Chapter 2: Accident
On a moonless night, high above the clouds, a large transport aircraft flew alone, its dark fuselage intermittently flashing with dim lights.
Inside the spacious cabin, seventy-four members of the Xuanjia Battalion’s assault team were seated in roughly three groups according to their team arrangements. Some closed their eyes in a daze, others wore headphones listening to music, while some still checked their equipment nervously.
Near the cockpit, Meng Huai and Xia Yan sat together, separated from the other team members by some distance.
“You’ve been in the team for three years now, right? If I remember correctly, you’re about to complete ten D-level missions or higher. If you aren’t interested in being a candidate for leader of the Xuanjia Battalion, you could apply to go to the training center.”
Meng Huai rarely showed a lazy demeanor, trying to stretch out his limbs and relax his body.
“Now that Xiao Yao has joined the team, I have to stay with him,” Xia Yan shook his head helplessly, turning his gaze toward the deeper part of the cabin, “I promised the director to take care of him.”
“Hmm, you two brothers are quite fated… to bump into each other like this again.”
Meng Huai smiled slightly, then pulled out a string of identification tags from his pocket and began to examine them carefully, “I can hardly remember how many people have changed in the team… After this mission, I’ll write a report to my superiors, and let’s transfer Gu Yao to another battalion. Even though you’re not biological brothers, it’s never good to stay with an acquaintance you grew up with…”
Usually, Meng Huai was rigid and cold, speaking very little, only able to express so much when alone with Xia Yan.
Glimpsing the identification tags in Meng Huai’s hand, Xia Yan’s heart grew heavy. Each tag belonged to compatriots they had once fought and advanced with together, both male and female, who had been taught and led by the battalion leader.
They either died on the spot at the hands of a vampire, or inadvertently succumbed to blood invasion. They were either processed right away or having gone into hiding still ended up being hunted down by the entire Dark Arrow troop, leaving only their tags behind.
“For this assault operation, it’s better if one of us stays on the ground. If anything happens to me, you’ll be the next battalion leader.”
Meng Huai tucked the tags back into his pocket, gazing out the cabin’s wall and the night sky, continuing, “I’ve already sent off too many people. If you weren’t around for so long, we might not even be sitting here chatting now.”
“You are the battalion leader. As long as you are alive, everyone’s chances of survival are higher… I should lead the team down instead.”
Xia Yan shook his head, leaning his hands behind his head against the cabin wall.
“No, I’m not at ease. There are too many newcomers,” Meng Huai didn’t heed this older subordinate’s advice, looking somewhat helpless. “Starting next month, the headquarters plans to expand each action battalion, adding a portion of regular blood-type personnel. They will specifically execute E or F-level missions, but the replenishment period for rare blood type personnel will be longer and the procedures more troublesome.”
“Are we running out of personnel?” Xia Yan glanced at the more than seventy teammates in the cabin, his expression darkening. “The assault squad is organized into one hundred people; only seven have been added in the past six months, and we still lack many. Each small team is not at full capacity.”
“Well, who called for those who can join the assault squad, must be of rare blood type… sigh, with a population of fourteen billion in the country, even rounding up to three million is just over that. Excluding the elderly, weak, women, and children, and those not meeting standards, after psychological tests, immune tests, and a third phase of training, there are fewer than twenty thousand left… Our Xuanjia Battalion is considered lucky; some battalions have simply ceased to replenish rare blood type personnel.”
Meng Huai recalled the situation from a meeting a few days ago at the headquarters in the western inspection zone, his words becoming colder.
Xia Yan did not look at the changes in the battalion leader’s expression, but silently stared at his teammates in the dim cabin.
These people were different from him, who had been an active duty soldier before joining the Dark Arrow brigade. They had once been taxi drivers, corporate professionals, food delivery workers, kindergarten teachers, or university students.
They had probably been secretly registered immediately after determining their blood type at birth, until one day they suddenly faced a secret mobilization by the country, going through layers of filters and enduring a rigorous year of training to ultimately serve in a secret unit, gaining higher ranks and substantial allowances.
“Beep!”
The familiar electronic beep sounded in the cabin, the red light came on, and the soldiers each gripped the handholds along the walls, waiting for the transport aircraft to execute a nighttime, high-difficulty landing.
Under the night sky, a broad military highway winding through the valleys suddenly lit up with long indicator lights, and the enormous transport aircraft began to descend at nearly a thirty-degree angle, aiming at a stretch of straight road. Just as it was about to touch down, the aircraft pulled up, its fat belly raised, and after a few seconds, dozens of wheels smashed onto the road.
