Chapter 592.1: Well Go Down Together!

Chapter 592.1: We'll Go Down Together!

The gate of Hope Town.

The merchant caravan attendants who were loading and unloading goods looked around nervously at the thin mist that had suddenly appeared. A flicker of panic filled their minds.

Both the guards at the gate and the mercenaries standing by the trucks tightened their rifles and kept watch in all directions, especially toward the small copse of trees to the north.

The townspeople exchanged glances and whispered to one another in astonishment.

“Did fog roll in?”

“How can it appear in the afternoon?”

“And that color...”

“That color doesn’t look like ordinary fog. Could it be some kind of gas...”

“Could it be those Mutant Humans?”

That conjecture was not without reason, after all, the Mutant Humans had come by a few days ago and had been forced away by the New Alliance.

Their expressions gradually shifted to fear and many returned home. Those who could put on gas masks did so, while those who couldn’t quickly used damp towels to cover their mouths and noses.

A green-skinned half-breed stood in a corner of the street, his lowered hood shadowing his furrowed brow, his right hand pressed against his chest.

Half of his blood was that of a Mutant Human. At that moment, that portion of him was restless and agitated...

At the entrance to the town’s office.

Ma Hechang stared blankly at the changes in the sky and around him, a trace of alarm marking his anxious face as he muttered under his breath, “What on earth is going on?”

Wei Ming stood beside him without saying a word.

The usually affable middle-aged pastor looked like a different man. He was expressionless as he stared at the sky.

He seemed to have anticipated what was happening and showed no surprise whatsoever.

Ma Hechang gulped as he looked at the other man. Suddenly the person at his side felt unfamiliar, and an uneasy chill rose in his chest.

His lips trembled as he tentatively spoke. “... Old Wei?”

The pastor withdrew his gaze from the sky and, as if speaking to himself, uttered a single sentence.

“It’s the chosen Apostle.”

Ma Hechang blinked in confusion, his face growing even more panicked as he blurted a nervous question. “What did the chosen Apostle say?”

The priest spoke slowly.

“He didn’t say anything.”

“He was just angry.”

Ma Hechang’s breath stalled. “Angry...?”

He could not recall doing anything to offend the chosen Apostle.

No, if he had to point to one thing, there was one incident. They had been on good terms with the New Alliance recently and had let some of their soldiers stay a night in town.

He had heard of the grudge between the New Alliance and the Torch Church. If that was the source of the rage, the chosen Apostle indeed had reason to be angry.

But that had been a special situation. Those green-skinned brutes had marched to their gates. Had the New Alliance not aided them, they might have been boiled alive.

Were they supposed to surrender without resistance?

And why? The Torch Church had promised to bring them peace and prosperity! They had believed the missionaries’ words and chosen to convert, yet the green-skinned beasts still appeared before them.

Who had betrayed whom?

“The betrayal of the non-believers brought down divine punishment. A green plague will shroud the land. Soon, everyone will witness that boiling wrath...” Wei Ming intoned in a low, obscure voice. He looked at the bewildered, terrified Mayor Ma and continued in an ominous tone. “Send some people to Pinecone Ranch to take a look.”

“That will be a traitor’s fate.”

...

At Pinecone Ranch, caught in the center of the mist.

Because most players had spread out to defend around the settlement, the survivors who had gathered around had in turn concentrated the remaining players at the manor’s gate, leaving the modest building looking somewhat deserted. Only the entrance to the underground lab on the north side was being heavily guarded.

The instant a boot pressed onto the floor, the empty corridor pulsed with concentric translucent ripples, tracing out the outline of a streamlined exoskeleton.

Black goggles hid that person’s eyes. He moved like a machine executing orders, said nothing unnecessary, and briskly raised the barrel of his rifle.

The moment that barrel met Yinyin’s sight, she felt a flush of hot blood surge to her head. Her brain blanked as if it had shut down.

Time seemed to crystallize into frost, each second stretched into infinity.

There was no time to think.

Instinctively she clutched Yang Xiaoyang to her chest, spun around, and used her back as a shield.

A sharp pain ripped through her back and out beneath her ribs. Throwing her body forward, she nearly collapsed.

At the same time she heard the short crack of a gunshot.

Bang!

When she lowered her head she saw her pretty clothes dyed red with blood, and Yang Xiaoyang’s eyes wide with terror.

In a haze she heard a heart-wrenching scream, “No!”

Xiaoyang...

She tried to speak, but only blood came out.

