A Battle of "Faith"

Downstairs at the Boulder Military Products Building. Looking up at the sky, Killing Dagger stood like an ape with a miserable scowl across his face. "Damn it! Why can't I ride in the aircraft?!" Standing nearby, All Good Names Taken by Dogs glanced at his excavator-like arms and smirked. "With those two giant lumps of scrap iron, taking you is like losing two passenger slots. If you scratch your scalp, you'd probably tear the whole cabin apart. Just give it a rest." Kidney Fighter patted his shoulder. "Yeah, give it a rest." Killing Dagger groaned, sounding deeply aggrieved. "I really want to rip these damn things off." He finally understood the pain of playing a mutant race. Never mind whether it looked ugly or not—just being unable to use conventional firearms was tormenting enough. Had he known earlier, he would have followed Mosquito's lead: install a spine with more module slots and attach the two massive fists as auxiliary cybernetics, rather than outright replacing his original biological arms. That would have made far more sense. "Rich guy..." "You're way too good at throwing money away." Kidney Fighter and Good Dog looked at him with envy. Cybernetic modding wasn't free. Depending on the setup, labor costs could run anywhere from a third to even half the total price of the prosthetics. Killing Dagger gave an embarrassed grin. "No sweat. I can always sell them secondhand, hehe." Kidney Fighter rolled his eyes, popping his bubble of self-comfort. "Who the hell would buy those?!" Not wanting to dwell on this regrettable subject, Killing Dagger changed the topic. "By the way, why didn't you go on the transport?" Kidney Fighter sighed. "Ah, aren't I staying behind to keep you company?" "Good brother!" Moved, Killing Dagger raised a hand to clap Old Kidney on the shoulder, frightening the man so badly he dodged in a cold sweat. "Holy shit! Are you trying to kill me?!" All Good Names Taken by Dogs burst out laughing. "Hahahaha!" Once preparations were complete, the twelve-truck convoy rolled out in grand fashion toward the East Gate of Boulder City, driving beneath the elevated expressway and out of the city limits. Meanwhile, the two Viper transports lifted off from the helipad. Their ventral thrusters blasted plumes of plasma, carrying them south like a pair of dragonflies in trail formation. Sitting by a cabin window, Chen Yutong gazed out in a daze as the Great Wall shrank into the distance, followed by sprawling fields of skyscraper ruins. A few players in the cabin watched Ms. Chen's silhouette and began tossing around lines from *The Animal World* over their communication channel. "Spring has arrived." "All living things awaken." "It is once again the season when animals mate." "The male sea turtle mounts—" "Shut up." Knowing any defense was futile, Lao Bai simply muted the public mics of the most obnoxious culprits. The cabin fell quiet for a little while. Before long, however, several restless chatterboxes started whispering in their private voice channel. "Hehe, who would've thought? Even a thick-browed, big-eyed stand-up guy like Lao Bai couldn't handle the loneliness anymore," Ye Shi remarked, smacking his lips with a wicked grin. Kuang Feng gave him an exasperated look. "It's his relationship. Why are you getting so excited?" "Just showing some brotherly concern," Ye Shi chuckled, turning his gaze toward Fang Chang. "By the way, what about your Dolly? How come she didn't see you off?" Fang Chang cleared his throat. "I told her walking me to the door was enough... Speaking of which, since you love worrying about others so much, maybe worry about yourself first." Ye Shi paused, then quickly recovered and laughed loudly. "What do I have to worry about? I never couple up in games." Seeing how fiercely the kid declared his independence, Fang Chang chuckled softly. His gaze shifted, and he dropped a pointed hint. "You don't need to feel embarrassed. Finding a partner isn't anything strange these days." Seeing Fang Chang shoot him a meaningful look, Kuang Feng blinked, then caught on and nodded with an amused, knowing smile. "Indeed." Before Ye Shi could speak, Fang Chang pressed on. "Take Wasteland OL, for example. Plenty of players are dating NPCs. Most just value their privacy and rarely tell anyone." Take himself, for instance: he never displayed public affection in-game, yet his enthusiastic guildmates had spread it until the whole forum knew. Ye Shi scratched his head. "I don't think there are that many... First