SEC Chapter 1328 Retreat
Chapter 1328 Retreat
In those two seconds, several images flashed through King Kong's mind.
The first scene shows Zha Hu drinking on the northern section of the city wall. At that time, his eyes were normal, his pupils were round, and his tone of voice and movements were normal.
The second scene shows Zha Hu being injured in the battle. His left arm was cut by the claw of a ground-walking creature. The wound wasn't deep, and he wrapped it with bandages a few times and then left it alone.
At the time, he even asked if he should go see a doctor, but Zha Hu said that it was unnecessary for such a minor injury.
The third scene is when Zha Hu says after the battle that he wants to go south to check on Su Xiao's situation, saying that it's too hard for him to carry one direction alone and he wants to help.
King Kong's pupils contracted slightly.
Zha Hu's wound was on his left arm.
The most common route of invasion for parasitic species is through wounds.
Their larvae are only a few millimeters long, as thin as a hair, and they are mixed in with the fragments of flesh and blood of the alien species. When your wound comes into contact with the flesh and blood of the alien species, they will burrow into the wound.
You won't feel them because they are too small for your pain receptors to detect.
King Kong took a deep breath and then made his move without any warning.
His right fist slammed out from his waist, leaving a blurry afterimage in the air.
The fist slammed into Zha Hu's face.
A dull thud, like a heavy hammer striking a thick piece of raw meat.
The moment the fist struck, Zha Hu's head snapped back, his neck bones cracking with a sickening sound. He fell backward like a broken stick, his upper body lolling over while his feet remained rooted to the spot.
His body remained suspended in mid-air for less than a fraction of a second before his center of gravity began to shift backward.
He lifted his feet off the ground, his boots drawing an arc in the air, and his whole body flew backward like a cannonball being launched.
The body flew nearly ten meters through the air before crashing heavily to the ground.
King Kong withdrew his fist and flexed his fingers.
There were several small abrasions on his knuckles, scratches from when his fist slammed into Zha Hu's face and was cut by his teeth.
"Take him to the doctor," someone shouted from the city wall of the King Kong Dynasty. His tone was more like an announcement than a request.
Several students on the city wall heard the shouts and peeked out from behind the battlements.
They glanced at Zha Hu lying in the mud below the city wall, then at King Kong, and nodded.
Two students jumped down from the city wall, ran to Zha Hu, each grabbed one of his arms, dragged him up from the ground, and carried him toward the slope inside the city wall.
Zha Hu's head drooped in front of his chest, his limbs swayed limply, and his whole body looked like a sack of potatoes thrown into the back of a tractor.
King Kong watched as the two students dragged Zha Hu onto the city wall, then turned his gaze back towards the direction of the alien race.
His right hand was still stained with Erhu's blood, which dripped from between his fingers and pooled on the ground in a dark red puddle.
He shook the blood off his hands and then strode towards the horde of aliens.
On the way to the charge, King Kong's lips curled into a slight smile.
It's hard to tell if that expression was a smile or something else, but if you've known King Kong long enough, you'd know it was a signal—he was in a good mood.
Because Lin Yi proved one thing with facts.
His aura is not only capable of identifying parasitic species, but also incredibly accurate.
Erhu showed no flaws in appearance; his pupils were round, his gait was natural, and his tone and manner of speaking were exactly the same as Erhu's.
But the halo recognized him.
He relied on that thing inside him that didn't belong to him.
Although a parasitic species lives inside a host, it is still an independent organism.
When the aura's lightning damage targets a person, it won't spare you just because you're hiding inside someone else.
As long as you are within the aura's coverage area, you will take damage if you are identified as an enemy.
The parasite was inside Erhu's body, and the lightning damage from the aura directly affected the parasite.
The electric sparks generated when the parasite was injured were conducted through the parasite's body to the surface of Erhu's body.
That's why the electric sparks on Erhu's body were so dense.
King Kong didn't know these principles; he only knew one thing—Lin Yi said that electric sparks were a tool for distinguishing friend from foe, and that was enough.
If you believe it, then do it; if you do it, it will be effective.
Simple, direct, and efficient.
