Chapter 97: My Position

Zhang Zhe was silently smoking while Gao Yuan arranged belts of ammunition beside the machine gun, finally finding the time to ponder if he could go look for Luo Xingyu.

Going to find Luo Xingyu now would mean deserting, no matter the excuse or how valid his reasons might be, leaving his post at this moment made him a deserter.

Gao Yuan did not want to die, truly did not.

But Gao Yuan wanted even less to be a deserter.

Although he was not a soldier and his comrades were not soldiers either—they were all just volunteers, that's all.

Yet Gao Yuan still didn't want to be a deserter.

After a brief hesitation and struggle, Gao Yuan decided to just let it be—if he was to die, then so be it.

In fact, Gao Yuan was embarrassed to desert.

Embarrassed to abandon his comrades with whom he had shared life and death for the sake of his own survival, it was that simple; hence, Gao Yuan's decision to share life and death with his comrades was not out of any noble sentiment, but rather because he was embarrassed to just flee.

Sometimes, you see, the reason a person chooses to face death calmly is just that simple, merely out of embarrassment. How ridiculous is that?

Gao Yuan sighed lightly, feeling apologetic toward Luo Xingyu and reluctant to leave her like this, but then, what if they held their position?

With all those cannons, maybe they could indeed hold it off, right? Since that was the case, he might as well not run.

Beyond the embarrassment, a sliver of hope also partly drove Gao Yuan's decision to fight to the end.

The battle paused for two valuable minutes; the explosions were still ongoing, now concentrated to the east.

Zhang Zhe blew a smoke ring, reaching out to grab at it dispersing the ring with his hand, and then said with a smile, "If you ask me..."

"Don't say it!"

"Seriously, don't talk, okay?"

Gao Yuan and Li Xiaodong both yelled out, and Zhang Zhe was taken aback for a moment before he said with a smile, "Alright, alright, I won't say it."

Just then, Li Changfeng cried out, "It's over, it's all over, look..."

Only Li Changfeng was facing backward. Li Xiaodong shouted angrily, "Can you not... damn it! It's over..."

Gao Yuan turned his head and looked back, only to see spots of light rapidly descending in the sky and then coming to a halt directly over the middle of the shelter.

It was Li Changfeng who spotted it, but he hadn't said a word, so they couldn't blame him for jinxing, just for having sharp eyesight.

But not a single piece of good news came from the Li Changfeng who didn't have the cursed mouth of a crow.

The Serpent People's UFO descended swiftly, drawing a bright line straight down through the air—of course, it wasn't an actual bright line, but merely a visual afterimage.

As the Serpent People's UFO dropped to a certain altitude, several corners of the camp suddenly lit up with red lines, the glow of tracer bullets firing at high speed.

Those were the trajectories of the shells fired by eight anti-aircraft guns: the PGZ-09 type 35mm quadruple anti-aircraft gun and the PGZ-95 type 23mm quadruple anti-aircraft gun, part of Wang Hu's armored brigade's air defense firepower.

But the anti-aircraft guns were useless.

As the belts of ammunition neared the Serpent People's spacecraft, they seemed to hit an invisible wall; the tracer lines abruptly stopped.

Called a small UFO, it appeared tiny when viewed from the ground, but as the UFO descended within fifty meters above the ground, the so-called small UFO appeared incredibly vast.

Larger than the largest flying machine mankind had.

Everyone was numbly watching the sky.

The UFO was a misnomer; from the ground, the Serpent People's flying craft looked like an American football floating in the air, akin to a kind of inflatable airship that humanity had already phased out, with no sharp angles, looking neither sci-fi nor attractive.

The Serpent People's airship was not inflatable, though.

The airship zipped through the low altitude rapidly, and as Gao Yuan and the others craned their necks upward, the Serpent People's airship in front of them suddenly soared higher, leaving just a point of light in the sky, much like a star.

No one knew what the airship descended to do.

But now, it was surely over completely, wasn't it?

"Turn the guns around! Fire! Fire!"

Accompanied by someone's hoarse scream, Zhang Zhe subconsciously aimed his gun at the direction of the camp, and Gao Yuan also shifted his gaze from the sky back to the ground.

Several searchlights had already changed direction, now targeting the position of the camp.

