Inside the simply furnished guest room of the inn by the gates of Pinecone Farm, candlelight flickered as Wu Wenzhou paced restlessly back and forth.
Things were spiraling out of control...
Initially, he had merely agreed to help Yang He by providing some assistance to that mercenary, aiming to get Yang He's six-year-old daughter out of Zhao Manor.
Whether out of gratitude for past favors or in pursuit of his own self-interest, he had fully intended to lend a hand.
It was not supposed to carry much risk.
Although Yang He was his superior, he had not orchestrated the rescue through Wu Wenzhou directly, choosing instead to hire an outside mercenary. Once the deed was done, Wu Wenzhou could easily claim total ignorance.
If Yang He severed all ties and withdrew completely from Pinecone Farm, Wu Wenzhou could remain behind as a loyal servant, draw a clear line between himself and Yang He, and eventually become the farm's exclusive merchant.
Yang He had urged him to leave as well, arguing that with the capital they had amassed over the years, they could still make a fortune without relying on Pinecone Farm's resources.
Yet Wu Wenzhou had politely declined without a second thought.
Compared to illusory freedom, he craved power and wealth. He knew full well the difference between himself and Yang He: that man had already enjoyed his fill, but he had yet to taste that intoxicating allure. Perhaps one day he would make the same choice as his former boss, but only after amassing an immense fortune. Stepping away now at great personal risk would not only render all his past groveling before the master utterly pointless, but it would also permanently rob him of the life he dreamed of.
However, after witnessing what had transpired in Hope Town and having a long talk with that fellow named Fang Chang, a bucket of cold water had been dumped over his head.
One needed a life to spend the money one earned.
Perhaps his old boss had been right all along.
The people here had gone mad.
Thus, he had agreed without hesitation to the Alliance's terms, helping their soldiers slip into the settlement. In exchange, the Alliance would dispatch an aircraft to evacuate him and his family from the plantation.
Yet to his utter astonishment, the situation had deviated from his expectations right from the start.
The Alliance had never intended to conduct a quiet investigation into the "Sanctuary" or the bishop hiding within; they were orchestrating an operation far more terrifying and daring. Worse still, they had been tailed by Chiliarch Luo Feihui's informants back in Hope Town, and that ambitious officer had muscled his way into the fray as well.
No matter how dense Wu Wenzhou was, he had finally realized it by now.
He had been played!
Of course, one could not strictly say the Alliance had lied to him. Those cunning bastards simply had not laid all their cards on the table. After all, compared to cautious infiltration and bribing staff for intelligence, seizing the entire plantation outright and rounding up the key figures for systematic interrogation was also a form of investigation.
And far more efficient at that.
Furthermore, if the Alliance took full control of the farm, his family would naturally be safe, fulfilling the terms of their trade.
But—
Could things really go that smoothly?
He could not help but peer out into the pitch-black night beyond the window.
Wasn't this night a little too quiet...?
*Thump, thump—*
A knock sounded on the door.
The abrupt noise startled the already fidgety Wu Wenzhou, and he hurried over to the entryway. He rested his hand on the doorknob without opening it right away, cautiously asking first, "Who is it?"
"..."
Silence answered from the other side. Not a sound could be heard.
The knocking seemed to have ceased, yet he was certain someone was still lingering outside, as no departing footsteps had sounded.
A foreboding unease settled over his heart. Switching the knob to his left hand, he plunged his right into his pocket, gripped the revolver resting within, and quietly clicked off the safety.
Gritting his teeth, he pulled the door open.
Standing on the threshold was the inn's bookkeeper, his acquaintance Li Liangchuan.
At the sight of that familiar face, Wu Wenzhou breathed a sudden sigh of relief. His pounding heart instantly settled, as though a crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
"...Damn it, knocking without saying a word—are you trying to scare me to death?!"
The man in the doorway did not respond. He simply stood there like a sleepwalker, staring blankly ahead, mouth clamped shut in utter silence.
