Chapter 102

Chapter 102

At around 6:40 AM, a small flying craft landed in the central district of Jing City within the A-grade danger zone.

All personnel participating in the mission exited the cabin in an orderly manner.

Since this was a cleanup mission following the zone's downgrade, it was essential to ensure that all A-grade beasts currently in Jing City were eliminated. To achieve this, the guard troops needed to set up an A-grade protective shield covering the entire city and deploy temporary signal transmitters within the region. This would prevent the A-grade beasts from escaping to neighboring danger zones and allow team members to communicate intelligence efficiently.

A total of eleven A-grade guardsmen were deployed for the mission. Among them, Sun Xuan was only responsible for ensuring the safety of Xu Qiao and her two companions. The remaining ten included the commander and nine others who were divided into three groups. Each group would lead a team of twenty B-grade guardsmen to carry out the cleanup tasks in their designated areas.

The commander's psychic form was a golden eagle. As a wind and electricity dual psi-user, he released his psychic form upon landing and flew towards the predetermined locations for setting up the protective shield and signal transmitters, accompanied by two technical personnel.

The commander's A-grade golden eagle psychic form, normally about fifteen meters tall with a wingspan exceeding thirty meters, quickly disappeared from view, carrying the three individuals.

Sun Fushan looked enviously. The small green turtle emerged and bit his arm.

Seeing this, Sun Xuan read his younger brother's mind: "Wanting a flying psychic form again?"

Sun Fushan stammered while pulling his psychic form: "Wanting one isn't illegal."

Sun Xuan replied, "It's not illegal, but you deserve to be bitten. Go back, Little Green, and bite him inside his battle armor. Your teeth can't break through A-grade battle armor yet."

The small green turtle indeed disappeared, and Sun Fushan immediately looked panic-stricken, clutching his stomach and wincing in pain.

Xu Qiao and Meng Li stood nearby, the former amused by their antics, the latter remaining expressionless.

About fifteen minutes later, the commander returned with the technical personnel and addressed the already divided four groups. "The protective shield and signal transmitters have been installed. Everyone, verify the signal connection on your wristbands. If there are no issues, we can depart now and return here after completing the mission."

Xu Qiao tapped her wristband, and indeed, there was a signal, but it could only contact members of this mission, not the base. Deploying a signal transmitter that could connect to the base would consume significantly more crystal core energy.

The commander divided Jing City into three operational zones, and the three guard teams set out on foot from the city center.

Sun Xuan and his group comprised the fourth team.

The commander exchanged glances with Sun Xuan, then flew away. His next task was to protect the previously deployed technical equipment and handle any emergencies that might arise with the groups.

Sun Xuan didn't waste any time and took out the military's mutated creature detector. His model was the most advanced detector developed by the base, but its detection range was limited to five kilometers, and it could only detect A-grade and lower mutated creatures. After over a hundred years of research, multiple generations of researchers had still not achieved a technological breakthrough in detecting S-grade creatures.

Xu Qiao and her two companions naturally gathered around Sun Xuan. Even Sun Fushan, who had only seen the detector before, had no practical experience with it.

The detector was only the size of a palm but could project a convenient virtual screen for viewing. At this moment, the screen was filled with densely packed dots of various colors.

Sun Xuan canceled the detection for grades E, D, and C. After the screen refreshed, only a circle of orange dots representing B-grade mutated creatures remained, along with a conspicuous red dot symbolizing an A-grade mutated creature.

Sun Xuan smiled: "Not bad luck. We have a target to practice on as soon as we start."

Saying that, he released his off-road vehicle and automatically took on the role of driver. "If we encounter low-grade mutated beasts on the way, you three take care of them. I'll just drive."

Sun Fushan grabbed his older brother's arm: "An A-grade right away?"

Sun Xuan glanced at the three of them: "Even five B-grade beasts together aren't enough for you to practice on. It would just be a waste of time. Stop talking nonsense and get in the car."

Xu Qiao and Meng Li immediately sat in the back seat.

Sun Fushan tried to squeeze in with his teammates but was shoved into the passenger seat by Sun Xuan.

The off-road vehicle slowly set off along a deserted wilderness road. Within a distance of less than two kilometers, various mutated plants, beasts, and insects continuously attacked the vehicle. Xu Qiao and her two companions cooperated seamlessly to eliminate them, but it still took them half an hour to reach their destination.

Ahead was a forest of water pines.

