Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 367 - 27: Curtain of Rain (Part 2)

"I heard people say that the Field Operations Department in Tianfu City really suffered heavy casualties," Liu Yu said in a deep voice. "Now it’s all a bunch of new recruits, letting those rookies do this kind of work is indeed inappropriate."

"No way? Tianfu City is the capital of Shuzhou, after all, the local research institute’s Field Operations Department has at least a hundred people. They can’t even find four veterans?" Wang exclaimed.

"Look, it’s all thanks to this thing," Liu Yu moved his gaze to the glowing giant object.

...

As time ticked by, the two of them began to grow increasingly anxious.

"Mr. Liu... It’s been ten minutes," Wang glanced at the time on the projection screen. "Do we... keep waiting?"

"Wait," Liu Yu said decisively. "I’ve known Mr. Li for over ten years. With his cautious nature and ability, it’s impossible for something to happen."

"Even Mr. Ma has his slip-ups sometimes..."

"Can you damn well shut your mouth?" Liu Yu turned and glared at Wang. "When Mr. Li comes back, if he hears you cursing him like that, he’d beat you until you can’t get out of bed for three days."

"But the people behind us are already urging..." Wang said with a troubled expression. "We’ve been delaying too long. If we delay any longer, we won’t even need to go to Observation Post One and can just withdraw to Two or Three."

"Then we’ll withdraw to Two and Three later!" Liu Yu said impatiently.

"But the higher-ups have already instructed us to leave..."

"I also have a headset on. I can hear the orders from the top," Liu Yu suddenly felt a surge of anger. "If you want to withdraw, go ahead and withdraw first. I want to stay here and wait for them!"

Just as he said this, two bumpy light sources gradually emerged in the distant rain and slowly approached in this direction.

Finally, they’re here! Liu Yu gently patted Wang’s helmet, "I told you nothing could happen to Mr. Li and the others!"

"Alright, alright, can we go now?" Wang replied helplessly.

"What’s the rush? We’ve already waited ten minutes, what difference does a few more seconds make?" Liu Yu said. "The two of them seem to be struggling a bit, I’ll go check. Maybe someone got injured."

"Do you need a medical kit?" Wang instinctively touched the rack behind him.

"Not in this place. Even if someone is injured, they’d have to be sent to the rear for treatment," Liu Yu said and then, operating his power armor, he waded through the brewing mud and strode forward.

The rain was getting heavier.

The mud accumulating on the ground was enough to swallow the power armor’s knee joints — and that’s considering the power armor was taller than a person. If you took off the power armor and stepped directly into this swamp, the mud would probably reach up to your thighs.

This place was a rice field. The early rice planted at the beginning of April hadn’t even been harvested when eternal night fell on Shuzhou. In this black mud, you could occasionally see brown-yellow rice ears mixed in.

"Mr. Li? Peng Wei?" Liu Yu called into the comms channel as he walked forward.

However, apart from Wang’s voice and static, there was no other sound from the two people less than a hundred meters away.

"Could it be a comms equipment failure?" Liu Yu wondered. "Yeah... if the comms equipment hadn’t malfunctioned, they’d have sent me a message by now... I wonder if they found anything valuable in the other direction..."

The other two sets of orange power armor struggled in the rain. Unlike Liu Yu and Wang, who only had mud up to their waists, these two suits of power armor were covered in mud as if they had tumbled in the mire several times.

"What’s going on? Why do they look so messy?" Liu Yu slightly adjusted the spotlight beam to shine directly at the approaching pair.

Although the power armor was caked with mud, the names and numbers painted in white on the chest were still recognizable. The two people walking towards Liu Yu were none other than the field operatives Lee Yimin and Peng Wei from the other team.

"You two, is anyone injured?" Without the communication equipment, Liu Yu had to shout loudly and wave his arms vigorously — but due to the heavy rain, his shouts couldn’t carry a meter and were swallowed up by the rain and mud.

"It’s no use, Mr. Liu, they can’t hear," Wang advised from the side. "If you want to talk to them, you need to press your faceplate against theirs to use solid conduction. That way there’s a chance they’d hear you more clearly."

"Damn it," Liu Yu cursed, but as he was about to move forward, his heartbeat suddenly skipped a beat, freezing him on the spot for half a second.

Having completed dozens of missions, Liu Yu survived not only because of his luck and skills, but mainly thanks to his sense of impending danger — his colleagues would even half-jokingly call him a psychic, saying his superpower was an acute sense of danger.

Liu Yu felt the hairs on his back stand upright as he stopped advancing and started to retreat. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Wang, something’s not right," Liu Yu lowered his voice.

"Huh? Not right? What’s not right?"

"I... I can’t see their faces," Liu Yu said.

The distance between him and the returning two was less than twenty meters, but the spotlight’s illumination on their helmet visors only showed blackness, completely obscuring their faces.

"What do you mean, Mr. Liu?" Wang shivered inexplicably at Liu Yu’s words, "Don’t scare me, Mr. Liu... you know, I tend to speak without thinking sometimes... Mr. Liu, don’t use this way to get back at me... this joke’s not funny at all."

"Fall back, move behind the tent," Liu Yu said as he retreated, "Prepare your weapon..."

"Weapon?" Wang froze, "Our power armor isn’t equipped with weapons, right?"

"Open the main menu, go to the backup tools section, customize auxiliary tools, and input code FN097," Liu Yu instructed, "That will unlock the power restriction on your mechanical arm’s welding gun, and that’ll be your weapon."

"Oh... oh, but it’s warning me that this operation is dangerous and it won’t allow me to unlock it!" Wang’s voice was clearly flustered.

"Repeat three times," Liu Yu continued to back away. But at some point, the two from the other group noticeably quickened their pace, and the distance between them and Liu Yu was rapidly closing.

"Alright, alright... but Mr. Liu, are you really sure something’s wrong with Mr. Li and the team?" Wang continued to ask, "Could it be... could it just be their visors were muddied, so you couldn’t see their faces?"

Liu Yu didn’t respond, instead, he controlled the mechanical arm on the right side of his backpack, lifting it up, with the four mechanical claws simulating a human hand’s finger positioning to make a fist forward gesture.

In standard tactical gestures, this hand signaled "stop advance."

However, the pair did not halt, still silently closing in on Liu Yu.

Liu Yu was instantly overrun by a wave of chilling dread — he had known Lee Yimin for over a decade, they had collaborated on almost thirty missions, if not more, and often trained together... Liu Yu was more familiar with his old partner than anything.

To put it exaggeratedly, even if Lee Yimin was burned to ashes, Liu Yu could recognize him.

But at that moment, the power armor bearing Lee Yimin’s name felt utterly alien to Liu Yu.