Inside the spacious cavern, the dark red smoke was filled with the sour smell of decay, and strangely shaped monsters chanted babbling and screaming.

They are huge, staggering in number, and even more varied, all with different shapes and functions. Some have strong one-arms on their chests, and some have many hands and legs shaped like centipedes.

The only thing they have in common is that most of their bodies are covered with pustules, and their limbs are corrupt and sore.

The dark red smoke seemed to squeeze out of the pustules, and the huge mosquitoes and flies that swirled around them seemed to grow from there, clustering around them as affectionately as their offspring.

These maverick mutants call themselves "Plague Monks" and believe in the ubiquitous and omnipotent "Plague" and regard it as a treasure.

These guys are not so much mutants, but rather they are stitching monsters born after countless mutants have been dismantled and rearranged and combined, completely out of the category of the concept of "human".

This was especially true of the monster in the middle surrounded by the babbling shouts.

Its name is Sodo, and it is the prophet of the Plague Monks and the leader of the Bloodhoof Clan.

It was as large as Oron of the Rock Axe Clan, with two heads sharing three eyes, and long horns growing from its skull inlaid with rusty bells, making ominous jingling sounds as it shook its head.

Its bloated body and sparse hair make it look like a sick plague pig, and with that amiable smile, it looks indescribably weird.

In front of it sat a pot of bubbling crimson soup, filled with pus squeezed out of its pustules.

There was no fire at the bottom of the pot, but the bubbles kept coming out and cracking into dark red smoke, like boiling water. It's just that it's not water that's boiling, it's some kind of evil pathogen.

It calls it "raw soup".

As the mother of the virus, or the gift, Sodo scooped up a scoop of pus with a wooden spoon and threw it at the chorus with a wicked smile.

The mutants drenched in pus let out heartfelt moans. Moaning, some let out a cry of high spirits, and the expression of joy distorted with pleasure was as if it had been blessed by the gods.

Compared to the delightful maniacs, the short ones who shuttle between the legs of the big guys are much more pragmatic.

The goblins and mutant children scrambled to crawl on the ground, frantically licking the "original soup" given by the Prophet as if it were a delicacy.

Some of the goblins began to mutate, and their bodies swollen into a ball as if they were foaming. There are also some that curl up in a ball and seem to become even smaller, so small that they are almost unrecognizable, and then their bodies begin to tear apart, and they are quickly eaten by their kind.

Whether it's the cubs of the big guys or the small goblins, the ones who survive have become the "plague monks" who spread the plague, joining the chorus of cheering for new life and death.

The "feeder" with a large basket of flesh-red mushrooms in his hands squeezed in from the entrance of the cave and threw the filthy flesh-red mushrooms at the crowded believers.

The newborn plague monks pounced on them like wolves, scrambling to stuff the organic matter into their mouths, filling their hungry stomach pouches and drawing the nutrients they needed to grow and develop.

Amidst the babbling and burping, the bloody and chaotic party went on endlessly, spreading the diseased body like a plague.

Satisfied with the new batch of works, Sodo nodded contentedly, then picked out a larger pustule from his body and began to create the next pot of soup.

However, at this moment, there was a commotion at the entrance of the cave, and more than a dozen humans who had been stripped of their equipment were carried in.

Most of them, men and women, were seriously injured and in a coma. There were also a few people who were awake, looking at everything inside the cave with obvious fear on their faces.

Grabbing one of them by the neck, the three-meter-tall, six-armed, big man made a wicked grin, and raised the longest arm high, showing off the struggling "antelope" in his hand.

These guys were the Alpha Team trying to infiltrate the cave, and after eating two brains, they figured out all the plans of the little rats.

Basking in the cheers of the plague monks, it stared intently at the Prophet with adoring pride and a thirst for a reward in its eyes.

"Human stuff! Transparent! Thought we couldn't see! Quack! ”

A loving smile appeared on Sodor's face.

