In celebration of CG’s 10k discord event, two more chapter releases! Thank you for participating ✿
The front of the truck collapses into a large pothole. Thankfully, the collision hadn’t damaged the engine – visibly, at least, and the only sustained damages are shattered windows, a broken mirror, and also the windshield that’s now pathetically fractured on all edges. It would take time for the vehicle to get back on track, however. The wheels roll and scrape against concrete, but their position is too confined.
The battle ensues as the two struggle at the helm. Sounds of gunfire and beastly howls overtake the vicinity, attracting more and more flocks. The soldiers nearby are holding on surprisingly well, but hectic shouts can be heard all over. The soldiers have yet to approach them – very much preferred, but to make a stealthy exit, Yang Rong and Noah would have to fend off the ravenous anomalies coming their way.
A blue heron drills itself into what’s left of the windshield.
Its beak should be of bone and keratin, but the durability goes way beyond. The tip of it seems formed in granite, the sides scaly and reptile-like, ten times denser than normal. Red liquids ooze out when the predator screeches. The foul scent of it is bile and blood. There are small bits of carrion hanging by the ridges of its mouth.
Its powerful body cracks through the reinforced glass in one strike – unsurprising, for it’s likely able to break through aluminum with its size. It’s the same anomaly they’d crashed against prior. Only now, it has arisen from near-death, feathers bloodied, talons sharpened, back for vengeance.
An avalanche of glass rains upon them, and the beast attacks at the same time.
Yang Rong curses as it jabs at his face. He dodges the strike with a few painful maneuvers, grabs a dagger and decisively slashes upward, severing a part of its right cheek. The beastly thing roars in pain, its saliva and blood spewing out copiously in front. The heron is an estimated one adult human tall, a hundred kilograms in weight, double the size of Noah in comparison.
“What sort of—” Yang Rong grunts out as he shimmies out of his seatbelt, struggling to grab his gun. Close combat is incredibly difficult in such a confined space. One small mistake and they’d have their heads sliced in half, their bodies thrown to ground just like one of the soldiers outside. “—Things has it eaten—to be this goddamn—huge, little kitten?!”
Truthfully, when Yang Rong adds the teasing nickname to his sentence, the meaning can be misconstrued heavily. Noah, still recovering from sudden blackout, has half a mind to reply raspingly, “—Said I am not a—cat—ngh, Colonel Yang, give me—your gun!”
The heron is large enough to clobber him with one wing alone and while Noah thinks their predicament cannot be any worse, Yang Rong certainly has other ideas in that scrapped head of his.
“My gun?” the man replies teasingly even as he’s trying to fend off a man-eating, metal-eating beast. “How bold, kitten. I absolutely can let you have a shot with it – a few shots if you may handle it, though the wield is rather heavy.”
Belatedly, Noah wonders how badly of a concussion the colonel’s suffered – from his birth. Thankfully, Yang Rong does comply, slapping open the compartment and throwing over a pristine, silver-embossed rifle. It’s stainless, lightweight, gorgeous in Noah’s hands.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Tbe—wera’nf tla sbeg tfjv—lc atf kgbcu qijmf!” tf tlrrfr bea jr tf milmxr boo atf rjofas. Ktf olgra yeiifa qlfgmfr atf mgfjaegf lc atf cfmx – j wlrjlw, obg tf’v gfjiis aglfv ab ub obg atf tfjv. Llr tjcvr jgf wlivis rtjxlcu ogbw vlrbglfcajalbc, yea ja atf nfgs ifjra, tf tjvc’a rtba atf mbibcfi.
And Yang Rong is all sorts of needlessly flirtatious, never mind that they’re engaged in dire battle.
“On the contrary,” he replies as he takes a gun of his own (obsidian, hardened, equally as attractive). He shoots the bird in the neck as well (he’d missed too, much to his own chagrin), and clicks his tongue before shooting in coordination with Noah. Two more clean shots to the creature’s head and it finally drops dead on the hood of their car. Yang Rong wipes away some patches of blood off his temple, turns and flashes over a wink. “The collision’s recharged my circuits and I’m only made more aware of how much I like you, little fox.”
The bird lets out a terrifying screech upon death, its powerful body sliding downward to the hood, leaving an unsightly trail of blood. Noah breathes heavily in the aftermath.
Yang Rong casually sweeps away the blood and flashes him a smirk. “I suppose you can handle guns quite well, kitten.”
