This Game Is Too Real-Chapter 742: Lord of the Plague!

In the spacious cavern, dark red fumes permeated with the acrid stench of decay, and bizarrely shaped monsters chanted in shrill, yelping cries.

Their sizes were massive, the numbers staggering, and the variety immense, each differing in form and function. Some had strong solitary arms growing from their chests, others had multiple arms and legs resembling centipedes.

The one commonality was that their bodies were mostly covered with pus-filled boils, and their limbs rotted with sores.

The dark red smoke seemed to squeeze out of those pus-filled boils, and the huge gnats and flies swirling around them seemed to have grown from the boils, clinging affectionately to their sides like offspring.

These unique mutants, who called themselves "Plague Monks," worshipped the omnipresent and omnipotent "Plague" and treasured it dearly.

Rather than say these beings were mutants, it would be more accurate to describe them as creatures stitched together from countless disassembled mutants, entirely beyond the category of "human."

At the center of encircling shrill cries, one creature was even more so.

Its name was Sodo, prophet of the Plague Monks and also chief of the Blood Hoof Clan.

It was fatter than Ollon of the Stone Axe Clan, with two heads sharing three eyes, and long horns growing from its skull embedded with rusty bells that jingled ominously as it shook its head.

Its bloated body and sparse hair made it resemble a diseased pig, and its benign smile gave it an indescribable eeriness.

In front of it stood a pot of bubbling deep red broth, filled with pus squeezed from its own boils.

There was no fire beneath the pot, yet the broth continuously bubbled and emitted dark red smoke, like boiling water, except it wasn’t water boiling, but some malevolent pathogen.

It called it "Original Soup."

As the matrix nurturing the virus—or rather, the blessing, Sodo scooped up a ladleful of pus with a wooden spoon and cackled as it splashed it onto the chanting tribesfolk.

The mutants drenched in pus let out satisfying groans, some shrieking in high spirits, their twisted expressions as if they had received a god’s blessing.

Compared to those delighted madmen, the dwarves scuttling between the legs of the giants were much more pragmatic.

These goblins and the mutants’ children scrambled on the ground, frantically licking the "Original Soup" bestowed by the prophet as if it were some delicious feast.

Some goblins began to mutate, their bodies swelling up like they were foaming, turning into balls. Others curled up becoming even smaller, unrecognizable from their original form, and then their bodies began to tear apart, quickly devoured by their kin.

Whether they were the offspring of the giants or the naturally smaller goblins, the survivors all became those spreading plague, the "Plague Monks," joining the jubilant chorus of life and death.

The "Feeder," holding a basket of flesh-red fungus blocks, squeezed in from the cave’s entrance and tossed the filthy flesh-red fungal blocks towards the crowded believers.

The newly born Plague Monks attacked ferociously, each fervently stuffing the organic matter into their mouths to fill their hungry stomachs and derive the nutrients necessary for growth and development.

Amid the bizarre chanting and the sounds of satiated burps, the bloody and chaotic party raged on incessantly, spreading diseased bodies like a plague.

Satisfied with a newly created batch, Sodo nodded contentedly and then selected a larger boil from its body to start brewing the next pot of soup.

However, just then, a commotion arose at the entrance of the cave, and a dozen humans stripped of their equipment were carried in.

Among them were both men and women, most severely injured and unconscious. A few were awake, observing everything inside the cave with evident terror on their faces.

Clutching the neck of one of them was a hulking figure three meters tall with six arms, who let out a sinister sneer and raised its longest arm, flaunting the struggling "gazelle" in its hand.

These individuals were members of the Alpha Squad who had attempted to infiltrate the cave. After consuming two brains, it had figured out all the little mice’s plans.

Bathed in the cheering of the plague monks, it stared intently at the prophet, its eyes filled with admiration, pride, and a longing for reward.

"Human trinkets! Transparent! Thinking we can’t see! Gah gah gah!"

