Melee in the Dark

*Crack!* The abrupt crack of gunfire shattered the stillness of the night, and the once-peaceful street erupted like a pot of boiling water. *Rat-tat-tat—!* Amber tracers streaked wildly through the dark, and continuous bursts popped like string firecrackers, catching the mutants inside the complex completely off guard. Only at first, however. The mutants seemed well accustomed to sudden ambushes. They dragged their fallen comrades behind cover, grabbed their weapons, and bellowed as they launched a counterattack toward the source of the gunfire. Ye Shi quickly glanced at the map and matched it against the sector where the shooting had broken out. He was certain. None of their own people were there. Almost the instant the shots echoed, noisy chatter broke out across the comm channel. "Holy crap, who fired?!" "Ye Shi???" Hearing his own gamertag, Ye Shi immediately retorted, "Did you hear a goddamn railgun go off?" These bastards! Still cracking jokes at his expense at a time like this. "Quiet! That wasn't our fire!" Lao Bai was always the reliable one when it counted, swiftly cutting through the bickering on the open mic. Listening closely, that initial shot indeed hadn't come from an LD-47. Having played the game for so long, Ye Shi could recognize gunshots by sound. However, among the crackling gunfire that followed, a few bursts distinctly came from LD-47s. Perhaps unable to tame the recoil of full-power rounds, those bursts were very short, keeping to a rhythm of two or three rounds at a time. Ye Shi quickly formed an assessment in his head. *These guys are using mixed-brand junk!* While one couldn't tell whether they were elite just from the sound of gunfire, one could at least tell they probably weren't very wealthy. *Could they be mercenaries?* Just as he was pondering this, Fang Chang's voice came through the comm channel. From the background shots bleeding into his mic, Team B, which he led, had to be very close to the firefight. "...Skirmish detected on North 13th Street. Someone else has their eyes on this place besides us." Along with the sitrep, a set of photos was pushed to the squad members' VMs. Although the street was cloaked in pitch-black darkness, the flashes of muzzle flare still outlined the silhouettes of the group fairly well. There were roughly a dozen people wearing varied civilian clothes and wielding mismatched weapons, making it impossible to determine their faction by gear alone. They did, however, all share a single uniform insignia: an armband tied around their left arms. It seemed to depict an elongated arrow; enlarged, it looked more like a high-voltage transmission tower or a signal pylon. Right then, Kuang Feng transmitted an update. "The nearby mutant tribe has dispatched reinforcements. The complex terrain makes it impossible to confirm numbers, but twelve modified armored vehicles are visible." Ye Shi was stunned. "Armored vehicles?!" Kuang Feng: "Only modifications on the level of welded steel plates... but there are some bizarrely styled weapons mounted on them that caught my eye. These mutants might be a bit different from the ones we've faced before." Lao Bai: "Estimated time of arrival?" Kuang Feng: "Under three minutes." After a brief pause on the comm channel, Lao Bai made a decisive call. "We need to find a way to figure out who they are. Ideally, bring back one or two alive." The unidentified armed force that had suddenly mounted this assault was clearly only staging a feint; they had no intention of capturing the research facility occupied by the mutants. That was easy to tell. Guerrilla warfare and assault operations were completely different in tactics and scale. Just listening to the intensity of the firefight and the spread of gunshots told him that this crew had already mapped out their escape route before even firing the first shot. Clearly, this wasn't their first time harassing the mutants here. If these NPCs were like the resistance in Xizhou City—survivors rising up against the oppression of mutants and the Church of the Torch—then they might be able to cooperate. Fang Chang: "Leave it to me... This group near me is almost certainly going to get into trouble. I should be able to salvage one or two of them." Lao Bai: "Ye Shi, provide support. Teams A, C, and D fall back. Leave this area to Team B and recon." A unified response came through the comm channel. "Copy that!" In the dark, a squad of exoskeleton-clad soldiers moved out. Fang Chang led three teammates in closing in behind the guerrilla unit they were tracking. The mutants had evidently locked onto this group as well. The green-skinned brutes seemed to understand that catching every single rat was impossible, so they intended to concentrate their forces to bag the ones causing the biggest ruckus first. The guerrilla fighters appeared to realize this too and began pulling back their line. Yet they were not facing ordinary soldiers, but mutants who had no fear of death. Those green-skinned monstrosities were like cancer cells; even with