Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 393 - 28: Absolute Suppression and the Iron Tyrant

Chapter 393: Chapter 28: Absolute Suppression and the Iron Tyrant

A Parliament soldier rushed onto the turret of a T-90, aimed his 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun at Tang Zheng, and spewed forth a fiery orange tongue.

Countless bullets, like a school of tuna rushing in the ocean, were fired at Tang Zheng, striking against the Iron Hellfire and bursting into brilliant sparks. They cast up a cacophony of metallic clatter painful to the ear.

Unscathed, Tang Zheng, not willing to be a victim, straightened his right arm, aiming back at the tank, from the palm of his hand fired a dazzling white impact beam.

Boom, the struck T-90 was flung aside, ploughing a deep furrow into the snow. Its entire turret was ruined, and through the gaping hole in the armor, the ravaged cockpit interior could be seen.

The screen in front of him displayed the results of radar and infrared scans, everywhere were infrared lights formed by human body heat. Tang Zheng was not quite used to this kind of surveillance, but this did not stop him from attacking. With the impact beam coupled with Gatling, he suppressed the nearby parliament soldiers in a blink of an eye.

A platoon leader initially attempted to organize his subordinates to attack Tang Zheng, but they collapsed in a mere three seconds.

"Can this method of enemy detection be removed? Using only the naked eye and radar would suffice." Various data flashed chaotically on the screen, nearly blinding Tang Zheng.

"Enemy detection mode changed to simple mode!" Upon hearing the command, the Trojan Intelligence residing in the wristwatch immediately executed the order. In the next moment, the screen cleared up considerably. Apart from the necessary data, it was as if Tang Zheng was merely observing the world with his naked eyes.

Tang Zheng focused on a fleeing soldier. Just as the thought of observing him appeared in his mind, a small circle was drawn on the soldier’s body, automatically zooming in and marking out all his belongings and degree of threat on the screen.

"Level E, no danger!" The Trojan Intelligence had completely taken over the operation system of the Hellfire. Its voice was no longer mechanical but sweet like a little girl’s. Very pleasant to the ear.

"Alert, laser-aimed lock-on detected!" Concurrently with the alarm, Tang Zheng saw on the screen a soldier hiding behind a corner, aiming an anti-tank missile at him and pulling the trigger.

The missile zoomed forward, dragging a thick white trail of smoke. Tang Zheng pushed downwards with both hands, his underfoot thrusters immediately ignited, sending him airborne. The missile evidently had tracking capability, it surprisingly turned a corner, catching up with him.

Tang Zheng pointed at it with one hand, releasing an impact beam, causing the missile to detonate prematurely; however, his body lost balance as a result, crashing straight into a wooden building. He fell out from the other side of the wall, plopping into the mud, the elegant power armor got smeared in various stains.

At this moment, Tang Zheng appeared rather distressed, but he was, in fact, enjoying himself quite a bit. He was gradually mastering the way to operate the Iron Hellfire. He no longer wanted to use the shoulder-mounted Gatling, seeing that it would waste ammunition. Moreover, the impact beam from his palm was already sufficient to solve the problem.

Tang Zheng flew in the air, watching the soldiers hurriedly assembled under the yelling of their officers. The energy beam on his chest instantly began to gather energy. Three seconds later, a half-meter diameter beam was fired, plowing through the snow like a sword, everything that crossed its path was incinerated and vaporized by high temperatures.

Over thirty soldiers survived by pure luck, they scurried towards the cedar woods like frightened rats. Tang Zheng, hovering in the air, picked them off using a Thunderstorm rifle.

Ding, a large caliber bullet hit the back of Tang Zheng’s head, sending up a spout of sparks.

"A sniper?" Tang Zheng looked in the direction the bullet came from. It was from a window. Not bothering to scan, he dashed in directly.

Amidst flying wooden splinters, the sniper, holding a green Finnish Star, bolted from the room, leaving only his silhouette behind.

Judging the moment to move, Tang Zheng darted out as well, crushing the wall like a siege hammer. The unfortunate guy screamed in agony, spewing blood and falling onto the snow-covered ground. Not wasting any time, his strong desire to survive had him crawling on all fours, trying to distance himself from this steel-armored killing machine.

Tang Zheng walked over, picked up the TRG-42 sniper rifle and racked the slide. A shell casing popped out. After loading, he aimed at the crawling sniper, but just as he was about to pull the trigger, he discovered his finger couldn’t reach the trigger.

"Helpless!" Tang Zheng chose the impact beam. The sniper was instantly blown apart, his remaining charred limbs giving off black smoke and stinking of burnt flesh.

By now, apart from Tang Zheng, there were no other living creatures on the battlefield. The parliament soldiers lucky enough to survive were fleeing. Of course, that didn’t include the mutant children hidden in the cellars who couldn’t escape.

Two minutes was also up, Tang Zheng hurriedly hid in a room, deactivated Hellfire, waited for five seconds, then put it back on, and then he suffered.

"From now on, for each minute spent in combat using power armor, two points will be deducted." The mechanical voice of the Silver Trojan reminded Tang Zheng, seemingly brimming with schadenfreude. Its logic was exceptionally robust, leaving the survivors no loopholes to exploit.

"Damn!" His strategy of using just the initial two minutes had failed. In order not to waste those two points, Tang Zheng swiftly plunged into the battle, pursuing those broken soldiers.

