Chapter 145: Red Mist Tide

188 enemies, professionally trained, fully armed, and there were even two helicopters circling in the air.

They were very arrogant, seemingly certain that they would not attract the Barrier's regular army.

But like Liu Mu, they miscalculated.

When they dropped their bombs, the Barrier's army had already arrived, only to be blocked on the only path by Niu Boyi.

Li Gang, who had finally found Niu Boyi and followed him here, was even more anxious and agitated.

"Brother Niu, the people from the Sky Viper are already going crazy. If we are any later, Xiao Feng will be in danger. Why won't you let them provide support?"

When the Sky Viper attacked, Li Gang relied on his ability to briefly foresee the future to take some people into hiding. He prepared to counterattack on the ship, but soon discovered that the captured crew members had 'mutated'.

The things they turned into were not like living people; they were crazy, devoid of reason, attacked the living, and as long as there was even the slightest contact wound, one would be infected and become one of them.

He had never seen such a terrifying mutation, but he had watched zombie movies during the apocalypse and had asked Liu Mu if humans could become zombies.

Liu Mu's answer at the time was that the probability was very high.

The answer was now on the ship.

As a top-tier former special forces soldier, he made a prompt decision to take his people into hiding, and after the Sky Viper people left the ship, they jumped into the sea to escape as well.

On a ship of over two hundred people, only the sixty-six who followed him survived intact.

Among the 66 people, more than half were ordinary people who had never even touched a weapon, so he certainly could not act rashly.

He could only wait for Liu Mu to return, but after seeing Niu Boyi follow them, he witnessed this dog blocking the army that had come to support from the Barrier.

No matter what Zhuo Qing, the leader of the opposing side, said, it simply would not let them pass; whoever dared to take a step forward, it would kick them right back.

It even flipped over a troop carrier.

Niu Boyi was equally anxious, but these humans were just too stupid and couldn't understand what it meant.

That familiar, pretty sister-in-law was the same; she talked for a long time, but didn't guess the main point at all.

It was hilarious to the dog; what could they possibly help with? Master was currently preparing to unleash a big move!

Niu Boyi pushed the approaching Li Gang aside, patted itself with its huge front paws, pointed toward the direction of the ship, and finally moved its paw toward the distance where the bombing was taking place.

Since they had spent more time together, Li Gang stumbled to a steady stance and immediately asked, "Are you saying you went to the ship, and someone from the ship went down to the Headquarters Base?"

The dog's head nodded, then shook, then pointed again, and this time it added a gesture of slitting its throat, sticking out its tongue, rolling its eyes, and falling to the ground.

"The people who got off the ship will kill the Sky Viper people?" Li Gang guessed immediately, his face changing drastically, "You let the things on the ship out?"

Niu Boyi immediately rolled its eyes, its pitch-black nose snorting away the falling rain, and its large paw pointed impatiently at Zhuo Qing nearby, then at itself, before baring its sharp teeth and letting out a threatening low growl.

This growl frightened the soldiers behind into raising their guns one after another, but fortunately, Zhuo Qing raised her hand in time to stop them, "It won't attack me, put your guns down!"

Although worry was written on their faces, the soldiers immediately executed the order.

Sure enough, they saw the big dog's threatening posture seamlessly switch to a silly, baring-teeth grin; that's right, it was a dog mocking them.

But Zhuo Qing finally roughly understood Niu Boyi's meaning and asked, "It's not you, it's Liu Mu? She went to the ship, and then she's going to use some method to attack the Sky Viper people, and this method is very damaging, so we can't go over there now?"

The dog, finally understood, nodded frantically, splashing water all over the faces of the people nearby.

Zhuo Qing immediately gave a new order for everyone to follow Niu Boyi to a safe distance, ready to provide support at any time.

Since this was already the best way, Niu Boyi did not continue to insist, leading the way with its big head held high, and did not forget to look at Li Gang with disdain when it turned its head.

With everything arranged clearly by Niu Boyi, they had just finished setting up their ambush when they saw a scene of apocalyptic destruction.

Even knowing they were hundreds of meters away, Zhuo Qing's voice still trembled, "Everyone, level one protection!"

Half an hour ago,

Sea fog rose, and no one initially felt anything unusual.

Planes circled in the air, and the Sky Viper people gathered at the pier originally built at the Scrap Station, waiting to conduct a ground sweep after the bombing.

