Chapter 92: Is This Luring Them Out to Kill Them?

Bang! This makeshift shotgun was probably built in some bizarre way—it sounded more like a cannon going off. The explosion was so loud that Su Miao instinctively crouched down, trembling.

When she looked back at the man who'd fired the gun, his face had already been blown to shreds by the gunpowder, and he was howling in agony.

Turned out the shotgun had burst its barrel.

The people at the checkpoint screamed and scattered in every direction.

"Damn idiot!" The man holding the steel pipe cursed when he saw what had happened behind him, then kept charging after Su Miao.

The others didn't bother checking on their comrade with the shredded face either; they quickly gave chase.

They'd locked onto her the moment she arrived. Clothes this clean, a face this pretty, with no one else around—she was a keeper, no question! As for where she'd come from, they had a pretty good idea. Word was that two shelters over in Xi'an City had been hit by the earthquake and washed out by the flood, and a lot of people had escaped from them. Quite a few had passed through their area. Their guess was that Su Miao was most likely a disaster refugee. She'd probably had an escort when she fled, but had gotten separated from them along the way. And if she could still be dressed this well in times like these... A young lady like this—how could they let her go? Once she was inside their Star Base, even if a god descended from heaven, nobody was getting her out.

Seeing Su Miao crouched on the ground trembling, the man with the steel pipe grinned savagely. A young lady was a young lady—one gunshot and she was scared witless.

"Missy, what're you running for?" He reached out to grab her.

The others slowed their pace too. They'd thought they'd have to chase her for a while longer. This was it?

"Boss, before you hand her up, let the boys get a few feels in?" someone said with a laugh.

To be honest, they preferred the ones who struggled over the ones who surrendered without a fight. Still, this one who'd dropped to the ground scared by a gunshot wasn't bad either.

...Huh?

They waited a few seconds, but their boss didn't answer a single word.

Instead, the steel pipe clattered to the ground.

"Boss, you're not—" One of the underlings moved closer to ask, only to see the man, still frozen in his reaching-down pose, topple over.

There was a crossbow bolt nailed squarely into his forehead, blood gushing out and pooling on the ground in the blink of an eye. In moments, the blood and the thin layer of frost on the ground froze solid together.

"Boss!" The underling's eyes went red instantly.

The next second, he saw the crossbow in Su Miao's hands swivel toward him, the bolt growing huge in his vision, and in that instant it buried itself between his eyebrows.

Another one dead.

But there were still seven left.

They didn't have guns—only melee weapons.

Su Miao stood up, her expression hardening into cold composure as she quickly lined up her next target.

"Shit!" A middle-aged man wielding a machete shouted.

Then a bolt took him in the throat, and he toppled over stiff as a board.

Seeing how badly things were going, the two men at the very back turned and fled, even taking the trouble to toss away their weapons so they wouldn't slow them down.

Were they going to call for reinforcements?

Su Miao pulled the trigger again and again, gunning down the five men who were still frozen in shock and fury.

"Murder!"

"Murder! Somebody help!"

The two men ran for their lives toward the checkpoint, hoping to get the attention of the people inside the base.

But shouts like that were usually from people waiting in line to pass through the checkpoint—they never imagined it would be their turn one day. A patrol inside Star Base heard the cries and chuckled, saying the boys on gate duty were up to some new trick again.

Until they saw two men rushing into the checkpoint one after another, then face-planting onto the ground.

Looking closer, both of them had a crossbow bolt embedded in the back of their skulls, blood gushing and flooding the ground in an instant. They weren't long for this world.

"Fuck!"

The three guards on patrol immediately blew their whistles and scattered, diving for cover. The gate guards had died too fast, and they had no idea how many enemies were outside—they had to wait for reinforcements from inside the base. Otherwise, it wasn't worth their monthly ration of twenty-three jin of grain.

"Oh no." Su Miao was terrified too when she saw the two bodies run in. What was she supposed to do now? More people would be charging out any second.

Her heart was racing, but after a few seconds of waiting, nobody came rushing out at her.

Not daring to waste another moment, Su Miao yanked the crossbow bolts out of the six corpses on the ground and fled back the way she came in a panic.

Because she was pulling the bolts out too fast, quite a bit of blood splattered—and despite her clear rain poncho, a lot of it still got on her down jacket and pants.

Oh wait—what if a bunch of people came chasing after her, with guns too?

Something occurred to Su Miao. She raised her hand and spread a crimson magic circle, and in the blink of an eye, a blood-colored light gathered over the corpses, forming a tiny crimson formation that sank into their bodies.