However, in the eyes of the Alpha Task Force, the smile was as terrifying as the demons described in the beliefs of the old days.

There was horror on his face, but he couldn't make a sound because his throat was clenched, and he could only watch as he was brought to the disgusting fellow.

Sodo stared into his eyes, and suddenly a crack opened in his bloated belly, and bucket-thick intestines wrapped around him like writhing earthworms, pulling him into his stomach.

The last vestiges of consciousness seemed to "hear" the sound of bones breaking, and then his consciousness fell into darkness, turning into a full hiccup from Sodo.

Looking at the captain who was swallowed alive, and the rest of the team members who were still awake, their faces showed fear and despair.

Without hesitation, he poured a scoop of raw soup at the brave man who had brought the captives, and Sodo looked at the captives at the entrance of the cave, and opened his voice to continue shouting.

"Take it to the hatching pool!"

"To the Great Lord of the Plague! Thank you for the evolution He has given us! ”

The sound was like 10,000 cicadas vibrating their wings in unison, and the sound of the rope continued to echo in the empty and dark cavern.

"Oooo

The monsters writhed their limbs wildly, and their shouts of excitement shook the earth, as if even the mountains were shaking with them.

The members of Mobile Task Force Alpha struggled to resist, but were eventually forcibly dragged to what was known as the hatchery.

It was a bottomless abyss, with a faint crimson in the darkness, like an extinguished crater.

The dark red mist that permeated the mountains seemed to come from there.

At the edge of the abyss lay several wooden cranes, winches wrapped with iron chains, and at the ends of the chains were a string of iron buckets, on which flesh-red mushrooms remained.

One of the female team members turned pale, her lips purple, and she muttered tremblingly.

“…… Brood. ”

It turned out to be the mother nest of the mutant slime mold!

She had to bring the news back!

However, this is an unknown number of meters deep underground, and there are countless meters of thick rocks outside, and ordinary electromagnetic wave signals cannot be transmitted at all.

What's more-

They have fallen into the hands of the enemy, and now they are unable to protect themselves.

"Sacrifice to the Great Lord of the Plague!"

The plague monk who had brought her here grunted solemnly, and then threw her into the abyss.

She felt a warm current pass through her body, as if she had thrown herself into a hot embrace. Then the consciousness vanished like a kite with a broken string in the darkness that could not be seen......

……

At the same time, halfway up the mountainside on the south side of Broken Blade Mountain.

A group of heavily armed soldiers in gas masks stood on the battlefield like statues, staring intently at the blood-mist-filled peaks in the distance.

That mountain of blood was like a halberd falling from the sky, splitting the eighty-mile mountain road in half from the middle.

"Alpha 13th team contact lost...... The package was not delivered to the intended location and no explosion was detected. ”

"Judging that all the people are killed."

"Plan C13 failed, plan B14 was activated...... Let's go. ”

"Roger."

Project C13 consists of a stealth team equipped with optical camouflage to penetrate deep into the cavern and place explosives to collapse part of the cavern, thereby destroying the fortifications built by the mutants inside the mountain.

Clearly, the programme has failed.

Even in order to figure out the reasons for the defeat and to make a more thorough offensive plan, they had to recover the remains of the soldiers of the 13th Squadron and go deep into the cave to learn more about the battlefield.

The silent exchange ended, and the soldiers waiting halfway up the mountain left the trenches in unison, forming a team of ten people and heading in the direction of the Blood Mountain.

Unlike the 13th squadron.

Armed with heavy exoskeletons and electromagnetic weapons, they are the backbone of Task Force Alpha's Mobile Force, often spearheading attacks on the battlefield, and are tasked with clearing out dangerous targets that the Academy's exploration team can't solve.

At the same time, a deafening muffled sound was heard in the distance, and two 902-mm train guns spewed out tongues of fire in unison, pushing several rifled rockets carrying thousand-pound cloud burst warheads into the sky.

