Chapter 265

Chapter 266: Support Unit

Yu Sheng did not know how many strange, scary figures came out of the fog. He only knew they were everywhere, swaying as they formed human shapes out of abstract, colorful lines. It was like they sprang right out of the air. In a blink they filled his sight, and their numbers kept growing, soon swelling into a tide that rolled down the whole street.

It was a Swarm-type Entity. Now Yu Sheng knew what the word “swarm” meant when it was used on an Entity.

He strongly suspected he had run into the biggest swarm of the Carnival Revelers. The shaking figures on the street had to number over ten thousand.

The crowd surged. Thin cheers, firecrackers, balloons popping, and an off-key festival tune that seemed to come from sky and ground at once echoed across the block. Those silly yet terrifying shapes stretched their hands toward the group. Rifts opened like crooked smiles on their tangled heads, as if laughing madly and inviting the guests to join their unseen, endless party.

A long howl cut through the foggy noise: “Awooo!”

Countless Shadow Wolves rushed the oncoming tangle-line Entities and tore them into even messier scraps. A storm of Fox Fire followed. Foxy held the form of a Nine-tailed Fox, her silver-white tails fanning out like a bloom, and whips of burning, dense fire hammered the swarming Entities.

But there were too many. Even with the Wolf Pack and Fox Fire blasting the tide, Entities kept slipping past the line and lunging at the group.

Yu Sheng swung his battle staff, smashing the cackling revelers that got close while doing his best not to touch them at all. He tried to avoid even the “colors” that burst out when they died.

A single reveler was not much of a threat and fell easily. Yu Sheng even felt less impact through the staff than when he fought the Evil Wolves in the Black Forest. But the endless numbers and almost eardrum-tearing noise piled into a heavy pressure.

Each time a reveler died, its body burst into showers of rainbow paper, like confetti from party poppers. In minutes, the colored scraps had covered the whole street.

The revelers kept pouring out. Tens of thousands of Swarm-type Entities were still forming fast from the fog.

“This thing is worse than that Ink Stain!” Irene screamed: “Doesn’t it have a weak point?!”

“In theory, if we were in the Otherworld called the Nameless Carnival, you would just find a plaster clown with a balloon hat and drink the sweet wine he offers, then the crowd would leave,” Little Red Riding Hood shouted while she held the Wolf Pack’s ring: “But this place isn’t the Nameless Carnival. Where would we find a clown?”

“If this keeps up, we should pull back,” Irene said as she grabbed Yu Sheng’s hair and yanked herself steady: “We can’t finish this. The limits on these Entities belong to their own Otherworlds. Showing up here means they’re loose. No weak point!”

Yu Sheng clenched his teeth. He did not want to retreat. They had come to save someone, yet they had not even seen a shadow of the person. Keeping this up felt pointless. The revelers were spawning at an abnormal speed, and worst of all, they were all “mechanic” hazards. Touching them was dangerous, which made most breakout plans risky. [Run? Not yet.] In this state, it felt like Door Opening and bailing out might be the only choice left.

Then he heard a strange hum in the air.

It sounded like a high-frequency jamming signal, stirring the noise that already filled the fog.

“Oh come on!” Irene yelled: “What now? Will this ever end…”

She got halfway through her complaint when a bright light ripped the air. It dropped into the revelers and blew up with a bang.

More lights followed. Unknown fire support raked the street, tearing wide gaps through the crowd.

Yu Sheng looked up by reflex.

One after another, huge figures in black Powered Armor, each two to three meters tall, appeared in midair more than ten meters up and slammed down like shells into the swarming Entities.

Dozens of these heavy troopers dropped out of nowhere. Before landing, their jetpacks and waist thrusters swept enemies aside. In a blink, with dazzling, practiced moves, they formed seven or eight fire points across the chaos. They covered one another and poured fire on every moving thing that did not look friendly.

Their guns were huge and heavy. The glowing shots were not bullets. Each burst touched a target and blew into a blazing sphere over a meter wide, flash-vaporizing everything inside. A dozen more soldiers in light Powered Armor darted through the field, beam sabers flashing as they cleared Entities that slipped the net.

They did not fear the revelers’ Assimilation on touch. Their whole bodies were sealed in Powered Armor, and thick energy shields wrapped the armor itself.

Sitting on Yu Sheng’s shoulders, Irene stared wide-eyed at the street scene for a long beat, then said: “Wow.”

“The Special Affairs Bureau finally sent people,” Little Red Riding Hood let out a long breath, though shock still filled her eyes: “But why so many… there have to be seventy or eighty Deep Divers. First time I’ve seen this scale.”

Yu Sheng kept silent. He watched the two-to-three-meter-tall warriors carve through the street and felt the gear looked familiar. The more he looked, the more sure he felt.

One of the “black cans” stepped out from the formation with two slightly smaller armored troopers. He walked up to Foxy in her Demon Fox form and tapped his helmet.

The heavy faceplate opened, showing Xu Jiali’s big, goofy grin.

Xu Jiali looked up at the mighty Nine-tailed Fox, then at the thick layer of confetti around Yu Sheng’s group, and finally said: “You folks can really fight. Halfway down I saw like ten thousand swarm Entities around you and my blood went cold. I even figured out where the Director would bury me after I got back…”

“Don’t butter us up. Two minutes later and we were going to run,” Little Red Riding Hood said wearily: “Good thing you brought a lot of people.”

“Everyone on standby at HQ came. Word was the situation was weird, and the Locator’s Deep-sea Echo looked very wrong,” Xu Jiali said as he raised a hand without looking and shot several shakily emerging revelers. The gun looked heavier than Little Red Riding Hood herself, yet this big bruiser held it in one hand like a feather: “If we’d had more time, we planned to bring in the Hunting Owl.”

“What’s that?” Irene asked.

“A bomber that flies in atmosphere. It has a Machine Spirit, so it can run Deep Dive missions like us, just needs a longer prep,” Xu Jiali said.

Yu Sheng blinked, and the memory clicked. He lifted a hand and pointed at Xu Jiali’s armor: “Ah, I know this! I did Door Opening once and saw two people fighting on an alien world. One of them wore that.”

Xu Jiali’s smile froze.

He had almost forgotten that.

Yu Sheng caught the change at once. He had only felt shocked to see gear that matched his memory. Now he guessed the closer truth: “Was that you?”

Xu Jiali scratched his head. His fingers hit the helmet with a clang: “Yeah. That was me.”

Yu Sheng: “…”

Xu Jiali: “…”

They spoke at the same time: “Why didn’t you say so?” “You never asked!”

“Mainly…” After two seconds, Xu Jiali said, face awkward: “At first, secrecy. That job was classified. Then I never found the right chance. Some things, if you don’t say them early…” He fired again, blasting a few lucky revelers into a burst of confetti, then finished: “If you don’t say them early, it gets hard to bring up later.”

Yu Sheng thought it over and tugged the corner of his mouth: “Fine. I buy that.”

He studied Xu Jiali’s getup. “So this is you fully armed? No wonder you said that time wasn’t your ‘combat state’.”

“Truly fully armed would also mean a mind-controlled fire-support shuttle, two walking tactical robots, several light drones, and a Psionic Squire,” Xu Jiali shrugged: “But that’s our expedition kit for outside. In the Borderland we have to cut things down. What you saw last time was an accident. I ran into a cultist and jumped in without prep. Good thing I had the edge in the end.”