The man seemed about to fire again, but for some reason mechanically lowered his rifle and drew a dagger stained with blood as he approached her.

Yinyin’s instinct told her that the man’s target was not her.

Right, come to think of it... Throughout the manor, it seemed only Yang Xiaoyang had not been affected by Na Fruit.

She began to understand the implications. If Na Fruit was truly important to the Torch Church, they would not want the New Alliance to develop an antidote. Targeting Yang Xiaoyang made perfect sense.

And, in truth, what had happened last night had come about because of Na Fruit...

Such a simple causality had been there all along, yet she had not noticed it, she had even blamed those people for her father’s death, wishing they had never come.

The seeds of cause and effect had been planted long ago. Whether those people had come or not, the outcome would have been the same.

Her father had easily believed those people and entrusted everything to them. That was the reason behind his death.

She had done the same, still trusting in the chosen one until the end. Now, he was coming to kill her best friend.

In the end, she was the sheep in the pen...

“Run...” The hot liquid streaked down her cheek. Whether blood or tears of regret, she did not know. With her remaining strength, she whispered the word into her friend’s ear.

Her consciousness wavered and could no longer hold on. Her body collapsed forward into the boundless abyss.

To her disappointment, the usually docile Yang Xiaoyang did not obey and flee. Instead, the child continued a meaningless task, using cloth to bandage the wound that would not stop bleeding.

A human-shaped shadow fell over the two of them. Looking down at the shoes so close at hand, Yang Xiaoyang’s neck stiffened as her trembling hands withdrew and the child knelt, facing him. “Please... don’t hurt Yinyin. Save her, please. I, I can die in her place...” the child begged.

The man did not speak.

He was an Executioner from the Judgment Panel, codename ‘Mountain Falcon’.Unlike those Executioners who took on defensive tasks part-time, he was less like a unit and more like a lone killer tasked with special operations.

There was supposed to be only one person to be killed for the mission, the antibody carrier who had survived Frequency Band 03.

If the Archbishop had not said that the little girl named Yinyin had the Sanctuary implanted in her brain and ordered him to spare her life, he would have sent both of them away with a burst of gunfire.

Why did the Archbishop do that?

There were surely many Sanctuaries in the settlement, what made this one special?

He did not understand and he also had no intention to ponder over it.

As the Torch Church’s blade, he only needed to follow his instructions and eliminate heretics that might obstruct the grand plan.

One or two lives were trivial in the face of civilization.

Seeing the hand reach for his head and the knife so close, Yang Xiaoyang’s shoulders shivered uncontrollably. She shut her eyes against the anticipated pain.

But the expected agony never came. A roar cut through the corridor with a whistling sound of air.

Mountain Falcon was startled. He tightened his grip and swung a fist backward, colliding with the shadow that flew at him.

The force was beyond his expectation. It knocked his footing off and sent him staggering, taking two steps back before he could stop.

When he saw the face clearly, he froze for half a second.

He recognized that man.

He clearly remembered cutting the fellow’s throat with a dagger, together with another person in an exoskeleton.

Yet for some reason the man who should have been dead was now alive, the wound at his neck had vanished and in its place was a crimson, centipede-shaped scar.

That centipede scar did not look like something that belonged to him. It was like a large dressing stuck to his neck, with flesh under it twitching and fresh blood seeping through.

The man held a short knife in his right hand and blocked the dagger aimed at him, a feral grin on his face. He spat blood onto Mountain Falcon’s helmet.

“Damn! Lucky I installed a symbiote...” he muttered.

Back in Dawn City, Kidney Warrior and Peepo had both customized their exoskeletons. Dog Good Names had thought he shouldn’t be like those two idiots and mount a useless hunk of metal, yet to wear nothing felt lacking.

So on impulse he copied Mosquito and got himself a symbiote.

They said it could immunize against one lethal injury and accelerate HP recovery in battle, the only cost being experience decay.

Good thing he had it, otherwise the knife aimed at his neck earlier might have finished him off.

Mountain Falcon ignored his curses and coldly glared at the man swearing before him, then suddenly kicked at his chest to create distance and draw his gun.

Dog Good Names grunted as the kick struck his chest, feeling as if a train had hit the exoskeleton plating and all the air in his lungs had been squeezed out.

But he did not allow the killer to succeed. Locking the lower limb joints of his Light Cavalry exoskeleton, he withstood the kick, then drove off with his legs and leapt up, grabbing the attacker’s thigh in an attempt to topple him.