nearly half their torso blown away, they could keep living. Unless a bullet shattered their skulls, taking a few rounds to the body didn't even faze them. To avoid spooking the enemy, the Viper transport aircraft parked atop the high-rise pulled out of the battlefield ahead of time, flying toward a rear extraction point. Prone once more at the edge of the building, Ye Shi deftly deployed the bipod of his Type 15 "Python" Gauss rifle and toggled the scope to thermal imaging mode. Black and white parted distinctly in his field of view. Bright white dots hiding in the darkness instantly laid bare the positions of both sides in the firefight. "Can you see your three o'clock?" Cross-referencing the map and reticle on his tactical visor, Ye Shi quickly pinpointed the spot Fang Chang meant. A squad of mutants was moving rapidly through a half-collapsed high-rise, seemingly planning to flank behind the guerrillas to set up a fire support position. Watching a mutant heave a machine gun onto a broken windowsill and kick open its mount, Ye Shi felt a flicker of surprise. *Damn!* *These mutants actually know tactics?!* Without hesitation, he replied over the comm channel, "Visual confirmed... Looks like a ten-man squad. They're setting up a machine gun." Fang Chang: "Take them down!" "Copy!" Even as the word left his mouth, Ye Shi had pulled the trigger. A faint electrical arc flashed in the chamber, and the recoil bumped evenly against his shoulder armor, the kick feeling like hurling a javelin. Hundreds of meters away, the head of the mutant holding the machine gun burst like a watermelon struck with a bludgeon, scattering red and white all over the floor. "One!" Against soft targets without armor, there was no need to charge the capacitors; a headshot did the job in a single hit. Having dropped one, Ye Shi didn't let up his breath, swiftly acquiring his next target—the mutant lunging forward to take over the gun. "Two!" The moment he squeezed the trigger, another head was pulverized into scrap. With two mutant warriors headshot in rapid succession, the remaining eight fell into disarray, gibbering and shrieking, not daring to touch the machine gun mounted on the sill again. Seeing that no one showed their head for a long moment, Ye Shi exhaled softly, a faint smirk playing on his lips. "Machine gun nest suppressed!" Fang Chang's voice came over the comms. "Nice work! Keep suppressing them... Leave the rest to me!" A drone's aerial feed projected onto Ye Shi's tactical visor. Through the holographic display, he could see that the fireteam led by Fang Chang had successfully intercepted the mutant squad attempting to flank behind the guerrillas. These brutes really were different from the mutants they had encountered before. While their tactics could hardly be called refined—crude, violent, and lacking finesse, even—they synergized perfectly with their resilient mutant physiology. A piercing whine screeched downward toward the ground, and a burst of flame erupted from the convoy of advancing mutant reinforcements in the distance. That was Kuang Feng's handiwork. From the blast yield, it was clearly the Switchblade that had shone so brightly during the Battle of Xizhou City. That thing could flip a Conqueror 10 tank, so crippling a modified truck was child's play. The sudden explosion bottlenecked the reinforcing convoy on the street, buying some retreat time for the encircled guerrillas. Those fighters had clearly noticed the helpers who had suddenly appeared and were attempting to link up with Fang Chang's squad. "Copy!" After a curt reply, Ye Shi kept his eyes glued to the thermal sight, waiting like a hunter staked out by the machine gun, but even after a long wait, a third head never poked out. A faint heat signature was visible near the broken doorway; he was certain the mutants were still lurking there. Those beasts probably never dreamed that their own heavy, labored breath produced a heat signature outlined cleanly in the optic. His index finger rubbed against the trigger, Ye Shi growing somewhat impatient. To be frank, after playing this game for so long, this was the first time he had ever seen mutants this cowardly—losing two men and immediately cowering behind cover, too terrified to peek. An idea struck him, and a wicked grin curved his lips. "Like hiding behind cover, do you?" Just the right time to test out some new gear. Back in Sunset Province, he had thought he could flex his muscles with the Gauss rifle's superior range and armor penetration, only for his expectations to fall completely flat. The terrain there was certainly wide-open, but it was so excessively open that combat ranges vastly exceeded rifle reach. Ultra-long-range engagements were largely left to tanks, aircraft, and artillery; in the few raid operations he joined, there had been no room for a sniper rifle to show off. No sooner thought than done. Ye Shi fished out a spike-like cartridge from his gear pouch. This piece was an armor-piercing round designed specifically for concrete cover, made