Creeped out by that hollow gaze, Wu Wenzhou swallowed hard and tentatively called out his name.
"...Liangchuan?"
Still, there was no reaction. The lifeless pupils remained fixed.
Sensing that something was deeply wrong, Wu Wenzhou backed into the room, drew the revolver from his pocket, and leveled it straight at the man's head. His expression twisted into a snarl as he bellowed, "What the hell are you playing at?! Cut the spooky crap!"
Perhaps finally registering the threatening shout, or perhaps stirred by something else entirely, the man sluggishly shifted his downcast gaze toward Wu Wenzhou backing into the room.
Staring into those vacant eyes, Wu Wenzhou swallowed again, retreating until he hit the wooden desk beside the window. Keeping the barrel trained on the man's head, he rested his index finger on the trigger.
In those murky pupils, he caught sight of an unvarnished craving for flesh and blood!
It was the look of a starving beast sighting isolated prey—having roamed the wasteland for years, he knew he was not mistaken!
Something was wrong with this guy!
Terribly wrong!
"Stay back! I'm warning you! Take one more step and I'll shoot—! Aaargh!"
Venting his fury and terror in a roar, he watched his friend lurch forward in a lunge and decisively squeezed the trigger.
And not just once!
*Bang, bang—!*
The roar of gunfire ripped through the room. The bullets effortlessly shattered his friend's skull, splattering blood and brain matter into the hallway.
"Don't blame me... I warned you!"
Staring at the corpse on the floor, Wu Wenzhou leaned against the desk, gasping for breath. But before he could recover, figure after figure materialized at the doorway, draining the color from his face.
One, two, three...
A whole crowd!
Dressed in server uniforms, they stood like walking corpses, staring at him with abyssal eyes before parting their mouths to emit drawn-out, guttural groans like shifting sludge.
"Urrgh—"
Like a bursting flash flood, they swarmed forward.
"Aaargh!" Hysterical with horror, Wu Wenzhou emptied his revolver wildly into the charging mass.
Gunfire exploded again and again, muzzle flashes flickering behind the half-drawn curtains like dying candles buffeted by an evening gale.
Moments later, a splat of crimson blood slapped against the window pane, followed by a contorted face and a flurry of bloody handprints, completely smothering the warm light within...
***
At that exact moment, at the center of the settlement...
The grand, opulent manor belonging to the plantation owner was shrouded in a similarly crimson pall.
"Weren't you looking for me?"
"Now that I'm standing right before you, why have you all gone quiet? Gah-gah-gah—"
Accompanying the voice was a raspy, withered laugh that echoed through the dead-silent hall with an indescribable eeriness.
The players looked up toward the second-floor mezzanine, where a middle-aged man stood leaning over the railing, looking down at the group below with cloudy eyes.
He seemed to have been waiting here all along.
Waiting for them to walk in on their own.
Glancing at the image on his VM, Fang Chang's pupils constricted slightly. He stared back up at the figure, his eyes filled with shock.
*Zhao Tiangan?!*
*No—*
"...Luo Qian?"
Fang Chang stared unblinkingly at the man.
Luo Yu shot him a quick, questioning glance, his eyes clearly asking, *What are you talking about?*
Fang Chang offered no immediate answer.
Just moments ago, a possibility had crossed his mind...
Bizarre as it sounded, it would explain why the Sanctuary was considered absolutely safe.
And from an entirely scientific, non-religious standpoint, no less...
Because that thing was not on the ground at all.
And precisely because it wasn't on the ground, theoretically anyone could listen to its gospel. And as long as it wished, it could manifest anywhere.
Hearing that name, the man's face twisted into an uncanny smile. "Heh... figured it out already? A bit quicker than I expected."
"Ah, so that's it..." Fang Chang regarded him coolly, his expression growing increasingly grim.
