Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 622 - 161
"Hey, sir, why are you asking this?" the soldier asked in confusion.
"Nothing." Sun Hang waved his hand, "Go back to your post, I don't need assistance."
"Yes, sir." The soldier saluted Sun Hang and then turned and left. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺
The Mysterious Creature Hunter and the Xiazhou Federal Regular Army were originally two completely independent violent institutions. However, considering the special situation in Tianfu City, and the frequent conflicts between the hunters and the military over command issues, the Federation Council issued a document: every Hunter going to the Shuzhou Region to perform tasks related to Eternal Night would be given a temporary military rank, along with command authority corresponding to that rank.
Whether it was due to consideration of Sun Hang's combat power or because he was one of the few "local hunters" in Tianfu City, he was directly given a temporary rank at the colonel level. This was also why the soldier referred to Sun Hang as "sir".
In the Xiazhou Federation's military system, superiors were usually called "chiefs" rather than "sir", but after the Xiazhou Federation became the last refuge of human civilization, absorbing refugees from all over the world, this unwritten rule became negligible.
Soldiers can call their superiors "chief" if they want, or "sir", and even calling "Sir" wasn't a problem...
Judging by the features, this soldier seemed to be from the Siberian Federation, so it was understandable that he was accustomed to calling Sun Hang "sir".
As for the soldier who had stopped Sun Hang's car earlier, he initially addressed him as "comrade", but if he were to address Sun Hang now, he would most likely call him "chief".
Sun Hang's colonel rank was roughly equivalent to a regimental commander in the Federation Army system—however, this did not mean that Sun Hang would actually command a combat unit of over a thousand people, like a proper regimental commander...
Though it was said that the Hunters would be given command authority equivalent to their ranks, the actual implementation would be somewhat limited—Song Yarong told Sun Hang that he could at most command a standard combat unit of three hundred people, and this standard unit referred to basic infantry. If it were an armored or missile unit, his colonel rank wouldn't have any command power.
This temporary military rank was more a symbol of status.
Sun Hang watched the soldier run along the sentry post direction, and the soldier's back switched back and forth between human and monster a few times... Sun Hang took a deep breath, eventually locking his vision in the normal cognitive range.
The world of flesh and monsters was a virtual world that Sun Hang "imagined." He tried to switch his perspective between reality and virtual, attempting to find flaws in the virtual world.
He failed.
Although the world filled with flesh constructs seemed so unreasonable, this unreasonableness was only from a normal person's cognitive perspective... What Sun Hang wanted to find were "paradox points" significant enough to topple the reality of the entire world... but unfortunately, he didn't find any.
Sun Hang sat on the scorched curb, looking out into the distance.
The asphalt road was cracked with a cobweb of crevices, and a toppled bus lay under a fallen billboard, its shell scorched black, twisted metal handrails protruding like deformed bones through its shattered windows.
The glass of the bakery on the street corner was all broken, but for some reason, the almond cake in the display case was preserved, the frosting melting into amber-colored crystals at the edge of the porcelain plate.
The awning of the grocery store was flipped over, exposing rusted iron frames, and strings of clothes pegs still clipped postcard-sized promotional posters, their edges flapping and crackling in the wind.
The most intact item on the street was the fire hydrant by the curb; the bombings hadn't impacted it much, and it stubbornly stood upright, gazing at the still-burning ruins across the street.
The casualties caused by the bombing were not released, but the data Yang Qi obtained was zero.
All those killed were mysterious creatures completely mutated and were not counted as standard civilian casualties.
They were killed by the mysterious creature memes released in the water, not the aerial bombs descending from the sky.
"Anna," Sun Hang suddenly spoke.
"I'm here," Anna's voice drifted in with the wind, mingling with the crackling of burning wood, sounding somewhat unreal.
"The mysterious creature that released its aura earlier, trying to lure me here," Sun Hang asked, "why is there no sign of it now? What was its purpose in luring me?"
"Seems like my presence scared it away," Anna said.
"...Didn't you say that it had no ill intentions toward me?" Sun Hang frowned. "If so, I wouldn't mind encountering it."
"The lack of malice in a mysterious creature's cognition is not the same as the 'lack of malice' that humans speak of," Anna laughed. "I also have no malice toward those I've assimilated; I just need their memories and emotions. But from a human perspective, it's clear that I killed them, and my actions are filled with malice."
"...Is it because mysterious creatures and humans are not the same species?"
"More or less," Anna's voice came from all around, "it's like the cattle and sheep in a pasture. Do humans ever harbor malice toward them? No. But to eat meat, humans still kill the cattle and sheep."