The precision bombing was earth-shattering, also masking the abnormality of the tide; the thick fog seemed to turn blood-red in an instant, and the coastline that had been 'isolated' collapsed silently, like the sun melting snow.

The moment the boundary collapsed, red mist over ten meters high slammed into the crowd on the pier like a pouring flood.

Darkness, heavy rain, thick fog; red and black were so close that even if someone had seen it half a minute in advance, they would have only thought it was sea fog drifting onto the shore.

'Ben' was a middle-aged man afraid of death, having worked for the Sky Viper for half his life, just to get generous rewards and cultivate his son to have a place in the organization.

Until today, before being assigned a temporary mission, both father and son had been looking forward to entering the New World created by the organization and living a comfortable life from then on.

"Listen, once the bombing ends, we'll stay at the very back of the team. Whoever can snatch the Red Flower is definitely not a simple character. Our mission philosophy is, don't stand out..."

"... so we can live longer!" his son, who also had black hair and a thick beard, immediately replied. Except for his build being thinner than his father's, the two looked almost exactly the same from their hairstyles to their beards, and even those small green eyes.

Anyone who saw them would know they were family.

If you spent a day with them, you would be even more certain they were father and son—equally cowardly, cunning, and extremely skilled at saving their own little lives.

Of course, if there was a chance to go on a mission together, as long as you weren't trying to earn merit, you could basically return alive by staying by these two.

This time was the same; the few people who followed them to the edge tacitly gathered in the most inconspicuous corner of the pier, and there were even sandbags on three sides for cover. They were squeezed together like sardines in a can, whispering and mocking the leader of this operation—Night Owl.

This person might be the organization's number two, but to the members at the bottom, he was just one of many bosses to be humored.

"Screw him, as long as we go back alive, we can get a farm, and then life will be comfortable. In this kind of world, there's no worry about selling what you grow. Whoever wants to charge into battle can go."

"Right, right, we'll just lay low. If we get noticed by that someone, it'll be more troublesome to work on the ship later. But, I wanted to ask just now... isn't that fog a bit wrong?"

The heads of the people in the 'can' poked out from the sandbag formation one after another, looking at the thick fog that had already reached within three meters of them like a man-eating monster.

"I'm not colorblind, is that fog red?"

"What red? Let me shine a light on it."

In the silence contrasted by the explosions, a beam of light pierced the darkness, revealing the shape of the red mist, and also discovering that, like the white mist on the sea, it was so thick that the light could not penetrate it.

"What is this...?"

The confusion of the few; they didn't know what this was, only stretching their necks in surprise.

The next moment, the red mist seemed to be awakened, instantly encroaching upon them.

The sardines in the can didn't even have time to let out any screams before they widened their eyes and opened their mouths in immense pain, dying instantly.

The flashlight here slipped and fell, finally attracting the attention of others.

"What is that?" someone exclaimed!

"Has the Mirage Mist come ashore?"

"No, it's red..."

At the center of the crowd's protection, Ye Xiao was still wearing his black work-style trench coat, which seemed to have countless overlapping pockets; his hands only occupied the two closest ones.

"It's Red Mist, evacuate!"

There was little fluctuation in Ye Xiao's voice, and the order he issued did not even have a specific direction.

But only he knew that his enemy had arrived—the strange woman who could come and go freely in the Red Mist.

The group fell into a brief chaos, but as the Red Mist approached, the direction for evacuation was quickly determined, and they ran frantically toward the area being bombed.

Bombs might not necessarily land on their heads, but that mist could instantly devour living lives.

Even the falling rain steamed into ethereal wisps of smoke at the edge of the mist, but it could not merge into it at all.

"Help, run!"

Finally, someone shouted in extreme fear.

At this moment, some people remembered they had weapons in their hands and raised them to fire into the Red Mist.

But the crowd was too chaotic, it was a dark night with pouring rain, and the ground was rugged due to construction; it was unknown how many bullets were fired into the Red Mist, but many of the scorching bullet heads, like sparks, entered the bodies of their companions.

Ye Xiao split a figure rushing toward him in two with one strike of his Long Knife; the warm blood splashed onto his black wide-brimmed hat and then pattered down, the curtain formed by the 'blood beads' making the paleness of the face under the brim and the hatred burning in his black eyes even more apparent.

"Come out!"

His blade was something that even the world's number one sword master could not hope to match—sharp, fast, and accurate. As long as he was willing, he could cut through any target.

"Where is Joseph?"