Catching the look on Fang Chang's face, All Good Names Taken by Dogs swallowed, asking hastily in a mix of tension and excitement, "What are you two on about...? I don't get a word of this!"
He understood a few phrases of the Human Alliance language, but listening to them now left him completely bewildered.
Fang Chang ground out through clenched teeth, "A psychic interference device!"
"Psychic... interference?!" Luo Yu looked at him in surprise, unsure why he was suddenly bringing that up.
What did that have to do with their current predicament?
Keeping his eyes fixed on the man, Fang Chang explained calmly, "Remember how the psychic interference device works? The higher a target's intellect, the more specific the information received, but the less influence it exerts. The lower the intellect, the less information received, but the greater the control."
His throat bobbed as he continued, "Consuming excess Na fruit induces a 'trance'... In that state, a person's intellect is practically zero."
The true "gospel" was never the tablet!
It was a psychic interference device operating somewhere out of sight!
And the tablet's true function was never to suppress withdrawal symptoms!
It was an amplifier or a signal-parsing aid!
Granted, this was merely his deduction.
Yet one thing was certain—
From the moment they arrived at Pinecone Farm—no, perhaps even earlier—that entity had already set its sights on them!
A murderous glint flashed in the eyes of the man on the mezzanine.
"Goliath, kill them!"
"ROAAAR—!"
The instant the command fell, the mountain of flesh sitting on the floor unleashed a deafening roar. The terrifying shockwave blew every window in the building outward in a shower of shards.
"Ugh—"
The players in the hall clutched their ears. Even with pain dampened, their hearing was nearly blasted to oblivion.
Operating on the principle of taking down the leader first, Hao Gou raised his rifle and fired two quick shots at the man on the mezzanine.
A string of blood droplets burst from the man's abdomen and shoulder, and he tumbled backward without a peep.
Stunned that the boss went down so easily, Hao Gou blinked in shock before grinning and spitting, "Pah! That's what you get for acting tough!"
Fang Chang's voice barked from the side. "Stay on guard! That guy was just a puppet!"
Hao Gou: "Holy crap?!"
"Fire!" Fang Chang raised his rifle, aiming directly at the hulking mass rising from the pile of corpses.
The mound of flesh that had been sitting on the floor surged to its feet, charging toward the players at the entrance with thundering strides.
*Rat-tat-tat-tat—!*
Muzzle flashes strobed as brass casings clattered across the floor.
Luo Yu squeezed the trigger without hesitation, sending streams of amber tracers raking across the charging monster.
To his astonishment, the bullets sank into the creature like slugs into massive blocks of ballistic gel, failing to make the slightest ripple across its wall-like frame!
"What the hell is this thing?!"
A focused volley pelted the creature's massive head, yet the mountain of flesh showed no reaction whatsoever.
The kinetic energy was completely absorbed!
Even under the concentrated fire of ten assault rifles, the monster named Goliath did not slow down in the slightest. It swung a windmill-sized palm toward the players by the entrance, whipping up a violent gale inside the spacious hall.
"Eewoo—!"
Seeing the monster bore down upon them, Yu's fruiting body clad in a K-10 "Iron Wall" exoskeleton drew a combat knife and charged forward in massive strides.
The blade sank deep into the monster's left chest.
Yet to everyone's horror, no blood erupted. It was as though the heart were not located there at all!
The blade had met nothing but thick, dead fat!
"Shit—"
A short scream cut through the comms.
The monster hit like a locomotive. After a mere split-second pause, it swatted the exoskeleton-clad fruiting body flying and barreled toward the others with undiminished momentum.
Still, Yu's fruiting body had bought the squad valuable time to dodge the whistling backhand.
Raising an arm to shield against flying tile fragments, Fang Chang snatched an incendiary grenade from his exoskeleton harness and hurled it violently at Goliath.
Flames burst across the monster's frame!
Yet against its colossal bulk, the fire looked like a faint lighter flicker, unable to inflict meaningful damage.
Then again—
He had never expected an incendiary grenade to finish it off.
