Chapter 333: Risk and Gain
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After joining the war, the Kamando tribesmen riding on the black giant millispiders quickly drove the remaining human gathering place’s resistance forces of Shrimp B1 Island to the underground military base under the leaders.h.i.+p of more than 20 guardian spiritual monsters.
Just as they were about to attack the outlander’s bunker and enjoy a b.l.o.o.d.y feast, the Steel Warriors dispatched from the New York military base finally arrived on the air above the human gathering place. Not only that, in just a few minutes time, they used ‘iron’ and ‘blood’ to make the natives under the Steel Warriors understand the power of a technological civilization.
When the cruel fights lasted till dawn, the aircraft carrier fleet and bomber formation coming from other sea regions of the Earth, crossing the world’s fence and appearing at Shrimp B1 Island, began to strike devastating blows against the native dwellings, making the h.e.l.lfire tribesmen realize that the wealth and victory they previously thought were already within their grasp was nothing but a ridiculous reverie.
If they did not withdraw themselves from the outlander’s stone tribe right now, even their bribes would be likely to perish in h.e.l.lfire’s history.
“Blue Reef, this is the G.o.dd.a.m.n idea of your Samru tribe! It’s all because of you Samru people that we’ve provoked such a powerful enemy, and we’d never have a day of peace anymore!”
In the Shrimp B1 Island’s gathering place that was rolling with smoke and covered in ruins, a short spiritual monster whose body was tightly wrapped in black-fur animal skin shouted as it inserted its bird claw-like hands that were covered in blue veins into the cemented ground.
The sharp claws penetrated the cement with great difficulty. After coming in contact with the moist soil of the foreign world’s island, in an instant, the earth’s crust within a scope of several hundred meters around the spiritual monster began to shake. Several dozens of big blobs rose from the cemented floor and after they cracked, many wet mud b.a.l.l.s burst out of them.
After the mud b.a.l.l.s appeared, they rivaled with each other as they leapt and rolled to the huge gap on the city wall of the gathering place. When they encountered the Steel Warriors or the counter-attacking of the human tanks along the way, they would explode with a ‘boom’ and transform into a puddle of extremely viscous mud that would wrap those who blocked them and temporarily delay their actions.
Just like this, by relying on this strange sorcery, a road was managed to be created with great difficulty. Seeing this, the short spiritual monster shouted again, “Every Eruya warrior, leave this stone tribe immediately! This is not a place we can conquer. Don’t hesitate, hurry! hurry!”
Together with the remaining thirty tribal guardians, they led the tens of thousands of Eruya warriors to escape the human gathering place.
Watching their allies suddenly fleeing from the distance, the Blue Reef waved its rock-like giant fist around and leapt up high, striking and sending a Steel Warrior flas.h.i.+ng with a blue and white brilliance flying backward. Its blue body was already covered with black cracks that were its injuries at this time. With a hoa.r.s.e voice, he shouted, “Bugadonik! You coward! it’s not the Samru tribe that put you in this position! It’s all because of your own greed that you provoked the enemy…”
As this powerful spiritual monster was shouting, a Steel Warrior that had its four limbs spurting with flames agilely swooped down, tumbling from the air. The silver bezel in front of his chest suddenly split into several flaps, which fell as they rotated, and revealed a piece of red crystal mirror that was fixed in place by yellow metal, before shooting out a beam of dark red light.
The laser beam hit the unguarded Blue Reef’s wide back directly. After a wave of water ripples was set off, it disappeared without a trace.
“I’m the beloved son of the ocean! As long as I’m in the sea or next to it, I can live forever and…” Feeling the pain spreading from its back, the sea spiritual monster shouted and casted its sorcery, trying to summon the seawater as usual to surge up waves from several hundreds of meters away to heal its wounds. However, before it could finish casting its sorcery, the reef-like body behind it had begun to shatter and fell to the ground.
Only then Blue Reef, who was filled with heated ferocity snapped back to reality from its state of high adrenaline resulting from an overnight battle, realizing that the vitality in his body had long since dried up.
Clearly hearing the cracking sounds of its own body, it absent-mindedly realized that death was close at hand. After being silent in the midst of sounds of gun shots for a while, he suddenly howled loudly and took the world by surprise. “Samru tribesmen! Leave this city that is loved by the steel demon G.o.d now! W-We’re…”
Before he could finish his sentence, he already transformed into a pile of blue gravel.
The gravel crumbled and fell to the ground, including a round ball converged with brilliance that was the size of an adult human thumb that disappeared abruptly before it could touch the ground.
At this moment, the indigenous warriors and guardian spiritual monsters in the human gathering place had started to retreat fully because of the fleeing of the Eruya people. This insignificant episode of the ball’s disappearance was naturally not noticed by anyone.
At the same time as the ball disappeared, a giant steel fortress, that relied on its countless huge upside-down propellers that were constantly spinning and releasing gusts of wind to hover in the air, appeared in the air several tens of thousands of meters above the Shrimp B1 Island’s beach.
In the control room that had an area more than 1000 square meters, a muscular middle-aged black man with a height of more than two meters, who looked more like a center for a basketball team rather than a professional soldier, stood on the magnetically suspended platform as he watched the three-dimensional screen in front of him with contemplation.