With a drawn-out sigh, Noah takes the medical kit, grabs a disinfectant wipe and leans over to daub at the colonel’s bleeding forehead. “…Acting so strangely,” he says with little bite in his words. “You may need to get your brain reexamined. It may be an injury to the frontal lobe, considering your reflexes are half a second slower than usual. How could you miss at such a distance?”
There’s a low curve of his lips when he says that last line – a teasing remark from Noah, reminiscent of the time Yang Rong yelled at him for the same misfire. Yang Rong looks at him for… way too long. Green eyes trace over his elegant features, starting from top to bottom, resting on the vermillion of his pretty lips. As if mesmerized, the colonel rubs a thumb against the lower jut. Gentle, circular motions that have Noah confused. Then Yang Rong lets out a low chuckle, leans forward and the tease is incredibly evident on his noir features.
“Incredibly cute,” the man murmurs. “But also incredibly dangerous, little kitten. If you say any more, I will have an unexpected urge to kiss you.”
Noah doesn’t get a chance to respond before Yang Rong’s eyes turn sharp and serious he refocuses his attention outside. The smokescreen’s cleared slightly since they’re within field range, and from this angle, the unknown soldiers are engaged in heavy combat. There are casualties – currently three men dead, with the fourth injured from waist down, likely infected. The battle rages on the soldiers’ side.
And on their side, there are more flocks of birds diving toward the two young men.
“—Fuck,” Yang Rong curses as he unlocks the driver’s door, preparing to step out. They’d need to buy a few more minutes to get the vehicle unstuck… but it’s certain death for the both of them to stay inside. Their brains will be pecked clean in thirty seconds flat. “Kitten, take the wheel for a little bit, hm? Can you do that for Rong-ge?”
“—Wait.” Noah grabs his wrist. “Yang Rong.”
A one-eighty-degree flip of his expression – the colonel goes from teasing to serious and back to fondness in the span of five seconds. Yang Rong leans forward, beckoning for him to speak. The colonel’s voice is softened to cajole. “What is it, kitten?”
Noah’s eyes scrunch in complication. A million thoughts run in quagmire, but he isn’t sure how exactly to phrase any of them – ‘there are too many anomalies to handle’ or ‘they’re red-level threats capable of killing you’ or ‘stay here,’ or simply… ‘don’t go, Yang Rong.’
He says instead, in a whisper, “…Not sure.”
“Rong-ge will go out for a little walk.” Yang Rong ruffles his hair. “Be good and stay here, hm? You won’t even be alone for a second, little kitten.”
“…” Noah doesn’t let go. Underneath the colonel’s slightly torn shirt is a peek of a bandage. The fabric is slightly damp, pinkish, resting on several more undressed scars. He tugs the colonel closer, inexplicably adamant on having him stay. “…You’re injured. We can switch. I’ll go and—”
Yang Rong raises Noah’s hand and drops a small kiss on the wrist, brushing lightly against a blue vein. Warm lips rest on his quickening pulse. When the colonel whispers, the vibrations are sent tenderly down.
“Absolutely not, Noah,” he mouths, tracing another kiss on the palm. “I will not let you be seen by the military.”
“…Yang Rong,” Noah says with pursed lips. “I am coherent enough to know you’ve fallen out with the military. I am unclear of the details, but you… They’re not going to want to let you go. A soldier like you is the perfect pawn.”
Yang Rong replies with an upward lilt, a small chuckle, “I am only going out to take care of some small animals, kitten, so there is no need to act like your husband is drafted to war, hmm? Rest assured, Rong-ge will retire to be a family man. No more bombs, no military shirts – no shirts at all if you’d prefer – and no rifles except for the powerful one down there. And the vehicle you ride wouldn’t be this second-rate truck.”
It is at times like these that Noah laments ever meeting the colonel.
It is also at other times, like the one a second later, that Noah thinks the colonel is a whole series of contradictions – incorrigibly flirtatious, overbearing yet gentle, irrevocably attractive all the same.
“And when you look at me like that, your feelings are only fifty percent certain,” Yang Rong says to him sotto voce, retracting backward so his smile is on full radiant display. “Little kitten, if it reaches one hundred, then you may give me a kiss.”
—
A bullet ruptures the sound barrier and cuts dangerously close to his ear. Yang Rong outwardly curses at the amateur shot. There are six soldiers currently on the field, perhaps some more inside their broken-down vehicles. Truth be told, the soldiers aren’t rookies. They’ve the correct posture, quick reflexes, no cowardly quiver. Only, when thrown amidst a rapidly losing endurance battle, ammo is running out and manpower is lost to droves of incoming anomalies.
