Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 927 - 66: Burning Life

Chapter 927: Chapter 66: Burning Life

Life energy continued to deplete, and Tang Zheng could no longer stand steady. He suddenly knelt to the ground, coughing up blood, staining the ground red. His serious injury was in full view of the newbies, striking them to the heart.

"Tang Zheng, don’t detonate further!" Seeing Tang Zheng wiping the corner of his mouth and attempting to explode to the second stage, Li Xinlan and Qin Yan rushed over, grabbing his hand, eyes brimming with tears, their hearts aching fiercely.

Pang Meiqin was a step late in responding, muttering a complaint, while Xu Biyun was taking care of Lu Fan, although her eyes ceaselessly swept over Tang Zheng.

"It’s nothing, I’m not dead yet." Tang Zheng didn’t stubbornly detonate to the second stage; otherwise, he certainly would have met a sudden death.

It took a full five minutes of bombardment to completely clear the teleportation gate. Dantai and his people hadn’t exerted much effort, but Tang Zheng and the three area attackers had collapsed, hardly having any strength left to stand up.

"How are we going to withstand the next round? If it’s Insect-Humans, we might still have a chance, but if it’s a bug wave, we’re definitely facing team annihilation." With more than an hour left until the end of the punishment time, there would be at least two more rounds of attacks, and the team was already crippled. It was no wonder Yu Manli was pessimistic, especially since a heavyweight like Tang Zheng had been overly depleted, a significant blow.

"Let’s assess the situation and be ready to evacuate at any moment." Dantai took Alice’s apron, deployed five Hummers, then moved all the wounded onto them, ready to transfer at any time.

Gu Xueqi didn’t spare any effort in helping Tang Zheng recover. At this moment, everyone wished for the Group Leader to be present; his presence inspired confidence.

Time passed in tension. Nearly twenty minutes later, the next wave of punishment forces arrived, but this time only one teleportation gate appeared, which was larger than any before and wrapped in vines that bore bronze carvings in the shape of bugs.

With a sharp scream, a bug queen with the lower body of a spider and upper body of a human woman burst out. It had four arms, each holding a different weapon—a chopper made of an insect bone, a heavy insect gun, a moon-shaped flying blade, and a three-meter-long spear.

"Is it a BOSS?" Xu Biyun shouted, and before Dantai could give any command, the bug queen attacked.

With a flick of two arms, the flying blade cut a curve through the air, bursting into the group of newbies, scattering them. Then, the long spear struck like lightning, impaling a soldier’s chest with a whooshing sound.

"Give me the ring!" As the soldier fell to the ground, his face twisted with anger and sadness. He didn’t want to die so meaninglessly, but it was too late. The long spear, like a living thing, sprouted dozens of tentacles, which pierced into the soldier’s flesh and drained him into a husk.

Everyone saw the tentacles pulsating as they transported nutrients; it was sickening. Dantai fired a shot, the tentacles broke, and blood splattered.

The bug queen shot with her gun, firing green spheres with a one-meter radius, shrouded in a nebulous green mist with a foul odor. When they hit the ground, they exploded first, then corroded everything.

"Charge!" Dantai bellowed, his mental impact blasted out, and, fearless of death, he rushed forward, with Xu Biyun’s puppet breaking in, serving as his meat shield.

"Announcement: the final wave of punishment forces has arrived. The Warhammer team is instructed to kill the bug queen within ten minutes; otherwise, the entire team will receive a full wipe punishment. Note, for every two minutes that pass, the bug queen will gain a new sure kill ability, or randomly select one survivor to kill, offsetting the bug queen’s sure kill ability."

The announcement from Blue Trojan was too cruel; it was as if they wanted them to endure the pain of being skinned alive before their deaths.

"Two minutes?" Tang Zheng’s mouth was full of bitterness as he took out the velociraptor mount he had captured from Zhuo Lie and threw it to the Bug Heart, letting it devour it, hoping it would recover even a little bit of strength.

This announcement effectively declared that fleeing was futile. Every survivor began to fight desperately; of course, they did not actively ask for the rings to release the Ausonian eagles.

The newbies hesitated. Blue Trojan was clearly skilled at manipulating human hearts, offering a sliver of hope amidst despair. Under such circumstances, who could guarantee the Warhammer team wouldn’t unite and kill the bug queen? After all, the outcome would be known in just ten minutes.

But ten minutes was a gruelling ordeal. Every second felt like a lifetime of suffering.

Ai Yixin wished to survive to revive her husband and children, so she did not want to die. Sha Ou hesitated, looking to Lin Weiguo. The Old Soldier gave a bitter smile and turned to Lu Fan, parting his cracked lips.

"Give... me the ring!" Exhausted, the Old Soldier spoke in broken sentences. This was the only thing he could do. As a man, he didn’t want to lie there and watch everyone fight. That would be a disgrace to him.

Yu Manli, Xu Liangmao, and all other close-combat fighters charged forward, those who could detonate did so instantly. They were racing against the Reaper.

Gu Xueqi’s fingers flicked continuously, shooting out Young Phoenixes to heal everyone. In just a few seconds, the intense consumption made her forehead slick with sweat.

Lu Fan panted heavily, his expression fluctuating wildly, clutching the ring tightly, unwilling to give it to the Old Soldier.

"Give it to me!" The Old Soldier yelled with all his strength, preferring to sacrifice his life now for a chance to attack rather than possibly being wiped clean two minutes later.

