"BAM!" Zhang Qin Feng exchanged a fist with the mutant without faltering a single step. That ability itself is enough to make the Elites around him jaw-dropped.
"Our Lord has that kind of battle power?" the Elites asked themselves, and at the same time, bullet pelts the mutant from keep moving forward.
Then, a projectile from the RR-HU smashed through the building's wall, allowing a pillar of light to come inside. The mutant howled in anguish as if the light is fatal.
"Ao... Ao..." the mutant escaped further from them, and quickly entered the next level basement. Only now they managed to look at the mutant's entire body, which is like a satyr but grown muscular like a Titan. It was around 5 meters tall, which is the reason this monster seems to be crawling as it moves around.
But the most shocking part about this mutant is its gigantic hand about a meter in diameter. Even Zhang Qin Feng's fist pales in comparison against that body mass.
"Sir!" the Artemis charged through a wall and forcefully entered the Parking Lot's Ground Level. They came too late.
"Huh..." Zhang Qin Feng takes a deep breath as he calmed himself after that crazy battle. The ignition just now exhausts at least a third of his energy from that short moment of activation.
"Go in and check if the sample is still intact. And bring me back anything that doesn't seem contaminated." Zhang Qin Feng ordered half of his men to explore the second room. Close to ten minutes later, they return with a card similar to the one in which he has. But this one is made into a form of an ID card.
[Military Expertise]
[Hu Kang - ID No: 021-000131]
[Position: Director of Changyang HQ]
This made Zhang Qin Feng re-read the documents inside the File Preservation Box. He noticed the discrepancies between the file, his card, and this one left inside the second vault.
"The new card comes without a photo ID, which means its a temporary replacement card. This file is addressed to Ms. Xi Yan Peng, who likely to be the new director of this Changyang HQ."
"It seems something is going on before or during the outbreak, with this previous director coming here to obtain something..." Zhang Qin Feng comes up with a temporary hypothesis about what happened using the document in hand.
"Artemis, I want you to bring me back the specimen that escaped to the lower levels. Everything, including the blood, hair, and nail it drops. The Elites will follow." Zhang Qin Feng ordered.
The Artemis is ready to depart, but the Elites seem to be troubled by the fact none of them are going to be by Zhang Qin Feng's side.
"Wu Manya will be with me. You don't have to worry. Now go," Zhang Qin Feng patted at Wu Manya and hinted him to follow Zhang Qin Feng inside the vault. The Elites gave Zhang Qin Feng a salute before they armed themselves and start moving.
The situation here in the second vault is much different compared to the first one. And while Zhang Qin Feng waits for Stein's report after bringing back the first sample, he decided that it might be interesting for him to look around.
He bends down to grab another piece of paper on the ground, but it was unreadable. Only rough sketches about some machines are on the few pieces of paper, and some brochures about their anti-aging serum.
The sample dish on the podium is also missing, leaving only a wreck and deformed piece of metal here. And since there is no broken glass inside this room, Zhang Qin Feng believed that the sample must have been taken out during the outbreak.
In his mind, the culprit is most probably Hu Kang, the person that left his ID card inside this room. Perhaps he already escaped far away with the sample in his hand, but his safety might not be assured.
"Heh," Zhang Qin Feng chuckled.
"Did you found anything, sir?" Wu Manya quickly turns his view to Zhang Qin Feng, wondering if he missed something.
"No. Let us go to the third vault inside the main building." Zhang Qin Feng smiled. The two of them move under the protection of two units until they're outside the locked door in the fourth level basement.
"Sir, allow me," Wu Manya stops Zhang Qin Feng from doing it personally. He grabbed the card before Zhang Qin Feng said anything and swiped it on the reader, with the soldiers are all in an alert.
ChemRail, Rifle, and Railgun are all pointed at the door as it opened, but nothing comes out from this room. Wu Manya personally led two soldiers with him inside the vault, only to come out again with a disappointed expression.