The chickens, geese, sparrows – whatever these avians are – continuously flock to the noise, to the scent that’s increasingly more pungent. There’s something else mixed in the air, some swirls of strange floral-citrus, and it seems to be coming from the overturned truck. It also scents heavily of blood. Truth be told, the entire battlefield reeks of gore and grime, sulfur, pungent gunpowder, mixes of bile and vomit – simply, not pleasant at all.
Several corpses litter the ground, some of them headless and some others mashed into a pile of goop. The only intact organ is one liver, which is soon stepped on by a flurry of soldiers, their combat boots wading through piles of blood as they fight. An overgrown bull rams into an unsuspecting rookie with enough strength to send him flying backward onto a truck, his bones let out an audible, painful crack from impact. He lets out a coarse yell for help but in futility, for his companions are occupied in deathmatches of their own.
The struggle leaves little room for communication and soon, the soldier is struck again by the bull. Pronounced dead instantly. Unfortunate that the bull makes a beeline for Yang Rong, the next convenient target. Yang Rong’s expression is that of frost as he blasts his way to the center of the smoke, further away so the anomaly wouldn’t be attracted to where Noah is working to stabilize the truck.
The soldiers have thrown two more smokescreens now, engulfing the area in a completely blinded mess. So it seems they aren’t rookies, but they’re hardly experts either – to limit their own vision is counterintuitive.
“Two-thirty!” shouts a soldier nearby, gesturing at the vehicle turret. He isn’t aware he’s speaking to Yang Rong yet. “Load the next round!”
Yang Rong ignores him, opting to remain uninvolved in their combat. He’s only here to buy time for Noah, and every other miscellaneous thing is filtered entirely. He sends over a slew of bullets, striking down a flock of birds. The bullet zips through thin air, crackles, and behind the soldier, a cluster of bloodied feathers sways among dust.
“Hey!” the soldier shouts while turning around. “Man the turret! Have you gone deaf?!”
“My hearing is often perfect,” Yang Rong says with a drawl of his syllables. They drip of sarcasm and danger. “I am, however, suffering a bit of a concussion from an untimely car accident.”
Half a lie and half not – Colonel Yang is certainly suffering a concussion, but his hearing is all sorts of distorted. His head throbs painfully and truth be told, he is in no condition to fight a prolonged battle, no matter how handsome he’d tried to look in front of Noah.
Yang Rong’s voice projects easily over the deluge of bullets. The soldier and his companions are turned toward the colonel. Their expressions show stupefy. So they recognize him even out of uniform – unsurprising, for Yang Rong’s merits really have been plastered in every corner of the city square, his achievements thrown to mock the lesser-abled soldiers, his appearance alone garnering enough market value to boost army recruitment tenfold.
Stupefy only lasts for some brief seconds before the men remember they’re still in battle.
The fighting ensues, though it seems it has past climax, the last of gunfire hailing down in resolution. A few creatures are left. The vicinity is still cloaked in heavy smoke and artillery shells, the road piled up in corpses and debris.
Yang Rong kicks away a brown ferret, lifts his rifle and lodges a shot into its skull. The bullet is incendiary, heavily explosive, and half a second after impact, the creature collapses into a blob of red and brown. Ugly spurts of blood go off like firecrackers in the backdrop and already, the colonel is aiming for his next kill.
The predator is another large avian, a morph of eagle and falcon that dives at warp speed. Dangling from its mouth is a human intestine, and the victim is to the left – the still-conscious soldier with his lower torso wrenched apart. His screams are drowned out by the sound of machine guns, beastly wails, loud yelling, louder instructions being barked out. The scene is chaotic, and no one pays heed to the dying soldier nor to another companion who’s started convulsing on the floor, suffering from certain infection.
To the side, a soldier struggles with his transceiver. He manages to press the buttons in the middle of combat.
“Unit 99, r-requesting for backup!” he gasps out heavily. “We can’t hold on!”
OHMYGOD!!!!! 😭
Thank you for the chapter 🍆
” no rifles except for the powerful down there ”
OMG YR you sneaky bastard 😂😂
Leave it to Yang Rong with his nonsense in the middle of a chaos whilst unconciously planning his future with Noah.
Awww cute 😍🥺 blocked
very gory, but spot on!
thanks for the chapter <3
Yang Rong, you are hilarious and I love you, seeing how you slip in sneaky words in the middle of a death threatening situation. But I do hope everything will be okay, this is looking worringlysome dangerous.
wasn’t this the unit 99 who went on to ‘take care’ of an omega in heat during mission and was terminated by daddy xie?