<TOC> Chapter 2 Marauders and the Invisible Descender
Translator: SumTLMan
Li Mu slowly opened his eyes and took in the unfamiliar surroundings. His whole body was trembling slightly. Three minutes ago, he was feeling drowsy from working late into the night and dozing off on the last subway train. But with a mere moment of drowsiness, he found himself in a completely strange world.
He was sure that he was lying in a field of weeds, and the soil beneath him was full of moisture that could swallow all life. The air was extremely damp and the yellowish radiation fog was pervasive all around. The sky was gloomy and the weak sunlight that shone through the mist was not enough to illuminate the land.
This was a very dangerous swamp, obscured by dense fog, with occasional giant black shadows passing through the sky. The shadows occasionally revealed some of their scales and claws through the mist, and one could see their colorful stripes and sharp fins.
Li Mu was lying next to a corpse.
The corpse was highly bloated, covered in blisters all over its body, and its translucent skin was stretched round and round by yellow-green pus. There was a big hole in its chest, and the pus was slowly seeping out of the wound, emitting a nauseating odor.
But he did not dare to move, silently enduring the almost nauseating stench. The blisters shone with oil, and he could barely see his own face through the reflection.
It was a young and stubborn face, with bright eyes, soft facial contours, and a hint of childishness. But this was not Li Mu’s face. This face was only eighteen or nineteen years old, while he was a white-collar worker who had graduated and worked for seven or eight years.
A worm-like string of characters was flickering in the lower left corner of his retina.
【Open Exile Realm】
With a flash of consciousness in the digital realm, Li Mu’s world disappeared in front of him.
The next moment, he appeared in a chaotic space, with a small island floating in the chaotic currents. In the sky was a basketball-sized sun, radiating golden light that lit up the entire island as bright as day.
The island was desolate, with only rocks and black soil beneath. It was about ten or so acres in size.
Li Mu realized that this was the game he used to play in his spare time: Exile Realm. He took a deep breath and exhaled the stench from his lungs.
Exile Realm was a management game where players built a new civilization within the Exile Realm. The game was very free, with thousands of civilization development directions, whether it be space travel, mechanical crisis, sword and magic, or cultivation, all could be reenacted in Exile Realm. Different players could trade or conquer each other.
After crossing over to this strange world, Li Mu was relieved to see the familiar initial world of Exile Realm. At least here, he did not need to worry about being attacked by monsters that suddenly appeared.
Calming his inner excitement, rubbing his head as if it were about to crack open, Li Mu finally managed to clear the unfamiliar memories in his mind. These memories were fragmented and had little coherent information.
The clearest memory was the scene just before his original self’s death. His convoy was attacked by the undead. The convoy was organizing defense, when suddenly, everyone saw a terrifying illusion and their vision became distorted and dark.
The horde of corpses took advantage of the opportunity and surged forward like a tidal wave, continuously knocking people to the ground and biting their throats. The remaining people panicked and fled into the large swamp, with the horde of corpses pursuing them in tow as all the people scattered.
The original body, due to its good physical strength, persisted in running deep into the swamp until the original body was knocked to the ground by a bloated corpse.
He immediately lost control of his body, as if all his nerves had been cut.
A pale and bloated segmented worm emerged from the chest of that corpse and crawled onto the face of the original body, crawling into the original body’s mouth.
Li Mu saw the scene in his mind and immediately felt nauseous. He held his throat and tried to spit out the worm that had crawled in. But he only vomited some sour water, without spitting out anything else.
That worm should be the culprit behind the attack on the convoy.
Another set of profound memories, a significant part of which is about military school.
This Li Mu, with the same name as him, was a newly graduated military officer who was awarded the rank of second lieutenant. Unfortunately, his academic career was not pleasant. Although he scored high and was admitted to the best military academy, Pucini Military Academy, in the capital, Lalegaode, to study battle command, he suffered from exclusion in school because of his Xia identity.
Most of the Xia people in the entire Xingdu Federation prefer to enroll in business, medical and engineering schools. Very few people are willing to attend military schools that are firmly controlled by Xingdu people.
It wasn’t like this before, most of the Xia people were descendants of the great Xia and supported Xingdu’s human intervention in the Joint Army. The Intervention Army traveled far from the Great Xia to Xingdu to fight with the Xingdu people against invading Descenders. They inherited their ancestors’ bravery and good fighting skills.
The global nuclear explosion three hundred and forty years ago directly separated Xingdu from the Great Xia and left the entire Joint Intervention Army stranded in Xingdu.
Three hundred and twenty years ago, the Xia people split due to the death of the commander, with some Xia people choosing to leave the rule of Lalegaode and Governor Shen and settling in the eastern desolate wetlands, calling themselves Eastern Xia people. The Xia people who remained in Xingdu were called Western Xia people.
