Chapter 745.1: Fourth Stage Of The Kingdom Of Heaven
Chapter 745.1: Fourth Stage Of The Kingdom Of Heaven
Beside the airport runway at Guardian Manor Military Base.
A Tyrant transport aircraft slowly rolled to a stop as two figures emerged through the open cargo hatch. With an utterly drained expression on its face, one of Little Feather's sub-entities weakly mimed a sigh. "Yiwu... (It didn't taste good.)"
Understanding the meaning conveyed by those sounds, Falling Feather replied with an amused smile. "They weren't food to begin with... Just don't go eating them randomly, okay?"
Three days earlier, the administrator had suddenly ordered 1,000 biological prosthetics from Little Feather.
Although that amount of biomass was little more than the equivalent of a flake of dandruff for Little Feather, who had inherited the Spring City Hive, the little fellow had plenty of complaints about the people receiving its biological prosthetics.
According to Little Feather itself, those people were incredibly boring. Hundreds of them shared a single brain.
Not only that. They hated talking and communicated almost entirely through eye contact. Even Little Feather didn’t know how to describe them. It simply felt they weren't quite normal.
Little Feather continued to mumbled, "Yiwu yiwu! (Mm! Little Feather won't eat random things! But it's okay, that one looks delicious!)"
Falling Feather blinked. "That one?"
"Yiwu! (The Hive beneath the mountain... It's really huge. Umm... I'm not sure I can eat it all. I might need a lot more sub-entities.)"
Some Hives weren't particularly powerful themselves, yet their sub-entities were extraordinarily strong, producing spores capable of covering an entire city. Others were the exact opposite, producing almost no sub-entities or spore clouds at all, devoting their limited biomass solely to strengthening themselves.
Listening to Little Feather's muttering, Falling Feather reached out and affectionately rubbed its little head. "Just do your best."
If that wasn't enough, they could always load train after train of sub-entities from Clearspring City and transport them to the front.
The communications cables had already been laid, and the relay stations were fully operational. The base stations' total bandwidth could easily support one or two thousand simultaneous "Yiwus."
Feeling the warmth atop its head, Little Feather happily rubbed its head against his hand.
Then suddenly, it froze. Its amber eyes turned sharply toward the sky.
Noticing the sudden change, Falling Feather withdrew his hand and asked seriously, "What's wrong?"
"Yiwuuu. (Something really smelly is coming!)" After a brief pause, it seemed to think for a moment before its eyes lit up slightly. "Yiwuu! (But it'll probably taste great!)"
...
Grayish-green fog gradually rose into the air, spreading across the endless wasteland.
On the construction site beside the Guardian River, a middle-aged man wearing a safety helmet and carrying a shovel suddenly turned pale with fear.
His lips trembled, "... The fog is back."
His name was Wang Youtian, a survivor from the southern Brocade River Province. He had heard that working here not only paid wages but also came with land, so he had joined the Southern Construction Corps and had been working for three months.
As a local, no one understood the place better than he did.
Seeing his face drain of color, construction foreman Hong Liming sensed something was wrong and immediately walked over. "What happened? Do you know something?"
Swallowing hard, Wang Youtian answered in a trembling voice. "It happened before..."
"It happened before?" Hong Liming frowned. "What happened before?"
Recalling the incident, fear filled Wang Youtian's eyes. "It was just like this. The fog suddenly appeared... Then when it finally cleared, everyone in the Guardian Manor Plains was gone. The livestock were gone. The orchards were gone. The crops were gone... Everything living disappeared. Only the houses were left standing."
Everything... disappeared?
Hong Liming froze, staring at him in disbelief. He had never heard anything so bizarre. Yet judging from Wang Youtian's expression, he clearly wasn't making it up.
After thinking it over for a moment and noticing that it was already getting late, he shouted toward the workers, "That's enough! Everyone pack up! Back to base!"
Hearing the foreman's order, the construction crew immediately gathered their tools. The two excavators also turned around and began heading back.
Watching the construction team unexpectedly stop work, the Ratfolk laboring in the fields all looked up curiously.
"Why are they quitting so early today?"
"Did the sun rise in the west or something?"
"Could it have something to do with this fog?"
"The fog really is strange... It even smells different."
The workers exchanged uncertain glances, quietly whispering among themselves.
At that moment, one of the construction workers walked over to the edge of the fields and shouted, "Something isn't right here. You should finish up and head back too. Don't stay outside."
One of the squad leaders' hearts skipped a beat and he yelled back, "What exactly happened here?"
"I don't know, but it's very similar to the fog that appeared in Brocade Lake Municipality before... I heard breathing too much of it can make people lose their minds, kind of like Na Fruit. Anyway, it's definitely not something good."
