Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1698
"How about it, Drunk Cat?"
Surprisingly, the captain did not roar but asked in a low voice, "Is the dog nose in your head as sharp as before?"
"Of course."
Narrowing his eyes, Gao Huan mumbled as if he were in a different place. "Something is seriously wrong with this place. There's a regular burst of magnetic waves every once in a while. It does not seem natural but more like some kind of… signal, and the fog around is meant to cover it.
"That's weird. This signal is too powerful. It's like a pillar rising to the sky in my senses. Even the fog is covering it. The fleets on the orbit of the planet should've detected it a long time ago."
"Ha. What a coincidence."
The captain said, "The commander of the orbit troops happens to be 'a rebel from the four families'. He was arrested a week ago, and a purge was conducted within the orbit troops. Who has the time to study some insignificant signals when their own life is at risk?
"Forget it. None of it helps right now. Tell me, where is the source of the signal?"
"It should be…"
Holding back the excruciating pain in his head, Gao Huan tried to locate the source of the signal.
Right before he found it out, somebody suddenly said in the communication channel, "Boss, Black Freckle stepped on a landmine!"
When the captain and Gao Huan reached the front of the team, the atmosphere was still quite relaxed. Black Freckle, the poor victim, was still smiling and mocking back at his companions.
Every part of the planet had been planted with landmines before the Covenant Alliance retreated, but the landmines were not very powerful. Besides, the soldiers of this team had the protection of crystal suits and enough experience in dealing with landmines. They could dismantle 99% of the landmines safely. Even if they couldn't, they would not wail as if it were the end of the world since they would only lose a foot or a leg.
At this moment, a soldier was studying the landmine below Black Freckle's foot. He prudently dug the ground, revealing the rusty shell of the landmine. It seemed to be an old Heavenly Rainbow I, which was powerful but not difficult to be removed.
However, as a Supersensitive Agent, Gao Huan smelled something unusual.
It was also the reason why the captain brought him here.
"Wait, this landmine does not smell right."
Gao Huan stopped the soldier's work. "It looks like the components of Heavenly Rainbow III in the shell of Heavenly Rainbow I."
Everybody gasped hard and stepped back, activating their spiritual shields to the highest intensity.
Black Freckle, who had been grimacing, was dumbfounded as if he had been hit by lightning.
"It's… It's really Heavenly Rainbow III!"
Reminded by Gao Huan, the soldier carefully examined the landmine. His face turned pale as he declared Black Freckle's death sentence.
Heavenly Rainbow III was an anti-infantry landmine. Or rather, it was designed to deal with crystal suits. Once it was detonated, an area of hundred meters around it would be destroyed, and the standard crystal suits of the bottom-level infantrymen of the Imperium could not resist the storm of shards at all!
"Soldier, come back! Black Freckle, stay there!"
The captain couldn't have looked more awful. Staring at Black Freckle, he gritted his teeth. "You've hit the jackpot. You know the power of Heavenly Rainbow III very well. We don't have enough technologies or tools to remove the landmine. But as long as your heartbeat changes slightly, the landmine will explode. There's nothing we can do."
"F*ck!"
The muscles on Black Freckle's face were twitching. "F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!"
"Unfortunately, you have to die before us, but not now."
The captain said, "You have to wait until your brothers are safe and away from you, and you must die a hero's death, do you understand?"
"I… I…"
Black Freckle's face was twisted.
"Look at me and listen to me. It's hopeless now. We all know it very well. But you have your wife and children in your hometown. You have to leave something for them. I can delete some of the battle videos that our crystal suits record, but I cannot fabricate any because it will be detected."
The captain said patiently, "So, you have to die heroically. The new emperor is about to be coronated. He's going to need war heroes, and he will be generous with their families. If you become a war hero, your wife and your children will live a better life, won't they?"
"F*ck war hero! F*ck the emperor!"
