Chapter 792: You So-Called Higher Lifeforms... Are Kinda Weak

“Go to hell!”

Beyond seven paces, the gun was faster than a cold weapon! Within seven paces, the gun was both faster and more accurate!

Looking at the man whose body seemed riddled with openings, a barely perceptible savage grin tugged at Hunter’s lips. Before Old White could even finish speaking, Hunter raised the muzzle of his rifle and pulled the trigger all the way down. Although a Gauss rifle without its capacitor charged could not unleash its full power, its rapid-fire mass projectiles were more than enough to suppress a target!

At the same time, he freed his left hand and expertly reached for the metallic hydrogen grenade concealed along the side of his armor, preparing to deal this arrogant bastard a fatal blow.

Yet just as his plan seemed to be coming together perfectly, something happened that he simply could not believe. The old suit of exoframe seemed to take flight, charging straight toward his face at an unbelievable speed!

The barrage of mass projectiles scraped across the gleaming armor and sent sparks flashing in every direction, yet failed to leave so much as a single dent!

There was no way he was facing a regular Dragon Cavalry exoframe, there was no way the outdated armor had that mobility... And there was no way it had such strong plating!

Hunter’s pupils contracted sharply. Instinctively, he let go of the now-useless grenade and reached for his combat knife, intending to slash at the wrist holding the short axe.

But in the end, he was still one step too slow.

“Too slow.” The bone-piercing pain and the faintly mocking voice reached him almost simultaneously as an explosive burst of molten metal slammed into the armor over his left shoulder!

He felt a wave of scorching air blast toward him from the blunt face of the axe blade, and then dazzling sparks erupted across his body!

“AAAAARGH!”

Tearing agony shot through his left shoulder. He staggered back two steps, and in his daze, he could even smell the charred scent of roasted flesh.

His entire left arm had gone completely numb! A horrifying gash had been torn into his left shoulder. The jet of molten metal that penetrated the armor had directly severed his flesh, nerves, and bone.

The overwhelming force filled him with a trace of fear.

It was especially so when he caught sight from the corner of his eye of his arm hanging limply from his shoulder as though it had already been severed, connected only by a bent layer of steel...

“What... is that thing...” he gasped, backing away as he tried to create distance.

Old White did not care. He merely watched the “boss-level” mob, who seemed far weaker than expected, make his futile struggle.

“You mean this?” He shook the short axe in his hand and grinned. “Its proper name is the Thermal Cutting Axe, though we usually call it the armor-breaking axe.”

Its principle was somewhat similar to a shaped-charge warhead. Although it had originally been designed before the war as a breaching tool, player field-testing had unexpectedly proven that it worked extremely well against armor such as ones used in an exoframe.

Ever since the processing center on level B7 had been unlocked, the item, just like Ample Time’s Daybreaker mechanical bow, could be purchased directly from the official store.

Hunter stared at the freak before him, his gaze roaming across Old White’s gleaming breastplate as though wondering why his mass projectiles had failed to penetrate it.

Clearly, the man had not given up yet.

Wisps of pale white smoke drifted from the breach in the armor over his left shoulder, while the severed flesh beneath was healing at an unbelievable speed. There was no need to guess. It had to be some sort of biological prosthetic or genetic modification. Biotechnology was what the Torch Church excelled at.

Old White looked at him without concern and said simply, “Surrender. Even your Apostle has already given up. There’s no point in continuing to struggle.”

Captives were worth more campaign points than corpses, so he figured he might as well try persuading the man to put down his weapon. Unfortunately, his persuasion skills were nowhere near as good as Ample Time’s.

After hearing him out, Hunter merely gave a cold laugh.

“Surrender? Heh. Dream on!” After a pause, Hunter gritted his teeth and forced another sentence through them. “And we have never given up. Neither the great Apostle nor the Pathfinders... Just wait and see. Our Kingdom of Heaven is destined to descend upon this land. In the end, the ones swept into the grave will be you rotten relics!”

“Kingdom of Heaven? Why are you talking about that again?” Old White sighed and scratched his helmet, looking at the fanatic in front of him with confusion as he continued to ask, “There’s actually something I’ve never understood. Is there something about your Kingdom of Heaven that makes it inconvenient to explain to people?”

“There’s no point talking... DIE!” Hunter roared. He suddenly exploded into motion and charged Old White.

His speed was more than twice what it had been before!

Swollen flesh surged from the cracks in his armor, spreading across its exterior like crimson moss. As he rushed forward, he barely resembled a human anymore. He had transformed into some unstable subspecies, his flesh completely fused with the exoframe!