Tang Zheng released his clone, but unfortunately, it was weak in attack.

"Damn it all!" Platoon Leader Gao cursed, fearlessly diving in close to the bug queen, but he didn’t manage to dodge even one strike and immediately got an arm chopped off. Knowing as a newbie he couldn’t contribute much in a BOSS fight, he got up and ran back, shouting at Lu Fan, "Where’s the ring? Give it to me!"

Lu Fan was stunned. Logic told her to hand over the ring, but as she watched the high-ranking soldier stagger towards her, pale from blood loss, her arm froze.

"Give it to me, there are no cowards in the Seventeenth Company, even in death, we must fall on the path of the charge!" The platoon leader grabbed the ring and poured his life force into it, summoning the Aozhou Mighty Eagle.

"Wife, take good care of the baby!" The platoon leader was reluctant and did not want to die, but as a platoon leader and a man, it was time for him to stand out.

"Platoon Leader!"

"Platoon Leader!" Watching the platoon leader, who usually joked and played around with everyone, die, the nine remaining soldiers were in tears and beyond consolation.

Whoosh, the Aozhou Mighty Eagle soared out, charging towards the Bug Mother with the speed of a thunderbolt and joined the battle!

The Bug Mother instantly assessed the threat level of the eagle, opened fire to the full, spat out a sticky substance to ensnare it, then sliced with its blade and sprayed with its bug gun.

The eagle was shattered, but it managed to cut off two of the Bug Mother’s arms with a blade edge, a war result exchanged for the platoon leader’s burning of life.

The two-minute time limit arrived, without any announcement. The German flight attendant trembling on the side and praying to God with hands clasped, suddenly had her head explode, with the skin and flesh on her back torn apart, revealing the white spine within, as she collapsed straight to the ground.

The other flight attendant standing beside her startled and then her face turned ashen as if she’s seen death.

"You’re lucky, the death of a newbie bought you two minutes of time," said Blue Trojan, taunting the survivors.

"Damn it." Suddenly, a wounded soldier cursed and threw himself to the platoon leader’s corpse, took the ring, infused life into it, "There are no cowards in the Seventeenth Company!"

Angry roars filled the suburbs as the Aozhou Mighty Eagle was once again activated and burst forth from the ring, lunging at the Bug Mother.

The Bug Mother was strong in combat, shattering Xu Biyun’s puppet with one strike of its blade, then leaving a scar on Xu Liangmao with its chopper. The Warhammer team, already heavily spent, was being suppressed, and it was fortunate that the Bug Mother had only two arms left, or the situation would have been even worse.

Mechanical centipedes, Rabbit Explosives, even Nightmare Vines were all hurled at the Bug Mother, yet the creature, being a boss, was extremely resistant. The Aozhou Mighty Eagle’s return to the battlefield added a slight advantage, it was even the main combat force.

The Bug Mother had already locked onto the Aozhou Mighty Eagle as its primary target, even more dangerous than those survivors on the brink of collapse, and so it attacked with all its might.

After losing two legs, the Bug Mother succeeded in killing the eagle.

At this time, the soldiers supported each other, hobbling over to the side of their fallen combat mate.

"It’s my turn, I’m seriously injured and won’t last much longer; at least I can make one final push." The sincere soldier smiled; on his pitch-dark face shone eyes bright as stars, and his rows of white teeth gleamed, "Even in death, we cannot disgrace the Seventeenth Company!"

Watching another soldier burn his life to summon the Aozhou Mighty Eagle, Lu Fan cried!

Dantai continuously unleashed Mental Impacts to disturb the Bug Mother, and the other Conquerors also fought valiantly, but then the next two minutes were upon them.

This time no one perished, but the Bug Mother unleashed a new sure-kill technique, opening its mouth wide to spew out more than a dozen green spheres that, like heat-seeking missiles, homed in on the survivors.

The Light Defense Shields bounced up but were still rocked and on the verge of collapse. Bai Guo gritted her teeth, vanishing into thin air, then reappeared beside the Bug Mother to mount an assassination, while Qin Yan, with a sweep of her hand, summoned a bio-missile from the air, hurling it at the Bug Mother.

At that moment, everyone went full firepower.

Shen Qingshuang tried to dodge the spheres, but realizing it was futile, stretched out a hand to block it, an action that cost her an arm but saved her life.

"Not for Seventeenth Company..." A twenty-year-old soldier wasn’t so lucky. He had just grabbed the ring, yet before he could use it, a sphere struck his head, obliterating it on the spot.

"Brother Liu!" Li Guaizi cried, snatching the ring from his hand, infusing it with life force and bellowing, "The Seventeenth Company has no cowards!"

Li Guaizi was timid and faint-hearted, but watching his comrades fall in battle, the passion in his heart was kindled. He didn’t want to be a coward that stained his unit’s honor and his comrades’ pride!

Only six months into service, the rookie Li Guazi died!

Devouring an SS level Velociraptor Mount, the Bug Heart restored some life energy to Tang Zheng, who, without delay, dashed up and lunged at the Bug Mother.

Under the fearless charge of the Aozhou Mighty Eagle and the relentless attacks from Dantai and his team, the Bug Mother began to show signs of fatigue, and finally, the tide of battle was turning. (To be continued. If you like this work, please visit Qidian to cast your recommendation votes and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)