Chapter 9 - The Beta Lieutenant Colonel Who Died For His Country (9)
Translated by: Niladri
Edited by: celes
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At the crucial moment, Xiu Yi Te suddenly leapt into the air and rode on the head of the Guardian Zerg. The violent Guardian Zerg attacked him with sharp pincers but was stopped by Lu Heng and couldn’t even touch Xiu Yi Te.
Apart from the Queen, Zergs did not have high intelligence. Aside from being controlled by the Queen’s spiritual power, they used instinct to act. The cooperation between Lu Heng and Xiu Yi Te left it no options; it could only shake its head crazily and try to shake off Xiu Yi Te. Its struggles were of no avail. Xiu Yi Te’s powerful pair of legs, like pliers, were firmly fixed to the Guardian Zerg’s forehead. His wrist shook and stabbed the dagger into the link between the Zerg’s antenna and its forehead. After another slash, the entire antenna of the Guardian Zerg was uprooted.
At the same time, Xiu Yi Te uprooted another antenna. The Guardian Zerg that lost its sensory organs could only be like a headless fly. It started bumping around, and as a result, the dagger that was stabbed by Xiu Yi Te got hammered repeatedly, and pieces of it got buried deeply into its brain.
The huge body of the Guardian Zerg smashed down, and although its limbs were still twitching, they had lost their threat.
“Don’t you have this feeling of ecstasy?” Xiu Yi Te jumped down and made a cool-looking move.
Lu Heng resisted the urge to roll his eyes and held his knees with his hands and gasped. He didn’t take a break and activated his own spiritual network. In regards to spiritual manipulation, Lu Heng was at the level of a master and could fully detect the surrounding situation without attracting the Queen’s attention. No second Guardian Zerg was found nearby; looks like the previous one only found them by chance. Fortunately, Lu Heng had unleashed a spiritual shield immediately, preventing the Guardian Zerg from transmitting information to the Queen, and thereby did not attract more Zergs.
Xiu Yi Te came over and grabbed Lu Heng’s hand and began to spray the healing spray on it: “Even if the resilience of 3S is strong, you should take care of the wound.”
“We have to find out where the Queen is hiding as soon as possible, before the Queen finds us.” Lu Heng frowned and felt that things were a little thorny.
“Let’s relax, take a break.” Xiu Yi Te squatted on the ground, resting his hands on the trunk behind his head. “Or let’s eat Zerg. You still remember the time when we graduated. During the exercise, the roasted Zergs on the TRX star were really unexpected.”
In that year’s graduation exercise, Reiner and Xiu Yi Te were assigned to a combat squad. At that time, they seemed to have been abandoned by the goddess of fortune, and bad luck persisted. First, they were trapped on the TRX star for nearly a month by a rare electromagnetic storm. Then they almost starved to death after finishing all the nutrient packets.
After that, one didn’t know whether it was lucky or unfortunate. The two men encountered a small wave of Zerg, who were dealt with using guerilla tactics. The corpse of the Zerg became the rations for Reiner and Xiu Yi Te at that time.
However, their bad luck had been far from over, and when they were ready to return, they encountered a high-level Zerg with a very strange ability. The Zerg could actually imitate spiritual fluctuations of human beings and sent out a distress signal. The two men who followed the signal were caught off guard by the Zerg and almost died in battle.
But in the wake of great danger, a great harvest awaits. Using the body of the mutant Zerg that they brought back, the Imperial Academy had developed a way to research the spiritual fluctuations. The instruments developed on that basis could mimic the spiritual fluctuations of the Zerg to attract other Zergs.
The two looked at each other and thought of a way to find the Queen.
“Little Nana, look at you, spiritually, you’ve always been better than me.” Xiu Yi Te stood up and made a defensive posture in front of Lu Heng.
Lu Heng closed his eyes, and a golden net appeared in his perception area; it was the Queen’s spiritual network. Lu Heng slowly controlled the antennae, imitating the spiritual fluctuations of that Guardian Zerg, carefully traversing the net. Not long after, the Queen’s spiritual network accepted Lu Heng’s spiritual tentacles. Pursuing the message from the spiritual network, he quickly found the location of the Queen.
“Found it. The Queen is at the northernmost part of the planet. If we move forward at full speed, we can reach it in about three days,” Lu Heng said.
“Tch, not being able to use the mech is so troublesome.” Xiu Yi Te scratched his head with some feelings of discomfort.
The two readied up and decided to go to the Queen’s hiding place to investigate. After all, this was the first time humans have had the opportunity to approach the Zerg Queen so close. After three days of walking without rest, the two finally arrived near the Queen’s hiding place.
Xiu Yi Te and Lu Heng passed through a dense jungle, and suddenly, they were in a wide expanse. In front of them both was a cliff. Looking into the distance, they were stunned by the sight in front of them. Below the cliff was a basin surrounded by towering cliffs. The thick white silk extended from all four sides of the cliff to the middle, and in the center of the place, a huge white cocoon hung.
