, known as the cancer of the universe?

Gu Hang had seen it with his own eyes today.

The battle was drawing to a close. He led the remaining troops into the field himself, intending to finish things off and get a close-up taste of the smoke of battle, when he heard a huge, bear-like roar.

Then a mutant giant at least two meters twenty tall appeared before him. It was muscular and powerfully built, with dark green skin.

The creature was nearly naked, with only a few scraps of cloth hanging from its body. Its sudden growth had clearly burst its original clothes apart.

Its skin was dark green all over and looked extremely rough. The firearm in its hands had a wild design, with most of its components looking haphazardly put together. In the hands of an ordinary person, it would have been like carrying a hand cannon or a rocket launcher. But in this creature's hands, it was just like an ordinary shotgun, and it could even wield it one-handed.

Its appearance immediately drew the attention of the nearby soldiers. The Servitors raised their G7 Assaulter rifles, aimed at it, and pulled the triggers. A fierce storm of automatic rifle fire swept over it.

Then, an astonishing scene unfolded: the dark green mutant giant had taken all those shots and was completely unharmed!

At least a dozen rifles had fired at it in that instant. It hadn't fallen, and the soldiers kept their fingers on the triggers, emptying their magazines into it. The Greenskin monster was large and wasn't moving erratically, so most of the bullets hit.

By all rights, unless it was truly a Man of Iron, any flesh-and-blood creature should have been shot to pieces.

But that didn't happen.

The creature was still standing there, alive and well.

Some bullets bounced off. Others lost all their momentum and fell to the ground. A few lodged in its skin and muscle, but couldn't penetrate any deeper...

It bled a little, but none of the wounds were serious.

After his transformation, Kaga had been stunned at first, but he had come to his senses by now. He still had a little self-awareness and knew that even though he had transformed and grown stronger, his first priority was still to escape as quickly as possible.

So he took off running toward the edge of the camp.

His much larger body and stronger muscles hadn't made him clumsy. If anything, he was faster and more agile. Once he started moving, the Servitor soldiers' accuracy plummeted.

If he ignored everything else and just kept running, he might actually have had a chance to escape.

But as he ran, his attention kept getting drawn to the Servitors nearby. He couldn't help wanting to attack them.

On one hand, being shot made him irritable. The bullets from the Assaulter rifles weren't lethal, but they still hurt. On the other, the drug's effects were quickly taking hold in his mind, and his bloodlust kept urging him to slaughter everyone in sight.

At last, he couldn't hold back any longer.

He kept running, only slowing down slightly. Turning his head, he aimed the ugly, brutish gun in his hands at a Servitor and pulled the trigger.

Thick black smoke billowed from the muzzle. A blast of buckshot blew away the Servitor soldier's entire upper body, spraying chunks of flesh everywhere. Some of them even splattered onto Kaga.

Bathed in blood, the Greenskin beast grew even more ferocious.

He racked the gun and fired again. Another Servitor soldier died horribly.

He tried a third time, but no shot came out. His shotgun only held two rounds.

Kaga instinctively reached into his clothes, as if trying to reload, but found nothing. His clothes had been blown apart, along with the ammunition he'd been carrying.

He simply threw away the wild-looking shotgun and lunged straight at his third victim.

The targeted Servitor soldier fired while retreating, but before he could get off more than a few shots, the incredibly fast Greenskin beast had already reached him. Kaga scooped him up with one enormous hand, then tore his body in half.

Holding the corpse above his head, Kaga let the blood pour down over him. He was filled with exhilaration, and even felt that his already unmatched physique had grown stronger still. The tiny bit of reason he had left told him that the drug he had taken earlier was pushing his body's potential even further, and that might not be a good thing. But that flicker of worry and resistance was immediately swept away by a tidal wave of bloodlust.

All he wanted was to keep killing.

A grenade landed at his feet and exploded, but Kaga had already rolled away before it went off.

A machine gunner had set up a firing position a hundred meters away, and a stream of bullets came whistling toward him. But at that distance, the combat instincts imprinted in the drug and coursing through Kaga's blood let him weave and dodge, evading most of the bullets while still charging forward.

His eyes were bloodshot now. All he wanted was to tear the machine gunner apart too.

But just then, he stumbled. The momentum sent his whole body crashing hard to the ground.

He couldn't feel his left leg. It was as if something had severed it.

He looked down. His left leg was still attached, and it didn't even seem badly injured. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make it move. It felt as if the leg growing from his body didn't belong to him.

Using his hands and his one remaining functional leg, he struggled to prop himself up. Looking up, he saw a man in fine clothes approaching from behind the machine gunner, protected by several Marines.

He opened his mouth wide, trying to roar, but a burst of machine-gun fire hit him all over, cutting off his roar.

Even rapid fire from a squad machine gun, far more powerful than the Assaulter rifle, couldn't kill him quickly. But the Eagle Electromagnetic Rifles in the Marines' hands were on another level entirely.

The metal spikes they fired, accelerated by electromagnetism, could pierce his skin and muscle. After four Marines emptied their magazines, Kaga had been riddled with holes.

But he wasn't dead yet. He was still breathing, and the holes punched through his body were slowly healing.

Gu Hang strolled forward. "So this is Kaga, the leader of the Prisoner-Dead? He can turn humans into... Those Greenskins' technology is pretty outrageous."

He didn't particularly care what Kaga himself was like. It was the condition he'd been in after transforming that worried him.

Kaga could no longer speak. All he could manage were meaningless growls from the back of his throat.

Gu Hang couldn't be bothered to say anything more. He waved his hand, and the soldiers behind him took over the cleanup.

A burst of metal spikes from the electromagnetic rifles turned the Green Beast's head into a pulp.

Dealing with a Greenskin was a troublesome business. Killing it was only the first step. Everywhere its blood had spilled and everywhere its body had lain had to be burned with high-temperature flames. Otherwise, before long, a whole crop of mushrooms might sprout here, and then turn into little Greenskin monsters. First Gretchin, then goblins, then Ork Boyz...

Although this Green Beast should have been a mutation of the Prisoner-Dead leader, for reasons unknown, who knew if something similar might happen again?

In any case, the battle was over, and they had plenty of time to clean up the battlefield.

Gu Hang also needed to tally his gains.

[Resounding victory, gained 19 Grace]

[Losses 9, eliminated 146, captured 11]

[1st Servitor Light Infantry Battalion: losses 9, eliminated 105]

[Marine Corps: losses 0, eliminated 41]