owlsbooks Chapter 73 Borderlands, 2nd playthrough
Chapter 73 Borderlands, 2nd playthrough
The darkness faded, but the intense burning sensation still caused Qi Te to let out a painful groan.
"Huff~ Huff~"
Qi Te gasped for breath, like a dying fish, and it took him a good half minute to finally calm down.
As visibility returned, a dense rainforest came into view.
The tall, sturdy forest was filled with tangled vines, and even the shrubs were more than two people tall, lush and green, not at all like winter.
The temperature of -20 degrees Celsius was indeed much higher than the -30 degrees Celsius outside.
My brain seemed to have stopped working; after a brief period of blankness, a flood of memories rushed in.
As the beast horde attacked, team members died one by one. There was Xu Su, the fearless and incomparable captain who led the charge; Yue Wanwan, who healed G4 through the car window; Uncle D3, who shielded himself from the attack of the Vulture with his body; and...
"Jiang Luo!"
He was just one step away, a tiny bit short, from picking up the girl.
But judging from the results, even if they had successfully boarded the plane, it would have been of no use.
That golden salamander, which is over 20 meters long, can not only fly, but also spews out extremely high-temperature flames with a very long range.
When Jinlong flew to the top of the mountain, two helicopters had already taken off, but unfortunately, they still couldn't escape the disaster.
The Blue Shield team and the collection team, totaling 40 people, all perished.
An incredibly brutal total wipeout!
Qi Te frowned, took out his phone and glanced at the time: 15:48.
In the previous backtracking attempts, we haven't yet found a pattern in the starting time, but we can confirm that they all occurred before the event.
The second and third timelines were both pushed back from the initial timeline. In the subway incident, the timeline was pushed back by 5 minutes. In the brain cell invasion incident, it was pushed back by 10 minutes.
After determining the time anchor point, Qi Te was about to discard the collection equipment, hoping that traveling light would increase speed. But a scene on the rock wall suddenly appeared before his eyes.
Without hesitation, Qi Te carried the collection box containing poison arrow toads in one hand and dialed Jiang Luo's number with the other.
Whether it was due to the dense trees in the rainforest or the influence of the magnetic field, the signal was extremely poor and I couldn't make any calls.
It wasn't until we broke out of the rainforest that we finally got through.
"Danger! Quickly..."
Before Qi Te could finish speaking, he heard a emotionless female voice coming from the receiver.
"Hello, who is this?"
Qi Te immediately realized it must be the girl with the mechanical arm, and hurriedly said, "Something's happened at the border! A large number of anomalous creatures have awakened! Wherever you are now, evacuate immediately!"
"Was that a call from the council?"
A very young male voice came through the receiver; his pronunciation was somewhat unclear, suggesting he wasn't from Long County.
"Okay, I'll pass it on..."
Before AA could finish speaking, Chite interrupted, "It's too late! Run! Otherwise, everyone will die!"
"Understood."
After hanging up the phone, the three "genius reserves" in the Tree of Life territory looked at each other in bewilderment.
A faint light flashed in AA's pupil, and the detection results were quickly obtained after connecting to the monitoring satellite.
"No unusual phenomena were found in the border area where we are currently located."
Out of a soldier's natural instinct for vigilance against danger, Yuan Sheng immediately said, "Since she is a friend of the director, she must have extraordinary abilities. For safety's sake, I suggest we heed her warning."
Hu Zizai nodded in agreement, while Kyogoku Hiko shrugged nonchalantly: "But, wouldn't it be inappropriate to bother the director at this time?"
Everyone looked at the blue-haired girl sitting cross-legged under the thick tree trunk, her eyes closed as if she had entered a meditative state, and they were caught in a dilemma.
....................
At Outpost No. 3, Xu Su, who had just received a notification from the central control center, was gathering his team members to prepare for receiving new supplies delivered by transport drones.
Qi Te sprinted to Xu Su, panting heavily, and said anxiously, "Retreat! Retreat quickly!"
Xu Su frowned slightly: "What happened?"
Having experienced the events of the Old City Sequence 0 creature and the spore explosion at Outpost 2, Xu Su had an excellent impression of the college student.
Young yet composed, calm, focused, and sharp-minded, coupled with the extraordinary insight brought by his sensory abilities, he surpasses many of the professional field team members of Blue Shield.
"I just discovered in the rainforest that many unusual creatures that should have been in a deep dormant state have awakened."
Of course, Zite couldn't tell the truth directly. Even if he did, the other party would most likely not believe him and would only think that he had been poisoned in the rainforest and was hallucinating.
"My visual perception is infallible. Captain Xu, if we don't retreat now, something terrible will happen!"
For some reason, Xu Su also felt a strange sense of crisis.
However, as the captain, any decision he makes will affect the safety of everyone on the team, so it is impossible for him to make a judgment based on only one side of the story.
