Chapter 198 - Return To The Village
In the middle of the main road on the way to the north of Yanqing District, a convoy of about thirty vehicles was moving at a steady speed.
This convoy was quite unique in that there were not only jeeps, buses, vans, tractors, trucks, and some other normal vehicles. At the front of the motorcade was a giant metal machine that looked like a monster roaring viciously every time the engine sounded, at the back of the motorcade was a beast exactly like the first one.
These two were the M3s that were previously in the military camp. The two metal beasts pointed their two thick cannons in different directions while the armed men inside were concerned with controlling the machine guns in the best possible way under the guidance of the experienced operators; although they still needed practice, temporarily it was the best they could do until they received proper training.
Even if in the future mankind changed its weapons, not everything would necessarily have to be changed. For example, they could continue to use the technology of the M3 but make modifications to the armored shell and replace the main cannons with magical weaponry in line with the appearance of the Soul Record and evolution.
Apart from the two M3s, there were also a dozen vehicles mounted with heavy machine guns guarding the buses and the rest of the vehicles in which the survivors were traveling.
In the central part, apart from the vehicles in which the survivors were traveling, there were also trucks carrying seemingly nothing. However, if one were to look carefully, one would notice that there were many tiny-sized bodies; if a person were to see this they would probably laugh, wondering why they were using such large cargo trucks to move something so small.
Of course, these small bodies were actually the bodies of the creatures killed by Bai Zemin and the rest before. Although the size had greatly reduced, the weight of each beast had only been halved.
After a night of refreshing rest, Bai Zemin awoke and immediately noticed that his injuries had recovered to approximately 20%. This pleasantly surprised him and once again he realized how terrifying his Health stat was as the desire to become more powerful grew within him.
After a leisurely breakfast, Bai Zemin gave the direct order to start moving to leave the forest. Although he did not believe there was a second beast similar to the Second Order bear it was better to be safe than sorry; in his current condition, if another such beast appeared he would be forced to flee for his life leaving everything behind if he wanted to survive.
While Shangguan Bing Xue was in charge of reducing the size of the monsters with the weapon Infinite Reduction, Wu Yijun had informed Bai Zemin that the task of collecting the Unclassified Soul Stones had been successfully completed but that they still needed some time to make a full count.
After this, while the survivors carried the bodies of the Unclassified beasts to the trucks, the stronger and more evolved ones like Bai Zemin himself, Shangguan Bing Xue, Chen He, Cai Jingyi, Zhong De, etc, worked as a team with the tractors to drag the giant First Order beasts now reduced in size and weighing half of the original.
It was only then that they finally left the forest.
Although the military base was large and its facilities were good, staying in the middle of a forest was by no means a good idea. Bai Zemin did not even think of something so stupid as to move his base to a place as dangerous as that so without hesitation, he ordered to leave immediately when everything was done.
Several hundred weapons such as machine guns, pistols, rifles, grenades, shotguns, and so on, with boxes and boxes of orange, green, yellow, blue color, were carried by the heavy trucks and filled to the brim with ammunition.
Because the noise that more than thirty vehicles made while moving was too great, it was simply impossible not to attract the attention of some wild beast or creature roaming around. Therefore, in the middle of the road, they encountered some enemies that assaulted the convoy with the intention of feasting on flesh and blood.
Unfortunately for these creatures, even before they could do anything interesting about it, a rain of bullets rained down on them and filled their bodies with holes leaving them in a miserable and unrecognizable state.
The men armed to the teeth on the different vehicles did not even let the drivers press the brakes and, taking advantage of the volume of bullets, took it upon themselves to liquidate any nearby enemy. Even if many of them missed, under such a torrent of bullets it was simply impossible to 100% not hit.
Although a large amount of ammunition could have been saved if Bai Zemin simply ordered the vehicles to stop and let Cai Jingyi or someone else take over the task, this would in turn consume more time than simply firing wildly without slowing down the vehicles.
At this point, Bai Zemin and the other leaders had already fully accepted that human weaponry would eventually become ineffective. Therefore, expending ammunition no longer became too painful for any of them; in turn, what they lacked was precisely time! Therefore, no one said anything about it.
Of course, this did not mean that Bai Zemin would allow bullets to be senselessly wasted. It was just that at this moment he wanted more than anyone else to get to the village to receive magical medical treatment and start working on important things that concerned his personal strength and even that of all those under his flag.
Due to the increase in vehicles, the time needed to reach the Beginning Village was a total of twelve solid hours in which the drivers had to be replaced once midway to avoid any kind of incidents.
When the motorcade crossed the main entrance of the village it was already a little after 5 pm but the sun was still burning high in the sky.
"What is that?!"
"Tank!"
"You idiot, that's not a tank! That's a M3!"
"Amazing! So many powerful guns!"
"Long live the leader!"
"Long live the leaders!"
...
When the armed convoy arrived at the central square of the village where all the survivors under the command of Bai Zemin were gathered, the people there were surprised beyond words.
Many of them failed to recognize what kind of vehicles the M3 IFVs were, thinking they were tanks. But others who had a little more military knowledge recognized this type of vehicle that was sold to the whole world as one of the best of its kind.
The eyes of the survivors shone with relief when they saw the soldiers armed to the teeth descending from the vehicles looking powerful and intimidating. None of them feared being abused anymore; as long as they followed the rules, everything would be fine.
The more power Bai Zemin gained, the safer the survivors felt and the more relieved they felt leaving their lives in his hands.
While the soldiers were unloading the boxes with guns and ammunition into what had now become a forbidden zone that unauthorized personnel was not allowed to enter and if they broke this rule they could even be executed immediately, Bai Zemin looked for Kang Lan immediately.
* * *
-Inside the main villa.
"My god..." The young mage covered her mouth in shock when she saw Bai Zemin's miserable condition.
Since she had started following Bai Zemin's footsteps, this was the first time she had seen him in such a bad condition. His wounds might not be life-threatening but they were undoubtedly far from minor injuries. She was even amazed at the willpower he must have had to keep his face from showing the pain he was probably suffering inside.
Seeing Kang Lan's frightened and worried expression, Bai Zemin did not know whether to laugh or cry.
"Kang Lan, hurry up and heal him at once!" Cai Jingyi sounded a little upset to see her just standing still without moving her hands. This was strange considering she was usually shy and quiet, which showed how much Bai Zemin's health was important to her.
This was also normal considering that Cai Jingyi was his Loyal Follower. The trust between the two had reached an extremely high level and her dependence on him had also increased a notch.
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