Chapter 92 The Bedbug in the Dark

To the Eagle, the silence of the Great Xia was weakness, but to the military, it was the prelude to unleashing a major move.

In the eyes of most countries around the world, this looked more like the restraint of an adult facing a mad dog. After all, it was three entire carrier strike groups, forming an impenetrable blockade around the First Island Chain; no rational decision-maker would choose to gamble their national destiny in a direct confrontation at such a critical moment.

However, this near-dead silence became a shot in the arm for the generals at The Pentagon.

That mysterious ancient Eastern country might truly possess some unexplainable pinpoint strike technology, as rumors suggested. But wars are never won by one or two divine weapons. It is the crushing of systems, the collision of industrial capabilities, and, more importantly, the strangulation of conventional forces.

On the conventional battlefield, Great Xia was still the chaser that had to look up to the Eagle.

They dared not gamble. And they could not afford to.

"The full-spectrum technical blockade is working."

Inside the top-secret conference room deep within The Pentagon, the air filtration system emitted a faint hum. The four-star general, who had once thrown his cup in wrath over the disappearance of the TR-3B, leaned back in his leather chair, his fingers rhythmically tapping on the table.

The gloom on his face had mostly dissipated, replaced by the smugness of a hunter watching prey fall into a trap.

"Possessing dragon-slaying techniques, yet unable to even scrape together a butcher's knife," the general smiled contemptuously. "This feeling of being unable to use their strength should be enough to make them suffer."

"General."

At the end of the long table, a young staff officer asked cautiously, "According to the simulation model, what should our next step be? Do we really need to wait twenty-four hours as originally planned?"

"Wait?"

The general shook his head, his eyes suddenly vicious, like a viper flicking its tongue. "That is just a political show for the world's media. Real war never concerns itself with gentlemanly conduct."

He stood up, walked to the giant tactical screen, and jabbed his finger heavily onto the border line representing the vast western region of Great Xia.

"Our 'guests' have already set off early."

The curve of the general's mouth was cruel and cold.

"Since they like to play mute, I will take the fire straight to their backyard. I want to see if they can still maintain this ridiculous silence when that visceral pain truly reaches their nerve endings."

...

Great Xia, Southwest Border.

21 degrees north latitude, deep within the primeval jungle.

This was a true no-man's-land. The hot, humid air felt like a water-soaked quilt, pressing heavily against one's chest. The miasma that never dissipated year-round permeated the woods, and beneath the layer of rotting leaves, who knew how many deadly poisonous insects lay hidden.

Even the most seasoned hunter would not dare to easily set foot in this ghost domain.

But deep in the dense forest today, a dozen black shadows were moving at high speed through this land of death.

They made no sound.

Their feet stepped on dead branches and leaves without a crack; their bodies passed through dense bushes without the rustling sound of rubbing leaves. They were like a group of incorporeal ghosts, gliding through the jungle in defiance of physical laws.

This was the absolute taboo that the Eagle was most proud of, sealed away in top-secret archives — "Reaper Squad".

If you didn't look at their special black combat suits, and only looked at their body structure, it would be hard to classify these creatures as "human".

Under the modification of the mysterious substance called "black liquid", their muscle fiber density was several times that of an ordinary person, with every muscle tightened like a steel cable. This granted them the terrifying monstrous strength to flip over armored vehicles with their bare hands, as well as extreme speed that left afterimages in the dense forest.

What was even more spine-chilling was their skin.

It was alive.

As the ambient light changed, that layer of grayish-white skin constantly adjusted its pigment and texture. When they pressed against a tree trunk, the skin became as rough as bark; when they lurked behind rocks, the skin became as cold and hard as rock.

This was a perfect biological mimicry.

In the face of such evolution, the infrared detection, thermal imagers, and life signal scanning that humans were so proud of all became blind. "black liquid" had rewritten their physiological characteristics at the genetic level, turning them into ghosts that did not exist on this planet.

"Boss, we've crossed the line."