"D3, you take two people and go into the rainforest..."
"It's too late!"
Qi Te quickly interrupted, "Trust me, Captain Xu, if you don't want your team members to sacrifice themselves needlessly, then evacuate immediately."
Xu Su's face was tense. According to company regulations, he could not make such a hasty decision, but his intuition made him feel a strange sense of trust in the young man in front of him.
After a three-second pause, the experienced captain finally made his choice.
"All personnel assemble! Evacuate the base!"
The students, who had just rested for a short while, were all somewhat dazed.
Hearing the commotion, Liu Baichuan quickly walked out of the cave, about to ask what had happened and why they had to change locations again. Qi Te didn't give him a chance, explaining rapidly as he pushed Lao Liu into the main vehicle.
"Qite, you..."
Old Liu hesitated, but Qi Te didn't pay attention. He turned his head towards the direction where Ji Chenyu and the others were, and while jogging, he dialed Jiang Luo's number again.
When the call connected, it was still that robotic arm girl's voice, devoid of any emotion.
"I've sent you the coordinates. Don't run in this direction, understand?"
"I'm sorry, sir, satellite surveillance has not detected anything unusual."
Qi Te's breath hitched, then his face turned cold as he said, "Your orders were to protect Jiang Luo, right? If you don't want her to die, run now, immediately!"
Qi Te wasn't a military enthusiast, but he knew to some extent that the Federation had combat robots. Judging from the speed at which she was thrown and the shockwave from her final self-destruction, it wasn't hard to tell that she wasn't an ordinary human.
Or rather, not a real human being.
In the first playthrough, the other party fearlessly faced the enormous creature to protect the blue-haired girl, which is enough to prove that she valued the latter's life very much.
As expected, Zite made the right bet.
After the footsteps faded, a gentle female voice finally came through the receiver.
"AA, what happened?"
"Your phone call"
"It's you! How could you..."
"No time to explain," Qi Te said in a low voice. "Beast horde, dragon salamanders, return to the city immediately. Avoid the coordinates I sent you, contact reinforcements, understand?"
"receive"
Send me your coordinates.
Soon, my phone vibrated.
"Roger that, retreat immediately!"
"And what about you?" The girl's voice was clearly anxious.
"I'll run too. If I see a pickup truck with the Blue Shield logo on the way, call me."
Qi Te hung up the phone and rushed to the pickup truck where Ji Chenyu and the others were.
"Tezi, Uncle D told me you discovered a large number of unusual creatures awakening in the rainforest?"
"Yes, there's no time to explain, get in the car quickly."
Qi Te grabbed Yue Wanwan's arm: "Senior, get off the bus and come with me, quick."
Yue Wanwan's cheeks flushed red, and she instinctively followed Qi Te and jogged towards the main control car.
"Captain Xu, Senior Wanwan is a healing-type ability user. Keep her by your side to ensure her safety; she can provide you with timely treatment."
Healing-type ability users are not too rare; one member of this field team possesses this ability.
Xu Su was about to refuse when Qi Te shook his head and said, "Senior Sister's level is quite high. As long as she lives, the Captain will definitely not die!"
"Also, my visual perception range is extremely wide, so please trust my judgment. Retreat to the north, avoiding the mountain range where Whisper Valley is located."
On the first playthrough, on the way to Whisper Valley, Chit lay on the roof of the vehicle the whole time. The relatively high vantage point allowed him to observe that when the beast tide attacked, the number of beasts north of Outpost No. 3 was the smallest.
This is undoubtedly a breakthrough.
The moment the entire group assembled and began their retreat, Xu Su ordered the AI-powered surveillance system of the Blue Shield satellite to search an area within a hundred-kilometer radius. The result was that no images of a large number of abnormally awakened creatures were found.
Considering that satellites can only monitor the visible area, and hibernating creatures usually hide deep in the jungle or in burrows and caves, it is normal that they cannot be found.
The problem is that Outpost No. 3 is about ten kilometers away from Whistle Valley.
So, this kid actually broke through to C-level?!
Those with sensory abilities are not necessarily unsuitable for real combat. On the contrary, with professional training, mastery of combat skills and firearms, and combined with their superior sensory abilities, they can definitely become formidable fighters.
For example, 90% of the champions in federal shooting competitions are visual perception ability users.
Of course, the prerequisite is that the level must be high enough.
Visual perception ability users below level C have an observation range of no more than ten kilometers in open areas.
Xu Su looked at Qi Te with surprise and asked directly, "Level B?"
Qi Te had never tested his own ability level, not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't dare to.
Under Captain Xu's probing gaze, Qi Te, feeling somewhat guilty, quickly turned his face away and ran towards the pickup truck behind him.
He wanted to bite the bullet and nod in agreement, but he really had no experience when it came to bragging.
Xu Su watched the boy's retreating figure, secretly surprised. Not a B-level, could it be an A-level?!