Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 1165 - 44 Manipulating the Licker

Chapter 1165: Chapter 44 Manipulating the Licker

Tang Zheng witnessed the process of Kohler killing a tyrant and was naturally familiar with those distinctive footsteps. Whenever the more than five-ton weight of the Tyrant stomped on the ground, it would produce this sound, echoing in the air, pounding against the eardrum, and exerting a great deal of pressure.

The red-clothed woman had clearly faced off against the Tyrant before and knew of its formidable destructive power. Her expression instantly turned grave as she looked at Tang Zheng, hesitating whether to kill him first to eliminate the threat.

"We now have a common enemy, let’s not fight amongst ourselves!" Since the other party was shouting in Ukrainian, Tang Zheng did not use English, and he had also guessed their identity, they were definitely terrorists belonging to the Eastern European Resistance Armed Forces.

A first-generation Tyrant, upon hearing its kin’s howl, made its way through the dim processing area and appeared before everyone.

"Retreat!" Hearing her native language spoken quite purely, the red-clothed woman gave up on killing Tang Zheng. She spared Susan as well, intending to reposition themselves, but then heard the panicked calls for help from her comrades.

An unlucky man caught the Tyrant’s attention. Gunshots were chaotic, mixed with the loud bangs of the Tyrant brutally pounding on debris.

Tang Zheng had no intention of going head-to-head with the Tyrant. His purpose for coming here was to kill the two group leaders, take their Space Wristwatches, so he continued to rush forward. But just a few steps away, he saw a dozen Lickers spring out from the shadows without warning and sprint at full speed.

These monsters were extremely adept at hiding and stalking. They were on the ceiling, the floor, the equipment—practically instantaneously filling Tang Zheng’s field of vision. With a whoosh, his back was drenched with cold sweat. Without any hesitation, he powered his ankles, changed direction, and bolted to the left. Otherwise, a direct collision with the group of Lickers would certainly end his life.

The Lickers sprinted, their saliva-covered tongues flailing behind them due to inertia, which looked quite disgusting.

Tang Zheng stomped on the ground and lunged forward, rolling on the ground. He was considering how to deal with the Lickers’ assault when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw these monsters rush past him and collide with the Tyrant.

The Tyrant swung its arms violently, its sharp claws piercing straight through a Licker’s chest. Amidst spraying blood, with the closing of its hand, the Licker was pinched into two parts.

The others arrived and leaped onto the Tyrant, tearing and biting ferociously, forcing the massive creature to stagger backward.

"Hmm? Are the Lickers controlled by humans?" Tang Zheng hid himself and watched the bloody battlefield, his eyebrows tightly knit. The red-clothed woman stood atop a device motionless, her eyes wide open in anger, staring straight at the Tyrant, seemingly using psychic power to control the Lickers.

The Tyrant struggled violently, not bothered by the Lickers climbing on its arm. It reached for its forehead, grabbing a Licker that was perched there and pulling it off, then smashed it to the ground. The sound of bones breaking sent chills down the spine.

Tang Zheng ran again toward Kohler’s corpse and used the straight knife to cut open his sleeve, ready to take off the wristwatch; suddenly, he saw it was counting down, with less than one minute left.

"What’s going on?" Tang Zheng sensed something was wrong and didn’t want to touch this time bomb-like device anymore. He tore it off and threw it forcefully towards the Tyrant.

"Hey, have your Lickers grab it and entangle the Tyrant," Tang Zheng shouted, then ran back to where the backpack was, striking Susan hard across the face twice, waking her up.

"Ah!" The first thing Susan saw when she opened her eyes was the Tyrant tearing a Licker apart, holding its head and right leg, spilling viscera all over the ground.

Having no better option, the red-clothed woman went along with Tang Zheng’s suggestion.

"Red-clothed woman, run, that bomb is very powerful," Tang Zheng said. He wanted to learn how she could control the Lickers and seeing she hadn’t killed Susan, she probably wasn’t too bad. As for the bomb’s power, he was bluffing.

"Retreat," the red-clothed woman shouted as she retreated, but stopped about two hundred meters away. She had no choice; there was a range limit to controlling the Lickers. This was already the limit; any further and they would go out of control.

"This place is not safe." Tang Zheng ran towards the red-clothed woman to pull on her armature, considering that if it was a self-destruct wristwatch, based on the group leaders’ mentality of perishing together, its power would definitely be huge.

The red-clothed woman pushed away Tang Zheng’s hand, having no time to be distracted.

Tang Zheng looked at her and was startled. Her beautiful face was distorted, sweat constantly oozed from her skin, and her eyes were bloodshot and full of blood strands.

The other two men ran over. Seeing the red-clothed woman’s current state, they felt pained and deeply resented their own impotence.

"You guys go first, I’ll hold it back," the red-clothed woman said, panting heavily. Even with a dozen or so Lickers against the Tyrant, there was no chance of winning.

"There’s no time left, it’s going to blow, this place will be leveled," Tang Zheng counted down the time, unwilling to gamble his life with these people. Bending down, he grabbed the waist of the red-clothed woman, hoisted her onto his shoulders, and dashed towards the nearby passage.

The two men were shocked by Tang Zheng’s actions, ready to shoot him dead, but the Tyrant’s roars and Tang Zheng’s threats made them calm down again. People always cared greatly about their own lives.

Most of the Lickers lost control, abandoning the Tyrant and pursued human prey by instinct. However, there was no time left—the mini nuclear bomb exploded.

