Chapter 51 : Chapter 51
Chapter 51: You Just Said You Had Battle Merit Too?
At a word from the Guidance Officer, the footage began to play.
The giant screen at the front immediately lit up with video. Since it was a compiled promotional documentary, it used all kinds of editing techniques. There were sweeping aerial shots of various command centers, and the first thing that filled the screen was the descent of the dense fog.
The panic of the various squads as they were swallowed by the fog flashed by one after another. There were also close-up shots of the Bone Ghouls mutating. There was even voice-over narration explaining how the Bone Ghoul Domain had formed and what traits the Bone Ghouls possessed. It felt just like a blockbuster film.
Then the screen showed Wang Longcheng hurrying into the command center and beginning to direct the squads on site to retreat.
Zhou Qing, sitting in the back, immediately grew excited. If the film managed to catch her and give her a proper moment in the spotlight, that would not be bad at all.
But Su Mo, beside her, had already gone deathly pale.
Sure enough, the camera quickly cut to a close-up of the Loyalty and Righteousness Squad.
It was footage from the time when all five of them were still together. They first tried to ride their warhorses out of the fog in a panic, only for the Bone Ghouls to overturn the mounts. Zhou Qing was the first to fall into danger. The other four teammates did not abandon her. Instead, they came back to rescue her, and together they fought the Bone Ghouls back.
Following Wang Longcheng’s shouted instructions, they gathered together and tried to kill the Bone Ghouls. But the Bone Ghouls were simply too ferocious, and the Loyalty and Righteousness Squad’s combat strength was only average to begin with. Zhou Qing, meanwhile, kept screaming and wailing the entire time, so noisily that it got on people’s nerves.
By the time the video reached this point, Zhou Qing was already seething.
Who the hell had edited this damned promotional film?
If they were going to give her a close-up, why use a moment when she looked so pathetic? Why did they not keep filming until the part where she looked heroic?
The only useful thing Zhou Qing had done was take advantage of her teammates pinning down a Bone Ghoul and rush forward to kill it with one slash.
To her shock, that turned out to be her only highlight.
After that, the Loyalty and Righteousness Squad fought as they retreated. Zhou Qing screamed as she dodged a Bone Ghoul and let it straight into their defensive perimeter.
The Bone Ghoul instantly killed one teammate from behind. Their defensive circle collapsed, and another teammate was killed in an instant as well. The squad was scattered at once.
Captain Su Mo shouted, “Retreat!”
Two teammates died on the spot, and four or five Bone Ghouls frenziedly tore at their flesh. The remaining three could only flee for their lives.
Fortunately, Wang Longcheng located them at that moment.
Then everyone watched as one teammate was tackled to the ground by a Bone Ghoul. After receiving the retreat target point, Zhou Qing actually abandoned that teammate, who was not yet dead, and fled in panic. Su Mo also gritted his teeth, glanced at the teammate once, and ran.
That segment of footage had obviously been extracted from Zhou Qing’s recorder, because the camera followed her as she ran out of the fog and saw the rescue team.
Zhou Qing actually collapsed to the ground, panting without end. Her eyes were full of the exhilaration of surviving a disaster. There was even a faint smile of relief at having made it out alive curling at the corner of her lips...
By the time the video reached this part, it had actually begun to slow down.
The angle gradually pulled upward from Zhou Qing’s smiling face.
A large number of the soldiers in the Multimedia Hall abruptly turned around and glared at Zhou Qing in the third row from the back.
But even more than anger, there was contempt.
Zhou Qing herself was completely baffled.
Something was wrong!
The way this promotional film portrayed her did not seem heroic at all!
What idiot had edited this? There was not even the slightest bit of skill in it! Did they even know how to edit?
Very quickly, she felt the anger and contempt in the crowd’s eyes.
Only then did she understand.
This video seemed to be criticizing her?
The moment that thought struck her, rage exploded inside her.
She shot to her feet and roared, “What are you all looking at?! Didn’t you see how vicious those Bone Ghouls were??”
“We fought our way out in blood!!”
“If you had been there instead, you probably would not even have managed to kill the ones from the beginning, right??”
At the front, the Guidance Officer’s brows immediately furrowed.
When he saw that it was the woman starring in the promotional film, he let out a cold laugh.
So after all that, the leading lady of this negative example was actually in this hall.
“Why are you shouting?” the Guidance Officer demanded coldly as he hit pause.
Oddly enough, Zhou Qing found courage instead when she saw an officer.
“Guidance Officer, I don’t understand!”
“We survived a celestial phenomenon as deadly as the Bone Ghoul Domain.”
“Not only did we receive no commendation, what is the meaning of this now?”
“You edited me into a joke!!”
“I refuse to accept this!!”
“You cannot erase my battle merit!!”
Zhou Qing stamped her feet, shook her head, and screamed like a madwoman.
The Guidance Officer laughed in fury.
“Battle merit?”
“You killed two monsters the entire time, got two teammates killed, and abandoned one teammate.”
“According to the record, you assisted the Bone Ghouls in killing three teammates. The record is all there to verify, isn’t it?”
“That is your battle merit!”
Zhou Qing immediately pointed at the screen.
