"Boom!"
A flash of lightning ripped through the sky, and a sudden gale swept across the land, further expanding the already spreading wildfire.
"Splash splash..."
But thankfully, with the appearance of the gale, the rain also grew stronger, the raindrops falling from the sky gradually turning into pea-sized pellets.
"Viper One, report situation!"
"Reporting, target hit. Situation currently unknown."
An armed helicopter hovered over the explosion zone. The pilot reported to Captain Olsen, the ground commander, via radio communication. The violent explosion just now was caused by the missile he fired.
"Viper One, Two, Three, Four, Five, eliminate all monsters in your sight, not a single one left."
"Viper Squad received."
"Set up a cordon. Machine guns ready."
"Open fire!"
A total of five armed helicopters hovered above the forest, attacking the tree-men monsters in the forest.
"Bang bang bang..."
The continuous roar of machine guns echoed. The tree-men's offensive was stalled, buying the ground troops a moment to catch their breath as they fought and retreated.
"Roar!"
The tree-men, hit by machine gun bullets, roared in pain. To protect their heads from injury, they instinctively raised their arms to shield their faces. The tree-men's impenetrable root armor, which had always been invincible, finally couldn't withstand the powerful machine gun fire. It shattered into fragments that scattered in the air, and large amounts of fresh blood spurted out.
Five armed helicopters hovered over the tree-men's heads, continuously circling and strafing them, making the tree-men roar repeatedly.
"Whoosh!"
Suddenly, a broken giant tree flew up from the ground and bangged into the bulletproof glass in front of an armed helicopter. The immense force and impact instantly penetrated the glass, killing the pilot inside.
"Viper One shot down, repeat, Viper One shot down."
Before the remaining four armed helicopters could adjust their formation, several more large tree trunks shot up into the sky and boomed into two of the helicopters.
"Viper Two, we're mostly out of control."
"Viper Three, we're falling."
Two helicopters spiraled downwards into the sea of fire, crashing with a bang into the forest inferno.
"Ah ah ah..."
Four soldiers screamed and ran wildly out of the helicopter, their bodies ablaze. But just as they rushed out of the helicopter, the helicopter's fuel tank ignited.
"Boom!"
Accompanied by a deafening roar, towering flames engulfed them, leaving only the burning helicopter wreckage behind.
"Reporting, Captain, we can't hold out. Viper One, Two, and Three have all been shot down."
On Viper Five, the pilot maneuvered the helicopter, circling and firing at the tree-men monsters, while requesting withdrawal from Captain Olsen.
"We'll send a rescue team over immediately!"
"Viper Four, one kilometer southwest, insert into the recovery team. Over!"
"Received, Viper Four circling."
Boom!
No sooner had he finished speaking than Viper Four was struck by a tree trunk thrown from the forest below. Sparks erupted from its rotor, and it plummeted towards the ground.
"Viper Four hit, falling!"
"Viper Five, provide cover! We're organizing a rescue! Over!"
"Viper Five received!"
Viper Five immediately turned and flew towards where Viper Four was falling. Captain Olsen on the ground also organized men to go to their rescue, but...
"Roar!!"
Viper Four hadn't even completely fallen yet when a tree-man monster, carrying its heavy body, suddenly leaped into the air. With a boom, it grabbed the helicopter with its massive palm.
"Thump thump thump..."
But the helicopter's rotor blades gashed its palm, even severing its fingers. In extreme pain, the tree-man released its grip, wailing as it fell back into the forest.
"We repelled it! We repelled it!"
The pilots and soldiers on Viper Four shouted excitedly. The helicopter, under the pilot's control, made an emergency landing in a forest clearing.
"Roar!" x4
But just when they thought they would survive, four tree-men monsters suddenly charged out, surrounded the fallen helicopter, and raised their giant legs to violently stomp on the helicopter.
"Boom boom boom..."
The ground trembled incessantly. Towering ancient trees, already weakened by the raging fire, collapsed under the continuous tremors.
"No~!!!"
Captain Olsen, leading a small squad of soldiers, arrived nearby. His eyes were bloodshot as he watched the helicopter, which was almost stomped flat like an iron pancake. He raised his rifle and pulled the trigger at the four tree-men monsters!
"Aaaaaahhh!!!!"
"Kill these beasts!!!"
The squad of over ten people, including medical personnel, all pulled their triggers at the four tree-men monsters. Gunfire flashed from their muzzles, and empty casings constantly clanged as they ejected and fell to the ground.
"Whoosh whoosh."
In the sky, Viper Five fired its last two rockets at the four tree-men monsters.
"Boom!!!"
The violent explosion caused by the two rockets instantly enveloped the four tree-men monsters, but more tree-men monsters were attracted by the explosion and gathered towards this location.
"Come on! You bastards!"
