Chapter 186.1: Spoils of War
Amid a field of ruins, a squad of fully armed soldiers advanced cautiously, their rifles at the ready.
Among them was Bo Huan, who had come from another Safe City.
To be honest, when he became an [Ota] soldier, he had assumed that as soon as he arrived at his destination, he would be deployed directly onto the battlefield.
Forget Moon Silk Star—even within the Safe City system, in a war between two armies, ordinary soldiers were usually treated as cannon fodder.
But [Ota] hadn’t deployed its soldiers right away.
Instead, it had used an extraordinarily powerful weapon to bombard the [Zephyr Company] for half a month, destroying most of the company’s large-scale conventional weapons facilities.
Only then did [Ota] begin deploying its soldiers.
This left Bo Huan with complicated feelings.
Although he had never participated in a war, back when he lived in his own Safe City, he had heard the older residents talk about what happened when Kadan’er Safe City went to war.
Kadan’er was a Tier 5 Safe City. That meant it had survived at least a dozen, perhaps even twenty or more apocalyptic worlds. Naturally, over the course of so many apocalyptic worlds, it had encountered all kinds of conflicts.
Yet whether it was a conflict with the local inhabitants or a war between Safe Cities, the city lord’s first order was always to send the residents to the front lines—even when the city lord had a substantial stockpile of powerful weapons.
To be honest, before this, Bo Huan had been able to understand why city lords made that choice.
As long as the Safe City survived, its residents could survive.
A Safe City’s weapons reserves were crucial to its future development. As for its residents… every apocalyptic world brought new residents. Once a Safe City reached the Tier 5 or 6, it would never lack residents, so long as its city lord wanted more.
But understanding the reasoning behind it was one thing. Actually seeing the [Ota Company] choose to use a vast arsenal to blast away most of the enemy’s combat capabilities before sending its own soldiers into battle—reducing its soldiers’ casualties as much as possible—still left Bo Huan with complicated feelings.
What made his feelings even more complicated wasn’t just that. Throughout the journey, as a member of [Ota]’s military, he had been able to ride in vehicles just like the other soldiers, receive meals at scheduled times, and get free medical treatment whenever he fell ill.
The journey hadn’t been peaceful. They kept encountering enormous mutated beasts, but [Ota] always dealt with them quickly and efficiently. During the entire trip, Bo Huan had slept soundly every single night.
Good heavens! Who knew how long it had been since he’d last experienced the feeling of having nothing to worry about, knowing that someone had his back and that the rear lines were secure?
If this weren’t the [Company], but a Safe City instead, Bo Huan would have stayed without the slightest hesitation.
Unfortunately, Moon Silk Star was destined to be destroyed in the end. No matter what, he would have to leave with a Safe City.
Bang! Bang!
Gunshots rang out ahead.
Bo Huan jolted. Along with his teammates, he immediately ducked low, using the taller piles of rubble as cover. They advanced in alternating bounds, covering one another as they hurried toward the source of the gunfire.
As soon as they reached the area, Bo Huan spotted the [Zephyr Company]’s bionic soldiers.
Because of the massive explosions earlier, most of their outer coverings had been torn away, exposing the metal gears and circuit boards beneath what should have been their skin.
There were roughly thirty of them. They looked utterly battered, with some even missing arms or legs. But they were mechanical bionic humans, after all. The damage to their outward appearance hadn’t stopped them from carrying out their programmed attacks.
Engaged in a fierce exchange of fire with them was an eight-man [Ota] advance squad.
Bo Huan’s heart tightened.
His own squad also had only eight members. Sixteen men against more than thirty enemies—and the enemy consisted of bionic soldiers who felt no pain and could pull out grenades to take them all to hell at any moment. His side was clearly at a disadvantage.
The best course of action now was to provide long-range support for their comrades while firing a signal flare to summon more friendly troops. They absolutely couldn’t get too close—
Huh?!!
“Squad Leader!!!”
Bo Huan instinctively shouted, only to see their squad leader suddenly leap forward. There was even a smile on the man’s face as he charged, raising his rifle and unleashing a fierce barrage of gunfire.
No, it wasn’t just the squad leader. The other teammates were doing the same thing. The entire group simply charged straight into the fray.
Every single one of them had gone. Only Bo Huan remained behind, as though charging headfirst into battle against an enemy force twice their size was the obvious thing to do.
Bo Huan: “…”
This feeling was all too familiar. Back when he’d followed the squad leader as an [Ota] guard, everyone had charged straight at mutated beasts in exactly the same way.
But back then, they had superior numbers, and they were fighting on [Ota]’s home turf. He’d assumed that the reason [Ota]’s guards charged at every mutated beast they encountered was that they knew they had the home-field advantage.
So you people charge headfirst into battle even when you’re on someone else’s turf?!
If it had been anyone else, faced with such an obvious act of charging straight to their deaths, Bo Huan would have turned around and fled long ago. At most, he would have pretended to fight while making sure he never put himself in the slightest danger.
But the other seven members of his squad were all his friends.
He had volunteered to become an [Ota] soldier precisely because he wanted to protect them.
Having spent so much time with them in Moonbreath Town, Bo Huan knew his friends’ abilities very well.
By ordinary people’s standards, they were indeed strong. Even against Tier-2 mutated beasts, they could hold their own.
But fighting mutated beasts was different from fighting an actual war. Their current situation made it painfully obvious that they had virtually no battlefield experience.
Charging in so recklessly—they really had no regard for their own lives!
Bo Huan gritted his teeth and charged after them. At the same time, he subtly flipped his hand, and the ground beneath a pile of rubble suddenly caved in, trapping one of the bionic robots.
