“What about the cause of death? Have you analyzed it?” Chen Yehu looked at the operations staff.
The staff analyzed: “The refugees’ skin color shows no significant changes, and there are no obvious external wounds. Currently, there are two possibilities: one is that they were bitten by an unknown poisonous insect, and the strong protein toxin led to organ failure and cardiac arrest; the other is that there may be tiny spores or bacteria floating in the air inside the Forbidden Zone. Both are possible causes of death, and an autopsy is needed to determine the specific reason.”
Chen Yehu nodded: “Then let’s not rush to analyze the cause of death. Knowing the rules, then avoiding them will do.”
5 minutes passed, and in 120 real-time transmission videos, two more refugees fell to the ground together.
The operations staff in the command vehicle were excited. Have they discovered a new rule?
They didn't care whether the refugees were dead or not; they only cared about whether they could parse out all the rules of Forbidden Zone 008 this time!
They extracted that segment of the video and replayed it repeatedly.
In the new video, a middle-aged man was walking in the woods when he suddenly fell to the ground because of a slip.
The most crucial moment arrived: someone reached out to pull him, but both of them fell to the ground convulsing simultaneously, and soon lay motionless on the ground.
In the video, Liu Pengsheng, the squad leader of the first squad, walked to the two corpses, probed their carotid arteries with his fingers, and then confirmed: “Dead.”Since the death was confirmed by the squad leader of the first squad, it should be a violation of the rules; otherwise, they wouldn't have died so mysteriously.
More than ten operations staff analyzed: “Excluding factors such as age, name, and medical history, the new rule should be that they cannot shake hands with each other. But what remains uncertain is: if same-sex individuals cannot shake hands, can opposite-sex individuals?”
Another operations staff member said: “The deaths were personally confirmed by two squad leaders, so there shouldn't be any falsehoods, and the two squad leaders are quite responsible.”
Chen Yehu nodded: “No need to analyze the rules specifically for now. When we enter the Forbidden Zone later, we just need to be careful not to shake hands, or even reduce physical contact as much as possible. Alright, record a new rule, and let the troops continue to advance.”
The refugee team continued to advance, and after three hours, a bizarre incident occurred. In the video, Chen Family soldiers were distributing protein bars to the refugees.
As a result, more than 100 refugees, after just two bites, fell to the ground convulsing.
The squad leaders of squads one, two, three, and four walked among the corpses, repeatedly shouting loudly: “Confirmed dead!”
“Confirmed dead!”
“Confirmed dead!”
The four squad leaders looked solemn. More than 100 refugees died in a single incident, and the solemn expressions on their faces vividly conveyed their emotions to the command vehicle.
The more than ten operations staff in the command vehicle watched this scene, their hearts inexplicably shocked. It turned out that you can’t eat anything after entering Forbidden Zone 008?!
One of the operations staff said: “We cannot determine yet whether it’s the protein bars that cannot be eaten or whether all food cannot be eaten. Commander, crossing Forbidden Zone 008 requires at least four days. If the soldiers can only drink water and cannot eat, it will be very difficult, and it will even affect 80% of their combat effectiveness.”
This impact is too serious.
The Chen Family explored Forbidden Zone 008 to facilitate future military deployments to the southwest to contain the Qing Family.
But now, they can't eat anything for four days while passing through here. Who can endure that?
During the march, the soldiers ate high-energy protein bars. Although their energy intake was much higher than the refugees’, they were still protein bars.
Chen Yehu pondered for a moment, then said in the communication channel: “Let’s have the refugees try. Give them the instant beef you carry and see if there will be any problems.”
“Received,” Squad Leader Liu Pengsheng opened a vacuum-packed instant beef from his emergency kit and looked at a refugee in front of him, coldly saying: “Eat it.”
Refugee Zard was terrified: “You can’t eat it, Commander, you can’t eat it! You’ll die if you eat it!”
“You’ll eat it even if you die!” Liu Pengsheng said cruelly.
The surrounding Chen Family soldiers were shocked, thinking, ‘Didn’t you Commander just chat with this young man last night? Now you’re going to kill him?’
Murder to silence?!
But Liu Pengsheng called for soldiers to restrain Zard and forcefully stuffed the beef into his mouth. The next moment, Zard convulsed violently and died with his eyes wide open.
In the command vehicle, all the operations staff stared intently at Zard’s dead face, a chill rising in their hearts.
Chen Yehu said solemnly: “It seems that it’s really impossible to eat, but it’s okay to drink water. I remember that someone drank water during their march and was fine.”