In the light provided by the searchlights, one could see large monsters attacking every person who drew near throughout the camp.

From a distance, it was hard to make out, but Gao Yuan quickly discerned what those monsters were.

They certainly weren't from Earth.

They appeared to have four legs, very tall, about four or five meters, definitely taller than an elephant, with four long and thin legs that seemed disproportionate to their large bodies.

The monsters moved with breakneck speed, charging the nearest machine gun emplacements with unstoppable velocity. Then, with just a few swipes of their long, slim limbs, accompanied by faint screams, one after another, the machine gun positions were rapidly silenced.

Gao Yuan didn't know how many of these creatures there were, but he could see one machine gun position after another being swiftly taken out, and the monster he saw was heading straight for their position.

The general direction was towards them.

Machine guns were typically loaded with tracer bullets, making it easy to see the trajectory of the shots.

Gao Yuan could see streaks of red hitting the beast, then those glowing red bullets fell around the creature, dropping to the ground in a relatively languid and haphazard fashion.

In other words, the machine gun bullets couldn't harm the monster; they were being deflected.

Gao Yuan didn't believe that any creature could resist bullets, not even alien creatures, so what looked like a monster might actually be some kind of machine?

But considering the Serpent People's expertise was in gene weapons and biological weapons, as Xinghe had said, this was probably a biological weapon. Therefore, calling it a monster was not incorrect.

Gao Yuan didn't know why he was even contemplating this issue at such a time.

At that moment, Zhang Zhe rashly flung open his cigarette case, took out the last cigarette, and lit it with the unspent stub of his previous one.

After lighting it, Zhang Zhe said to Gao Yuan, "Hey, here's yours back."

Zhang Zhe tossed something, and Gao Yuan caught it, his lighter.

"You can retreat now, that's an order."

Zhang Zhe took a deep drag on his cigarette, then, with the cigarette still in his mouth, he put his hand on the anti-aircraft gun and shouted, "What are you standing around for? Didn't you hear that's an order? I'm the squad leader, and the squad leader's orders are still orders."

Yet the four of them stood still, not moving. Zhang Zhe tried to aim at the swiftly moving monster, shouting loudly, "Have you all gone stupid? Staying to die? Run, if you can save yourself, it's down to your luck now."

Still, no one spoke. Zhang Zhe snorted smoke and exclaimed, "Go on, all of you, run!"

Zhang Zhe suddenly roared. Li Xiaodong, his voice breaking with a sob, said, "Captain... shooting's useless, let's run together!"

"You're an idiot... this is my position, get lost!"

Zhang Zhe, turning, sent Li Xiaodong sprawling with a kick, then bellowed, "Get the hell out of here! Once I start shooting, you'll have no chance; don't waste any more fucking time, all right?"

Li Changfeng burst into tears and then he took off running. Gao Yuan, grinding his teeth, said, "Let's go!"

Gao Yuan grabbed Li Xiaodong by the arm and turned to run.

What's there to say?

What more is there to say? It's a waste of breath when everyone's about to die, isn't it?

Li Xiaodong followed Gao Yuan, and they started running, joined by Ma Zihang.

Zhang Zhe took a vehement puff of his cigarette, then, in a slurred shout, bellowed, "I didn't take your instant noodles and cigarettes for nothing, huh..."

Gao Yuan heard it and looked back at Zhang Zhe.

As he was roaring, Zhang Zhe opened fire, a red line of gunfire blazing directly towards the beast.

The beast charged towards Zhang Zhe's emplacement; by that time, Gao Yuan and the others had only managed about ten meters.

"Why won't you die! Why won't you die! How come…"

Zhang Zhe was shouting in despair, but Gao Yuan couldn't hear what he was saying over the sound of the machine gun.

The monster, moving faster than sixty kilometers per hour, reached Zhang Zhe's position, swung a limb, and sent Zhang Zhe and the machine gun flying.

The beast struck with a single blow, without stopping, and headed straight for the next machine gun position.

Gao Yuan saw the monster's black shell; under the searchlight's glow, it shone with a beautiful and varied luster, reminiscent of the shifting colors on the back of a beetle.

Gao Yuan saw a spark flying in the air; it was the still-burning cigarette butt, clenched in what remained of Zhang Zhe's teeth.