Dominion's End

Volume 6, Chapter 7: This Time, Seize Control! Part Two

Ceng Yunqian suddenly exclaimed in a strangled voice, “Captain Wen, you’re wrong. Shuyu is Leader’s precious little brother. If he wishes to stay in the mansion, the JDT can protect the mansion, so we don’t need you to stand up for us!”

Wen Jianuo’s lips twitched but he didn’t speak. The electric current had shocked him speechless—it seemed like Shujun’s lightning really was a nemesis to the metal ability.

Chen Yanqing jumped up and continued the story, “Even the youngest sister had come over to help out. How could a grown man just stay inside the mansion? Plus, Captain Wen only said something like ‘stay inside and grow some grass.’ Aren’t you guys overreacting too much?”

He actually made it make sense! I’ve really gotta hand it to these guys. It’s a shame that their budding careers in acting and screenwriting got cut short by the apocalypse.

Junjun gasped, finally noticing that something was amiss. She nervously glanced at me a few times, looking so embarrassed that I, this èrgē, immediately forgave my mèimei.

Pretending like she’d lost her patience, Ceng Yunqian said, “You can say whatever you want. Just don’t provoke Leader’s little brother and sister!”

Wen Jianuo gradually recovered. He let go of his metal skin and firmly said, “I shouldn’t have said—”

Junjun cut him off and apologized, “I’m sorry, Wen-gē. I shouldn’t have zapped you!”

Wen Jianuo relaxed a lot more after getting an apology, allowing him a way out. He said while waving his hand, “It’s fine. I was sticking my nose into other people’s business, and I did say something that I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s enough! Be quiet!” I coldly interrupted their conversation and commanded, “Guard the mansion. If even a single fly gets in, all of you will have a taste of the freezing winter!”

“Yes sir!”

I didn’t dare to look at Junjun, fearing that my worry for her would surge up inside me again. I firmly walked toward the back mountain, even forming ice skates to speed up the pace. There’s no time to waste. I kept feeling that this aberrant tide was very unusual. It’s best to check out the back mountain. Who knows if a large gathering of aberrants has taken a detour to encroach on us or not?

Before Zheng-shū could finish the tunnel-digging, we had to make sure that the coast was clear.

As long as there was the slightest chance, I really wanted to successfully protect Zhanjiang Garrison from the aberrant tide.

The base was situated in such a good location that even the Shangguan family wanted to fight over it.

Located right next to Lan City, we could search for supplies and evolution crystals in the city during the initial stage of the apocalypse. Its high terrain made it easy to guard yet hard to attack. There was even a mountain right behind it. It wasn’t a tall deadly mountain yet not a useless small hill either. Before the apocalypse arrived, this place was located right beside a megacity, so there couldn’t be dangerous animals around here. Even if the small animals had turned into aberrants, it should be within the limit of what the JDT could handle.

I really needed that mountain area. In the future, we could search for edible evolved plants in the forests. After finding them, we could plant seeds and even breed animals that had gone through evolution in those areas.

If this aberrant tide wasn’t the one that had breached the shelter; if we persevered a bit more, maybe we could keep Zhanjiang Garrison—

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I hurriedly skated to the side to dodge. Almost at the same time, an energy wave swept past my side.

I slid to the side, spun around, and saw that it was a group of Shangguan soldiers. Their attire and equipment were uniform, making them easily recognizable. The one leading them—Shangguan Chenhong—could clearly be seen standing at the middle in the back.

I was so angry that I started laughing. I then said, “Even at times like this, you’re still trying to revolt?”

I originally thought that this Shangguan Chenhong just liked to do things arbitrarily. Harboring selfish motives, he wasn’t even willing to save Zhu Yuanzhou, that old soldier. However, he at least had the appearance of an upright soldier. But it turned out that he’d planned to kill me first while aberrants encroached on us. Could it be that he’s actually a pig with the appearance of a human?

These soldiers following him have gotta be pigs too, right!

Maybe the look in my eyes was too obvious, as one of the soldiers furiously roared, “You’ve killed so many of our brothers! If we didn’t kill you, wouldn’t we be letting them down?!”

I remained silent, unable to retort. To begin with, we were engaged in a life-or-death conflict. But the opposite side had people who had died, so it was natural for them to seek revenge.

Shangguan Chenhong bellowed, “If you handed this place to us, we could establish a large base. Do you have any idea how many people could be saved? Yet you only care about your own selfish interest!”

What a nice, holier-than-thou pig! Just hearing that one sentence of his makes my blood boil. Not to mention that he was heavily protected by the surrounding soldiers, safely spouting hypocritical talk on his moral high horse!

Give me all of your crystals. I’ll be able to protect you once I become stronger.

After surviving ten years of the apocalypse, I’d heard these kinds of words countless times.

