Chapter 249: Tactical Squad

Luo Qi was shoved behind a tree; Du Zhengyi had used too much force in his urgency, and his head knocked against the wall. He wondered if his IQ would be knocked down by quite a bit.

But Du Zhengyi's actions were truly efficient. Luo Qi fell behind the tree and was blocked by the trunk just as the monster, which had been pouncing over, headed straight for Du Zhengyi; Luo Qi had originally been in the path of this attack. The monster's momentum was too fast; Luo Qi felt as if a cheetah were pouncing on him, and even at such close range, he hadn't even seen the monster's figure clearly. He only realized that this thing was an agile creature and its weight was not very great, which was why Du Zhengyi had actually been able to kick him out of the way.

Luo Qi realized belatedly that what Du Zhengyi did was correct. From his understanding of the monster's parameters, he roughly knew that the shells these creatures grew naturally were among the sturdiest materials in the natural world, not much different from the material of the nose cones of human intercontinental missiles. It was not easy for Du Zhengyi to accurately strike their vital points in an instant in the dim light. But their sturdy shells and agile behavioral traits destined them to be very light in weight, so such a strike was reasonable. It was just that Luo Qi didn't know what weapon was most suitable for dealing with them now; could it be a metal baseball bat?

Du Zhengyi's kick to the chest had been quite ruthless; Luo Qi estimated that the thing had been kicked by Du Zhengyi straight onto the opposite wall. But what worried Luo Qi was that he heard the sound of the thing hitting the wall, followed by the sound of it leaping up again. The trajectory was clear and clean, rebounding the moment it touched the ground; Luo Qi thought of a bouncy ball, then felt it was like a monkey. He suddenly remembered that in the experimental hall of the Qionglin, he had once caught a glimpse of someone conducting psychic experiments on monkeys, and he ominously guessed whether there was a connection.

Du Zhengyi was also somewhat impatient with the struggle against that thing; he clicked his tongue, dodged to the side, and accurately kicked out again, trying his best not to engage in close-quarters combat with the agile monster.

Judging by the sound this time, the thing did not hit the wall; it had actually completed a target-accurate landing and he didn't know where it had clung to. Throughout the whole process, Luo Qi hadn't seen a hair of it; if he hadn't seen a Seal Beast in a static state through the vision of other Mages before, he wouldn't have been able to imagine what they looked like at all.

As this thought flashed through Luo Qi's Yajian, Luo Qi suddenly understood. For him, those biological data points were just things he could read, but he wouldn't have any direct understanding of them. It was like when he didn't know much about a sport, such as baseball; even if he heard the commentator reciting various statistics, it was just listening to him, and he couldn't immediately convert those statistics into a real-life situation. Therefore, when he first received the data, he didn't immediately realize what it meant; his nervousness mainly came from their nightmarish Alien appearance.

Only now did Luo Qi suddenly realize how serious the situation was and what the muscle strength in those specific areas meant. He couldn't see the clear form of the Seal Beast because their attacks were too fast; this problem would exist for Du Zhengyi as well. Du Zhengyi was indeed a Battle Mage, but in the final analysis, both of them were Mages, and there wouldn't be too much difference between them; the limit speed of a Mage could not break through the limitations of the species. Therefore, Du Zhengyi was now also in great danger; as long as the Seal Beast didn't move, Du Zhengyi couldn't see where it was either.

What was even more terrifying, Luo Qi suddenly thought, was that there wasn't just one of these Aliens, and they wouldn't arrive in batches. The only possibility was that other Aliens were already spread throughout all the shadows around them, and this one was intentionally sent by them, with the intent of testing the enemy's situation. Luo Qi could now be even more certain that they were not wild beasts. They were a high-IQ tactical squad, using minds not much different from their own to analyze the data on him and Du Zhengyi, fanatically preparing for a siege and slaughter.

In the night wind of spring, Luo Qi shuddered.