38: Chapter 38 Aerial Threat

In the infirmary, the smell of disinfectant was suffocatingly strong, and cold instruments lay on a metal tray, gleaming with a cold light.

Wang Jie's arm was firmly held in place by Lin Waner. No anesthetic was used because Lin Waner said it would affect the debridement process and he had to remain absolutely conscious.

Lin Waner's movements were swift and decisive, her eyes full of determination. She picked up the hydrogen peroxide and rinsed the scratch marks on Wang Jie's arm over and over again. White foam bubbled up continuously, flushing out the dirt and any potential viruses deep within the wound.

To completely eliminate the risk of infection, Lin Waner gritted her teeth, picked up a medical scalpel, and scraped away the necrotic flesh on the edge of the wound that might have been contaminated by the virus.

Bright red blood gushed out again. The excruciating pain covered Wang Jie's forehead in cold sweat. He bit down hard on a towel, his muscles tense, yet he didn't let out a single groan from start to finish.

After the debridement was completed, Lin Waner immediately injected him with a triple dose of potent antibiotics, then wrapped the wound layer by layer with thick sterile gauze, bandaging it tightly until it looked like a large rice dumpling.

"The next seventy-two hours are the critical period; we absolutely cannot let our guard down." Lin Waner wiped the sweat from her face, looked at Wang Jie with a solemn expression, and urged him word by word, "If any abnormal symptoms appear, such as fever, purple skin, or confusion, you must tell me immediately. Even if it's just a little bit wrong, you cannot hide it!"

Wang Jie nodded slowly. His gaze fell on his tightly wrapped arm, and his heart was filled with mixed emotions.

After a moment of silence, he looked up at Lin Waner. His eyes were calm without a ripple, but his tone was incomparably serious: "Waner, I want to ask you a question, and you must answer me truthfully."

Lin Waner's heart tightened, and she nodded.

"If I am truly infected by the virus and become a zombie without humanity, one of those man-eating monsters, what will you do?"

This question was like a giant rock, smashing heavily into Lin Waner's heart. Her body trembled violently, and she froze instantly. Her eye sockets turned red at a speed visible to the naked eye, and crystalline tears swirled in her eyes, but she held them back, refusing to let them fall.

She looked at the man before her who guarded the entire base and also guarded her. Her heart felt as if it were being tightly gripped by an invisible hand, so painful she couldn't breathe.

For a long time, Lin Waner bit her lower lip until she tasted a hint of blood, then spoke with a tearful but incomparably firm voice, word by word: "If that day really comes, I will kill you with my own hands."

She didn't want to; she wasn't willing to. But she knew that if Wang Jie turned into a zombie, it would only bring disaster to the base and cause more innocent people to die miserably. This was the cruelest, yet only, choice.

Wang Jie suddenly smiled, his smile filled with relief and doting. He nodded gently: "Good, I promise you. When the time comes, you must not be soft-hearted; don't leave me any leeway."

Lin Waner could no longer hold back; tears streamed down her face. She held Wang Jie's uninjured right hand tightly, fingers interlaced, unable to say a word. Only Silent tears told of the fear and reluctance in her heart.

For the next three days, Lin Waner stayed by Wang Jie's side, never leaving his step. Every hour, she measured his temperature and checked his physical condition. Everyone in the base prayed silently, hoping that Wang Jie would be safe.

Three days passed in a flash. Wang Jie did not develop a fever, had no physical abnormalities, his mental state remained full, and the wound began to heal slowly.

He had withstood the viral infection and survived!

The moment she learned the result, Lin Waner could no longer control her emotions. She threw herself into Wang Jie's arms and burst into tears. The fear, worry, and tension she had suppressed for three days were all released at this moment.

Wang Jie patted her back gently, soothing her softly: "It's okay, Waner. I'm fine. Everything is over."

But fate never seemed to give anyone a chance to breathe. Just as Wang Jie had breathed a sigh of relief and was preparing to handle the post-war reconstruction work of the base, the emergency communication in the command room rang out suddenly.

The Radar Station sent an urgent report: An unidentified high-speed flying object had been discovered above the base, and it was approaching rapidly!