“Didn’t you see how strong those Bone Ghouls were?”
“To fight to that extent, I don’t think many squads could have done it, right??”
She was so furious that her chest heaved and the veins on her forehead bulged. With those words, she had insulted every other squad there, as if all of them were inferior to her.
The veterans in front instantly broke into a storm of curses.
The words “fucking idiot” rang out loudly and clearly from every direction.
The Guidance Officer was thoroughly enraged into laughter.
“Heh, good, very good. Then keep watching!!”
With that, he slammed the play button.
The promotional documentary resumed.
After several more scenes of squads retreating one after another, it finally entered the real subject matter.
The footage switched to Li Mu’s Vanguard Squad.
The first thing to appear was the moment before Wang Longcheng entered the command room. Like everyone else, Li Mu and the others had first tried to escape on warhorses, only to be thrown off.
Then Li Mu argued with the captain and swiftly took over the squad.
After issuing a string of orders, he began explaining exactly what the Bone Ghoul Domain was.
The level of detail was astonishing, as if it were a professional educational explanation.
And only a little over a minute after Li Mu finished speaking did Wang Longcheng finally enter the command room.
Then the display showing squad information at the command center got a close-up.
Vanguard Squad, member Li Mu, Reserve Force!
The moment the words Reserve Force appeared, everyone sucked in a sharp breath.
As one, they turned to look at the Reserve Force recruits standing in the last two rows of the hall.
Those recruits looked at each other in bewilderment.
None of them had expected footage of a Reserve Force soldier to appear on the screen.
And what came next truly left everyone dumbfounded.
Compared with the combat strength shown earlier by the Loyalty and Righteousness Squad, the Vanguard Squad looked like gods.
Not only was their coordination flawless, but each of them was terrifyingly strong in individual combat as well.
Ma Jun held one front by himself with a broadsword in hand.
Zhang He and Song Biao whirled spear and blade in a defense with no blind spots.
Almost every arrow Zhao Meiting loosed heavily wounded a Bone Ghoul.
But the most terrifying of all was actually that Reserve Force recruit.
Ma Jun could hold one side alone.
Li Mu could hold three!!
The staff in his hands shattered bones and tore tendons every time it struck.
Even setting aside the comparison between the two squads, just comparing the female members alone, Zhou Qing and Zhao Meiting were as far apart as heaven and earth.
From that point onward, the footage was nothing but one intense moment after another.
A giant Bone Ghoul appeared. A desperate fight for survival broke out. Li Mu immobilized the giant Bone Ghoul and killed it instantly.
The other four teammates were gravely wounded, so Li Mu covered them with the cloak.
Then, with a soft pop, he vanished.
Pale-faced Zhou Qing immediately found what she thought was a chance to strike back.
She stood up and shouted loudly, “Look! He abandoned his teammates too!! That is the Reserve Force for you!!”
She had recognized him long ago. Was he not the Reserve Force recruit she had rejected in the Mission Area?
She had never imagined that this bastard could fight so well!
But before the Guidance Officer could say anything, a whole group of veterans in front surged to their feet and turned around to glare at her.
One who was especially close barked harshly, “If you fucking make another sound and ruin this for me, I’ll beat you to death!”
Everyone had already been stirred to boiling blood by the Vanguard Squad’s battle.
And yet this stupid woman had interrupted it with a single shout.
At first, many people also thought Li Mu was about to abandon his teammates.
But very soon, Zhou Qing’s words turned into a joke.
Bone Ghouls appeared, and Li Mu began a display of appearing and vanishing like a ghost.
His figure melted into the dense fog, always circling around the four teammates hidden beneath the cloak.
Any Bone Ghoul that dared come near them was instantly killed by a single strike from Li Mu’s staff.
Gradually, the fog began to thin, and Li Mu also ran out of True Qi.
He started using nothing but his own flesh and Physical Combat to fight the monsters head-on.
Those ten minutes showed the soldiers of the Abyss-Suppressing Army what it truly meant to fight drenched in blood.
Especially at the very end.
Li Mu unconsciously swung the long staff in his hand, striking at the empty air before him.
Zhao Meiting stepped forward and caught Li Mu in her arms.
Ma Jun and Song Biao crawled out from beneath the cloak. Ma Jun tore open the flesh of his own calf and shouted to draw the monsters toward him.
The background music also turned tragic.
Scene after scene made countless Abyss-Suppressing Army soldiers slowly rise to their feet, fists clenched, standing in solemn silence.
And when they saw Adjutant Zhang arrive, kill the monsters, and save Li Mu and the others, the hall erupted with waves of suppressed cheers.
“Good!”
“Good!”
The final image of the video froze on the white light shooting into the sky from Li Mu.
As the camera slowly pulled upward and the fog dispersed completely, everyone saw the Ring of Corpse Mountains Li Mu had carved out around the place where his four teammates had hidden.
The image was incomparably shocking.
That was what one man had done to protect his teammates.
This was what a true soldier was.
This was what a true powerhouse was!!
The promotional documentary ended, and the lights in the hall came back on.
The Guidance Officer looked coldly at Zhou Qing and asked, “Didn’t you just say that you too had fought your way out in blood? That you too had battle merit??”