The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH241

Chapter 241 — Night Battle

In the deep of night, a few sharp flashes of cold metal tore through the air, shooting directly toward the men in the vanguard. Of the four scouts who had come to clear the path, only two reacted fast enough to dodge. The other two were hit—one in the shoulder and the other straight in the face!

With a sharp howl, the man shot in the jaw cried out in agony. The men who had just leaped down from the perimeter wall were thoroughly startled, instantly ducking into the blind spots between the residential buildings and the wall.

Luo Xun fired another bolt from his crossbow. With a sharp swoosh, a speed-type superpower user who had successfully dodged the first wave but left his foot exposed outside his cover was struck clean through the instep!

After the figures in the shadows rapidly concealed themselves, the area fell silent for a short while. Inside the room where Luo Xun and the team were holed up, it was equally deathly silent, every single member quietly monitoring the conditions outside.

Suddenly, with several heavy thuds and rumbles, a few massive chunks of shattered stone were forcefully hurled upward. Immediately following that, a roaring, continuous sheet of dense fire erupted to form a wall of flames!

Xu Mei narrowed her eyes, suddenly feeling her hands itch. She turned her head to look at Luo Xun, who was still holding his crossbow perfectly steady.

Luo Xun didn’t allow the visual obstructions created by the enemies’ superpowers below to compromise his judgment. Peerless through the narrow gaps of the flickering firelight, he caught sight of several silhouettes breaking toward the entrance of a nearby building. He fired two more bolts in succession, completely unconcerned with whether they hit as he rapidly retracted the weapon, systematically reloading a fresh set of five bolts in a single breath.

“They’re trying to force their way into the building. Yan Fei, you sort out the three outside the wall first.” Since these people had explicitly refrained from turning and fleeing at the first sign of trouble, they could only blame themselves when his side showed zero mercy.

Yan Fei didn’t utter a word, merely pooling his mental focus to execute a long-range manipulation of the scrap metal they had systematically deployed along the perimeter wall this afternoon. Yes, the moment they arrived at this residential compound today, they had already finalized their preparations across every single coordinate highly vulnerable to an ambush.

Little Xinran’s sandpit traps, his own metal traps, and hidden snares were all locked and loaded!

Hearing the commotion erupting inside the perimeter, the three rearguards anchoring the exterior knew that their column’s infiltration had likely been detected. However, they didn’t harbor much anxiety. Since their own side possessed a methodology to detect the hostile movements of the quarry, it wasn’t an impossibility for the target to detect their presence within their own territory. This brand of stealthily ambushing alternative independent squads to murder them and liquidate their cargo was an operation they had executed on numerous occasions. Although their own column would absorb a certain degree of casualties after every operation, once they succeeded, the absolute harvest was invariably worth it!

Especially on this run—if they unluckily achieved a total success, who knew if they could paradoxically secure a completely pristine, independent base outside the parameters of the City A Base that belonged entirely to them?!

Harboring this exact brand of expectation inside their chests, they meticulously monitored the interior din while alertly scanning their surroundings, leaning their backs against the base of the wall as they glanced left and right to maintain watch.

With rumbles, explosions, and the roar of fire erupting inside the perimeter, they knew their companions inside were currently brainstorming a strategy to counter the target. Yet amidst these thunderous noises, absolutely no one noticed that the concrete wall flanking their sides had become slightly bizarre…

Before they even realized it, the scrap metal that had been seamlessly attached within the structural fractures of the wall had slithered onto the surface, explicitly “clothing” the exterior facade in a sheet of steel armor! That layer of metal suddenly tore open from the wall and the earth below, violently wrapping itself straight toward the three men!

Before they could even find the time to scream for rescue—and right before their brains could register the development—they were thoroughly and completely encased inside. Following that, within less than a single minute, they no longer required their brains to process anything ever again.

The faction that had charged past the perimeter wall had split into two columns. Seven or eight wounded men, supported by their companions, had managed to scramble into one of the building entrances with immense difficulty. During the tactical retreat, several individuals had absorbed secondary wounds along the way, including two who collapsed flat onto the concrete pavement, their absolute survival parameters unclear. The alternative column had jumped directly through the window frames of an adjacent building, handily managing to dodge this wave of aggression.

“The quarry is far too tough. They definitely deployed counter-measures in advance.” The seven or eight men managing the wounded finally let out a sigh of relief, sheltering inside an apartment room as they lowered their voices to exchange notes.