expressly for dealing with campers who refused to peek. Slipping the cartridge into the chamber, Ye Shi flipped the capacitor charge switch and slowly depressed the trigger. Current surged from the power cell into the high-energy capacitors. Searing plasma rolled continuously through the chamber, unleashing the instant he released the sear. With a sharp crack, scorching air blasted from the muzzle, sending a rippling shockwave outward that pierced the sound barrier alongside the hypervelocity mass slug! The round carved a searing, transparent trail through the night sky, slamming like an artillery shell into that pitch-black window and shattering the entire wall. The reverse recoil jarred his shoulder plate slightly. Looking through the thermal imager at the corpse radiating white heat, Ye Shi couldn't suppress a proud grin. "Three!" The power of this Gauss rifle was no joke. Target and wall, pulverized together. A bit wasteful, sure, but damn did it feel good! Taking this hit, the mutants were clearly stunned stupid, utterly baffled as to how the guerrilla force that came picking fights every day suddenly packed this kind of punch. Across hundreds of meters, Ye Shi couldn't hear their chatter, but judging by their movements, their courage had broken. Refusing to linger behind the wall any longer, they scrambled downstairs in a panic. "Too weak!" Yet just as he was basking in satisfaction, a sudden sense of foreboding crept quietly into his mind, raising goosebumps all over his skin. Something was watching him! He could faintly sense the presence, yet couldn't pinpoint the exact vector of the killing intent! What was certain was that whoever it was had likely been tracking him for a while, quite possibly since he fired his very first shot. It was only now that they had closed into his range of perception... *This guy is strong!* Instantly ratcheting his vigilance to one hundred and twenty percent, Ye Shi dared not act cocky. He promptly packed up the Gauss rifle perched on the roof's edge, withdrew toward the fire exit, and barked into the comm channel, "I think something's locked onto me!" Fang Chang's voice came through his ear. "Fall back first and head straight for the extraction point! We're already wrapping up here." Ye Shi replied immediately, "Copy! See you at base!" He punched open the rusted fire door. The moment he retreated from the rooftop to the top floor, Ye Shi felt that sense of dread intensify unmistakably. Taking the stairs risked running head-on into those mutants; in confined terrain, even powered armor might not have the advantage. Besides, his forte wasn't toe-to-toe brawling, but sniping from afar. With that in mind, Ye Shi had a flash of inspiration. Abandoning the stairwell, he darted into the elevator lobby and pried open the rusted elevator doors with both hands. The shaft plunged into pitch darkness, concealing whatever lay below. He tugged hard on the central cable, and once satisfied it could bear the load, he clamped his zipline hook onto it, seized the cable, and leaped down into the shaft. *Screeech—* Though his powered armor weighed well over a ton, it fell within the elevator system's rated capacity, making for a relatively smooth descent. Yet the ear-grating screech of grinding metal was far louder than he had anticipated. "Holy crap... please don't let anyone hear that." It shouldn't carry that far, right? Weren't elevator shafts pretty well soundproofed? Just as he was thinking that, the outline of the elevator car abruptly loomed below. Ye Shi squeezed his legs and brake hook to decelerate. His boots slammed heavily onto the roof of the cab, rocking it with a shuddering creak. Ye Shi glanced at the floor marker on the wall and saw it was the tenth floor, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Taking the stairs from here down should be fine. Grabbing the handle on the car's emergency escape hatch with his right hand, Ye Shi yanked it off the roof and tossed it aside. Yet just as he was about to step one foot inside, his expression shifted. *What the hell?!* *The hole's too small!* The hatch was only about one and a half shoulder-widths across, exactly narrow enough to wedge against his pauldrons. If he got stuck halfway down, Ah Guang—who was surely watching the feed—would laugh like a squealing pig. No way in hell! "Damn it! What kind of puzzle is this?!" What now? Ye Shi quickly scanned his surroundings for another way out, but right then, the support beneath his feet vanished into empty air. *Crack—!