Before getting off the car, Sun Xuan said, "It's better to proceed on foot from here; walking will be faster than driving."

Sun Fushan looked up to examine the forest of water pines. The dense mutant water pines averaged forty meters in height, with each pine needle glistening in the sunlight.

Every mutant beast and insect viewed humans as prey and would attack upon sight. Mutant plants were a different case. Due to their reproductive nature, mutant plants often existed in clusters, mostly as low-level E and D grade plants that couldn't harm humans. However, among these low-level plants, high-level mutant plants would occasionally emerge. When humans killed the aggressive high-level mutant plants, new high-level plants would soon appear from the surrounding lower-level plants, forming a new generation of rulers.

The dominant ruler of this forest of water pines was an A-grade water pine.

Sun Xuan reset the range of the detector. There were over thirty C-grade water pines and five B-grade water pines within the forest.

He let Xu Qiao and the others discuss the clearing plan.

Xu Qiao said, "Let's start with the lower-level ones to reduce interference."

Sun Fushan and Meng Li nodded and took the lead by walking ahead.

The attack pattern of the water pines was similar to the mutant roses Xu Qiao had encountered before—both shot projectiles. However, the water pines had far more needles than the roses. If it weren’t for the fact that they were wearing A-grade battle armor, the sheer number of needles from a single C-grade water pine could wound them.

With B-grade water pines, even A-grade battle armor could be threatened by the dense needles.

Xu Qiao conjured a translucent water shield to protect the three of them. Sun Fushan activated his earth-based ability to uproot the B-grade water pine, and then Meng Li formed a fireball to drill into the tree trunk, quickly locating and extracting the crystal core. Once the core was removed, the water pine collapsed and lost its vitality.

Sun Fushan stored the entire water pine in his spatial item. The needles could be made into weapons, and the B-grade water pine trunk could be used for base construction.

After walking, stopping, and fighting for two hours, the four of them finally spotted the A-grade water pine a hundred meters away. The tree was as thick as three people hugging it and stood a hundred meters tall.

Sun Fushan whispered, "Has it noticed us?"

Mutant beasts had eyes, but mutant plants did not, making their attacks more unpredictable.

Xu Qiao said, "It might have seen us and is waiting for us to enter its optimal attack range."

Meng Li said, "Let's sever the trunk first, then extract the crystal core."

Cutting the trunk wouldn't kill the A-grade water pine but would render it unable to attack.

For the sake of training, none of them planned to use energy guns.

Meng Li released her fire scorpion spiritual entity. The entity, in its normal five-meter form, allowed the three to jump on. Sun Fushan took the front, and Meng Li the back.

As the fire scorpion took off, Sun Fushan used his earth-based ability to uproot a patch of low-grade water pines around the A-grade water pine, clearing the airspace for the fire scorpion to fly freely.

The toppled subordinates angered the A-grade water pine, and without regard for proper distance, it immediately launched its needles.

The fire scorpion swiftly flew out of the range of the needles. Meanwhile, Sun Fushan's massive earth axe heavily struck the lower trunk of the water pine but left only a slight mark, as the outer bark of the water pine had almost no defensive capability.

The attacked water pine began its formal counterattack. Since the fire scorpion flew quickly, the water pine started to throw needles over a larger area.

The fire scorpion flew upwards, and Sun Fushan’s high-speed earth drill successfully left a small shallow pit in the bast of the water pine.

The water pine then changed its strategy to surround the fire scorpion from all directions.

The fire scorpion was still able to avoid most of the needles, and for the few that were difficult to dodge, Xu Qiao released water currents in the opposite direction to slow down the needles. Once slowed, the needles couldn't damage the fire scorpion. Sun Fushan focused on drilling his hole, while Meng Li remained vigilant, ready to deal with any major attacks from the water pine.

Mutant creatures had their own ways of assessing the threat level of ability users. Initially, the A-grade water pine hadn’t taken this three-person team seriously. However, as Sun Fushan’s hole grew larger, the A-grade water pine finally sensed the threat. It no longer held back and abruptly launched a barrage of needles from above, like a black rainstorm, covering an area of a hundred meters.

The fire scorpion rapidly descended, and Meng Li conjured strong upward gusts of wind around them. Xu Qiao released a thick, one-meter-high arc-shaped water curtain, and Sun Fushan immediately followed by releasing a B-grade turtle shell.

A-class water pine needles were continuously weakened by gusts of wind and water curtains, leaving only 30% of their attack power by the time they hit the turtle shell, which easily withstood the impact.

