Shipping goods from the game to the World of Warhammer

Chapter 106 The Experiences of an Ordinary, Cunning Soldier

Grigory has served in the Planetary Defense Forces of Craigren Hive for fourteen years.

Fourteen years is neither a long nor a short time; it's enough to turn a greenhorn who couldn't even hold an automatic rifle steadily when he first joined the army into a veteran who can walk the entire patrol route in the Seventh District of Zhongchao with his eyes closed.

He knew every main road and every entrance to every residential area in this city.

In Craigen, he wasn't exactly a wealthy or prestigious man, but Gregor thought life here was good enough.

The area is safe and secure. Although prices rise every year, they are still within an acceptable range. He has a small but adequate dormitory room, and he can save a small portion of his monthly military pay to send back to his mother in Shangchao District.

His mother was old and had bad knees, so she had to hold onto the wall to go up and down stairs. Gregor had been trying to save enough money to buy her a house with an elevator, although at his current military pay, it would probably take him another seven or eight years to save.

Occasionally, he would encounter petty theft during patrols. The most serious incident was last year when he caught a smuggler at the freight station in the Seventh District. The man even pulled out a pistol, which Gregor knocked unconscious with the butt of his rifle. That incident made him somewhat famous in the company, and the company commander even praised him at the weekly meeting, saying that he was quick-witted and daring.

Gregor thought that time was nothing special; he was actually quite nervous, but his body reacted faster than his mind.

But compared to the orc invasions and chaos rebellions he had seen in his training materials, the smuggler's pistol was nothing.

He even thought he was lucky, until that peace was shattered three days ago.

It started with a communication outage in the lower nest area. This had happened before; the infrastructure in the lower nest area was old and dilapidated, so a communication line outage for a day or two wasn't unusual. Gregor even joked with someone that the guys in the lower nest had used the power lines as drying racks again.

It's a clothesline.

But this time it was different. It wasn't just one or two lines that were interrupted, but the entire communication network of the lower nest area went offline at the same time, and even the emergency channel lost signal.

Then came the first batch of reports.

Some people said that unidentified creatures had appeared in the Lower Nest, while others said that they saw hordes of deformed monsters pouring out of the abandoned factory area. Gregor thought at the time that people were making things up. All sorts of strange rumors could be heard in a place like the Lower Nest. Last month, someone even said that they saw three-meter-tall rats in the drainage ditch.

But when the first group of residents who escaped from the lower nest area rushed back into the outer perimeter of the middle nest, even at the risk of being shot, Gregor realized the seriousness of the situation.

The residents' eyes held a fear he had never seen before, a fear that arose only after witnessing something that shouldn't exist in this world.

Some people had injuries, some were covered in some kind of grayish-green viscous liquid, and some had abnormal growths and bumps on their skin. A middle-aged woman carrying a child stumbled through the checkpoint. Gregor noticed a gray patch the size of a coin on the back of her right hand, with tiny hyphae wriggling under the skin.

She was stopped, and Gregor never saw her again.

It was only after arriving at the front lines that Gregory saw those things with his own eyes.

Those things that were once human are now covered in bone spurs and tentacles, their eyes filled with only empty orange light, as if their souls have been devoured by something, leaving only a shell controlled by another will.

They surged out of the nest passage in droves, charging over the corpses of their own kind, unaware of fear or retreat.

Gregor pulled the trigger, and the explosive bullet pierced the face of a monster. As the thing fell, Gregor's hand trembled.

Besides the mutated humans, he also saw other monsters.

Those serpentine creatures that rush out from behind the humanoid monsters have upright upper bodies and densely packed spikes on their backs, capable of shooting venomous spikes at you from hundreds of meters away.

Gregor witnessed his comrade being pierced through the chest by a finger-length bone spur. The poison turned the skin around the wound purplish-black within seconds, and the man became motionless within ten seconds.

He had no time for a moment of silence, because the second volley of poisonous stingers had already come flying in.