off, the language barrier is a problem, and then there are cultural differences and habits." He didn't know what others thought, but dating an NPC just felt bizarre to him. In a single-player game, whatever. But this was an MMORPG! Especially a game in closed beta, where the dev team was theoretically collecting player data twenty-four-seven. Who knew if you'd be sweet-talking behind closed doors in the game while getting livestreamed on the big screen in the conference room? Just thinking about doing *that* kind of thing with a bunch of operators watching from the sidelines made his toes curl with secondhand embarrassment. At the same time, a surge of boundless respect for Brother Dayan welled up in him. Under those circumstances, how on earth did that guy manage to perform?! It should have been completely impossible! "That's where you're wrong," Fang Chang said with a faint smile, looking at the utterly baffled Ye Shi. "When real feelings are involved, none of those things matter." Ye Shi asked in a low voice, "Even if it's livestreamed—" "*Cough!* The dev team doesn't spy on players' private lives... I asked Ah Guang, and he confirmed it." Fang Chang hurriedly cut him off before he could finish. *Damn it.* After laying all that groundwork, he had almost talked himself into a corner. Catching the awkward look on Fang Chang's face, Ye Shi immediately caught on and snickered. "Sure, I believe you!" Ignoring the kid's mischievous grin, Fang Chang cleared his throat, regained his composure, and continued. "Anyway, dating an NPC isn't anything strange. Vault dwellers inherently come with an attraction buff for most wastelanders. On top of that, wastelanders tend to be passionate and outgoing, so it's completely normal even if some usually low-key player suddenly finds a partner." Ye Shi frowned at him. "What are you actually trying to say...?" Kuang Feng chimed in out of nowhere. "I heard Tengteng has quite a few suitors." Ye Shi froze. A second hadn't even passed before his face flushed bright red. "Wait... What does this have to do with Tengteng?! Why did the topic suddenly jump to—" "Not only is she gorgeous, she's rich too." Ignoring Ye Shi's flustered stammering, Fang Chang traded a *nice work* look with Kuang Feng, dropped all pretense, and grinned. "Even if she suddenly gets married one day, no one should be surprised." Kuang Feng couldn't hold back his laughter. "Haha, you're evil." Fang Chang gave him a sly wink. "Takes one to know one." Jieyan burst into laughter. "Hahahaha!" The cabin was filled with cheerful mirth. Ye Shi, who couldn't keep his mouth shut just seconds earlier, now stared melancholically out at the wasteland through the window, falling silent. Seeing Ye Shi mute his mic, Jieyan had his fill of laughing, cleared his throat, and spoke up for him. "Come on, you guys always pick on little brother Ye Shi. Even an honest guy like me can't stand by and watch!" Fang Chang and Kuang Feng subtly shifted their eyes away. "We're just shooting the breeze out of boredom." "Yeah! That kid jokes about me all the time too..." Still, Fang Chang was genuinely a bit surprised. Who would have guessed this kid really was a virgin... An eight-hundred-kilometer flight took only about two hours for the Vipers. With the crew laughing and chatting along the way, the journey went by quickly. Around two in the afternoon. Through the mist on the horizon, the faint outline of Jinhe City emerged. Rows of concrete buildings stood upon the lush green plain, their edges blending into rolling hills and dense forests. Jinhe City lacked the dense, concentrated high-rise clusters found in Qingquan City. Only a few districts boasted towering, colossal skyscrapers; most of the urban area resembled a modern metropolis layout—a prominent core surrounded by unassuming concrete boxes. "What a massive city..." "Feels even bigger than cities in the real world!" "No kidding. There was an entire Era of Prosperity before the Wasteland Era. Based on the lore on the official site, the real world hasn't even reached the shadow of the Era of Prosperity yet." Gazing toward Jinhe City, Fang Chang opened the map on his VM and cross-referenced the terrain to confirm the general coordinates of several mission objectives. At that moment, the NPC pilot in the copilot seat spoke up. "Looks like something's happening near the landing zone." Sensing action, everyone stopped joking and grew solemn. "Let me take a look." Moving to the left side of the cabin, Lao Bai looked toward