With that done, she fled back without another thought.

Reaching the crossroads, Su Miao glanced left and right. The Botanical Garden and the Zoo were definitely out of the question. The Physics Research Institute had been hit by an explosion, and who knew what dangerous materials were inside.

That only left the Astronomical Research Center.

Its front gate hung open. Without hesitation, Su Miao ran straight in.

Over at Star Base, the patrol waited a long time without seeing anyone attack, and only then did they dare poke their heads out to check the situation outside.

Aside from a field of corpses, there wasn't another soul in sight.

Of the ten men assigned to guard the checkpoint, one had killed himself with a burst shotgun barrel—the rest had all been killed by crossbow bolts.

"Who did this?" Old Bear walked out gripping a Type 95 assault rifle.

He crouched down, pulled a bolt from the back of one man's head, gave it a glance, and tossed it carelessly to the ground.

The people around him felt a suffocating pressure just from the grim look on his face.

Old Bear was the deputy base commander of Star Base, and he was ruthless to the bone. Nobody wasn't afraid when Old Bear showed up.

Losing ten men in one go was a massive blow even for Star Base with all its resources. Not to mention the fact that the military had already caught wind of their private base operating out here.

Wait—what if this was a probe by the military?

Old Bear's mind raced. Last time, they'd let that one get away, and it got Star Base on the military's radar. This time, whoever came—there was no way in hell they were getting away.

"Notify Teams 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Get them all here. We will find this person!" Old Bear ordered.

A few minutes later, over fifty people charged out of Star Base behind Old Bear, following the tracker dogs.

Most of the men he'd brought out were carrying guns—some even had QBU-88 sniper rifles and shoulder-fired rocket launchers. Sure, these were weapons that had been obsolete for a hundred years, but they were the reason Star Base could set up right next to the Zoo and the Botanical Garden, and still have the confidence to talk tough even with the military's eyes on them.

"Bear, sir—caught someone." One of the men dragged a cowering man in front of Old Bear.

Before Old Bear could even speak, the man spilled everything he'd seen like beans tumbling out of a sack: "Don't kill me, don't kill me, I saw it, I saw everything. It was a girl—she killed the guards on duty with a crossbow and ran toward the astronomy center."

Old Bear grabbed the man by the neck, frowned slightly, and squeezed.

The man's neck crunched and collapsed in his grip.

"After her!" Flinging the corpse to the roadside as casually as tossing trash, Old Bear led his men to the astronomy center.

Just one girl. With a crossbow, she'd taken out that many of them.

Bold as hell.

He wanted to see what this girl looked like.

Meanwhile, Su Miao was hiding inside the observatory building, clutching her crossbow and trembling.

A lot of people had shown up outside. She'd seen them all.

So many guns.

There was even a rocket launcher.

How did Star Base have this much firepower? And on top of that—the necromancy she'd used on those corpses didn't seem to have worked. Had the Blood Magic book lied to her?

She'd have to consult the magic book with a little blue fireball later.

"Check this side, you go that side—flank and search! Send the tracker dogs in first!"

"Bear's orders: dead or alive, it doesn't matter!"

Some Star Base men came to the foot of the observatory building, shouting up at it.

"Woof woof woof!"

Six tracker dogs that had smelled the crossbow bolts came barking loudly up the stairs, racing upward fast.

"Since when do they bring dogs?" Su Miao was so scared she was about to cry.

The spot she'd planned to hide and ambush from was no longer usable.

She was forced back to the stairwell. As the barking grew closer, her body trembled harder and harder.

"She's up here!" The man holding the leash on the stairwell shouted loudly.

The damn tracker dog—after finding its target, it actually stopped in place. That was something Su Miao had never anticipated.

Su Miao could only loose her bolt in the moment the man was shouting.

Both the shouting man and the dog that had first spotted her took bolts straight to the head and crumpled to the ground.

"Damn, she shoots that straight?" The men arriving behind them were stunned by the sight.

"Suppressive fire!"

Several stun grenades were tossed up the stairs.

With a thunderous blast, the frontal shockwave of the explosion was absorbed by an expanded magic spatial array.

Even so, Su Miao's ears rang with a dull buzz.

So scary...

The men downstairs thought they'd gotten her, and took the chance to charge up.

Three bolts flew out. The two men who rushed up, along with their dog, were shot dead.

Su Miao's heart kept racing.