"Wooden horse, is it going to cost me points if I use it again?" He had to clear up this issue.

"You get two minutes of free usage every hour." Thankfully, the Wooden Horse hadn’t cheated him completely, and it had given Tang Zheng an out.

Even though he could fly, soldiers were fleeing everywhere and he had to search for spoils of war, so his efficiency wasn’t the best. After about fifty seconds, Tang Zheng simply went back to the residential area, removed his armor, and began picking up the spoils of war.

Perhaps because they were professional soldiers, the equipment of these Council Soldiers was somewhat better than that of the patrolmen. Each soldier was equipped with at least three clips, totaling ninety rounds of ammunition. Besides that, Tang Zheng also found two single-person anti-tank weapons whose names he didn’t know, and several sniper rifles, though none were as good as the Finnish Star he currently had on his back.

The fighting lasted nearly ten minutes. The three forces had nearly four hundred men dead between them, with most of them being Mutants. The entire battlefield was littered with spilled blood and gun smoke, along with various scattered weapons. All of these spoils had gone to Tang Zheng, but he was only one person, so picking everything up would take a lot of time.

"Quite a big harvest. These supplies should sell for at least five to six thousand bottle caps, right?" Tang Zheng fantasized a bit. He knew it was wishful thinking. The consumption capability in the Gathering Place wasn’t great. With all those firearms flooding the market, prices were bound to plummet. Plus, all of these weapons bore the Iron Fist logo of the Council. Whether or not the Wasteland folk would dare to buy them was debatable.

"I wiped out two of their squads, they’re bound to cause me trouble!" Tang Zheng was upset that he hadn’t been able to kill every last soldier, but he wasn’t afraid of being recognized while in his Power Armor.

After not hearing anything for a long while, several bold children crawled out of the cellar. Despite their fear at seeing a field full of corpses, they persevered, looking for adults and clearing the battlefield, picking up all the useable weapons and ammo clips.

"Someone’s here." Hearing footsteps around the corner, six seven or eight-year-old children immediately cocked their guns and aimed in that direction. However, after a long time with no response, they hesitated over whether or not to go over and take a look. Just then, a figure tumbled out, pointing a gun at them.

Tang Zheng of course had heard the footsteps, too. After thinking briefly, he knew who was coming. Otherwise, he would have already opened fire and blown their heads off.

"Freeze, drop your guns." Tang Zheng fired half a clip towards their feet, their faces turning white with fear.

Four of the children dropped their rifles. The remaining two - the largest of them - clenched their teeth and were ready to fight.

"Ha, that’s the spirit, now live on." Tang Zheng retreated to the corridor. The kids’ tension dissipated and they collapsed onto the ground.

Tang Zheng wasn’t concerned about those guns. He already had a plan in mind to earn a large number of bottle caps. Moreover, whenever could he have earned enough just from confiscating? He couldn’t just return on his own.

Twenty minutes later, Tang Zheng left the Mutant Tribe with his substantial spoils of war. He didn’t chase after Dantai Zongqi and the others. Instead, he headed towards the direction of the incoming armed forces since most of the escaping soldiers had intuitively chosen to run that way.

"Could there be more reinforcements?" Tang Zheng figured that even the Council wouldn’t let Deer waste so much aviation fuel to fly so far. After all, fuel was pretty precious, so there was probably some kind of vehicle on board.

Tang Zheng was right, six kilometers away from the Mutant Tribe on a highway, a small fleet was parked. The group leader was enjoying coffee in a camper van, waiting to receive the spoils of war. He never expected that what would come back were just over a dozen routed soldiers.

"What? Fully armed Iron Canned Head? Humanoid?" The Group Leader was furious. He slapped the Company Commander, knocking out two of his front teeth, "Don’t spin me tales! If you’re incompetent, then you’re just that! Two whole squads couldn’t take a simple Mutant Tribe? What use are you! To make matters worse, you lost a Deer!"

"It’s true, Group Leader." The Company Commander covered his swollen face, hurriedly explaining, "It’s absolutely Power Armor, I’ve heard the Council folks mention it."

"Impossible! In all of the Russian gathering places, other than us in the Steel Council, who else can have an Iron Tyrant?" The Group Leader’s face contorted, "I don’t even mention the improved second generation, and no one even has the rudimentary first-generation. That’s one of our Council’s highest secrets."

The Group Leader finished, then realized he had slipped up. He directly drew his pistol and shot the dumbfounded Company Commander dead with a bang.

"Could it be that those Freedom guys from Europe have found a way in and bought an Iron Tyrant?" The advisory officer stood off to the side. He didn’t even cast a glance at the body of the Company Commander. The other soldiers also kept silent, shifting their gaze away.

"Whatever the case, let’s get out of here first. If it’s really the Freedom Group, one Deer and four armored vehicles are unlikely to withstand them." The Group Leader was furious, slamming his fist against the camper van, "The next time I go back to headquarters, I’ll request an Iron Tyrant for defense purposes. The Wasteland nowadays is increasingly insecure."

By the time Tang Zheng arrived at the highway riding his Velociraptor, he saw the crisscrossing tracks left behind. (To be continued. If you like this work, please come to qidian.com and vote for recommendation, monthly tickets, your support is my biggest motivation.)