Chapter 57 First Kill of the Mutant Insect
The afternoon sun was even warmer and more intense, and the distant river water shimmered with golden light.
However, Zhao Bohan, who was squatting by the riverbank, had no interest in appreciating the beautiful scenery. He took out the probe of the portable radiation measuring instrument.
"The radiation concentration in the water here is more than five times higher than in the forest this morning. We've already entered the inner circle," he said.
"Rest here for half an hour, drink some water, and replenish your nutrients," Yu Shuang said.
After getting away from the hallucinogenic bougainvillea, their luck suddenly improved. Apart from encountering a group of hairy monkeys throwing feces at them and a python thicker than Qi An's waist, their journey was relatively smooth.
But just walking is tiring!
Qi An loosened the buckle on the huge backpack and plopped down on a rock.
But before she could open the valve of the nutrient tank inside the protective suit, her hand paused.
"Those top teams are really energetic. How many kills have they accumulated?" Yu Shuang looked at the rankings displayed in an inconspicuous little window on the tablet, feeling a little envious, but also genuinely sorry for how tired they were.
Tang Long, whose physical strength was at its peak, quickly drank nutrient solution. "Is it possible that we are the team with the lowest average physical enhancement?"
What heartbreaking truth?
Just as Qi An was about to speak, Zhuang Xiao, who was using the restroom in the bushes some distance away, poked her head out and shouted angrily:
"Let's just say that our average mental enhancement level is the highest!"
"What's the point of fighting for this? The one who gets the most power ends up bearing the most burdens." Su Qingran said coldly, exhausted.
Qi An finally seized an opening and quickly said, "Hurry up and untie me!"
"Isn't it supposed to be a half-hour break?" Zhuang Xiao had been holding it in for a long time and needed to release it comfortably.
Just as he was releasing, a silver shadow suddenly leaped out of the river and bit at the spot where Zhuang Xiao was releasing...
Another silver shadow lunged at Zhao Bohan, who was half-squatting on the riverbank upstream!
Zhuang Xiao shuddered in fright and instinctively covered her hands with them, drawing blood from both hands!
Zhao Bohan suddenly leaned back, but the breathing filter on his mask also snapped shut!
The team members, who had just relaxed, suddenly grabbed their guns.
The silver shadow flashed by and then jumped back into the water, failing to hit anyone.
"A fallen insect?" Yu Shuang asked in a deep voice.
"A jumping piranha!" Zhuang Xiao shouted angrily, gasping for breath.
The river was small but deep, and the fish swam leisurely in it. Suddenly, the prettiest little silver fish leaped up and opened its mouth full of fangs!
This godforsaken place!
Fortunately, Su Qingran's pupils trembled, and she hesitated before asking, "You're injured..." When Zhuang Xiao, a little embarrassed, released the part she was covering, revealing a layer of intact protective clothing fabric.
The protective suit was completely sealed, and there was a catheter for urination. He stood by the river purely out of respect for Sister Qi and the others, and also out of a sense of ritual that he was bored out of his mind.
His protective suit had a large hole bitten through it, and blood was flowing from the back of his hand.
In the radiation zone, this was no small injury. Su Qingran got the medicine, and Tang Long took out his protective suit to repair the tape.
"Sister Qi can even sense mutated creatures now?" Zhuang Xiao wanted to curry favor with her again, but she was a little confused.
Qi An rushed over and pushed him back.
"No! Everyone back up! There are also worms in the water!" Qi An fired a shot towards the edge of the riverbank.
The aquatic plants on the bank were deep and lush, and the gray-green snake-like thing was shot and "whoosh"ed back into the water!
But the blood that splattered was green!
These insects swam in from afar at incredible speed. The small silver fish, with their mouths full of fangs and seemingly the bosses of this area, panicked and couldn't escape in time. They were caught by the tentacles and turned into a cloud of red mist!
The entire team retreated immediately. Tang Long rushed to the spot where the others had been resting, picked up several large bags, and headed towards a safer place.
A bug's head popped out of the water with a "splash".
It was shockingly ugly, like an octopus with tumors, only its whole body was pale, and its eyes were like a fish's eyes but also like a human's.
Its gill-like respiratory organs on both sides of its head resemble those of a parasitic mollusk, and its shell opens and closes irregularly!
Just one glance was enough to raise everyone's pollution levels, causing a two-second delay in firing their guns.
However, it only lasted two seconds before Yu Shuang fired a shot at the insect's forehead!
She missed; the insect sank into the water even earlier than her and swam out of the riverbank the next second!
It has an amphibian-like structure, with two legs hidden under a thick, long tail, which work in conjunction with its tentacles to run extremely fast!
Gunshots rang out in succession, and the mollusks that emerged from the water surface one after another also appeared in rapid succession.
“17, and there are more in the distance!” Qi An said in a deep voice.
"Where is the cyst?" Zhao Bohan had fired several shots but none of them hit the vital spot. He was forced to retreat by a "fish worm"!
"Zhuang Xiao!" Yu Shuang roared.
Under Yu Shuang's cover, Zhuang Xiao jumped onto a low branch of a large tree and fired more than ten shots at a relatively slow-moving insect.