“Yes,” the operations staff analyzed, “Commander, during our advance to the southwest, we can mix dietary fiber and glucose in the water and survive for four days without a problem. But this requires us to establish an advance base on the opposite side of the Forbidden Zone. Once the main force passes, we must immediately carry out recuperation, otherwise, it will reduce combat effectiveness.”
“Mm,” Chen Yehu nodded, “More and more rules have been discovered. This is good news. This time, we must thoroughly understand Forbidden Zone 008 and turn it into a pasture for the Chen Family.”
Every Conglomerate started this way.
For them, the Forbidden Zone is a strategic resource, and it may even become a top-tier strategic resource like the Air Fortress.
Chen Yehu’s eyes were bright, and he became excited.
As for the more than 1,000 farmers lost in the production base, it doesn’t matter; they just need to blame it on the Wildlanders.
“Continue advancing,” Chen Yehu said, “These four squad leaders are all dedicated talents. I can feel their spirit from the video. You should promote such brave and responsible grassroots cadres.”
“Received,” the chief of staff said.
The refugee team continued to advance, and refugees continued to die along the way. The operations staff constantly recorded geographical features and rules.
Seeing that more than half of the refugees had been killed or injured, and nine rules had been collected.
However, the Chen Family staff didn’t think there was anything wrong. Forbidden Zone 008 is known for its numerous rules; otherwise, it wouldn’t have become a southwestern barrier.
At this moment, they were immersed in the joy of harvest, hoping that the refugees would test out all the rules!
While waiting, the staff focused intently on the screen, and Chen Yehu also kept watching, without any slacking off.
He suddenly wondered, “Strange. According to the historical records of the previous Ming era, I thought the rules here would be related to experimental subjects, but these rules are varied and have no pattern to find.”
The chief of staff thought for a moment and explained, “After the nuclear bomb fell, everyone in the city died. There must have been many hidden Metahumans in a city. It’s actually normal. Commander, according to our private statistics, there are about 80 to 120 Metahumans of varying strengths hidden in a city, undiscovered by the Conglomerates. Among them, there may be 5 to 20 B-Class or above. Therefore, even if Forbidden Zone 008 has 30 rules, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“That’s more dangerous than Forbidden Zone 002,” Chen Yehu said, “If we can figure out this Forbidden Zone, all 120 members of the vanguard will be awarded second-class merit.”
From a certain perspective, Chen Yehu was a qualified commander, but not a qualified person.
The refugees had been marching for six hours, and finally, some began to collapse and fall to the ground, and some sat on the rocks to rest.
Soon, those who sat on the rocks to rest also convulsed and died.
The refugee team was suddenly left with only more than 200 people, all of whom were old people and children.
Chen Yehu thought for a moment and said, “Pass the order, let them rest for a while and then retreat. I want to accurately test some rules with the remaining refugees.”
“Received,” the chief of staff relayed the order to the front lines.
However, at this moment, in a place unseen by the video, a dark shadow flashed.
Someone was holding a pair of scissors, repeatedly cutting towards the shadows of all the Chen Family soldiers.
In the command vehicle, some people heard the inexplicable sound of metal friction and felt their teeth itch. Soon, they saw dozens of blurry dark shadows suddenly appear in the real-time video, constantly chasing and killing everyone.
The soldiers began to scream in terror, some calling for reinforcements, some screaming in shock, and the video began to shake and become unclear, making it difficult even for those in the command vehicle to see clearly what was happening.
“What happened? Why are those black shadows so strange?” an operations staff member wondered.
They had no faces, no features, and were extremely mysterious.
Moreover, through a few relatively stable video monitors, they discovered that even if these Shadows were shot, they wouldn’t die, nor would they cry out in pain.
A soldier fired a burst of bullets at a Shadow, but the Shadow was unharmed. The Shadow was only slightly obstructed, and it continued to frantically slaughter the soldiers!
Until it completely killed the soldier!
In the video, they could still hear the soldier's screams, and then the soldier became motionless.
The empty video angle was aimed at the dense treetops.
Chen Family soldiers died one after another. In the end, the video angle was either pointed at the sky or covered by the ground, and no specific situation could be seen.
Finally, only the videos of the four squad leaders were still shaking, indicating that they were still escaping.
Their breathless voices came from the command vehicle, and the chief of staff immediately asked: “Report the situation. What on earth is going on?!”
Liu Pengsheng said hastily, “Commander, a bunch of black Shadows suddenly emerged from the ground, and they couldn’t be killed; a burst of bullets didn’t work. The bullets clearly hit them, but they didn’t die! It’s terrifying, coming and going without a trace!”