The Red Mist was hazy; only when one was inside it could one see its true color—red, but not as gaudy as fresh blood, because it would not lose its luster with the passage of time.

Liu Mu walked in the mist, listening to those brief, miserable sounds of death, until she saw this man standing alone in the blood mist.

"Dead," she said, holding her twin blades and standing five meters away, certain the other party could not see her, "Killed by me in one strike. If you go to fish for him, you might still find a few bones that haven't been gnawed clean. Do you need me to provide you with the coordinates? No charge."

"Who exactly are you?" Ye Xiao covered his mouth and nose with a small, exquisite filter mask so that the Red Mist could not enter his respiratory tract for a short time, "Liu Mu, you do not accept a position in the Wall Army, there is no such person as you in the dark web database, and even the high-level officials of China only recently obtained the beautified personal profile of you from Yang Shuo... Why do you want to be our enemy?"

"Young man, I thought you should ask me why I killed Joseph," Liu Mu had no obligation to answer his questions, but the information revealed by the other party made her heart tremble.

The matter of refusing the position in the Barrier was only known to Zhuo Qing and that auditor at noon, and it spread at the commendation meeting a few hours ago; when the latter occurred, the Sky Viper had already attacked the group Headquarters under construction.

If they knew before the attack, then there was only one source of the news. Admittedly, compared to this, it was much easier for Ye Xiao to obtain her profile from the high-level officials of China.

"Of course it is for revenge. You killed him for revenge, and I am killing you and blood-washing your territory, also for revenge."

Ye Xiao's figure suddenly tilted, and then like an arrow fully drawn on a bow, he rushed directly toward Liu Mu's position, "After I take my revenge, it won't matter who you are!"

The invisible blade wind actually managed to cut through the Red Mist, slashing accurately toward Liu Mu's face; after missing, the blade did not continue forward at all due to inertia, but instead changed its posture like a ghost, sticking close to Liu Mu's back.

If someone's vision could see through the Red Mist, they would see two figures at this moment as if unaffected by gravity, opposing, entangling, and leaping, all while precisely locating each other's positions.

Hong had mentioned a little about Ye Xiao's methods before; the reason it was only a little was because few people in the organization knew the real Ye Xiao, and naturally, even fewer knew how strong his combat power was.

After several blade clashes, Liu Mu even had the illusion that this person had already awakened his blade combat power, but the answer given by the 'returned' Heitao A was that there were no signs of Mutation or Awakening on Ye Xiao.

Although his body was strong and his techniques were superb, he was still within the category of old humans.

Liu Mu's probing was not obvious, but it was still seen through by Ye Xiao; the blades constantly sparked in the Red Mist, and neither side had any intention of leaving the other alive.

"Want to probe me?" Ye Xiao's eyes gradually became stained with red; his body could not stay in the Red Mist for too long.

He exerted force with his ring finger holding the knife, and the chilling Long Knife emitted a trace of icy blue; when it slashed onto Liu Mu's twin blades again, there was a crackle of electric arcs, and Liu Mu only felt a sour numbness rushing from her hands straight to her brain.

If it weren't for the fact that her evolved body possessed data several times superior to that of an ordinary person, allowing her to make a dodging leap in milliseconds, she would likely have been electrocuted to death by the high-voltage electricity in that instant.

"Despicable!"

Liu Mu leaped out several meters, her heart actually feeling a moment of numbness, but it returned to its normal rhythm in a very short time.

"A killer calling someone despicable, don't you find that too shameless?"

Ye Xiao could not possibly give Liu Mu a chance to catch her breath, and he leaned forward and rushed over at an extremely fast speed.

At this moment, Liu Mu noticed that the soles of this man's boots were thicker than average and the material was insulated; combined with the tight pants revealed under his trench coat, everything was designed for combat.

"You! Are! Right!" What kind of morality is there to speak of in a life-and-death struggle?

She flipped her left hand, the short blade disappeared, and at the same time, her skin underwent Skin Alloying, directly grabbing Ye Xiao's Long Knife with one hand.

The blade pressed against her hand, two energies collided head-on, and electric arcs splashed in the air like liquid.

At the moment of the energy collision, Liu Mu's other blade continuously stabbed, slashed, and hacked, finally stabbing fiercely into Ye Xiao's abdomen.

"This strike is for my big brother!"

The short blade flipped; even though Ye Xiao was an extraordinary figure in the Sky Viper, he could only grit his teeth and groan, grabbing Liu Mu's wrist.

