Chapter 118: [Traveling with a Star-Radiant Warrior]

Chapter 118: Traveling with the Starshine Warriors

Xia Zheng was soon escorted into a huge armed helicopter. It had originally been ready to take off, but fortunately, under Song Ze’s orders, it had continued waiting for Xia Zheng’s arrival.

Once inside, Xia Zheng discovered that the cabin was remarkably spacious. Four people were seated within—three men and one woman. None of them was ordinary. Their auras were tightly restrained, yet beneath their calm exteriors lay a palpable sense of coiled readiness, as though they were weapons on standby.

“Tsk, tsk… So you’re the one we were waiting for?” a young man asked.

Xia Zheng nodded and replied neither humbly nor arrogantly, “Sorry for being late. I’ve fought those vampires before. I may be of some help on this mission.”

“Heh… vampires? That’s an awfully childish name.”

The man who spoke this time had a heavy, rustic accent. He did not sound as though he had received much formal education.

“Sam, shut up. I hate listening to you talk.” The speaker’s tone was extremely cocky, though his voice was much younger—about the same age as the first man’s.

“Go to hell, Alfred! Don’t act all high and mighty in front of me. I’m not buying any of that crap.”

The man with the heavy rural accent began cursing.

Boom! Boom!

Two fists came down. The two men were struck almost simultaneously, instantly clutching their heads and crouching on the floor, looking thoroughly ridiculous.

A sharp glint flashed through Xia Zheng’s eyes. In the dim cabin, a slim, short-haired woman dressed in battle armor withdrew her hands and said coldly, “Pay attention when you’re carrying out a mission, you two bastards.”

“Yes, Big Sis!”

To Xia Zheng’s surprise, the two burly soldiers were utterly obedient to this woman, who stood no more than five feet three, and even addressed her as Big Sis.

She did not look very old, perhaps only in her early twenties. After giving Xia Zheng a brief glance, she returned to the corner where she had been sitting and crouched down against the fuselage once more.

Xia Zheng sensed someone approaching and turned to look. It was the first man from before. He was considerably slimmer, though only by comparison; next to Xia Zheng, he was still extremely muscular.

“Liu Chuxing. And you?”

Seeing that Xia Zheng had noticed him, the man stopped hiding his approach and walked over openly, introducing himself.

Xia Zheng extended his hand and shook his. “Benson Wood. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh, so you’re the sole survivor of the Special Investigation Group. Impressive.”

Liu Chuxing behaved with the easy familiarity of an old friend.

Xia Zheng offered a modest response, then struck up a conversation with Liu Chuxing during the journey to the front lines.

“That rustic hick over there is Sam. He’s got skin like leather and bones like iron, and people call him the Immortal. The other one is Alfred. He’s only a little less handsome than I am, and he’s loaded with top-tier equipment. His own abilities are outstanding too, making him a very well-rounded all-purpose warrior. His specialty is the various bombs he invents himself—his attacks are almost impossible to guard against.”

After introducing his two teammates, Liu Chuxing gave Xia Zheng a general impression of them.

Xia Zheng looked at him and smiled. “What about you? Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

“Me? I’m nothing special. I can enter a berserk transformation, that’s about it. Compared with them, I’m still a little lacking. But the strongest one is our captain—our Big Sis. She may be the youngest, only twenty-two, but she possesses astonishing speed, stealth, and marksmanship. She’s just as formidable in close combat, too. She has a pair of Storm and Thunder sabers, and when she starts dancing with them, it’s terrifying. She’s the number-one expert in the army of Evernight City.”

Liu Chuxing’s words made Xia Zheng reassess the young woman. As expected, any woman who could rise through the military ranks by virtue of her battle achievements was extraordinary. Lieutenant Philina, whom he had met earliest, had now been promoted to major.

As for Ying Ying, there was no need to mention her. She was currently the youngest general in the Federation.

Realizing that he still did not know the woman’s name, Xia Zheng could not help asking, “What’s your Big Sis’s name?”

“Heh heh… You’re captivated, aren’t you? There are very few men who wouldn’t be. Our Big Sis may be an iceberg, but she’s beautiful, has an excellent figure, and possesses that extraordinary bearing. She has countless admirers…”

Liu Chuxing had quite a lot of useless chatter. Xia Zheng patiently listened to him ramble.

