Chapter 545: City No. 13

(It's six new recruits, not twelve, sorry T‑T)

Afternoon.

Desert.

Six Astate recruits wearing black training uniforms and simple armor were scanning the surroundings, looking far and observing.

Even without looking at the legion insignia on their armor, just by their fair skin and handsome faces one could guess that their G glands originate from Holy Blood Angels.

When Holy Blood Angels select G‑gland candidates, they deliberately choose youths with superior physical qualities and, according to past records, gentle and modest temperaments.

After the implantation surgery, under the influence of the G gland, these recruits will inherit the various strengths of Sui Bian and Shengjilesi.

In fact, regarding the difficulty of selecting candidates, Holy Blood Angels are relatively lenient among all legions; after all, the Fallen Formation legion must be of Chinese descent and must bear the surname Sui.

Among the six recruits, three are equipped with. 75‑cal explosive‑arrow rifles, one with a 1.0‑cal heavy explosive‑arrow, and the remaining two with a 100 mm plasma cannon and an explosive‑flame cannon.

Judging by their gear, they certainly constitute a heavy‑armed Astate squad, more than sufficient to handle an Imperial army armored regiment.

Moreover, these six Holy Blood Angel recruits all seem to have inherited the human emperor's "fear of insufficient firepower"; their close‑range weapons are only old‑style Chain Swords, though each carries an ammunition or energy pack.

Like Sui Yang and Sui Yue, they were initially puzzled why they weren't teleported to a prehistoric planet's jungle, but quickly realized it was a special trial arranged by their father.

Now the priority is to determine exactly where they are.

In just a moment, the six Holy Angels used the sun's angle to infer that they were in Earth's Northern Hemisphere, but they had no clue which continent or landmass.

However, to the west lay a distinct, dried‑up coastline, indicating they were not inland.

A Holy Angel then stepped toward the coastline, gazed out at the calm sea, and solemnly voiced his observation:

"Brothers, why does the coastline's desiccation feel unnatural, as if some force drained it?"

"Hmm, I have a similar feeling."

"Indeed."

The group of brothers all nodded in agreement.

"Brothers," followed immediately by a Holy Angel whose chest‑plate bore the inscription "Zelter Dante," who raised his left hand eastward and suggested:

"Now is not the time to debate why the ocean vanished; we should first head to that town and investigate, perhaps we might encounter surviving human compatriots, which would better help us understand what calamity this Earth has suffered."

"Alright."

"Let's go."

The party immediately set the objective, splitting into three pairs of two, keeping roughly twenty meters apart, and briskly advanced toward the town beyond ordinary sight.

It didn't take long.

Dante and his group traversed the dried coastline, crossing nearly six kilometers of desert to reach the town's edge.

Judging by its appearance and style, the town—its tallest building no more than ten stories—has a distinct Eastern European flavor, indirectly suggesting the continent is likely Europe.

However, there were no surviving compatriots; instead, their keen hearing picked up faint "roars... roars..." echoing within the town, like low moans of hunger or emptiness.

?

Upon hearing the sounds, all Holy Angels went on high alert.

"Zelin, Horn," Dante said, gripping his explosive‑arrow rifle with his right hand, extending his left toward the town's west, and ordered the two named Zelin and Horn: "Please advance from the west."

"…"

The two brothers, equipped with explosive‑arrow rifles and a heavy explosive‑arrow, who seemed reticent, offered no objection and set off immediately.

"Bar, Finis, the east is yours two," Dante added.

"No problem."

"Alright."

The two brothers, still bearing rifles and heavy weapons, nodded and proceeded eastward.

"Yang Luo, you walk with me."

"Hmm."

Finally, Dante and Yang Luo, who wielded the explosive‑flame cannon, charged forward from the front.

A few hundred meters vanished in an instant.

The two soon arrived at the first crossroads on the outskirts.

From the shattered shop windows along the road, bullet holes in the walls, and numerous scorch marks, it was easy to infer that the town had endured a fairly intense clash six to eight months ago.