“Is that Queen’s lair?” Xiu Yi Te was shocked by this spectacular sight for a long time.
The answer was obvious, because from time to time, there were golden worms coming in and out of the white cocoon.
Lu Heng swept the place once with his spiritual power. He activated the light brain and began to record precious information.
At the moment of data analysis, Xiu Yi Te immediately took out the mech from the space button, and Lu Heng entered the cockpit with him. Although the mech of Xiu Yi Te was a single-person mech, there was also a double operation mode, and when two people cooperated, the energy output would be higher. Of course, the premise was that it should be as harmonious as the relationship between Xiu Yi Te and Lu Heng.
It had been a long time since the two people last operated the mech, but Lu Heng and Xiu Yi Te still performed perfectly as one unit. Before the Queen’s spiritual network caught their trail and issued instructions to hunt them down, they had already rushed out of the planet’s atmosphere and retreated towards the wormhole.
However, just as Lu Heng was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he saw a Thunder Gale mech on the radar screen crashing towards the planet.
“ZR-177 mech? What is going on?” Lu Heng couldn’t remember the owner of this mech.
“It’s Carlo, how can he be here?” Xiu Yi Te looked dignified and prepared to return.
“Seems like it.”
Returning to the Zerg planet, Xiu Yi Te and Lu Heng found a semi-destroyed ZR-177 mech at the southern end of a lake. Fortunately, the cockpit was still intact, and the person inside shouldn’t be seriously injured. When he opened the cockpit, he found that Carlo had a pale complexion and was unconscious.
“His spiritual powers are completely disordered.” Lu Heng took back the spiritual force thread that he inserted into the brain of Carlo, frowned, and said, “This level of disorder, it’s likely… he used the No. 1 agent.”
No. 1 agent is a kind of pharmacy that every soldier had. After taking it, one could break through their own limits and let people with an A-level physique or above to temporarily maintain a 3S physique. However, this kind of medicine was generally only used in desperate situations, because there was a higher than 99% chance of spiritual breakdown after one use.
Lu Heng mused; no wonder in the original world line, Carlo could go through the wormhole alone to find Xiu Yi Te. However, the use of No. 1 Agent did not collapse his spiritual force. It was really worthy of the son of fate.
“Fortunately, the source of spiritual power is still intact. After returning to the main ship, let Dr. Irene give him a thorough check-up. It should be fine after a bit of training.”
Xiu Yi Te breathed a sigh of relief since spiritual force breakdown was not a minor problem. After all, Carlo was the child of his savior. If something went wrong, he would probably live in guilt forever. Xiu Yi Te took out the repair cabin, put Carlo into it, froze it first, then waited to return to the starship before continuing treatment.
“Why’s Carlo here?” Xiu Yi Te’s expression was a bit strange.
“Didn’t you tell him?” Lu Heng glanced at him. All that they knew about the wormhole investigation was that they knew it. The only person who could have told Carlo about this wasXiu Yi Te.
“A few days ago, Carlo said that he wanted me to give him some training pointers. I replied that I had to prepare for work and refused him.” Xiu Yi Te looked at Lu Heng’s face and added guiltily, “At that time, I felt this was not a secret mission and simply said it casually. I didn’t know he would come over.”
Of course, it is for you, Lu Heng thought so, but his face lacked any discernible expression. According to the plot, Carlo risked his life to find Xiu Yi Te; shouldn’t he be extremely touched, with the incident becoming a prelude to the love between the two of them. What’s the current incomprehensibility of Xiu Yi Te?
{Little assistant, is the relationship between the sons of this fate really unshakeable?} Lu Heng confirmed again.
{Please be reassured, my huge database search results show that the number of such cases is zero. Even if you don’t believe me, you must also believe in the professionalism of the Matchmaking Department of that side.}
{I fear my marks will be deducted. If I get negative marks on the first task, I will be sent on a one-day trip down to the 18th Layer of Hell.} When Lu Heng was taking the induction training, he had once visited the 18th layer, which left a permanent scar on his heart. [see footnotes]
Perhaps Xiu Yi Te is a type of person who is relatively slow regarding feelings. Lu Heng, who had let his guard down, wanted to say something but suddenly saw Xiu Yi Te’s cold look. Needless to say, with the tacit understanding of the two people, Lu Heng took out a dagger and turned around. After the two collaborated to kill a sneak-attacking Zerg, Lu Heng felt that several Guardian Zergs appeared not far away.
Xiu Yi Te directly called out his mech: “It seems that the Queen has discovered us.”
Since their whereabouts had already been detected by the Queen, there was no need to be careful, and the mech could eliminate these Guardian Zergs more quickly and easily.
When Lu Heng saw it, he also called out his own mech and prepared for a difficult battle.
The author has something to say: Thank you, Chu Ci, Lin (づ ̄ 3 ̄)づ
Footnote 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diyu#Eighteen_Levels_of_Hell . Was impossible to translate this. Thank Helli for explaining this to me.