Chapter 30: Everyone's Progress

Qi An adjusted the muzzle of her rifle, aiming at the head of a Fallen Insect with a mix of nervousness and excitement.

This was the first time she had killed a living creature since she began training with firearms.

She squeezed the trigger. Five hundred meters away, the Fallen Insect swayed, and all the eyes on its back froze simultaneously. Then, it let out a hair-raising shriek; even at a distance of five hundred meters, the lingering intensity was chilling.

Qi An missed.

She hadn't hit the vital spot on the head as she had intended; instead, she struck the creature's back. It wasn't enough to kill it, but it was enough to alert the swarm.

The view through her scope descended into chaos. Yu Shuang immediately fired a follow-up shot, blowing the head off the injured insect.

"It's fine, the wind is strong right now, it’s a tough shot." Yu Shuang still had the leisure to comfort Qi An while firing several shots in quick succession, each one a headshot.

The swarm was in total disarray. Qi An hadn't set her headset to full noise-cancellation, and she could hear the interwoven shrieks with piercing clarity. The pitch was sharp and shrill, summoning more Fallen Insects to crawl out from every corner.

Qi An steadied herself, not forgetting her other duty in the team engagement, and reported the numbers accurately: "There are ten within the toll station area, five to seven in the woods on the left, two behind that mound near the highway guardrail, and about six in that distant crack in the highway and below the slope. There are more vague sensor readings further out."

"Initial assessment: no Wisdom Insects."

"Copy that," came the replies over the headset.

As she spoke, Qi An kept her eyes glued to the scope. The moment she finished, she shifted her aim slightly and fired, nailing a Fallen Insect that was lunging toward them. This time, she hit the vital spot with precision.

"Nice!" Yu Shuang exclaimed, impressed by how quickly she had taken to it.

Qi An felt a rush of adrenaline. In the following shots, even though the targets were moving at high speeds, her hit rate was quite impressive. Clearly, her hard work had paid off; the specialized training she had undergone for days was yielding results.

Zhuang Xiao and Tang Long were at two other sniper positions behind them, with Zhao Bohan further out, while the remaining three guarded the vehicles a kilometer away.

The squad fully utilized their long-range advantage. Two minutes into the battle, every Fallen Insect that dared to show itself had become a corpse. However, the terrain was complex with plenty of cover, and the remaining insects realized the situation, either hiding behind obstacles or attempting to flank them from various corners.

"There are at least five in the woods using the trees for cover as they move toward our rear. And the ones in the highway crack are moving up from below the slope," Qi An said, multitasking between sensing and shooting.

"Copy that. I’ve spotted the insects emerging from the edge of the woods," Zhao Bohan replied.

Zhuang Xiao, a self-proclaimed Qi An fan, chimed in: "I see them too! Damn! Sister Qi is like a living radar! With her, we have nothing to worry about... shit!"

He finished with a curse, then added a moment later: "They have guns too, and their firepower isn't weak!"

"Are you hit?" Su Qingran asked.

"No, just a graze. One of them got close while I was changing clips; they're so fast! My pollution level!" Zhuang Xiao shouted while continuing to fight.

"Keep your conductive terminal cap on!" Qi An commanded.

This small-scale ambush was the perfect opportunity to test this piece of cutting-edge technology. Qi An carried the main unit of the conduction system, which was connected to Yu Shuang, Zhuang Xiao, and Tang Long. But ever since she initiated the resonance, the system's overload warnings hadn't stopped.

Qi An was getting flustered. Zhuang Xiao asked timidly, "Sister Qi, can you handle it? My scalp feels a bit electric..."

The overload alarm was incessant, like a death knell. Qi An took a deep breath, struggling to rein in her mental energy. Was her mental flow too overwhelming, or was this piece of junk machine's channel as narrow as an earthworm's burrow?

She could no longer let her mental energy flood out like it did during purification. She had to extend only thin, delicate tentacles to maintain a slow, steady, and equal confrontation against the growing pollution in her teammates' minds. It was a true test of focus and micro-management—it felt like the system was specifically targeting her.

But just as Zhuang Xiao felt his scalp stinging and hesitated to take off the cap, and as Tang Long’s pollution level hit 39%, Qi An successfully achieved remote resonance and established a weak but stable suppression of the pollution in Zhuang Xiao’s mind. Simultaneously, she synchronized with Tang Long, and neither of their pollution levels rose any further.

"Huh? That feels better!" Zhuang Xiao shouted after blowing up a Fallen Insect.

Tang Long added at the same time: "I feel it too! So comfortable! It’s like sipping ice-cold plum juice on a sweltering summer day!"

That was Tang Long for you—always using beverages for his metaphors.

The machine stopped overloading, though Qi An’s brain was nearly at its limit. Yet, she adapted with incredible speed. It seemed that multi-threading tasks wasn't as difficult for her as she had thought.

With Qi An’s precise sensing and the drone identifying every retreating or hiding insect, the team was unstoppable. Once they had the remote resonance, Yu Shuang, now fully unleashed, even dared to charge into the enemy formation. He finished off the last Fallen Insect, which had been hiding in a guard booth taking potshots. The battle was over.

Total time: 15 minutes.

When the squad regrouped at the vehicles, Yang Yuning stared for a long time. "You're done already? Doesn't anyone need purification or medical attention?"

Yu Shuang finally got to show off in front of their comrades from the outer base. He waved his hand nonchalantly: "It was just 30 bugs, how could we get hurt? The road is cleared, let's go!"

Respect welled up in Yang Yuning’s heart, and even Guan Ling, who didn't understand the battlefield, sensed that aura of "laughing while the enemy is reduced to ashes" and was deeply impressed.

The squad members felt smug. Once back in the vehicle, they engaged in a heated discussion about who had killed more insects in the recent battle. Naturally, it was mostly "Qi An worship," as her contribution had been immense.

Qi An, however, felt indifferent. As she unstrapped the heavy conduction main unit from her back, she discovered that after only 15 minutes of use, the battery was already dead.

Great. What battery life! It was even more pathetic than the refurbished pre-apocalypse phones she used to see on the black market! Was it because she had connected to too many people at once, or was the battery just garbage?

The convoy hit the road again. The remaining journey was complex, and their speed slowed significantly. It took them four full days to arrive.

On March 17, four days later, the weather had become quite warm, and they entered the territory of North Base 1.

North Base 1 was a mega-base with a population of three million. The city within the walls was vast, and outside the walls, layers upon layers of factories, farms, and ranches stretched as far as the eye could see.

The main road leading in and out of the base had eight lanes, with all kinds of vehicles coming and going. There was actually a queue at the base gate!

The bustle and prosperity gave Qi An her first real concept of the bustling, superficial modern civilization and the throngs of people in the super-cities described in the base's general education textbooks—the world before the apocalypse.