“General, these natives have started to retreat. Do we give chase?” Somebody from the rows of soldiers operating on the precision electronic instruments below the high platform reported loudly.
“Report on the airframe’s damage.”
“11 airframes are damaged, 19 airframes are severely damaged and are temporarily unusable. The remaining 85 airframes are also suffering from various degrees of damage, but they can still fight.”
“How about the pilots?”
“57 people suffer from brain damage and according to the a.s.sessment, 235 people may have to ‘retire’.”
“It’s a terrible loss,” the middle-aged black man mumbled. He looked at the natives who were retreating but were obviously in a chaos on the 3D screen and became silent for a while before ordering, “Stop chasing. All airframes will return to the mothers.h.i.+p. Our task is to reinforce the garrison on Shrimp B1 Island and guard the human gathering place. Both have been successfully completed now.”
“Yes, General!” The communications sergeant on the Iron Fortress quickly conveyed the command of the commander. In just a few seconds, the remaining Steel Warriors in the gathering place took the metal wreckage of their comrades and flew up to the sky, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
In the dense forest on the far side of the island, Zhang Lisheng, who had shrunk his body to less than 30 centimeters and had turned to stealth mode using the lizard’s transformation power, watched the black iron men flying away and the fighters returning to the aircraft carrier, and muttered to himself, “Looks like things have come to an end for now but I’m sure the US army’s retaliation will start very soon! I must hurry!”
As he was speaking, he crouched on the ground and dug out a small bag made out of tough bark from the soil. As he opened it, hundreds of round beads of various sizes were revealed.
These were the Gold Cores the young man had spent an entire night of hard labor risking his life to steal from those spiritual monsters killed by the US army one by one. Due to the reason that n.o.body would pay attention to the dead bodies of the spiritual monsters during a chaotic war, and that the Gold Core could hardly be damaged unless it was treated in a special way, the gain he obtained was proportionate to the risk he took.
Throwing the four Gold Cores in his hands that he had just taken into the bark bag, Zhang Lisheng murmured to himself with content. “Danger. Danger. If there’s danger, opportunity will naturally present itself. With these 107 Gold Cores, I’ll be able to add at least 800 Super h.e.l.lfiremen to Tudenan. Even if I don’t get any help from the US army, I have the confidence to sweep the entire island. But, if I can’t reach an agreement with the US government, I’m afraid that things would become meaningless even if I manage to conquer the entire island…”
When the young man thought of the powerful power displayed by the US, he sighed and grabbed his bag, before changing his transformation power from lizard to wyrmdragon. More than ten seconds later, he carefully gathered a small cloud and wrapped around himself as he rose into the air, drifting in the direction of New York.
Two days later, on the picturesque Potomac River riverbank in the southwestern part of Was.h.i.+ngton, DC, a black limousine with a small bald eagle flag erected in the middle of the car front gradually stopped along the tree-lined road and parked in front of a huge beige-colored building that had the shape of a five-pointed star.
This building was known as the Pentagon, the center of the most powerful force in the world, where the highest military command authority in the US; the US Army, Sea Service and Air Force headquarters; and the office of the Department of Defense of the United States lied.
The driver opened the door and a short, skinny, young, yellow skinned man wearing a tailored dark gray suit, who looked sick but had a gaze full of vigor, walked out of the car.
As he was glancing around the front door of the Pentagon, a friendly soldier with a silver eagle badge on his shoulder greeted him right away.
“You must be Mr. Zhang Lisheng. I am James Geller, the internal affairs officer of the Department of Defense. Mr. Secretary has ordered me to take you to see him.”
“Oh h.e.l.lo, Colonel Geller, I’m Zhang Lisheng. Nice to meet you.” The young yellow skinned man shook hands with the handsome officer in front and said with a smile.
“Please follow me,” By convention, after hearing Zhang Lisheng confirming his ident.i.ty personally, the officer no longer made any small conversation and brought the young man into the Pentagon.
Contrary to the general public’s imagination, the working environment in the Department of Defense of the United States was almost the same as that of a general office building. The only difference was that many of the staff walking around were dressed in uniforms, and that the office here was very big.
Zhang Lisheng followed behind the colonel silently and shuttled along the corridors for a few minutes, and underwent a simple security check, before arriving at the door of a rather old office.
“Mr, Zhang, Mr. Secretary is waiting for you.” The officer turned to Zhang Lisheng and said. He opened the office’s brown heavy wooden door and walked in, before standing upright on the red carpet in the room and saluting as he reported, “Sir, Mr. Zhang Lisheng is here.”
“h.e.l.lo, Mr. Secretary Duke Fahr, I’m Zhang Lisheng. It’s my honor to be able to meet you.” The young man following behind the colonel who walked into the office took the initiative to reach out a hand and said enthusiastically.
“h.e.l.lo Mr. Zhang Lisheng, you are much younger than I thought. It’s my honor to meet you too.” Sitting behind a large desk in the middle of the room was a short and fat old man who was reading some doc.u.ments. He stood up and held Zhang Lisheng’s hand, with a smile appearing on his tired face.