Chapter 3: Is it a Human...?

The dust settled.

The street was silent, with a heavy stench emanating from the blood flowing out of the monster corpses.

Chen Jian's hands were still shaking slightly because those last few shots were just too thrilling.

He Shuo had emptied the CS/LR4's bullets and, after picking up the Type 10, didn't even have time to aim before he fired in the direction of where he stood.

The bullet whizzed past within a meter of himself, fiercely knocking the monster pouncing at him away.

Only then did he have time to use a burst shot to kill the monster that was clawing at Lei Jie, allowing Lei Jie to smoothly reload the magazine and eliminate the monster already lunging at the machine-gun and rifle-empty Shen Yue.

If He Shuo's shot had been a bit slower, a bit off.

Then what this team would face would be a completely different outcome.

Chen Jian reloaded, putting the magazine dropped at his feet back into the gear on his chest.

"What the hell are these things..."

Feeling a lingering fear, Shen Yue replaced his final drum magazine while resetting his counter-sniper radar sensitivity to zero. Beside him, He Shuo quickly launched the drone to begin aerial reconnaissance.

"There's no more movement around, just these, 12----13 of them."

"The aerial view is cycling, ready for viewing."

"But the drone's battery is running low----damn, had I known it wasn't full load-out, I wouldn't have used any drone back in the woods!"

"Hard to say, what if we weren't even armed then?"

Shen Yue spat and said,

"Come to think of it, the old mgz was kind of endearing after all..."

"Come on, stop it, you'd be unhappy if he did have a go at you then."

Chen Jian quickly reviewed the aerial imagery on his visor, only now realizing just how shocking that previous battle was.

It happened suddenly without any preparation on our side, the first contact was already in melee.

Facing unfamiliar adversaries, all we could rely on were the mere four of us.

Luckily, this was a live ammunition shooting exercise.

Luckily, we were fully armed.

Luckily, it was our squad!

In the same situation, if it were any other team, they might not have survived.

Chen Jian let out a long breath, moved to the monster's corpse a few steps away, and crouched down.

This monster's muscles were still twitching, showing almost identical "post-mortem reactions" as any beast known to him.

He avoided the sharp chitin claws, crouching beside the monster's wound inflicted by a 12.7mm bullet to examine closely.

After a moment, he spoke up with some perplexity:

"The structure of the internal muscles and blood vessels isn't against common sense, there's the main artery, veins, and capillaries, the muscle fibers and outer skin structure is also common, it feels like some sort of special beast."

"The only abnormality is the reverse articulated knee joint structure—are there any beasts with such a structure?"

Upon hearing this, Lei Jie, who had been quietly arranging equipment nearby, spoke up:

"None—though there's a bunch among birds."

"But surely you're not telling me this thing's a bird?"

"Definitely not."

Chen Jian shook his head, stood up again, and moved to the corpse's head, trying to discern what species this could be from the unbroken skull, but unfortunately, his hopes were dashed.

The irregular chitin layer completely covered the monster's entire skull, and from certain details, it was evident that these chitin layers had already encroached upon the original skeletal structure, making the monster's skull eerily resemble a twisted, manic skeletal sculpture akin to a Cthulhu creature.

The only certainty was its astonishingly large brain capacity.

From its broad face, its brain size was at least comparable to that of a gorilla.

----So, what if this thing was human?

Chen Jian shuddered, yet upon closer thought, this possibility wasn't entirely unimaginable.

After all, the intelligence displayed in the battle moments ago was startling—stealth, ambushing, coordinating, adapting...

Gorillas couldn't execute such coordination, or even if they could, it wouldn't be in such an exceedingly smooth manner.

Chen Jian's expression turned somber, after a moment's thought, he spoke up:

"Pack up, retreat into the building."

"No monsters came out during that shooting, it should be safe inside."

"Set up a lookout, Shen Yue and I will search inside for any text or video records left behind."

"No matter what, we at least need to figure out where we are and what we're fighting!"

"Understood!"

"Got it!"

Everyone immediately responded, and He Shuo began retracting the drone.

His mind was quite chaotic at this moment, but even so, before retrieving the drone, he made one last image update with a reconnaissance loop.

----And that was the loop that made everyone's actions abruptly halt.

"Heat source detected, heat source detected, heat source detected."

A cold female voice from the smart terminal came through the headset, with the heat source pinpointed on the visor instantly.

The four-man team simultaneously looked up, focusing on the window of the high-rise where the heat source was located. As they caught a glimpse of that fleeting humanoid heat signature, a single thought flashed through all their minds.

Someone!

It's friendly forces!

Although the smart terminal couldn't determine the enemy-friend status of the heat source, considering all previous clues...

Yes, a creature evolved entirely for ambush kills couldn't have caused such a ruckus before the fight; the only explanation is that someone warned us before we noticed those lurking monsters by throwing heavy objects!

Chen Jian's heart pounded violently, and he quickly ordered:

"Drone, approach and scout the window!"

"Pack up, proceed to the building with the heat source."

"Move out immediately!"

"Understood!"

The team immediately redirected, quickly reaching the base of the building after bypassing half the block.

It was an apartment building.

Chen Jian pressed closely to the entrance, the four formed a dual-column CQB breach formation, while Lei Jie was already preparing the directional explosives for breaching. At Chen Jian's command, he would blow open the seemingly impregnable heavy iron door.

But at that moment, a sudden flash of insight struck Chen Jian.

If it's the enemy inside, why waste bullets going in?

If they're not the enemy, what's the need to breach?

He suddenly realized and then shouted aloud:

"Hey folks! Open the door! We are the XX Army (PLA)!"

"It's safe outside now!"

"Hurry up and open the door, we're here to protect you!"

Chen Jian's voice echoed along the deserted street, as He Shuo raised the drone elevation to guard against monsters homing in on the sound.

Nobody thought anything amiss about Chen Jian's shout; it seemed just right at the moment.

----Of course, they didn't know if the shout would have any effect.

What if the people inside didn't respond to this setup?

What if they didn't even understand the meaning of these words?

Doubt crept into their minds, but at that moment, Chen Jian keenly heard hurried footsteps from within.

Soon after, a heavy bolt was undone from inside.

The iron door slowly opened.

Standing before Chen Jian was a...

Person??