I was so stupid in my past life. In the beginning, I had trusted Xia Zhengu’s words and handed over all of my crystals to him. In the end, the disparity in our abilities was so big, I couldn’t even leave. No matter how many times I felt so disheartened that I wanted to leave, Xiao Qi would grab onto me, refusing to let me go. She’d cried, saying that we couldn’t survive without a community.

If we hand over the crystals to the base, construct and fortify the base, it will be our strongest shield!

Having gone to all kinds of bases, everyone said that it was extremely difficult to defend their base. So if you wanted to stay inside, you had to hand over a certain amount of supplies and crystals every day. That amount was so excessive that even their members thought it was exhausting. Otherwise, you could only be a laborer, working a ton but eating little, which also ate away at everyone’s lives. They all got thinner and thinner day by day, hopelessly awaiting the day they could no longer work.

Those who could neither hand over the fees nor do labor had no other option but to live outside in tents. They were children, women, the weak, and the elderly.

Later on, when we discovered that a bigger crowd of humans would attract a bigger aberrant tide, even staying outside in tents was no longer allowed. They would be driven off or killed if they refused to leave.

The weakest ones would fall one by one. If the ability users that were cultivated from expending the life force of these people could actually defend the bases, then it could be worth it. However, the end result was often a hard slap in the face.

At the large base that I last stayed in, besides going out to hunt crystals, I grew crops in the house. Xiao Qi would help me out, and Wei-xiǎogē would bring back strange seeds from time to time. FYI, during those times, you had to engage in an all-out brawl with plants to bring back seeds!

We managed to obtain some good results after much difficulty. A bunch of plants were soon to be harvestable, and seeing the results of several plants made me happy. They might even become long term crops. But in the end, a large aberrant tide had attacked, breaching the base.

There had been constant rumors about how powerful the top-tier ability users were. When that aberrant tide first attacked, they had gone out to help a few times, bombarding the aberrants under the walls. However, as the situation became worse, those people showed up less and less until not a single person showed up anymore.

It was only when the aberrant tide had breached the walls that the people below finally realized—the people above had already escaped.

Having escaped death by a hair’s breadth, Xia Zhengu suggested establishing his own small base again, and this time, nobody was opposed to it anymore, even though we could hardly defend the base. We always had to hide away when the situation called for it, or simply fled and looked for another place. The base provided absolutely no protection.

But every time we decided to seek protection from a large base, we were cheated out of a bunch of crystals and supplies, fattening up the base’s top-tier. In the end, we still had to rely on ourselves and our luck when fleeing for our lives.

Just like this pig in front of me. I bet he’s eaten quite a lot of crystals. He definitely won’t be low tier in the future. But he was always being protected by others, so his battle experience was pretty much zero. The only thing he did was stand far away in the distance while giving his orders. You think you’re some kind of ranged mage?

When things took a turn for the worse, they would be the first to run away. Such a huge waste of crystals, raising a bunch of useless bastards whose tier was only for show!

In this lifetime, I will never again trust anyone’s words—foolishly handing over my own crystals and territory!

They all pointed their guns at me. There are probably over fifty guns? I wore a calm expression, but actually I was stealing glances at my surroundings. Although I hadn’t gotten to the dense part of the forest, there were quite a few trees around here. I could probably take advantage of this cover to retreat into the denser growth. If these soldiers dared to concentrate their fire and blast down too many trees, then I would no longer be their only enemy.

There were only around fifty people before me. This Shangguan Chenhong guy had most likely brought all of his bodyguards and cronies to ambush me. The old soldier Zhu Yuanzhou was probably in the dark about this. If so, I didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s safety for now.

I had to first contemplate whether I could survive this dilemma. Even though I had killed more than fifty people before, that had been in batches with surprise on my side, an important element.

Shangguan Chenhong shouted, “Without your suppression, the other people will naturally follow orders from above. They are soldiers who protect their country. Without you leading them astray, why wouldn’t they follow orders to return to their station?”

Don’t you mean to say that you’re gonna first get rid of me, the person who seems the strongest, so that everyone else has no choice but to listen under the threat of your strong firepower?

Besides, you dumb pig, are you under some sort of misunderstanding? I’m just family of the Jiang Dominion’s leader. At most, I’m also a secret weapon. My dàgē is almost here, but that aside, even Cain and Wen Jianuo are leadership material. When it comes to leading the people to battle, they can leave me in the dust much more than three streets back!

Fortunately, Shangguan Chenhong seemed to only consider me the pest. Otherwise, while I was protecting everyone, the members of the Jiang Dominion might get shot from behind. Who knows how many would be left after that?

I coldly said, “I should have never suggested for you to come in. Your good faith has been fed to the dogs.”

Even though I had put it that way, if we hadn’t let them come in, they would probably have used their full firepower, including energy guns, to take down our walls under the threat of the aberrants leaving them no way to retreat. After both sides fought to the bitter end, and the aberrants also came to attack us, our situation would likely be even worse than now. Our side would only have crumbling walls left and a bunch of enemies who had just fought us.

