Chapter 76: The Fallen City

The semi-trailer truck was loaded with cargo, and it seemed a bit difficult to move it.

Zhou Liming knew Team Member Number 22, whose name was Huang Jiansheng, a very tall and burly team member. Huang Jiansheng walked up to the Cayenne, signaled for another team member to come over, pointed at the rear of the Cayenne, and then the meat monsters grabbed the rear anti-collision steel beam. Amidst their roars, the combined strength of the two actually managed to pull the Cayenne out from under the semi-trailer truck.

The matter was not as complicated as Zhou Liming had thought. When the car accident happened earlier, the driver had fled without taking the keys.

For over a month, exposure to wind and rain had only a limited effect on the semi-trailer truck. A team member got into the driver’s seat, and in a moment, started the engine and smoothly parked it to the side. The whole process took just a few minutes, and even Lian Ruixue did not need to give any commands.

From the side of the mountain, the cries of unknown Fierce Beasts came from time to time, and occasionally Flying Fierce Beasts skimmed over their heads.

The rumbling sound of running made the entire ground seem to tremble; it must have been a herd of Giant Fierce Beasts running. Along with this came the sounds of buildings being crashed into and collapsing. From the highway, they could see the white, hazy clouds of dust rising up.

Since getting off the Transport Aircraft, everyone had been very tense and on high alert.

The coastal areas were known as Fierce Beast paradises. The closer one got to the coast, the higher the level of the Fierce Beasts. Yue B City was located on the coastline and was one of the cities where Fierce Beasts landed. There were definitely large numbers of Fifth Stage and Sixth Stage Fierce Beasts. With a team of only thirty-five people, they felt like ordinary people crossing through a tropical jungle teeming with wild beasts. One careless move and they would be attacked by Fierce Beasts.

Even Lian Ruixue, who had bounced on the Infantry Fighting Vehicle, shot into the sky. As her upward momentum weakened, she spread her wings and hovered in the air.

With Lian Ruixue on lookout, the three Infantry Fighting Vehicles resumed their journey. After passing through the Meiling Pass and emerging from a small range of hills, their eyes were greeted by an endless city. In the distance, they could see tall skyscrapers standing in the city. The afternoon sunlight fell upon them, and the glass windows of the skyscrapers reflected the light, twinkling like the ripples of the ocean.

It was like a magical world. Over the city, Flying Fierce Beasts flew by from time to time, letting out their cries. From the city came periodic beast roars, and even loud explosion sounds from battles. They could even see the terrifying beam attacks of Spider Beasts, which destroyed buildings along a straight line of nearly one kilometer, accompanied by the crashing sounds of collapsing structures. Occasionally, a giant mushroom cloud would rise into the sky, creating an explosion scene like a glass dome, turning the buildings within the cover into ashes.

The Infantry Fighting Vehicles stopped on the road just as they were about to enter the city. From here, they could overlook the entire city.

Although they were used to large cities like Zhe B City, and some had even been to Hu A City or the Capital, they were still shocked by this newborn city. It was a city established from a small fishing village, with only a few decades of history. Because of this, when looking out, there were no so-called urban villages found in other cities, nor any dilapidated houses or old buildings.

For Zhou Liming, Yue B City only existed in books and on some media. In fact, if it were not for this disaster, he had never even left Zhe B City.

Now that they had arrived here, Lian Ruixue did not dare to fly into the air anymore, as it would easily make them targets for Fierce Beasts. She landed on the vehicle and said through the squadron’s communication channel: “Our destination will cross the entire city and reach the seaside. The secret research base is under a building in a small dock.”

Inside the Infantry Fighting Vehicles were display screens, and the route plan by Lian Ruixue appeared on them, mainly for the team members acting as drivers to see.

“This route we have chosen consists entirely of main roads, allowing us to pass through quickly.” She took out an electronic paper and quickly pulled up the map of the entire Yue B City. With an electronic pen, she drew the advance route on it: “According to the real-time satellite display, these roads are not blocked by abandoned cars. We only need half an hour to reach our target.”

None of the team members spoke; they just listened silently.

After finishing the route arrangement, Lian Ruixue did not say much more. The three Infantry Fighting Vehicles started up, left the highway, went down the overpass, and officially entered the city streets.

Since the Fierce Beasts landed on land, Zhou Liming had been fleeing through cities the whole time. Although he had returned to Zhe B City once at the beginning, he had gone there only for gold and food, with no mind to observe the changes in the city. Then he fled west, never entering the cities he encountered but bypassing them. What he saw were scenes of escape, and he had never truly seen a deserted city.

In just a month and a half, the city of Yue B City remained prosperous in appearance, but its face had completely changed.

Cars on the streets were parked messily. On some main roads, cars were congested and connected into one piece, with no end in sight. It was probably because everyone was fleeing in panic at the beginning that this major traffic jam occurred, forcing people who drove to this section of the road to abandon their vehicles and flee. Among these cars, he could also see some damaged vehicles, likely caused by Fierce Beasts.

With the arrival of the Fierce Beast Era, the initial casualties suddenly rose to over 100 million, but this was not the final number. In the past month and a half, up to 300 million people had been confirmed dead or missing.

The route chosen by Lian Ruixue was indeed the most open. Occasionally, one or two cars blocked the road, but with the armor of the Infantry Fighting Vehicles, they simply crashed through them. When it was really impossible to crash through, only two or three team members would jump down and toss these multi-ton cars aside in just a few moves. For the first third of the city they penetrated, things went very smoothly, and they did not encounter a single Fierce Beast.

This first third of the city had many damaged buildings, giving a desolate, empty feeling, with nothing there and unusually quiet.

Lian Ruixue certainly did not dare to be careless. She took out her Communicator and began to contact the Special Forces headquarters of Yu A City. She took a military-grade tablet from her backpack and quickly connected to the satellites in the sky. After entering the password, a real-time satellite map appeared on the screen. She signaled for the convoy to stop and constantly pulled the map interface, carefully observing every move around the convoy.

Zhou Liming held his M99 sniper rifle and looked around. He said to Chen Yejun beside him, “Brother Chen, based on your experience, isn’t it too quiet here?”

Chen Yejun nodded, his eyes full of alertness, and said, “Theoretically, the whole city is occupied by Fierce Beasts. We should have encountered them when we penetrated deeper into the city. But now we are in the central area of the city, and we haven’t been attacked by any Fierce Beasts. Isn’t this too strange?”

Zhou Liming had no experience with these things; he just relied on his intuition, feeling that something around them was strange.

The function of the real-time satellite map was somewhat similar to that of a surveillance monitor. On the tablet screen, they could even see Lian Ruixue manipulating the tablet herself.

He had just checked, and indeed, he had not found any abnormalities around them.

This puzzled Lian Ruixue greatly. It was impossible for their luck to be so good that they hadn’t encountered any Fierce Beasts yet. When she pulled the map back to the convoy’s location, her pupils suddenly contracted, and she shouted, “Bad!” She quickly put down the tablet and suddenly grabbed the sniper rifle beside her…

But someone was even faster than her. With a “Boom” sound, the muffled shot of the sniper rifle rang out.