This is why the contractors of the Paradise of Reincarnation like Lin Yi.
His method may not be the smartest, nor the most effortless, but it is certainly the most effective.
Inside the medical tent, Lin Yi was treating the sixth contractor who had been brought in.
It was a burly man lying on a cot, his limbs restrained by straps, his head turned to one side, his eyes half-open, his pupils normal round.
Lin Yi used a razor to shave off a small patch of hair on the back of his head, revealing a bluish-white scalp.
The blade made a soft rustling sound as it slid across the scalp.
Lin Yi pressed his fingers on different parts of his scalp, sensing whether there were any abnormalities in the underlying tissue structure.
Sure enough, he felt a small bump on his fingertip.
The hardness of the protrusion differs from that of the surrounding tissue; it is neither the hardness of bone nor the elasticity of muscle, but rather a kind of toughness that lies between the two.
Lin Yi picked up the scalpel and gently pressed the tip of the scalpel against the protruding area.
The skin was cut open, revealing the grayish-white fascia underneath and the wriggling white filament beneath it.
He inserted the hemostat into the incision, clamped the end of the filament, and gently pulled it outward.
When the entire worm was pulled out of the subcutaneous tissue, a faint stench of decay filled the tent, like someone opening a long-stored can of food in a confined space.
The insect was about 12 centimeters long and about 5 millimeters in diameter. It was milky white all over and had a layer of viscous fluid on its surface.
It writhed wildly under the grip of the hemostat, its body bending and bouncing like a red-hot wire, its bodily fluids splashing out during the writhing and landing on Lin Yi's gloves.
The engineering students standing nearby recorded the entire process on a tablet, including data such as the location and depth of the incision, the size and color of the worm, and the host's physiological response after the worm was removed.
This data will be used to improve the formulation of nerve blockers and the surgical procedure.
Lin Yi took off his blood-stained gloves and threw them into the medical waste bin.
The parasites were far more troublesome than expected.
They began to evolve and adapt, searching for vulnerabilities in the park's defense system.
Initially, after being parasitized, the parasitic species will change the shape of the host's pupils; radial pupils are their distinguishing feature.
Humans discovered this pattern and began to identify infected individuals by observing their pupils.
Then the parasites evolved. They learned to keep the host's pupil shape unchanged in the early stages of parasitism, only showing radial pupils in the middle and later stages.
They thought they could fool humans this way.
But Lin Yi activated the Aura of Punishment.
The aura's lightning damage leaves the parasites nowhere to hide.
You can outwardly disguise yourself as a real person, but inside you there is an extra organism that doesn't belong to you. This organism will be attacked by the aura, generate electric sparks, and make you glow in the dark.
Lin Yi made an estimate.
At the current rate of consumption, the aura can last for about three and a half hours.
Three and a half hours later, his abyssal power will be depleted.
Twenty kilometers from the hill where the alien commander was located.
That's not a long distance; for a sixth-order creature, it would only take less than ten minutes to run at full speed.
However, the fission commander did not choose to personally lead the charge.
It stood atop the highest point of the hill, its two sturdy hind legs supporting its body, its forelimbs dangling at its sides, the tips of its claws almost touching the rocks on the ground.
It is almost twice as tall as ordinary ground-dwelling species, with a height of nearly three meters and a body length of over five meters, and its entire body is covered with thick gray-black scales.
Its head is not as long and flat as that of the terrestrial species, but is much wider, with several thick bone spurs extending backward from the top of its skull, like a crown placed upside down on its head.
The fission commander looked at the fortress in the distance, its radial pupils slightly contracting as it gazed at the fortress glowing red from the artillery fire.
The difficulty of the Paradise of Reincarnation far exceeded its expectations.
According to the original plan, the alien army should launch attacks from five directions simultaneously, crushing all human resistance with overwhelming numbers.
The five directions and five battlefronts of the Paradise of Apocalypse, Paradise of Death, Paradise of Holy Light, Paradise of Sanctuary, and Paradise of Reincarnation are advancing and crushing at the same time.
But the Paradise of Reincarnation caught it off guard.
Their firepower density far exceeded the sum of the other four directions; their fortifications were as solid as a fortress rather than a temporary camp; and their fighting spirit was so high that the ground creatures began to hesitate on their way to charge.
