Chapter 45 : Chapter 45
Chapter 45: Bone Ghoul Domain
"Damn it!"
Ma Jun shouted.
"Mount up! Move!!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he summoned his warhorse and galloped in the direction they had just come from.
The others quickly summoned their warhorses and followed.
Unfortunately, they had not gone very far before the dense fog completely swallowed them, so thick that they could not even see their own hands.
Then, all of a sudden, a terrifying beastly roar erupted in front of them.
Ma Jun's warhorse seemed to be overturned by something horrifying.
With a shrill neigh, it crashed heavily to the ground!
"Captain!"
The others had been riding behind him in a spread formation.
As they passed Ma Jun's fallen position, they vaguely saw what had happened.
Zhao Meiting, Song Biao, and Zhang He all yanked on their reins without hesitation.
They wheeled their horses around at once and rushed back to support Ma Jun.
Li Mu also reined in his horse where he was and activated Fiery Eyes and Golden Gaze to observe the surroundings.
Although Fiery Eyes and Golden Gaze could only see the flow of True Qi,
within this fog, it functioned almost like a thermal imager, allowing him to see energy flow ten or even dozens of meters away.
In Li Mu’s eyes, Ma Jun and the others looked like several masses of green energy condensed within the fog.
Fortunately, monsters were no different!
At that moment, a huge shadow was frantically attacking the warhorse.
Ma Jun's warhorse let out wave after wave of pitiful screams.
Blood instantly stained the fog.
Ma Jun also drew his heavy saber. Ignoring the cost to himself, he forcibly took one claw strike from the monster head-on and killed it with a single slash!
"Captain, get on!"
Zhang He was the first to arrive.
Ma Jun did not stand on ceremony. He grabbed Zhang He's hand and swung himself onto the horse.
And just as Ma Jun got on, three monsters suddenly charged out from the diagonal flank.
These three monsters had extremely clear targets. They pounced directly at the three warhorses.
They were unbelievably fast. In almost a single exchange, they tore open the entire fronts of the horses' chests and flipped all three warhorses to the ground.
The scene instantly descended into chaos.
By then, Li Mu had already rushed back. He leaped high into the air, recalled Yaogu into the Horse Token in midair, and smashed one monster's skull apart with a single strike.
The others quickly dealt with the remaining two monsters.
But the three warhorses on the ground had already collapsed. Blood spread all over the ground, and they were barely clinging to life.
"Li Mu! Take Meiting and go!!"
"Find a safe place and activate a Return Stone!"
Without the slightest hesitation, Ma Jun gave the order with a wide sweep of his hand.
At that moment, Li Mu was the only one in the entire squad who still had a warhorse.
It might have been Premium, but there was no way it could carry five people. Even carrying two would affect its speed.
At that moment, the furious roars of monsters also rose from all around them, one after another, full of bloodthirsty excitement as they rapidly closed in.
Those sounds were like ghosts crying and wolves howling, unbearably shrill, as if they could awaken the deepest fear in a person's heart!
Li Mu glanced at the dead monsters on the ground, then looked at his Technological Watch, and his face immediately paled as well!
"Running won't help anymore."
Ma Jun flew into a rage.
"Bullshit! If even one person can get out, then that's still better than everyone dying here for nothing!"
"That's an order!!"
Ma Jun roared furiously.
But before he could finish speaking, Li Mu let out an even louder shout.
"Shut up!! Ma Jun, my Merit Points are higher than yours. I am taking over the squad now!"
"Everyone, follow my orders!"
"Immediately form a five-point defensive formation and move two hundred meters east!"
"Check your communicators, turn on your recorders, and enable positioning!"
"Execute immediately!!"
The squad member with the highest Merit Points could directly take over the captain's position.
During their earlier conversation, Li Mu had learned that Ma Jun had 35 Merit Points.
Originally, Li Mu had not wanted to expose his own merit.
But time was too tight. Arguing pointlessly with Ma Jun would only waste time.
So he resorted to a rather forceful method instead.
Although Ma Jun was both furious and confused, he did not dare disobey.
The others, meanwhile, had found a pillar of support in Li Mu amid the panic, and they immediately obeyed.
The five of them took up five-point positions and quickly formed a defensive stance as they moved east at a fast pace.
At the same time, they checked everything Li Mu had just ordered.
Only while moving did Li Mu explain:
"This is a Bone Ghoul Domain, a special Abyss phenomenon."
"A Return Stone's teleportation array cannot function inside it! Returning is impossible!"
"This kind of fog continuously generates Third Grade monsters called Bone Ghouls. Their sense of smell is astonishing, but their hearing is poor."
"Judging from the roars, we're already surrounded on all sides. If we keep riding, the stink of the warhorses will continuously attract monsters!"
"The smell of blood from dead Bone Ghouls will also attract even more Bone Ghouls, so we have to change locations!"
"This fog completely interferes with positioning. The Military District will try to locate us."
"As soon as they lock onto our coordinates, they can direct us out of the Domain!"
"Preserve your True Qi. Preserve your strength. Wait for positioning, then prepare to break out!"
Li Mu explained everything to them as quickly as he could.
Ma Jun, Zhao Meiting, and the others immediately realized something.
Among them, Li Mu was the only one still in school.
This was probably knowledge Li Mu had learned there.
They only had a vague understanding of these things.
Most of it was unclear to them.
"Sorry. Looks like I wasn't qualified for this."
