Vol 14 Chapter 23-2

Zheng fell into a silence. He didn’t simulate anyone this time and instead looked at Xuan. The situation required him to conserve as much energy as possible for the upcoming fight which prevented him from using the simulation at will. Furthermore, Xuan was right next to him. He had to make use of this free labor.

Xuan said directly. “The conjecture is established. The opposing team is a powerful one that keeps newbies as captives. I will update my previous conjecture. God determines difficulty based on the strongest individual and the whole team’s strength. Though this situation is not so good for us. Strong individuals are not what we wish to encounter.”

Kampa asked. “Why? They shouldn’t be stronger than Zheng even if their individuals are strong. If Zheng attacks our team, we can kill him with coordination unless he uses Destruction right at the beginning.”

Xuan nodded. “Correct. That may be the expectation that a coordinated team with a variety of skills can kill strong individuals. I also know of ways to do it but we can’t right now. We are on the disadvantaged side. This is the Arachnid’s planet. We can get ambushed and surrounded by large swarms of bugs any moment while they are in their home field. You have seen movies of one special agent killing a squad of regular soldiers in the forest. Fighting in an environment chosen by the strong individual is an absolute disadvantage!”

Zheng paused for a moment. “What do you suggest we do next? Do we just wait here and wait for their attack?”

𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Xuan adjusted his glasses. “As for this question, I am pondering how many strong individuals they have. One person who’s the psyche force user, sniper, and fighter? Someone like this may exist but the probability of him being in team South America is extremely slim. We would have been attacked back in Klendathu if this was true. There were way more bugs in Klendathu than Planet P. If they have two people, this fight will be much easier. But I have to let you know that keep your hopes down. Aside from you, everyone here, including me, has a 50% chance of dying.”

Another silence from Zheng. After quite a while, he nodded at the group. “I won’t be naive and say I will definitely protect everyone. However, I will give my best. Let’s hope everyone can survive, can fight alongside me until we die.”

“Okay.” Xuan interrupted him. He turned to Lan and Snow then asked. “The situation is dire. I ask and you answer. The first question, you can’t scan anything around can we assume that they have masked us. Their psyche force capacity and abilities surpass yours. Is there a possibility that we are in the center of the location they masked so we can’t scan beyond this area?”

The two girls looked at each other and nodded. Lan said. “It is possible to do what you said, but we don’t feel any traces of being masked in this area. So I don’t know if this is the case. We simply don’t know either.”

Xuan snapped his fingers. “Good. Let’s treat it as a new psyche force ability. This is completely possible. Now, the only thing we have to discuss is can their psyche force user break into our masked area and know what we are saying? I will just assume they can hear us. Lan, all communication at this point will be through Soul Link.”

Lan and snow nodded. Xuan’s voice then appeared in their minds. “Our current situation is we can only scan the open area around us. We have no ability to see the distribution of bugs beyond and therefore the probability of finding the brain bug is almost nonexistent. There are seemingly two ways we can take right now but only one is actually viable. However, this way is also extremely dangerous.”

Zheng brought out a pack of cigarette from his pocket. “What way? Just say it. I have already said I will accept any danger when I decided to fight team South America. You don’t have to hold back.”

Xuan nodded. “It’s both simple and difficult. Normal people will not split up at this situation because the strong individual can defeat the groups one by one. However, running around in the underground together like this isn’t much better off than splitting up. We have to face the almost endless supply of bugs coming at times we can’t predict and the possible snipes and ambushes from team South America. The only thing staying together will accomplish is dragging it through the twelve hours. This does not fit our original goal. Why didn’t we just stay in the fortress for that time instead?”

“The second way is to split up in two. One small group of elites and one larger. I suggest Zheng and Zero for the first group. So you have a close combat fighter and a ranged. Your mission is to capture at least one strong individual from the other team then interrogate them on team South America’s situation. The best outcome is capturing their psyche force user and remove the masking. That will allow you to find us and the rest of team South America. Don’t worry. With teams like this, capturing one strong individual will break apart their team. This kind of teams are both strong and fragile.”

“The larger group’s goal is to shift their focus to Zheng and Zero. Give them a chance to encounter team South America. The reasoning is simple. They don’t know our arrangements. We are not teams that keep newbies as slaves so they will assume our individual strengths are on similar levels, but they will neglect self-created abilities. Our goal is to make them believe they can take on the smaller group with ease. The second goal is to lure the brain bug out.”

Zheng was curious and asked. “I can understand the first one but what do you mean by the second goal? Lure the brain bug? Can you do it with just more people?”

Xuan shook his head. “The brain bug is a big bonus mission but more importantly, we are currently in the middle of the bug swarms. There will be more and more bugs surrounding us as time goes by. If we get ambushed by team South America at that point, our defeat will be definite. That’s why our mission is to lure the brain bug out and kill it. I think anyone who watched the movie can understand the brain bug eats human brains. Once we get surrounded by a large amount of bugs and let it feel we are not a threat anymore, there’s over a 70% chance of it appearing. This is why I said Zheng is the only one not in any significant danger while the rest of us have a chance of dying. Once we decide on this plan, everyone must be prepared to die. We might die while fighting the bugs. We might die if the brain bug doesn’t come out. And if it does come out, we might die to it eating our brains.”

Zheng smoked quietly. He looked over each member, from Lan to Gando to Snow. He looked over everyone deeply several times then threw away the cigarette. “That’s it then. This may be our last good bye but I am really happy we once fought together, comrades. Do your best to live on. Believe in me. Believe that I will definitely come back to save everyone!”

No one said anything in reply, aside from the bear robot’s ‘Fumoffu’. They all looked back at Zheng quietly. There was a sense of trust coming through their eyes.

On the other end of the tunnel, the Caucasian with the silver bow said slightly confused. “They stayed there for several minutes then started moving again. But it’s strange. They split up in two groups. The larger group continue on the tunnel. The other group only has two people. They are searching for the way up. Roste, what should we do? Which group are we going for?”

Roste took a puff of cigar then laughed. “Naive. The larger group is probably continuing to search for us or the brain bug. The smaller group is heading back to call for backups since they belong to the federation’s infantry unit. Whatever, let’s go kill those two first. We can kill the larger group one by one later. Haha.”