Wasteland: My items are infinitely upgraded.

Chapter 323 Awakening, The Wolf Clan's Past, Han Tao's Defection

Just as Lin Feng was focused on observing the battle behind him, to prevent Lang Ao from breaking through Bai Ye's control and getting close, Han Tao, who had been unconscious, suddenly opened his eyes in a transport vehicle behind him.

Earlier, during Xu Wanfeng's breakout, while loading the corpse of a Tier 2 early-stage wild wolf behemoth, he also rescued Han Tao, who was unconscious nearby.

He is mainly a second-tier early-stage rock horse warrior, and he is of some use.

Moreover, allowing the opponent to be taken over by the Wilderness Wolf Clan might give the enemy an extra early-stage Wilderness Wolf Beast, or help Wolf Ao and other second-tier giant wolves recover their physical condition.

For the wolf clan, the evolved flesh and blood of the Rockhorse Warrior is a great tonic.

Although Han Tao, who was hit by the blast wave, fell into a coma after being thrown more than 100 meters away, he was able to escape the explosion's epicenter by reacting quickly at the last moment and was more than 50 meters away. Therefore, he was not engulfed by the fireball and was spared the scorching heat of thousands of degrees.

After being propelled away by the shockwave, most of the damage from the impact with the boulder was offset by the power armor on his body. Therefore, apart from numerous fractures throughout his body and tears in his internal organs, Han Tao did not suffer any serious external injuries.

Encased in power armor, all the flesh and tissue inside the body remained intact.

The reason for the coma was mainly that the brain was rendered in a state of shutdown under the strong energy impact and collision.

At the same time, the intense pain throughout the body also triggered the brain's emergency self-protection program, severing the connection between the pituitary gland and the nerves in the cervical spine.

With the powerful self-healing ability of a second-tier evolver, Han Tao successfully regained consciousness after more than ten minutes.

They also benefited from the rescue efforts of Salvation Army support personnel inside the transport vehicle.

Because Han Tao came from Oasis Town and was a high-ranking Oasis Governor and a powerful second-tier evolver, the Salvation Army did not dare to be negligent.

Even though Xu Wanfeng and Lin Feng hadn't explicitly stated it, it would be unreasonable for a second-tier evolved human who came to support the Salvation Army to die in the Salvation Army's ranks.

Therefore, even when its own members were in critical condition and injured one after another, the Salvation Army still spared two logistics members to take care of Han Tao.

The main purpose is to give him intravenous nutrition to replenish his energy.

For second-tier evolved beings, with few external injuries or wounds, as long as the body is continuously supplied with the nutrients it urgently needs, internal injury repair can be accelerated.

With the help of the Salvation Army, Han Tao was able to slowly wake up from his coma.

The moment his brain cells reconnected with his spinal nerves, a tingling and numb sensation shot through his body, almost causing Han Tao to faint again.

Fortunately, Han Tao's extraordinary endurance, inherited from the rock ram genes, allowed him to pull through.

The waves of intense pain brought Han Tao fully awake within seconds.

The moment before he lost consciousness, the instant the shell struck, the scene of death was deeply etched in Han Tao's mind.

With an astonishing tolerance for pain, the body gradually repairs internal injuries such as fractures and organ tears under the continuous infusion of nutrients.

As the pain gradually subsided, Han Tao recalled everything that had happened before he lost consciousness, as well as the environment inside the transport vehicle.

The support staff nearby saw the unconscious second-tier expert open his eyes and stare blankly for a moment before introducing him:

"This is the Salvation Army!"

"Chairman Xu rescued you and handed you over to us so we could carry out the rescue..."

Before the member could finish speaking, a violent explosion rang out next to the transport vehicle.

Following the explosion, a leader-level giant wolf that was about to attack the transport vehicle was directly hit by the high-speed cannon. The powerful shockwave from the explosion sent it flying on the spot.

The damage, amounting to 190 points, tore a wound in its abdomen, causing severe injury that rendered it unable to move, leaving it lying on the Gobi Desert, barely alive.

The shockwave from the nearby explosion caused the transport vehicle, which was moving smoothly, to shake violently, and it almost overturned due to its full-speed travel.

Han Tao lost his balance and stumbled, falling off the bed to the ground.

The two assistants on either side barely managed to stay upright by grabbing onto the roof railings in time.

Having gotten back to his feet, Han Tao asked:
"The Salvation Army hasn't escaped the encirclement of the Wild Wolves yet?"

"Didn't Lin Feng's shot kill the giant wolf beast?"

Recalling the last moments before falling into a coma.

The Heat-Melting Annihilation Cannon, with power comparable to a battleship's giant cannon, hit its target directly.

Although it was right where he had fled, Han Tao truly felt the terrifying destructive power of the shell.

Even after waking up from his near-death experience, the intense sense of impending death still left Han Tao feeling lingering fear and apprehension.

The two support personnel exchanged glances, then the older one, an early-stage Tier 1 Evolver, nodded and replied:
"No, there was an unexpected incident during the plan!"