By then, the aircraft had already taken off, and the deafening noise made conversation far from easy.

“Luo Bing. Our Big Sis is called Luo Bing. All right, I’m heading over there. See you on the battlefield.”

At last, Liu Chuxing finished rambling and, at the very least, told Xia Zheng the woman’s name.

When Xia Zheng saw the other two teammates drag Liu Chuxing away and begin tormenting him, he instinctively looked toward the woman. To his surprise, he found that she seemed to be studying him as well.

Feeling slightly awkward, Xia Zheng smiled and nodded. Unfortunately, the cabin was very dark, and she probably could not see him clearly. When he looked over again, she had already lowered her head, apparently ignoring his greeting.

Before long, the helicopter had left Evernight City far behind. Night gradually deepened across the sky.

Xia Zheng spread his coat on the floor and sat cross-legged in the cabin, no longer paying attention to the activity around him.

When the clear radiance of moonlight filtered through the helicopter’s windows, it created a uniquely splendid beauty. Gazing at that sliver of moonlight, Xia Zheng could not help thinking of Evernight City’s fate.

Can fate truly be rewritten?

He asked himself the question, but found no answer.

As they drew closer and closer to the battlefield, the sounds of gunfire, cannon fire, combat, unknown roars, screams, wails, and explosions came rolling toward them without end. It was as though hell lay directly ahead, and they were on their way into it.

“Prepare to parachute!”

The announcement came through the cabin speakers. The others immediately put on their parachutes and moved toward the door. Xia Zheng rose and followed them.

“Brother, aren’t you going to put on a parachute?”

When Liu Chuxing saw that Xia Zheng was carrying nothing on his back, he was startled. They were about five hundred meters above the ground.

Sam and Alfred immediately looked at Xia Zheng as though he were a rookie. They found it utterly incomprehensible that such an idiot had been entrusted by General Song Ze with an important mission alongside Starshine warriors such as themselves.

Luo Bing frowned. She had initially wanted to offer a reminder, but when she saw Xia Zheng’s indifferent expression, she held her tongue. In her mind, anyone who liked showing off deserved to die from the fall.

Xia Zheng declined Liu Chuxing’s kind warning. The commander aboard the aircraft even reminded him personally, and went so far as to seek confirmation from Song Ze. Song Ze told him not to worry, which left the commander astonished, but he had no choice except to obey the order.

Even Starshine warriors would never dare leap directly from an altitude of five hundred meters without a parachute. Only at around one hundred meters might they have a chance of landing safely. The young man before him looked even weaker than an ordinary gene warrior. The commander shook his head, thinking that even generals could make mistakes in judgment.

The cabin door opened, and a violent current swept in like a storm. The sounds from below seemed to be magnified several times over. Experiencing the atmosphere of a battlefield for the first time, Xia Zheng could not help trembling slightly.

“Take care of yourself, brother. Sigh…”

Liu Chuxing offered him a sympathetic word of encouragement.

“Liu Chuxing, you jump first.”

Luo Bing, who had not spoken until then, finally gave an order.

Liu Chuxing hurriedly nodded and leaped out with practiced ease. Sam followed, then Alfred, and finally Luo Bing.

“If you don’t want to die, stay up here.”

With that, Luo Bing sprang from the helicopter. She spread her arms and legs to increase the surface area exposed to the air, stabilizing herself as she fell. When they had descended to an altitude of three hundred meters, all four opened their parachutes, landing directly within the range of the human forward positions.

Benson’s skill memories remained within Xia Zheng, so he naturally knew how to parachute. But he had no intention of using such a time-consuming method of descent.

He accelerated abruptly, planted one foot against the helicopter’s fuselage, and unleashed the attractive force of his mental power. His entire body shot outward like a cannon shell. Every hundred meters, another sonic boom erupted as he propelled himself farther and farther, covering hundreds of meters in an instant and appearing directly above the vast zombie army.

The entire aircraft lurched violently from that single leap.

The commander and pilot were both startled. Their only thought was that this kid was not human.

Luo Bing and the others, descending behind Xia Zheng, naturally witnessed the scene as well. They were so astonished that they could scarcely believe their eyes. It was the first time they had ever seen a human launch himself through the air with such overwhelming force, like a missile, sending shock waves through both the human forces below and the zombie army.