To offer his body entirely to the supreme Kingdom of Heaven, to fully embrace that supremely glorious evolution... That was his final trump card! Once he used the transformation, there was no going back. Even if he survived the duel, he would only be able to wander the ruins like a mindless corpse.

However, he did not care! All he wanted was to tear this arrogant bastard in front of him to pieces!

Looking at the man who had completely lost his mind, Old White let out a helpless sigh and swung the axe in his hand.

His Limit Breakthrough talent granted him a 150% to 200% boost in strength for three seconds. Combined with the dynamic vision provided by his agility stat, the man charging toward him seemed as slow as a snail.

“I’ll be honest...”

The viscous air seemed almost like water as the axe swung at tremendous speed, compressing it into what looked like a solid wall! A piercing sonic boom thundered through the abandoned floor, and scorching air blasted toward Hunter’s face like a hurricane. The superheated airflow and nearly vaporized metal poured straight into his helmet, instantly charring the flesh beneath the steel.

It’s too fast!

Hunter never even saw what happened. He did not even have time to feel surprised. Just before his consciousness vanished like a telephone line being ripped apart, a faint voice filled with pity drifted into his ears. “You so-called higher lifeforms... Are kind of weak.”

...

At the same time that Hunter was smashed to pieces by Old White with two heavy blows of his axe, the exoframe squad led by Ample Time also successfully eliminated the Punishment Squad guarding the shelter entrance.

There had been no suspense whatsoever in the entire battle. It had been a completely one-sided slaughter. Unfortunately, although the fighting ended quickly, they failed to capture even a single member of the Judgment Panel alive.

Those people, whose loyalty to the Torch Church had been engraved into their very souls, were complete lunatics. They simply did not care whether they lived or died. Especially after discovering that their squad leader, Hunter, had been killed, the remaining dozen or so followed his example and transformed themselves into mindless monsters in exchange for greater combat power.

The facts proved that it was nothing more than a dying struggle.

For the time being, the players still had no idea exactly what had happened to these dead men, or what sort of anti-human technology the Torch Church had developed this time. However, after recovering the samples, the New Alliance’s Biological Research Institution should be able to give them an explanation.

The great door of Shelter 20 stood directly ahead. Ample Time made a hand signal, ordering two squads to move up against the massive gear-shaped door, while he himself shouldered his rifle and walked straight toward the entrance.

As a powerful agility type player, he had more than enough confidence to dodge any lethal attack. No one was faster than him!

Of course... If he screwed up, he would pretend he never said that.

The drone controlled by Karen floated over to the entrance of the shelter. It turned its camera toward Ample Time and repeatedly confirmed over the communications channel in a pleading voice. “You’ll help me... right? I was forced into this too. Anyone who refused to cooperate was disposed of. They’re even more ruthless toward their own people than they are toward outsiders. We had no choice but to do what the Pathfinders of the First Sanctuary told us.”

“Of course we’ll help you. That’s exactly why we came. After all, we still need your technology to clean up the mess we’re dealing with,” Ample Time urged patiently. “Now hurry up and open the door. I would rather not end up recovering a corpse later.”

Those words seemed to frighten her. Finally realizing just how dangerous what she was doing actually was, Karen stopped hesitating and turned the drone’s camera toward the tightly sealed, gear-shaped giant door.

Ample Time disengaged the safety on his rifle and stared intently at the space behind the door, ready to open fire at any moment. To his surprise, however, no shelter security personnel were waiting in ambush behind it. The entire entrance hall was empty.

It was as though the Torch Church’s upper echelon had completely given up resisting, simply surrendering the shelter’s main entrance, the easiest place to defend and hardest to assault, to them.

After carefully checking the entrance hall and confirming there was no ambush, Ample Time gestured to his teammates behind him and led an infantry squad deeper into the shelter.

The two airlock doors separating the shelter’s internal space from the outside were directly ahead. Karen, who had already hacked into the shelter’s security system, opened both doors for them.

Through the long, narrow airlock chamber, he could vaguely hear a commotion beyond the doors, along with hurried footsteps.

After committing every manner of atrocity imaginable, the Torch Church had finally met its destined end. Those so-called higher-ups were like monkeys on a crooked-neck tree, screeching and wailing in panic.

To tell the truth, Ample Time was actually a little disappointed. He had thought Light had left him some enormous surprise inside this shelter, perhaps some doomsday weapon the Torch Church had developed specifically to deal with the New Alliance. Instead, they had dispatched the Punishment Squad in no time at all, then breached the main entrance with ridiculous ease.

“Where are you?” Ample Time looked toward the drone floating beside him. “Just in case, we’ll come straight to you.”

“Thank you!” Karen said gratefully before flying ahead. “To tell you the truth... the bodies of us core researchers are all being kept in nurturing chambers deep inside the shelter. The First Sanctuary has been using them as leverage to force us to work for them.”

