Chapter 116: Support

Chapter 116: Chapter 116: Support

"Zhou Chen, Sis Yin — you two holding up alright?"

Le Nianzhou’s voice crackled over the radio channel to his two teammates.

"Yeah."

"I’m fine."

Both teammates replied with a brief word each.

Le Nianzhou continued over the radio, "Hey, did you guys see that Xiang Yi? Someone that young already being able to work alongside the boss..."

Zhou Chen didn’t bite, but the woman they called Sis Yin did — though only to cut him off: "Stay focused on the mission. Don’t go developing some weird hero worship just because of what someone else did."

"Alright, alright."

"But he really was pretty damn cool though..."

Le Nianzhou muttered it under his breath, then clicked fully into mission mode.

"We’ve confirmed at least seven Type-A Flesh Beasts and four corpses scattered in the surrounding area. Clear them first — we can’t let the Type-C get any bigger."

"Copy."

"Copy."

Le Nianzhou might have looked the youngest of the three, and he’d just been reined in by both of his older teammates.

But he was still the one leading this squad.

The three of them closed to within a certain distance of the Type-C Flesh Beast, then stopped advancing and began to fan out in a wide ring.

Fitted in exoskeletons, they moved with speed and precision, each clearly equipped with Spiritual Fluctuation detection gear. They locked onto the Type-A Flesh Beasts’ positions and moved in fast.

The Type-A Flesh Beasts were nothing but shattered limbs and writhing tendrils of flesh — against specialized Flamethrowers, they never stood a chance.

None of them could get close before the three Counter-Measures operatives incinerated them in a roar of fire.

The sheet-metal structures nearby partially melted under the sheer heat of the flames.

A few bodies of Lu Qi’s men that Xiang Yi had missed earlier were also turned up. Each was photographed and sampled for DNA identification, then burned by the same method.

The goal was to prevent those corpses from being absorbed by the Flesh Beasts later, or from giving rise to new Abnormalities — things like Shuffling Monsters.

Once every Type-A Flesh Beast in the vicinity had been dealt with, the three regrouped near the Type-C Flesh Beast.

The Type-C had been firing bone spines at Xiang Yi in the air, but after repeated failed attempts, it gradually gave up.

It began moving toward the nearest spot where a Type-A Flesh Beast had been burned — and walked straight into Le Nianzhou’s encirclement.

"Now!"

Le Nianzhou’s shout rang out.

In perfect sync, all three burst from blind spots the Flesh Beast couldn’t see, and three Flamethrowers opened up on the target at once, unleashing pillars of roaring fire.

Three columns of flame swallowed the Flesh Beast whole, and the stench of scorched meat spread instantly in every direction.

Without protective gear, the smell alone — combined with the lack of oxygen — would have driven anyone out within half a second.

But the Type-C Flesh Beast still stood its ground, still struggling within the flames.

It was simply too massive. The fire looked devastating, but in reality it was only charring the outermost layer of flesh.

Even within the blaze, muscle tissue was already bunching back together along the creature’s surface, forming new nodes, with fresh bone spines growing from within those clusters.

"Sis Yin!"

A spectral chain lashed out from thin air, coiling around the seven or eight newly formed muscle nodes and their bone spines.

Xiang Yi, watching from the air, snapped to attention.

So this was the Spiritual Energy of another Spiritual Ability User?

From his current sensitivity to Spiritual Fluctuations, he could tell the source of that energy was the woman on the team.

The chain locked down the muscle nodes before they could launch their spines, and the other two immediately trained their Flamethrowers on those exact spots, incinerating the bunched muscle clusters completely.

The bone spines dropped to the ground and shattered into powder — the extreme heat had already made the once-solid bone brittle.

The results were surprisingly effective.

The Flesh Beast sensed something was wrong and suddenly thrashed with full force.

The chains binding it were mottled with rust, trembling on the edge of breaking — yet somehow held.

Unable to break free, the Flesh Beast’s grotesque mass of flesh began to tremble in a rhythmic pulse, producing a horrible sound like countless vocal cords layered on top of each other.

