This Game Is Too Real-Chapter 754 I am the Tide!

In the thick, gray-green fog, an armed squad of ten men was slowly making their way forward.

They wore fully protective exoskeletons, some carried compact G9 assault rifles, while others carried Gauss Rifles with extended magnetic rails, and there were those with two short, thick portable rocket launchers slung on their backs.

In the center of the group, a three-meter-wide unmanned track vehicle followed, its roof-mounted remote weapon station brandishing a fierce 20 mm cannon barrel, with a 60 mm short grenade launcher hanging with a linked belt of munitions below it.

The vehicle’s silver-white paint job stood in stark contrast to the surrounding atmosphere, but no one dared to question the firepower of this squad.

A few days ago, the council had finally approved a new procurement project for equipment, purchasing stock from the bottom of the Chang Ge Group’s inventory.

Perhaps the council was shocked by the appalling state of the previous conflicts, and at last, no one was spouting the foolish idea that "Gauss Rifles are totally unnecessary against a bunch of guys without exoskeletons, our soldiers just need to direct the planes where to bomb."

Thanks to this, Tang Feng finally laid his eyes on the long-coveted "sniper."

However, at this moment, he had lost interest in that thing, and all the messy parameters were just like a cloud passing in the sky. It was most important that life-saving gear be handy to use.

"... Where are we now?"

"Haiya."

"Haiya... This is Haiya? I thought we were on Mars."

The machine gunner carrying a light machine gun glanced at the yellowing, torn tourist poster in his hand, then looked ahead at the broken, two-part highway overpass and the rusty speedway sign laying among a pile of concrete rubble—

[Lai Mountain City, 5km ahead]

Lai Mountain City was ahead, which was also their first stop upon entering the Luo Xia Province.

But there was no city here. Everywhere the eye could see was ruin and desolation that was visible to the naked eye.

This land seemed not to belong to Earth but to another lifeless planet.

The black soil flowed with dark green sludge, like lava cleaving through hell, the corrosion from Nago permeating every inch of this land.

Not a single living tree, not even a living blade of grass, could be seen here.

The withered trees standing on the land were like bones eroded over many years. Their nourishment had been completely stripped away to sustain the master of this land—Nago.

The situation here was worse than the Wei Prefecture Wasteland.

Or rather, it could be said that the hell they had previously encountered on the wasteland was just the tip of the iceberg of this actual hell.

He slightly tugged at the corner of his mouth and tossed the poster he had picked up from God knows where to the side.

Not far from him, a soldier with a rifle stooped down, took a test tube from the sample box on his belt, and routinely took a sample of soil rich in Nago mycelium.

That was one of the tasks entrusted to them by the frontline research institute—after entering the Luo Xia Province, they were to collect a soil sample every 100 meters they advanced.

As for their main mission, it was "to scout the edges of the ’Northern No.1 Warzone’ city ruins and confirm the enemy’s position."

This sounded like a job for drones, but regrettably, earlier drones had flown over the area twice, and not only did they not see any human forms, but they also didn’t spot a single living creature.

A reasonable analysis was that the Torch Church had likely wiped clean this land, nearly 670,000 square kilometers in size.

Of course, another possibility was that those guys had hidden the people somewhere.

After all, breeding mutants also required people, as did experiments with Perfect Life forms.

Although clones could solve some problems, when considering factors such as scale and cost comprehensively, naturally born humans were still cheaper.

After all, this land had become such a ghastly sight and, unlike the Great Desert filled with all sorts of bizarre devices from the Era of Prosperity, one couldn’t expect to find a large-scale power station, a bunch of technical workers, or a cloning factory equipped with high-end devices here.

If that were the case, it would be easy to resolve.

Just one missile with a nuclear warhead would be enough to erase the Torch from this land.

However, sadly, those monsters didn’t need "industry" of any sort. They neither required electricity nor consumer goods, at most, they might have some scattered workshops to modify some weapons suitable for themselves.

The Allied forces’ staff department analyzed that the Torch Church probably controlled several shelters as research bases and likely also controlled a bunch of Black Boxes with special functions.

And that could explain why, even without large-scale processing centers, they were still able to produce equipment that far exceeded the practical conditions of Haiye Province.

"...I’ve heard there’s a famous hot spring in Lai Mountain City," a Soldier said with a smile, picking up a poster that a Gunman had discarded, "It’s in the suburbs...seems to be near us."

An adjacent Soldier whistled teasingly.