The squad leader of the second squad added, “Just now, I seemed to see a Shadow annihilated. The soldier seemed to have shot it in the navel, and that's how he happened to kill it. But in hasty combat, it's too difficult to hit the navel. They are very fast and fearless. I suspect that this is some Conglomerate’s newly developed evil technique or the ability of some Awakened One.”
While speaking, the squad leader of the second squad suddenly cried out in pain and fell to the ground.
The squad leader of the third squad said, “Just now, I also saw that someone shot the navel and annihilated those Shadows. The navel is their fatal weakness!”
After saying that, this squad leader also died.
Followed by the squad leader of the fourth squad.
Only Liu Pengsheng, the squad leader of the first squad, was still escaping.
Everyone in the command vehicle was suspicious. They had never heard of such a strange awakened ability or evil technique.
“Could it be the effect of a Forbidden Artifact?” someone asked, “Silhouette?”
Silhouette, as one of the Federation’s most famous Forbidden Artifacts, was naturally the first thing they thought of.
“But the problem is that Silhouette can only cut its own Shadow,” a staff member said.
“What if it can cut others’?”
Chen Yehu shook his head: “I know the specific information about Silhouette. Our Chen Family ancestors once possessed it, but it later disappeared. That Silhouette cannot cut other people’s Shadows. Once you cut other people’s Shadows, all the Shadows will attack the host together. It won’t be like now, attacking our soldiers. It must be something else!”
At this time, Liu Pengsheng, the squad leader of the first squad, persisted to the end, struggling to retreat towards the army group.
Chen Yehu suddenly asked, “What about the refugees? Are all the refugees dead?”
Liu Pengsheng said, “Reporting, Commander, I’m not sure, but they certainly can’t withstand the slaughter of these Shadows.”
At that moment, a flash of light could be seen in the corner of his video.
Liu Pengsheng rolled and fell, and the video could even see his lower body still in place, decapitated!
This squad leader struggled to say, “Cut…Discard…”
Before he finished speaking, Liu Pengsheng completely died, and the video returned to calm.
The command vehicle fell into an eerie silence.
“Cut and Discard,” an operations staff member frowned, “Ittō-ryū? I think it’s strange. Shendai has no reason to send people here to interfere with our strategic plans. Even if they collude with foreign forces, they shouldn’t be so stupid as to provoke us, unless they have the ability to pull us onto the battlefield together to annihilate us. But are foreign forces that strong?”
“But the problem is, would Liu Pengsheng and the others use their lives to lie? They are all dead,” another operations staff member said.
“It could also be the dead soldiers of some family, deliberately misleading us.”
“Could it be a special rule?” someone asked.
Chen Yehu concluded, “It’s not a rule. If it were a rule, Liu Pengsheng should have died when he first revealed the information to us.”
“Strange…”
“In short, the problem is very big. This strange assassination is definitely not a problem of the Forbidden Zone itself, but someone is ambushing here, ready to assassinate us and prevent us from exploring all the rules,” the chief of staff said, “But how did the other party know about our actions? To ambush here in advance, they must have known about the plan long ago. We have an insider in the upper echelon! This matter must be reported to the head of the family, and an internal purge must be carried out.”
“No need to tell the head of the family. The Supreme Emperor is on the Airship above. Just tell him. Remember who you and I serve,” Chen Yehu said loudly in the command vehicle, “Immediately connect to Class A Airship and let them overlook from the sky to see if they can observe the situation inside the Forbidden Zone!”
Soon, a message came from the Airship: “This is the most dense area of the forest. Detection cannot penetrate. Everything is blocked outside the tree canopy.”
Chen Yehu reported everything that happened here.
Finally, Chen Yu’s indifferent voice came from the Class A Airship: “Mm, I understand. Stay put for one day. The rules are already roughly clear. We will enter Forbidden Zone 008 tomorrow.”
In Forbidden Zone 008.
2 kilometers away from the battlefield, Zard said excitedly, “It’s a wrap! It’s a wrap! Congratulations everyone on successfully completing the performance. Now, everyone has regained their freedom. Don’t worry about the Conglomerates, and don’t worry about being brought to the Forbidden Zone. I recommend a path for you. Wait a few days at the southeastern edge of the Forbidden Zone. You need to wait for the Chen Family Airship to leave this area, and then everyone goes southeast. There is a settlement there…”
The refugees looked at each other. They originally thought that after entering Forbidden Zone 008, they would surely die, but unexpectedly, things took a turn for the better, and everyone survived.
