January 23
"Watch the throws! Careful! Get down!"
With the pins already pulled, Xiangzi hurled grenade after grenade high into the air. At her current level of strength, throwing them dozens of meters was no challenge at all.
At last, the bloodshed and the exhaustion wracking her body had triggered her passive trait again.
The Xiangzi who could carve through a corpse tide like a storm had returned.
Everyone ducked for cover before the grenades detonated.
With a thunderous blast, the explosions sent not only shrapnel flying, but chunks of flesh and blood as well.
Only a few seconds later, the gunfire resumed.
The infected beasts, fearless as ever, charged straight toward the deadly hail of bullets.
"This is no different from a combine harvester cutting down crops in a field. Keep firing—tear them all apart!"
"We're bringing out the heavy stuff now! The Molotovs are going to make a wall of fire on the ground!" Huaxiu shouted as she hurled bottle after bottle. The composed, literary-girl image she once had was long gone. Her pretty face was smeared with sweat, flushed bright red, as if an art student had splashed paint across her cheeks.
The whine of rounds ripping through the night sky, the frenzied howls of wounded animals, the booms of grenades, the clatter of shell casings hitting the ground—
The battle had become brutally intense.
The first wave of infected creatures was annihilated. After the few stragglers were finished off, Xiangzi's group used the precious pause to recover as best they could.
Chihaya Ai and Kuriyo, who had only just arrived, carried up large kettles filled with freshly brewed coffee and steaming hot black tea.
Xiangzi barely touched the drinks. She had already chewed through an entire bag of coffee beans to stay awake. Miranda, meanwhile, was still able to comment on how the tea wasn't brewed properly, while Huaxiu somehow managed to savor her coffee with perfect ladylike poise.
For the moment, they still had enough breathing room to regain some strength.
But what about after several more hours?
Several hours later, after the corpses had gone cold and the smoke had thinned and even the screams had faded...
The stars said nothing. They hid behind the clouds, unwilling to open their eyes and look down on the filth below. Only the moon remained, alone in the sky, forced to witness yet another slaughter on the earth it had watched for hundreds of thousands of years.
By now, even the broken crescent moon had disappeared. The night had grown so thick it seemed to seep drowsiness into the air itself.
But Xiangzi and the others still could not sleep.
During the brief lull, the enemies had almost broken through. Many infected animals had reached the electrified fence before being cut down. The smell of burnt fur and hide mixed with the rank stench unique to wild beasts, carried on the wind straight into their position.
Every breath they took was thick with blood, soil, scorched flesh, and gunpowder.
Molotov cocktails smashed on the ground, melting the heavy snow beneath. Animal fat sizzled and popped in the high flames.
Fortunately, Xiangzi had prepared a firebreak ahead of time, so the blaze never spread to the house itself.
By then, the generator had already been shut down. Under repeated impacts, sections of wire and fence had snapped clean through. Xiangzi judged that the electrified barrier had little value now, and keeping the generator running any longer risked it exploding in the middle of the fight.
So she cut it off.
Xiangzi reached for another magazine beside her—but the lightness in her hand told her immediately that it was empty.
"Is it already past midnight? Damn it. At this rate, we're going to be downstairs fighting those beasts hand-to-hand."
During a brief pause while swapping magazines, Xiangzi glanced at the clock display mounted in her helmet. It was already one in the morning.
Over the past several hours, they had beaten back wave after wave of attacks.
It was like a tower-defense game: enemies arriving in organized batches every few dozen minutes to an hour, each assault bleeding away their ammunition and stamina.
If the monsters had come all at once, there was no way their few thousand rounds would have lasted this long. Early on, they had still had enough breathing room for full-auto fire. Later, without Xiangzi even having to order it, everyone had switched to controlled bursts and single shots to squeeze out the most damage possible.
But even that wasn't enough forever.
Now only a thin scattering of loose rounds remained in the once-full ammunition crates.
Time dragged on.
Trees struck by stray bullets leaned at odd angles and finally toppled into the snow.