Black Freckle was shivering. "How would I look like a hero? F*ck!"
"Don't shiver, and don't wail like a wuss!"
The captain roared, "Hold your head high and say something like long live His Majesty. No, don't say 'long live the reformists'. We don't know yet if they will win in the end! If you dare not do it, I can give you a hand. Rest assured, I'll help you. On the count of three, alright? There won't be any pain. I promise. Come on, one…"
"What is this s*it all about?"
Black Freckle said, his voice shivering, "Long live His Majesty! Long live the Imperium! Is that—"
Before he finished, the captain suddenly drew his gun and blew up Black Freckle's head.
Hardly had the headless body fallen when a spring of colorful light dashed from his foot and covered hundreds of square meters nearby.
Thankfully, all the soldiers had retreated a hundred meters away and protected themselves. They suffered no greater losses except their weakened spiritual shields.
Black Freckle was completely gone. Only the spots of blood on the ground proved that he was once alive.
"It was painless, was it not?"
Gloomily, the captain asked the soldiers around him.
"Yes, it was."
The soldiers all nodded their heads after a brief silence.
"It seems that we've found the right place."
The captain looked at Gao Huan and said, "Heaven Rainbow III is too advanced to be planted for common soldiers like us. Something of paramount importance must've been hidden behind the landmines. Let's remove the landmines and be ready for battle!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The tanks rained a storm of bullets on the landmines, triggering them and raising a splendid fireworks show.
Before the fire above the landmines died down yet, the team had started pressing deeper.
The loss of their companion did not depress them but made the soldiers even angrier than before.
After half a year's rest, Gao Huan seemed to have found the instincts of a Supersensitive Agent again. He keenly sensed the unusual waves in the air and adjusted their directions accordingly, locking onto the source of the signal at the center of the fog.
At this moment, strong signals were still being released from there like a burning torch.
Gao Huan even felt that the source of the signal was so blatant that it did not care about being noticed anymore.
Navigated by him, the team finally arrived at their destination, only to be shocked by what they saw.
Deep inside the valley was a narrow, long chasm. A certain type of piton-shaped magic equipment was protruding into the sky from a hundred meters deep in the chasm. The four pitons on the magic equipment formed an array, with dazzling electric arcs dancing among them!
Even more dreadfully, deep inside the chasm, below the weird array whose purpose was unknown, countless hibernation capsules were densely placed like bug eggs. Inside each hibernation capsule was a person of the Covenant Alliance. Many of them had been woken up, and the rest were also opening their emotionless eyes under the glass cover.
A secret base of the Covenant Alliance had been buried on the planet that the Imperium had reclaimed and occupied for three years!
Chapter 2694: The Devoted Lover |
When the secret base was discovered by the team, the ritual of the Covenant Alliance was close to completion.
Infinite electric arcs were soaring to the sky like an upside-down waterfall, tearing apart the clouds and gathering into a chaotic vortex that seemed to be leading to another world.
Something with immense spiritual waves was landing on this planet through the vortex!
Now, even the people who were not as super-sensitive as Gao Huan could tell that it must be a beacon or even a space gate.
"Those sons of bi*ches hid a super teleportation array, or whatever that crap is, on our planet!"
The captain cursed again, "How is it possible? What kind of super teleportation array is this? Or is it a brand-new space gate? Why can it send signals into space through the atmosphere without being detected by the morons in the military department?"
"What do we do, boss? Are we going to fight them or not?"
Flea's voice was shaking, which was understandable. The soldiers of this team were all fearless of death, but they were only here for reconnaissance anyway. The people of the Covenant Alliance who were waking up were ten times more than themselves, and launching an attack right now would be suicide.
Their mission did not include destroying the enemy's important facilities!
"Of course!"
The captain glared at Flea and roared while pointing at the vortex of electric arcs, "Do you not see the gap over there? If we do not interrupt their summoning, who knows what will be teleported to this planet? We might all be killed by then!