Taking advantage of Goliath's pained roar, Fang Chang yelled into his comms, "Squads C and D, fall back outside!"
"Drone team, prepare to fire!"
"Lao Bai! We need an extraction!"
"Ye Shi! Are you done yet? If it's too risky, ditch it! We're pulling out!"
Ye Shi had remained on the carriage earlier, accompanying the driver toward the servants' quarters to retrieve the six-year-old girl in Luo Yu's stead. Luo Yu had needed to direct Yu's fruiting bodies, which could only exert maximum combat effectiveness when close to him.
No answer came from Ye Shi.
Instead, Lao Bai's voice crackled through the channel, accompanied by the howling rush of wind. "...Hang on! We're en route, almost there!"
At that exact moment, a piercing broadcast tore through the quiet night, the raspy, shrill laughter echoing over the manor grounds.
"Hahaha..."
"It's useless."
"You cannot escape!"
"Every last one of you stays here!"
Goliath roared, smashing through the front wall adjacent to the entrance. Its contorted face let out a deafening screech at the players stumbling into the courtyard.
"ROAAAR—!"
The roaring gust blasted away leaves and dirt as Squads C and D maintained alternating covering fire. At the same time, Squad B crouched by the flower beds and Squad A looped back from the rear courtyard, bringing all their rifles to bear on the monster.
Goliath's advance stuttered for an instant, a hint of agony coloring its furious roar. It was clearly not immortal.
When injured, it still felt pain!
Right then, two fiery streaks trailing smoke plunged from the sky, striking the monster's left and right shoulders with pinpoint precision.
A thunderous explosion engulfed Goliath, cutting off its deafening shriek in mid-breath.
A scorched, acrid stench drifted through the sweltering shockwave.
As the smoke cleared, a mangled mound of charred flesh stood slumped by the ruined entrance, battered beyond recognition.
Blackened chunks lay scattered across the ground, venting gray smoke and heat—debris sheared straight off its body.
Watching the burning steps and stone path, and the towering, unmoving lump of meat, Luo Yu swallowed hard.
"Is it dead...?"
Apparently—
Not yet.
Upon closer inspection, the bloated frame still heaved in steady breaths. Even after being torn to shreds by missiles, it clung stubbornly to life.
What was worse, writhing, earthworm-like tendrils began sprouting from the wounds on its back, twisting and tangling together as they stitched the damaged flesh at a rate visible to the naked eye!
Such absurd regenerative speed was outrageous even for a mutant.
Having regenerated its legs, the beast suddenly began lumbering backward.
Fang Chang roared into his headset without hesitation, "Kuang Feng! Hit it with two more!"
A calm reply came through his earpiece: "Copy that."
Two streaks of fire flared across the night sky as another pair of missiles plummeted, striking the regenerating monstrosity once again!
One missile pierced straight into a mending wound. Tentacle-like tendrils lashed out around the casing, trying to heave the foreign object out of its body.
Yet it was a fraction of a second too late.
A devastating detonation erupted, instantly shredding the tendrils wrapped around the warhead and swallowing the monster in flame once more.
No matter how ridiculous its regeneration, it remained a carbon-based organism. If two missiles weren't enough, two more would do the trick!
And this time, it was plenty.
The colossal beast crashed heavily to the ground, finally still.
Black sludge gushed from tears across its body, thick as petroleum, resembling both blood and liquefied fat.
The battle was over.
Yet no one cheered.
Everyone was acutely aware that they stood at the very heart of Pinecone Farm, surrounded by at least three regiments. Making such a racket in the owner's estate, riddling the place with bullet holes and blood, would leave them no way to talk their way out of this.
And Luo Feihui, the only one who might have contained the situation, was already dead.
"Something isn't right..."
Pulling his gaze away from the mound of a corpse, Fang Chang scanned their surroundings with his rifle sweeping the edges of the garden. "Isn't it a bit too quiet around here?"
