Chapter 531 (2/2)

“Ares Leader, shouldn’t we-” The lucky Skill soldier began, but the squad leader’s eyes flashed and he grabbed the private’s arm. He couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he should at least have the good sense to adhere to military discipline when speaking, especially in such a hostile zone.

“Radio silence during the approach,” he hissed, feeling like his words blew through the prairie like a freight train full of jostled porcelain. Eyes as wide as dinner plates looked back at him, green and clear. The man nodded solemnly, regret clear in his expression.

Above, a low rumble of thunder set them all to jumping. They looked up. A soft rain had begun to fall on them. It felt cool and blessedly real on their skin, tiny pinpricks of ice cold liquid on skin feverish on tight nerves. Sure, they were all veterans of the borderlands, but the mental games that some of these monsters played were something else entirely. This was not supposed to go like this.

And it also made the squad leader extremely dubious of the prospect of ever achieving any kind of peace with these people, the people from the other Zone. How could they be trusted when any of them could manipulate illusions at will?

“Sarge,” The private began. “The rain-”

“I know it is not fucking real, you little shit-” The squad leader began, but then he paused. Slowly, his face turned solemn, and he took a few steps to the right, slowly drawing his laser pistol.

This was a veteran squad of the borderlands, who had traveled together multiple times into the dangerous areas in order to scout and secure valuable raw materials.

How the fuck could there be someone in the squad who he didn’t know by name?

A pair of green eyes regarded him in confusion, but then it seemed like the man in front of him realized something. His mouth split into a toothy grin. “Really? You don’t bat an eyelash at me calling you Ares Leader, but Sarge sets you off? You military types are truly hard to predict. Well, it was fun-”

The plasma bolt took the stranger in the chin, staggering him. Within a second, the superheated material melted the man’s flesh away and revealed wine body. Blood sizzled, and the rotten stench of carbonized flesh filled the air. But the man straightened, as if he was none the worse for wear, with half of his jaw melted away.

The mild green eyes were growing brighter and brighter now, becoming emerald lamps that spilled out liquid light that the squad leader seemed to be suspended in. He couldn’t tear his gaze away.

“You should not have come here,” The man whispered, his voice strange. “If you shoot first, we will fire back.”

“Aw, fuck this,” Another man broke in, shooting three more bolts of plasma into the strange creature’s torso. It stumbled but didn’t fall, simply straightening as the boiling skin on his body evaporated, leaving charred muscle. It shambled forward as a fleck of plasma ate into its foot, a thin line of smoke spiraling upwards. It was grinning, or trying to, and looked like the cheeriest zombie that the squad leader could imagine.

The squad leader raised his watch to his mouth. “We are in position. Just bring the rain.”

Although it was considered a failure, it was within his authority to call in the air strike. There were problems with the drones being shot down en route, so they had left the machine with its payload only a half mile away. Besides, theirs was a private outfit. Officially, there wouldn’t be any political fallout from him burning this piece of hell to the ground.

The squad leader knew that it was possible that they were completely off the mark and might be standing in the middle of nowhere. In addition, he might have just ordered the deaths of all of his men. But there was something about watching a man’s flesh melt that just…

Raising his pistol, the squad leader fired again, and the zombie staggered and fell, its entire chest cavity finally collapsing as its bones became brittle from being baked. Overhead, there was the soft hum of the drones engines as it arrived and shot the missile in a straight arc towards the cabin.

The squad leader looked at the prairie and its strangely assembled house of vines and roots with a bit of nostalgia in his heart. It reminded him of his childhood, and of innocence. To lose the elixirs was a great thing, and he would be blamed for it. But coming here, the squad leader abruptly understood something that the political elite probably hadn’t realized yet.

Zone 1 would be destroyed by these people. There was nothing they could do.

The missile hit the hut. They were close enough that prior to the System, the squad leader would have probably died. But now, he just felt his ribs and left arm break as he was sent flying. It took several seconds for him to recover from a stunned state and climb to his feet.

Just as the squad leader felt a flush for relief and thought it was over, they had won, something moved.

The hut was still there, completely unaffected by the grassland filled with fire around it. Whoever had made this had-

The house moved.

Slowly at first, but then with increasing surety, it opened itself up, the roof lifting to form long tentacles. The walls separated, the floors spread out and rose. With surprising delicacy, the squad leader watched the vines place furniture and people to the side, behind its protection. Then it reared higher, swelling to an almost 30 meter high mass above them.

And still, it unraveled, more coming up from the ground. The squad leader faintly saw a strange tree with burning leaves at its core, before his eyes were inevitably drawn upwards towards the center of the mass.

There, the squad leader saw a mass of black rot and ugly pink flesh the size of a minivan. It seemed to peer down at him for a very long time. Then it opened its mouth, showed its hundreds of rows of teeth, and exhaled foul air in the squad leader’s direction. Although it seemed like an aggressive move, it came out sounding more like a sigh. And the squad leader instantly understood what it meant.

You should not have shot first.