Chapter 465

Chapter 465: Professional "Rescuer"

With the prompt from the sky, Liu Xiaoheng finally recalled this particular situation.

Simultaneously, he experienced the intense struggle between his body’s will and the instinct to breathe. As he gasped for air, the young man had already pulled him out from beneath the ground.

They were in an open space in the outer city, a rather unremarkable location, with the dead extraordinary beast lying less than two meters away.

He tapped a hidden switch on the side of his helmet, causing the front of the exoskeleton helmet to open, revealing his somewhat pale face.

After a few seconds of gasping and adjusting, Liu Xiaoheng finally stood firmly on the ground again.

He glanced at the smiling young man beside him and then at the now solid ground beneath his feet, piecing together what had transpired.

"What’s your name?"

He looked at the boy who had rescued him, speaking with respect.

The boy paused briefly, seemingly pondering which code name to use.

Finally, he lifted his head and smiled:

"Just call me El."

"Thank you for saving me, but I need to return to the battlefield, so I won’t linger."

The man in the exoskeleton looked toward the distant city wall, stretching his muscles, his face showing a eager expression.

The wound on his shoulder had begun to heal slowly.

According to the exoskeleton’s detection device, blood was still seeping from the wounds on both shoulders, but that was of little concern.

Just as Liu Xiaoheng was about to sprint, the young man spoke:

"I’ll take you there."

With that, he grabbed Liu Xiaoheng’s arm in the exoskeleton. In the next instant, Liu Xiaoheng felt everything around him melting and reshaping.

In less than a second, they stood atop the city wall several hundred meters away, startling a few soldiers who were reloading their weapons and were about to shoot at the sudden appearance of the two.

Liu Xiaoheng realized he had just experienced a "teleportation." As he was about to thank the young man beside him, he noticed the boy had already flashed to a battlefield a hundred meters away.

The boy, seemingly indifferent to his surroundings, picked up a metal long blade almost as tall as himself, and in the next moment, he returned to Liu Xiaoheng’s side.

"Thank you."

Liu Xiaoheng took the long blade, and the magnetic connectors for energy and toxins reconnected successfully. Under the high-frequency vibrations, the blade became slightly blurred once more.

"No need to mention it…"

The boy seemed to want to say more, but then he saw another person being grabbed by an extraordinary beast and lifted into the air, preparing to be thrown.

That person was just an ordinary soldier, who seemed to have angered a bird-like extraordinary beast by continuously hitting it.

As the soldier was thrown down from high up, the boy disappeared from his spot.

He flashed to the path the soldier was descending, grabbing the corner of the soldier’s battle suit and falling to the ground together with him.

As for the extraordinary beast in the sky, it quickly became a mass of flesh after losing its only hostage and eventually wobbled down to the ground.

Having observed the entire rescue operation, Liu Xiaoheng no longer hesitated. He brandished the long blade and rejoined the battlefield, injecting the beasts with deadly toxins.

Just like countless times before, this beast tide ended in human victory after several hours.

Liu Xiaoheng and the four other exoskeleton testers returned to the testing ground, where they encountered the familiar researcher.

Having spent some time together, Liu Xiaoheng felt he had grown quite acquainted with the researcher, whose mind seemed perpetually fixated on destruction.

Yet, he was still surprised to see the researcher display a more ordinary demeanor. At that moment, the researcher was holding a report, briefing an older and a younger colleague.

The two listeners appeared deeply engrossed, nodding occasionally and pointing to specific sections to ask questions.

While the five testers idly began doing push-ups out of boredom, the discussion finally came to an end.

The three researchers turned their attention toward them, their gazes eventually settling on Liu Xiaoheng.

"The testing is complete. Your exoskeleton has been chosen, and mass production will begin tomorrow.

You five may return to the training camp now. In a week, the mass-produced exoskeletons will officially be deployed, and your names are all included in the first batch."

Hearing this, the five were not particularly surprised. They had long understood their mission during this period. Although four of them were not equipped with the selected exoskeletons, they knew these were never meant to be theirs, and they felt a growing excitement about the upcoming deployment.

The researcher responsible for adjustments stepped forward to emphasize some precautions for their return to the training camp. Thus, the lengthy final test, which had lasted dozens of days, finally drew to a close.

—

The scattered beast tide, as usual, encountered Fulan leading the pursuit.

After eliminating the extraordinary beasts that had been injected with toxins, her team expanded once again. Recently, another batch of extraordinary beasts had successfully "graduated" from the "Beast Pack" and "Dawn Sound," becoming invaluable allies for humans in exploring the outside world and assisting in uncovering the southern regions sealed by mycelium.

This was the focus of humanity’s latest expedition. Thanks to the efforts of Fulan and the extraordinary beasts, the war fog surrounding Hope City had been largely cleared. The unseen areas were of little importance anyway, as it was easy to assume they belonged to the mycelium’s domain.

Wang Xiao’s task this time was to personally witness the "Abyss" at the southernmost edge of Hope City.

Meanwhile, in a place untouched by Fulan and her extraordinary beasts, a small group of extraordinary beasts successfully returned to the Misty Forest.

These remnants of the defeated force had nearly completed their mission, with only one final step remaining before their successful retreat.

As they ventured deeper into the forest, their pace gradually slowed.

From beneath the ground, pale white mycelium extended, weaving and spreading into a delicate web.

One by one, the extraordinary beasts fell without a trace of pain, ensnared by the mycelium like prey in a spider’s web. From within the white "cocoons," the gurgling sounds of decomposition echoed.

Among these extraordinary beasts, there was one anomaly.

A creature resembling both a bear and a leopard now lay wailing on the ground, a mix of mycelium and humus in the Misty Forest.

It had not perished on the journey like the other poisoned beasts, whose running had accelerated the toxins’ spread. Nor had it returned to the earth, the forest, and the embrace of its mother, as its companions had.

For it had been tainted by biomass, and contaminated extraordinary beasts were no longer accepted by the mycelium—a decree issued by Clotho within her domain after a few costly lessons.

Receiving no response, the extraordinary beast began to furiously bite and claw at everything around it.