Liu Mu revealed a cruel and exaggerated smile, "Taking one of your kidneys, you don't mind, right? There are still the revenges of others!"

Perhaps he never expected that she could catch his blade with her bare hands, nor had he ever seen the changes in Liu Mu's body and that intense energy...

But his reaction was still the top among humans; his fist was as hard as his blade technique, hitting Liu Mu's unprepared cheek directly.

This punch stunned Liu Mu for a moment, which also gave Ye Xiao a chance to survive; he did not hesitate in the slightest and retreated with all his might.

Liu Mu felt the force on his blade and, not wanting to have her fingers sliced off, could only let go.

Clang—

The crisp sound was so harsh in the Red Mist that the sense of crisis forced Liu Mu, who wanted to continue her attack, to dodge and retreat.

The explosion occurred almost at her feet; in the short time he was so severely injured, Ye Xiao had actually predicted her movement trajectory.

But Ye Xiao was not having an easy time either; the blade had taken away a large chunk of flesh and blood, and what was even more annoying was that the surrounding Red Mist, as if it were hunting ants that had smelled blood, was frantically drilling into his wounds.

This forced him to stop, take out Hemostatic Gel from his work-style trench coat, and press it fiercely onto the front and back wounds to block the blood while isolating the Red Mist.

But this was not a long-term solution; these gels could support him for at most ten minutes. If he didn't leave by then, not only would the wounds rupture again, but the filtering device in his mask would also collapse under the erosion of the Red Mist.

But he still realized one thing: what he was facing was not a woman at all—but a monster!

The blade that had been gripped by Liu Mu was actually curled into the shape of four fingers, and the ten-thousand-volt high voltage did not electrocute her to death; instead, the strange energy emitted by the other party destroyed the electrical device on his blade.

His knife was designed and crafted by the most formidable weapon master collected by the Heaven Viper Snake, and no human body could possibly withstand it.

"Of the thirty-six stratagems, fleeing is the best... regroup and reorganize another day, fight again in the future, and victory will be certain! — So sighed Prime Minister Cao."

After a sharp analysis, reason told Yexiao he should leave; this operation had indeed failed due to a severe lack of intelligence regarding Liu Mu.

But he had not come solely for the mission: "Cao the traitor, do not make me lose my loyalty!"

Swinging the Long Knife diagonally, Yexiao gritted his teeth, tilted his body again, and charged out.

Liu Mu was also incensed, spat out a mouthful of thick, bloody phlegm, and met him with the knife held in one hand.

The explosion was too close, and since the opponent had packed small metal Fragments inside, she had many extra wounds on her body and no time to pick the Fragments out.

But compared to Yexiao, she was still much better off; her body's powerful Self-healing Ability would soon push the Fragments out.

"I'm going to carve you into a human stick and throw you into the sea to see your dear daddy!"

Liu Mu was like a villain from many TV dramas, evil and powerful, with every strike of her knife aimed directly at Yexiao's vitals.

Only this fight was different from before; the two would pull out some thermal weapons to greet each other whenever they found an opening.

Even with hatred burning in her heart, Liu Mu had to admit that Yexiao's combat power was top-tier among humans, even stronger than all the opponents she had encountered before.

It was just a pity... she had leveled up!

The quality of a New Human Complete Form was already a qualitative difference from a human.

Time passed quickly in the life-and-death struggle; the wounds on Yexiao's body kept increasing, yet he was surprised to find that the wounds on his opponent were rapidly self-healing.

Comparing the two, his disadvantage was even more obvious, and it was almost impossible to turn the tables.

"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river; Liu Mu, you just wait!"

Yexiao had not completely lost his reason due to hatred; he had only assessed that his chance of killing Liu Mu was fifty percent, so he wanted to give it a try.

Now, with his win rate dropping to less than ten percent, he naturally did not want to lose the chance for revenge forever.

This man spoke in a cryptic, rambling way, but how could Liu Mu possibly let him leave? Three steps away, she held a gun in her left hand and fired directly.

Bullets always lost some accuracy when rubbing against the Red Mist, but after several shots, she had instinctively grasped this margin of error.

With this improvement, two more bloody holes appeared on the man opposite her.

But what annoyed Liu Mu was that this person's speed had not slowed down at all; instead, after saying something pretentious, he threw away his Long Knife and started playing with her by throwing bombs.

Not until the roar of propellers grew closer did Liu Mu realize that Yexiao was going to run.