"Fight them and blow that eyesore up into pieces! Let's kick those b*stards back to their homes!"
The captain grabbed two cannons that were thicker than his thighs and fired like a crazy gorilla. The other soldiers also roared and charged like tigers, catching the people of the Covenant Alliance unprepared.
However, the people of the Covenant Alliance did not know what panic meant. They immediately counterattacked with their advantage in number. For a moment, the whole Unchaotic Valley was consumed by fire.
For a Supersensitive Agent like Gao Huan, keen senses were both a gift and a burden. They could detect the waves dozens of kilometers away with this ability, but in a battlefield, they would take hundreds of times more blast and pain than normal people would.
At this moment, the battlefield turned into the most splendid painting in Gao Huan's eyes. Everybody was like a burning torch, and tsunamis of spiritual energy were rising in his brain, overwhelming him as if he were a sinking boat.
But at this moment, as if lightning struck in his head, he suddenly saw her among the thousands of enemies.
Although he could barely distinguish anyone at this moment, and although his optic nerves and his brainwaves had been blasted by the shock of spiritual energy, making him feel that the world was swirling, burning, and exploding, he was sure that he was not mistaken: that hue of redness could only belong to his wife. It was Jiang Xue!
"Jiang Xue!"
Gao Huan's head went blank as he roared in ecstasy.
Cannons were firing, bullets were flying, and the altars and the teleportation of the Covenant Alliance were collapsing. The battlefield couldn't have been more chaotic.
Gao Huan did not know how he passed through the battlefield, or how many times he was hit. He could see nothing but the redness. After stumbling and falling, he finally made it to her alive.
She was a female soldier with a red mole on her eyebrow. Rigid and indifferent, she looked as mechanical as all the people of the Covenant Alliance around her.
Gao Huan, however, couldn't help but cry, "Jiang Xue, I knew that you were not dead! I knew I could find you! It's me! It's me!"
The female soldier, unmoved, raised her saber and aimed at Gao Huan's neck.
However, Gao Huan's tears raised a subtle reflection in her frozen eyes, making her saber hesitate for a moment.
Because of the brief hesitation, Gao Huan was not killed.
Right when the thoughtfulness in the female soldier's eyes was gone and she was ready to behead Gao Huan, a cannonball exploded next to them and blew them in different directions.
"Retreat! Retreat!"
In his trance, Gao Huan did not know who was exclaiming.
"The enemy's teleportation array has taken shape. It's pointless to ruin the ground facilities now. Let's report to the military department now!"
Gao Huan thought he had slept for a long time when he relived his life with his wife in the dream.
But when he opened his eyes again, he found that he was still in the light tank that smelled like a sour can, next to his defeated, blackened companions.
Gao Huan soon figured out their situation through the light beams.
There were fifteen armed tanks when they set off, but only three escaped from the Unchaotic Valley.
Behind them, the sky had been riddled with wormholes, through which the starships of the Covenant Alliance were arriving. Some of their commanders had even landed and were sprawling all over the planet like a tide.
"This planet is doomed. Chances are that the whole Thick Soil Sector is over."
Flea's left eye had turned into a bloody hole, but he was still laughing. "It seems that the Covenant Alliance has summoned their main troops to this bloody planet through a new teleportation technology. There are other portals for the Covenant Alliance besides the Unchaotic Valley. They're ten times more than the garrison of this place. We can't win this war."
"We…"
Holding back his sickness, Gao Huan asked, "What do we do? Return to our base?"
"Our base was the focus of the enemy's bombardment. It's already been blown up!"
Flea said to Gao Huan, "Now, the whole planet is occupied by the Covenant Alliance. Our reconnaissance mission is unimportant now. We better try to save our own lives first!"
"But—"
Gao Huan wanted to ask where they could possibly run to if the whole planet was occupied by the Covenant Alliance and their base was destroyed.