Wave after wave of infected animals surged at them like a rising tide, each one higher than the last. Strictly speaking, the total number of wolf-sized or larger beasts they had killed was still under a thousand. The many smaller creatures didn't even deserve to count toward the tally. When those were caught in the flames, they didn't leave so much as a complete corpse behind.
But beyond the near-glowing gun barrels, the nearly exhausted supply of explosives, and the dwindling ammunition, even a body made of flesh and blood could only endure so much.
The larger infected beasts that had been hanging back earlier had finally joined the battle: huge bears, elk-like abominations fused with their own kin, half-human, half-animal mutants...
These grotesque things were now slamming against their already tottering defense line.
"Damn it, my rifle jammed!"
Saitō raised his hunting rifle, intending to fire its last round into the oncoming bear—but his old partner chose that exact moment to fail him. The round never left the chamber.
"Xiangzi! More infected creatures are flooding in through the section where the fence collapsed! I'm out of ammunition—I don't even have time to reload!" Miranda shouted, clutching the last magazine she'd grabbed. Her whole body had gone numb. For hours she had done nothing but repeat the same motions over and over.
"I'm dry too. What do we do now?"
With ammunition running low, Xiangzi had no choice but to improvise.
"Downstairs! There's still more ammo in the storage room below! Go, now! I'll hold them off—move while you still can!"
At that moment, Xiangzi had the system dump the ammunition she'd just bought straight into the storage room. There was no time left to worry about whether that looked suspicious or not. Even if someone noticed her strange ability now, so what? No one here was in any position to challenge her.
"You're going to do what—?!"
Huaxiu watched in horror as Xiangzi repeated the same insane move from before.
Damn it. This was far too dangerous.
Was Xiangzi really about to go down there and fight those giant animals in close combat?
Xiangzi, you've put yourself in the most dangerous spot again!
Huaxiu's heart twisted in pain—but there was nothing she could do. If they wanted even a chance of turning the fight around, this was the only option.
All she could do was give Xiangzi as much support as possible.
"Well then... let me see what you're capable of."
Xiangzi leapt down.
The overpowering smell of blood hanging in the air sent a tremor through every cell in her body, pushing her into an even sharper state.
Down below, Xiangzi seized one of the long spears they had found in the airdrop. With it whirling in her hands, she sprang three meters into the air and brought it down in a single blow, cleaving through a charging deer.
The antlers were hard as steel. Even as it died, the deer managed to slam into her. Fortunately, Xiangzi was wearing the full single-soldier armor. It didn't pierce through—though the impact still rattled her hard.
More infected beasts rushed her in succession, but now Xiangzi had to fight almost entirely on her own. Most of the supporting fire from above was aimed farther out, not at the enemies right on top of her.
It wasn't that the others weren't doing their part. They were still frantically reloading, and they were terrified of hitting Xiangzi by mistake.
Which meant Xiangzi was under crushing pressure.
There were still far too many that had slipped through.
Damn it. I'm running out of strength.
Just as that thought flashed through her mind, a voice rang out behind her in now much more fluent Japanese, followed by the clang of metal hitting the ground.
"Miss Takajo, let me lend you a hand!"
The giant pink fox had come down too.
Ye Ling charged in wearing plate armor, wielding a shortened spear-shaft with the spearhead fixed to it. Close to two meters tall, she had an enormous advantage in close quarters. Standing there, she looked like a giant herself.
The moment she reached the ground, she vaulted straight onto the back of a wild boar beside Xiangzi.
The boar squealed and bucked wildly, but Ye Ling drove the spearhead straight through its brain and dropped it where it stood.
Nice one.
Xiangzi didn't even have time to say it.
A crushing pressure like a tidal wave rolled over her in the next instant.
The real problem had arrived.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 147)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter185)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter105)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter215)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 185
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 170
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/1
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 206
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 190
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/23
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 106
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 125
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 105
I Can Copy Unique Skills 90
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 90
My Harem Is Indescribable 80
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 86
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 81
Still playing traditional Honk 65
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 65
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 57
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 45
Transmigrated as Sukuna 59
Checking In in Demon Slayer 59
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 73
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 45
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 36
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 40
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 60
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 30
Why did they assign me to Uma 35
MYGO Beauties 43
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 30
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 31
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