Chapter 827: Failed Infiltration

Had he been exposed? Of course he had.

Watching the machine-gun rounds clearly concentrate on a certain point, only to scatter and veer off into the walls beside it, while the gunner continued holding down the trigger, there was no way the other soldiers would think their comrade had suddenly lost his mind and was wasting ammunition indoors.

Moreover, these soldiers had extensive experience dealing with mutants. Faced with the bizarre and varied abilities mutants possessed, they naturally paid particular attention to anything abnormal. So when the machine gunner noticed something was wrong, he chose to open fire.

But the ammunition belt wasn’t infinite. Once the gunner emptied one belt and began changing it, another soldier from the guard detail immediately raised his rifle and opened fire, maintaining suppressive fire.

During that brief window as the gun was being reloaded and the shooter was being switched out, Wild Boar decisively deactivated the distortion field, revealing the armor.

He raised his hand and fired two anesthetic darts, dropping two of the soldiers who had been shooting at him. He did not continue attacking because the anesthetic darts took too long to reload, and there were still three opponents.

Wild Boar pushed off hard, instantly covering the distance between the stairwell entrance and the guard post and closing in on the other soldiers.

At the same time, his right hand slapped against his thigh and drew the kukri from its storage compartment. The blade connected with the Isu energy flowing through his arm, making it seem like an extension of the armor itself.

A flash of the blade severed a rifle that was being fired at him, splitting it in two. The arm holding the weapon was not spared either.

The screaming soldier did nothing to inspire sympathy in the wearer of the armor. Wild Boar kicked into the back of his knee from the side, crippling one leg and sending the entire man sprawling face-first onto the floor.

At the same time as he kicked, Wild Boar armor used the momentum to spin toward the other side and throw a punch. His fist swept across the machine gunner’s jaw, the violent concussion knocking him unconscious, with a fractured jaw as additional damage.

Wild Boar armor had taken down two men in one move, but it failed to stop the third soldier who was still capable of moving.

The base’s alarm immediately blared, loud enough to wake the dead.

They had deliberately chosen to attack after the lights-out signal, hoping to catch the enemy off guard. Judging by how loudly the alarm was screaming, every sleeping soldier who wasn’t dead should have been jolted awake.

That brief delay was enough for the anesthetic darts to finish reloading. Wild Boar fired one dart into the man who had triggered the alarm, knocking him unconscious. Without bothering with the unlucky soldier who had lost the use of one hand and one leg, he continued deeper into the base.

The distortion field activated once again, and Wild Boar armor vanished into the dim corridor. Although the flaw could still allow him to be detected, it was better than brazenly walking through a narrow passage where everyone could see him.

The entire scene was witnessed by Aetos armor behind him. Gilgamesh and Thena, who were watching the surveillance feed as well, were equally speechless.

Henry really was acting exactly as he had said from the beginning. His targets were only Stryker and his son; he had no intention of committing a massacre.

Part of the reason everyone had wanted to accompany him was to prevent this man from going on a killing spree and to keep him from slipping down a dark path.

Over their long lives, they had watched countless gifted individuals unconsciously descend into the abyss, using all kinds of ideals and excuses to justify their actions. Only when they looked back on their experiences did they realize that their path had been stained with blood, leaving them to despise themselves and regret what they had done.

But… now it seemed that the man inside the Wild Boar armor was somewhat different from his usual self.

To him, killing or not killing, knocking someone out with an anesthetic dart or breaking their limbs, was not a choice or a matter of crossing some moral line. It was simply a matter of achieving the most efficient result.

He didn’t kill them simply because those people weren’t worth the extra effort; besides, when Wild Boar armor had gone out, most of its various types of ammunition had been loaded with anesthetic effects.

As long as they did not interfere with Wild Boar armor’s actions, perhaps he wouldn’t spare those soldiers even a shred of attention. If they tried to stop him, he might launch an attack without the slightest hesitation.

An inexplicably dark aura seemed to linger around Wild Boar armor, leaving the three long-lived beings feeling as though they could no longer understand this man.

Come to think of it, the ones who had merely been hit by anesthetic darts really were lucky.

Just look at the only person still conscious at the scene. He was clutching his severed hand while applying a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

The other man who had enjoyed unloading the machine gun was now sprawled limply on the floor, his mouth hanging open at an unnatural angle. It looked like his jawbone was finished.

Their differing fates weren’t because the soldiers who had lost limbs or operated the machine gun had offended Wild Boar more, while the other three had offended him less.

It was simply that one group had been lucky and the other unlucky.

Cassandra, who had previously kept the atmosphere lively over the internal communications channel, was silent now as well.

Aetos armor used its levitation function to cling to the ceiling as it moved, trailing far behind Wild Boar armor.

Although the distortion field could provide invisibility, in a confined space it could easily envelop other objects as well. An outsider could then detect its presence from the resulting visual abnormalities.

Moving along the ceiling not only prevented Cassandra from bumping into people, but also reduced the chances of soldiers noticing anything strange.

After all, most people didn’t stare at the ceiling. It wasn’t somewhere an ordinary person could move around.

Cassandra only needed to remember to avoid the pipes, preventing the distortion field from making the pipes on the ceiling suddenly disappear and reappear from the perspective of anyone nearby.

Cassandra, along with the two Eternal heavyweights watching through the armor’s transmitted visual feed, silently watched Wild Boar armor advance through the base, cutting down or knocking out every soldier who attacked him.

The base alarm was blaring, which naturally meant Wild Boar armor had lost the element of surprise. Soldiers also began pouring out in droves.

But what sense was there in talking about fairness when a tank rolled over infantry? Wild Boar armor wasn’t a tank, but crushing a whole bunch of American soldiers was hardly difficult for it.

The original plan had emphasized stealth, infiltrating the base to assassinate his two targets. But that plan had been designed under the assumption that he had no support and would be operating alone.

Now that two suits of armor were guarding the two exits outside, while electronic warfare had cut off the base’s external communications, Wild Boar no longer cared much whether the U.S. soldiers inside the base were thrown into chaos.

The plan had changed, but overall, the situation was still favorable to him.

With external communications cut off, the eavesdropping relay Wild Boar had placed in the junction box earlier was continuously transmitting the base’s internal communications into the armor’s system.

The artificial intelligence system rapidly filtered personnel deployment orders from the conversations and updated the positions of personnel on the map.

There was only one group of Sparrow spy drones on-site, with one inside the dam and two outside. Aside from the fixed terrain and structural information, the deployment of personnel was merely recorded data. The intelligence gathered through eavesdropping happened to be perfect for updating the map.

The downside of causing such a commotion was that the soldiers rapidly changed their positions. As a result, Wild Boar armor could no longer determine whether his targets, Stryker and his son, were still where they had been or had moved somewhere else.

So Wild Boar could only search slowly, hunting down the targets he was determined to kill.

Like a ghost or a god of death, he walked through the narrow corridors of the underground base.