Two hundred and nineteen years ago, the 37th Mechanized Regiment, composed of Western Xia people, after a long period of combat, mutinied due to lack of supplies and reduced military pay and was suppressed by the six nearby Xingdu regimental towns. The bloody war made the Western Xia people lose their martial spirit, like a broken spine, and their status in the Federation plummeted.
Even as a bystander of this memory, Li Mu’s heart was filled with a sense of bleakness, this is the bloody history of the Xia ancestors in this land.
The original ancestor died in this mutiny.
After graduation, despite being first in his class, he was assigned as a peace officer to the remote and dangerous eastern wilderness of Avonigarda.
Here, marauders roam rampant and the death rate of peace officers is extremely high.
The East Xian settlement is not far away, and due to the barren land, they frequently invade Avonigarda to loot and plunder. The weak border forces of the Xingdu Federation cannot withstand the fierce East Xian.
Two hundred years of separation, they view the West Xian who remain in the Xingdu Federation as traitors and will not show mercy when encountered.
“What kind of world is this, and what exactly is that worm?”
From the memories of the body’s previous owner, he knows that this world is far more dangerous than his previous world. He raised his hand and carefully examined the radiation meter on his wrist.
This radiation meter can detect the intensity of radiation in the surrounding area. The surface is divided into three fan-shaped sections: yellow, green, and red. The intensity of radiation decreases in turn. Yellow represents that the environmental radiation intensity will harm the human body, green indicates that humans can live relatively safely, and the most dangerous red is a warning that the current radiation intensity is not enough to drive away those dangerous Descenders, and they may encounter Descenders hunting at any time.
As for the Descenders, there is very little description of them in memory, the only impression is extreme danger and extreme strangeness, and ordinary people have no chance of survival if they encounter them.
At this moment, the pointer of the radiation meter directly popped up to the top of the red area though no radioactive dust was in the air. According to his previous observations, the monsters in the dense fog were moving towards the north. He plans to wait until all the huge shadows have left and then look for a way to leave the swamp.
Li Mu took off the rifle he was carrying on his back because it felt very uncomfortable while running as it hit his back.
As he wiped the mud off the gun body with his sleeve.
The model of the rifle is NII-203, the prototype is the standard rifle of the pre-war Lucian Empire. This is obviously a Xingdu imitation, with rough workmanship, a re-welded magazine, and visible cracks between the parts.
Li Mu first checked the six magazines he was carrying, confirmed that he only had half the ammunition left, and then disassembled the weapon according to his memory, cleaning up the mud in the gun body and magazine.
The age of the rifle may be older than himself, and it needs to be cleaned well, or it may explode at any time.
After all this, Li Mu took a deep breath and left the Exile Realm. One day in the outside world is equivalent to one year in the Exile Realm, and this setting has not changed. A fly’s position that stopped on the corpse head hadn’t changed, indicating that he has only left for a moment.
Unfortunately, despite his efforts, he could not find the payment portal. Now, in the Exile Realm, there is no food or water source, and it is impossible to stay there for long.
After an unknown amount of time, all those eerie, gigantic shadows finally left. Li Mu waited a moment before carefully standing up from the mud swamp.
The disappearance of those huge shadows does not mean it is safe. Nearly three-quarters of the Avonigarda is a swamp, inhabited by dangerous creatures such as swamp tigers, swamp wolves, and zombies. Some of these carnivorous creatures have undergone terrifying mutations due to nuclear and psychic radiation, making them extremely dangerous.
Li Mu broke a tree branch from a bush to use as a walking stick, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and took out the map sealed in a plastic bag. His immediate goal was to cross this dangerous swamp and get back on the road.
Although those with weak radiation tolerance have been eliminated by natural selection over a long period of time, humans still cannot drink untreated water directly.
Without drinking water, he could not hold out for long.
His wet clothes clung tightly to his body, and his shoes were completely soaked, weighing him down as if they were filled with lead. Every step made a creaking sound. The thick fog limited his visibility to just over fifty meters.
Within the yellowish mist, vague black shadows occasionally flashed by, barely recognizable as either shrubs in the swamp or herds of deer and swamp buffaloes that live here.
Along the way, he encountered a stag half-sunk in the mud. It had been abandoned by its herd and was lying exhausted in the mire, its black eyes damp. It had no strength left and was slowly being consumed by the mud.
Li Mu was pleasantly surprised by the amount of meat on the stag. If he made it into jerky, it would be enough to sustain him for over ten days. However, he had to act quickly, as the stuck prey was likely to attract predators in the swamp.
Encountering a swamp tiger alone in the swamp is extremely dangerous. These seasoned predators are patient, powerful, and have thick fur that can withstand close-range rifle fire.
He raised his rifle and was about to fire when a faint roar suddenly came from the thick fog. Li Mu immediately turned his gun towards it, only to find a swamp wolf!
A procession of black shadows, the size of young calves, appeared in his field of vision, circling around Li Mu and the stag, shuttling back and forth.