After a dozen breaths, a piercing howl pierced through the thin clouds in the sky, and exploded into red clouds in the shape of mushrooms in an instant.

The scorching flames were like magma falling from the sky, engulfing almost the entire mountainous area, and draining the oxygen within a radius of several kilometers in an instant.

The strange red mist that lingered on the peaks of the Blood Mountain was blown away.

It turns out that in the face of sufficient equivalence, all demons and monsters are nothing more than paper tigers.

Of course, the concept of offense and defense is always relative, and the premise of everything is "enough".

There was a slight landslide on the peak, and large stones rolled from the top of the 3,000-meter-high mountain to the bottom of the mountain, but the whole mountain still stood there.

Even the rising heat looked as if the whole mountain had been roasted.

Within minutes, the coalition forces rained down at least ten 902mm heavy rocket range extenders around the Blood Mountain.

That's enough to fill five wagons of shells, and almost everywhere you can wash, not even a single ant will be left.

At the same time, two squadrons of 100 men of Task Force Alpha have been pushed to the front.

They were accompanied by 200 quadcopter drones with non-shelled rifles and grenade launchers.

Unlike the Alliance's drones, the Academy's drones not only have a closer shape to the style of science fiction, but also have a variety of integrated functions.

At the same time as the drone attack formation unfolded, brilliant lights and shadows suddenly appeared below the drone, forming colorful portraits.

General Lium, who was sitting on the airship Loyalty watching the battle, looked straight at it, and thought it was some kind of black technology such as teleportation.

However, he soon realized that the thing was nothing more than a holographic projection, and that the soldiers who appeared out of thin air were not real people, so he sat back in his chair.

"Oh, pretending to be a ghost."

He sneered disdainfully, but there was a hint of jealousy in his eyes.

One thing to say, this hologram has been so realistic that it is as real as it is real.

If the drone and the dummy fire at the same time, it is difficult to say whether the soldiers at the front line will be deceived by those camouflaged targets, distracting the fire.

Even if you see through the camouflage that those illusory targets are actually holograms, after all, the drones themselves are "cover" that provide cover for the members of the Alpha Task Force.

If you fire at the drones that don't carry much ammunition, you will hit the slugs in the swamps.

If these guys were to be used as an imaginary enemy, the most serious situation his soldiers would face would probably not be to distinguish between drones and optical camouflage, but to distinguish between a group of dummies and a few real people.

This is true at a tactical level.

At the strategic level, the officers under him probably have to face no less trouble than the soldiers fighting on the front line.

Although the academy did not show it in this battle, according to Lium's judgment, since they could use holographic light and shadow to provide tactical cover for front-line combat troops, there was no reason why they could not achieve the strategic obstacle method.

For example, they can use a handful of drones to disguise themselves as a non-existent force, thus forming a strategic fraud.

The slugs in the swamps may not be good at large-scale battlefields, but their ability to intrigue is one of the best in the wasteland.

The more Leum thought about it, the more frightened he became, and his palms couldn't help but sweat.

He secretly made up his mind in his heart that when this battle was over, he must write a report carefully and tell the Triumph City side about the situation here.

The guys in the north aren't as weak as they seem, and they're not even more difficult to deal with than the rice buckets in Ideal City......

Just when Lium was secretly frightened, the Academy's Mobile Alpha Task Force had already attacked halfway up the Blood Mountain.

After the unreasonable bombardment before, the mutants on the Blood Mountain seemed to be instigated by the bombing, and they cowered in the cave and refused to come out at all.

Of course, it may also be that they intended to place the battlefield in caves and tunnels that cannot be reached by support fire from the beginning, and take advantage of the terrain to deal with the invaders.

The soldiers of Task Force Alpha did not talk nonsense to them, and the vanguard took the lead in the entrance to the cave halfway up the mountain, under the cover of drones and holographic light and shadow.

Almost at the same time as they entered the cave, the battle broke out instantly!