Fortunately, he was an earth-element supernatural ability user, and the entire area was littered with ruins. He could make full use of his supernatural abilities to…
Crack!
In the span of just a few seconds, Bo Huan had run through countless thoughts in his mind. Now, halfway through his charge, he watched helplessly as their burly, muscular squad leader nimbly dodged one burst of enemy fire after another. It was almost as if he could predict the trajectories of the bullets.
By the time Bo Huan’s eyes were spinning from trying to follow the action, nearly seeing afterimages, the squad leader had already appeared behind one of the bionic soldiers like a ghost.
With a seemingly effortless twist of both hands, he snapped the bionic soldier’s hard head clean off its neck, as easily as breaking a brittle branch.
The next second, the squad leader slammed his fist down and ripped out its mechanical heart.
The bionic soldier, a two-meter-tall monstrosity equipped with an arsenal of weapons on its back and carrying a cannon, collapsed to the ground and powered down.
The entire process had taken less than eight seconds.
Bo Huan: “…”
N-no, it wasn’t just the squad leader.
The other team members were in much the same state. Ordinary people instinctively tried to dodge when faced with a barrage of gunfire, but his teammates were meeting the incoming fire head-on throughout the entire battle.
Bo Huan even saw one teammate who couldn’t dodge a bullet in time simply throw a dagger.
The dagger struck the bullet, altering its trajectory. At the same time, she bent backward slightly, and the bullet—which could have blasted a hole straight through a person—whizzed past her by the narrowest margin.
There wasn’t even any conscious thought involved. With so little time available, there was simply no room to think. That teammate had relied entirely on her instincts in combat.
The entire sequence flowed together seamlessly: the bullet fired, the dagger flew out and deflected its trajectory, and she bent backward at precisely the right moment to avoid it. The whole thing had taken no more than half a second.
If Bo Huan hadn’t been a Tier-3 ability user, he wouldn’t even have been able to follow the entire sequence.
Immediately afterward, the teammate who had successfully dodged the bullet flying straight toward her charged at a bionic soldier with a delighted grin. Using her own body weight, she threw herself onto it and forced it to the ground.
By the time she stood back up, a mechanical heart was already in her hand.
Everything had happened in the blink of an eye.
The earthen wall Bo Huan had been trying to raise with his supernatural ability had barely poked its head above the ground when his seven teammates, working in coordination with the eight other members of the [Ota] advance squad, had already taken down more than thirty bionic soldiers.
Bo Huan: “…”
The hand he was using to manipulate the earth beneath his feet trembled slightly.
Bang, bang, bang!!!
Gunfire erupted from all directions.
The other advance squads had probably already engaged the remaining armed forces of the [Zephyr Company].
Bo Huan turned around. He could see [Ota] soldiers charging at their enemies like ravenous wolves, while the [Zephyr] soldiers were being driven back step by step.
Every [Ota] soldier seemed utterly unafraid of death. The sheer ferocity with which they pounced on any enemy they spotted was truly astonishing.
Bo Huan felt a mixture of disbelief, admiration, and helplessness.
He couldn’t believe how powerful the [Ota] soldiers were.
He admired their fearless determination in the face of death.
But he also felt helpless, because his friends were exactly the same. That meant they would actively seek out danger.
What was going on?
Wasn’t fear of death supposed to be human nature?
Had the Company brainwashed them?
“Bo Huan!!”
Just as his thoughts were in complete disarray, the squad leader called out to him cheerfully and tossed him a cannon barrel.
“Look at this beauty! An ice cannon! Haven’t you always wanted one? It’s yours!”
Although Bo Huan’s reaction speed was nowhere near as freakish as his teammates’, he was still a third-tier supernatural ability user. Catching a weapon tossed from nearby was well within his capabilities.
He snatched the cannon out of the air, and an instinctive surge of happiness welled up inside him—especially when he saw the squad leader smiling at him.
He had been too slow to react and hadn’t managed to participate in the battle, but his friends still remembered how much he liked ice cannons. They had made sure to set this one aside for him.
“Can I use it on this battlefield the whole time?”
Bo Huan ran his hands over the cannon barrel, reluctant to put it down. He could hardly wait to fire a shot and give it a try.
“Why wouldn’t you be able to?”
The squad leader was busy happily picking weapons up off the ground. Whenever he found one, he simply shoved it into one of the weapon mounts he’d fashioned along his back.
From behind, he looked practically like an enormous hedgehog.
Yet he was thoroughly enjoying himself. As he strapped more and more weapons onto his body, he cheerfully said, “Did I forget to tell you?”
“All the spoils of war belong to us. If you take down an enemy, their weapons are yours.”
Bo Huan, who was still trying to figure out why his teammates had suddenly become so much stronger, nearly lost his mind.
“!!!”
His voice almost cracked as he exclaimed, “They all belong to us?!”
“W-we don’t have to hand them over?” Bo Huan stammered.
He lowered his head to look at the ice cannon in his hands.
This thing was a specialty of Moon Silk Star. Even among Moon Silk weapons, it ranked in the second tier, and it could also be recharged using nuclear crystals.
Back in Kadan’er Safe City, a single ice cannon like this could sell for 2,000 nuclear crystals.
“That’s right.”
The squad leader had finally finished collecting the weapons from the bionic soldiers. Carrying a massive pile of heavy weapons on his back, he stood up completely unaffected, as though he were carrying nothing more than a bundle of cotton, and dusted off his hands.
“It’s always been this way. On the battlefield, any weapons belonging to enemies you take down are yours to keep.”
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