The sound spread rapidly. Even Xiang Yi, at a distance in the air, felt a dull throb of pain in his head.

It was a sonic attack infused with Spiritual Power.

Any ordinary person caught in the direct path of that sound wave would have their mind shattered — blacking out would have been getting off easy.

Le Nianzhou, much closer to the Type-C below, felt a wave of discomfort as well — though he shook it off quickly.

"Didn’t think a Flesh Beast spawned from this many corpses would have a trick like this. More reports to write when we get back."

Then something hit him. He keyed his radio: "Zhou Chen!"

No response.

"I’ll check on him," Sis Yin said immediately.

The chains shuddered — and then shattered.

Le Nianzhou braced for an immediate counterattack from the Flesh Beast.

Instead, a flood of foul, reeking blood suddenly seeped from the gaps between the creature’s interlocked flesh — it seemed the sonic attack had dealt damage to the Flesh Beast itself as well.

Le Nianzhou exploded forward at a speed he’d never hit before, closing the gap in an instant and practically jamming the Flamethrower nozzle into a gaping wound on the Flesh Beast’s body, pumping fire directly into its interior.

Xiang Yi’s gaze locked onto Le Nianzhou again. He could feel that Le Nianzhou had just used Spiritual Energy — that burst of explosive speed was his Spiritual Ability in action.

Though Xiang Yi couldn’t yet determine whether the ability enhanced his physical output overall, or simply granted him that raw burst of speed specifically.

Le Nianzhou had seized the opening to deal serious damage to the Type-C, but it was clear his concern for his teammate already outweighed his focus on the target.

He hit the radio again: "How’s Zhou Chen doing?"

"He’s out cold. That Abnormality earlier drained a lot of his Spiritual Power — he didn’t have enough left to weather this one."

"Aside from face-planting the ground when he went down, he should be fine. I’ll figure out how to get him somewhere safe."

"Need a hand?"

Xiang Yi’s voice cut in out of nowhere.

Sis Yin turned around. Xiang Yi had already pulled his hovertruck alongside her, the passenger door hanging open.

A flicker of surprise crossed Sis Yin’s face — the faint undercurrent of disdain she’d carried toward Xiang Yi before seemed to have vanished.

"Thanks."

She hauled Zhou Chen up and shoved him into Xiang Yi’s vehicle, then turned and sprinted straight back toward the Type-C Flesh Beast.

The moment Zhou Chen was inside,

Xiang Yi felt the temperature in the cabin drop several degrees in an instant.

The cold was coming from Zhou Chen himself — he apparently had an ability tied to low temperatures.

Xiang Yi climbed higher again, resuming his aerial overview of the battle around the Type-C Flesh Beast.

The Type-C no longer bore any resemblance to its earlier form — that mass of fused severed limbs was gone, replaced by a full-body coating of charred, blackened crust.

Le Nianzhou had managed to burn some of the flesh inside earlier, but the internal damage had quickly been displaced to the surface.

Pure fire clearly wasn’t going to finish this thing off.

Le Nianzhou looked just as sharp as he had at the start — not a trace of fatigue, the kind of energy that said he could keep scrapping with this Flesh Beast for another thirty minutes easy.

But the Flamethrowers were already burning through more than half their fuel. At this rate, they were never going to kill it.

They needed to find a way to disrupt the internal flesh connections — or pull back temporarily and come back with something better suited for the job.

While Le Nianzhou was still thinking it through, a bone spine suddenly shot at him from a bizarre angle, aimed straight at his side.

His reaction was a half-beat too slow. He hadn’t started to dodge yet.

A chain burst from thin air and caught the spine dead in its tracks.

Le Nianzhou quickly called out, "Should we maybe pull back first—"

Clang—

A sharp metallic ring cut him off as something hit the ground nearby.

A grenade had landed right beside them.

Pin still in, of course.

Le Nianzhou’s eyes lit up. He snatched it without a second thought, then shot a thumbs-up toward Xiang Yi in the sky above.