He vaguely identified the species of the shadows as swamp wolves. These gregarious carnivores typically formed a pack consisting of a dozen or so adult swamp wolves, and a lone stag could never satisfy their insatiable appetite.
Suddenly, Li Mu turned around and pulled the trigger behind him.
A cunning swamp wolf made a half-circle and sneaked behind Li Mu, ready to launch a surprise attack from behind. If he had not distinguished the faint sound of footsteps behind him from the chaotic howls of the wolves, he might have been pounced on and torn to pieces.
The barrel of the NII-203 gun shook violently under the recoil. Li Mu suspected that it might fall apart at any moment. Rapid long and short bursts of gunfire hit the approaching swamp wolf, splattering blood everywhere.
The fur of adult swamp wolves is extremely tough. This male wolf was only killed after consuming half a magazine of bullets, falling to the ground and convulsing.
A series of black worm-like characters slowly appeared on his retina.
【Absorbing source essence 0.3】
“Source essence?”
Before he could confirm whether the target had really died, Li Mu rolled to the ground, and a pungent stench of wind blew over his head.
The swamp wolf that missed its target twisted its waist, but before it could pounce again, it was hit by a barrage of bullets, howling miserably and limping back into the mist.
Li Mu changed his magazine and fired a long burst of gunfire into the shadows in the mist, forcing the remaining swamp wolves trying to attack to retreat.
Upon realizing that the target was somewhat tricky, the wolf pack immediately and agilely moved away from Li Mu, wandering out of his field of vision.
“Ow-ow-ow…”
The low howls of swamp wolves came from the mist, and the shadows shuttled back and forth, trying to make their prey panic.
Li Mu pulled the trigger, firing a short burst of gunfire, and then hitting another swamp wolf that had charged too far forward, causing it to splatter blood and scream as it fled back into the thick fog.
For swamp wolves, being injured is a deadly matter. There is no retirement system in the wolf pack, and wolves that lose their hunting ability are driven out of the pack, and some injured wolves are even eaten by their starving companions.
He walked up to the swamp wolf that had been shot dead, and looked down at its eyes which had already become cloudy.
He backed away while keeping an eye out and slowly let the stag go. He didn’t have many bullets left, and if he was surrounded by the wolf pack, he would have a hard time getting away.
After sprinting away from the poor stag behind him for over a hundred meters, Li Mu suddenly heard a piercing scream. The stag was being attacked by the wolf pack.
The screams were soon drowned out by roaring and tearing sounds.
Li Mu immediately turned around and retreated quickly. He reoriented himself using the fuzzy sun in the sky and continued towards the road.
One stag could not satisfy the entire wolf pack, so he hoped that the pack would give up after realizing that he was a tough nut to crack.
It was very difficult to trudge through the swamp, and Li Mu felt that his stamina was quickly depleting. He had only walked about two hundred meters when two swamp wolves caught up to him. They repeatedly tried to probe ahead, but Li Mu drove them back with bullets.
These insatiable swamp wolves, although they found Li Mu to be very difficult to deal with, still prepared to take turns harassing him to consume his energy, and then launch an attack when Li Mu showed a flaw.
Li Mu knew that things had gone beyond redemption, so he made up his mind to deal with these two swamp wolves first and weaken the strength of the wolf pack.
Just then, from the fog behind them, came a burst of uneasy howling. The wolf pack seemed to have been attacked, and the thick fog boiled like a pot of boiling porridge.
Li Mu immediately became more alert. A group of swamp wolves were already able to roam freely in the wilderness, and besides groups of zombies and swamp tigers, there were few things that could threaten them.
He looked at the radiation meter on his wrist, and the pointer, which was originally in the green zone after leaving the Exile Realm, had slipped into the red zone at some point in time.
The radiation concentration had gone up.
Behind him came the mournful howling of the wolf pack, with swamp wolves constantly dying.
Li Mu’s heart suddenly jumped, causing him to break out in a cold sweat. It was the Descenders!
Eight years ago, a strong tropical cyclone struck the coastal area in the northeast of Lalegaode. The strong wind uprooted trees, destroyed homes, and more fatally, swept up the radioactive dust covering the ground.
Only a few thousand civilians died directly from the storm, while the remaining hundreds of thousands were devoured by the invading Descenders. It should be noted that the total population of the Xingdu Federation is only slightly over eighty million.
Run, he had to run fast. This was definitely not an opponent he could handle.
“Boom!”
A wolf head was flung out from the thick fog with a bang. It was cleanly torn off from the neck and the gray pupils still had lingering traces of fear.
Li Mu immediately threw away the branch in his hand, turned and ran wildly. The howls of the swamp wolves behind him gradually became inaudible, as the pack was being ruthlessly slaughtered with no ability to fight back.
The two swamp wolves that were originally pursuing him also began to flee with their tails between their legs. The Descenders are the nemesis of all life in the post-apocalyptic world.