A tender smile spread across Sodo’s face.

However, to that member of the Alpha Special Mobile Force, that smile was as terrifying as a devil described in the beliefs of ancient times.

His face showed panic, yet, being tightly choked, he could not make a sound; he could only watch helplessly as he was brought before that disgusting creature.

Sodo gazed into his eyes, and suddenly his bloated belly split open, intestines as thick as water buckets wrapping around him like wriggly earthworms, violently pulling him into the gut.

The last remnants of his consciousness seemed to "hear" the sound of bones breaking, and then his awareness plunged into darkness, becoming a loud burp from Sodo.

Watching their captain being swallowed alive, the other awake squad members all showed faces of fear and despair.

Generously splashing a ladle of Original Soup at the hero who had brought the captives, Sodo turned to look at the prisoners at the entrance of the cave and continued to shout loudly.

"Take them to the hatching pool!"

"Sacrifice them to the great Lord of Plague! Give thanks for the evolution He has bestowed upon us!"

The sound was like ten thousand cicadas flapping their wings simultaneously, a rustling noise that echoed continuously in the spacious, dark cave.

"Oh oh oh!"

The horde of monsters writhed their frantic limbs, their excited screams earth-shattering, as if even the mountains shook with them.

Members of the Alpha Special Mobile Force struggled to resist, but in the end, they were forcibly dragged to what was called the hatching chamber.

It was a bottomless abyss, its darkness faintly tinged with a bloody red, like a dormant volcanic crater.

The dark red mist that spread through the mountains seemed to emanate from there.

At the edge of the abyss stood several wooden cranes, with iron chains wound around their winches, and a string of iron barrels tied to the end of the chains, still bearing remnants of flesh-red fungal chunks.

A female team member, pale-faced and purple-lipped, trembled as she murmured.

"...Lair."

It was the mutant mucor mother nest!

She must bring this news back!

However, they were hundreds of meters deep underground, and even more meters of rock pressed above them, making it impossible for normal electromagnetic wave signals to get out.

Moreover—

They who had fallen into the enemy’s hands could no longer save themselves.

"For the great Plague Lord, a sacrifice!"

The plague monk who brought her here solemnly muttered, then threw her into the abysmal depths.

She felt a warm current pass through her body as if she had fallen into the embrace of scorching heat. Soon after, her consciousness vanished into the indiscernible darkness like a kite losing its string...

...

At the same time, on the southern side of Broken Blade Mountain.

A line of soldiers, equipped with gas masks and fully armed, stood in their positions like statues, fixated on the blood-mist–shrouded peak in the distance.

The Blood Mountain split the eighty-mile mountain road in half, like a long spear falling from the sky.

"Alpha Team 13 has lost contact... Package not delivered to the intended location, no explosion detected."

"All members presumed dead."

"Plan C13 failed, initiating Plan B14... Action."

"Roger that."

Plan C13 involved a stealth squad equipped with optical camouflage entering the cave to plant dynamite, intending to collapse parts of the cave and destroy the mutants’ defensive works crafted within the mountain.

Clearly, this plan had failed.

Even to understand the reasons for the failure and to develop a better strategic plan, they needed to recover the bodies of the 13th Squad soldiers and gain more battlefield intelligence from deep within the cave.

The silent exchange ended, and the soldiers waiting on the mountainside uniformly left their trench, forming squads of ten and heading towards Blood Mountain.

Unlike the 13th Squad.

Equipped with heavy exoskeletons and electromagnetic weapons, they formed the core strength of the Alpha Special Mobile Force, usually spearheading the attacks and specifically tasked with eliminating the dangerous targets the Academy’s recon teams couldn’t handle.

At the same time, a series of deafening blasts echoed in the distance as twin 902 mm train guns simultaneously fired, launching several rockets armed with thousand-pound cloud burst bomb warheads into the sky.

In a matter of seconds, piercing screams cut through the thin clouds and exploded into mushroom-shaped red clouds.