As the cabin door opened, members of the Xuanjia Battalion, wearing night vision goggles, surged out of the aircraft, quickly forming three columns marching towards the hilly forests in the northwest. They would make a forced march of ten kilometers within an hour, reaching the designated task area under the cover of night.
In the dark valley sprawled a vast complex of buildings, not a single light in sight, lifeless and eerie, like a decaying giant beast.
With less than two hundred meters to the nearest building, upon hearing a sequence of bird-like call signals from behind, everyone crouched down, then each quickly pulled a vial of medication from their tactical pouches and injected it into their thighs or arms.
This was an anti-blood invasion immunity serum, aimed at enhancing resistance against the blood invasion by vampires.
Although all participating in combat were of rare blood type and could fully vaccinate against the majority of blood servant and attendant vampires, against knight-class and above vampires, the immunity effect dropped sharply. Injecting this special anti-blood invasion immunity serum could increase their resistance rate by about thirty percent, which was all they could do.
Despite having undergone repeated training at the training center, Gu Yao still felt nervous holding the vial and hesitated to inject it, remembering the extreme discomfort he experienced during an immune test when he had a high fever reaction.
“What are you dawdling for!”
In the darkness, a figure approached, snatched the syringe from Gu Yao’s hand, and quickly injected it into the young man’s thigh. Judging by the voice, it was Tao Qiao’er, one of the female soldiers involved in this operation and a veteran with over a year in the squad.
A few milliliters of this expensive serum quickly entered his body, absorbed rapidly by the muscle tissue, causing Gu Yao to shiver as warmth spread throughout him.
“All personnel, take a five-minute break after injection, monitor your body temperature. Raise your hand if it’s over 39 degrees; you can exit the operation.”
Meng Huai and Xia Yan moved among the team members, speaking in low voices until each person’s affirmative signal was given before turning to the next.
“How is it?”
A familiar voice came from beside him, and Gu Yao quickly pulled out his glowing thermometer, which showed 38.1 degrees.
Feigning nonchalance, he gestured to Xia Yan that he was fine, but the drug reaction-induced fever made his heart race gradually.
“That’s good… From now on, you must stay close to me, understand?”
Patting his younger brother’s shoulder, Xia Yan turned to the other team members, carefully checking each person’s temperature after administering the anti-blood invasion immunity serum.
The five-minute mark came and passed, two members with excessive body temperatures were left behind, while the other seventy-two members of the Xuanjia Battalion, each bearing a high fever reaction, divided into three directions towards the abandoned complex shrouded in night.
Behind them, a special box opened, and clusters of tiny objects, indistinguishable in the night, soared into the air, disarrayed yet seemingly guided, all heading towards various corners of the complex.
These were special butterflies bred using genetic techniques by a secret laboratory in Huaguo over a decade ago. They could be attracted by the unique pheromones emitted from the sweat glands of vampires, providing identification guidance. They were quickly introduced into various countries for direct engagement in vampire combat.
The fluttering butterflies swept across the night sky, gracefully soaring both inside and outside the vast abandoned factory area. The scales on their wings emitted a faint glow, clearly visible through night vision goggles.
In the pitch-black factory ruins, a stunning young woman was scrolling through short videos on her phone, occasionally breaking into laughter.
Suddenly, a beautiful purple butterfly alighted on the back of her delicate hand. The woman’s pupils constricted sharply, her pretty face instantly twisting in horror and ferocity, and her blood temperature soared as her muscles and bones twisted in misalignment, producing a terrifying, eerie cracking sound.
In Gu Yao’s night vision, a tall companion leaped forth from the darkness like a flash, pouncing on the low-level blood servant that was about to unleash its boiling blood ability.
With a chokehold, Xia Yan rendered the vampire beneath him silent, then with a gleaming silver dagger, he stabbed straight into her lower rib cage.
The sharp silver dagger effortlessly pierced through her clothing and into her distorting, frail body, angling directly towards her heart.
The female vampire, whose dual fangs and sharp teeth twisted in a boiling blood state, replaced her contorted expression with one of fear and pain. Her skin began to show a rapid charring phenomenon, as if slowly drying and shriveling like a carbonized corpse after a fire.
Stepping slowly in front of the deceased female vampire, Gu Yao’s face paled slightly.
