Chapter 636: Special Expedition Team
"Wuli! What the fuck do you mean you lost Xiaoyun?"
Yiming’s face was in complete anger as he grabbed her by the collar, staring at her dead in the eyes.
"He told us to leave first. I was only following orders."
"You... Was that really what Xiaoyun said?" Yiming questioned, looking over to the eighteen soldiers who all nervously stood in the HQ tent.
Seeing all of them nodding, he lets her go in the end. But his face was still filled with anger.
"Not a single one of you questioned his order? You all just ran away and abandoned your commander in the fog?"
"Sir! Following the superior’s order is the number one rule of the army." One of the soldiers in the group argued.
Yiming fell into silence as he knew it wasn’t the soldier’s fault. But he still couldn’t get over the fact that Xiaoyun was now lost in the unknown.
"All of you, keep this private. You all can go back to your tent... Wuli, you stay."
As all of the soldiers left the tent, Yiming turned to Wuli, whose face looked a little nervous as he looked back into her eyes.
"Wuli, do you think Xiaoyun is going to make it out?"
"Of course he will. He always will."
Seeing Wuli instantly answering his question with confidence, Yiming let out a sigh before turning back to the table.
"I really hope so... You can go now."
---
As nighttime rolled around, Yiming’s face was getting more and more worried as he sat alone in the HQ tent.
There was zero news. Nor was there any activity from the death zone. It was just a weird standstill with nothing happening.
Every hour passing was starting to make him doubt. Could Xiaoyun really stay in the fog for this long?
The air canister would have run out at this point, not to mention it’s almost impossible to change it by themsleve.
Still, a glimmer of hope remained. He knew what Xiaoyun was capable of—the magic he had witnessed from his hands.
When Yiming woke up the next day, there was still no news of Xiaoyun.
The soldiers in the base were starting to realize it as well, as their commander hadn’t been seen in public for an abnormal period of time.
Both Li Qing and Han Bang started asking him about it, but he could only respond with a made-up excuse.
Even Wuli and her soldiers were starting to get questions from their peers, forcing him to send them back to Luoping to avoid further confrontations.
As more and more time passed, it was starting to be impossible for him to hide it.
However, Yiming wasn’t about to tell the soldiers that their commander-in-chief was lost in the fog.
He simply told his Colonels that Xiaoyun headed back to Luoping with Tianci to gather data in tackling the death zone.
Everyone was seemingly back to normal with the daily routine until a supply truck came in on the 14th.
It was another semi-truck full of hazmat suits. This time, there was enough to equip over one thousand people, or an entire regiment.
Yiming quickly invited Wuli and her soldiers to come back to lead, setting up for a grand expedition into the fog.
To the new soldiers heading in, the expedition was to eliminate all living things within the fog.
It was a solution that Tianci had proposed to the death zone a day after Xiaoyun had disappeared.
One that theorized the energy within the fog was finite, as the lack of expansion by the fog currently was a sign of weakness.
The lab reports that came back all showed the regeneration was starting to slow down as well, further proving the limited energy.
However, Wuli and her original group of soldiers had been assigned a different task from Yiming.
They were to find Xiaoyun’s whereabouts.
---
"Everyone ready?"
Wuli asked as she stood in a hazmat suit. One that looks much different than the one she had worn last time.
The area around their back was twice as big, enough air to last for an hour and a half nonstop.
"Ready!"
Turning on the air valve, all of the soldiers marched forward, heading into the fog as the new soldiers experienced the fog for the first time.
Something was pressing down onto their hazmat suit. But what really caught their attention was their surroundings.
Even though Wuli had already warned them about the redness within the fog, what they saw in front of them still shocked them.
"Everyone, get moving. Remember your task at hand. We’re going to exit when it’s fifteen minutes left on the air pressure."
The soldiers began heading their separate ways, as more and more of them headed down a different path.
Wuli herself was followed by five soldiers, who were all brand new, as her original group had to lead their own smaller squads within the fog.
"Yuanling, you got your Molotov ready?"
The soldier behind her nodded, left hand holding a bottle of alcohol with a piece of cloth on top, and a lighter in the other.
"Everyone, get ready."
Four of the soldiers took out their tactical shovels as they approached closer and closer to a shadowy figure in the distance.
Just from the outline, it was clear that several tentacles were hanging out there, right next to a building.
"Go!"
Wuli immediately launched herself forward with the shovel, and the other four soldiers rushed forward as well with their shovels.
The tentacles’ flesh was sliced right through by the sharper edges, followed by more and more slashes as they kept on swinging what the training had taught them.
After just six of the tentacles had been cut, the ground suddenly started shaking, forcing Wuli and the other four to begin retreating.
"Watch out!"
As a glass bottle flew right by the soldiers, the crack instantly caused the tentacles’ corpses to catch on fire.
The raging fire died out as fast as it caught on fire, with only a small bit of ashes remaining as more tentacles appeared to take their place.
"Everyone ready for round two!"
---
As smoke floated out of the death zone, Yiming was standing right on top of a building, watching the fog changing its color.
It was starting to get lighter and lighter, even shrinking back a little as more and more buildings became visible.
What were once corrupted buildings outside of the death zone had changed back to normal, with glass windows and concrete walls.
"Look, I told you this would work."
As a woman in a lab coat murmured right next to Yiming, he slowly nodded his head out of respect.
"You’re right, Miss Tianci... But why does it feel like it’s not going to be this simple?"
Neither of them spoke up any further as they watched the fog retreat further and further towards its own city center.
Both of their faces looked worried, albeit for completely different reasons.
---
"Major Wu! The fog is fading!" A soldier yelled across the streets as they finished clearing their sides of the tentacles.
"I know!"
Everyone’s wrist started swinging their shovel even faster as the building nearby started to lose its flesh-like appearance.
What was once thought to be undefeatable was getting destroyed by their hands, as street by street, the fog was retreating faster than they could kill the tentacles.
As the sunlight shone from above, they started evaporating on their own as if the things they were fighting were all made out of water vapor.
Taking out the walkie-talkie, Wuli was surprised to find all of her communication equipment working perfectly fine.
There were no longer static sounds that interrupted the frequency, letting them easily communicate across groups.
"Everyone, this is Major Wuli. Keep your hazmat suit on. We’re going to keep going deeper into the fog. Over."
Just as she was about to end the transmission, a weird sound suddenly started coming out of the walkie-talkie.
"Bzzz... Run... Bzzzz..."
"Hm? What was that? You guys hearing this?"
Seeing all five of her soldier shaking their head, Wuli didn’t think too much about it as she put her walkie-talkie back to the side.
"Time to go!"
A few minutes later...
As Wuli and her soldiers walked down towards the fog’s retreating direction, she suddenly got a transmission.
"Major Wu! 8th squad here. We found three skeletons lying on the street... They have our rifles next to them.
I... I think they might be from our army... But their hazmat suit look a little different from ours. What should we do with it?"
"Carry them back. Your squad can head back to base for now. Over."
Ending the transmission, Wuli’s face darkened as she knew who those three skeletons belonged to.
It was the people that they failed to rescue, the one from Lingang’s first attempt into the fog.
"Commander, you okay?" A soldier nearby asked, looking a little concerned.
"I’m fine."
As her face changed back to normal, the five of them continued heading down the road as the fog continued to retreat.