Chapter 46 : Chapter 46
Chapter 46: The Bitter Irony of "Loyalty and Righteousness" Squad
When Zhang He said that, everyone in the command center was surprised.
What did he mean, the same thing?
Wang Longcheng's deputy reminded him, "Commander, I think that even before you finished issuing all your orders just now, that squad had already entered a defensive formation."
Wang Longcheng had actually noticed that already.
It was just that at the time, he did not know Li Mu was in that squad.
When he issued his orders, there had been four or five squads already in defensive formation, rather than fleeing on horseback in panic.
As for the other squads, most of them had been thrown into complete chaos.
After killing off the monsters in front of them, they had all been preparing to mount up and flee.
Clearly, those trying to escape on horseback were the ones who did not know what a Bone Ghoul Domain was.
That was normal.
Some people thought staying in school was "wasting their youth," so after Awakening their talent, they dropped out and joined the military directly. At least those people had still studied for a few years.
But many soldiers had no money to attend school at all. They simply Awakened their talents upon coming of age, and if what they happened to Awaken was a combat talent, they came straight to enlist.
Those people were practically illiterate.
There was no way they would know about something as obscure as a Bone Ghoul Domain, a topic that was already considered highly niche even in textbooks.
"Pull up the footage from Vanguard Squad when the fog first descended."
Wang Longcheng gave the order.
A commander's task was to gather all useful information from the battlefield as quickly as possible.
The more detailed his understanding was, the more accurately he could make his judgments.
Very soon, what had just happened to Vanguard Squad appeared on one of the side screens.
First, Ma Jun had ordered the retreat.
Then several squad members had turned back to save him, after which all of their warhorses had been lost.
Ma Jun and Li Mu argued, and Li Mu took over the squad on the grounds that his Merit Points were higher.
Everything had happened extremely fast!
Then came Li Mu's rapid string of orders.
Defensive formation. Leave the current location. Check communications. Check positioning.
One order after another was given in perfect sequence.
Everyone in the command center was inwardly shocked.
This was practically textbook-level reaction speed!
It was exactly the sort of thing that could be turned into special-event training Documentary Footage for the Abyss-Suppressing Army!
And it still was not over.
As the squad moved, Li Mu explained their current situation to the others.
It was almost word-for-word identical to Wang Longcheng's own instructions.
This was no longer just textbook-level handling.
The kid was practically a textbook himself!
After watching it, Wang Longcheng had already placed Li Mu's squad among the squads he was most at ease about.
He decisively shifted his attention to the other squads.
As for the Guidance Officer standing nearby, he quietly told one of the operators to save that footage.
Later, it would be sent to the archives department and turned into Documentary Footage for educational use.
"Commander, we've located the first squad!"
An operator quickly enlarged one of the squad screens.
Wang Longcheng immediately pressed the communication button, and his voice went straight to the Technological Watches of every squad member.
"Loyalty and Righteousness Squad! You've been located!"
"Don't panic. You're at the very edge of the fog zone. Stay calm."
"Open your map and retreat toward coordinates 2371, 975!"
"There are people there to receive you."
Within the fog, the very same Loyalty and Righteousness Squad that had rejected Li Mu at the mission counter
was now down to only three people, fleeing in utter disarray.
The captain, the so-called beauty named Zhou Qing, and one other male teammate.
At this moment, Zhou Qing's face was streaked with tears.
She had been frightened completely out of her mind.
She had participated in over a dozen missions and considered herself a veteran.
But inside this fog, the terrifying unknown of a monster lunging out at any moment kept her mind stretched to the breaking point.
And watching two teammates get torn apart and devoured by three or four monsters right in front of her had utterly shattered her.
Their first thought had been to crush a Return Stone.
Even though the surrounding energy was in chaos, meaning it would take ten minutes for a Return Stone to activate, as long as they could hold out in one place for ten minutes, they could still get back.
Unfortunately, even after crushing three Return Stones in a row, there was not the slightest sign of a formation activating.
The three of them ran while fighting, and when they heard Wang Longcheng's orders, hope of survival instantly surged through them.
After confirming the direction, they sprinted toward the target point.
"Roar!~"
With a ghastly shriek, a monster pounced out from the diagonal flank and instantly tackled that male teammate.
This Bone Ghoul had mutated from a Dirt Hound.
Its body had grown even larger, and the Dirt Hound's original head drooped forward until it hung down over its chest.
