Run the Plot Ch.37

Chapter 37: Team Battle

The helicopter sped toward Headquarters.

The pilot was an A-rank ability user from the military.

Qi He sat in the copilot seat to help control the helicopter’s acceleration, while the other two sat in the back.

Through the side window, he looked down. “Guan Shang, can you sense any signs of a mutant swarm gathering below?”

“Not yet.”

Qi He rested a hand on the window ledge. The three major bases were far apart from one another; the mutants didn’t yet have the command ability to coordinate on such a large scale.

A diversionary attack was highly unlikely.

“But we’ve been away for a while,” Guan Shangchun hesitated. “There’s no guarantee that later—”

“The base has already entered full defense mode,” Qi He said.

Whether it was Base I or Headquarters, both past crises had stemmed from being caught off guard. After the previous mutant invasion, Base I had rebuilt its ground and underground defense networks.

Besides, Yu Tianxing and the other ability users were still there.

Guan Shangchun exhaled in relief. “Then it should be fine?”

Qi He looked straight ahead without replying.

Two seconds later, the long-silent Yan Chuanbai finally spoke. “Even if it’s not fine, we must give everything to support Headquarters—”

His profile was outlined by the sky beyond the window, his usual cool tone carrying a firmness that left no room for doubt.

“Once the heart stops beating, the rest of the body’s defenses will crumble sooner or later.”

In the quiet cabin, the pilot felt a chill run over his skin.

Suddenly, a hand patted him on the shoulder. “Brace yourself.”

The pilot’s eyes widened in alarm. “B-brace for collapse?”

The next instant, the helicopter abruptly accelerated, surging toward headquarters—

Qi He said, “Prepare to charge.”

Since they couldn’t rest easy, they would have to end this quickly.

…

An hour later, they finally approached Headquarters.

Solid high walls loomed ahead.

From afar, the ground below was a dark, seething mass—mutant creatures surging toward the base like a tide of ants. The frontlines were engulfed in explosions and gunfire; the battle had already begun.

As they drew nearer, the scene below came into full view.

Qi He’s breath caught for a moment.

No wonder headquarters had sent a distress call.

—This wave wasn’t just mutants tunneling up from underground, but also a zombie horde attacking from the surface.

The helicopter had reached the rear battlefield.

Yan Chuanbai’s gaze dropped toward the chaos below. Suddenly, he stood up. “We’ll stop here. Prepare to descend.”

The pilot hovered anxiously midair, sweat beading on his forehead. “We can’t land here!”

“No need.” A click sounded beside him—the seatbelt unfastened.

The cabin door was already open, and a violent wind rushed in.

Qi He and Yan Chuanbai put on their headsets and switched to the same channel. Standing at the doorway, Qi He turned his head. “Guan Shang, stay above and report in at all times.”

Guan Shangchun gripped the cabin wall tightly. “Got it.”

The pilot’s eyes widened. “Wait—! You’re not planning to—”

Behind Qi He, Yan Chuanbai stood steady, face calm, only a standard tactical harness on him, gun already loaded.

Qi He gripped the boarding handle, T-shirt whipping in the wind. He let go and leapt from a hundred meters above ground. “Jump—!”

Like a bird diving from the sky.

The next second, another figure followed without hesitation.

On top of Headquarters’ high walls, across the battlefield below—

The soldiers manning the front lines and the S-rank ability users engaged in combat all turned toward the sudden movement, eyes wide in shock:

That was…

General Gong focused his gaze. “Base II has already arrived? No… wait— the first to arrive was Base I, which is even farther away!?”

Boom—!!!

A massive force exploded outward, blasting open a clear landing zone amid the chaos. Qi He held a gun in one hand and shot down a zombie that had leapt up toward them, then clenched his other hand in midair.

Thud. Their bodies slowed mid-descent and landed steadily on the ground.

A layer of ice spread rapidly from beneath their feet, freezing the surrounding area and slowing both the zombies’ movements and the mutant attacks emerging from underground.

Yan Chuanbai swept his gun across the front.

Muzzle flashes flared—zombies dropped one after another, every shot clean and precise, not a single bullet wasted.

On the high wall, everyone was stunned by the sight of the two diving straight into the horde. Then—

“Good!” General Gong’s blood surged with excitement, as though bolstered by an unshakable force. He quickly gave orders:

“Headquarters combat division, move to the rear and rendezvous!”

“Flank units, increase firepower and cover Base I!”

