Epoch of Twilight

Chapter 276: Desolated city

Translator: Insignia Editor: Svjohn

The officer was very strict, and the contingent was surging forward.

"The officer should be an evolved man as well, otherwise, those people would not obey his instructions." Luo Yuan felt relieved as he had such a reliable and powerful teammate. They should be able to complete the mission smoothly.

He was afraid that he had stupid teammates which would end up being a burden to him instead. Although the officer was quite dominant, Luo Yuan understood that they needed someone like that to control all these self-centered evolved men.

Anyway, the mission was very dangerous as mentioned by the system and Luo Yuan felt stressed about it. It was good to have that officer as their leader and Luo Yuan believed that he might do the same thing if chaos struck and there was no leader. However, he would not be an official one. Luo Yuan suddenly had the idea that if the officer killed one of the evolved men to warn the rest not to disobey that would further increase the likelihood of the men obeying his every command.

The iron grill of the refuge slowly opened and the team was greeted by familiar sounds created by the hydraulic jet. All the sounds outside became clearer now and they could clearly hear mutated beasts scratching against the iron door. It was extremely annoying.

A few of the evolved men began to sweat and their footsteps were getting slower. The reason that they were still running was simply because they wanted to maintain their image and to avoid disobeying military instructions. When they passed by the stairs of the corridor, the officer raised his hand to ask them to stop. He was giving them instructions on what to do when the iron grill opened. The officer used hand signals to instruct them to be alert and then they heard bullets being loaded. Most of the military evolved men lifted their rifles as well and readied themselves to shoot. The breaths of every man became heavy.

Time passed and the iron grill slowly opened. The scene outside was now reflected clearly in their eyes and they realized all the mutated beasts were missing.

"There is nothing! Seems like they have been frightened by the sound of the opening door." A big guy quickly checked the surroundings and then chuckled.

"Shut up! Everyone be alert! The mutated beasts which have made it this far would not be so stupid. I suspect…" The Lieutenant Colonel warned them.

Before he could finish his sentence, a huge bug the size of a bread car emerged from a hidden place. Its black and metallic limbs popped out in a flash and stabbed directly into the forehead of the guy who was laughing earlier. His strong skull was penetrated by the alloy-like limb of the mutated bug.

Even the speedy recovery power which Lin Xiaoji had could not save him from that kind of injury. His eyes were opened wide with a partial grin on his face as he could not believe it. His body shook a little and he died before he got to use his power. Perhaps, hunting would be considered quite easy compared to this.

The mutated bug did not leave immediately. It scanned the surroundings with its eye. Perhaps, it thought that was an easy source of food. However, its thoughts were quickly disturbed by the firing of a gun which was specially designed to kill mutated beasts. 15mm tungsten core with armor piercing and a big diameter. The bullets flew out from the muzzle at a speed of 900 meters per second. Its power was much stronger than the Barrett Sniper Rifle that had existed before the end of the world. Due to the post-apocalyptic interruption of global shipping, many countries became lonely islands and many of the technologies had been lost.

However, these military technologies were well preserved. After the start of the apocalypse, the whole society had struggled to survive as many of the resources in the society were allocated towards the military. The obvious result was that the military technology developed drastically. At the moment, what is clear is that they have a stronger version of bullets and alloys. This was coupled with evolved men with strong physiques who had survived until this very moment. When the enemies changed from humans to mutated beasts, certain super-weapons began to appear. And the modern rifle was one of those weapons.

The hard shell of the mutated bug shattered into powder under the powerful attack. Each of its wounds were around 20-30 cm in diameter. Some of the wounds on its abdomen were a few big holes as the bullets penetrated the abdomen.

The mutated bug shrieked sharply and then fell onto the ground.

…

He was just laughing at someone and then died in an instant. Even though they are fully aware the high possibility of death from the mission, they still felt shocked by how quickly it all happened.

Luo Yuan remained silent and held his saber tightly. The mutated bug they encountered was not that powerful after all. At most, it could be a dark blue creature, which at that moment was considered very easy to kill. However, because Luo Yuan was walking in a packed crowd, he would not be able to do anything even if a mutated bug suddenly appeared in front of them.

"I say once again... no talking along the journey... no shouting. Move, now!!" The Lieutenant Colonel shouted and then called two soldiers to move the corpse aside.

Everyone was more familiar to the cruel world of today and did not even care about how the corpse was being handled. It was almost 2 pm which was the hottest time in a day. The haze in the sky above Desert City had disappeared and it seemed like a sign that the city would return to its forest age.

Luo Yuan took this opportunity to analyze the surroundings. The small town beside the quiet border has now become dull and dead. Most of the buildings were made from wood after the apocalypse. Perhaps, it was difficult for the mutated bugs to change their preference or it could be because they migrated without resting, hence, they did not mind to eat anything they found.

In his eyes, the entire city had become a wasteland except for a few tall buildings which were made from high-quality concrete. Those buildings probably stood there reluctantly. The haze and smoke have disappeared and the rest of the bugs were gone. There were only a handful of mutated bugs that remained in the city. Even then, some of them which were injured and abandoned by their community, while those which are severely injured should be dead by now and classified as food for other living bugs. It was not hard to spot carcasses along the journey surrounded by a big bunch of flies.

Even though Desert City has now become a dead town, it was still very dangerous. In the world of the animals, the lion which has just eaten would allow a zebra to run in its territory and would even allow hyenas to fight for food or challenge each other in front of it. However, a hungry lion will hunt all living things within its vision. If the lion was injured, perhaps its strength would be weaker but the power it would put into its attacks would be the strongest because it would die if it missed the chance.

Over the past few days, many people had been attacked by injured mutated bugs once they stepped out from the refuge. These bugs seemed to have totally lost all rationality. Luo Yuan saw a bug which had lost its lower body dragging its internal organs with a greenish liquid oozing out. It was struggling to rush towards him. However, it was not a big deal to those evolved men who were already well prepared.

Only now did Luo Yuan realize he had underestimated these evolved men. Although most of them were not very powerful, some of them had very strong strengths while others had good dexterity. Luo Yuan even saw an evolved man with three eyes and another had two faces in one body along with four arms. All these sights had widened his perspective.

Although all those evolved men had different kinds of powers, they were nothing if compared to Luo Yuan’s capabilities. However, the powerful weapons and their special physique could be very useful to the team. In the group, there were a few evolved men who gained Luo Yuan’s respects. One of the evolved men seemed to be able to control metal. He was so powerful that the metal in the wasteland flowed like water. A huge mutated bug which did not even manage to get closer than 20 meters had already been speared by a metal bar. After the attack, the metal melted and flew towards him before traveling up from his feet. Within mere seconds, it became a silver armor.

Another evolved man could vaporize the air within a three to four meter radius around him. Even if stones were in front of him, they would turn to dust. Luo Yuan could not control his excitement and kept watching. The power of telekinesis is very powerful and scary. However, if those stupid bugs did not try to attack, they would not know how powerful it is. Based on Luo Yuan’s observation, he would have become dust as well if he entered this evolved man’s force field without any protection or defense. Luo Yuan likened the situation to possessing a gun as a kid. The strong power a gun had and the ability to use it in a real fight were two different matters.