"We'll go to the Long Wind Canyon. There's a spaceport that has been abandoned for decades. General Yun and his accomplices hid three fast shuttles there with fuel and everything as their backup plan."
The captain grinned. With the blood on his face, he looked even more like a gorilla. He said cockily, "Those interrogators of the military department did not elicit that information from me at all!"
"Is this…"
Gao Huan thought for a moment and asked, "Is this desertion?"
"Of course not!"
The captain smiled shamelessly. "The garrison of the Thick Soil Sector is about to be destroyed due to the new teleportation array or whatever it was that the Covenant Alliance had hidden earlier, and we're the only people who have witnessed it in person. This piece of intelligence is very important, alright? So, we're not deserting! We are delivering the precious intelligence to His Majesty, Lei Chenghu, the Black Wind King, and the other b*stards in the capital. We're going to be heroes!"
Gao Huan was rendered speechless. His head was a mess.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Suddenly, several fireballs rose behind him, and their blasts made the three tanks hobble on the uneven mountain road.
"Damn it! The starship is after us again!"
The gunner roared, "I cannot lock onto it at all on this bumpy road. Also, our cannon is too weak. Unless we stop the tank and transmit all the spiritual energy to the cannon, it's impossible to shoot the starship down! We can never make it to the Long Wind Canyon if it tails us!"
There was nothing but silence in the tank.
"Let me stay."
Staring at the burning horizon behind him, Gao Huan suddenly said, "Give the tank to me. You'll all go to the other two tanks. I'll cover up for you."
"Have you lost your mind?"
Flea grew anxious. "You will die if you stay! We have to go!"
"No, I can't go."
Gao Huan smiled. "I saw Jiang Xue just now. It's really her. I'm not crazy. I cannot leave her alone here."
All the soldiers were stupefied, but none of them dared to question him—not after they saw the hope in Gao Huan's eyes.
"Wake up already!"
Flea, his best friend, was still hoping to talk some sense into him. "Even if she is really Jiang Xue, so what? How are you going to save your wife when this whole planet has been occupied by the Covenant Alliance? Besides, she's been brainwashed by the Covenant Alliance, and all her feelings and memories about you are gone. Why would she go with you?
"There will only be two possibilities if you stay. You will either die, or even worse, you will also be captured and brainwashed by the Covenant Alliance. Then what? You and your wife both serve the Covenant Alliance? Isn't it pointless?"
"No, it is not."
With the fire of devotion running in his eyes, Gao Huan said, "I will not forget my wife even if I'm brainwashed. Also, I don't believe that Jiang Xue has forgotten me even though she's brainwashed."
"Do you know that she recognized me just now? She really did. I'm not drunk, and it's not my illusion. I saw the light in her eyes. She recognized me! She was not completely brainwashed!
"So, as long as I can find her in the Covenant Alliance, I will definitely restore her feelings and memories as well as mine, and we're going to escape together!"
Chapter 2695: Take You Home! |
"Do you really think you're a Love God?"
Flea's bloody eye socket was almost spewing out a fire as he glared at his best friend. "I know that you haven't recovered at all. You're absolutely crazy! Someone, help me tie him up in case he does crazy things again!"
"Don't tie me up! Let me go!"
Gao Huan's eyes were bloodshot too, making him look like a ferocious wolf. "You need someone to cover the retreat for you, and I have reasons not to leave, so I'll stay! Flea, don't argue with me, or none of us will get to go!
"Boss, stop the tank, please! You know I'm not crazy! I simply can't watch Jiang Xue suffer here. I really saw her just now. I really did! Please trust me! I won't return to the capital as long as she's here. It's impossible!"
"Stop the tank…"
The captain gave the order after a long silence.
They accelerated in a turn to temporarily escape from the Covenant Alliance's starship. Then, they found a hideout, where all of them crammed into two tanks and left most of the ammos as well as an intact tank for Gao Huan.