—

Qi He had just cleared a wide area around them when he noticed the battlefield’s focus shifting.

At the same time, three figures were moving toward them.

He glanced up at the high wall—seemed the military had adjusted their tactics to coordinate with their arrival.

The three newcomers quickly closed in.

Only S-rank ability users would dare charge into the battlefield alone. Qi He split his attention mid-fight, recognizing familiar faces from the testing ceremony. Two of them were 3S-rank combat types. The one who’d provoked him before was a wood-type ability user—according to his ID, his name was Yang Cheng.

The other 3S-rank was a fire-type with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

The third was a 2S-rank user with body mutation abilities—essentially a tank-type support fighter.

The three had decent coordination, but their approach was still a conventional battle formation.

The group on the opposite side had never fought alongside them before, and they were from different bases, so there was no communication at first.

Qi He withdrew his gaze and kept firing—one bullet, one kill.

The fire-type user gave him a brief glance, then looked away again, as if thinking that for someone of a super 4S-level, his performance was… adequate, but nothing impressive.

[…You’re just fighting normally like this?]

The system actually sounded a little uneasy. [Aren’t you going to use the power from your third evolution?]

“No need.” Qi He crushed a mutant vine in his hand. “What’s available here is already enough.”

[? Enough for what…]

Before the system could finish, another round of rotor blades thundered overhead.

A gust of wind swept across the battlefield as a helicopter descended, its door sliding open. Gong Lianyu’s short golden-brown hair was whipped wildly by the wind. He leaned out and shouted down, “Whoa—Base I’s insane! They actually got here before us!”

As he spoke, he snapped his fingers with a sharp pop. “Qi He! Lend me your ability for a bit!”

Then, together with 3S-level Xi Moqing, he leapt down.

Thud—thud! Two more bodies landed, joining the fight.

Qi He glanced over at the two of them, but before he could speak, he suddenly felt his spiritual energy surge back to full. The senses—sight and hearing—of his teammates sharpened and overlapped, amplifying one another severalfold.

Sensing something, he looked up and met the gaze of a young woman standing at the open hatch of the Base II helicopter. Her long hair whipped in the wind, her expression calm as she extended a hand.

An S-rank psychic-type ability user—support class, specializing in sensory amplification.

Qi He drew his focus back to the battlefield, the corner of his lips curving slightly. He said to the system,

“Now the conditions are perfect.”

…

With the addition of “one and a half” more combat-type ability users, the pressure on the field eased considerably.

Xi Moqing took position slightly behind Qi He’s right flank.

He was dressed in a crisp military uniform, his expression calm and cool. With just a single handgun in hand, every shot he fired hit its mark.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang—

Qi He listened to the rhythm of the gunfire, something stirring in his chest.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced toward Xi Moqing—and quickly understood his ability: a metal-type power. After reaching 3S level, he could generate bullets out of thin air—

A born soldier. His gun would never run out of ammunition.

On the other side, Gong Lianyu was rampaging wildly, wielding Qi He’s borrowed “strength.” Talkative as ever, and emboldened by being the general’s son—knowing no one would dare kill him—he kept chattering nonstop:

“So these are the same mutants that attacked you guys before?”

A mutant vine with razor-toothed edges suddenly burst from the ground beneath his feet. He flinched and dodged with a curse. “—Holy shit! How did you even wipe these out?!”

“Want to know?”

Qi He said it just as a wave of fire roared across the field. The ice layer laid down by Yan Chuanbai hadn’t yet melted, and Qi He glanced that way, giving a quiet warning: “Step back.”

Before anyone could react, he pulled.

The fire-type 3S user blinked in confusion—then, a chain of explosions detonated right in front of them:

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!—

The massive shockwave froze everyone on the battlefield in place for a moment, faces turned in stunned disbelief.

…What just happened?

Even the officers atop the distant wall were drawn to the blast. A lieutenant general furrowed his brow. “Was that the fire-type ability?”

“No,” General Gong said grimly. “That was the fire-type’s power—being harnessed.”

He didn’t yet have time to think about how it was done, but such destructive force could only belong to one person—the lone super 4S-rank: Qi He.

He drew in a long, steady breath.

“Youth truly is formidable.”

—

On the battlefield, the expression of that 3S-rank fire-type user shifted as he looked at Qi He.