Although Guardian Manor Military Base was also shrouded in the fog, at least it had New Alliance and Enterprise researchers stationed there. With so many experts and scholars around, they would surely come up with some solution.
Having said that, the construction worker covered his mouth and nose with his clothes before hurrying after the retreating convoy.
The squad leader and the surrounding Ratfolk were left standing there, completely bewildered.
Brocade Lake Municipality? Where’s that? And Na Fruit...
Ever since arriving in, they had heard of countless unfamiliar things and witnessed wonders that simply didn't exist in the Poro Province.
In the past, they probably wouldn't have taken any of it seriously. But after the beating they had received just over half a month ago, they still remembered enough pain to think twice.
"I'll go report this to Commander Makur."
Not daring to hesitate, the squad leader threw down his farming tools and hurried to Makur.
When he arrived, Makur was sitting beneath a simple canopy, staring uncertainly at the fog gathering overhead. He couldn’t help but ask, "Why's there fog at this hour?"
It didn't even look like the weather was changing.
Seeing his subordinate rushing toward him, Makur straightened up in his chair, adopting a calm, authoritative demeanor before clearing his throat. "What is it? Why are you in such a panic?"
The squad leader ignored formalities and hurriedly reported, "Sir! The New Alliance Southern Construction Corps just warned us that there's something dangerous inside this fog! They said we should immediately withdraw to the military base and avoid staying outside!"
Makur frowned as he stood. "Withdraw? Have the Mutant Humans attacked?"
The squad leader hurriedly shook his head. "No... But this sudden fog apparently has something to do with the Torch Church."
Hearing that it wasn't an attack, Makur rolled his eyes and casually sat back down. "Hah. I thought it was something serious. It's just a little fog. Look how frightened you all are."
Seeing his commander's complete indifference, the squad leader became even more anxious.
"But..."
Before he could finish, Makur impatiently waved him away. "I said it's just a bit of fog. It's not like everyone's gone blind. Get back to work! Stop looking for excuses to slack off."
The New Alliance clearly has ulterior motives! This is probably another one of their staged performances.
He remembered perfectly well that the frontline had already pushed halfway up Ten Peaks Mountain. How could the Torch Church possibly have reached this place?
Seeing that his commander hadn't listened to a word he said, the squad leader broke into a cold sweat, yet he dared not argue.
Noticing the unfriendly expressions of the overseers carrying whips, he could only grit his teeth and return to the fields, picking up the farming tools he had left by the ridge.
Those overseers became battlefield commissars whenever war broke out and they never showed mercy to their own people. If they started swinging those whips, they never held back. He certainly didn't want to return home with a bruised face.
At that very moment...
Thud.
Someone suddenly collapsed into the field beside him.
The man appeared to be in his thirties or forties and his complexion was waxy yellow. His emaciated body was little more than skin stretched over bones. One glance was enough to tell he had been born a slave.
The nearby workers immediately dragged him out of the mud and laid him flat on the ground and the commotion quickly caught the attention of an overseer.
A man carrying a whip strode over, shouting at the gathered crowd. "What are all of you standing around for?!"
One of the Ratfolk replied nervously, "Someone collapsed, sir!"
The overseer snorted. "Collapsed? Looks more like he's asking for a whipping! Wake him up!"
When no one managed to rouse the unconscious man, the overseer crouched beside him and slapped him twice across the face.
The man finally stirred and his eyes opened slowly. But instead of revealing dark pupils, only milky white eyeballs stared back at the overseer.
"Oh? Looks like you've got a death wish." Thinking the man was deliberately provoking him, the overseer's temper flared. He reached down to grab the man's throat, only to have the man suddenly lunge forward and sink his teeth into his hand.
There was no restraint whatsoever. It was as though years of resentment had exploded all at once. The bite tore through flesh, ripping the hand open as blood gushed everywhere.
"AAAAAHHH!" The overseer's screams echoed across the fields. He desperately tried to yank his hand free, but the man refused to let go.
Everyone around them stood frozen in terror. For a moment, no one even thought to separate them. No one had imagined that someone so skeletal could unleash such terrifying strength, nor had anyone imagined he would actually attack a battlefield overseer.
Had he completely given up on living?
They belonged to the Expeditionary Army. If General Babita suddenly decided to send them back to the frontlines one day, offending the overseers now might very well earn them a bullet in the back of the head.
Out here, far from the Emperor's reach, even if two people died, no one would ever investigate how.
To put it bluntly, they were merely rats surviving on the estates of the nobility! No one would even remember their names.
A dark emotion began swelling within everyone's hearts.