Special Mission

"Wang Ji!" someone called softly.

"Hey! Liu Hao! Huh? You made it to colonel? You went from captain to colonel? Impressive!" Wang Ji said with a smile.

Liu Hao said, "I'd built up some merit, and luckily my strength improved a little too. So I got promoted. Hehe."

"Hm? So you're at War General Level now?" Wang Ji asked curiously. Liu Hao nodded. "How about it? Impressive, right?"

Wang Ji gave him a thumbs-up.

Liu Hao said, "But I'm still not as good as you. Your Spiritual Force is already over 5,000 kg. Your overall strength must be higher than mine. Your Lime Throwing Technique is so infamous even the monsters flee at the mention of it. I can't compete with you."

"Don't slander me! I've changed! I've turned over a new leaf!" Wang Ji said solemnly.

"Yeah, right! You even asked me to help customize your New Type Smoke Bomb!" Liu Hao rolled his eyes.

"Ahem, ahem..."

"Hahaha..."

After they finished laughing, Liu Hao lowered his voice. "This time, they've called up more than one spiritual telekinetic. If any of them belong to a squad, the whole squad gets called up too. You're a lone wolf, so I put you in my squad. There are six of us in total, counting you and me. You'll meet the other four in a bit."

Wang Ji nodded. "All right!" He felt more at ease in a squad with people in camouflage. He could trust them with his back.

Before long, a middle-aged commander gave a few words of encouragement, reminded everyone of the rules, and had them sign a confidentiality agreement. Only then did he order them to set out.

"Move out!" At his command, three Military squads, including Wang Ji's, and three outside martial artist squads boarded a plane and flew straight to the Magic City Military Camp.

They said each of these planes cost over a trillion. They could withstand attacks from Wang Ji-level monsters. After all, the sky had become flying monsters' territory after the Great Calamity. Planes made of ordinary materials couldn't withstand their attacks; once they took off, they were little more than flying coffins. Only planes made with materials above S-class could guarantee safety.

S-class materials were super materials that surpassed Series 9 materials. A single weapon made from S-class materials cost tens of billions, let alone an entire plane! The price was astronomical.

So among the six squads aboard, numbering more than forty people, only a handful had ever flown before.

"Hello, Captain!" Wang Ji greeted him earnestly. He had joined Liu Hao's squad, which had six members. The other four he was meeting now were all soldiers.

Their captain was a mid-ranking colonel named Zhang Lan. He had a square, proper-looking face, thick eyebrows, and large eyes, and he radiated integrity.

Zhang Lan held out his hand. "You must be Wang Ji! Liu Hao's said a lot of good things about you. Welcome to the squad!"

The six chatted among themselves and quickly got acquainted. The plane was fast; they were already about to land, though it had only been a moment since they left Jiangnan Base City for the Magic City Military Camp.

Magic City Military Camp.

Zhang Lan led the squad through identity checks and other procedures, and they soon entered the Magic City Military Camp.

The Magic City Military Camp lived up to its reputation as the largest military camp in China's Wilderness Zones. It was practically a city! The permanent reinforced-concrete walls stood over a hundred meters tall and were more than a hundred meters wide. Countless firing positions covered them, enough to make anyone's scalp tingle.

Inside the camp's walls, pillboxes, firing towers, and defensive lines made the place a fortress bristling with weapons. Every so often, they could spot a white, exquisitely engineered Prism-type Device.

"Is that a laser cannon? The kind that can kill Wang Ji-level monsters?"

Wang Ji looked around. There were five of those laser cannons on this single stretch of wall.

Incredible!

With a Magic City Military Camp this powerful, what did they need a War General squad like his for? Surely they had no shortage of War Generals here.

"Please wait a moment! We've invited some other squads as well. They'll arrive within five minutes," a young military colonel said.

Soon, the other squads arrived.

"All right, everyone, quiet down. We've asked you here because we have a mission that requires the help of spiritual telekinetics!"

"Buzz, buzz..." The four newly arrived squads evidently hadn't been told the mission details in advance. They began discussing it among themselves.

"About sixty kilometers west of the Magic City Military Camp, there's a place called Reed Marsh." As he spoke, a map appeared and quickly zoomed in until they could make out the reeds and trees on the ground.

"It's a wetland about fifty kilometers in diameter, with crisscrossing waterways and lakes everywhere. The terrain is extremely complicated!"

"A group of mutant Yangtze alligators used to live here. They weren't very numerous or powerful, so the military region didn't wipe them out completely. The group consisted of roughly one Lord-level Monster, another dozen or twenty beast generals, and over a thousand ordinary beast soldiers.

"But half a month ago, a regiment from the camp went on a sweep of the surrounding area and was ambushed by monsters at Reed Marsh. They suffered heavy losses!

"Our camp dispatched a large force to thoroughly sweep the area. So far, we've killed three Lord-level Monsters and over a hundred beast generals! That's not right. The monsters' strength and numbers don't add up! Something unusual must have happened there. So I need you to help investigate Reed Marsh and find out what's going on!"

At that, one squad said, "Commander, we're just an ordinary squad. We don't have much combat strength. I don't think you need us for reconnaissance. Besides, it's only an area fifty kilometers across. The military region should be able to survey it easily."

The commander on the stage said, "You still don't understand. This is a marsh, with waterways running everywhere and lakes all over. We can easily investigate the land. But what about underwater? That's why we need the spiritual telekinetic in each squad! Spiritual telekinetics have a natural advantage in this kind of complicated terrain, especially in water!"

So every squad had a spiritual telekinetic! Many of the other squads had only just learned this. What a show of force! Only the country had the resources and ability to gather ten spiritual telekinetics at once!

The middle-aged commander soon finished assigning the mission.

Each squad would be paired with a ten-person reconnaissance squad.

Wang Ji's squad now had sixteen members.

Sixty kilometers away, at Reed Marsh.

"Here! This is our assignment—the area marked here." The reconnaissance squad leader took out a map. "We'll start investigating here!"

The other six members of the squad had no objections. This was the Magic City Military Camp's territory, and the reconnaissance squad was bound to know it better. They couldn't go wrong following their route.

After explaining the mission and the route, the sixteen of them plunged into the dense reeds.

The green reeds were twice as tall as a person, topped with snow-white plumes and flowers. Nearby, lakes and wetlands shimmered, and white waterbirds occasionally took flight. If not for the dangers lurking throughout the Wilderness Zone, the scenery would have been breathtaking.

"Quick! Keep up! This way!"