Chapter 676.1: Help Me, We're Both Shelter Residents!
As the setting sun sank beneath the sea, the harbor of Ring Island fell into quiet calm. Yet 200 nautical miles away, French Fry Harbor was anything but peaceful.
Firelight flickered in the forest. Explosions and gunfire rang out one after another. The communication channels were filled with chaotic shouting, occasionally mixed with the roars and dying cries of mutated creatures.
The remote weapon station atop the Husky kept firing in sustained bursts, pouring 20mm rounds into the pitch-black jungle. The grenade launcher mounted to its side thumped intermittently, sending bursts of fire and smoke erupting through the undergrowth.
Those firing was the Expedition convoy that had ventured deep into the ruins of Shilong City.
Half an hour earlier, they had reached the remains of a signal receiving station, intending to recover satellite coordinates and identification codes stored on local server drives. If they could reconnect to the satellite, they might retrieve access logs and historical IP data stored in its memory, lighting up a vast number of high-value exploration targets on the map.
For the excavation effort, the station was essentially the key to unlocking the first door of a labyrinth. What no one expected was that when the advance squad of the Jungle Corps entered the station, what awaited them was a massive nest of mutated ants.
The moment they saw the one-meter-wide tunnels, a bad feeling had already begun to form. And when they reached the database room, that feeling quickly became reality.
Dark green mutated ants clogged the passageways so densely there was barely any space to stand. The place had been turned into a livestock farm for the creatures!
A mutated soldier ant as tall as a person’s knee soon discovered them, and a brutal fight broke out in the narrow corridors.
Three players risked their lives to rush into the database room packed with writhing insects. Following the prompts on their exoskeleton HUDs, they dismantled chassis encased in chitin and tore out motherboards with the hard drives still attached.
Of the ten players who entered the ruins, only five made it back alive. Of the survivors, one had lost an arm.
With their farm destroyed, the enraged ant colony surged out like a black tide, swarming toward the convoy near the tracked vehicle.
Those creatures were far more formidable than the ones in Shelter 100, especially the soldier ants.
They had massive, scythe-like mandibles, resilience enough to survive multiple gunshots, and the strength to snap tree trunks in a single bite.
Under the queen’s command, they climbed over the corpses of their fallen kin and charged relentlessly toward the vehicle.
Even with the New Alliance’s superior firepower, the overwhelming number of ants made them seem endless.
“Damn it! These things are way crazier than the greenskin fools in the Brocade River Province!” shouted Prone Model, ears ringing from the constant gunfire as he braced himself and kept his light machine gun roaring.
“Reload! Cover me!” shouted Piltover Paratrooper, knocking out an empty drum and hastily slamming in a new one.
Just then, an RPG streaked overhead, trailing white smoke. Sparks and soot rained down onto him.
“Damn it, you...!” he coughed, but before he could finish, the rocket slammed into a tree barely twenty meters away.
The explosion blasted out fire and white smoke, shaking the surrounding jungle. Over a dozen mutated ants were slammed to the ground by the searing shockwave, screeching in agony. The team gained a brief moment to breathe, but before they could recover, the ant swarm surged forward again.
“There are too many of them!” one player shouted into the comms.
Just as they were about to collapse under the pressure, the long-awaited retreat order finally came through. “... Hard drives secured. All squads withdraw along designated routes!”
“Copy!” Prone Model folded up his bipod and retreated with heavy steps, trampling through grass and branches toward the Husky.
Firing in alternating bursts, the team withdrew in groups of three, fighting as they fell back until they reached the vehicle.
The bulldozer-like machine had already turned around, retreating under covering fire from four squads of 10 players.
Seeing the scattered remains, a player couldn’t resist trying to grab some samples, only to nearly have his arm bitten off by a still-living ant. Luckily, the squad leader riddled the creature with bullets just in time.
“Are you trying to die?!” he snapped. “Looting at a time like this?!”
The player scratched his helmet sheepishly. “Just wanted to bring one back for research...”
“Move it!” the squad leader shoved him. “Load up and get out!”
The New Alliance had no aircraft deployed, so no air support was available. Fortunately, earlier that day, the Burning Corps had established a temporary artillery position nearby, and among the reinforcements from Dawn City were 155mm cannons.
Using the radio in the vehicle, Midnight Pubg quickly contacted backup.
“This is the Jungle Corps. We’re under attack by a heavy ant swarm. Coordinates are 1,091, 1,222. Request fire support extending north!”
Static crackled.
“Copy! 155 battery is in position. Give us a minute!”
“Hurry up!”
Ending the call, Midnight Pubg revved the chainsaw mounted on his left arm and hacked into a charging ant. With a grinding shriek, chitin splintered and flew as the half-man-tall soldier ant was cleaved in two.
Without pause, he raised the shotgun mounted on his right arm and blasted another ant’s head into fragments.
Standing amid the swarm like a god of slaughter, he had already racked up countless kills.
“Hold the line! Support is coming!” he roared.
Rallied by his call, the Jungle Corps fighters erupted with ferocity, grabbing entrenching shovels and axes to engage in brutal close combat with the creatures. One strength type player smashed a soldier ant into pulp with a rock after his axe broke.
Another rookie who had his legs severed, grabbed his own detached limb and used it to crush an ant’s head.
The battle devolved into chaotic melee, the Jungle Corps’ specialty.
Blood frenzy took over. For a moment, it was impossible to tell man from beast.
“Madness! This is pure madness!” Prone Model howled, tossing aside his empty gun and charging in with a cleaver.
In just one minute, casualties reached nearly 30%. Though the ants also suffered heavy losses, they knew no fear and they never retreated.
Just as the situation became critical, the artillery arrived. Shells roared into the sky, then rained down like meteors. Explosions bloomed like carnivorous flowers, shredding ants into pieces.
The first barrage was only the beginning.
The second followed immediately, extending firepower 500 meters north, turning the jungle into a shattered wasteland.
“LET’S FUCKING GO!”
“Beautiful!”
The survivors cheered, weapons slick with gore. The researchers on the Husky finally relaxed. Most of them had never been this close to the front lines.
Meng Liang wiped his sweat and forced a grin. “See? It’s not that scary...”
The others looked at him with admiration. What they didn’t know was that his frontline experience had been limited to airship command decks.
This was his first real battlefield.
Of course he was terrified!
Outside, the battle was over, the ant colony had been crushed. The jungle floor was littered with maimed ants twitching weakly.
Worker ants began dragging the wounded back, but other predators were already closing in.
In the jungle, there was no such thing as mercy. No one would be given time to breathe and recover just because they had a few explosive shells dropped on them.
For the ants, it would be a long, painful night.
But for the players, it no longer mattered.
“Damn... I actually survived,” Prone Model muttered, pushing a corpse off himself. He picked up his machine gun and limped away with his teammates.
After retreating two kilometers, casualties were counted.
20 players had died and the rest were mostly wounded.
It was a brutal battle indeed. However, the results were equally significant.
The hard drives were intact. Soon, satellite data would be retrieved, revealing countless new targets.
...
Under the deep night sky, the Jungle Corps returned to French Fry Harbor, battered and exhausted. Their exoskeletons were scarred, dented, and stained with blood.
Some armor pieces had no owners left.
Researchers watched them in silence, eyes filled with emotion. Because of those fighters, they could work without fear.
Death never left the wasteland, someone simply bore it in their place.
Moved, the researchers raised their fists in a silent salute.
What a remarkable group of people.
...