Ma Jun spoke apologetically.
While they were talking, they had already run more than two hundred meters.
Li Mu ordered them to stop and continue moving slowly.
"You did very well!"
Li Mu said that sincerely.
Ma Jun might not have known the proper countermeasures, but he was absolutely a loyal and righteous man. Otherwise, he would never have told Li Mu to take Zhao Meiting and flee.
Nor would his three teammates have turned their horses around without hesitation to save him.
"But what if... the Military District can't locate us?"
Listening to the terrifying roars drawing closer through the fog, Zhao Meiting asked anxiously.
Li Mu swallowed hard, and his palms began to sweat.
"Then we'll just have to hold out until this fog ends."
"When will it end?" Zhang He asked.
"One hour..."
The moment Li Mu said that, the roars of two monsters were already upon them.
...
At the same time, the alarm in the Military District Command Center suddenly blared.
Deputy Commanding Officer Wang Longcheng quickly arrived in position.
When alarms sounded in the First to Third Grade sweep zones, Wang Longcheng, as the Deputy Commanding Officer, needed to take command.
Only when battles involved the Fourth and Fifth Grades or special zones would the Commanding Officer need to step in.
Wang Longcheng strode into the command center.
A command officer quickly stepped forward and reported the situation.
"Red Second Grade sweep zone, Bone Ghoul Domain!"
"The dense fog stretches for at least a hundred kilometers and has swallowed twenty-two sweep squads."
Wang Longcheng immediately walked to the command platform.
On the large command screen, dozens of panels were simultaneously focused on a vast sea of fog.
"Pass the order. All rescue squads above the Third Grade are to stand by outside the ghost fog and wait to receive retreating sweep squads."
"They are strictly forbidden from entering the ghost fog."
Wang Longcheng calmly issued his first order.
The Bone Ghoul Domain was one of the most bizarre atmospheric calamities in the Abyss.
The monsters inside it, the Bone Ghouls, were formed when monsters in the area were transformed and mutated by the ghost fog.
And the truly eerie aspect of it was this: the higher the grade of the Martial Artist who entered the ghost fog, the more the fog would generate monsters of the corresponding grade!
In other words, if Fourth Grade, Fifth Grade, or even higher-level Martial Artists entered the ghost fog, then the fog would continuously mutate and produce Fourth Grade or Fifth Grade monsters.
For the First to Third Grade sweep squads inside, those monsters would be an utterly devastating blow!
The only method was retreat!
"Understood!"
Someone accepted the order and began carrying it out.
"Pull up the information for all sweep squads!"
"Pull up the live recorder feeds for all sweep squads!"
"Integrate all squad communicators!"
"Enable strike-assist positioning. Strengthen the positioning signal! Search for every squad's coordinates!"
"..."
Wang Longcheng issued one order after another, and the command officers carried them out in orderly fashion.
Very soon, all squad information appeared on a vertical screen to the left.
The imaging technology in the Technological Watches on each squad member's wrist transmitted their battlefield feeds back to the command center.
Twenty-two screens in the center were enlarged, all showing the perspectives of the sweep squad captains.
Wang Longcheng's gaze swept over every squad screen.
Almost every squad had already been dragged into close combat with monsters.
Bloody scenes filled screen after screen.
Two of the squad captains' viewpoints had even already fallen to the ground and were moving with difficulty.
"Commander, communicator integration complete!"
Someone shouted urgently.
Wang Longcheng immediately pressed the communication button on the microphone in front of him.
"All squads, attention. All squads, attention. This is Deputy Commanding Officer Wang Longcheng!"
"What you are facing now is a Bone Ghoul Domain! It is uncommon."
"A teleportation array cannot form inside the Domain, so do not count on Return Stones!"
"The Domain is interfering with your positional information. We are currently locating you."
"Until then, everyone dismount! Everyone dismount! Riding horses to break out is forbidden."
"All personnel proceed on foot and fight in a five-point defensive formation!"
"Keep moving. Do not remain in places with the smell of blood!"
"Preserve your True Qi. Preserve your strength. Be ready to break out the moment positioning succeeds!"
"Bone Ghouls are generally between Second Grade and Third Grade. They have strong attack power, high speed, and weak defense."
"Their weak point is the head!"
After saying all this, Wang Longcheng released the communication button.
Only then did the various squads rapidly carry out Wang Longcheng's orders.
Very soon, most of them stabilized the situation.
But Wang Longcheng's eyes fixed on one name in the squad information.
'Vanguard Squad, Second Grade Martial Artist, Li Mu (Reserve Force)'
Wang Longcheng's heart sank. He quickly searched through the screens and soon found Vanguard Squad.
Sure enough, in the elevated wide-angle view, he saw Li Mu.
The imaging technology of the Technological Watch was not the sort where a camera only showed what it was pointed at.
Rather, it provided imaging coverage within dozens of meters around the watch, and the viewing angle could be moved freely.
Seen from above, the five of them were in a standard five-point defensive formation, fighting against four or five monsters.
"Pull the audio from Vanguard Squad for me."
The squad's audio immediately echoed across the screens at the front of the command center.
The chaotic roars of monsters and the squad's battle cries were deafening.
But the five of them were fairly strong, and they quickly dealt with the monsters in front of them.
Then they heard Zhang He exclaim:
"As expected, the Commander's instructions were exactly the same as what Li Mu said! We're saved now!"