Mitelt stared at the fully armed First Squad with satisfaction and then looked at Dao Long beside him.
Dao Long walked up to the squad and said, "The undead on this island are not ordinary. Although the weapons you hold can cause damage to the undead, if the undead are too powerful, they will still be beyond your ability to deal with. Remember, your mission this time is not to shoot the undead, but to collect volcanic rocks. Return as quickly as possible after getting them, and do not engage in combat with the undead."
Seeing that there was no response from Dao Long after he finished speaking, Mitelt, angered, roared, "Did you hear me!?"
"Yes, we heard you!"
Seeing their boss was angry, the squad quickly responded.
"Good, depart."
At Mitelt's command, the fully armed squad penetrated the island, heading towards the volcano.
Once the squad entered the forest, everything felt unusual.
Logically, this wasn't a tropical region, and it was a desolate island. There shouldn't be such dense forests. But look, the trees around them were so thick that it would take two people to embrace them, and they grew incredibly tall. The dense foliage intertwined, making it as dark as night inside. Only a small amount of sunlight managed to penetrate the gaps.
A light breeze sent shivers down their spines.
"I say, are we really going to fight ghosts?"
A member of the squad shivered from the cold wind and asked cautiously.
It wasn't strange for him to be so fearful. Humans inherently fear things they cannot see or touch, like ghosts. Besides, who didn't grow up listening to ghost stories?
Moreover, this place was incredibly eerie. Not to mention animals, but in such a dense forest, there wasn't even a single insect. The cold wind seemed to pierce directly into the back of his neck.
"Shut your mouth!" the squad leader snapped at the member who had just spoken. "Stay alert!"
As the squad moved closer to the volcano, the surrounding temperature, instead of increasing, continued to drop, feeling as cold as entering an ice cellar.
Suddenly, a scout at the front of the squad went mad. He swung his machete and struck a companion beside him. The force was so immense that it severed half of his companion's body.
After killing his companion, the squad member threw off his helmet and twisted his neck 180 degrees to face the others behind him. His eyes widened like copper bells, and his mouth stretched into an extremely exaggerated grin.
"Hahahaha, you will all die! You will all die!"
With that said, the squad member brought the machete to his neck and with a decisive thrust, his head flew off, spraying a geyser of blood high into the air. It then rained down like blood, leaving the other squad members stunned and frozen.
Even more bizarre was what followed. The headless body did not fall but remained upright like a pillar, and the gushing blood showed no signs of stopping.
"What are you gawking at, you fools!"
The captain was the first to react. He raised his gun and fired several shots at the headless corpse.
The blue-glowing bullets hit the corpse with immediate effect. The body, which was still spraying blood, collapsed to the ground, and the bleeding stopped.
Just when everyone thought it was over, the headless corpse twitched again. Then, a man glowing with green light emerged from the corpse and stood atop the headless body, his form flickering between transparency and solidity.
There was no doubt that this was the ghost that had killed two people.
This time, without the captain's command, the remaining squad members opened fire, bullets raining down on the ghost.
However, as Dao Long had said earlier, ghosts, like everything else, had their ranks. Even bullets specifically designed for ghosts were like rubber bullets hitting a person against this male ghost. Not only did they fail to cause significant damage, but the pain further fueled the male ghost's ferocity.
The male ghost's face contorted into a grimace, and with a piercing scream, he charged towards the squad.
*Bang!*
The squad captain, a veteran of many battles, decisively pulled the pin on a grenade and threw it.
Smoke enveloped the male ghost, seemingly controlling his movements.
But the male ghost was merely an appetizer. The special magnetic field generated by the grenade explosion was the prelude to the main course.
Less than five seconds after the grenade exploded, the trees surrounding the squad began to sway violently as if alive. Green specters, similar to the male ghost, emerged from the trees, one specter per tree, so there was no crowding. Then, the ground began to shake, and cracks appeared as a large number of zombies crawled out of the earth like mushrooms after a spring rain.
It wasn't entirely accurate to call them zombies. More precisely, these were corpses buried here that were later possessed by specters and, due to certain reasons, transformed into their current state.
The squad was now trapped. They couldn't even run. A large number of specters and zombies surrounded the surviving members. All they could do now was fight for their lives.
"It's over! We're finished!"
One squad member, terrified by the specters and zombies, dropped his weapon and turned to run towards the shore. Before he could run five meters, his leg was grabbed by a zombie that had crawled out of the ground. Then, more zombies, like cats smelling blood, swarmed him one after another. In a matter of seconds, the fleeing squad member was gnawed down to a pile of white bones.
"See! We have no retreat! Running means only death! Brothers, charge out with me!"
The captain roared, unleashing a barrage of gunfire at the surrounding specters. A zombie attempting a sneak attack was swiftly kicked back into the ground by the quick-thinking captain.
Facing the current situation, the squad was not entirely without the ability to fight back.
For specters, they had enchanted weapons and grenades. For the zombies crawling from the ground, ordinary firearms could smash them, and even if they would reanimate later, it would take time.
As long as they operated effectively, there was a chance of survival.
The scene shifted. A small team had quietly arrived at the foot of the volcano. They wore suits resembling hazmat suits, completely encasing themselves from head to toe. They held weapons similar to the First Squad's, but their power was at least double.
In reality, the First Squad had been sent out as cannon fodder from the beginning to draw enemy fire. If they survived, it was by luck; if they didn't, it didn't matter.
This current team was the Third Squad, who had remained on the ship. They were Fang Lei's true confidants, personally trained by the Master of Mimicry, and each was an elite among elites.
Fang Lei felt most at ease with them handling this task.
After collecting the flame rocks, the captain of the Third Squad waved to a team member, who quickly ran over upon receiving the order.
"Captain."
The captain asked, "How is it going?"