However, the pair found no corpses, perhaps they had been reclaimed or cleared away.

Subsequently, Dante and Yang Luo continued toward the right‑front, where a church—another source of the unknown sounds—stood.

Approaching a loosely hinged solid‑wood door…

"Boom!" with a kick.

Dante smashed the wooden door to splinters and was the first to rush into the church, with Yang Luo, covering and providing suppressive fire, right behind him.

Inside the church hall.

Long wooden tables were placed on both sides, apparently used as a temporary shelter during the conflict months earlier.

The source of the unknown sounds were several rag‑clad "people" covered in dried blood, gathered beneath the cross at the front of the hall.

However, these "people" had grotesquely twisted arms, their abdomens split vertically, and each side bore fang‑like bone spines, resembling a mouth.

But the most obvious feature was that their heads were encased in a milky‑white flesh worm.

They were mutated zombie‑type beings.

At first sight of the source—the "people"—Dante and Yang Luo immediately classified them as "zombies".

The flesh worm covering their heads, or rather a crab—more aptly described as a hunting‑head crab—was an abnormal creature that caused the mutation in these human compatriots.

"Roar!!"

Dante and Yang Luo's charge naturally startled the zombies, which roared and lunged at the two recruits.

And if one listened closely, the zombie roars contained fragmented pleas like "Save... save me..." and "No... no...".

Dante and Yang Luo, upon seeing and hearing this, had a hint of pity and regret in their eyes.

To help their compatriots escape suffering quickly, Dante thrust out his left hand, clenched into a fist, and then…

Puff!!

Chi!!

Then he directly hammered to pieces those zombies and the headhunting crab that was the source of the zombies.

Although their ammunition is plentiful, that is only the current situation; who knows what kind of enemies may appear later?

At the same time, they also heard another two groups of brothers, also choosing to use fists and Chain Sword, to deal with the sounds emitted by the zombies.

Leave the church.

Dante and Yang Luo continued to explore toward the town center.

They also communicated via the headsets they had worn before teleporting, ensuring that all intelligence and information held by everyone could be updated in real time.

And within this town, there seemed to be no valuable discoveries aside from the zombies.

More than thirty minutes later.

The party gathered at the central square of the town.

But also on the square, the six Holy Angels found that the paving stones had already been pried open, and the missing townsfolk were now lying "quietly" inside.

Only, tens of thousands of townsfolk had turned into white forest skeletons.

!

Standing at the edge of the Ten Thousand Pit, the six newly adult Holy Angel recruits, who had experienced little, instantly had reddened eyes, with even a hint of moisture at the corners.

Because they possessed Spiritual Perception, they clearly felt the desperation and unwillingness of those tens of thousands of compatriots when killed by some kind of "alien species".

The emotional resonance made Dante, Yang Luo and the others deeply indignant, yet helpless.

"Alas… rest in peace."

Finally, Ze Lin, who excelled at Spiritual Release, dispelled the resentment within the Ten Thousand Pit.

A brief silence.

"Dante, what is our next objective?" Huo En asked in a low voice.

Now, the recruits have taken the longest‑serving Dante, who once served as an instructor, as the leader of this six‑person heavy squad.

"Find surviving compatriots, eliminate alien vermin." Dante did not refuse, implicitly accepting his role as squad leader, then looked east and said:

"To achieve this goal, we now need to locate a large‑scale metropolis, which can help us understand the current state of Earth."

"Alright."

The brothers raised no objections.

Next.

The six Holy Angel recruits, still in pairs forming a triangular formation, withdrew from the long‑abandoned town and hurried eastward into the inland.

Moreover, the recruits had no intention of hiding their trail; each moved at 80 km per hour across terrain that had suffered severe erosion, the jungle nearly turned into desert.

Dust rose everywhere.

The recruits did this deliberately.

The purpose was to expose their tracks, to attract human compatriots, or to draw the attention of still‑unknown alien vermin.

Encountering compatriots is fine; if they meet alien vermin, they happen to see the Ten Thousand Pit's fury with nowhere to vent, and alien vermin are always the best tools for "relief" and "solace".