Despite having undergone secret training for a year and absorbing extensive knowledge about vampires, witnessing a young woman who had been radiantly beautiful transform into a twisted, charred monster mere seconds ago caused a wave of nausea to rise from his stomach. Barely holding back a deep breath, he managed to avoid an embarrassing bout of vomiting.
Such ambushes occurred simultaneously at multiple corners of the factory ruins.
Some were dealt with using knives, others with potent blood dissolution anesthetic rounds, and soon, a dozen of the lowest-level blood servants on patrol were cleared out by the Xuanjia Battalion’s combat members.
At this moment, neither Meng Huai nor Xia Yan chose to stay on the ground, but separately acted as commanders of the first and second teams, jointly storming into the core area of the abandoned factory and into the underground workshop. The third team, which was mostly comprised of members not even a year old and less experienced in combat, lagged slightly behind throughout the assault operation.
As they burst into the factory’s interior, they saw a team member at the forefront collapse silently, blood pouring from their eyes, mouth, and nose, even with internal tissue fragments mixed in the blood spouting from their mouth.
In the darkness, the directional release of high-energy infrasound waves from an advanced vampire sliced through the already inadequate sound-absorbing body armor of the Xuanjia Battalion soldiers, shattering bones, muscles, and organs under the high-energy resonance.
“That’s a knight!”
Xia Yan felt a wave of dizziness as the temperature of his sound-absorbing body armor heated up as if on fire. Quickly biting his tongue, he mustered his strength and crashed into Gu Yao beside him, taking the other’s body away from the source of danger.
Guns fired, several semi-automatic shotguns unleashed a burst of fire, and a stout yet exceptionally agile black figure darted among the numerous showers of pellets flying through the air.
Taking aim at the extremely fast-moving agile shadow less than fifty meters away, Gu Yao desperately squeezed the trigger, firing 12-gauge rounds as he glanced at Xia Yan, who was focused on firing.
The semi-automatic shotgun was a close-range weapon designed to deal with fast and nimble targets. The shotgun pellets splintered into more smaller silver bullets after being discharged, creating a dense barrage, colliding with the vampire knight that had charged within ten meters of Xia Yan and sending it crashing to the ground.
The lethal silver ions entered the vampire’s body, scorching and carbonizing everything at a blood temperature far surpassing that of boiling blood. The severely injured vampire knight ignited a strange smoke all over, akin to a mummified corpse that had dried from excessive heat, hunched beside the ruined machine tool.
“There’s a knight on watch outside, the entrance is blocked as well. The initial embrace ritual is likely already underway. Let’s all storm in!”
The ambush had been exposed; Xia Yan kept his eyes on the distant entrance to the underground passage, spotting that Meng Huai’s first team had begun to breach and following suit with an order for a strong assault.
With those words, fully armed team members quickly regrouped and advanced towards the underground passage.
One team member, in the moment of passing the vampire knight’s corpse, was suddenly leaped upon by a charred, emaciated vampire, whose twisted limbs entwined around the team member like an octopus, opening its charred skull-like mouth with sharp fangs, and bit viciously at the team member’s neck.
The assaulted Xuanjia soldier let out a cry, only to collapse helplessly as if all their strength had been drained away.
A gunshot rang out, a silver bullet from a sidearm accurately shattered the blackened skull of the vampire knight.
Xia Yan knelt beside the bitten Xuanjia soldier, adjusted the angle of his tactical flashlight, and then opened their eyelid.
“What number is this?”
Fortunately, the color of the pupil had not changed, and Xia Yan signaled urgently for a reply.
The injured soldier spat blood, laboriously uttering a number, causing Xia Yan’s expression to finally relax, pulling the individual behind a low wall: “You, wait here for the support team!”
With that said, he grabbed his weapon and led his subordinates to continue the assault.
…
In the congested underground factory passage, blood servants and attendant vampires leapt out from various corners, attempting to block the Xuanjia Battalion’s advance.
No matter how agile and bizarre their movements were, they were interrupted by the dense firepower from the Xuanjia Battalion, with silver bullets igniting their bodies the moment they tore through their flesh.
Deep within the underground workshop, in a broad enclosed space, a massive blood pool exuded a stench unbearable to ordinary people. Dozens of naked male and female blood servants, wearing eerie and frenzied smiles, stepped into the blood pool in unison.
A blood-soaked tendril emerged from an indistinguishable mass in the blood pool, penetrating the body of a blood servant, who visibly shrank and curled up before collapsing into the pool.
On the outermost edge, a dozen men, women, and children silently watched the scene, each wearing a trance-like and anxious expression.