Its entire back looked as though it had split open like a molted shell.
Its whole spinal frame arched up and burst out from its back, while a gaunt, skin-wrapped skull of a head, not quite dog and not quite something else, jutted out from the back of the Dirt Hound's neck.
It looked grotesque and powerful, and its biting movements were savage beyond measure.
The male teammate stabbed his blade into the Bone Ghoul.
But the Bone Ghoul did not seem to feel it at all. In a trade of life for life, it bit down on the male teammate's thigh and threw him to the ground.
Immediately after that, a second one burst out of the fog and lunged viciously at him as well.
"Ahhh!! Save me! Save me!!"
The male teammate let out a shrill, miserable scream.
The captain of Loyalty and Righteousness Squad stopped and looked back, his face twisted with hesitation.
But when Zhou Qing saw that scene, she did not pause for even a second!
She turned and ran!
The captain gritted his teeth, took one look at the male teammate being ripped apart, stomped his foot, and chased after Zhou Qing.
Survival was right in front of them.
What bullshit teammates? All they would do was slow down their escape!
"Damn it!!"
Behind them, the male teammate's screams rang out like the cries of a devil from hell, echoing for a long time.
That voice was filled with endless rage and unwillingness.
Three people!
Two monsters!
If those two had turned back, dealing with the two monsters attacking him would have been no problem at all.
Earlier, when Zhou Qing had been surrounded, he had done everything he could to save her.
Yet when he was the one in danger, they did not even look back.
Naturally, everyone in the command center saw that scene clearly.
Especially Wang Longcheng, whose face had turned frighteningly dark!
After witnessing the behavior of Zhou Qing and that captain, the name Loyalty and Righteousness Squad itself became glaringly ironic!
What kind of trash was this?
If every new source of strength in the Abyss-Suppressing Army was like this,
then how could anyone ever trust you enough to turn their back over to you?
Zhou Qing and the captain of Loyalty and Righteousness Squad soon rushed out of the fog and were received by two rescue-team members at the peak of the Third Grade Realm.
Zhou Qing immediately dropped to her knees in relief, gasping for breath.
Her eyes were filled with the elation of surviving a calamity.
As for the captain, he frowned in obvious pain.
His mind was full of the male squad member's miserable screams from just moments before.
Wang Longcheng let out a cold snort, cut off that screen, and turned to the other squads.
Meanwhile, the Guidance Officer quietly instructed another operator to save that segment of Loyalty and Righteousness Squad's footage as well.
Later, that too would be sent to the archives department and made into a Documentary Footage.
When the time came, it would be used for instruction as well. It was a perfect negative example.
More than ten minutes passed.
One squad after another withdrew in an orderly manner under Wang Longcheng's command.
Quite a few squads encountered situations similar to that of Loyalty and Righteousness Squad.
During the retreat, teammates were attacked.
Yet almost not a single one of them chose to abandon a comrade. All of them turned back to kill the monsters instead.
In the end, they all escaped in one piece despite the danger.
In the blink of an eye, sixteen out of the twenty-two squads had made it out.
Four squads had likely been wiped out to the last man.
And two squads, having been trapped too deep within the fog, still could not be located.
One of them was Li Mu's Vanguard Squad.
At this moment, within the fog, the members of Vanguard Squad were already drenched in blood.
For over ten straight minutes, they had been killing almost without pause!
Their minds could not relax for even a few seconds.
Li Mu had just swung the Thornflower Cudgel hard and shattered a Bone Ghoul's skull
when Wang Longcheng's voice came from his watch.
"Li Mu! This is Wang Longcheng!"
The moment they heard the voice coming from the watch, Li Mu and the others were instantly invigorated.
More than ten minutes had already passed since Wang Longcheng first issued his commands.
If he was contacting them again now, it had to mean their location had finally been locked onto.
But the next words immediately made their hearts sink.
"You're too deep in the fog and difficult to locate. Find a way to move quickly in one direction."
"Understood!"
Li Mu had no other option. He could only lead the others in breaking through toward a single direction.
But at that very moment, a roar that shook the heavens and the earth erupted from the dense fog ahead!
Li Mu and the others felt their brains buzz violently, and they all clapped their hands over their ears.
The terrifying sound waves churned the dense fog into rolling surges.
As the fog billowed and twisted, it revealed a gigantic Bone Ghoul charging toward them like a small mountain.
It stood a full six meters tall...