“Then are we… still mounting the assault?”

“Of course we strike! Seeing how instantaneously they detected our presence, this small township is bound to be their operational stronghold; they possess reconnaissance capabilities!” The speaker happened to be the absolute leader of this infiltration column, a savage, ruthless light flashing across his eyes. “So what if the quarry is tough? Now that we’ve successfully penetrated inside the buildings, subsequent maneuvers will be easy to execute. We just need to let Old Third burrow a subterranean tunnel…”

Before the words could even finish, a succession of explosive, heavy rumbles detonated. Immediately after, the coordinate where they were sheltered rattled violently with an earth-shaking tremor. The concrete tower hanging directly above their heads appeared on the absolute verge of collapse, loose sand and masonry showering down frantically around them!!

The hair on those men’s scalps stood on end. Having only just scrambled into this shelter, they broke into a frantic, chaotic scramble to leap back out through the window frames, leaving several wounded companions trapped inside. Despite their loud screams for rescue, absolutely no one possessed the courage to double back to save them!

The moment they breached the exterior, a succession of cold, razor-sharp bolts violently tore straight toward their silhouettes once more!

“Fuck! Where are all these hidden snipers coming from?!” How on earth could the target maintain such laser-like accuracy under a night this dark?! If it hadn’t been for their wealth of seasoned combat experience—allowing them to execute an instantaneous dodge—several alternative corpses would likely be littering the pavement right now, wouldn’t they?

Before the leader’s brain could even finalize the thought, he suddenly felt the earth beneath his feet turn completely soft. The absolute moment he plummeted down, he initially assumed it was a structural fissure triggered by an earthquake, which was why he had dropped straight into a sinkhole. It wasn’t until he crashed onto the bottom and felt his flesh violently skewered by a forest of steel spikes that he realized—this was remarkably a trap. Meanwhile, the concrete tower they had briefly occupied just now remained completely pristine and undamaged, standing tall exactly where it always had…

The column holed up inside the alternative building was similarly startled out into the open by the “earthquake.” A portion of the survivors plummeted straight into the traps, but the two wind-type superpower users exploited the immediate terrain to execute a succession of bounds, seamlessly “levitating” straight into mid-air!

Perched by the window frame, Zhang Su’s eyes narrowed with vibrant excitement upon catching the display. Throwing open the window pane before him, he leaped directly out into the open!

Wang Duo’s eyes widened to the absolute maximum as he lunged to stretch out a hand to catch him, but his Queen had already “flown” straight up into the sky. Yes, flown! A true, literal manifestation of flight, completely distinct from the standard “levitation” applications they had witnessed from alternative wind-users in the past.

Luo Xun cast a helpless glance at Zhang Su, who was excitedly weaving wind blades in mid-air to toy with the twin wind-users below, merely throwing out a general directive: “Everyone maintain personal vigilance. Anyone who wants to engage in a physical match can treat this as a chance to sharpen their skills.” Having a rare head-on PK encounter against alternative superpower users, Luo Xun knew that several elemental classes within their ranks were highly eager to step up; after all, an opportunity of this tier was exceptionally rare for a squad that had systematically normalized an otaku lifestyle.

Backed by his executive call, the group relaxed their minds. Xu Mei immediately locked her sights onto a fire-type superpower user below who was currently unleashing fire, having managed to avoid dropping into the pitfalls.

By this point, Zhang Su had already stabilized his flight path in mid-air, raining down a relentless torrent of wind blades as if the elemental energy carried zero cost. Whether it was a stroke of fortune or misfortune for the opposition, his primary targets remained exclusively the twin wind-users; as long as alternative survivors refrained from crossing him, he was far too lazy to police their movements.

Luo Xun, in contrast, had already directed his absolute focus toward alternative parameters—the five vehicles anchored along the highway to serve as a rearguard. He couldn’t verify whether the individual possessing the capability to track his vehicle column’s movements was trailing along with this infiltration squad or had anchored themselves inside the trucks. However, evaluating it from common logic, that individual’s superpower was immensely critical yet required them to actively pin the group’s coordinates, suggesting the probability of them trailing along with these dozen or so scouts was significantly higher.

Right while he was plotting how to systematically sort out those trailing trucks, a sudden, sharp gunshot resonated through the night!

Luo Xun snapped out of his thoughts instantly, hurriedly panning his line of sight toward the exterior. Zhang Su was still floating completely exposed in mid-air!