"Are you planning to take a dip?"

"I heard that those infected folks from Yongdong City are still lying in Yunjian University’s research institute to this day."

"Ha ha... let’s pass on that."

A group of men were fooling around on the communications channel when Tang Feng, standing on the outskirts of the group, suddenly furrowed his brow alertly.

The dark green slurry flowing beneath the soil seemed to be converging and moving toward their vicinity.

Though the movement was slight, the biometric plugins attached to his iris recorded the motion parameters—numerical changes visible to the naked eye could not be mistaken.

He switched off the safety on his rifle in hand and pointed the barrel slightly toward the mist-enshrouded ruins.

"We have a situation."

The noise in the communications channel came to an abrupt stop.

The soldiers immediately became alert and scattered to form a defensive formation.

A heavy infantryman swiftly unfolded a foldable shelter from his back and planted it heavily on the ground, like a fan-shaped shield.

The Gunman quickly took position behind it, mounting his light machine gun just above the firing hole in the shield, and yelled back to his teammates.

"Machine gun emplacement ready!"

Another, with a drone controller pack on his back, crouched half-way to the ground as two folding quadrotor drones shot into the air with a couple of thuds. After flipping through the air for a few rotations, they steadied and then zipped into the fog like arrows leaving a bow.

"Drones are up! Searching the nearby area... no moving objects in sight!"

The sniper, equipped with a Gauss Rifle, who looked at the empty thermal imaging screen, also showed confusion, turning to Tang Feng, who had first noticed the situation.

"Did you see it wrong?"

"It’s on the ground!" Tang Feng took a deep breath and said affirmatively, "Those dark green slimes... they’re converging near us, and I have a bad feeling something is going to happen."

The squad leader walked over to the drone operator, patting him on the shoulder.

The drone operator immediately caught on and shared one drone’s visual feed with the squad leader.

Having placed a pair of glasses-like visual operation devices on his helmet, the leader maneuvered the drone for a lap around the area and scrutinized the dark green sludge covering the land through the drone’s vision – his brows rapidly furrowing in concern.

Indeed, as his squad members had reported, the dark green substance was pulsing at a stable rate, seeming to transmit some unknown energy to somewhere beneath their feet.

If one looked down from above, the pattern was even more obvious and spectacular.

The footage captured by the unmanned aerial vehicle was synchronized to the tactical goggles of all squad members. A rifleman couldn’t help but swallow his saliva and muttered under his breath.

"Some organs are redundant in normal times and only flood with blood when needed... Damn, I’m starting to get a bad feeling too."

The leader’s Adam’s apple moved, and his expression grew increasingly serious. He immediately reported the frontline situation to the command post and then loudly gave an order through the communication channel.

"Mission canceled! Prepare for retreat—"

Almost at the same moment his command had finished, a rustling sound came through the fog.

It was like the sudden chirping of cicadas in autumn.

After catching a glimpse of a fleeting figure, Wild Wind reflexively raised his rifle and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

"Ratatat—!"

The rifle’s muzzle emitted orange-yellow flames, and the tracers instantaneously pierced through the shadow emerging from the thick fog.

That was a half-human, half-canine monster, its lean figure resembling a sausage, its bald head and face burnt as if scorched by flames.

It howled miserably after taking several shots to the chest, and its blood, green so deep it was almost black, spilled onto the ground from the wounds, but even so, the creature didn’t stop its charge, using all four limbs to sprint crazily toward the corporate squad’s position.

Just then, an electromagnetic accelerated mass bomb instantly penetrated the top of its skull and passed through between its legs.

Like being sucked into a meat grinder, the creature’s body burst from the immense kinetic energy and exploded into a cloud of black-green mist in an instant.

Bits of flesh and limbs tumbled to the ground, while the black-green blood cloud slowly blended into the surrounding mist.

"It’s a ’mutated slime fungus’!" The drone operator confirmed the monster’s identity and reported via the communication channel.

The so-called mutated slime fungus is the general term for the offsprings created by the corrosion of Nago, distinguished from the offspring of the mutated slime fungus.

Based on the different categories, there are subcategories under the major class of mutated slime fungus, such as the common "Walking Corpses," "Corpse Dogs," and so on.

The creature they encountered was somewhat similar to the Crawlers spawned by the mucosal entities in Qingquan City, only smaller in size, strength, and speed.

Suppressing his rifle barrel, a precision shooter who managed the Gauss Rifle couldn’t help but curse softly.

