Chapter 183: Running out of time!
Translator: Legge Editor: Legge
Soon, Ren Xiaosu arrived at the back of the crowd as he made his way through them in the opposite direction. Here, three Experimentals chased after over a 1,000 people and slaughtered anyone they could get their hands on. When they realized Ren Xiaosu was heading straight for them, one of the Experimentals gave up on its target and pounced at Ren Xiaosu instead!
But before they could even get in front of Ren Xiaosu, Ren Xiaosu had already pulled a saber out of thin air. Even at this moment, Ren Xiaosu did not stop moving. He ran even faster, leading with shoulder forward, brushing past the Experimental that had pounced at him.
Ren Xiaosu gripped the handle of the extremely sharp saber firmly as he felt it going through the Experimental’s body. Its gray skin was sliced open by the blade.
The muscle fibers within the gray skin ruptured thread by thread. Following, the bones were cleanly cut through. Finally, the gray body was split in two as large amounts of pale yellow blood spurted out of it.
All of a sudden, the crowd that was fleeing toward the stronghold’s gate was blocked off by some Experimentals up ahead. Everyone instinctively turned around and ran back to where they came. Turning around didn’t mean they would survive, but they did not know what else they could do!
The despairing crowd had lost all sense by now. They had not received any evacuation training, nor faced the wilderness before. As such, even if they had a strong desire to live, their survival instinct was unable to guide them on where to go.
The instant they turned around, they saw the sight of an Experimental getting sliced in half. The black saber, the youth who was bursting with strength and power, and the Experimental that looked so vulnerable in the face of the blade.
A girl discovered to her surprise that the youth who did this was the Ren Xiaosu who had once been asked by their class to drop out of school. Back then, they were all afraid that Ren Xiaosu would bring disease and death to them since he was a former refugee. But what did that student who spoke up for him say at that time?
On that day, one of Jiang Wu’s students had said to them and their parents, “Side with him? We’re not siding with or helping him. And he doesn’t need our help either. You people are utterly clueless about the outside world. I find it to be really sad.”
No one knew what that student was trying to say at the time. But now she realized what it meant.
So this world had become this dangerous. The students who escaped in the wilderness to Stronghold 109 had clearly gone through life and death with Ren Xiaosu. As a result, they knew exactly what he was capable of.
Such capabilities might not mean much inside the stronghold. But compared to the larger world, these strongholds were just a mere speck.
The girl tugged at a middle-aged woman next to her and shouted, “Mom, that’s Ren Xiaosu! He’s the refugee who was forced to switch classes by you all!”
A complicated look appeared on the woman’s face. But in this life and death situation, was there a need to have other considerations? She said, “Do you know him? Ask him to come back and save us!”
At this moment, when the fleeing crowd that had been forced to turn back by the Experimentals saw that Ren Xiaosu could slay these creatures, someone shouted, “Follow him, follow him closely!”
It was as though they had found their savior and thought they could survive just by following Ren Xiaosu.
But after slaying one of the Experimentals, Ren Xiaosu did not come to a stop. He immediately hurried away from the battle site so the other two Experimentals would not have a chance to close in on him and cause any further delays.
His objective was to save someone, not stay behind to kill these Experimentals!
With just a moment’s effort, Ren Xiaosu left the Experimentals and the fleeing crowd far behind.
Seeing they could not catch up to Ren Xiaosu, the Experimentals turned back around to the frightened crowd. When the girl saw Ren Xiaosu running further and further away, and just as she was about to call out to him to come back and save them, the Experimental in front of her pounced and bit down on her throat!
The girl’s cry for help did not even manage to make it out of her mouth, and only despair remained in her eyes.
Ren Xiaosu was never a savior of others. There was only one person’s life in this stronghold he cared about right now.
Then the palace suddenly said, “Quest: Save the stronghold’s residents.”
But even so, it did not make Ren Xiaosu turn his head.
He definitely needed to complete the quest. But Yang Xiaojin was also a resident of the stronghold, so wouldn’t saving her also allow him to complete the quest? Ren Xiaosu always had a unique understanding of the quests assigned by the palace.
While he was running with everything he had, Ren Xiaosu was surprised to see an Experimental crouched next to a man who had fainted. The man did not have any visible injuries on his body and seemed to have only been knocked unconscious.
Ren Xiaosu kept his distance from this Experimental as he continued running towards the building. However, he couldn’t help but keep noticing its odd behavior.
Usually, the Experimentals would pounce when they noticed a living being like him. However, this Experimental apparently had something more important it needed to do.
The Experimental suddenly opened its mouth wide and stuck out its tongue. Ren Xiaosu thought it was going lick its “food” before devouring it. However, he noticed there was a small syringe wrapped around the end of its tongue. Then the Experimental took the syringe and held it in its hand. It attempted to inject the syringe filled with a gray liquid into the man’s neck!
Ren Xiaosu felt a chill run up his spine. What was this Experimental trying to do?
Luo Lan had already reminded Ren Xiaosu that these Experimentals were known to conduct experiments. At that time, Ren Xiaosu was wondering what else would the Experimentals do if not experiments? But at this moment, he was shocked.
The normal skin color of the man suddenly started to visibly turn gray. His muscles that couldn’t be counted as particularly lean also started bulking up rapidly.
In the past, Ren Xiaosu thought the Experimentals’ goal was to slaughter all living things. But right now, he realized they were not actually looking to kill everyone.
What exactly was the liquid that had been injected into the man?
To tell the truth, when Luo Lan mentioned the “nanomachines” and “Experimentals performing experiments”, Ren Xiaosu reacted quite scornfully to it. After all, a break in human civilization had occurred, so technology should still be in its preliminary stage of revival, right?
But Ren Xiaosu suddenly thought of what Zhang Jinglin had said to him before. Technology had not really been fully displaced.
Zhang Jinglin’s original words were: “They are in the possession of a minority of the people.”
That should be the reason for the organizations rise to become what they were now.
Ren Xiaosu realized why the Experimentals’ numbers were increasing.
It was no wonder the Experimentals were attacking another stronghold. It was because they were trying to increase their food sources and expand their community, so they had to take over new strongholds in order to get them.
If Stronghold 113 had not collapsed from an earthquake, the Experimentals would not have been able to expand in numbers so rapidly. It was because they didn’t have enough numbers to attack and take down a stronghold before that event.
But ever since they increased their numbers at Stronghold 113, they had raised a big enough army to devour a stronghold.
Ren Xiaosu knew he was running out of time. He needed to get Yang Xiaojin out of this place pronto.