A gun... Su Miao spotted the Type 95 assault rifle lying on the ground. She wanted it badly.

But more people were surging up from below.

Got it! Let me try once more.

Su Miao raised her hand and cast necromancy on the fallen corpses.

Blood-colored marks formed on the three bodies. Under her gaze, they picked up the guns on the ground and shambled up the stairs, weaving unsteadily.

It worked this time!

She could have guns now!

But the next second, Su Miao was dumbfounded.

These corpses were agonizingly slow, and they looked like they could collapse at any moment. Climbing the stairs was a high-difficulty maneuver for them—they weren't even as capable as zombies from the movies. Chi Wanning's controlled corpses had been so much stronger.

"Hey, you three—if you're gonna chase, hurry up and don't block the way!" The pursuers coming up behind them cursed.

They thought the three shambling figures blocking the stairs were just being cowardly.

But then one man grabbed hold of a corpse, saw the crossbow bolt stuck between its eyebrows and the dead, staring eyes, and nearly jumped out of his skin.

"What the—"

The moving corpses had been discovered.

Su Miao panicked. The fact that she could control corpses absolutely could not come to light.

A dense rattle of gunfire erupted, not stopping until magazines were emptied.

The three corpses she'd been controlling opened fire on the five men coming up behind them, killing all of them.

So the corpses couldn't climb stairs, but they could still hold a gun and shoot.

"Throw the guns over here." A flash of inspiration—Su Miao gave the corpses a new order.

The three corpses immediately hurled their guns at her.

The force behind it was absolutely terrifying.

Good thing she'd expanded her magic spatial array, or she'd have been knocked out by her own minions.

Su Miao was startled, but in the end, it was a close call with no harm done.

Before Star Base's reinforcements could arrive, Su Miao ordered the three corpses to toss over the guns and ammunition of the other five men as well, everything absorbed into the magic spatial array.

Then she dismissed her control over the corpses and fled to another part of the building.

"I've got a gun!" Su Miao pulled out a Type 95 assault rifle, loaded it, and hugged the weapon with excitement.

She moved to a different room, found a window, peeked outside to mark the positions of the people below, then switched to another corner and quickly squeezed off a shot.

Bang!

One man dropped with a bullet through his head.

One kill. Su Miao switched windows, fired again, and took down another with a headshot.

"She's got a gun!" someone downstairs shouted.

"Where's the sniper? What the hell is the sniper doing?"

"Sniper rifle—suppressive fire!"

"Rocket launcher—lock onto her position and blow her apart!"

Someone was giving orders, and Su Miao tried to pinpoint the voice, but before she could move, bullets from what sounded like a rotary machine gun came pouring down like a torrential storm, shattering every pane of glass in her area in an instant.

Su Miao crouched under the window with her Type 95, shivering.

BOOM!

A rocket slammed into the area in front of her, blasting a massive hole in the building.

Su Miao immediately shifted her magic spatial array to swallow the incoming shockwave.

This firepower was insane! Way beyond what Chi Wanning's company had.

The man with the rocket launcher couldn't be allowed to live another second.

Su Miao readjusted the magic spatial array, found the launcher's position, and fired immediately.

Bang!

The man shouldering the rocket launcher dropped with a bullet through his head.

But she hadn't expected another rocket to launch from the other side—it was straight into the magic spatial array and absorbed.

There was another rocket launcher?!

This was way too terrifying.

Su Miao located that man and put a bullet through his head as well.

Then she reversed the magic spatial array, sending the absorbed rocket back toward Star Base's machine gun position.

The three men manning the machine gun were torn apart like rag dolls in the explosion.

Another fire point eliminated.

Su Miao didn't stay put. She immediately moved to another room deeper in the building.

The Militia Training Manual had specifically taught: during combat, don't stay in one spot if you can help it—and even if you have to, keep adjusting your attack position during counterattacks to avoid being focused down by the enemy.

"Switch to Plan 2!" the man directing operations outside shouted. "They've got an ambush set up inside!"

Five minutes into the battle, with over twenty casualties, the people of Star Base were shaken to the core.

Including the ten at the checkpoint, they'd lost over thirty people today.

Was this the military? Had they lured them out like this just to slaughter them?

How else could someone kill so fast, and even have rocket attacks?

Down at the foot of the observatory, Old Bear, the deputy base commander, had a face so dark it looked about to drip water.

They had firepower, sure, but there was absolutely no way they could win against the military.

He had to think of something.

I fell asleep while writing last night—here's your 4000-word update.