Qi He had just blasted apart another cluster of mutant creatures when Guan Shangchun’s voice came through the earpiece:

“Ten o’clock direction—large wave of zombies gathering from that side.”

Qi He quickly called out to the fire-type officer, “Your one o’clock—light it up again.”

The man hesitated only for a split second before unleashing his power—

BOOM!!! Another sweeping explosion tore through the enemy ranks.

Nearby, Yan Chuanbai glanced at the 3S-ranked lieutenant colonel who now followed Qi He’s directions without question, then turned his gaze back toward Qi He. The corner of his mouth tugged upward ever so slightly.

He soon looked away and raised a hand.

A wave of frigid cold spread outward like a silent blade.

Frost blanketed the mutants and zombies alike.

But Yan Chuanbai didn’t freeze the underground layers—just as before, he couldn’t risk driving the mutants closer toward the base. He merely coated the surface with a thin layer of ice, slowing their movement and buying his teammates precious reaction time.

Beneath that ice, more vines broke through the frozen soil.

Swish—

A cluster of metallic spikes condensed in midair, their sharp tips angling downward.

Then Guan Shangchun’s voice sounded again in the headset: “Three o’clock direction, twenty-eight meters—there’s a breeding pod breaking through the ground!”

Qi He’s eyes flicked toward the source—right behind the line of spikes.

He didn’t issue any verbal order to Xi Moqing—just pushed with his mental force.

The spikes instantly shifted sideways.

Under the brim of his military cap, Xi Moqing’s expression flickered in surprise. The next second, just as the mutant pod burst from the earth—

Chi—! The spikes struck clean through, piercing the swelling, writhing mass.

Xi Moqing turned to look at Qi He.

Two seconds passed, then he withdrew the metal spikes and asked of his own accord, “Where else?”

Qi He was blasting enemies on one side while keeping track of Guan Shangchun’s reports coming through the headset, his voice nearly overlapping the feed as he relayed:

“Your ten o’clock, fifteen meters; eleven o’clock, twenty meters; three to six o’clock, forty meters in a fan-shaped range—”

Xi Moqing didn’t hesitate—each attack landed exactly where directed.

…

Amid the dizzying chaos of the battlefield, Qi He managed to cover both sides at once.

When he was too occupied to call out coordinates, Yan Chuanbai seamlessly filled in, maintaining the rhythm. Between the three bases, an unspoken sense of coordination was beginning to take shape.

Another explosion rocked the field—then suddenly, Gong Lianyu’s shout cut through the noise:

“Holy crap!”

He turned his head and yelled, “I’m on cooldown!”

Everyone froze for a beat: “……”

Qi He quickly scanned the field. “Move to your five o’clock—there’s a safe gap from the last blast. The tank, cover him.”

The S-rank tank-type ability user charged over and shielded Gong Lianyu.

Qi He asked, “What’s your ability duration and cooldown?”

Hiding safely behind the tank, Gong Lianyu’s tone was almost cheerful now that he felt secure. “Easy to remember—forty minutes of active use, ten minutes of cooldown. Just like class time and recess!”

“……”

Up on the high wall, General Gong finally exhaled a quiet breath of relief.

To say he hadn’t been worried would’ve been a lie—during those cooldown periods, his son was no different from an ordinary person thrown into an S-rank battlefield.

But Qi He had protected him—without missing a single beat.

That white figure darted back and forth across the battlefield, carrying an inexplicable pull with him. He didn’t bark orders, didn’t force anyone to follow—but somehow, everyone’s rhythm unconsciously aligned with his.

—As if he were the invisible commander of the entire battlefield.

In that instant, General Gong made his decision.

Now wasn’t the time to worry about command hierarchy. As the chief commander of the operation, his duty was to mobilize firepower—to coordinate and amplify the main offensive’s effectiveness.

That was the optimal solution.

He gave the order without hesitation:

“Provide fire cover for the rear battlefield. Connect communications with Bases I and II’s helicopters.”

“All rear operations—follow Qi He’s strategy.”

—

The rear battlefield had already centered entirely around Qi He.

Large-scale explosions, interspersed with precise, point-to-point strikes—the chaos was rapidly being cleared before their eyes.

Gong Lianyu let out a sigh of relief. “We’ll wrap this up within an hour at this rate. Headquarters should be safe.”

Xi Moqing fired off several shots in quick succession. “Don’t get careless.”

Gong Lianyu clicked his tongue. “Always by the book.”