Wang Duo had anchored himself right by the window frame from the beginning. Hearing the gunshot, his nerves tightened to a point where he almost lifted a leg to vault out the window. Fortunately, Li Tie, possessing lightning-fast reflexes, forcefully hauled him back: “Are you blind! Your partner is completely fine!”

True to form, Zhang Su remained majestically balanced in mid-air. By this point, the twin wind-users had long since been hacked down to the pavement by his blades. It was incredibly fortunate that during flight, he systematically normalized keeping a protective layer of wind shield deployed around his perimeter, causing the incoming bullet to violently alter its trajectory the absolute moment it struck the elemental “shell,” grazing past his form as it zipped into the dark. Otherwise…

A flash of absolute, blood-soaked lethality surged across his eyes, his enchanting lips curling into a wicked smile. Zhang Su’s form appeared silvered by a layer of pale, filtered moonlight. Flanking his side, a deep?? elemental cyclone slowly stabilized into shape—exactly identical to the manifestation Luo Xun and the team had witnessed in the past. Exactly like the visual display he unleashed long ago when he systematically slaughtered everything in his path.

Luo Xun raised a helpless hand to cover his face. He didn’t even require looking out to know precisely what a charnel house the ground below would transform into. Zhang Su’s wind attribute was absolutely not an elementary, standard application of the class; the absolute lethality and the elemental operational range alone were completely distinct from an ordinary user of identical tier parameters!

The twin wind-users who had previously levitated in mid-air were visibly level-four classes, yet their level-four wind attribute was entirely a different story from the level-four parameters Zhang Su had displayed in the past. Now that Zhang Su had successfully ground his tier to level five, they were completely unable to mount a defense. The wind applications they managed to execute lacked even a fraction of the raw lethality Zhang Su wielded back when he was merely level four, meaning their deaths carried absolutely zero injustice.

A short distance away, Xu Mei’s expression looked slightly contorted as she glared at Zhang Su, who had ruthlessly snatched the fire-type user right out from under her hands—that was her target, okay? Still, absolutely no one could afford to provoke Zhang Su when he was riding an erratic high, not even his own team members; otherwise, they could comfortably wait to absorb his displaced rage.

“To think that after going such a prolonged duration without executing a physical maneuver, the gorgeous Zhang Su’s absolute lethality remains this terrifying…” Seeing that within barely ten minutes, the entire residential compound restored its absolute tranquility, Luo Xun looked down at the battlefield where even the solid masonry had been meticulously shredded into splinters, analyzing with a trace of a headache—how exactly were they supposed to clean up this wreckage… Wait! “You didn’t leave a single survivor?!” He still required conducting a proper interrogation to figure out exactly how these individuals had systematically shadowed his vehicles along the entire route, why they harbored designs on his squad, and whether alternative complications were lurking behind this faction!

Zhang Su had just floated back inside through the window frame. Hearing the question, he casually clapped his hands together, smoothly fishing out several wind-type crystals from his pocket to absorb: “There are still a few living targets holed up inside that building over there. They should be the initial wounded who lacked the capability to scramble out.”

“That’s perfect.” Hearing this, Luo Xun hurriedly pulled Yan Fei to head downstairs, the remaining crew systematically trailing behind them in a rapid column.

Navigating between the blocks of concrete towers, the pavement was heavily littered with splattered blood, and the corpses had rendered somewhat unrecognizable—the direct consequence triggered by a certain individual’s wind blades, appearing rather gruesome.

Fortunately, every member had struggled through the apocalypse for an immense duration. Furthermore, the reality was that… at least regarding the superpower users within their ranks, aside from the two youngest children, every single member held human bloodlines on their hands, and alternative members had witnessed enough horrors, meaning they displayed absolutely zero adverse biological reactions to the sight.

Arriving at the base of the concrete tower, before Luo Xun and the team could even step inside the lobby, several wounded survivors who had been ruthlessly abandoned by their companions were systematically hauled out, tightly encased in the scrap metal Yan Fei had pre-deployed throughout the building structure.

The moment these individuals were securely dragged into the open, Yan Fei lowered his voice to note to Luo Xun: “The second individual from the left is an earth-type superpower user. Just now, he was actively attempting to burrow a subterranean tunnel to execute a tactical escape.” It was profoundly fortunate that they had finalized their defensive preparations in advance; since these buildings retained a substantial hoard of pre-deployed scrap metal, the individual had been seamlessly snared right on the spot.

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