Chapter 286 - 277: "Commander

Chapter 286: Chapter 277: "Commander

Fu Juemin dragged his great saber along the driveway he’d come from. Suddenly, two beams of orange light cut through the downpour.

A black stretch sedan swayed as it drove toward him.

The people in the car seemed to have seen him, and the horn blared a long, sustained note.

Fu Juemin stopped and squinted at the approaching car. The next second—

KLANG—

The giant, door-sized butcher knife slammed onto the ground, splashing muddy water everywhere. The figure of Fu Juemin, who had been dragging it with one hand just a moment ago, had vanished.

In the heavy rain, the moving sedan suddenly lurched violently before screeching to a halt.

Raindrops PITTER-PATTERED against the windows. Even with the doors and windows tightly shut, the car was filled with the thick smell of damp air.

Right then, the few people sitting in the front and back of the car were staring in shock at a figure that had abruptly and inexplicably appeared in the very last row.

The figure sat with its head bowed, rainwater dripping from the tips of its hair and down its cheeks. In the dim light, punctuated by flashes of lightning, he looked like a phantom.

Suddenly, he lifted his head, revealing a handsome face with a sinister smile.

Several armed guards finally reacted and immediately went for their guns. But before their hands could even touch their holsters, a figure pounced on them like a ghost.

CRACK—

CRACK!

In a relatively confined space, taking out a few ordinary men with guns was no different to Fu Juemin than crushing a few ants.

He went around snapping the necks of everyone in the car, including the driver.

As he was twisting the neck of the fourth person, a terrified shout suddenly erupted from the side. "Don’t kill me! I’m Luo Zhengxiong!"

"Eh?"

Fu Juemin’s hand, wrapped around a soldier’s neck, froze. He slowly turned, looking with surprise at a middle-aged man cowering in the corner, pale and trembling.

’If you’re Luo Zhengxiong, then who did I just kill?’

Fu Juemin scanned the man up and down and suddenly realized.

"I almost forgot, Luo Zhengxiong has a body double."

Fu Juemin shook his head in self-mockery. Hearing this, the man was so shocked he forgot his fear. He just stared, demanding in disbelief, "Who in the world are you?!"

Unfortunately, he received no answer. The next instant, a hand like an iron clamp seized his neck and yanked him forward.

Outside the window, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky.

The brilliant light shone through the window, illuminating Fu Juemin’s profile.

He looked at the "Luo Zhengxiong" in his grasp, whose face was already turning purple from the pressure, his gaze falling on the commander’s uniform the man was wearing. He smiled faintly and murmured to himself, "I was originally planning to hide in the shadows and wait for a chance to just charge in.

You’ve come at the perfect time...

Now, I have an even better idea."

...

Five minutes later, the personal sedan of the Jianghai Defense Command’s commander-in-chief returned to the battlefield.

The guards hastily welcomed the returning Commander Luo back into the operations building.

On the top floor of the main operations building, Fu Juemin—having used [Painted Hide] to assume Luo Zhengxiong’s appearance and donned an imposing commander’s uniform—viciously kicked open the door to the temporary command center and strode in decisively.

"Commander!!"

Inside the brightly lit, smoke-filled command center, several officers with worried expressions saw Fu Juemin enter and immediately stood to salute.

Fu Juemin didn’t even look at them. His eyes casually swept over the empty hall as he said flatly, "Just the few of you? Where is everyone else?"

A handsome young officer in his thirties averted his gaze and stammered, "Chief of Staff Chen and the others... had some business to attend to, so they left."

"Left? I’d say they saw the Momentum was turning against us and ran."

Fu Juemin walked forward with a "dark expression," pushed open a west-facing window of the command center, letting in a blast of wind and rain. Staring into the distance, he held a hand out behind him.

"What’s the situation?"

A pair of high-grade military binoculars was promptly placed in his hand. The young officer who had spoken earlier replied in a strained tone, "It’s... not looking good."

The sky was dark, but it was still daytime. With more than a dozen searchlights trained on the large parade ground at the center of the base, Fu Juemin had a panoramic view from his position in the operations building.

Through the binoculars, Fu Juemin easily spotted a crimson shadow moving about in a frenzy.

The Centipede Spirit’s fiery markings were all glowing, and flames that even the heavy rain couldn’t extinguish burned on almost every one of its legs.

Thick, dark clouds gathered above its head, faintly forming a massive vortex. Lightning rolled within them, flashing with unsettling brilliance from time to time...

The frenzied Centipede Spirit darted back and forth amidst a barrage of machine-gun bullets and artillery shells, leaving a trail of destruction everywhere.

Because he was quite far away, and the Centipede Spirit was moving too fast, Fu Juemin couldn’t tell if it was injured.