If memory served, there were at least two checkpoints and over a hundred soldiers stationed along the path from the main gate to where they stood.
Even if only a few minutes had elapsed since combat began, the nearby patrols and sentries could hardly have gone so completely deaf that they offered zero response.
He glanced down at the thermal imaging feed on his VM. In the center, the massive corpse glowed white, and the bright clusters in front of the villa were their own men.
Further out, strings of white dots had begun gathering near the estate, waiting for an opportunity to push in.
That part was normal.
Yet when he zoomed out to survey the wider area, the thermal signatures marking soldiers were still moving along their fixed routes, conducting routine patrols like clockwork...
A terrifying realization hit Fang Chang, and he yelled, "Kuang Feng! Dump your remaining payload!"
"Dump it?"
The moment the words left Kuang Feng's lips, he too seemed to catch on. Without hesitation, he dumped the drone's remaining four Dove missiles toward the empty ground outside the settlement.
Then something bizarre occurred.
The four missiles shot forth, banked sharply in midair, adjusted their trajectory, and came screaming straight toward the front entrance of the villa!
Watching the streaks of fire curve in the sky, Fang Chang's face drained of color, and he bellowed over squad comms, "Get inside the villa!"
He lunged back toward the building they had just evacuated.
Almost the instant his forward foot cleared the threshold, the blast erupted close behind him. The blistering shockwave hurled him inside, his helmet striking a pillar with enough force to nearly knock him unconscious.
He had been fortunate.
Two players trailing just half a step behind were swallowed by the inferno, killed on the spot by friendly fire.
Kuang Feng's voice crackled over the radio: "Drone hijacked... Sorry! My bad—"
"Not your fault... There's an expert on the other side."
Looking back at the roaring flames, Fang Chang pushed himself off the floor with his rifle stock and panted lightly.
He suddenly recalled their encounter with the Church of the Torch in the East District of Qingquan City during the fuel rod transport mission. Those fanatics hadn't been numerous, but every one of them was elite and thoroughly trained. If not for home-field advantage and Mosquito's timely air support, they would have had little chance of victory.
A burst of fire flared in the sky.
The Seagull drone, valued at 3,000,000 Cr, initiated its self-destruct sequence upon detecting total loss of control, gliding toward preset emergency coordinates.
Three million.
And in Cr, no less.
This time, the budget was truly burning.
Illuminating the sky alongside the Seagull's wreckage were soaring tracers weaving a dense anti-air net.
Watching the night sky lit by flak, Fang Chang felt a creeping dread. He called into his headset, "Lao Bai... what's your status?"
Static hissed over the comms, underscored by the roar of gunfire and wind, attesting to the intensity of the engagement. "We're being driven off by anti-air fire! Can't get near the center of the settlement... You'll have to hold out a little longer!"
Nimble as the Viper was, a few quad-mount anti-aircraft guns weren't enough to shoot it down, but the constant harassment prevented it from safely transitioning to VTOL mode to decelerate and land.
"...Someone's coming from outside!" Luo Yu called out tensely from a window, resting his rifle against the sill. "Shit! Looks like a ton of them!"
Almost simultaneously, Lao Bai's voice crackled through again.
"Massive signatures approaching your position... Watch out! Those people don't look right!"
"Prepare for contact!"
Fang Chang quickly stepped up to a window, resting his rifle on the sill, while waving Squads A and B toward the second floor.
With their defenses deployed, he drew a steadying breath and ground out, "How many... roughly?"
Lao Bai's voice was grave. "I can't see clearly from up here, but if I'm not mistaken... there are at least ten thousand!"
Fang Chang froze. "Ten thousand?!"
Common sense and instinct told him Lao Bai had to be mistaken.
Yet a resolute confirmation came through the channel.
"Yes, and ten thousand is conservative... Every single body in this settlement is swarming toward you!"
Fang Chang: "???"
*What the actual hell?!*
Chapter 576