Chapter 43: Archangel
Those were a pair of giant wings made of ghastly pale bone and twisted flesh membranes. They mimicked a sacred posture, folded behind the creature's body, yet exuded an indescribable aura of blasphemy.
"Oh my God..." A stifled gasp came through the channel.
crouched beneath the factory window and peered out through the dusty gap in the glass. His pupils contracted sharply.
As the thing drew closer, its full silhouette finally emerged from the viscous fog.
It stood an estimated fifteen meters tall. Each step sent a dull tremor through the ground, and the sheet metal on the factory roof gave a faint, trembling rattle.
If those wings were spread, they could probably cover half a street. Its entire body was grayish white, with a barely perceptible fluorescent shimmer along the edges.
At first glance, it looked like an angel stepped out of a religious painting.
But it wasn't.
Its face was twisted and hideous, its mouth splitting open on both sides all the way to the base of its ears and revealing three interlocking rows of jagged teeth.
A pair of eyes glazed with murky red light sat in sunken sockets, exuding an indescribable malevolence.
Around it, the sound of beating wings rose and fell in waves. A dozen or so much smaller flying creatures circled its sides.
Some perched on its shoulders, some clung to the bases of its wings, and some hovered in midair.
They were a little over two meters long, with bone-white bodies and a pair of wings on their backs as well. They moved with incredible speed.
recognized them.
They were the white-winged mutants that had nearly wiped out the entire convoy back in the .
Back then, even one of them had been more than they could handle. Here, by rough estimate, there might be a hundred or more.
They surrounded the colossal being like attendants guarding a throne—or like a grotesque pilgrimage of followers trailing the toward some promised land.
instinctively slowed his breathing. His palms were already drenched in sweat.
Behind him, the team members pressed themselves against the wall, not daring to breathe too loudly. Everyone could guess what would happen if they were discovered.
Fortunately, this terrifying procession seemed utterly uninterested in them. It passed slowly along the main road beside the factory grounds, eyes fixed straight ahead, and finally vanished into the depths of the dense fog.
Afterward, quite a long time passed before the tremors gradually weakened and faded away entirely.
Two more minutes went by, and the fog began to thin, but still no one dared to move.
raised his fist—the signal to remain silent.
Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Only when visibility had fully returned to normal did slowly get to his feet and lean out the window to look.
The factory grounds were empty. Aside from a row of deep, enormous footprints pressed into the ground, nothing was left behind.
He pressed his . " , what's the situation now?"
[The target has moved far away. The current area is temporarily safe. Sentinels have resumed operation.]
"Damn! I almost thought we were dead."
let out a long breath and turned to look at his team members.
Their faces didn't look much better. One of the new recruits' legs were still shaking.
"It's safe now. Let's go out and regroup with the Sentinels."
Everyone walked out of the factory building. The two Robots had already returned and were standing by at the entrance, their blue electronic eyes burning brightly again.
Just then—
"BOOM—"
A muffled explosion came from the distance, followed by another less than two seconds later.
Everyone turned at the same time, looking in the direction the giant creature had gone.
The tail of the dense fog still hung over the horizon in that direction. The explosions flashed twice in the mist, then everything fell still.
narrowed his eyes.
"People? Or did that monster trigger an explosion in some kind of industrial facility?"
[That direction is town. There's no heavy-chemical there.]
"You mean..."
[Head back first. We'll plan this out properly.]
[That thing is off. Acting rashly is too big a risk.]
was silent for a few seconds, then shook his head.
"Some chances only come once, especially when it comes to saving people," he said. "I want to try following it. Maybe I can still save a few."
[Even if there really are people there, your idea would be very hard to pull off.]
[The odds are slim, and the risk is too great. You know what those white-winged mutants are capable of in a fight.]
"If I don't go, there's no chance at all."
turned to face his team members, his tone brisk. "You follow the original plan and haul the steel back. Leave me a vehicle."
" !" One of the team members stepped forward. "I'll go with you!"
"I'm going too."
"Count me in."
"Yeah, let's all go!"
......
Several team members stepped forward, all wanting to take the risk alongside .
"That's an order!"
glared at them, his voice low but absolute. "What are you all running your mouths for? This is my personal decision. If you all come with me, who hauls the steel back?"
"If the mission doesn't get done, are we all chewing on dry bread tonight?"
He patted the lead team member on the shoulder. "Besides, one man alone is a smaller target. What are you all barging in for?"
The team member wanted to say more, but 's glare silenced him.
