“Aaaaah!”
“Hurry up!”
“Use the boosters, don’t skimp on energy!”
“Where’s Sister Zebra? Damn, Sister Zebra got buried! Don’t worry, I’m coming to get you!”
The four members of Qilin Military Academy were being chased through a blinding snowstorm by a wave of frenzied mutant beasts—every kind imaginable—and the strange feeling gnawing at Huang Yan’s gut was only growing stronger.
Jian Jingyu glanced back and spotted Wang Tianwei sinking into a deep snow pit, the powder already up to her mech’s hips, bogging her down so badly she was falling more than ten meters behind the rest of them!
He sprinted back two steps, yanked her out, slung her over his shoulder, and kept running without missing a beat.
The position left Wang Tianwei dangling upside down in her cockpit—thank goodness the safety harness had her strapped in tight.
Being slow in a pinch was such a pain... If mechs didn’t have to be built to your exact body proportions, she would’ve made herself a machine with nothing but legs from the neck down!
They’d barely made any progress before having to backtrack, and seeing the familiar terrain, Wang Tianwei’s eyes lit up. She patted Jian Jingyu’s shoulder where he carried her.
“North! Everyone head north!”
“North? Sister Zebra, isn’t that where... ah! I get it!”
Huang Yan and Little Bear had already veered off first; Jian Jingyu took a second to think it through and then it clicked—Sister Zebra’s brain never missed!
After they’d lured the horde of mutant beasts far away, the ice surface they’d just crossed erupted moments later with a massive blast.
“BOOM!!”
Taylor fired the cannon and immediately pulled back, dodging the chunks of ice raining down from above. Once he could see the open sky, he said, “Okay, we’re clear, Captain.”
“Everyone exit in order.”
“Roger!”
Barry was the first to shoot his grappling hook at the opening, gave the cable a quick tug—safety line was solid!—then activated the mech’s anti-gravity levitation and rose steadily upward.
When he reached the mouth of the cave, the wind and snow made his mech drift slightly. Gripping the rope, he cautiously poked his head out to scan the area. Confirming no other creatures were around, he leapt out of the hole in one jump.
The sudden drop in temperature hit him like a wall of ice.
“Ugh! Okay, okay—now I’m properly awake!”
Hiranuma Yusho, right behind him, couldn’t hold back a shiver either.
It took about a minute for the cockpit climate control to adjust. They’d gotten used to the stable temperature and no wind down below, so coming back up was a shock. But the massive tracks left in the snow nearby were clearly fresh...
“Qilin Military Academy, Fourth Squad: +6 points.”
“Qilin Military Academy, Fourth Squad: +10 points.”
“Qilin Military Academy, Fourth Squad: +3 points.”
...Only Qilin would make this big a mess.
“Captain!”
Wu Fangyu had just climbed out when she heard the Qilin score announcements. Seeing the tracks that hadn’t been filled in by the wind yet, she grinned.
“This has to be Sister Zebra and the others!”
Hiranuma Yusho swept his psychic sense over the rescue ship hovering above without showing it, then nodded.
“Yeah. Let’s follow them.”
Jian Jingyu swung his blade, slicing through a vine reaching toward him, then flipped it back with the flat of the blade, sending the vine whipping onto the nearest snow hare.
“Not us—there! Isn’t that enough for you to eat?”
Wang Tianwei scrambled to open her recorder, trying to capture footage of how the ice-strangler vine latched onto its prey. She might use it for future mech modifications.
The severed vine wasn’t dead yet; it twisted and coiled around the snow hare.
“Squeak!”
The rabbit screamed as its limbs were bound, the vine spreading across its body.
Through her magnified lens, Wang Tianwei clearly saw a bug leap out of the rabbit’s mouth, then quickly hop onto another nearby rabbit.
The first rabbit’s body shriveled up fast, but the new one suddenly went berserk, charging straight at them like it was on drugs...
“?!?!”
Wait—this can’t be right, can it?
Huang Yan saw it all through the squad’s visual link.
“All members! Shake off every star beast and get out of here—NOW!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Keep as far from them as possible. Do NOT let them touch you!”
“Copy!”
“Don’t worry about me—I can run on my own!”
Before Jian Jingyu could come carry her again, Wang Tianwei slammed her accelerator and tore off into the distance, head down.
Meanwhile, she was frantically digging through her space capsule looking for anything to slow the beasts chasing them... Come on, find something!
Once Zhang Lyra caught up with them, Wang Tianwei tossed a prepared canister behind her, pulled out her rifle, and fired.
“BANG!”
“WHOOOM!”
The canister exploded instantly, its fuel spraying out and continuing to burn fiercely on the snow, successfully blocking the mutant beasts behind them.
The distance on the explosive canister was spot-on—the flames didn’t touch the ice-strangler vines at all, but the mutant plants kept attacking, buying them even more time to escape.
“Did you SEE that?! Bug—bug—ugh, a bug jumped out of its mouth!”
Wang Tianwei was so freaked out she could barely form sentences.
She’d seen it crystal clear! The moment that bug jumped out, the original rabbit’s eyes had gone back to red, and it died almost instantly.
The other rabbit had been totally normal at first, but once the bug landed on it, the eye color immediately went wrong, and its attacks got way fiercer!
And here she’d thought those were just Blizza’s native star beasts, that maybe their irises naturally came in two colors, or that the color difference was how you told males from females! Fat chance.
Huang Yan was running at top speed while extending his psychic sense to search for a safe spot.
“I saw it. Looks like insectoids. Don’t stop—there are star beasts out here too!”
Insectoids?!
Zhang Lyra and Jian Jingyu felt their hair stand on end. Without even hitting their accelerators, they were suddenly matching the speed of the commander and the mech engineer!
“How are there insectoids here?!”
“And parasitic ones at that!”
On the rescue ship hovering above Qilin, Kes glanced at the companion beside him. After a moment, the companion lowered their head.
“I’m sorry, Captain of the Guard...”
The superior’s pupils rippled with a golden shimmer, and the person immediately clutched their head and dropped to their knees.
“You can’t even handle something this small. When the Chief arrives, you can go and apologize to him in person.”
The companion curled up on the floor, trembling.
“Please—give me one more chance. I’ll summon more of our kind over...”
Going to apologize to the Chief in person? That was basically suicide, wasn’t it?
It had just completed its parasitic bond with a human. This human’s mind was full of fascinating things, and it didn’t want to die so soon!
Kes rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“Get back in your seat.”
“Yes, Captain of the Guard!”
Kes picked up the communicator and hailed the other rescue ship.
“Heads up—Valk’s group is out too. Now that they’re all above ground, take them all out.”
“Yes, Captain of the Guard.”