Before long.

Their party had already moved far from the dried coastline, and the once desert forest environment, as they advanced inland, had improved somewhat.

At least the grass and trees were no longer as sparse as before.

This further confirmed that the alien vermin seemed to be employing some extraction technique, continuously drawing Earth's oceans and all moisture.

They continued forward for about an hour.

During that time, they also encountered numerous huge insects resembling deformed ants, clearly not Earth creatures, attacking them.

These insects included engineers, guards, reconnaissance flyers, and even a more powerful queen.

However, they faced Astate, and it was a newly recruited Astate, suppressing its fury, still hot‑blooded.

Dante, Yang Luo and the others still did not fire guns or cannons, purely using melee weapons and fists larger than a basketball to tear every insect along the way.

But based on these insects' behavior, they concluded this was not the primary species that created the Ten Thousand Pit, as its intelligence was low and its physiology could not achieve vacuum travel by flesh alone.

It might be parasites that came along when the primary species invaded Earth.

Regardless, slaughtering thousands of insects in melee indeed helped them suppress their fury.

Finally.

From the moment they left the town with the Ten Thousand Pit to about a half‑hour deep inland, they finally saw traces of civilization.

It was a rail train whose front bore a razor, its height two to three times its width, speeding toward the southeast.

And everything left on the tracks would be cut in half by the front razor.

Moreover, Ze Lin sensed no emotional fluctuations, concluding that the train was operating on autopilot according to a preset program.

But whether there were people or not made little difference to them.

At this moment, the six brothers did not speak, yet simultaneously broke into a fast run and leapt onto the Razor Train.

The Razor Train's reckless run along the tracks indicates that it belongs to the alien vermin faction that degrades Earth's environment and kills human compatriots.

And the train will eventually reach its destination; as long as they follow, they will be able to "contact" the alien vermin.

———————

…

"Clang… clang…"

In the dim carriage, the faint sounds of rails and gears rang out, and the six Holy Angel recruits walked slowly toward the front of the train.

The carriage and cargo hold were empty.

Indeed, as they had expected before boarding, the Razor Train appeared to be unmanned.

But Ze Lin wore a furrowed brow, as if he had sensed more than the other brothers, and then he said to Dan Ding:

"Brother, this train is specifically used to escort human compatriots, traveling back and forth between 1… probably City 13 and the Transformation Factory."

City 13?

Transformation Factory?

Dan Ding raised his left hand, signaling the brothers to pause their steps, turned sideways to look at Ze Lin behind him, and said, "Continue."

"Yes, I can still sense that this Razor Train was recently filled with a deathly aura, likely having just finished its escort mission."

"As for what the Transformation Factory is used for, I cannot give an exact answer, but it's not hard to imagine that it's where the alien scum torment and remodel human compatriots."

"However, based on the fact that it just completed its escort mission, our next destination is City 13."

Ze Lin briefly explained the current state of this Earth to the brothers present.

"City 13, huh, I can't wait to blast those alien scum to smithereens." Finnis raised his plasma cannon.

"…" The Holy Angels all nodded silently.

Since the train's terminus is City 13, they no longer need to blindly search and rush about; they only need to prepare for the upcoming battle.

———————

…

Eastern European interior.

A city with numerous classical buildings lies on the eastern side of a forest.

However, there is a special palace with an enormous footprint and a style starkly different, situated in the central part of the city.

Moreover, the palace's surrounding column-like metal structures seem to be slowly moving outward and expanding, and together with the overcast clouds, they envelop the city in an inexpressive oppressive atmosphere.

At this moment.

At a train station on the western outskirts of the city, soldiers wearing well-sealed combat uniforms and helmets shaped like octopus heads have gathered.

At the same time, a large number of civilians in orange prison uniforms, forced by the soldiers' guard and coercion, have come to the right platform and are waiting in neat rows.

It is obvious that this city is City 13.

These prisoners in uniform seem to have violated the laws set by the alien scum and need to be sent to the Transformation Factory for 'reformation.'

(End of chapter)