* The sudden sensation of weightlessness nearly flipped him over. The blast echoing from overhead told him instantly what had happened. Someone had severed the cables. Having last seen maintenance two centuries ago, the cab's braking systems had failed completely. Losing its sole point of suspension, it plunged straight down the shaft in free fall. Watching the floor numbers flash past in a blur, Ye Shi's face went pale. Sure, his powered armor was surplus from the Orbital Airborne Division, but it was designed to be paired with a drop pod! He had never heard of any powered armor meant to take a bare drop with over a ton of deadweight. Maybe some min-maxed stat monster could pull it off. Unfortunately, the character he built was just a squishy Perception-type weakling. "Fuuuuuuck—!" He had dropped his guard! *** At that exact moment, tens of kilometers away in Hope Town, Yu No. 1, standing at the outskirts, tilted its head slightly. "Eewoo?" Hearing the sound through the comm channel, Luo Yu stopped in his tracks and looked back at it. "What's wrong?" Yu One and Yu Two exchanged glances, cocking their heads in confusion. Yu Three surveyed the surroundings, then blurted out, "Fuck!" Luo Yu: "..." Sigh. Here he thought Xiao Yu had discovered something; it was just in the mood for some casual foul language. Breathing a sigh of relief, Luo Yu was about to catch up with the caravan when he suddenly spotted a green-skinned figure stepping out through the town gate. Though night had fallen and the light beneath the palisade gate was dim, he was certain he wasn't mistaken: the face beneath that hood was green. Yet for some reason, his build wasn't as hulking as a mutant's; his skeleton and bodily contours were much closer to a human's. With goosebumps prickling across his skin, Luo Yu drew his weapon almost by reflex, leveling it straight at the figure's head. The sudden motion startled everyone nearby. Wu Wenzhou, who was leading the group, couldn't make heads or tails of the situation, while the green-skinned figure mirrored Luo Yu's draw. That, in turn, prompted ten more rifles to snap up and target the stranger's skull. Noticing the standoff, an old guard on duty at the town gate unslung his rifle, cradled it in his hands, and walked over. "Hey! Stand down, folks! No private brawling within a hundred meters of town!" Seeing that jet-black exoskeleton, the guard instinctively felt uneasy, but he still barked the reprimand. "A mutant!" Luo Yu glared fixedly at the green-skinned stranger. "Does this settlement actually permit mutants to come in and trade?" "That guy... isn't one, strictly speaking." The guard looked somewhat awkward, seemingly at a loss for how to explain, and even a bit torn about whether to stick up for the fellow. Settlements strictly forbade armed brawls; that was the rule, especially for a place like Hope Town that lived and died by trade. Without rules, after all, everything would descend into chaos. Truth be told, though, he wasn't fond of these green-skinned folks either. Even if they looked more human, half of the blood in their veins was mutant blood. Especially since most of them hailed from that mutant tribe named Qi. Among the survivors across the entire Jinhe City region, not a single one didn't loathe and fear that lot. The green-skinned stranger gazed coldly at Luo Yu, then abruptly curled his lip, holstered his weapon, and wordlessly dropped his trousers. Startled by the move, Luo Yu quickly threw up his left hand to shield his eyes, but unable to block his vision completely while keeping aim, he peeked through a crack between his fingers. "What the hell are you d—?" Huh? Nothing there? Staring at the smooth green skin, Luo Yu froze. He had read the lore on the official forum: allegedly, some mutants had no junk down there, particularly the earliest generation. Those hadn't been born through reproduction, but synthesized inside cultivation vats; some among them were even engineers and scholars. If they hadn't gone mad, they might even have retained human intellect, though such cases were exceedingly rare. Most who were forced into vats to become mutants went mad for one reason or another, turning into utter beasts. Those who stayed lucid were few and far between. Because this bioengineered breed couldn't reproduce, its expansion rate obviously couldn't match the mainstream breeds of the wasteland, making them virtually nonexistent encounters. Completely thrown off by this bizarre figure, Luo Yu only came to his senses once the fellow had pulled his pants back up and walked off into the distance. "...Half-breeds. You see them from time to time. Inherited more of their mothers' genes. No reproductive capability, but none of a mutant's constitution either. Heard tell that out of ten thousand mutant whelps, there might be one or two like that, but who knows? Mutants don't drop their litters in front of us." "Besides, the mutants don't care much for them either. Usually treat them like an embarrassment and cast them out into the wasteland to rot." Watching the retreating figure, the guard resting his rifle on his shoulder squinted and went on. "How should I put it?" "They're like mules bred from a horse and a donkey, haha." The guard let out an easy laugh to break the tension, and the rest of the caravan chuckled along, but Luo Yu couldn't help feeling uncomfortable. That metaphor wasn't just drawing a line against these 'half-breeds' whose veins carried half human blood; it was as though it drew a line against the unfortunate captives seized by mutants as