In the tactical channel, a voice as hoarse as if polished by sandpaper rang out, "The Great Xia border defense line is practically made of paper; it doesn't even have a decent vibration sensor."

"Don't be careless."

Responding to him was a gentle, magnetic voice that even carried a hint of scholarly air.

The owner of this voice was the Commander of the squad — "Butcher".

He wore the same black combat suit, but his figure was not exaggerated and deformed like the other members; instead, he was somewhat thin. Most incongruously, he wore gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, and the eyes behind the lenses were as calm as two pools of stagnant water.

Butcher raised his wrist, glanced at the holographic map on his tactical terminal, and pushed up his glasses.

"Thirty kilometers ahead, codename 'wind eye'."

There was no killing intent in his voice, as if he were discussing tonight's dinner. "Intelligence shows that it is an outpost radar station disguised as a meteorological observation station. The mission is simple: wipe it out. Do not trigger the alarm, leave no survivors."

"Understood!"

The channel instantly livened up.

"Hehe, finally able to make a move. My bones were about to rust."

"Heard the blood of the Easterners is hotter? Wonder if it tastes sweeter compared to those guys in the Middle East?"

A few suppressed, strange laughs came through, carrying a nauseating scent of blood.

Butcher did not stop them.

He knew very well what kind of people his subordinates were. They were monsters spawned by "black liquid", and that violent desire for destruction was like steam in a high-pressure cooker, which had to be released through slaughter and blood.

If he didn't let them kill others, they would kill their own.

Butcher looked up, through the gaps in the dense branches and leaves, and took a glance at the narrow patch of sky above.

"Begin the operation."

He elegantly adjusted his gloves, a cruel smile curling the corners of his mouth.

"Remember, be clean. This is the first gift we are presenting to our Eastern friends; we must make it... memorable."

The order was given.

A dozen black shadows instantly accelerated, like a pack of evil ghosts that had smelled blood, rushing toward the coordinate named "meteorological station".

The jungle returned to dead silence, as if nothing had ever happened.

What they did not know was.

Just when they thought they were undetected, moving as if they were in no-man's-land.

Thousands of kilometers away.

Deep underground in the Northwest Gobi, the "scavenger" base.

Inside the holographic simulation pod, Lin Yuan was undergoing the Nth "luan bird one" captain command course.

A huge holographic star map unfolded before him, with thousands of red dots representing enemy ships pressing toward his defense line. Lin Yuan's fingers danced rapidly across the virtual control console, issuing complex tactical orders one after another.

Suddenly.

His movements stopped.

The eyes that had been focused on the star map suddenly closed, his brows furrowed.

It wasn't that the simulation system had malfunctioned.

It was a feeling.

Ever since absorbing that "void crystal core" from a higher-dimensional creature and gaining the passive ability [Void Affinity], Lin Yuan's way of perceiving the world had undergone a qualitative change.

Space was no longer an empty void. In his perception, it was an ocean of countless energy flows. Every rustle of wind, every breath of grass, and even every oscillation of electromagnetic waves would stir ripples in this ocean.

This was a mysterious and profound intuition.

Just a moment ago, on the energy background representing the Southwest direction — which should have been a calm, vibrant emerald green full of natural vitality — some impurities suddenly appeared.

A dozen faint, yet extremely glaring black dots.

They were moving.

That aura...

Lin Yuan's stomach churned.

That feeling was too familiar. Mixed with violence, bloodthirst, chaos, and that nauseating aura of death. This was simply not an energy fluctuation that Earth creatures should have.

He had only felt this kind of twisted biological energy deep inside the "giant beast skeleton", on that mutated "Stitched Monster"!

However, compared to that giant beast, these black dots were much weaker, like a few dregs splashed out from that pot of highly toxic soup.

"These filthy things... how could they appear on Earth?"

Lin Yuan opened his eyes abruptly, cold light exploding in his eyes.

He exited the simulation training without hesitation, tapped the control console, cut off the training program directly, and instead connected to the remote fire control system of the "ghost".