Wang Jie's heart sank. He immediately pushed open the door of the infirmary and rushed into the Radar Station, staring fixedly at the radar screen.

On the screen, more than a dozen fast-moving red dots were approaching the base at high speed, their speed far exceeding any Mutant Beast on the ground.

Flying objects?

Since the apocalypse, he had seen strong Evolvers and ferocious ground Mutant Beasts, but he had never seen a type of Mutant Beast that could fly!

An unprecedented sense of crisis shrouded his heart once again. Wang Jie ran out of the Radar Station and looked up at the sky.

In the gray sky, more than a dozen huge black shadows were circling at low altitude. Their shapes resembled birds, but their size was astonishingly large, with wingspans of five or six meters, like small airplanes.

Their heads were like vultures, but they had blood-red eyes exactly like an Evolver, filled with bloodthirst and cruelty. The gale stirred up by the flapping of their wings blew dust into the air.

Before the people in the base could react, one of the flying Mutant Beasts suddenly folded its wings, like a diving bomber, and swept rapidly toward the ground. It grabbed a survivor who hadn't managed to run into a shelter, its sharp claws embedding deep into the person's flesh.

The survivor let out a heart-rending scream that echoed through the sky, but before they could struggle much, they were carried to a height of one hundred meters by the flying Mutant Beast, and then, the monster suddenly released its claws.

Wang Jie watched helplessly as the survivor fell from the high altitude, hitting the ground heavily, instantly becoming a bloody mess, and dying on the spot.

"Anti-aircraft fire! Open fire! Shoot these beasts down!"

Wang Jie's eyes were wide with rage, and he let out a thunderous roar.

The machine gun bunkers around the perimeter wall immediately turned their muzzles and fired wildly at the sky. Dense bullets were fired at the flying Mutant Beasts, but these monsters flew too high, and the range of ordinary machine guns simply couldn't reach them; the bullets were fired into the sky in vain.

The base's armed helicopters received orders to take off and engage, but the speed of the flying Mutant Beasts was astonishingly fast, and their figures were as flexible as swallows, constantly making various evasive maneuvers in the air, making them impossible for the helicopters to lock onto easily.

A thrilling aerial chase began.

The helicopters chased the flying Mutant Beasts and fired continuously, while the flying Mutant Beasts circled the helicopters, launching diving attacks from time to time, using their hard wings and sharp claws to collide with the fuselage.

Not long after, an accident happened—the tail rotor of an armed helicopter was hit hard by a flying Mutant Beast. The tail rotor snapped instantly, the helicopter lost balance, spiraled while emitting black smoke, crashed into the open ground outside the base, exploded with a bang, and turned into a ball of raging fire.

Three excellent pilots were sacrificed on the spot.

Wang Jie watched the crashed helicopter, his heart feeling as if it were being torn apart, bleeding with pain. One armed helicopter cost three thousand funds, and all three pilots were elites carefully selected by the base. Now, the machine was destroyed and the people were dead; everything had come to nothing.

He clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles turning white from the exertion, and blood almost seeped from between his fingers.

"Send all the armed helicopters in the base up! At any cost, shoot all these flying Mutant Beasts down for me!" Wang Jie ordered with red eyes, issuing a death order.

Five armed helicopters took off at the same time, forming an aerial fire net, firing wildly at the flying Mutant Beasts. Finally, under the dense firepower, one flying Mutant Beast was hit in the wing by bullets, lost its ability to fly, let out a shrill scream, fell straight from the sky, hit the ground heavily, and died.

The remaining flying Mutant Beasts were finally deterred, not daring to continue the fight, and fled in all directions, disappearing at the edge of the horizon.

Wang Jie looked at the empty sky, then at the wreckage of the crashed helicopter, feeling no joy of victory in his heart, only endless heaviness.

He knew very well that these flying Mutant Beasts would never give up. They would definitely return, bringing an even greater threat.

And the current base's anti-aircraft power was weak to the point of being vulnerable.

He had to build a powerful anti-aircraft system immediately; otherwise, the base would forever be exposed to aerial threats, at the mercy of others.