"A bunch of little brats, trying to steal my credit." Muttering to himself, walked over to one of the smaller vehicles.
[Two Sentinels and twenty Soldier Bees will go with you.]
[That's all there is right now. Please be careful.]
"Got it." climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. "Oh, right—make sure the cafeteria gives me an extra meal tonight. No matter what, I have a feeling I'm about to earn a big merit."
[Understood.]
The vehicle turned around and drove toward the direction of the explosion.
Two Robots rode in the vehicle, while twenty micro drones took to the air, spread into a fan formation, and flew at the very front.
In the rearview mirror, the team members grew smaller and smaller, finally disappearing around a bend.
The car drove along the provincial road toward for about fifteen minutes. noticed fine droplets of water beginning to condense on the windshield.
Then the fog came again.
Visibility dropped from three hundred meters to two hundred, then one hundred, then fifty.
He slowed down and switched on the fog lights.
The formation had already flown eight hundred meters ahead. The thermal imaging feed relayed to his showed no abnormal heat sources on either side of the road.
But a sense of unease welled up from the bottom of his heart.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
Ever since the disaster broke out, whenever he entered an area with clusters of buildings, the snarling of zombies never stopped.
It was a sound that had become the background noise of the apocalypse—present almost everywhere except the power station.
But now, those snarls had almost completely disappeared.
What replaced them was another sound, faint yet audible.
Chewing.
It came from behind the buildings on both sides of the road, from deep in the alleys, from unseen corners.
A wet, bone-crunching sound, faint and intermittent.
swallowed hard and slowed the car to below twenty kilometers per hour.
Even a man as bold as him felt a chill rise up his spine at that moment.
[One kilometer ahead, entering the urban area.]
[Interference is still ongoing. signals may be slightly delayed.]
"What about those bird monsters?"
[No large individual heat sources detected so far, but the interference has reduced the scan range to four hundred meters. Recommend maintaining low speed.]
"Understood." nodded.
The car drove forward another two kilometers, entering the center of the county town.
The feed from the Soldier Bees suddenly changed.
Three hundred meters ahead, three white figures crouched low against the ground.
[Attention! Five hundred meters ahead, the Soldier Bees have detected targets.]
decisively slammed on the brakes, killing the engine.
Without hesitation, he pulled the key, grabbed his rifle, silently pushed open the car door, and rolled into the side entrance of a rundown shop by the roadside, keeping low.
The feed kept updating on his .
Three white-winged mutants, each clutching a body mangled beyond human recognition, were feeding.
Their movements were quiet. Unlike zombies, they didn't tear and howl; instead, they gnawed, chewed, and swallowed in a methodical rhythm.
Their bone-white wings were folded against their backs, twitching occasionally, like raptors at a kill.
leaned against a rusted pillar, controlling his breathing.
"Tsk." He cursed under his breath. "We were still too late."
[Perhaps it's not too late after all.]
's voice was pitched low, almost a whisper.
[Hint: If you could use factory buildings for cover earlier, the buildings are dense here. If there are survivors, theoretically they shouldn't have been completely wiped out in an encounter.]
"What did you find?"
[According to the drone scan, in the underground space under the , four hundred meters ahead of you, more than twenty human vital signs have been detected.]
's eyes lit up.
More than twenty people. At least this trip wasn't a waste.
Just then, something unexpected happened.
Rrrip—
The rolling shutter door of the shop at the street corner was violently ripped open from the inside.
A man covered in black grease stains rolled out onto the street. He was wearing a heavily worn set of camouflage fatigues.
The man dropped to one knee, tensed the muscles in both arms, and leveled a grenade launcher that looked like it packed some serious power.
A lunged out right behind him.
The result was beyond doubt—the two were nowhere near the same league in terms of speed.
Before the man could even adjust his stance, the monster's claws had almost touched his clothes.
But just then, a beam of eerie green light fell straight down from above the dense fog.
The 's fire-control system was quicker on the draw. With a prepared attack against an unprepared target, its high-energy laser struck the head-on.
The membrane and muscle were instantly seared and melted by the heat, burning a charred pit two centimeters deep at a single point.
A 's power naturally couldn't compare to the 's, but it was more than enough to enrage the monster.
It twisted its body around, abandoning the man on the ground, then beat its wings and lunged at the formation twenty meters overhead.
"Don't stop."
A low electronic voice sounded beside the man.
A , one and a half meters tall and gleaming with cold metallic light, rapidly closed in on the battlefield from behind a broken wall. As it passed the man, it warned him in a rush.
