Chapter Thirty: Everyone's Progress

Qi An adjusted the muzzle of his gun, aiming at the head of a fallen insect, his expression a mixture of tension and excitement.

This was the first time she had killed a living creature since she started learning firearms!

She pulled the trigger, and the fallen insect, 500 meters away, swayed, all the eyes on its back freezing at the same time.

Then a chilling scream was heard, and its eerie power still lingered 500 meters away!

Qi An missed.

She missed her intended target, the head, and instead struck the fallen insect's back.

This won't kill the insect, but it's enough to alert the swarm!

The scope was filled with chaos, and Yu Shuang followed up with a shot, blowing the wounded bug's head off.

"It's alright, it's windy now, it's hard to shoot." Yu Shuang even had the leisure to comfort Qi An, while firing several shots in quick succession, each one a headshot!

The swarm of insects was in complete chaos. Qi An's headphones weren't set to full noise cancellation, and she could hear the intertwined screams clearly!

The voice was sharp and high-pitched, summoning more fallen insects to crawl out from every corner!

Qi An composed herself slightly, not forgetting her other responsibility in the team battle: to accurately report the numbers.

"There are 10 in the toll station area, 5-7 in the woods on the left, 2 behind the mound next to the highway guardrail, about 6 in total in the crack of the highway and below the slope in the distance, and there are also some with blurry sensors further away."

Initial assessment indicates the absence of gnats.

Several "Received" messages came through the earpiece.

As Qi An reported the numbers, her eyes did not leave the scope. As soon as she finished speaking, she slightly turned the gun and hit a fallen insect that was rushing towards her!

This time it hit the vital point perfectly!

"Great!" Yu Shuang was somewhat surprised by how quickly she picked it up and immediately cheered!

Qi An felt a surge of energy, and after several shots, although they were all fast-moving live targets, his hit rate was quite good!

Hard work pays off; her specialized training over the past few days has been very effective!

Zhuang Xiao and Tang Long were positioned at two other sniper positions behind them, Zhao Bohan was a little further away, and the remaining three guarded the car a kilometer away.

The squad fully utilized its long-range advantage, and within two minutes of the start of the battle, every fallen insect that dared to peek out was reduced to a corpse.

However, the terrain in this area is complex and there are many obstacles. When the remaining fallen insects realized what was happening, they either found cover or tried to approach from behind from various corners.

“There are at least five in the woods, using the trees for cover as they move toward our rear. There are also some in the cracks in the road, coming down the slope.” Qi An was multitasking, sensing and shooting at the same time.

"Received. Fallen insects have been observed emerging from the edge of the forest," Zhao Bohan replied.

Zhuang Xiao, another Qi fanboy, chimed in: "I saw it too, oh my god! Sister Qi is like a living radar! With her on our team, what can we not do... damn!"

He ended with a vulgar curse, and after a moment said, "They also have guns, and their firepower is not weak!"

"Did you get hurt?" Su Qingran asked, referring to whether he had sustained any injuries.

"No, just a scratch. A bug got close while I was changing magazines, and it was so fast! Damn my contamination level!" Zhuang Xiao shouted as he killed.

Qi An said, "Put on your transducer terminal cap!"

This small-scale ambush was a good opportunity to test this cutting-edge technology equipment. Qi An carried the main unit box of the transmission device on his back, connecting Yu Shuang, Zhuang Xiao, and Tang Long at the same time.

However, after she started resonating, the system's overload warnings never stopped!

Qi An was a little flustered, and Zhuang Xiao asked timidly, "Sister Qi, are you sure you can handle this? I feel a bit of an electric shock on my scalp..."

The overload alarm was like a death knell. Qi An took a deep breath and tried his best to control his mental energy.

Was it because her spiritual power was too overwhelming? Or was this broken machine's channel so narrow that it was just a worm-like stream?

She could no longer allow her spirit to invade in a massive, overwhelming manner as she had during purification; she had to extend only thin tentacles to wage a protracted, equal battle against the slowly growing contaminated brain worms of her teammates in the distance.

This is incredibly demanding in terms of stamina and micro-management skills; it's completely targeted at her!

But just as Zhuang Xiao felt a slight pain in his scalp and hesitated about whether to take off the soft cap, and Tang Long's pollution level had reached 39%, Qi An successfully achieved remote resonance and suppressed Zhuang Xiao's pollution in a weak but stable way!

The resonance with Tang Long proceeded in sync, and neither of them saw their pollution levels rise again!

"Hey? That feels good!" Zhuang Xiao shouted after smashing a fallen insect.

Tang Long said at the same time, "I feel it too! It feels so good! It's like sipping ice-cold plum juice on a sweltering summer day!"

As expected of him, he even uses beverages as metaphors!

The machine was no longer overloaded, but Qi An's brain almost overloaded, though she adapted very quickly.

It seems that multi-threaded task processing isn't a difficult task for her...

Qi An's precise sensing enabled the drone to remotely locate and fill in any gaps, finding all the fallen insects that had retreated or hidden.

With the remote resonance enabled, Yu Shuang unleashed her full speed and even dared to charge into the enemy ranks, eliminating the last Fallen Insect that had been hiding in the guard post and sniping at them. The battle was over!

Total time: 15 minutes.

When the team regrouped and returned to the vehicle, Yang Yuning was stunned for a long time. "You guys are done fighting already? Doesn't anyone need purification or medical treatment?"

Yu Shuang finally put on a show in front of her comrades at the outer base, waving her hand nonchalantly: "It's just 30 bugs, how could they get hurt? The road has been cleared, let's go!"

Yang Yuning felt a surge of respect, and Guan Ling, who was unfamiliar with the battlefield, also sensed the aura of "annihilating enemy ships and forts with a laugh" and was very impressed.

The team members were secretly pleased. After getting into the car, they had a heated discussion about who killed more bugs in the battle just now.

Of course, the main focus is on "Qi Chui," because her role is simply too significant.

However, Qi An was in a bad mood because when she removed the heavy transmission device that covered half of her back, she found that it had run out of power after only 15 minutes!

Wow! This battery life is even better than those old, refurbished phones from before the apocalypse that she'd seen on the black market before!

Did she connect too many people at once? Or were the batteries faulty?

The convoy resumed its journey, but the road conditions became increasingly complex, causing their speed to slow down significantly. Even with their best efforts, it took them four full days to complete the journey.

Four days later, on March 17, the weather had become very warm, and they entered the territory of the North 1 Base.

North Base 1 is a giant base with a population of 3 million. The city area within the wall is already quite large, and outside the wall, factories, farms and ranches surround it in layers, stretching as far as the eye can see.

The main road leading in and out of the base has eight lanes, and the vehicles coming and going are of various types.

There was a queue in front of the base gate!

Such bustling activity gave Qi An his first glimpse into the kind of massive, crowded metropolis and the noisy, extravagant modern civilization described in the base's general education textbooks before the apocalypse.