No, not everyone. During this period, some people were really accidentally punished by the rules and died, about more than 100 people.
Qing Chen didn’t want them to die, but there was no way.
However, this also helped him remember some details of the rules.
In this operation, the biggest achievement was saving 90% of the refugees alive, and it was very easy.
He had discussed it with Chen Jiazhang, and his senior uncle would connect with all the refugees in the crowd, colluding to pretend to trigger the rules and guiding them on how to perform.
Those who could act would die first, and those who couldn’t would be left in the last batch. Qing Chen directly used Silhouette to kill the soldiers, so there was no need to act.
Those refugees who triggered the rules only needed to lie on the ground and then get up after the Chen Family soldiers were gone. No one would be idle enough to question the dead people examined by their squad leader.
The Chen Family soldiers wouldn’t be so kind as to help bury the corpses.
Therefore, as long as they pretended to be dead, they could leave the team.
At first, the refugees were nervous when their vital signs were checked, as it was the four demonic squad leaders who personally checked.
As a result, they quickly discovered that these four people were just going through the motions.
Everyone suddenly remembered Zard’s sacrifice and admired him even more.
That young man actually spent a night persuading these four squad leaders! He had defected them!
This is too amazing.
The second achievement was that Qing Chen grasped six rules.
The third achievement was that he misled the Chen Family troops about 14 rules, including not being able to sit and rest, not being able to eat, not being able to have physical contact, not being able to hum songs, not being able to talk to the opposite sex, not being able to use sign language, not being able to stand to urinate, and not being able to squat to defecate…
Strange and varied.
Qing Chen could even imagine the Chen Family troops in the future coming to Forbidden Zone 008, enduring hunger and not eating, unable to use tactical gestures…
Especially the last one, it’s really hardcore. Qing Chen didn’t expect Chen Jiazhang to come up with such a misleading direction.
These performances were all planned by his senior uncle, Chen Jiazhang. Qing Chen originally thought that his senior uncle had lost the character of a Knight, but now he discovered that the character of a Knight to deceive people was engraved in his genes.
It seemed that the moment the Gene Lock opened, some demonic genes were released…
Of course, there was one more achievement: misleading the Chen Family troops into thinking that the navel of the Shadow was the fatal injury.
Next time, if he uses the same trick again, the soldiers only need to waste a magazine of bullets to hit the Shadow’s navel, and it will immediately cause dozens of gunshots of pain on the main body, and then they will not be able to kill the Shadow anyway.
In this way, the killing effect of Silhouette will be further amplified, and it simply cannot die.
After all, this was the information conveyed by the four loyal squad leaders. Who would doubt it?
Qing Chen had now retracted Marionette and said to Chen Jiazhang: “Senior uncle, your charm is still there.”
Chen Jiazhang looked at Qing Chen and said with a wry smile: “Those old guys giving you Marionette, they really lacked virtue.”
At first, this senior uncle was thinking that he only controlled four squad leaders. These squad leaders were at most platoon leaders. What use could they be?
As a result, he found that he had underestimated Qing Chen. He actually used these four small officers to pry open so many things and laid so many mysteries.
The nephew and senior uncle looked at each other and chuckled.
Qing Chen looked at the refugees: “Everyone, leave according to the direction we gave. Remember, don’t leave the Forbidden Zone within three days; the Class A Airship above hasn’t left yet. After arriving at the Wildlanders’ settlement, report Zard’s name, and someone will naturally take care of you. You are all skilled farmers. You will definitely be able to rebuild your homes there.”
Xiaoyu also said, “Reporting my name will also work!”
“Thank you,” an old woman said, about to kneel down to Qing Chen.
Qing Chen helped her up: “This is the tenet of our Guardians’ Union. No need to thank us.”
Everyone was stunned. Guardians’ Union? The Guardians’ Union that was making a fuss on the internet before?
Qing Chen said, “Alright, everyone, we may not see each other again after this farewell. Take care!”
He wasn’t worried that anyone would go to the Chen Family to report. The Chen Family’s methods were too vicious. These people were still fearful and wouldn’t seek death.
Someone curiously asked, “Aren’t you leaving?”
“Not leaving,” Qing Chen grinned, “I have to kill them all. Otherwise, they’ll go to the Fire Pit to harm my friends.”
When Qin Yiyi and the Great Elder went all the way to the north to save him, in that extremely cold place, if the Fire Pit hadn’t participated in the battle and helped to hold back a field army, Qing Ling and Li Cheng would definitely not have survived until today.
Now it’s time for him to repay this favor.