The flames of the muzzles lit up the dark cavern into daylight, and the tracer light from the bullets opened the way for the team that did not penetrate deep into the cave, and the flames and shrunnel of the grenade explosion continued to harvest the lives of mutants.

The twisted and ugly appearance of these mutants is nerve-numbing, but that's about it.

Faced with the dense net of fire unleashed by assault rifles and Gauss rifles, the mutants who resisted with flesh and blood were defeated one after another, and could not even put up a decent resistance.

Under the cover of optical camouflage, a team of four people broke through the defenses of the Bloodhoof Clan, and had already attacked two tunnels in a row and was still unharmed, only five drones were damaged.

The four squad members wearing gas masks fired silently while communicating silently in the communication channel.

"It stinks."

"It stinks."

"Canned herring."

"It stinks worse than that."

“…… How do you smell it? ”

“……？”

The four of them immediately realized the seriousness of the problem, and their individual three-defense system was actually broken!

The stench that lingered in the cave became more and more pronounced, and the stench brought not only a strong feeling of nausea, but also a mental trance and unnatural hallucinations.

They did install some prosthetics and plug-ins to improve physical performance, but that was only a general component to improve combat efficiency, and they could be dismantled and used by others after death or discharge.

And they themselves are not wealthy enough to be able to customize a biomimetic immune system for themselves like an academy researcher or a corporate resident.

Realizing that he might be infected with Nago mycelium or something similar, the team leader immediately gave the order to retreat.

However, at the moment when their offensive stopped, the mutants of the Bloodhoof Clan suddenly bared their vicious fangs.

They could see that the illusions constructed by optical camouflage were actually camouflages for the group of human things in front of them.

That's understandable, after all, they're also disguised.

Not only did they pretend to be weak and deceitful, but they even lay on the ground and pretended to be dead.

Looking at the guys who got up from the ground, the team leader with three teammates couldn't help but be stunned and sunk.

With a 13% chance of survival, he immediately made a judgment and transferred the battle footage saved on his brain chip to one of the drones and set up an automatic return.

Almost at the same time as he did this, an ugly-looking monster stepped out of the tunnel.

Its body was fat and bloated, its eyes were stupid, its belly cracked like a big mouth, and its fat intestines were exposed, like a mop on the ground, and even blocked its two short feet.

In the Bloodhoof Clan, it is only one of the Plague Monks, one of the followers of the Lord of the Plague, and a slave of the Prophet Sodo.

It carried a large, strange-shaped gun in its hand, and it was not wearing a piece of armor, but it looked like a scar with a serious wound everywhere, so that the four alphas couldn't analyze its weakness for a while......

……

The fighting on the front lines continues.

And at this moment, on the Broken Blade Mountain in the distance, a group of Willantes were watching the battle situation on the front line.

General Modlin, the commander of the 310,000th Brigade of the Legion, held a telescope in his hand and watched intently in the direction halfway up the Blood Mountain.

Everything seems to be going well at the front.

However, what made him frown slightly was that the red mist that had been dispelled by the cloudburst bomb before seemed to have gradually returned......

The adjutant standing next to him couldn't help but twitch the corners of his mouth and whispered.

"So what's the point of their long numbered battle plan? In the end, it's not like us. ”

Even the artillery that projected heavy fire was sent by the Southern Corps.

General Modlin remained silent, just silently watching the front line.

I heard that there are dozens of G's in the academy's battle plan, and a dozen pages of table of contents have been written just for the action number, which can be described as quite sufficient.

Not to mention his adjutant, even he himself is curious about what is written on the materials of those dozens of Gs.

It's a pity that the academy doesn't plan to make the battle plan public, and only submits the plan to the high command of the coalition forces, that is, Chu Guang's side, on the premise of secrecy.

It was precisely because of this that he could only use his eyes to confirm what the academy was planning to do.

It was a rare opportunity to get to know his opponent, and he didn't want to miss it out like that.