"Damn it, didn’t the drones already scan this area? How is there still one of these things popping out!"

With a fixed gaze through the sights, Tang Feng aimed in the direction from which the monster had burst forth.

"Mostly it’s the same as at the outskirts of Wei Mansion Wasteland; they’re crawling up from underground—"

"Shit! Below!"

The shout of alarm that came through the communication channel interrupted him, and he instinctively glanced behind him, only to see a withered hand emerge and stretch out from the soil, grabbing the leg of a comrade not far behind him.

The hand didn’t have much strength, at least not enough to contend with the exoskeletal greave.

Yet the rifleman was still startled and quickly drew his pistol, firing repeatedly at the ground beneath him.

The arm that had just emerged from the soil was instantly shattered by the shots, but the ricocheting shrapnel nearly grazed his own breastplate.

Seeing the situation his comrade encountered, a sense of panic crept into everyone’s eyes.

They hadn’t expected the danger to come not just from all around but also right below their feet.

At this moment, shrill cries erupted in all directions, and the sound of running grew like a tide surging forward.

"Three o’clock direction! Gunman suppress with fire!"

"Roger!"

The leader bellowed his command to attack, with the machine gunner behind cover gritting his teeth, his index finger practically fused to the trigger.

As the thunderous sound of the Gatling Gun filled the air, the silence and dense fog that hung over the wasteland were torn asunder.

"Howl—!"

The Corpse Dogs, flailing their limbs, howled as they rushed forward, accompanied by a multitude of Walking Corpses.

Riflemen spread out around also immediately fired their triggers, shooting down the oncoming mutated slime fungus entities.

Simultaneously, the track vehicle stationed at the center of the team entered combat mode. The 20mm cannon on the remote weapons station spat out long tongues of flame, and under the laser guidance of the precision shooter, it unleashed fierce firepower into the densest crowd of Walking Corpses.

However, even with the mechanical squad’s ferocious firepower—sufficient to decimate the fierce mutated slime fungus in under two seconds—the soldiers still felt a clear strain against the relentless assault.

Their numbers were overwhelming!

These creatures were like pus pushed out from the soil, and besides the visible portion, who knew how many more were buried underground yet to squeeze out!

Watching the increasingly dense wave of mutated slime fungus, the machine gunner swapping his magazine behind mobile cover shouted loudly,

"How long until the transport plane comes to evacuate us!"

Continuing to pull the trigger, the leader shouted into the communication channel.

"It’s already on its way! It will arrive within twenty minutes!"

"Twenty minutes?!"

"Damn it... Are they planning to come and collect our corpses?!"

Swearing filled the communication channel, and the leader couldn’t help but bellow again.

"Quit the damn chatter! Focus on your targets! And watch your feet—"

The enemy’s attacks came not only from all around them but also right beneath them.

Arms periodically drilled out of the soil, like tender shoots breaking through the earth.

Though dispatching them wasn’t difficult—either a dagger or the butt of a gun could smash them—the relentless waves kept emerging.

Even though they carried three times the standard ammo load, it was not enough to fend off such concentrated numbers.

Ten more minutes—

Looking at the last magazine in his hand, Tang Feng gritted his teeth as he slotted it into his rifle.

"If the evacuation plane doesn’t arrive soon, we’ll have to engage in close combat with these twisted things."

Just then, a surprised call came through the communication channel from the captain.

"Cloud Dragonfly! It’s our air force! They’re here!"

Tang Feng instinctively looked up, but the gloomy fog obscured the sky, and he couldn’t see anything.

But at that moment, a voice crackling with static came over their communication channel.

"This is ’Racoon’, we have entered your airspace, please place a targeting beacon to provide us with guidance."

Without needing any reminder, the team’s precision shooter had already taken action, firing a signal flare under the elevated bridge where the mutated slime fungus was most concentrated.

The reassuring voice soon continued through the communication channel.

"Beacon location confirmed, please maintain a safe distance...3, 2, 1—"

As the countdown ended, the fire tracing from the rockets poured down like a violent storm, instantly grinding the fungi mutants scampering across the broken concrete into minced meat.

A dozen rockets followed closely, exploding into flames that carved out a vacuum strip right through the center of the oncoming wave of mushroom mutants.

At the center of the flames, a walking corpse with half its body missing let out a piercing cry but soon fell silent.