Captain Olsen, having lost his sanity due to the deaths of his subordinates, held his rifle and advanced step by step, his firing never ceasing.
"Thud!"
A tree-man monster suddenly appeared from behind the squad, stomping flat the soldiers who were standing still and firing, then extended its massive palm to grab Captain Olsen, who had turned and was about to raise his gun to shoot it.
"Tat tat... tat."
The gunshots abruptly ceased. Captain Olsen was caught in the tree-man's grip, his bones audibly creaking as they were squeezed. His arm struggled to reach for the grenade on his lower back.
"Roar!"
But what he didn't expect was that the tree-man monster released its grip. It grabbed his head with one hand and his legs with the other, holding him across its chest, then tore him apart with force.
"Rip~!"
Like fabric tearing, Captain Olsen's head was separated from his body. Blood gushed from his severed neck like a flood, raining down.
"Captain!!!"
The pilot of Viper Five, watching the figure torn apart by the tree-man, his eyes bloodshot, screamed hoarsely.
"Retreat! Retreat!"
Among the expert team, Heracles waved his arms, directing the soldiers to protect the experts as they retreated from the battlefield. His face was covered in blood, and he clutched an assault rifle.
The original fifty-person expert team was now reduced to less than ten survivors. And the thousand-strong army had already suffered over half casualties. The exact number of casualties was unclear, but they were no longer capable of continued combat. If they didn't retreat, they would be completely annihilated.
"I... died?"
In the tree-man monster's hand, Captain Olsen, reduced to just a head, stared with wide eyes at the bloody scene before him. He could still see his own body, which the tree-man monster was swinging with its other arm.
After a human dies, their brain consciousness continues to function for a few seconds. Captain Olsen was currently in this state.
"Boom!"
Suddenly, Captain Olsen felt everything in his vision shaking. Then, his vision spun, and he saw the tree-man monster struggling fiercely in the mouth of an unknown monster. Due to being only a head, Captain Olsen couldn't adjust his viewpoint. He could only see the tree-man monster lying in a giant mouth several times larger than its own body.
"Roar!"
The tree-man monster roared repeatedly, but strangely, in its current state, Olsen could peculiarly sense the tree-man monster's fear.
"Crunch... crunch."
The unknown monster, more than ten times larger than the tree-man monster, suddenly clamped its giant mouth shut. With a "crunch," the tree-man monster's earth-shattering roar ceased.
"Gulp..."
The sound of swallowing food echoed like thunder in Captain Olsen's ears, but by this time, Captain Olsen's eyes had forever lost their light.
"Rumble rumble..."
The unknown monster that had swallowed the tree-man instantly burrowed underground. Accompanied by a tremor in the ground, it vanished without a trace.
In the raging inferno of the primeval forest, Illumi and Pride's Nen Beasts transformed into two streaks of black light, frantically rushing through the sea of fire.
"Creak creak..."
A towering ancient tree, scorched bald by the flames, finally couldn't support itself and slowly began to fall. Illumi and Pride were about to crash into it...
"Boom!"
With a loud bang, the towering ancient tree, several meters in diameter, suddenly broke in the middle.
It turned out that at the very instant the tree fell and collided, Illumi and Pride, disregarding everything, directly forced their way through the trunk, rushing through the middle.
"Tat tat tat..."
The gunshots grew clearer. Illumi and Pride rushed out of the raging sea of fire, finally seeing the scene of the army and tree-men clashing ahead.
Everywhere were charred, flattened bodies. Some bodies were even torn in half by the tree-men, their internal organs spilling out, blood flowing like a river.
On the ground, besides the soldiers' corpses, there were a few corpses of specialized personnel. Of course, there were also a few tree-man monsters killed by hot weapons like rockets, RPGs, and machine guns. However, the ratio of human corpses to tree-man corpses was too disparate.
"It seems the thousand-man investigation team suffered heavy losses. They probably won't be of use on the road ahead."
Pride's Nen Beast and Illumi's Nen Beast stood side by side amidst the piles of corpses. Looking at the human corpses covering the ground, just the human corpses here were estimated to be over five hundred. As for the remaining people, even if they didn't die, they would be heavily injured and left with psychological trauma, making them unusable for the subsequent exploration.
"Thump... thump..."
Illumi didn't speak, merely stepping his Nen Beast through the blood-soaked sea of fire. The firelight shone on his pale cheeks, his eyelids lowered, his expression calm.
"Sizzle sizzle."
Some corpses sizzled as they were burned by the fire. The air was filled with a thick smell of blood and burnt flesh, making one nauseous.
"Are we still going to rescue people?"
Pride's cold voice came again. The giant wolf beneath Illumi stopped. It wasn't because it didn't want to advance, but because he saw a person among the blood-soaked corpses.
📢 MASSIVE UPDATE FOR BINGE-READERS! 📢
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