"Everything was taken away. The sample, the paperwork, and a tool with injection functionality," Wu Manya brought the styrofoam box out, where the item that should be inside should be an injection gun or something.
"Let's go. For the time being, we'll use this place as our intermediary outpost to store our trading goods." Zhang Qin Feng pushed aside the card in Wu Manya's hand and returned to the surface.
But as he came out from the building, the Artemis is also driving out from the Parking Lot. They're dragging a corpse out using the APV until they're in front of Zhang Qin Feng.
"Good job." Zhang Qin Feng praised them. But he's wondering where did the burns on this monster come from.
"Sir, the mutant's fighting ability is astonishing, but it's afraid of UV light. Once the Artemis blast their lighting on maximum strength, the monster immediately gets burned into charcoal, like now."
Zhang Qin Feng gives out a puzzled look. Doesn't this mutant look precisely like the Baphomet from an Online Game inside the Modern World? Should they feel lucky because the mutant did not use any magic on them?
But Stein came in without saying anything and capture the corpse using two Great-Wasps. It left immediately at high speed before Zhang Qin Feng can say something.
"Stein!" Zhang Qin Feng called.
[The research is at a critical level. Will be back to response in 19h 31m]
"The hell?" Zhang Qin Feng wanted to curse, but he felt that it is pointless to yell at.
Food was distributed when it's dinner time.
The captives aren't locked with a chain or the radioactive choke and were treated nicely with a protein bar per person. For those that able to finish two, the soldiers didn't stop them from taking another piece either.
That's because all Zhang Qin Feng's soldiers are used to eating crackers, canned drinks, and some spicy sticks. In their opinion, except they're in a battle, they would choose to not touch the protein bar.
Other battalions also came to this outpost one after another, with the elders from Scraps Exchange Company. Out of sudden, close to 130 vehicles parked all around the Military Expertise HQ.
Just like this, 3,000 soldiers, close to 1,000 workers and residents, all armed to the teeth, taking over this building as their military outpost here in the western district.
When the news came to the leaders of three top tier gangs in the western district, all of them takes Zhang Qin Feng's action as an act of provocation! With so many zones still being emptied in Eastern District, Zhang Qin Feng actually made a move to where they at?
Morning the next day, a meeting is held in Xicheng Base, attended by eleven gang leaders! Their discussion covered from trade request, military supplies, to the slave trade. But at the end of their meeting, the real reason behind this meeting is brought up.
"Azure Wind Base is extending its reach to our Western District! Those that stand with me shall stay, and those that won't, leave now!" Xichen announced.
Out of 11 gang leaders, 7 remained, while four smaller gangs left as they're afraid they'll be used as the vanguard in this fight.
But they made the wrong decision, especially while they're still inside Xichen's reach. Before any of the 4 leaders managed to leave Xicheng Base, they're either murdered, kidnapped, mugged, or killed.
The seven gang leaders attacked their base next, taking over before announcing that they'll be at war with the Azure Wind Gang.
And on Friday morning, just after Zhang Qin Feng traveled into the apocalypse, Dan Bao's message came through his Luna III device.
"Sir, Xichen went crazy," he said.
"Oh? Tell me," Zhang Qin Feng can't believe what Dan Bao just said.
"Xichen gathered 10 leaders for a meeting before killing 4 of them. Most probably, it's because the 4 unwilling to join them in their attack on us."
"And Xichen just made an announcement less than fifteen minutes ago. The western district will not fall to Azure Wind Gang's tyranny. Their alliance of 30,000 soldiers will act accordingly to force our Azure Wind Gang to return to where we came from."
"So, I guess, we're at war with the gang leaders from Western District. Our opponent has six times our total number." Dan Bao explained, but his tone seems to lack of seriousness.
"Then, you'll know what to do." Zhang Qin Feng ended the call and grabbed a bottle of juice beside his bed.
"Xichen... You want to fight with me?"