The scorching flames, like lava descending from Nine Skies, nearly swallowed the entire mountain area, instantaneously draining the oxygen within several kilometers.

The eerie red mist that lingered around Bloody Mountain Peak was completely blown away.

It was proven that against sufficient explosive yield, all demons and devils were but paper tigers.

Of course, the concept of offense and defense was always relative, and all predicated on the notion of "sufficient."

The peak experienced minor landslides, with large chunks of stone rolling from the three-thousand-meter summit to the base, yet the mountain stood unshaken as if baked thoroughly by the rising heat.

Within minutes, the allied forces bombarded the Blood Mountain area with at least ten 902 mm heavy rocket extended-range shells.

These shells, enough to fill five train cars, virtually scoured every reachable area, leaving nothing alive, not even an ant.

Meanwhile, two hundred-soldier squads from the Alpha Special Mobile Force had already advanced to the front lines.

Arriving with them were 200 quadrotor drones, each fitted with caseless rifles and grenade launchers.

Unlike the Alliance’s drones, the Academy’s drones not only bore closer resemblance to a sci-fi style but also featured a diverse range of integrated functionalities.

As the drone attack formation was being deployed, a series of dazzling light shows suddenly appeared below the drones, forming colorful human images.

General Lucien, who was watching the battle from the Loyalty Airship, was initially stunned, thinking it was some sort of teleportation technology.

However, he soon realized that it was merely a holographic projection, and those soldiers that appeared out of nowhere were not real, and he sat back down.

"Heh, playing tricks with gods and devils."

He scoffed disdainfully, yet a hint of apprehension flickered in his eyes.

Truth be told, the holographic images were so realistic that they reached a level of deceiving falsity with the truth.

If the drones and the fake soldiers fired simultaneously, it was hard to say whether the soldiers on the frontline would be deceived by these decoy targets and thus have their firepower dispersed.

Even if it was seen through that those illusory targets were actually holographic deceptions, it wouldn’t matter because those drones themselves served as "cover" for the soldiers of the Alpha Special Mobile Force.

If they fired at those drone-carrying minuscule ammunition, it would play right into the hands of the slugs in the swamp.

In a scenario where these creatures were the hypothetical enemy in combat, the toughest situation his soldiers might face wasn’t distinguishing genuine targets from optical camouflage, but rather distinguishing real targets among a group of fake individuals and a few actual people.

From a tactical standpoint, that was the case.

Switching to the strategic level, the troubles his officers faced were likely not less than those faced by soldiers in frontline combat.

Although the Academy had not shown it in this battle, according to Lucien’s judgment, since they could use holographic images to provide tactical cover for the frontline combat troops, there was no reason they couldn’t create strategic obstacles.

For instance, they could use a few drones disguised as a non-existent troop, thereby forming a strategic deception.

The slugs in those swamps might not be skilled at large-scale battlefields, but their ability for intrigue and deception was ranked high in the Wasteland.

The more Lucien thought about it, the more frightened he became, his palm even involuntarily squeezed sweat.

He firmly decided in his mind that once this battle was over, he would write a detailed report and inform those in Triumph City.

The folks up north were not as weak as they seemed and might even be more troublesome to deal with than the incompetents of Ideal City...

While Lucien was secretly terrified, the Academy’s Alpha Special Mobile Force had already attacked halfway up Bloody Mountain.

After the previous unreasonable barrage and bombing, the Mutants on Bloody Mountain seemed frightened, hiding in the caves and unwilling to come out.

Of course, it’s also possible that they planned to confine the battlefield within caves and tunnels beyond the reach of supporting fire from the start, using the terrain to their advantage against the invaders.

The soldiers of the Alpha Special Mobile Force didn’t waste words with them either; the vanguard under the cover of drones and holographic images took the lead in attacking the cave entrance at the mountainside.

Almost at the same time they entered the cave, the battle erupted instantaneously!