Sun Fushan laughed heartily, “Wear it down!”

Vine-type mutated plants could vary their attack methods, but the water pine’s attacks were too singular and predictable. As long as the defenders could keep up, they could grind the opponent down.

Unfortunately, the A-grade water pine’s trunk had astonishing defenses. After Sun Fushan managed to drill a fist-sized hole, he had to conserve his spiritual energy for defense, so Xu Qiao switched to using a high-pressure water blade.

When the fist-sized hole continued to penetrate another fist’s depth into the trunk, Xu Qiao stopped her attack and let Meng Li take over.

Fire element attacks were always on par with metal element attacks; the former excelled in high-temperature explosions, while the latter was unstoppable in its destructive force.

Meng Li unleashed seven B+ grade fireballs in succession, and the A-grade water pine’s trunk was blown open, creating a basketball-sized hole, with the cross-section exceeding half of the trunk’s diameter.

Seeing this, Sun Fushan let go of the earth-element crystal core in his hand, and while coordinating with his teammates to defend against another wave of pine needles, he threw the mountain from the back of the small green turtle.

When the mountain, initially only tens of centimeters high, was thrown, it rapidly expanded to the size of a three-story building just before impact with the trunk. With a loud “Boom,” the mountain bounced back to the ground a meter away, and the hundred-meter-tall water pine trunk wobbled before collapsing straight toward the other side.

The ground shook, raising a cloud of dust and leaves, and Sun Xuan, who had been observing from a distance, wobbled slightly before stabilizing himself.

As the dust settled, Meng Li retracted the fire scorpion spiritual entity and, along with her two teammates, jumped down to the ground.

Sun Fushan collapsed face down, nearly drained of his spiritual energy.

Though Meng Li had attacked less, the prolonged flight of the fire scorpion had also heavily consumed her spiritual energy, leaving her quite exhausted.

Xu Qiao, looking at the cross-section of the water pine’s trunk and contemplating how to extract the crystal core, suddenly felt the ground shake as countless dirt-brown tentacles shot up from the earth.

Both lying and standing, the three were swept into the air by the tentacles and slammed back onto the ground.

As their vision rapidly dropped, Xu Qiao’s water blades proved ineffective against the tentacles, so she quickly formed three high-speed geysers with diameters of one meter.

The three geysers rushed upward, countering the slamming of the tentacles, but Xu Qiao still felt herself hit the ground, her body aching all over, before the tentacles hurled her into the air again.

Facing the root system of the A-grade water pine, even Meng Li’s wind blades and flames were ineffective in the short term, so Xu Qiao could only repeatedly form geysers to counter the falling momentum.

Sun Fushan attempted to use his gun but had it snatched away by another root tentacle.

Sun Xuan merely watched from a distance.

Sun Fushan, unable to think of his elder brother at this point, couldn’t break through the water pine’s defenses on the ground. He used the last of his spiritual energy to control the earth beneath, trying to uproot the water pine’s roots.

The fire scorpion spiritual entity landed on the cross-section of the water pine, its tail stinger viciously piercing into the core of the trunk responsible for transporting nutrients and water.

During this process, the three were continuously slammed into the ground by the tentacles, enduring varying degrees of injury despite Xu Qiao’s timely healing after each fall.

But Xu Qiao knew that the longer this tug-of-war lasted, the more disadvantageous it would be for them.

Plants without soil were like fish out of water. Sun Fushan’s attacks were the only way for the three to escape, but the A-grade water pine was firmly rooted. Unless…

When the three were swept up to the highest point again, Xu Qiao shouted to Sun Fushan, “Combine our forces!”

Sun Fushan clenched his teeth, enduring the pain of his nearly depleted spiritual energy as he focused on the approaching ground.

At the moment the ground trembled slightly, Xu Qiao’s mentally formed invisible arrow shot toward the water pine’s spiritual realm.

She sensed a green barrier, which had not anticipated her sneak attack.

The spiritual energy arrow pierced through the barrier, and just as inky black mist was about to engulf the arrow, Xu Qiao severed her connection to the arrow in time.

The tentacle wrapped around her waist loosened its grip, and the three fell into the cracked black earth. Before they could sink further, the massive roots forced their way up, bringing them back to the surface.

Just as the black tentacles were about to wrap tightly around the three psi-users for a final desperate move, three earth snakes rolled over and entangled its roots.

Sun Xuan, who had been silently watching, finally made his move.