When the howling sounded, Captain Zhou, Lin Qi, and every one of the officers could feel their hearts sink. During the chase, none of them had considered the wolf pack a threat.
To them, the wolf pack should have been very far away, near where most of the troops had gathered to encircle them. But they realized now to their horror that the wolves’ area of activity was actually close to them!
How did it turn out like this? The outpost the wolf pack attacked was very far from here. If this was where the wolf pack was active, then why was Ren Xiaosu’s outpost unharmed?
Captain Zhou thought about it for two seconds before saying coldly, “I’m afraid the scale of the operation at the neighboring outpost must’ve been too big. That’s why the wolves were alarmed and came over here. We underestimated how strongly they can smell danger and keep clear of it.”
“That could be possible.” Lin Qi said, sounding afraid, “So what should we do now?”
“What else can we do? Rapidly retreat!” Captain Zhou whisper-shouted, “If you don’t want to die, hurry up and get out of here. We’ll head to the outpost. Who knows, the wolves might get attracted to those people. That’s our only hope of survival!”
As they were talking, Captain Zhou reactivated his nanomachines and became as quick and powerful as a mech. When the others saw this, they stopped caring about other things and hastily followed suit.
But not everyone in the platoon was equipped with nanomachines. The soldier who had been controlling the nanorobotic snakes roared from behind them, “Take me with you!”
Without any nanomachines, he was just a normal person. He had absolutely no chance to escape the pursuit of the wolves. As such, he required someone to help him if he did not want to die.
But his comrades who had been addressing each other as brothers did not even turn around to look at him when they heard his shouts.
This was the result of not having undergone any formal military training. In the face of danger, they were no different from refugees!
Looking at his platoon mates running further and further away, this abandoned nanosoldier started getting desperate. He could already hear the wolves moving in the forested hill behind him!
For some reason, he regretted becoming a nanosoldier. Although he would have become a refugee if he didn’t become a nanosoldier, he might have been able to live a little longer. But right at this moment, he looked back and was stunned, because he saw not only the wolf pack; a young man was with them as well!
The young man and the wolves were coming towards him together. The young man and the Wolf King were walking side by side while the rest of the wolves followed them. It looked like his standing in the group was very high.
But wasn’t this young man that Ren Xiaosu they met earlier at the outpost?
Then Ren Xiaosu said, “Don’t worry about them getting away. I’ve already calculated their speed and used the shadow clone to lead them here into the depths of the mountain. They’re running for their lives right now with everything they have, but those nanomachines will run out of power in approximately ten minutes. After that, those few dozen people will revert back to normal humans.”
Just as Ren Xiaosu had speculated, the most lethal limitation the nanomachines had right now was its energy source. By depending on a bioenergy source to charge, they were utterly unable to keep up with the rate of power consumption. Therefore, nanosoldiers were best suited for blitzkrieg, not conventional warfare. Of course, Ren Xiaosu was unsure if the Li Consortium had solved this problem internally yet.
The Wolf King and Ren Xiaosu came before that nanosoldier, and the two of them communicated by guessing each other’s intentions. That nanosoldier suddenly felt like he had already been forgotten by them at this moment. ‘Aren’t you two looking down on me too much?’
But why was this young man in front of him able to stand with the wolf pack without being harmed? Wasn’t this unbelievable? Wait! Could the attack on the neighboring outpost have something to do with this young man?
Suddenly, the Wolf King took a look at this nanosoldier and then raised its paw to prod at Ren Xiaosu like it wanted something.
Ren Xiaosu’s expression changed. “He doesn’t have any more nanomachines in him, so I’m not going to trade him to you. Besides, I took the nanomachines that he used to have with my own method!”
The nanosoldier was stunned as he listened to Ren Xiaosu. He realized the shadow was Ren Xiaosu’s doing. So that meant this young man was also a supernatural being!
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However, the Wolf King shook its head. “Well, I don’t care!”
Ren Xiaosu took out a vial of black medicine and handed it to the Wolf King unhappily. “Whatever, I’m not going to argue with a wolf.”
When the Wolf King saw the black medicine, it became happier. Ren Xiaosu said, “Alright, I’ll go on ahead to give chase. Come to me after you’ve dealt with him.” Ren Xiaosu then got ready to leave.
The nanosoldier who was about to get left behind was terrified. “Don’t go, we’re both humans. How can you let the wolves eat me?”
Ren Xiaosu turned around and said with a smile, “I’d rather dance with wolves than associate with people like you.”
After saying that, Ren Xiaosu left and headed into the forested hills. The nanosoldier could see the solitude and determination on the young man’s back. In this moment, the nanosoldier figured out a lot of things. So when they said their staple food at the outpost was meat, they weren’t actually lying about it.
So the wolf pack had not attacked the outpost over here because Ren Xiaosu was there. That was all there was to it!
And he noticed this person called Ren Xiaosu knew a great deal about the nanomachines.
They had been wondering why that shadow was trying to steal the nanomachines. It wasn’t like it could use them anyway.
But he wasn’t so sure anymore!
As Ren Xiaosu walked forward, he heard a scream coming from behind him. However, his expression did not change much.
Including the five silver snakes, they were enough to allow his hand to be covered with the nanomachines up to his wrist. There was still a long way to go before he could gather enough nanomachines to piece together a full set of armor.
Lin Qi and the others were running with all their might through the forested hill. They didn’t even care about their faces getting cut by protruding tree branches anymore. The nanomachines they had in their bodies were still not enough to support the entirety of their structure. So their skin was not that different from that of normal people.
As they ran, Captain Zhou slowed down a little. “Seems like the wolf pack isn’t coming after
US?”
“Yeah.” Lin Qi said with a look of consternation, “Could it be that they didn’t realize we were there?”
“That’s impossible!” Captain Zhou coldly rebuked. “There must be some other reason for it.”
A hypothesis came to Captain Zhou at this moment. He wondered if the wolf pack somehow knew the nanomachines had a limited duration of charge and was waiting until their power ran out before making their move.
However, he immediately brushed off this idea. After all, how could the wolves possibly know something like that? There were not even many people within the Li Consortium’s military that knew about this other than the nanosoldiers themselves.
Lin Qi and the others had already discarded some of their supplies. They were not so stupid as to throw away their weapons. Instead, they got rid of their combat rations.
But Lin Qi suddenly realized something. Right from the beginning, Captain Zhou had never opened his backpack. Currently, the silvery glow from everyone else’s blood vessels was starting to dim. But that was not the case for Captain Zhou’s blood vessels.
Lin Qi asked, “Captain, is there some sort of charger in your backpack?”
Captain Zhou gave him a look. “Don’t ask if it’s none of your business.”