Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 326 - 245: Plan B

Chapter 326: Chapter 245: Plan B

The prison guards and prisoners were still receiving Resurrection Coins, showing no signs of diminishing, even though they were still unable to effectively counter the Hive drones in the short term. However, the Ghost Squad sensed the intentions of the opposing side.

They were the away team on the Prison Planet, and the quantity of ammunition they carried wouldn’t support unrestrained expenditure. Despite there being only 141 life signs in D47 block, they had used nearly ten times that amount in ammunition in almost an hour, and the number showed no signs of decreasing.

The Specters didn’t know how many Resurrection Coins the prisoners had left, but they no longer had time to continue depleting their resources in this location.

Prison Governor Norton had his head blown off on a livestream to the entire Universe, and the broadcast had been cut for almost two hours. They knew the flagship of Universe Company must already be on its way to the Prison Planet; if they didn’t leave the planet before the fleet arrived, their mission would likely end in disaster.

"Is it the Judge?"

The captain of the Ghost Squad frowned.

It was a clear intelligence error; the strategic intelligence center had never mentioned that the prison guards and prisoners could resurrect indefinitely. Eisenberg-Adler was supposed to have dealt with the Judge, to provide cover for their mission.

"It must be someone else, that Blue Star person named Duan Mingyuan."

Duan Mingyuan was a person of interest for the strategic intelligence center. Their advice was to avoid direct confrontation with this Blue Star person and to lead him elsewhere during their operation.

Duan Mingyuan was a doctor who had resolved many interstellar medical mysteries during the Sixteen Star Summit. Medical associations from various planets were all on the lookout for information on Duan Mingyuan, hoping to recruit him into their ranks. There were also unconfirmed reports suggesting that this "doctor" could even resurrect the dead.

This was not good news.

Under no circumstances did the intelligence department want them to engage in a direct conflict with this Blue Star person.

The Chamber of Commerce still couldn’t comprehend the full story behind the Laurel crash and the loss of the "Key of Dominance," as there were many aspects of the case that defied conventional reasoning.

The crash site of the Laurel had moved beyond the Star Zone of Mechanical Star, which meant that after the "Key of Dominance" had been lost, Morgan VII’s butler had sufficient time to explain to the strategic intelligence center of the Chamber of Commerce what exactly had happened with the Laurel, yet they never once attempted to contact the center.

Though the Chamber of Commerce used the media to pin the Laurel crash on the Blue Star People, the on-site investigation made it look more like an accidental collision.

Some eyewitness testimonies even claimed to have seen Leviathan around the time of the Laurel crash.

It seemed to indirectly prove that the Laurel was simply crushed into fragments by the coincidentally passing Leviathan: a pure traffic accident.

The captain didn’t like these unknowns.

Unknowns meant variability; every variable could lead to unexpected developments on the battlefield, even causing casualties.

"Proceed to the block where Dr. Eisenberg is located according to the original plan,"

After much deliberation, the captain issued new orders.

"But the threat on the perimeter hasn’t been cleared yet..."

A team member voiced their concern.

Dr. Eisenberg’s block was situated in the deepest part of D47, where a secret door lay hidden in the basement of an abandoned building. Through the secret door, they could reach the lab where the Doctor was.

The problem was with evacuation.

If they didn’t actively attack from the perimeter, those prison guards and prisoners would block their exit route, and once they emerged from the lab, they would have to face an attack on both fronts.

The team member said, "I think we should split our forces in two, use the Hive drones for perimeter harassment while another team takes a shortcut to the lab."

Less personnel meant less chance of being detected.

Now, the attention of everyone in D47 was focused on the Hive drones, and their swarm could sustain a head-on assault for another half hour.

The rescue team had half an hour.

All of this was thanks to Dr. Eisenberg, who had hacked into the Judge’s system, causing the entire prison’s surveillance system to collapse, forcing the guards to pick up communicators and shotguns, returning to a primitive form of combat.

"Conserve ammunition,"

the captain overruled the team member’s suggestion.

Half an hour later, the stock of drones would be exhausted, but after leaving the D47 sector, they would still face many contingencies; Hive drones were an important tactical weapon for distracting the enemy’s attention.

If it was just about drawing attention, she had other ways to conserve valuable strategic resources.

"Team B, head to the laboratory immediately; everyone else stay put and provide me with battlefield information,"

"Roger that."

...

After a tough and extraordinary battle with the Hive drones, the guards and inmates of the D47 sector finally saw the first light of victory.

The swarms of drones, like locusts, had finally retreated, and they cheered ecstatically, raising their arms high.

The whole city’s surface was nearly stained red, most of them achieving a battle record of 0/124, even the old six who liked to hide in the dark had died eighty or ninety times.

This was a victory won at the cost of human lives.

And there was no need for mourning or lamenting, for their Resurrection Coins were abundant.

Although they did not know where these Resurrection Coins came from, it did not prevent them from forming a defense line of tens of thousands with 141 people.

Our numbers are endless; not even the most advanced killing machines can break through this human wall.

Norton and Owl, standing by Mingyuan’s side, had become numb; they felt they were increasingly unable to comprehend the doctors of the new era.

This doctor had kept his promise.

Their numbers were endless, but from another perspective, Mingyuan had resurrected thousands within the hour.

He even seemed relaxed, sitting in the temporarily restored surveillance center overlooking the battlefield, with half a roast chicken emitting a tempting fragrance on his plate, as if the scenes on the surveillance screen were just a war-themed movie for him.

In fact, the hardest part of the battle was restoring the paralyzed monitoring room; for the first half hour, Mingyuan was still studying the circuit analysis diagram with a grave look.

Yes, this Blue Star person had become the universe’s top engineer in half an hour.

Despite some of his comments making Norton and Owl doubt that he hadn’t understood the knowledge points in books, Mingyuan had still restored the paralyzed surveillance center through some unknown method.

And Norton and Owl even got half a roast chicken each.

"This is because they are incapable of mounting a direct and effective attack on Life Energy,"

Mingyuan explained to the two the secret behind the inmates’ and guards’ resurrections.

The Hive drones were indeed a terrifying group of killing machines, but he seemed to have found a common flaw in technological weapons—they are dedicated to destroying the human body, almost incapable of dealing effectively with Life Energy.

He suggested to his enemies, "Perhaps the Ghost Squad would need some different types of talent to increase the squad’s striking range."