Chapter 266: Support Force

Yu Sheng didn't know how many eerie, horrifying figures had emerged from the fog in that instant—he only knew they were everywhere, swaying, humanoid outlines sketched by abstract colored lines as if they were materializing directly from the air. In the blink of an eye, they filled his field of vision, and as time passed, they multiplied rapidly, eventually converging into a tide that surged through the entire block.

Cluster-type entities—now Yu Sheng understood what the word "cluster" meant when applied to entities.

And he strongly suspected that he had just encountered the maximum cluster count of the "Carnival Crowd" entity… The swaying figures on the street definitely numbered over ten thousand!

The crowd surged forward. Illusory, continuous cheers, cannon salutes, balloon bursts, and a warped festive tune that seemed to come from both the sky and the ground—all kinds of sounds echoed through the entire block. Those ridiculous yet terrifying figures stretched out their hands toward the group, while twisted fissures burst open on their chaotic heads, fissures that resembled maniacal laughter, welcoming the guests to join the formless, endless carnival.

"Aoow—"

A wolf howl tore through the noise in the fog. Countless shadow wolves charged at the ever-approaching chaotic line entities, tearing them into even more chaotic remnants. Then came a barrage of foxfire from the sky. Hu Li maintained her nine-tailed fox form, her silver-white tails spreading out like blooming flowers, as dense, scorching barrages lashed like whips against the cluster entities.

But there were too many of them. No matter how fiercely the wolf pack and foxfire barrages battered the crowd, entities kept breaking through the blockade and reaching the group.

Yu Sheng swung his "battle staff," smashing the revelers that charged at him into pieces one by one, while trying to avoid direct contact with these bizarre things—even accidentally touching the "colors" that burst from them upon death had to be avoided.

Individual "revelers" weren't actually a threat; they were easy to eliminate. Yu Sheng even felt that the feedback from striking these things with his staff was weaker than when he had fought the wolves in the Black Forest. But their endless numbers and the strange noise that nearly tore his eardrums quickly became an immense pressure.

Whenever a reveler was eliminated, its body would explode into countless colorful paper shreds, like confetti from a party popper, scattering into the air. Within minutes, these colorful scraps covered the entire street surface.

Revelers kept pouring out. Tens of thousands of cluster-type entities were still rapidly generating from the fog.

"This stuff is more deadly than that 'Ink Stain' earlier!" Irene shrieked. "Isn't there a weakness?!"

"Theoretically, if we were in the foreign realm 'Nameless Carnival,' all we'd have to do is find a plaster clown with a balloon hat on its head and drink the sweet wine it offers, and then the crowd would leave!" Little Red Riding Hood shouted angrily while struggling to maintain the wolf pack's encirclement. "But this place… this place isn't the Nameless Carnival! Where are we supposed to find a clown?!"

"If it really comes down to it, we should retreat…" Irene tugged at Yu Sheng's hair. "We really can't finish them all… These entities' restriction conditions are all in their original foreign realms. Now that they've appeared here, they've broken free—they have no weaknesses!"

Yu Sheng gritted his teeth. He certainly didn't want to retreat—they had come to rescue someone, and they hadn't even seen a trace of that person yet. But continuing to be entangled here also seemed pointless. The revelers' generation speed was abnormally fast, and worse, they were all mechanic-type monsters. The "untouchable" property made most breakthrough attempts extremely risky. In this situation, it really seemed like the only option left was to open the door and run…

But just then, he heard a strange buzzing sound in the air.

It was like a high-frequency interference signal, stirring up the already chaotic noise.

"Aaaah!" Irene immediately started yelling. "What's this now?! Is there no end to…"

Before she could finish her shout, a flash of light suddenly cut through the air. The light landed among the carnival crowd, causing a stunning explosion.

Then came more flashes—a fire support of unknown origin blanketed the block, tearing one huge gap after another through the carnival crowd.

Yu Sheng instinctively looked up.

One after another, massive figures clad in black power armor, two to three meters tall, materialized directly out of the air about ten meters high, then crashed down like cannonballs onto the entity clusters gathered on the street.

More than a dozen of these heavy warriors descended abruptly from the sky. Before they even landed, they used their jetpacks and waist-mounted thrusters to sweep away a group of enemies, then, in the blink of an eye, with dazzlingly skilled coordination, they formed seven or eight fire support points on this chaotic battlefield. They began covering each other and unleashing frantic firepower at all moving objects on the entire street that didn't seem like allies.