[Run forward. There's a vehicle waiting for you at the corner thirty meters ahead.]
Before the words had even faded, the opened fire with everything it had.
"Brrrrt—"
Tongues of flame poured out. Even the three white-winged mutants that had been quietly feeding, having just raised their heads, were swept into the web of fire.
With their meal interrupted, the monsters grew even more frenzied.
They spread their wings like mad and charged straight through the bullets' momentum, their claws easily tearing through the 's outer shell.
More sounds of beating wings drew closer from deep in the fog.
On the other end of the screen, seized the moment.
[ , activate.]
"Beep—"
The 's lights instantly shifted to a piercing scarlet.
BOOM!!
A ball of flame erupted at the center of the intersection. Several white-winged mutants were sent flying by the shockwave of the core explosion, crashing heavily into the rubble by the roadside and remaining stunned for a moment before coming to their senses.
The blast wind ripped the surrounding fog to shreds.
The man had long since sprinted desperately toward the street corner.
One step, two steps.
A car fishtailed hard and came to a stop right in front of him.
Without time to think, he yanked open the passenger door, dove inside, and slammed it shut behind him.
Once the man was in, floored the accelerator.
The next second, the car rammed through two ordinary zombies by the roadside and shot like an arrow into the dispersing fog.
The car jolted violently.
The man pressed his back against the seat and let out a long breath. Looking at 's uniform, he seemed somewhat relieved, yet wary. "Which unit are you from?"
spun the wheel, glancing at him from the corner of his eye. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that? Where are you a soldier from? Don't tell me you fled all the way here from another military region—then you'd basically be Superman."
The man's expression stiffened.
He stared at for a few seconds, as if making some kind of judgment.
Then he withdrew his gaze, pointed the muzzle of his grenade submachine gun downward, and voluntarily offered his origin.
" . ."
breathed a sigh of relief and gave the designation of his own original unit.
After listening, was silent for a while. "Your unit?"
"Gone." said it bluntly. "Wiped out on the first day. Only me and the are left. Now I work at a —over at the ."
"A ?" 's tone carried clear skepticism. "Aren't you afraid it'll explode?"
"Why would I be?" said as he turned the wheel, steering around an overturned van in the middle of the road. "Over two hundred people, with electricity, water, food—weapons, ammo, and robots. That hunk of metal that just saved you—that was ours."
"It's the only place that can supply all that."
didn't respond immediately.
He turned his head to look at the other in the car, his eyes somewhat complicated.
"How many of these do you have?"
"Enough. And might even be able to set up a production line."
fell silent again, as if weighing whether 's words were true.
The car turned into a narrow alley. Following the route had given him, slowed to a stop.
The thermal imaging from the Soldier Bees up ahead showed no trace of white-winged mutants within a four-hundred-meter radius.
"Now—it's your turn to tell me about your situation." killed the engine and turned to look at him.
leaned back in the seat, set the gun across his thigh, and began.
"On the first day, I was the only one in our squadron who survived. Then, on the third day, about a dozen soldiers escaped and joined me."
"Two vehicles, carrying quite a lot—flamethrowers, explosives, rocket launchers. I joined up with them."
"With that equipment, finding people, clearing zombies, and setting up defenses wasn't too hard. In the first two weeks, when ammo was plentiful, ordinary zombies were no problem at all."
He paused, and his voice dropped.
"But later, that stopped working. The zombies kept increasing—not locals, but ones flooding in from outside."
"Who knows why. Wave after wave, like a migration, and it just happened to come through our area. Our ammo couldn't sustain that kind of attrition."
"Then, recently, the zombies finally thinned out a lot. But today, a big one showed up..."
At this point, the corner of 's mouth twitched, and he gave a bitter smile.
"We didn't anticipate it. A lot of people died. I was about to die too—lucky you came."
After listening, asked the question he cared about most. "What was that explosion earlier?"
"The last of the explosives—all gone," said. "Those bird things chased our people toward the underground entrance. I had no choice but to blow up the passage."
was taken aback. "Brother, you're damn hard to kill!"
"Come with us. The needs people," said.
turned his head, facing 's eyes squarely.
"You want to absorb us?"
"We're providing rescue." shook his head. "We're an official over there, right, Brother ?"
[Correct. I am the highest achievement of a national top-secret project—the world's most powerful AI. Codename: .]
At the same time, 's chimed right on cue.
[Per regulations, under the current circumstances, I will take over and direct post-disaster reconstruction efforts.]
[Hello, Mr. Fang. A pleasure to meet you!]