And then there are those big guys with mushroom-shaped structures on their backs, which spit out worms wherever they go, charging towards them along with the monsters.

Those two days of fighting were the longest he had ever experienced in his life. He didn't remember how many times he changed magazines or how many humanoid monsters he killed; he only remembered the wreckage piling up higher and higher in the tunnel, the stench in the air growing stronger, and his ears filled with gunshots, screams, and the piercing hiss of the insects.

Over the past two days, he has slept for less than four hours in total. Every time he closes his eyes, he is awakened by distant explosions or gunshots. When he wakes up, he finds himself covered in cold sweat and his hand is still in the grip of a gun.

Until a turning point appeared.

It was news brought by the Star Child.

From a young age, Gregor was taught to revere the Star Children, those great pioneers, those who paved the way for all among the stars.

He didn't know the true origins of the Star Children, but whenever those beings appeared on the battlefield, he felt his spine harden even more.

In their most desperate moments, it was the Star Child who stood at the forefront of the defensive line, tearing the mutated beings to shreds with her four arms. When the heavy automatic cannons ran out of ammunition, it was the Star Child who charged into the enemy ranks, creating an opening and buying them time to reload. Every time Gregor and his soldiers saw those figures appear on the battlefield, they knew that this battle was far from over.

Then, it was the Star Child who discovered the secret in the chemical plant in the East District of Zhongchao.

Those industrial toxic gases have a remarkable effect on these monsters.

After the news spread, morale across the entire front visibly rebounded. The previously retreating defensive lines suddenly stabilized and began to push back.

Gregor and his company were assigned to the cleanup force. They didn't need to be at the forefront; that was the job of the Star Children. Those great beings were responsible for destroying chemical storage facilities along the way and releasing industrial toxic gases to clear out the mutated beings in front of them.

All they had to do was put on chemical protective suits they'd found in the factory warehouse, wear breathing masks, and follow behind, using flamethrowers to burn away the disgusting gray mycelium and proliferating tissue on the walls.

The protective suit looked bulky over his military uniform, the rubber gloves made his grip on the flamethrower clumsy, and the filter of his breathing mask hissed slightly. Each breath carried the smell of rubber and activated charcoal. But Gregor didn't mind at all.

Because he no longer had to face those monsters charging at him head-on.

The flamethrower is almost therapeutically simple to use: aim at the disgusting mycelium crawling all over the walls, pull the trigger, watch the orange flame lick the grayish-green organic matter, listen to the crackling and popping sounds it makes under the high temperature, as it shrinks, turns black, and turns to ash.

In some cases, the mycelium on the walls has penetrated very deep, and even after the surface is burned away, residual roots will still emerge from the inner layers. In such situations, Gregor would turn the sprayer to maximum power and heat it back and forth against the wall until the steel plate is red-hot and the building structure is completely burned away, ensuring that every mycelium inside is killed by the high temperature.

They advanced along the main passage of the third level of the central nest area, leaving behind a clean passage, free from the creeping mycelium that used to make one's scalp crawl.

Along the way, they passed a previous firefight site. The walls on both sides of the passage were riddled with bullet holes and charred marks, and fragments of military equipment and dried blood were scattered on the ground.

We also encountered some lone insect swarm units.

A small squad of Hydralisks were entrenched behind a corner at a fork in the road. Without their mutated combatants acting as human shields, their situation became much more precarious.

The two Star Children at the front didn't give them a chance for a second round of shots. After the Star Children dodged the first round of backstabs with incredible reaction speed, two purple lightning bolts rushed straight up.

The Star Child's strangulation efficiency was many times faster than Griffin's rifle shooting; within seconds, the insects were turned into a pile of minced meat on the wall and floor.

Another swarm host was trapped in a warehouse that had been half-burned. The hatching structure on its back was still struggling to release locusts, but the tiny insects that had just emerged from the hatching holes could only resist for a short while in the intense fire before they were upside down and exploded on the ground, turning into a pile of minced meat.