Dust Town and tapped his finger against his helmet. The power armor's visor had built-in zoom functionality, allowing him to see clearly across this distance even without binoculars. Staring toward Dust Town for several moments, Lao Bai's brow furrowed. "Armed hostiles spotted near Dust Town, about a company in size—roughly a hundred men... There's too much cover to get an exact headcount." Kuang Feng's expression grew serious. "Should I launch a drone?" Lao Bai nodded. "To be safe, send a drone over to scout first." Without waste of breath, Kuang Feng unclipped his drone pack, pulled out a Y-1 Firefly drone with folding rotors, and tossed it out the open hatch like a paper airplane. The drone glided on its momentum for a brief moment before snapping open its two pairs of rotors and darting toward the target airspace. As Kuang Feng piloted the drone toward the area, Lao Bai barked his next orders in a deep voice. "There's an abandoned logging yard two kilometers north of Dust Town. Team One, land with me on the clearing south of the yard and advance to Dust Town on foot." "Team Two, remain on airborne standby with weapons hot, ready to provide fire support at a moment's notice." The pilot in the cockpit gave a hand signal. "Understood!" The two Vipers split up in midair. One descended toward the ground, while the other continued cruising toward Dust Town. *** At the same time, Dust Town, several kilometers away, was in total uproar. A dense crowd stood outside the wooden palisade gate, which stood two men high. They were in a state of high agitation. Some brandished farm tools, others held rifles, and all of them were shouting gibberish at the people inside. A long-robed preacher stood at the front of the mob, looking upon the survivors behind the barricades with an arrogant sneer. After composing himself, he raised a hand to signal the crowd behind him to silence their jeers. Facing the shut gate, he declared in a solemn, resounding voice: "Surrender." "Bend your knees to the Holy Son! Kneel and pray for the mercy of the celestial fire—this is your final chance." "Otherwise, every last one of you will be reduced to slaves. Your descendants will toil endlessly under the scorching sun, and even death will not release you from servitude." "I give you two minutes to consider." Leaving those words, he hastily turned and melted back into the crowd, leaving his followers to continue banging on the gates. Having delivered his boastful ultimatum, he clearly didn't want to linger exposed under enemy guns for too long. Staring at the vicious mob outside the palisade, the town's residents showed unmistakable traces of fear on their faces. Yet despite their dread, most took heart at the thought of the three deities residing within their town. Gripping their weapons tightly, they took up defensive positions behind the one-meter-high parapet. To hell with the Torch! To hell with the Holy Son! The invincible True Gods stood right behind them, having already hunted down countless jackals and hyenas that coveted their lands. They already had their own guardian gods. Why would they ever place their faith in some intangible phantom? Clad in a "Hunter" exoskeleton customized for Deathclaws, Scavenger Lv99 stood by the window on the third floor of the town hall, squinting at the crowd outside as he calculated how to eliminate them with minimal casualties. Unfortunately, Brother Rat's frontline combat capability was utter garbage—he only excelled at ambushes. The Agility-type newbie wasn't totally useless, but hardly a powerhouse either. As for the town's survivors, losing even two people might shatter their morale completely. In the end, eighty percent of the damage output would have to come from him. Still, there was an entire hundred-man company out there... *Tricky!* Beside Scavenger, the graying mayor swallowed hard and offered a nervous, hushed reminder. "Lord... there are too many of them. If it really comes to blows, I'm afraid we'll suffer heavy losses." His name was Qin Baitian, the mayor elected by the villagers of Dust Town and simultaneously the Grey Seer of the Cult of the Horned Rat. To be frank, he didn't quite understand what the Cult of the Horned Rat or a Grey Seer actually meant, but it was his first time ever seeing a talking rat and a Deathclaw, so he had bought into it instantly. His mindset was simple and pragmatic: whoever could keep the townspeople safe was the god they would revere. Initially, Qin Baitian had been devoutly dedicated to