Qi He glanced across the field—at this pace, an hour did seem enough to end it. The tide had shifted in their favor, and everyone’s nerves finally began to loosen.

Suddenly, a voice over the comms tightened: “Wait.”

Qi He and Yan Chuanbai both froze.

“What is it?”

Silence for several seconds. Only breathing came through.

Then Guan Shangchun’s voice finally sounded, tense and controlled as if forcing steadiness:

“Fifteen kilometers behind us—a wave of flying corpses is approaching.”

Qi He’s heart lurched violently.

His brief pause didn’t go unnoticed. The S-rank fire ability user beside him turned, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

Qi He steadied his breathing and looked toward the battlefield. “Fifteen kilometers behind us— a swarm of flying zombies is gathering.”

Everyone froze as if struck by electricity.

If they were attacked simultaneously from the sky, the ground, and underground, even S-rank ability users would be swallowed whole by the horde.

At the same time, the alarms on the distant fortress wall began to wail.

Fighter jets scrambled into the air, hovering above in emergency formation.

Qi He glanced in that direction. Ordinary weaponry against a flying corpse tide—it would be suicide.

He thought for a moment, then spoke into the earpiece. “Tell Headquarters to recall the aircraft.”

“What?”

“…What did you say?”

The question came both through the comms and from those nearby on the battlefield.

Qi He ignored the surprise and asked Guan Shangchun, “How long until they’re here?”

But even as he spoke, he already knew there was no need for an answer.

He could see it now—an oncoming darkness at the horizon, a mass of flying corpses rolling toward them like a storm cloud.

Guan Shangchun’s voice came through, tight with strain: “At most… two minutes.”

The battle in front of them was still raging, while the new threat closed in fast from behind.

Qi He took a deep breath and turned. “Gong Lianyu, how long until your cooldown’s up?”

Behind a defensive barrier, Gong Lianyu pressed his palms together, calculating. “Three minutes! Three minutes!”

Then, quickly correcting himself: “No—two minutes and forty-eight seconds!”

Even as he spoke, the swarm loomed nearer.

Qi He looked up into the darkening sky above them. They were still right in the middle of the battlefield—and everyone knew that only destroying a zombie’s brain could truly stop it.

Then, suddenly, he shouted, “Yang Cheng—get me up there!”

Yang Cheng, caught off guard by the sudden command, froze for a moment.

The sting of his last failure was still vivid in his mind. He held his breath, locking eyes with Qi He for two seconds—then gritted his teeth.

“…How high?”

“As high as you can take me.”

Wood-type power surged to its limit. The ground beneath them began to tremble, dead vines twitching and rising like they’d been resurrected, twisting together in thick knots.

Boom—

A colossal vine shot upward from the earth!

It lifted Qi He like a living tower, raising him hundreds of meters into the air until he stood alone above the battlefield—facing the oncoming swarm head-on.

Below, command had already shifted to Yan Chuanbai.

His ice ability split the air, shielding Yang Cheng from a barrage of attacks.

High above, Qi He stared forward, eyes cold and steady.

He no longer needed to divert power to control his gravity—every ounce of focus was now on the enemy before him.

The sky ahead was filled with them: a mass of flying zombies, dense as locusts, surging closer in a black wave.

Qi He’s countdown to Gong Lianyu’s cooldown hadn’t stopped—

Thirty seconds left…

The swarm was closing fast.

Qi He turned his head toward a helicopter hovering nearby, where a psychic-type ability user stood ready. “Focus all their auditory perception on me—for thirty seconds.”

The girl blinked, startled—then raised her hand and concentrated, channeling.

Fifteen seconds left…

The flying zombies were already at the edge of striking distance.

Qi He raised both arms—an immense force erupted outward, halting the front line of the swarm midair, suspended just tens of meters away.

Five seconds… four… three… two… one.

His voice carried clearly across the battlefield below:

“Gong Lianyu, copy the metal ability and snipe the flying zombies with me. Everyone else—hold the ground line!”

A sharp metallic sheen flickered at Gong Lianyu’s fingertips.

In the same instant, he was yanked forward to the front of the field.

He caught on immediately—no need for further words. His power flared to its peak, and countless metal spikes burst from the earth, angling upward toward the darkened sky.

Above, the veins on Qi He’s neck stood out, his eyes blazing with light.

Both hands clenched tight—

“Fall!”

—————————————————————

Author’s Note:

Qi He: Slaying the entire field—piece of cake. 😎

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