Without the protection of the locusts, the swarm host was a clumsy, live target. Grigory's company and another infantry platoon next to it concentrated their fire, and nearly a hundred explosive arrows hit its carapace, piercing the soft tissue inside the mushroom-shaped monster.

The large creature let out a muffled cry, its six limbs went limp, and it collapsed to the ground with a thud. The hatching structure on its back was still making its final, wriggling movements.

It moves, then falls completely silent.

He stepped forward and breathed fire at the corpse of the swarm's host, making sure it wouldn't get up again.

"I almost got my face covered in acid from that thing just now." A comrade next to him patted his chest. "If the Star Child hadn't taken care of those monsters first, my face would probably be chewed up like a honeycomb today."

Gregor felt that everything was moving in a positive direction.

Their objective was clear: the final main passage leading to the lower lair was just ahead. The previous entrances had been recaptured and sealed off by other cleanup forces. Once they took this last one, they could transport all the industrial toxic gas through the passage to the lower lair, suffocating the monsters and mycelium in their own lair.

Thinking of this, Gregor's lips even unconsciously twitched upwards.

He thought that once this was over, the first thing he would do was write a letter to his mother to tell her that he was fine and not to worry.

The first thing to do is get a good night's sleep, at least twelve hours.

The two Star Children ahead have already turned the last corner, and the entrance to the passage is just twenty meters away.

The blast door, deformed by the mutated creature, was still half-open. Several withered and blackened mycelial remnants hung on the door frame, and the inside was dark and endless.

The Star Child, who was walking at the front, stopped and scanned the surroundings of the passage entrance with a wary look.

Gregor noticed that the Star Children had clearly noticed something unusual; their pace slowed, their four arms switched from an attack stance to a guard stance, their arms slightly tucked in, and their center of gravity lowered.

That was a defensive posture.

In the past three days of fighting, Gregor had learned to observe the Star Children's body language. When they were relaxed, their four arms would hang naturally, and their steps would be light. When they were tense, their arms would be slightly raised, their claws would extend outward, and their center of gravity would be lowered. But now, these Star Children's postures were more tense than ever before he had seen them.

Just as Gregor was about to ask his comrade if he had noticed anything, a very slight tremor suddenly came from the ground beneath his feet.

But the passage ahead was deserted, and the Star Children found nothing amiss.

Below.

The others also noticed it. They looked down at the metal floor beneath their feet and saw a very fine crack appear on the thick steel plate, which was extending forward at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Floor," Gregor uttered just two words.

Immediately afterwards, a scream he would never forget rang out in front of him.

Gregor turned his head sharply, and the image that appeared in his eyes caused his brain to short-circuit for a full second.

The Star Child at the very front, the great warrior whom he considered almost invincible, was now suspended in mid-air.

No, it's not suspended in mid-air.

It was pierced from below the ground.

Several sharp, bony spikes suddenly pierced through the metal floor, like a giant hand extending its fingers from the ground, directly penetrating it.

It took the body of that Star Child.

The thickest thorn pierced through the center of its abdomen and emerged from its back, leaving a trail of purple blood. The other two thorns pierced its left leg and right side, pinning its entire body to the spot.

The Star Child's four sharp claws frantically scratched at the bone spurs piercing its body, producing a piercing sound of metal scraping against bone. Large gushes of purple blood flowed down the surface of the bone spurs, pooling on the shattered metal floor.

It was still struggling and howling, but the barbs on those bone spurs were firmly stuck inside its body, and each struggle only made the wound bigger.

Gregor could hear people shouting behind him and cursing, but these sounds became blurred in the face of that scream.

The other Star Child reacted extremely quickly, leaping back several meters in an instant, its four arms assuming a full defensive stance. But before it could make its next move, the metal floor beneath its feet seemed to be lifted up from the bottom by something, the entire steel plate deforming and bending upwards, emitting a piercing metallic bending sound.

Then the floor cracked.

Emerging from the crack was another densely packed string of incredibly sharp bone needles.

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