Chapter 516: Just Who Is It?
Meng Chao held his breath and released a bit of spirit energy into the outside world through the hole in the manhole cover.
His spirit energy fluctuated and released ripples into the area. He did not manage to find any powerful vitality magnetic fields.
It was only then that Meng Chao carefully and silently opened the manhole cover and crawled out with A’Ji.
They were now at a quiet corner of an alley.
Through the cracks of two tilted, illegal buildings, they could see the building where the Deification Capsule pharmacy was. It was, of course, now completely collapsed.
The flames surrounding the surface of the ruins had already been put out by the Leprosy Village.
But there were still a lot of substances containing spirit energy in the depths of the debris. They were burning silently and releasing ink-like smoke through the cracks in the ground.
The smoke was like a black pillar that reached the skies. It shot through the dusk-colored sky and dyed the rainbow-colored fog in the air black.
It was as if a black coffin had been turned upside down on Leprosy Village, and it was currently squashing the place... No, it was squashing all of Golden Tooth Lair.
Meng Chao knew that this glue-like, black cloud was the product of low-grade crystals and the incomplete combustion of etherealized substances.
Based on his experiences, the black smoke would remain for around half a month or an even longer period of time. During that time, most of the electromagnetic signals, spirit energy magnetic signals, and wireless signals would be blocked.
The enemy had also started a signal interference, which blocked off all forms of communication, so it was difficult for the outside world to know what had happened inside.
Sophisticated equipment like drones would have a hard time operating for a long time in the black smoke as well.
Before long, their control chips would be invaded by the powder from the low-grade crystals in the black smoke, and they would fall like headless flies.
The same logic applied to the Heaven Realm superhumans. If they flew for a long time in the black smoke, the powder from the low-grade crystals would block their pores and interfere with their vitality magnetic fields, so their cultivation realms and fighting strength would both plummet. They could then be easily shot down like sparrows. .h.i.t by slingshots.
Meng Chao only wished that before the black smoke completely shrouded the sky above the lair, Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong and the other veteran hunters would be able to run out and report what had happened to the command center.
With that thought in mind, Meng Chao and A’Ji went to the entrance of the alley.
Since Meng Chao did not have a cloak, he looked eye-catching due to the b.l.o.o.d.y Soul and Tiger Fang Saber on his back, the chain saber around his arm, his bulky muscles that made it look like he was carrying explosives, and the intersecting wounds that covered his built body.
He could only hide in the darkness and look out to observe the streets from the darkness.
There were quite a number of villagers wandering around like ghosts in the streets.
By the looks of it, they had just run out of the collapsed building.
Many of them were touched by the flames. Their robes were tattered, and their skin was covered in patches of red and white. There was also some fluid oozing out from the damaged areas, which was an unbearable sight.
There were some people who were not injured, but had lost their homes and all their belongings in the explosion. Now, they stood like statues that stared upward at the black, suffocating sky.
Many people watched everything coldly, as if they had burning hatred for everything, and did not bother to hide their desire to live. It was the type of desire that would drive them to do whatever it took to survive.
No matter what, survival was the first instinct for all those living.
If they wanted to live, they needed food, water, and living s.p.a.ce. If they did not have such things, they would go and s.n.a.t.c.h them!
Meng Chao could sense an underlying current that was going to destroy everything brewing silently among the survivors who lost everything.
He suddenly understood why the Vortex gathered so many cultivation resources and created a super large crystal bomb.
It didn’t matter how many veteran hunters were killed.
The important part was to create people who lost their homes, families, and had nothing left but hatred and the desire to live.
Such people were going to completely destroy the order in Leprosy Village.
And with the Vortex fanning the flames, they would create even more people who had nothing but hatred and the desire to survive.
They would rush out of Leprosy Village after it lost all order and was reduced to ruins. From there, they would destroy the order in Golden Tooth Lair and make the lair citizens lose everything they had. This would then fill them with hatred and a desperate desire to survive.
It would be like a rolling s...o...b..ll.
With the super crystal bomb, the Vortex destroyed the order in Leprosy Village, which then allowed him to motivate all the villagers who had nothing but hatred, anger, and the desire to survive to destroy the order in Golden Tooth Lair.
After that, all the lair citizens would care about nothing else but escaping Golden Tooth Lair. This would then spread chaotic lawlessness all over Dragon City.
“Chaos...” Meng Chao mumbled. “Chaos is all that the Vortex wants!”
At that moment, piercing alarms suddenly rang out all over the place.
All the buildings rumbled.
Even the ground trembled a little.
This was an alarm that Dragon Citizens knew all too well.
‘Fortification!’ Meng Chao narrowed his eyes. ‘The Golden Tooth Lair is going to be fortified!’
The lair had been a super fort built during the zombie crisis.
When the Golden Tooth Lair entered full fortification, its defenses were ten times greater than those of an old residential area like Blessed Heavenly Garden.