A girl in a bright summer dress was surrounded by several high-ranking vampires, her face displaying a haughty sense of self-satisfaction.
“Clan leader, grandmother’s revival is faster than we anticipated. Look at how good her appetite is!”
A middle-aged man addressed the elderly person before him with a humble demeanor, glancing enviously at the girl encircled by others.
“Yes, it’s time for our Tang family to prosper. Prepare that girl to welcome our grandmother’s bloodline. Ha ha, no one knows there will be two bloodlines in grandmother this time!”
The elder’s expression was relaxed, but the slight shaking of his hands exposed his true emotions at that moment.
“Clan leader, will it be problematic to secretly remove the bloodline like this?”
Staring at the increasingly twisted disgusting mass in the blood pool, the middle-aged man’s eyes sparkled greedily, but he felt apprehensive.
The elder smiled slyly, shaking his head slightly: “Among the two bloodlines, only one will mature. We take one, and the rest will be accounted for, no one will notice… this is our Tang family’s once-in-a-thousand-year opportunity.”
At that moment, a flustered servant approached, quickly whispering a few words into the middle-aged man’s ear, causing him to shudder.
“C-Clan leader… it seems we’ve been exposed… the Dark Arrow is coming.” The middle-aged man’s excitement quickly ebbed, his complexion beginning to pale.
The elder paused, his expression struggling for a few seconds, then murmured, “The Dark Arrow’s sense of smell is indeed dog-like… We’ve come this far, we can’t stop! Send more people, just delay for another half hour, as long as grandmother completes the sowing, we can withdraw!”
“Let everyone know that the Tang family has no way out now; whether our clan can prosper depends on this one chance!”
…
Vampires were emerging like phantoms, but they were no longer pouring out haphazardly. Instead, they felt like they were just prolonging the fight.
The assault team members responsible for leading the charge were severely exhausted due to the tension and fevers, having rotated several times already, yet the lengthy underground factory passage seemed far from reaching its end.
One team member swayed, leaning against the wall, gasping for air while clutching their chest.
“Squad leader, his body temperature has exceeded 40 degrees and his heart rate is nearing 180! He can’t continue fighting!” Tao Qiao’er approached Xia Yan, growing solemn.
“Set up a temporary holding point, let those with temperatures above 39 degrees withdraw from combat, and stay here to wait for the support team!”
As she spoke, Xia Yan looked at Gu Yao beside him, his expression hesitating slightly: “Xiao Yao, why don’t you… stay here and keep an eye on them.”
“No, I want to stay with you, otherwise the second team will have even fewer members.”
As Gu Yao pulled the trigger in rapid succession, the semi-automatic shotgun obliterated a leaping distorted blood servant into a swirling cloud of blackened blood mist, before dropping the empty magazine and reloading a new one.
Having gradually entered the fray, Gu Yao surprisingly displayed the caliber of a seasoned soldier.
In the interlude of combat, another round of temperature checks forced a dozen team members with exceeded temperatures to withdraw. Collectively, the three teams still had fifty-eight members left, but thankfully, ammunition was relatively sufficient.
Meng Huai and Xia Yan huddled together reviewing maps, realizing they were not far from the final mission coordinates, and they were not planning to give up midway.
Fifty-eight assault team members, under the lead of Meng Huai and Xia Yan, gathered their courage once more and charged toward the final passage.
With a violent rumble and tremor, explosives detonated, collapsing the barrier blocking their path; the so-called isolation wall, made up of countless old machinery, shattered into pieces.
As the smoke cleared, the true nature of the mission revealed itself: a spacious underground enclosed area, looking like a storage site for hazardous industrial materials.
Including Meng Huai and Xia Yan, the assault team members burst forth from the smoke, slowly coming to a halt.
Before them was a gigantic blood pool, at the center of which lay a large and disgusting mound of flesh covered in numerous writhing tendrils.
From a distance, one could still see a naked young girl standing in the blood pool beneath the enormous flesh mound, with two blood-soaked tendrils swaying gently in the air.
“What the hell is that monster!”
An old team member with slightly less tenure than Xia Yan turned pale, unable to restrain himself from trembling exclamations.
As soon as the words left his mouth, the first one to snap out of shock was Meng Huai, who seized a portable rocket launcher from a teammate, aiming it at the massive flesh mound occupying most of their view and fired.
Unfortunately, a tendril suddenly lashed out, deflecting the sub-sonic rocket in mid-air, causing it to explode against the thick ceiling.