"Although Chief Lin successfully killed one of the wolf clan's giant wild wolves and severely injured the other two, what we didn't expect was that Wolf Ao, the leader of the Wild Wolf Clan who was originally attacking Oasis Town on the front line, actually turned back and joined the pursuit and interception of us!"

"Right now, our leader is fighting Wolf Ao to cover the main convoy, while Leader Lin is also in our convoy, providing support with his artillery!"

"According to Chairman Xu's plan, we only need to advance one kilometer to the left and rear to break through the encirclement and enter Oasis Avenue."

"At that time, Oasis Town will be right behind us, and it will be able to provide a lot of firepower support."

"Once the two sides reunite, there will be no need to worry about being surrounded by the evolved wolves. With the powerful firepower of the Oasis warships and the defensive lines in Oasis Town, once we break through these mountains and enter the plains..."

"Not only will the firepower suppression effect be greatly enhanced, but support from deep within is also on its way!"

As he spoke, the elderly logistics engineer seemed to be encouraging himself, becoming more determined and confident that everyone would be able to escape the encirclement successfully...

What he didn't notice was that Han Tao, the highest-ranking official of Oasis Town and a second-tier evolved being, was already having second thoughts after hearing what he said.

Aside from the evolved beings who had fought against Wolf Ao, there should be no one else in the entire Oasis Town who knows the power of this ancient behemoth better than Han Tao.

On one hand, as a Rock Horse Warrior, Han Tao had an instinctive fear of the evolved Wild Wolf. On the other hand, he had also investigated the Wolf Clan's heritage site located in the Taishan Ruins in the internal research data of the Life Farm.

As a sacred place for the wolf clan, Fallen Wolf Valley contains the purest wolf bloodline.

In particular, the ancient wolf clans possessed a bloodline gene strength far exceeding that of the now-evolved wasteland wolf clans.

The Steppenwolf belongs to one of the ancient wolf clans.

Back then, under the leadership of Wolf King Ao, the evolved wolf clan consisted of at least five different wolf clans. The current Wasteland Wolf Clan is just one of them that makes the most use of the wasteland environment. The other four clans gradually disappeared from the wasteland after the death of their leaders.

They gradually disappeared until they became extinct, or they merged into the Steppenwolves, no longer retaining their independent bloodline and ability inheritance.

This makes it difficult for the wolf clan's legacy, namely the third-tier body of Wolf King Ao, to find the most suitable successor.

After all, the Wolf King, as the sole royal beast of the wolf clan, is a unified entity that absorbs all branches of the wolf clan and gathers all their genes.

It can represent the entire ethnic group in itself.

Therefore, the vast gene pool within the body is able to withstand the immense power of the third order.

Through its research into the wolf clan's heritage and investigation of traces of their existence, Life Farm discovered that a fierce internal conflict erupted among the five wolf generals under the Wolf King over the ownership of the clan's guardianship. This conflict also involved many top-tier forces, with several third-tier kings among the shadows of those involved.

The final result, naturally, was that the current guardian of the legacy, Wolf Ao, emerged victorious and has survived to this day, becoming a living fossil in the wasteland.

However, unlike other second-tier life forms, this ancient behemoth's strength and condition did not gradually weaken over time...

On the contrary, through long-term absorption of the Wolf King's Tomb, the third-tier power within the Wolf King's third-tier body became stronger and stronger.

Hundreds of years ago, Life Farm sent an elite squad of late-stage Tier 2 warriors to fight against Wolf Ao.

The latter's strength has accumulated to an incredible level, making him second only to a third-tier king.

Even many peak second-tier experts who had mastered some third-tier power could only hold their own against Lang Ao for a while, and it was difficult for them to achieve a suppressive effect.

However, if a third-tier king were to personally intervene and seize the third-tier inheritance of the wolf clan, it would break the agreement between the gods and the wolf king and damage the seal at the bottom of the refuge ruins.

Another point is that the third-tier king is worried that entering the ruins will result in being corrupted by the evil god sealed at the bottom.

The corrupted energy of the evil god can be easily isolated by ordinary evolved beings as long as they take proper precautions. At the very least, it can be cleaned up by being exposed to the blazing sun.

However, for a third-tier king, the pollution caused by this chaotic gene is like a malignant tumor that will continue to grow through the third-tier power within the king's body.

Like a virus, it rapidly replicates and spreads by relying on the third-order body as its soil.

For ordinary evolved beings, there is no suitable environment for pollution to grow within their bodies. Even if it invades, it only absorbs life force from the surface, just like a parasite.

So even though the gods have disappeared for many years, and only top-tier large forces still abide by the agreement made back then, none of the third-tier kings among the other first-class forces would risk coming to seize the wolf clan's inheritance.

Because once they are infected with viral-like aberrations, it will take them at least a decade to undergo deep isolation and cleansing. During this period, they cannot rashly use their third-tier power to avoid accelerating the assimilation and spread of the contamination.