Free Sniper interjected, “So you normally get around using drones?”

Karen explained, “There’s also a bionic android modeled after my biological characteristics, but that android is currently inside the security room. After programming it with a series of instructions, I locked myself inside. The security guards shouldn’t be able to do anything to me for a while.”

The Apostle had already left. She was certain that man was no longer here. Otherwise, sneaking into the security room and seizing control of the shelter’s security system would have been practically impossible.

Free Sniper nodded blankly, unable to understand why the Torch Church would go through such a needlessly convoluted process of turning a living person into an android.

Standing beside him, Old Six suddenly lit up and blurted out, “Are you still using that android?”

“Still using it?” Karen froze for a moment, then shook her head. “No. I just want my own body back.”

Old Six rubbed his hands together with a sheepish grin. “Then... once this is all over, can you give it to me?”

“Huh?”

“Give my ass. Can you have a little ambition and buy one yourself?” Ample Time smacked the back of Old Six’s head irritably. Ignoring the aggrieved look on his face, he issued his orders concisely.

“Team 1, advance toward the security room. We need to secure control of the shelter’s security systems. Team 2, follow me. We’re heading straight for that warehouse where they keep everyone canned up. Leave the noncombatants alone unless they pick up weapons and point them at you, move!”

During their brief conversation, Karen had already transmitted a map of the shelter to his visualized battlefield system.

Hearing Ample Time’s orders, the previously unserious players immediately wiped the grins from their faces and answered crisply.

“Copy!”

The players clad in exoskeletons and exoframe quickly sprang into action, advancing toward their designated objectives under the guidance of the visualized battlefield navigation system.

Seeing those murderous-looking New Alliance soldiers storm into the shelter, expressions of despair appeared on the faces of nearly every researcher.

“Don’t kill me. I was forced into this.”

“It’s the Apostle... Oh, no! I mean, our Apostle has already left. He completely abandoned us.”

“I can work for you...”

Most of the researchers clearly had no intention of sinking with the Torch Church’s rapidly sinking ship. Some of the bolder ones even approached the New Alliance soldiers of their own accord.

Ample Time looked at them speechlessly. Although he was glad they were voluntarily surrendering, he couldn’t help but feel that these people had utterly destroyed whatever dignity the Torch Church had left.

Karen seemed a little embarrassed as well, but she still tried to explain quietly, “Some of these researchers really were captured by the Torch Church from other shelters. They genuinely had no choice.”

“We’ll sort those people out separately.” Leaving those words behind, Ample Time raised his rifle and fired a burst into the ceiling.

Watching the researchers scream, cover their heads, and crouch on the floor, he quickly explained, “As you can see, the Torch Church is finished. Your leaders tucked their tails between their legs and ran. Surrendering and cooperating with our arrangements is your only way out.”

He paused. Seeing that no one dared object, Ample Time continued, “Now stay where you are and don’t move. The people coming after us will tell you what to do. If you don’t want to get hit by a stray bullet, I suggest you don’t wander around.”

Almost everyone nodded. Those who had not reacted immediately began nodding like chickens pecking at grain the moment they noticed him looking at them.

Satisfied with their cooperation, Ample Time led his brothers past the researchers and continued deeper into the shelter.

When they reached level B5, a massive door resembling a bank vault stood in their way.

“This is it.” Karen’s voice trembled with excitement. Unable to contain herself, she flew forward and opened the alloy door.

However, the sight that greeted her caused her to freeze on the spot the instant she eagerly flew into the storage room...

“How could this be?!”

Hearing the despair in her voice over the communications channel, Ample Time frowned slightly and stepped through the doorway.

“What happ...” The words died in his throat.

What filled the warehouse were not culture chambers containing living human bodies. Instead, there were rows upon rows of cylindrical tanks. Pink brains floated inside dark green liquid, entangled in a tangled web of tubes and cables.

She had never had a body to begin with. the Torch Church’s upper echelon had lied to her...

The drone controlled by Karen sank to the floor in despair.

Ample Time involuntarily gulped. Free Sniper, standing beside him, did the same, frozen in stunned disbelief.

“What the fuck?!”

So did this mean the mission was a success or a failure?

Just as everyone was wondering the same thing, a leisurely voice drifted toward them from directly ahead.

“Surprised?”

Ample Time narrowed his eyes and looked toward the source of the voice where a young man dressed in immaculate white robes stood.

Karen’s voice began to tremble. “Apostle...”

Ample Time wasted no words. He immediately aimed his rifle at the pretentious bastard standing amid the rows of brains and issued a low command. “Take him alive.”

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