Almost as the sound of the explosion rang out, thirty or more vampires of varying heights rushed forward, with one-third being knight class! Just the presence of several heavily boiling blood-distorted figures signified that they were no easy prey.
Such a charge, against a scenario where there were fewer than sixty soldiers on site already suffering extreme fatigue, represented an absolute disadvantage. Even the vampire baron lurking in the shadows seemed too disdainful to even intervene personally.
The intelligence had clearly miscalculated; the strength of the so-called vampire baron’s small family had been severely underestimated.
It appeared today would be their last stand… Xia Yan coldly squeezed the trigger, suddenly picturing an image flash in his mind, a bitter smile curling at the corners of his lips.
Semi-automatic shotguns, long-range support sniper rifles, handguns, grenades—the officers of the Dark Arrow were relentlessly pouring out their ammunition, with one demolition expert distressingly wrapping high explosives around himself.
“Xia Yan, this is up to you! Organize a defensive line!”
Meng Huai discarded the spent portable rocket launcher, deftly unslung a large-caliber anti-material sniper rifle he had yet to use, and rushed toward a dark corner without looking back.
In the midst of the ongoing gunfire and explosions, within the blood pool, the naked girl had already approached the massive blood mound, smiling brightly as she gazed at the suspended tendrils, preparing to embrace the flesh mound, completing the final sowing of the bloodline ritual and transforming herself into something dreamlike.
From afar, in a concealed dark corner, a high, abandoned motorcycle erupted with flames. A large-caliber silver alloy bullet, propelled by expanding propellant, shot out at nearly three times the speed of sound, creating a thunderous roar in the vast underground storage.
In the blood pool, the naked girl’s head burst as if struck by a heavy hammer, her dainty body slowly toppling forward into the blood pool, just like the lowly blood servants treated as fodder.
The elder, watching the family members assault the Dark Arrow troops, had eyes that were nearly alight with rage, turning to a corner of darkness with a seething expression.
The elder’s eyes narrowed, his blood temperature rose, and some special proteins accumulated in his bone marrow began to rapidly decompose. The musculature and vocal cords of his throat underwent imperceptible distortion, unleashing a directional high-energy infrasound wave toward the remote ambush in the dark.
Simultaneously, the enormous mass of flesh in the blood pool seemed to sense the death of its sacrificial offering and began to become agitated.
More tendrils shot forth from the flesh mound, angrily and chaotically lashing around, even snapping a few low-level vampires in half, splattering blood mist across the area.
“Clan leader… grandmother has lost control. If we don’t hurry, she’ll swallow us all… we must leave, clan leader!” The middle-aged man behind the elder turned pale, clutching his arm and retreating.
“What a great opportunity, what a great opportunity! Alas…” The head of the Tang family shed crimson tears, pounding his chest in regret, “Kill! Kill them all!”
After bellowing with all his might, both of them moved quickly towards the darkness on the other side, entirely unconcerned with the sudden increase in gunfire behind them.
With the elder’s orders given, almost all the vampires present turned ravenously bloodshot, carelessly igniting the special protein they’ve sacrificed painstakingly stored in their bone marrow, breaking through the boiling blood threshold and distorting their bodies at high speeds, whether sinewy or muscular, as they rapidly ran forth.
…
Within the underground storage area, accompanied by a sudden deafening explosion, all sounds came to an unexpected silence, aside from the burning ruins and foul smells, as if time and space had warped into an odd stillness.
At that moment, the long-silent underground factory sprang back to life with the sound of heavy mechanical rotations.
In the dark ceiling, a deep and rhythmic tremor filled the air as external air began to pour into the enclosed space, and the smoky underground storage became somewhat cooler.
It seemed that the remaining support team on the ground had found and activated the emergency ventilation system.
All around were the severed limbs of Dark Arrow members and vampires, and only a handful of intact members lay on the ground, unconscious.
In the blood pool, the terrifying mass continued to expand in size; even every tendril grew thicker, slowly inching its way out of the blood pool while engulfing the remains of vampires along the way, subsuming them into its body.
“Is anyone there? Is anyone still alive… that monster… monster… it can multiply… destroy it…”
From a distant dark corner came Meng Huai’s weak but stubborn whispers, accompanied by a cough from his severely damaged lungs, echoing clearly in the empty underground space.
As if understanding the battalion leader’s intent, Xia Yan spat out a mouthful of blood, then staggered toward the blood pool, clutching the last incendiary grenade in hand.