"Chest! Hit the cheek!" Zhuang Xiao shouted back.
Thankfully, they were communicating through earpieces built into their protective suits; otherwise, even if they shouted themselves hoarse under the sonic attack, no one next door could hear them.
Zhuang Xiao, on the other hand, had a high field of vision, good eyesight, and fast shooting. He fired more than ten shots, all of which were fixed shots, and after that, he found out the weakness!
The team's insect-killing speed suddenly increased, and a patch of insects lay on the riverbank!
But Qi An also looked up at the sky.
The sky was azure, with sparse white clouds and a few black dots in the distance.
At first glance, it's a black dot; at second glance, it's close. Even with gunfire masking it, you can still hear a long scream!
The "fish worms" in the river seem to be endless, and their gills are on the side, making them difficult to kill once the hard shell on their gills closes.
The insect, resembling a featherless vulture, swooped down from the sky. As it got closer, the shriek it emitted carried a sonic attack, and the sound waves crashed against the ground, even kicking up a swarm of fallen leaves!
Zhuang Xiao was knocked off a tree branch by a wave that was crashing down on him, and he was momentarily dizzy.
The "fish and insects" on the water were still emerging, and after everyone turned their guns to the sky, they rushed ashore in droves and charged forward!
"Captain, we..." Tang Long said, slightly flustered.
There were four "birds and insects" in the sky, breaking up their formation!
"Forget about the birds and insects, help Xiao Qi catch the fish worms!" Yu Shuang shouted.
Tang Long was taken aback.
He and Qi An are catching fish larvae? There are so many fish larvae!
But Qi An had already shouted, "Drive them away!"
Tang Long turned around and saw that Qi An was just raising his gun to shoot insects.
But he instinctively followed orders, spraying bullets from his light machine gun to drive back several fish and insects that were trying to flank him, while a dark shadow rushed from their luggage compartment toward the riverbank.
After two minutes of intense heat and vacuum, the number of insects on the riverbank was at its peak.
Qi An shouted: "Back off!"
Everyone rushed and ran wildly away from the riverbank. A flash of white light appeared on the riverbank, and flames rose up!
The explosion and shockwave pushed the riverbank flat and sent a bird that was about to attack Qi An flying into the sky.
Zhuang Xiao banged his head against the tree repeatedly, turned his headphones to 100% noise cancellation, endured the buzzing and dizziness, shot the bird-insect through its abdomen, then scrambled back up the tree, jumped with all his might, and grabbed the insect's wing.
The bird had already stumbled and fallen, but when it tried to fly again, it was caught and could not fly up no matter what.
Zhuang Xiao spotted the cyst on the insect's head at a glance, struggled to roll over, and fired a shot into its head the moment he landed!
The birds and insects in the sky are extremely difficult to deal with, but with Zhao Bohan and Su Qingran providing cover, Yu Shuang has switched to a single-soldier rocket launcher.
As the insect attacked, Zhao Bohan took the hit head-on, and Yu Shuang took advantage of its low flight to blast it into the sky with a single shot!
The aftershocks also injured another bird-like insect. Qi An, Tang Long, and the others, now free to deal with the situation, concentrated their firepower and nearly destroyed the insect's wings!
The area by the water was a scene of utter devastation, covered in green blood, and the nearby animals were so frightened that they ran away for two miles.
What kind of battle is this, between a ferocious tentacle monster and an even more ferocious bipedal creature?!
Yu Shuang caught her breath and immediately looked at Qi An.
"It's gone, it's gone from the water too." Qi An leaned back against the big tree, trying to calm his rapid breathing.
Everyone relaxed a little, and Zhao Bohan desperately suppressed the urge to vomit.
He could only vomit inside his protective suit, and afterwards he would have to walk through his own vomit!
However, he couldn't resist—this vice-captain's health was among the worst in the squad, with the most frequent illnesses and the slowest recovery time after injury.
However, these two types of insects are not common. Everyone helped the vice-captain, who was "on the verge of death" from the fumes, change his filter mask. After resting for a while, they took photos and uploaded information about the insects.
The renowned All-Stars team has finally returned to the first page!
The smiling officer in the command hall noticed this, raised an eyebrow, and chuckled:
"Finally encountered the bugs. If it weren't for the fact that they fought a pretty good match against nearly 40 mutated bugs, I would have thought this team was deliberately avoiding the bugs."
The solemn officer remained silent.
In the forest, Yu Shuang plopped down on the ground, hugging her tactical backpack:
"Even if you deliberately avoid the insects, you can still randomly run into a large group of them."
This looks like the inner circle; the insects are much denser here.
Qi An gulped down the purified water while nodding vigorously.
The two waves of insects moved very quickly from their appearance to their attack, demonstrating that the mutated insects were indeed far more powerful than the ordinary insects.
"Then we've reached our destination. Xiao Qi, can you sense which direction the bird we deliberately released flew off to?" Yu Shuang asked.
Qi An was taken aback: "You didn't install a GPS tracker?"
Yu Shuang was also taken aback: "...No."
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