the Cult of the Horned Rat. Now, however, all the surrounding settlements seemed to follow this Church of the Torch. Standing apart from the rest had not only isolated them from neighboring settlements, but had now brought trouble straight to their doorstep. Though shameful to admit, seeing such overwhelming numbers made his resolve waver. If only the Great Horned Deer God could co-rule this land alongside the torch-bearing Holy Son, he wouldn't mind lighting an extra stick of incense in the shrine. Scavenger had no intention of backing down, nor did he notice the mayor's inner hesitation. Staring out the window, he cursed: "I'm not blind... Damn it, how does that Hope Town have so many people?" "I'm afraid it's not just Hope Town... Most of those unfamiliar faces probably come from other settlements." Glancing cautiously at the massive lizard beside him, Qin Baitian offered a careful, tentative suggestion. "Lord, making an enemy of every survivor around us isn't wise. Especially since I've heard they've even allied with the local mutant tribes. Those green-skinned brutes are on another level entirely. Perhaps we should negotiate with them instead?" *Holy crap!* *They're even hooked up with mutants?!* *These bastards definitely can't be left alive!* A flash of killing intent crossed Scavenger's eyes. Almost at that exact second, a sharp whistle tore through the air above the town. Before anyone could react, a flash of explosive fire bloomed on the roof of the town's mill, and billowing smoke swallowed the windmill whole. Screams erupted in the streets below, mingled faintly with the wailing of infants. Nearby residents rushed forward with water buckets to douse the flames, while the militia behind the low wall felt their morale waver. Artillery! Those lunatics actually brought artillery! The distant thud of cannon fire could be heard, but nobody could spot where the shells were coming from. Because of that, panic instinctively seized everyone's heart. "Time's up." Lowering his rolled-up sleeve, the preacher looked away from his wristwatch and toward the chaotic town ahead. A trace of insidious cruelty flickered in his otherwise impassive eyes, and the corners of his mouth curved into a chilly smirk. "You brought this upon yourselves." Dust Town was the very last settlement in all of Jinhe City that had not been incorporated into the parish. He would never permit such a blemish to remain on the map presented to the bishop. If these ignorant clodhoppers stubbornly refused to embrace the glorious evolution— Then let them perish! Seeing the roof blown off the windmill he had helped build, Scavenger's temper flared. He roared out the window: "Fuck them up!" "Open fire!" He didn't even need to give the order. The religious zealots outside the barricade had already initiated the assault. Using dirt mounds and tree trunks for cover, they raised their rifles and sprayed bullets toward Dust Town. Not to be outdone, the town's survivors leaned against the one-meter wall, resting their rifles on the ledge or firing through murder holes to return fire. Thanks to the stockpiles left behind from trade with the Alliance under the previous mayor, they possessed automatic weapons like Scythe assault rifles and even two Maxim machine guns. Their firepower was not a shred weaker than the zealots'. Their sole disadvantage lay in the enemy's fire support. From time to time, artillery boomed in the distance. Accompanied by shrill whistling, fiery blooms erupted across the town. Though inaccurate and causing little direct harm to the militia along the wall, the psychological toll on the survivors was devastating. Those shells were destroying their homes—structures they had built brick by brick, houses where their families might very well be sheltering! Yet in this moment, they had no choice but to fight. Looking at the manic gleam in those lunatics' eyes, even if they surrendered, those monsters would never spare them. Gunfire thundered inside and outside the town. From the opening seconds, the battle escalated into white heat. Though the assailants lacked formal training, they fought with unnatural bravery and sky-high morale. Scavenger felt something was wrong. The Church of the Torch had only expanded into this region over the past six months. How could these newly converted "monks" have been brainwashed to such an extreme degree? As the thought crossed his mind, a bizarre sight unfolded in the distance. A Church of the Torch devotee took a machine-gun round that