Coincidentally, on the top of Broken Blade Mountain, Commander Quanshui, the commander of the Storm Corps, was just like him, staring intently in the direction of the front line.

Unlike NPCs like General Modrin, as a player, he can see the full content of Task Force Alpha's battle plan on the official forum of Wasteland Online.

It's just that he was confused by that thing—even to the point of being confused.

It's not that the people in the academy don't speak human words, or the descriptions are too abstract.

Rather, on the contrary, they write in too much detail!

These guys have made a categorical count of each mutant on the Blood Mountain, and analyzed their attack methods and weaknesses through battlefield analysis AI.

Not only that, but they even made meticulous designs on what tactics and equipment the mutants of different sizes, weights, and characteristics encountered by front-line combat soldiers based on these statistics.

The entire dozens of G of information,It's like a game guide that has been read repeatedly.,Even what kind of monsters to put and what kind of skills are guided.。

In fact, there is nothing wrong with this behavior itself, and the pamphlets issued by the armies of various countries to soldiers will also mention some "tips" on the battlefield, asking recruits to remember them, so as to improve the chances of survival on the battlefield for recruits......

However, no matter how precise, it will not be as cumbersome and complicated as "how many shots are fired at what target".

For a moment, the Commander of the Springs couldn't even tell if this was a formalism peculiar to the swamp, or if their commander really believed that such an overly lengthy plan would really come in handy.

However, considering that the soldiers of the Alpha Mobile Unit are equipped with biomimetic prosthetics just like the Enterprise, and have received more specialized training than the Enterprise recruits, it is possible that they have their own understanding of combat.

"Good fellow...... Do you need so much ammunition to hit such a mountain? ”

Standing next to the spring, the edge of running to the front line to join in the fun couldn't help but complain.

Unlike the Quanshui brother's focus, his attention was more focused on the 902mm heavy gun that was fired earlier.

The fireworks were really exciting, but the density of the firepower was a bit excessive.

With such a round of heavy artillery smashing down, he couldn't help but feel sorry for Ah Guang for the wasted ammunition.

Commander Quanshui said with a frown.

"If they can gnaw down this position, it will be worth doubling it even more."

Edge Paddle gave him a strange look.

"You think they can't beat it?"

"Don't say it's them, we're all choked."

Looking at the edge of his stunned expression, the spring commander paused for a moment, looked at the blood mist that had re-filled the mountain, and continued with a solemn expression.

“…… I always had the feeling that it wasn't the 'pseudo-brood' we'd seen in Geumcheon Province. ”

The so-called pseudo-nest is the core of Naguo.

According to the research of the alliance biologists on the "Kingdom of Heaven", it is based on the "Naguo Nest" similar to the Mother Hive in Qingquan City, and its main role is to control the mycelium of Nago in the Heavenly Kingdom, urge it to release spores, and interfere with the will of the infected.

Before the Kingdom of Heaven enters the "Fourth Stage", the Kingdom of Heaven can be prevented from descending by destroying the "Nago's Nest".

But it doesn't look like a Nago.

After all, in his impression, mutants can rely on a strong immune system to directly exempt themselves from the influence of Nago, and they cannot be used as seedbeds for Naguo mycelium to reproduce.

In other words, the Ten Peaks Mountain actually does not have the basis for descending to the heavens.

But if those spores are produced by the mutant slime nest, everything makes a lot more sense.

The edge of the stroke changed slightly.

"What do you mean...... The real thing?! ”

The Commander of the Spring nodded, holding up the telescope and silently continuing to watch.

Almost every brood they encounter is different.

He has reason to believe that the same is true of the guy in front of him, who has his own understanding of "evolution", and has made a completely different choice from the nest in Qingquan City on the road of evolution.

However, it also sounds too strange to be able to "coexist" with a manic creature like a mutant, how on earth did two extremely aggressive things coexist peacefully?

And if his speculation is accurate, then the setting of this thing is too similar to "Xiao Yu......

(End of chapter)