Blocked by the surging heatwave, a crowd of walking corpses shoved each other around for a while but none dared to approach, eventually spilling around the sides of the fiery sea, trying to circumvent this burning barrier.

"Nicely done!"

The team’s precision shooter cheered excitedly, and then, unable to help himself, fired a second and third beacon.

Following the triangle outlined by the beacons, the six waiting Cloud Dragonfly Flapping Machines in the sky confirmed the position of their comrades and went all out, continuously firing their 20mm cannons while emptying their rocket-filled magazines!

Walls of boiling flames separated the surging mutated slime fungus from the soldiers within.

Meanwhile, at the same moment, about a dozen wooden gliders suddenly broke through the smoky veil above the roaring flames, crashing heavily into the rocky wasteland.

Around forty to fifty soldiers jumped out of the ten gliders.

They were armed with LD-47 assault rifles, with bayonets fixed under the muzzles, gas masks on their faces, and engineer shovels hanging from their waists.

Clearly, they were people from the Alliance.

And judging by the insignia on their uniforms, they were from the famed Death Legion.

However, for some reason, these people weren’t wearing exoskeletons, only carrying some rudimentary equipment.

They were shouting and yelling in words he couldn’t understand, no idea what they were on about...

"Damn! Is this contraption even considered a plane?"

"My ass is gonna split!"

Watching the noisy bunch of new recruits, the Outlaw Maniac couldn’t help but recall his own self from a year ago.

Back then in Luo Xia Province, they were just as rowdy charging towards the Old Soldiers.

Thanks to that "live fire training," they went from clueless newbies to qualified warriors in less than a month.

Now, he had risen to the ranks of the "seasoned players," becoming a core member of the Death Legion.

And this operation was a mission personally entrusted to him by the Edge Shoveling Legion Commander, to lead these new recruits to their deaths—no, to be baptized in the fires of war!

"It’s disposable anyway...stop your damn whining, hurry up and dismantle the machine guns! We can still use these things!"

Carrying a shotgun and walking to the forefront, the Outlaw Maniac shouted calmly at the rookies as he stomped and broke the hand reaching out of the soil towards his ankles.

The players who were still fussing around the glider had just found their rifles, and turned back to shout at him.

"Captain, what about the ammo boxes? Should we drag them out too?"

The Outlaw Maniac rolled his eyes.

"No shit! Do you even have to ask?"

His words had barely dropped before another player shouted.

"Captain! If this plane is broken, how do we get back?"

As the questions got sillier, the Outlaw Maniac replied impatiently.

"Did I ever say we were going back?"

He scoffed internally; the plane didn’t even have an engine installed, how could it possibly fly back?

But when the recruits heard his words, they froze in place.

I come together to form the head: "Fuck!"

High-end ingredients: "This is a damn death trap!"

Dying from staying up late: "Crying! Captain, is it too late to bail now?"

The retreating dwarf: "Not being able to play the game for three days...I don’t want that no no!"

Watching the wailing newbies, the Outlaw Maniac couldn’t hold back and roared.

"Don’t you guys ever read the rules before joining the Legion? Snap out of it!"

"Use your bullets, bayonets, rifle butts, engineer shovels, fists, even your teeth, whatever methods you can think of, whatever tools you can find, smash the enemy’s skulls, until they—or you—stop beating!"

"The Death Legion has no cowards who retreat; no matter what we’re up against, we only have one signal: forward! Ever forward—!"

"Safety off, chamber your rifles! Show me your limits!"

That pep talk indeed ignited some passion, and the noisy chatter finally quieted down.

But he still wanted to say it; these newbies are really problematic, not as tough as earlier generations!

The Outlaw Maniac thus complained inwardly, conveniently forgetting his own foolish early days in the game.

Knowing it was too late to get off the ride, the recruits had no choice but to acquiesce.

Even if it was just to live a few minutes longer, even if it was for a hefty mission reward, they had to show some real skill.

But perhaps also because they now knew their fate, these newcomers facing battle for the first time were no longer as tense as they had been just getting off the plane and were actually looking forward to the upcoming fight.

Watching two soldiers drag ammunition boxes out of the glider, looking determined to hold the line, Tang Feng stood beside the concrete wall and yelled out to them.

"Hey! What are you guys doing here?"

The Outlaw Maniac shouted back with a smile.

"Here to help!"

"Help... Help? We’re getting ready to retreat!" Tang Feng said, looking utterly bewildered.

The Outlaw Maniac laughed. "We’re here to cover your retreat!"