sheared off his arm. Instead of writhing on the ground screaming for mercy as any normal man would, he didn't utter a single peep. If anything, an unhealthy, feverish flush appeared on his dark face. Pain seemed to have been converted into something else entirely. Noticing the abnormality in the attackers, Scavenger felt a chill run down his spine. "Holy shit! These lunatics are high on drugs!" Qiangren Suonan's voice crackled over the comm channel. "Isn't that obvious?! It's that Na fruit! They've clearly all taken it!" Scavenger was stunned. "Holy crap! Na fruit can do that?!" Qiangren Suonan: "Of course! Did you forget about that trance state? Those charlatans have a way to make people go rabid while still keeping their senses!" Real history had similar precedents, such as the German military's widespread use of methamphetamine as a combat stimulant during World War II. Yet these junkies took it a step further. They paired the narcotics with religious fervor, achieving a dual mania both physical and spiritual. Even with their entrails spilling out, those zealots pressed forward without a flicker of fear—looking just like the players themselves back during the server's earliest days. Scavenger felt a headache coming on. If this continued, even if they held the town, they would suffer gruesome casualties. Just as Scavenger was caught in a bind, the VM strapped to his wrist flashed, followed by a familiar voice buzzing in his ear. "What's the situation on your end? Why has fighting broken out?" Lao Bai! Reinforcements had arrived! A spark of hope ignited in Scavenger's amber eyes. Hearing that immensely reassuring voice, he shouted in pure excitement: "Brother! Quick, save my bacon!" After a brief burst of static, the transmission grew crystal clear. "Don't panic... What's the deal with those hostiles?" Scavenger didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Hell if I know! They showed up yelling about some glorious evolution, and when we told them to get lost, they opened fire!" Lao Bai: "Red names?" Scavenger: "Damn straight! They shot first!" Since they were flagged red, there was nothing to hesitate over. Almost the moment the words left his mouth, two rockets arced through the sky and slammed into the enemy positions outside the palisade. Pillars of flame surged into the air, instantly engulfing over a dozen hostiles who had left cover to advance. Immediately after, rapid gunfire roared from above. Orange tracer rounds rained down like a torrential storm, lashing into the woods outside the gate. The tide of battle reversed in an instant! Standing by the window, Scavenger pumped a clawed fist in excitement. "Haha! Beautiful shot!" Qin Baitian stared dumbfounded at the lizard pumping its fist out the window, then looked out at the sea of flames burning in the distance. The terror in his eyes gradually morphed into reverent awe. "Great Horned Rat... er, Great Horned Deer God be praised..." This lord truly was the avatar of a god! At that realization, a wave of deep shame washed over him for his earlier wavering, and he bowed his head in devout submission. *I must have been blind.* To atone for such disrespectful doubt, he would serve this lord for the rest of his days! Oblivious to the mortal's shifting expression beside him, Scavenger wasn't satisfied just watching. Claws digging into the windowsill, he let out a savage howl and leaped straight out. His two feet slammed into the stone-paved street below, carving two deep craters into the smooth road. Crouching low, his hind claws scraped against the ground as a bloodthirsty gleam flashed in his amber eyes. "Hunting season's open!" Stealing kills was his specialty! He couldn't let the boys from the Burning Corps steal all the glory! Like a stallion breaking free from its reins, Scavenger seized the entry window. Rocketing across friendly lines with a roar, he crashed right through the wooden palisade and charged into the smoke-choked battlefield with flashing claws. In the span of a single breath, two zealots were ripped to shreds. Glimpsing those whistling claws and the demonic countenance through the smoke, the grey-robed preacher's shock curdled into bone-deep terror. "Demon! A demon!" Screaming at the top of his lungs, he turned and fled for his life. *Does that Great Horned Deer God really exist?!* For a fleeting second, his faith—previously clearer than diamond—suffered a tremor of doubt. Then again... where were the Great Horned Deer God's antlers? Why didn't he see any...?