But based on the mutual sensory connection between Demon Fiends, the Centipede Spirit’s condition seemed to be fine. Gorged on flesh and blood, it showed no signs of leaving yet, but the army’s morale was clearly on the verge of collapse.

"We’ve tried luring it out of the base a few more times, but we failed...

We don’t know why this... this Centipede Demon suddenly attacked us. Right now, the safest option is..."

The young officer standing beside Fu Juemin stammered, "Leave a portion of our men behind to hold it off, and have the rest retreat first.

Once this Centipede Demon has had its fill of rampaging, it might... just leave on its own."

"You want me, Luo Zhengxiong, to abandon my post and flee for my life?"

Fu Juemin lowered the binoculars and turned to look at the young officer beside him.

The officer met his gaze, and his handsome face immediately turned deathly pale. He tensed up and saluted. "That’s not what I meant at all, sir.

This is just... just..."

The young officer forced himself to say, "A strategic retreat."

"We have so many men. Are we really going to be run off by a single little centipede?"

Fu Juemin looked at him and asked, "What’s your name?"

"He Lin, sir!"

"Good."

Fu Juemin nodded and said calmly, "From now on, you are promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff of the Jianghai Guard Bureau.

Until Chief of Staff Chen returns, you will have full command of this battle..."

Fu Juemin turned, pointed to a location in the distance, and said in a level voice, "Right now, you figure out a way to lure the centipede to the armory. Then, find me an iron rod. The thicker and longer, the better...

If we can finish off the centipede in this battle, I will immediately wire Central and have you decorated for merit."

The young officer stood frozen, completely stunned by Fu Juemin’s string of commands.

After a long moment, his body began to tremble.

Not from fear, but from excitement and exhilaration.

A drunken flush appeared on his face. Then, he stomped his foot and saluted sharply. "I will absolutely not fail to live up to the Commander’s high expectations!"

With that, he rushed out of the command center, roaring, "Get every man you can find up here for me!!"

Fu Juemin stood by the window, listening to the young officer hoarsely shouting out a stream of orders in the hallway outside, his eyes fixed on the Centipede Spirit’s location.

He didn’t care about casualties, nor did he care about losses. He couldn’t be bothered to consider the methods used.

He had to thank Commander Luo’s underlings, a bunch of useless freeloaders who did nothing but party with Miss Wu in the command center every day. This was a godsent opportunity—to use Luo Zhengxiong’s soldiers to kill his Demon.

The young officer, who had been promoted on the spot by Fu Juemin, was surprisingly effective. Before long, the situation on the distant battlefield began to change.

It was unclear what promises he made to the men below, but a group of soldiers, fighting fearlessly, used an incredibly ferocious barrage of firepower to draw the Centipede Spirit’s aggro, bit by bit.

Fu Juemin even spotted two tracked, ultra-light tanks among them. ’Seems Commander Luo’s years of being a dog for the Westerners weren’t entirely for nothing!’

Everything went even more smoothly than expected. The enraged Centipede Spirit charged straight into the armory.

Then—

BOOM—!!!

Heaven knows how many tons of explosives He Lin had prepared on short notice. In any case, the moment that blinding, orange mushroom cloud began to rise, Fu Juemin could clearly feel the entire operations building trembling beneath his feet.

The blast wave shattered countless windows. The sounds of gunfire and cannons on the base’s parade ground abruptly ceased. At that moment, almost everyone was staring blankly at the spot where the mushroom cloud was rising.

A heatwave swept over every corner of the vast base.

For a moment, it seemed as if heaven and earth had fallen silent.

Until a terrifying shriek tore through the silence—a horrifying centipede-like shadow, wreathed in raging flames, suddenly shot out from the explosion!

With his naked eye, Fu Juemin precisely caught sight of some visible damage on the hundred-meter-long shadow’s silhouette. Its terrifyingly evil Demon Fiend aura had also clearly weakened and become chaotic.

As a Flood Dragon Level Centipede Spirit whose abilities were clearly related to fire, its Fire Resistance was naturally not low.

Surviving the explosion and flames was reasonable, and entirely within Fu Juemin’s expectations.

"However, in this state... it should be about enough."

Fu Juemin narrowed his eyes, glanced up at the thunderous, lightning-filled sky, then looked back at the rusty iron pillar—as thick as a thigh and a full seven or eight meters long—that the young officer had long since had his men carry into the command center.

He murmured to himself, ’Gu Shouyu, you’d better not have... screwed me over.’

With that said, Fu Juemin took a light breath, and in that instant—

He pushed the effect of the [Great Medicine] to its absolute limit!

The moment the deadly "medicinal fragrance" was released, the enraged and frantic Centipede Spirit in the distance seemed to have instantly found its target.

It transformed into a blinding streak of fire in the dim light, charging straight for the operations building!