Hearing this, Tang Feng was even more baffled. When he regained his senses, he felt both moved and ashamed.

What moved him was the allies’ care for them; it was solid as iron.

It was the same when they had attacked Fushan position before. If it hadn’t been for their help, who knows how many more people would have died on that mountain.

What made him ashamed was that to save just ten of them, they had dispatched nearly a third of an army’s strength...

Truly a group of good people who sacrificed themselves for others!

He was not the only one with such feelings; the vast majority of soldiers present felt the same.

With gratitude and guilt in their hearts, they all perked up again.

As the support arrived, the battle situation suddenly turned around.

Even so, there was no benefit to lingering here. They had collected the necessary samples and had confirmed the local situation through this initial encounter. Now it was time to take the spoils of war and head home.

Twenty minutes were just right; a Tiger Whale Transport Aircraft loomed in the sky, two jets of azure-colored plasma streams piercing the soft soil like lances.

Rolling dust was kicked up, and the tail door thudded heavily to the ground. A soldier wearing an exoskeleton stood at the door, hands gripping a Gatling Gun fixed inside the cabin.

"Retreat!"

The leader of the Enterprise squad shouted in the comm channel, calling his teammates to retreat towards the open door.

Including the tracked vehicle with a remote weapon station welded to its roof, the entire ten-member squad withdrew to the cabin, their faces weary but luckily, no casualties.

Standing by the cabin door, Tang Feng shouted to the allies outside who hadn’t boarded the plane.

"We’re taking off! Get on!"

Unexpectedly, the person laughed in response.

"No need! Have a smooth flight!"

With that, the aircraft’s door slowly closed upwards.

Tang Feng’s eyes widened, watching helplessly as that figure disappeared at the edge of the closing door.

"Wait, why are they retreating!"

Disbelief written on his face, he strode up to the crew, grabbed his shoulders, and shouted, "Our allies haven’t boarded the plane yet—"

"That’s their task!"

The voice that came from behind interrupted him.

The leader of the squad, with his helmet tucked under his arm, stepped beside him, his expression somber as he placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Their task is to test the limits of the ’Tide.’ They’ll fight there until the end, until ’the real enemy’ emerges from there... That’s the Battlefield Research Institute’s hypothesis. Nago has no lair, but there should be a similar incubation organ; they need to study the entire process thoroughly."

Besides, they had been inoculated with biological bodies carrying ’B-type strain plugins.’

However, the effectiveness of that thing still needed further observation.

"... Hold onto your respect for them and continue on. This war isn’t over yet; it’s too early to be upset now."

The leader gave Tang Feng, who was gaping in astonishment, a gentle sigh, patted his shoulder without saying anything, and sat back down in his seat.

Though his voice carried little weight, sometimes he couldn’t help but think that those living in the Ideal City might owe people from the Wasteland quite a bit.

Their ancestors had achieved what could be called a miracle; they were much more noble than those Waste Land Wanderers, but even so, that wasn’t a reason for them to comfortably enjoy everything.

When some people gave their lives for a common calamity, those who survived should carry a responsibility and duty equivalent to "the weight of what was lost," instead of seeing life and wealth as innate privileges.

They could survive because some died for them...

Just like now.

While those boys from the Ideal City felt heavy-hearted, the players left on the Battlefield were becoming more and more spirited.

The mutants’ offensive was becoming fiercer!

Completely different from the hesitancy before!

Perhaps seeing a part of the people retreat, they felt they could do it, confident they could take down those who remained!

Originally, only level 1 danger creatures like Walking Corpses or Corpse Dogs, which were not a big threat, appeared, but soon enough, more monsters of levels 2 to 3 began to emerge.

After all, the crowd were newbies; casualties began to occur.

Watching the increasingly violent "Tide," the Outlaw Maniac’s face twisted into a fierce smile.

Let them come!

It had been a long time since he had last felt such a thrill!

Shaking off the slime and blood from his arm, he loaded his shotgun and let out a final roar.

"Brothers! Show those cowardly schemers who hide behind the scenes! Let them see who the real Tide is!!!"

His call was met with excited howls.

"Aooo Aooo Aooo!"

Watching his highly spirited subordinates, the corners of his mouth slowly curled into a smile.

These rookies...

Couldn’t even chant in unison, so damn embarrassing!

But—

It seemed they were gradually getting the hang of the fun of the Death Legion.

This life was worthwhile!

The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr(e)𝒆novelkiss