Although the "ghost" was currently lying quietly in the hangar for maintenance, its [High-Dimensional Particle Penetration Scanning] system, which originated from "Titan Heavy Industry", could extend its reach to any corner of the Earth through Great Xia's global military satellite network, even in standby mode.

"System, connect to the Sky Eye satellite matrix, lock coordinates to the Southwest Border, initiate high-dimensional scanning mode!"

Lin Yuan issued the command in his mind.

His mental power instantly interfaced with the massive data stream.

At that moment, his vision was no longer bound by his physical body. His consciousness seemed to transform into an invisible eye of God, instantly soaring, piercing through thick clouds, crossing continuous mountain ranges, and pinning itself firmly onto that distant Southwest jungle.

The world had changed.

Under the blessing of [Void Affinity], the originally lush jungle disappeared, replaced by a magnificent scroll made of energy.

Mountains were thick earthy yellow, rivers were flowing light blue, and that vast forest was vibrant emerald green.

But in that pure emerald green, those dozen black dots moving at high speed were as glaring as ink stains on white paper!

Even if they possessed perfect biological mimicry, even if they had deceived infrared radar, under high-dimensional vision, that filthy stench from the void had nowhere to hide.

They were moving north.

Lin Yuan looked along their trajectory, and his heart shrank abruptly.

Thirty kilometers ahead in their direction of travel, there was a white dot emitting a faint electromagnetic signal.

That was a characteristic of human technological creation.

Civilian facility.

"Sure enough, they are coming for us."

Lin Yuan's eyes turned completely cold, his fists clenching unconsciously.

Although he couldn't name these monsters, he could figure out with his toes that this was definitely another trump card thrown out by those lunatics from the Eagle.

And it was an extremely insidious, vicious, and bottomless trump card.

Daring not to engage head-on on the battlefield, so they used such underhanded biological weapons to launch surprise attacks? Attacking civilian facilities, creating panic and slaughter, to force Great Xia to reveal its trump cards?

Such sleazy methods were too in line with the logic of those people at The Pentagon.

"Want to play dirty?"

Lin Yuan looked at those rapidly wriggling black dots on the holographic screen, a cold curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.

"Then I'll play along with you properly."

He did not choose to report to Chen Weiguo immediately.

He knew the current situation too well. Once reported, according to standard procedure, Chen Weiguo would definitely mobilize the most elite special forces of the Southwest Military Region to encircle and suppress them.

But would that be useful?

Facing monsters that even thermal imaging couldn't capture, that could perfectly blend into the environment, and whose physical fitness far exceeded human limits, no matter how elite the conventional special forces were, rushing in would only be suicide.

That would be feeding them with lives.

That would be using the flesh and blood of Great Xia soldiers to feed this group of evil ghosts that had crawled out of hell.

Lin Yuan would never allow such a thing to happen.

Especially when he held a simpler, more efficient, and "cleaner" solution in his hands.

He stood up, walked out of the simulation pod, and pressed the red communication button on the wall.

"Beep — Beep —"

After two beeps, the communication was connected.

"Chief, it's me, Lin Yuan."

"Lin Yuan?" Chen Weiguo's slightly weary voice came through the receiver; clearly, this old general hadn't slept much in the last few days. "What's wrong? Is there a problem with the training? Or have those old pedants assigned you extra classes again?"

"Report, Chief, training is perfectly normal."

Lin Yuan took a deep breath, looking at the pitch-black underground rock wall outside the window, his voice terrifyingly calm.

"I'm calling because I want to ask for leave."

"Leave?" Chen Weiguo was stunned for a moment, his tone carrying a hint of astonishment. "At a time like this? Where are you going? Are you not feeling well?"

"No, I'm feeling fine."

Lin Yuan paused, a flash of fierce killing intent in his eyes.

"I want to go out for a trip. To the Southwest Border."

"There... are a few annoying bugs that have crawled into our backyard."

His fingers gripping the receiver tightened slightly, his knuckles turning white.

"I want to go personally and crush them to death."