"What excuse would I have found if it hadn’t exploded?" Tang Zheng didn’t need to worry anymore. The group hadn’t even made it to the corridor when a blinding light from the explosion illuminated the processing area in white.

Tang Zheng reacted incredibly fast, his legs powering him off the ground as he darted for the corridor. The next instant, a blast wave and flames followed by a thunderous explosion engulfed the entire processing area.

Bang, five people were blown tumbling by the blast wave that surged in. An unfortunate man didn’t manage to adopt a defensive posture in time and crashed headfirst into the wall, blood smeared all over his face, his neck broken.

Tang Zheng’s back slammed against the wall, his backpack cushioning him somewhat, nearly breaking his waist. Before his body even fell, the red-clothed woman crashed into him from the front, her head hitting below his nose bridge, and blood instantly flowed out, staining her hair red.

Caught in the aftereffects of the shockwave, Tang Zheng felt dizzy and disoriented, with a chaotic mess inside his head. He told himself to be on the alert, but his limbs disobeyed, rendering him unable to stand, and with his hearing temporarily impaired, all he could hear was a persistent ringing in his ears.

Susan fared even worse, fainting on the spot, while another man, who had entered the corridor a step too late, collapsed as well due to the burns on his back.

It took Tang Zheng a full five minutes crawling on the ground before he regained some strength, struggling to sit up as if he had just taken a round through a juicer, every nerve crying out in agony.

Luckily, the explosion had leveled the processing area, killing all the zombies. Otherwise, these four would have had no chance of survival.

"That’s harsh." Tang Zheng glanced at what remained of Kohler, a hint of disdain curling at the corner of his mouth.

Most group leaders wouldn’t resort to detonating their wristwatches even in the face of death, since there was a good chance their teammates could recover the wristwatches. An explosion would destroy all equipment, and the range of the blast could inadvertently harm their own people.

Any group leader that entered Hero Mode was full of confidence, believing they could capture any equipment; even if it was lost temporarily, it could be retrieved. Blowing it up would be the most wasteful.

Kohler, afflicted with severe autism and paranoid delusions, didn’t trust anyone and always acted alone. That’s why he was so extreme; the moment his heart stopped, the mini self-destruction nuclear bomb connected to his wristwatch would activate, exploding in one minute.

Kohler, even in death, sought to drag his enemy down to hell with him. He knew the enemy would definitely recover his wristwatch, and there was a high probability that the survivors would also head over to check what had dropped, hence he left a one-minute window.

Tang Zheng felt stiffness near his mouth and wiped it, finding it was dried blood. The red-clothed woman still hadn’t woken up. He initially wanted to tie her up and interrogate her for information, but upon considering that this woman could control Lickers, restraining her might not help and could even leave a bad impression, so he gave up the idea.

He did a quick check of his body. Most of the injuries were burns and bruises from the collision. Taking out the first aid kit and treating himself hastily, Tang Zheng drank a couple of sips of water before turning to the red-clothed woman, unzipping the zipper on her clothes.

The unconscious woman still had a look of exhaustion on her face, but it did not detract from her beauty, especially her ample chest which, freed from the restraint of the zipper, bounced out, jiggling.

"Are you an exhibitionist?" Tang Zheng muttered to himself as he realized the woman wasn’t wearing underwear; the two bright red cherries clearly in sight.

He helped her sit up, applying anti-inflammatory ointment to the more severe wounds and placing bandages before helping her dress properly.

"I’m just trying to administer some minor favors, to create a good impression. Hope I’m not overdoing it," Tang Zheng murmured as he gathered his belongings and went to inspect the battlefield.

The door to the corridor was twisted. Inside the processing area, it had turned into a big pit, the large equipment partially melted by the high temperature and displaced by the shock wave. The processing tank had vanished, and the corrosive chemical potions had evaporated or decomposed—otherwise, just the formation of toxic gas could be lethal.

Mini nuclear bombs are designed for their destructive power, not leaving residual radiation after explosion. Perhaps Trojan did not want to cause significant and ongoing damage to the gaming world’s environment. Tang Zheng suspected this might be the real world, just situated in another dimensional space.

"Hmm, if that’s the case, could our original world become a gaming scenario for survivors to enter and fight in?" Tang Zheng was startled by this sudden thought that intruded into his mind and decided to go back and ask Trojan.

The processing area was destroyed, so Tang Zheng saw the dazzling Golden Seed, and running over joyfully, he picked it up.

"Unable to use Seed Abilities, what a pity." Feeling the warmth emanating from the Seed, Tang Zheng pocketed it.

Suddenly, gunshots sounded from behind. Tang Zheng stopped, knowing someone had woken up.

"Who the hell are you?" Yuliya, struggling with the dizziness in her head, pointed the gun at Tang Zheng’s back and asked, "And that German you killed—who was he? Why did he have such a powerful bomb?"

The red-clothed woman Yuliya refused to believe a civilian could get their hands on such weapons. Besides, Tang Zheng seemed even stronger than the most elite soldiers.

"My father used to be a mercenary, and I picked up a few things from him. As for my identity, I’m just a civilian caught up in this," Tang Zheng spoke in Ukrainian, trying to forge a connection between them, "I’ve been to Ukraine; it’s a beautiful country."

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PS: You guys are awesome, catching typos in the second update. I’ll deliver it in twenty minutes! (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to come to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote and offer your monthly ticket. Your support is my greatest motivation.)