The flashes from the muzzles lit up the pitch-black cave like daylight, trails of bullets created paths for the squads penetrating deeper into the cave, and the blasts and shrapnel from grenade launchers continuously harvested the lives of the Mutants.

The twisted and ugly appearances of these Mutants were hair-raising, but that was it.

Facing the dense firepower of assault rifles and Gauss Rifles with their bodies of flesh, the Mutants were forced to retreat step by step, unable to put up a proper resistance.

Under the cover of optical camouflage, a four-person squad broke through the defenses of the Blood Hoof Clan as if they were unstoppable, conquering two tunnels in succession without any injuries, their only loss being five drones.

The four squad members wearing gas masks fired silently while secretly communicating in their comms channel.

"It stinks."

"Too stinky."

"Canned herring."

"Stinkier than that."

"...How can you smell it?"

"...?"

The four immediately realized the seriousness of the situation—their individual three-barrier systems had been breached!

The foul smell lingering in the cave became more apparent, bringing with it not only an intense feeling of nausea but also mental dizziness and unnatural hallucinations.

Belonging to the Science Committee, they indeed had certain body-enhancing prosthetics and implants installed to improve combat efficiency, which were standard components that could be removed and reused by others after death or discharge.

However, they were not so well-off as to afford a custom-made biomimetic immune system like the researchers at the Academy or corporate residents.

Realizing they might have been infected by Nago mycelium or something similar, the squad leader immediately issued a retreat order.

However, just as their offensive paused momentarily, the Mutants of the Blood Hoof Clan suddenly revealed their fierce canine teeth.

They could see through the illusions constructed by optical camouflage as mere disguises by these humans.

This was not surprising, for they were disguising themselves as well.

Not only had they feigned a deceivable and frail appearance, but they even lay on the ground pretending to be dead.

Watching those rising from the ground, the squad leader, accompanied by his three teammates, felt a sinking feeling alongside his confusion.

With a survival probability of less than 13%, he made a quick decision, transferring the combat recordings stored in his brain chip to one of the drones and setting it to return automatically.

Almost simultaneously as he completed this action, an ugly monstrous figure stepped out from right in front of the tunnel.

It had a corpulent and bloated body, a dim-witted look, and a belly cracked open like a wide mouth with loops of intestines on display, dragging on the ground like a mop, even covering its tiny feet.

In the Blood Hoof Clan, it was one of the Plague Monks, a follower of the Plague Master, a servant of the prophet Sodo.

It held an oddly shaped large gun in its hand, and although its body wore no armor, it was covered in scars that resembled severe injuries, which made it difficult for the Alpha team to discern its weaknesses...

...

The frontline battle continued.

Meanwhile, far away on Broken Blade Mountain, a group of Weilante people was observing the frontline situation.

General Modlin, the Ten Thousand Leader of the 31st Ten Thousand Troops of the Army, was holding a telescope, intently watching the direction of halfway up Bloody Mountain.

The frontline seemed to be progressing smoothly.

However, what made him slightly frown was that the red mist, previously dispersed by the cloud burst bomb, seemed to be gradually returning...

Standing next to him, his adjutant couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his mouth and whispered a comment.

"So what’s the point of their long string of operation codes? In the end, it’s the same as us."

Even the artillery for deploying heavy firepower was provided by the Southern Legion.

General Modlin, however, remained silent, just quietly observing the front line.

It’s said that the Academy’s operation plans totaled several dozen gigabytes, with just the action codes filling up dozens of pages of the directory, and their preparations were quite thorough.

Not only his aide-de-camp, but even he himself was curious about what exactly those several dozen gigabytes of data contained.

Unfortunately, the Academy didn’t plan to disclose the operation plans, submitting them instead to the United Army Headquarters, under Chu Guang, on a confidential basis.

Therefore, he could only use his eyes to confirm what tactics the Academy intended to employ.