“Brother!”
A familiar voice reached him from behind, as a young man emerged from the smoke, immediately supporting Xia Yan’s body.
“Give me all the grenades… Xiao Yao, check on the battalion leader…” Xia Yan spat blood as he reached towards Gu Yao.
“Brother! I will do it!”
Looking back at the colossal, still distorted mass of flesh, along with the ten or so tendrils writhing menacingly, Gu Yao snatched the incendiary grenade marked in red from Xia Yan’s hand, combining it with several grenades strapped to himself.
Running forward for several meters, Gu Yao hurled the ammunition with all his might, then executed a standard tactical maneuver, rolling on the ground and taking cover behind a rusty old pressure vessel.
A massive flame erupted on the horrific flesh mound, the shockwave almost sweeping away everything protruding in the underground space, the high temperature boiling the blood in the blood pool, sending up clouds of noxious steam.
The flesh mound in the blood pool had been irreparably altered by the flames and shockwaves; all its tendrils either snapped or feebly fell from the air, tumbling into the churning blood pool.
With no desire to look back, Gu Yao rose and rushed toward Xia Yan, supporting his body up.
“Brother… did I perform okay!”
Nervousness, fear, excitement, sadness—countless expressions jumbled together on Gu Yao’s soot-stained childlike face, the remnants of his early cleft lip surgery causing a few muscles in his lips to twitch.
“Go check on the battalion leader…”
Xia Yan spat another mouthful of blood, his face gradually growing pale, but he still stubbornly pointed towards a dark corner.
At the moment the two turned, two elongated shadows burst forth from the blood pool, like whips, stabbing directly into both Xia Yan and Gu Yao’s bodies.
The massive charred flesh mound, occupying most of the blood pool, along with its last two tendrils, seemed to complete its final ritual, beginning to carbonize, shatter, and disintegrate, blending piece by piece into the boiling blood.
“Brother…”
Gu Yao moved his lips in stunned disbelief, gazing at the wound on his abdomen, as if unable to believe what had just happened.
Xia Yan, pierced through the side of his waist by a tendril, had forgotten the pain and merely stared quietly at Gu Yao’s gradually reddening pupils, a profound chill settling in his heart.
Gu Yao had suffered blood invasion… looking again at his own side, the bloody and mangled wound was clearly visible.
“My eyes… quickly look at my eyes!”
Xia Yan weakly dropped to one knee on the ground, clutching Gu Yao’s hand with urgency and concern.
“Brother… did we both suffer blood invasion…”
Gu Yao crouched beside Xia Yan, feeling the injury on his abdomen, gazing at the reddened iris of his companion, he smiled: “Brother, I didn’t hold you back, right…”
With those words, he slumped onto the ground.
Glancing around the underground space gradually resettling from the smoke, aside from a few dark arrow team members still faintly twitching, it was just a field of dismembered limbs, and Xia Yan closed his eyes in agony.
A few seconds later, Xia Yan helped Gu Yao back up, slowly trudging toward a dark corner. Before long, under a shattered large machine, he found Meng Huai, whose body still showed signs of life and slight movements.
After eliminating the dangerous target, Meng Huai’s internal organs had ruptured and bled from the subsequent infrasonic attacks, but thanks to the last adrenaline he had injected into himself, he still clung to life, while the large-caliber anti-material sniper rifle that had secured the conflict had long since vanished.
Looking into Meng Huai’s eyes, Xia Yan smiled brightly: “Battalion leader, it’s okay; you’re not infected…”
With trembling hands, he withdrew a pain relief injector from his waist and gathered his energy again, stabbing it into Meng Huai’s body as he murmured: “Hang in there… the reinforcements are close…”
“You… you’re leaving, aren’t you…”
As the analgesic took effect, Meng Huai felt light-headed, his mind slowly drifting, but his gaze remained fixed on the two of them, their irises now a reddened hue.
“I promised the director, I have to take care of Xiao Yao… I’m sorry, Commander Meng, Xiao Yao must survive, and I must survive too…”
With that, Xia Yan embraced the now unconscious Gu Yao, slowly turning away and staggering towards a dark corner.
“No… you cannot leave… stay here… stay here…”
The downed Meng Huai struggled to prop up his upper body, trembling as he pulled out his handgun, searching through discoordinated vision for Xia Yan’s back.
The two departing youths, enveloped in smoke and flames, seemed to split into more figures, making it hard to distinguish between truth and illusion.