This should be the second plan Nie Chenglong mentioned.
After the hunting squad’s operation failed, the world outside would lock down the Golden Tooth Lair.
With the severe lack of fighting power in the city, fortifying the lair would maximize their ability to maintain order so that the chaos in the lair would not spread through the other regions.
But during the subsequent few days, it would be difficult for the outside world to mobilize power to enter the lair to handle the situation. Even half a month might not be enough to gather the forces to send them into the lair.
This might make it... into the Supernatural Ent.i.ty’s paradise.
“Uncle...” A’Ji stood on his tiptoes behind Meng Chao and stared at the smoke that rose into the sky above the ruins. He also perked up his ears and listened to the alarms and the sounds of machines all around. He suddenly asked, “Did the people outside abandon us?”
Meng Chao was slightly stunned.
“It’s fine. I’ve known this since a long time ago.” A’Ji sniffed. “The people outside had abandoned us decades ago and left us to our own devices.”
“Nonsense.” Meng Chao turned around, grabbed A’Ji shoulders, and said firmly, “Humans won’t abandon their comrades. Dragon City did indeed not solve a lot of problems, but that’s because it does not have enough resources, but as long as we win the war before us and get resources, we will be able to solve all our problems!”
He put too much strength in his grip, so A’Ji winced with a pained expression.
Meng Chao quickly let go.
A’Ji grimaced and rubbed his shoulders, but Meng Chao’s promise did make him much happier.
“Uncle, I’ll go get a cloak for you first,” he said, eager to please.
Before his voice could fade away, a deafening explosion sounded above their heads.
“Careful!”
Meng Chao grabbed A’Ji and yanked him back.
A stone the size of a head fell from the sky. It grazed A’Ji’s nose before landing on the ground and terrified the boy so much that he turned pale.
The two men looked up.
Sparks flew from the balconies of the buildings around them. Bullets intersected with each other, and like a burning net, they sealed off the entire sky.
A few people had flown into the sky and tried to retreat when the smoke receded. They were immediately struck by the flames and fell like shooting stars. They crashed so violently that the ground shattered, and more than ten buildings were destroyed.
Immediately after, a group of superhumans in heavy motorized armor, surrounded by spirit flames, and skeletons painted on their helmets pounced aggressively where the people landed.
Meng Chao and A’Ji’s gazes were blocked by the buildings, so they could not see the two parties’ fight.
They could only hear banging sounds from the guns and clashing steel, screams, and the booming from shockwaves. From all that, it was clear that the fights were pretty intense.
The buildings in Leprosy Village had been designed based on forts, so they were pretty st.u.r.dy.
But they could not accommodate the rapid increase of villagers over the decades. To increase living s.p.a.ce so that they could stuff more people inside the buildings, the villagers added a lot of illegal structures without considering safety at all.
When the superhumans activated their spirit flames, they were the same as self-propelled artillery with an unlimited amount of ammunition. If they fought at full force, they would naturally affect the buildings and innocent villagers around them.
In just a short half a minute, a number of buildings were covered in holes. Terrifying cracks intersected on the walls.
The illegal structures attached to the main buildings tilted and collapsed.
Many villagers started bleeding from their orifices because of the shockwaves created by the superhumans when they fought.
Some people did not manage to dodge in time and were severely wounded by the falling tiles, debris, and reinforced concrete.
Many of the villagers had felt fortunate that their modest homes were not affected by the super crystal bombs, but suddenly, two superhumans turned the area around them into their battlefield, and as they fought, they crashed into their house.
Each punch and kick from the superhumans possessed the power of pile drivers. With just a few exchanges, they blew apart the walls, crushed the floorboards, and created holes in the ceiling. But this was unavoidable.
Hence, the streets were in chaos once more. The villagers screamed as they fled their swaying homes. With hands covering their heads, they ran far away from the battlefield before they dared to turn their heads around with fear pounding in their hearts. Their eyes were fixed on their homes burning under the superhumans’ feet.
Some people were overwhelmed by grief, some wanted to cry, but could not, some gnashed their teeth and clenched their fists so tightly that it sounded as if their bones were about to crack. Their eyes burned with anger.
‘These people are too rash!’ Meng Chao cursed in his heart. ‘Even if it’s to capture the mastermind, they can’t just ignore the safety of the innocent villagers and their belongings. If they end up hurting loads of villagers and creating a mess in the village, what’s the point even if they manage to capture the mastermind?
‘Wait... Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong’s hunting squad and the superhumans from the gangs should have been gravely injured during the explosion of the super crystal bomb. And for the time being, the secret police, abnormal beast research department, and the gangs in the lair shouldn’t be able to mobilize a second wave of attacks.
‘Just who are these people in motorized armor and skeleton masks? They’re destroying the place wilfully and don’t care about injuring the villagers by accident!’