The weapons in their hands were huge and heavy, emitting balls of light that were clearly not bullets. Upon contact with anything, they directly exploded into scorching spheres over a meter in diameter, instantly burning and vaporizing everything within range. Another dozen or so soldiers in light power armor weaved through the battlefield, using beam sabers in their hands to continuously clear out entities that broke through the defenses.

And they didn't worry at all about contacting the color-line outlines of those "revelers" that had assimilation properties—because not only were they fully encased in power armor, but the armor also had thick energy shields on the outside.

Irene sat on Yu Sheng's shoulder, staring wide-eyed at the scene on the street. After a long while, she let out a single: "Wow—"

"The Special Operations Bureau finally showed up," Little Red Riding Hood let out a long breath, but there was also deep shock in her eyes. "But so many… That's got to be seventy or eighty Deep Divers… I've never seen a deployment this size."

Yu Sheng didn't say anything. He just watched the group of two-to-three-meter-tall power-armored warriors slicing through the enemy on the street with surprise and curiosity. The more he looked, the more familiar the equipment seemed.

Then he saw one of the "black cans," about two meters tall, step out of the formation, flanked by two slightly smaller power-armored soldiers. When they reached Hu Li, who was in her nine-tailed fox form, the "black can" raised a hand and tapped its helmet.

The heavy faceplate opened, revealing Xu Jiali's goofy, simple smile underneath.

Xu Jiali looked up at the magnificent nine-tailed fox before him, then glanced at the thick layer of colorful confetti covering the ground around Yu Sheng's group. After a long pause, he blurted out: "…You guys really can fight. When I was diving halfway and saw ten thousand cluster entities surrounding you, my blood ran cold. I'd already figured out where the director would bury me after I got back…"

"Stop flattering us. If you'd been two minutes later, we were about to run," Little Red Riding Hood said with a tired look beside him. "Good thing you brought so many people."

"Everyone on standby at headquarters came. We heard the situation was weird, and the 'Deep Echo' from the locator had some very off-putting activity," Xu Jiali said. Without looking back, he raised his hand and shot several "revelers" that were staggering out of the fog. That gun looked like it might be heavier than Little Red Riding Hood, yet this brute lifted it with one hand as if it were a feather. "If we'd had more time, we would have brought the 'Hunter Owl' in."

Irene: "What's that?"

Xu Jiali explained happily: "An atmospheric bomber. Since it has a machine spirit, it can perform 'Deep Dive' missions like us. It just takes a bit longer to prepare."

At this moment, Yu Sheng, who had been silent all along, suddenly blinked. He finally realized it, and the memory clicked into place in his mind—

"Ah! I recognize it!" He pointed at Xu Jiali's power armor. "Earlier, when I opened the door, I saw two people fighting on an alien planet, and one of them was wearing this kind of…"

The expression on Xu Jiali's face froze instantly.

He had almost forgotten about that…

Yu Sheng immediately noticed the change in the other's expression. At first, he was just surprised that Xu Jiali's armor matched his memory, but now he directly jumped to a more likely truth: "…Was that you?"

Xu Jiali raised his hand to scratch his head, but ended up scratching his helmet, producing a clang.

"Yeah, that was me." He said a bit awkwardly.

Yu Sheng: "…"

Xu Jiali: "…"

Then the two of them spoke almost simultaneously:

"Why didn't you say so?"

"You never asked!"

"Well, mainly…" After a couple of seconds, Xu Jiali finally spoke with a very awkward face. "At first, I had to consider confidentiality, since that was a secret mission. And then I never found the right opportunity. After all, there are things that if you don't say at the start…"

He raised his hand and fired another shot (Yu Sheng really couldn't call that thing a "gun" anymore), blowing several revelers that had managed to escape from his comrades' fire net into colorful confetti fluttering in the sky. Then he continued: "If you don't say it at first, then later you never find the right moment to bring it up."

Yu Sheng thought about it, then curled the corner of his mouth: "Alright, I can understand that."

Then he carefully looked over Xu Jiali's entire getup.

"So, this is you fully armed? No wonder you said before that you weren't in 'battle mode.'"

"Fully armed would also require a psychic-controlled fire support shuttle, two walking tactical robots, several light drones, and a psychic attendant," Xu Jiali shrugged. "But that's the configuration for external expedition missions. Here in the Borderlands, everything is downgraded. The time you saw me before was a bit unexpected—I got into an encounter with a cultist and didn't have time to prepare. Fortunately, I was the better fighter in the end…"

(End of Chapter)