well. He didn't know what to make of the former, but the latter were innocent victims who shouldn't serve as the punchline of an icebreaker joke. "What's that... guy called?" "Who knows? They all look about the same. Nobody's got any interest in staring at their faces, and they usually keep them covered anyway. If you need something from him, just shout 'Hey.' They're solid hunters and occasionally take mercenary gigs for cheap, though they generally don't leave the area." "If they don't leave the area, they're no good for merchant runs." Wu Wenzhou clapped Luo Yu on the shoulder and grinned. "Forget about that guy. Fancy a couple of drinks?" "Sure." Luo Yu nodded. He had intended to glean some local intelligence anyway. According to Fang Chang's theory, taverns were the easiest places to gather intel, especially those frequented by traveling merchants and mercenaries. Wu Wenzhou glanced at the ten tough, loyal enforcers behind him. "What about those fellows?" These people were formidable, yet they never took off their helmets—he hadn't seen them remove their faceplates even once. If possible, he wanted to foster a good relationship with them. That wasn't just for his boss's sake, but for his own. Luo Yu blinked, then smiled. "Ah, Xiao Yu won't be needing any." *Xiao Yu?* *Which one?* Wu Wenzhou looked at the ten guards. All of them seemed to react to the name, leaving him unable to tell whom he was addressing. Still, it hardly mattered; weird things were a dime a dozen on the wasteland. He laughed it off, told his men to park the carts at their usual inn, and hauled this hardened warrior off toward the tavern near the town gate. "The Grizzly and Streetlamp... That's the name of the joint. Quite a place!" Standing at the entrance, Wu Wenzhou took an intoxicating deep breath, then strode proudly through the door. Frowning, Luo Yu wafted the air in front of his nose and braced himself to follow. The tavern's exterior looked unremarkable, but the hall and counter were nearly packed to the brim. Raucous chatter roared endlessly, while the speakers blared ear-torturing music that sounded like a fork scraping across a chalkboard. On top of that, the air was thoroughly foul; beneath the smoke and sweat hung a strange, moldy stench. It was hard to put into words. Yet the patrons here seemed entirely oblivious. Perhaps to most people here, this was what feeling alive was all about. On the wasteland just a hundred meters away, the feeling of being alive was far too tenuous. Even a formidable Awakened could lose their life in a single careless instant. Within a radius of a hundred li, this was the only place where one could unwind with a drink without worrying about an enemy blowing their brains out—unless the person had a death wish themselves. Chattering continuously to Luo Yu about the tavern's history, Wu Wenzhou found a quiet corner booth, flagged down a server carrying a tray, and ordered a few snacks alongside two large mugs of beer. "In Jinchuan Province, everything's expensive except for food." Actually, one other thing was cheap. Human lives. Men, women, the elderly, or children—on this fertile, chaotic land, all were exceptionally cheap, usually going for half the price of anywhere else. Considering this fellow was a shelter resident, however, Wu Wenzhou tactfully glossed over that subject. Luo Yu took a sip of the beer. The rich, mellow flavor was indeed pleasant, but there was an odd smell lingering in the air. He had noticed it from the moment he walked in. "The smell here feels kind of off." Assuming he meant the brew, Wu Wenzhou said with a chuckle, "Not used to the alcohol outside your home turf?" "Nothing to do with the beer." Luo Yu shook his head, glanced left and right, and muttered under his breath, "There's something dirty around." He didn't know what it was either. Xiao Yu had told him. It had picked up a bad stench from the moment they entered the settlement, and the scent only grew stronger the closer they got to the tavern. Just then, a server walked over carrying a basket of bread and a green-tinted glass jar, setting them down on the neighboring table. "Pine nut bread, our local specialty." A mercenary at the neighboring table glanced at the verdant glass jar and asked curiously, "What's this?" Before the server could reply, the man sitting beside the mercenary said with a grin, "Hope Town's special blend of jam! Delicious stuff. It's been all the rage around here lately. Take a bite and you'll see! I bet you'll fall in love with it!" "Haha, come off it. I don't eat sweets; I only eat meat!" "Just give it a try. It's on my dime anyway." Egged on by his buddy, the mercenary curiously unscrewed the glass jar, dipped a finger inside, and sucked it into his mouth. After savoring it for a moment, he mumbled, "Tastes a bit weird. Let me try another bite." Staring at that jar of green jam, Luo Yu recognized the substance in an instant, his eyes bulging wide. *Holy hell.* *Na fruit... jam?!* Now he finally understood what had been making Xiao Yu so uneasy...