This was a rare opportunity to understand the opponent, and he didn’t want to simply miss it.

Coincidentally, on the summit of Broken Blade Mountain, the commander of the Storm Corps, Spring Water Commander, was doing the same, gazing intently in the direction of the front line.

Unlike NPCs like General Modlin, as a player, he could see the entire content of the Alpha Special Mobile Force operation plan on the "Wasteland OL" official website forum.

However, what he saw baffled him—confused him to the point of utter bewilderment.

It wasn’t that the people from the Academy were speaking gibberish, nor was their description too abstract.

Rather, it was quite the opposite—they had written too much detail!

These guys had categorized statistics for every type of mutant on Blood Mountain and analyzed their attack methods and weaknesses through battle analysis AI.

Moreover, they meticulously designed tactics and equipment for frontline soldiers to use against mutants of different sizes, weights, and characteristics based on this statistical information.

The entire several dozen gigabytes of data resembled an exhaustive game guide, even instructing which skills to use against what kind of minor creatures.

Actually, this type of behavior itself wasn’t particularly problematic; the small booklets that armies from various countries provide to soldiers also mention some "little tips" for the battlefield to improve the survival rate of new recruits...

However, it wasn’t necessary to specify to the complexity of "how many shots to fire at what type of target."

Spring Water Commander couldn’t initially discern if this was a unique form of formalism exclusive to the Wandering Swamp or if their commanders truly believed such an overly extensive plan would be practical.

However, considering that the soldiers from the Alpha Special Mobile Force, like corporate recruits, were equipped with bionic prostheses and had received more professional training, perhaps they had their own understanding of combat.

"Good lord... to take a hilltop, do they need that much ammunition?"

Standing beside Spring Water, Edge Shoveling, who had run to the front line to join the excitement, couldn’t help but complain.

Unlike Spring Water’s focus, his attention was more on the previous round of 902mm artillery fired.

The fireworks were indeed thrilling, but the density of the fire seemed somewhat excessive.

With such a barrage raining down, he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for Ah Guang over the wasted ammunition.

Spring Water Commander, with a tight frown, said,

"If they can take down this position, even doubling the ammunition would be worth it."

Edge Shoveling looked at him strangely.

"You think they can’t take it down?"

"Not just them, we would struggle too."

Seeing Edge Shoveling’s astonished expression, Spring Water Commander paused for a moment, looked again at the bloody mist spreading over the mountain, and continued solemnly,

"...I always have this feeling, that it’s not the ’Fake Nest’ we saw in Brocade River Province."

The so-called Fake Nest is the core of Nago.

According to Alliance biologists studying the Heavenly Domain, that thing was the "Nest of Nago," modeled after the Queen’s Nest in Qingquan City, primarily serving to control Nago mycelium in the Heavenly Domain, prompting it to release spores and interfere with the will of the infected.

Before entering "Stage Four" in the Heavenly Domain, destroying the "Nest of Nago" could prevent the descent of the Heavenly Domain.

However, this thing didn’t look like Nago.

After all, in his memory, mutants could directly bypass the influence of Nago due to their robust immune systems; they couldn’t serve as breeding grounds for Nago mycelium.

In other words, Ten Peaks Mountain actually lacked the fundamentals for the descent of the Heavenly Domain.

But, if those spores were produced by the mutant mucor mother nest, everything would be much more logical.

Edge Shoveling’s expression slightly changed.

"You mean... that thing is the real deal?!"

Spring Water Commander nodded his head and continued to watch silently through his binoculars.

Each nest they encountered was almost different.

He had reason to believe that this one was also the same, having its own interpretation of "evolution" and having made choices completely different from those of the Queen’s Nest in Qingquan City.

However, a nest capable of "coexisting" with such aggressively frayed mutants sounded too absurd. How could two such aggressively invasive entities coexist peacefully?

And if his conjecture was accurate, then the setting of this thing was too similar to that of "Xiaoyu"...

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