Book 6 Chapter 35.11 – Covered In Dust
To the northwest, the previously rich and powerful Arthur Family already completely withdrew into their family’s final territory. This was a fertile land with a mountain forest, lakes, and hills, a place where the most important figures of the Arthur Family were buried to preserve their glory. There were no powerful military fortifications made here, the reason why the Arthur Family all withdrew here was more so to exploit the complex terrain and not because of the beautiful scenery. After this place became the center of war, even the most beautiful of sceneries would be destroyed all the same.
The situation was precisely like this, the continuous explosions making the great earth shake endlessly, to the extent where even a precipitous mountain peak cracked apart, rumbling and shaking, slowly sliding down into the ravine, producing large amounts of smoke and dust along the way, the tremendous noise even overwhelming powerful explosions!
This was just one example.
If one listened carefully, they would pick up shrill screaming sounds from the rumbling noises, the omen of death coming from countless miniature guided missiles currently circling above. The sky was covered in black specks, thousands and tens of thousands of miniature guided missiles falling, just their numbers alone producing a carpet bombing in the truest of meanings. There were flames, dust, and smoke everywhere, the human figures within running in ways that shouldn’t belong to that of a human.
A young man quickly climbed a several dozen meter tall mountain, and then jumped off the other side. Behind him, the three miniature guided missiles continuously adjusted their trajectories, directly smashing into the mountain cliff. When he saw the crushed rock and flames that sprayed out from the other side of the cliff, the young man revealed a complacent smile, to the extent where he even inwardly made a peace sign. His body was extremely skinny, face also a bit morbidly pale, hair scattered in front of his forehead in a messy manner, face full of gray and black smoke traces. He looked to be less than fifteen years old, yet was now already an experienced soldier, his five levels of abilities also enough to leave one in shock. However, before his smile scattered, a familiar shrill screaming sound could be heard, moreover extremely close, almost sounding right by his ears!
The young man turned around with shock, a miniature missile quickly enlarging in the reflection of his eyes, to the extent where even the faint blue light dragged behind it could be clearly seen! The missile planted itself straight into his opened mouth, and then it exploded.
Even before his death, this young man didn’t know how this missile got close to him, he always had quite the confidence in his sharpness and nimbleness.
The explosions finally ended. Several miniature guided missiles flew about under the sky, and after circling above a few times, they descended onto the rock surface, turned off their engines, waiting quietly for their prey. At this moment, they were no longer like non-living machines, but rather more like sinister hunters. That young man who still carried hope and visions for the future died precisely under one of these ambushing missiles.
At this time, six or seven people made their way out from the corner, the one in the lead precisely O’Brien in a dark-colored windbreaker. The corners of his eyes swept over towards an expanse of metallic reflections in the scorched earth, and then he immediately walked over, removing a warped piece of metal from the scorched earth. This was a name tag forged from a piece of alloy, the name on it still legible. Every member of Arthur Family’s elite soldiers would carry a name tag like this to help them identify corpses in the flames of war. The name plates’ alloy was sturdy and heat-resistant, not completely damaged even while in the heart of the explosion, simultaneously serving as the only trace of the young man left in this world.
“Thomas!” O’Brien muttered this name. He remembered every soldier in the family, the impression the young man Thomas left him with even deeper. He possessed exceptional talent, attentiveness, persistence, and progress, but he still had a fervent heart. This type of young man, if he could survive in the war, he would definitely become someone in the future, to the extent where he might even reach nine levels. Only, it was quite the pity, there was only a ruined name tag left to record his past prospects.
Geniuses, the human race never lacked geniuses, but only those who survived until the very end of the war could be considered true great figures, while the others who fell along the way made up the majority. Those who couldn’t reach the very end could only forever remain mere geniuses.
O’Brien silently placed the name tag into his inner pocket, and then looked forward. On the mountain that wasn’t too far away, several miniature guided missiles were currently rising like vipers.
They sensed life auras, and as a result, bared their fangs like vipers as well. If one treated them as things without intelligence, merely as miniature guided missiles that humans produced, then they would definitely suffer greatly under their sudden change in tactics. In this battlefield, this pretty much meant paying the price of life, just like Thomas.
O’Brien snapped his fingers. A fine electric spark appeared out of thin air between several miniature guided missiles, the powerful electromagnetic waves and almost contact-like kinetic energy made the guided missiles develop the misconception that they struck their target, and they thus began to explode one after another. The power of continuous explosions was extremely great, but for the dozen or so meters out O’Brien and others, it didn’t pose any threat. They didn’t even put up a defensive force field, directly using their bodies to endure the blast waves, dust, and rocks. None of them were injured, at most becoming dirty. However, even Eileen and Persephone who always minded their appearances faced the smoke and dust head-on, already to the point where they couldn’t be any more filthy. On the battlefield, being a bit dirtier could still be endured, but stamina and energy were what ensured one’s survival. This was precisely the reason why O’Brien always tried to limit his energy exhaustion to the absolute minimum when cleaning up the mechanical bugs.
The battlefield was endless. However, if they persevered for one more day, then this meant that they were one day closer to hope.
“These fellas have become even craftier.” Eileen said with a frown.
O’Brien nodded and said, “Indeed. They seemed to have modified their intelligence mode in a night’s time, already no longer like that of artificial intelligence. I am quite worried that Feng might be caught off guard and be unable to protect the energy factory, so we should hurry. The fuel inside of that factory is our only hope of making it through this winter.”
Eileen released a bitter laugh, but didn’t continue this conversation. This winter? She didn’t even know if there would be a tomorrow. The mechanical bug swarm’s main force had long flew across the sky, leaving behind a group of under a million bugs in the Arthur Family’s final base of operations. However, it was just this number that was already large to the point of leaving them in despair. As a magic domain ability user who already touched upon ten levels, Eileen could destroy hundreds of mechanical bugs with a wave of her hand, but she definitely couldn’t couldn’t do this more than a hundred times, and the mechanical bug swarm’s number was greater than ten million. Between this were more than just one or two orders of magnitude.