Thanks to all of the above, the wolf clan in Fallen Wolf Valley, despite being avoided by third-tier kings, has survived for thousands of years thanks to the protection of Wolf Ao, who is practically invincible in the second stage.

Life Farm later had no contact with Wolf Ao, discussing exchanging second-tier evolved meat, especially the flesh and blood of the Rock Horse Giant, for the bloodline genes of high-tier wolves...

At first, Lang Ao disagreed, but as the wild rockhorse herds on the wasteland became increasingly scarce, especially the second-tier, mid-to-late stage rockhorse behemoths, it was sometimes difficult to find even one within a radius of thousands of miles.

Wolf Ao spends most of each wasteland year stationed in the Wolf King's Tomb, and is only able to go out hunting for less than a third of the time, about two years.

After hundreds of years of fruitless harvests, Lang Ao finally couldn't help but agree to exchange a small portion of the wolf clan's high-level evolved meat for a large amount of rock horse behemoth flesh provided by the Life Farm.

However, this kind of transaction only happened a few times.

Because Lang Ao was very clear about the humans' purpose, which was nothing more than to use this to obtain the third-tier wolf king inheritance in the wolf king's tomb.

Therefore, it only gave it a portion of the wasteland wolf's genes, mixed with the high-level flesh and blood of another wolf general.

The rest I kept in my hand.

In this way, even if the Life Farm uses advanced biotechnology, it can at most only cultivate second-tier giant wolves that cannot reproduce. Moreover, these cloned beasts are extremely unsuitable for the current wasteland environment and have little other value.

However, the Life Farm wasn't without its gains; at least through the wolf genes it possessed, it confirmed one thing...

That is, in Wolf Ao's hands, he still possesses the evolved flesh and blood of the other four wolf generals from back then, but he has yet to inherit the Wolf King's legacy...

Either the wolf king's remaining consciousness does not recognize it.

Either the other four branches of the bloodline are not fully mastered.

Rushing into fusion and promotion can easily lead to problems, resulting in the body exploding and dying.

Therefore, in his later years, Wolf Ao planned to cultivate a successor to replace him in inheriting the Wolf King's legacy and becoming the new Wolf King.

The result is the emergence of three early-stage, second-tier wild wolf behemoths in the new generation of the Wild Wolf Clan.

Thinking about this, Han Tao finally understood why Lang Ao would abandon the attack on Oasis Town and instead turn back to support the wolf clan on the Salvation Army's side.

It was because the weapon in Lin Feng's hand was simply too incredibly powerful.

A single shot can annihilate a second-tier behemoth of the same level.

This is almost impossible for human evolvers, but Lin Feng, a gun-wielding ability user, easily accomplished it with just a combined long cannon.

In Han Tao's view, Lin Feng's gun-wielding ability was even more powerful than that of other evolved individuals with the same ability in the Holy City, at least the latter could not fire the ultimate shot continuously in a short period of time.

After each time I unleash my full power, I need to rest for at least a few days and replenish a large amount of evolved meat to make up for the loss of my source essence.

Lin Feng not only hit Lang Ao earlier, but now he has launched a series of attacks, killing one of the giant wild wolves and severely injuring the other two.

Besides these, what terrified Han Tao even more was Lin Feng's decisiveness and ruthlessness.

One moment they're talking about the future, the next they're willing to use their colleague as bait to bombard both man and beast in order to achieve their goal.

If Han Tao hadn't reacted quickly, and if the power armor hadn't been faster than the Rock Horse armor, he probably would have died a gruesome death under the scorching fire, just like that giant wolf beast.

At this moment, he was surrounded by the wolf army from both sides, with Lin Feng watching him intently, and Wolf Ao, who was invincible within the second tier, relentlessly pursuing him from behind...

Han Tao knew better than anyone that if Lin Feng couldn't hit Lang Ao, then Bai Ye alone wouldn't be able to hold him off for long, and the Salvation Army would definitely be annihilated in Lang Ao's gaping maw.

In order to severely injure his opponent once again, Lin Feng might even put himself in danger, just like before...

Staying here means certain death either way!

Thinking of this, Han Tao spoke directly:

"Do you have any Tier 2 Rockhorse meat? Tier 1 late-stage evolved meat is also fine!"

The support staff were taken aback for a moment, then took out a tube of nutrient solution from the storage box.

Han Tao took it and saw that it was the late-stage Tier 1 mixed nutrient solution launched by the Life Farm. In addition to the leader-level rockhorn horse meat, it also contained some horse bones and the flesh and blood of other evolved wild beasts.

It costs less than pure jerky but is more nutritious, making it a great alternative.

After taking a sip, Han Tao immediately pulled out a slightly deformed metal test tube from the ruptured power armor.

A pale pink liquid flowed inside.

It is a diluted version of the sublimation agent for rock hornbill horse.

Han Tao's eyes hardened, revealing a fierce glint. He then used his thumb to pry open the cap of the test tube, exposing the syringe at the end.

He then plunged it into his own chest.

He needs to escape this place.

This is the last chance!
(End of this chapter)