A ground-dwelling creature wouldn't hesitate; its brain is too small to accommodate the emotion of hesitation.
But when a hundred of them are planted together, hesitation arises.
That hesitation doesn't originate in the brain, but seeps out of their bodies, like water seeping from a crack, slow and unstoppable.
When the front-line ground units were riddled with bullets and turned into mincemeat below the city wall, the ground units in the back began to slow down.
It wasn't that I was actively slowing down; rather, my body was giving me the order—stop running, or I'll die.
The brains of terrestrial species do not have the concept of fear, but their bodies do.
The body remembers pain, remembers death, and reacts automatically when the same scene is repeated, without the need for the brain.
This is why alien commanders need to constantly issue attack orders.
It's not because it likes to give orders, but because if no orders are given, the alien army will switch from an offensive state to a wait-and-see state within minutes, and then from a wait-and-see state to a retreat state.
The alien commander raised his arm and let out a low growl.
The roar carried far through the night sky, reaching the ears of every alien species on the battlefield.
The roar means—retreat.
Upon hearing the roar, the alien army began to retreat.
Their retreat was more orderly than their charge. The aliens in the front retreated first, while the aliens in the back provided cover. The formation remained intact throughout the retreat, without any signs of disintegration.
The alien army retreated into the distance like the receding tide, the black tide receding from beneath the city walls, leaving behind a bloody and mangled battlefield.
The gunfire from the city walls gradually subsided after the alien army retreated beyond firing range.
The students of Kivotos stopped firing, placed their guns on the battlements, and then collapsed to the ground, panting heavily.
Their combat uniforms were soaked with sweat and clung tightly to their bodies; their faces were covered in dust and gunpowder residue; and their hair was a tangled mess.
Some people leaned against the city wall with their eyes closed, while others lay on the battlements retching.
To put it bluntly, although gunfights are a daily occurrence in Kiwatos, this kind of bloody warfare is something these students have never seen before. It's also thanks to Hina's command from the rear that many of these students might not have survived this war.
The contractors of the Paradise of Reincarnation walked back down the slope below the city wall.
Their pace was much slower than usual; some were limping, some were helping each other, and some simply sat on the ground, unwilling to move.
King Kong walked at the front, his leather armor soaked in the blood of the alien race.
He had a deep wound on his right arm, extending from his elbow to his wrist, revealing dark red muscle fibers underneath.
He walked to the foot of the city wall, plopped down on a rock, took out a cigarette from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and lit it with a lighter.
I took a deep breath, and the smoke billowed out of my nostrils, slowly dissipating in the night breeze.
Su Xiao walked back from the direction of the southern section of the city wall.
His leather jacket had several new rips, one of which ran from his right shoulder to his left rib, with the leather at the edge of the rip curling outward to reveal the white lining underneath.
There was a thin, long bloodstain on the lining, a mark left by the alien's claws after they cut a hole in the leather jacket.
Lin Yi stood at the entrance of the medical tent, looking at the contractors and students who had been withdrawn from the battlefield.
The next second, another message from the Dean appeared in the war channel.
"The aliens have retreated, but they will regroup and attack before dawn tomorrow. Everyone should take the time to rest, eat, drink, and sleep. The wounded should go to the medical tents to find doctors; don't try to tough it out on your own."
Below the message was a series of replies.
Some people replied with a single word "okay", some replied with a single word "hmm", some replied with a single word "fine", and some replied with a single word "get lost".
The person who replied "Get lost" is King Kong.
The dean did not reply to him.
In the distance, the alien army had disappeared into the darkness.
But they will come back.
The fission commander stood on the hill, his radiating pupils fixed on the fortress in the distance, illuminated by searchlights.
It raised its arm, pointed in the direction of the fortress, and let out a short roar.
The roar meant—to get the orcs to bring over more Periel Burst Barrels.
It wants to blow up that damned city wall.
It wants to let those extraterrestrials know that this world is not their playground.
This is the Continent of Ten Thousand Beasts.
It is a hunting ground exclusively for exotic species. (End of Chapter)