When faced with two bad choices in the apocalypse, what choice was there? I could only blame myself for being too naive. I had only been thinking of how to escape the problem of the aberrant tide. I had forgotten that the natural disaster that was humanity required even more caution.

However, I really hadn’t thought that Shangguan Chenhong would be in such a hurry to turn on me not even two hours after the aberrants’ attack halted. Isn’t he afraid that the aberrants will attack again?

Oh right, this guy hadn’t gone up the walls and seen me use ice to force an overwhelming amount of horned mice out from below. Otherwise, he would definitely have second thoughts about whether or not he could prevent the horned mice from launching an underground attack.

Shangguan Chenhong snorted but said without an ounce of shame, “What good faith is there to speak of when you’re someone who ambushed and killed so many of my men?”

Hey hey, you’ve brought four hundred fully equipped soldiers to rob me, yet you won’t allow the side with fewer numbers to raid you? I sneered at him and purposely said, “Did you think that I would come to such a remote location without any preparation? You’re a mantis wanting to capture a cicada, but luckily I’ve prepared a finch. Do you want to see how many people are hidden in the underbrush behind you?”

Shangguan Chenhong’s face paled. He abruptly looked behind him. The soldiers behind him also followed suit and turned. Unfortunately, the opponents were soldiers with excellent training. The front row still had their guns trained on me. However, without being ordered to, they didn’t open fire right away.

That’s why it’s best to cut the crap when killing people!

In a single breath, I tossed out dozens of exploding ice blades. The ice exploded between us, filling the air with fragments of ice like dust.

Before the opponents could open fire, I lowered my body and glided into the shrubbery to the side. The current shrubbery was dense, with long, sharp thorns. Falling into it unaware could cause someone to die. Fortunately, I wore a layer of ice armor, so the shrubbery was so cold that it didn’t dare to move. Even the thorns had withdrawn.

I placed both hands on the ground. Ice energy spread along it, rushing toward the soldiers. The people in the current time weren’t yet wary of attacks from the ground. The moment the ice energy reached my target destination, it froze over, capturing the soldiers’ calves. Many of them cried out in pain from the freezing cold.

These soldiers probably hadn’t eaten a lot of crystals yet. They wouldn’t be able to resist the freezing temperatures of the ice energy. Only Shangguan Chenhong and the dozen or so soldiers around him were faring better. They had definitely eaten a good amount of crystals, yet they weren’t the sort to take the frontline themselves!

“Fire!” Shangguan Chenhong screamed, “Kill him directly!”

Not far from where I hid, an ice statue had taken shape but was immediately shattered into smithereens by a great amount of bullets and energy guns. I slid out of the shrubbery in the window that had opened, locking onto my target. I rushed to the side of that group of soldiers in an instant. Then, I grabbed the gun of the closest person, freezing the gun and sending the soldier flying with a kick, all in one go.

By now, I had already charged into their group. If they were to open fire, who knows if I would die? But their people would definitely fall. They could only blame themselves for wanting to kill me too much. The firepower that they had brought with them was all powerful. Even full body armor wouldn’t protect them from that.

Their hands were tied from being afraid of friendly fire. They wanted to back up so they could shoot, but they still weren’t able to break free of the ice trapping their calves.

Someone even took out a bayonet, but countless blades of ice floated around me. A moment of carelessness meant frozen and even chopped off hands.

While they were still stuck on whether or not to shoot, I had kicked another person down, precisely the target I had my eyes on earlier. I snatched the energy gun from his hands and exploded the blades of ice surrounding me in one breath. Then, I charged into the forest without lingering on the fight.

The moment I broke away from the enemy’s midst, a huge amount of bullets rained down upon me. I had prepared my ice shield in advance, and I skated left and right at a high speed. I also made use of the sparse, sporadic trees to hinder the enemy’s hail of bullets.

Suddenly, the gunshots stopped momentarily. Something didn’t feel right. I spun on my feet and saw something being thrown my way—a bomb! I immediately blasted ice energy, pushing the bomb a small distance away from me. Borrowing the push back from the ice energy, I retreated behind a large tree.

A loud “boom” accompanied bursting winds. The poor trees were blasted into pieces. However, the roots of the trees stubbornly held on, wanting to survive, and helped me absorb most of the impact from the blast. Since I had been prepared, other than making my blood boil in anger, my ears ring, and my head hurt, the explosion didn’t give me too much trouble.

They actually directly went for bombs! They really are afraid I won’t die!

However, since I had pushed back just in time, the explosion had been displaced. Even though it had still been closer to me, I had cover as well as a tier three body and energy to protect me. I didn’t believe that the opponents would be much better off than me.

When I stood back up, the smoke and dust had yet to settle. Even though there was a gunshot here and there, it didn’t hinder me from continuing to flee.

After running several dozen meters, I had the ice path continue to spread. This would leave behind a trail for the enemy to pursue while I boldly climbed up to the top of a tall tree and hid. I didn’t follow the ice path at all.

Trees nowadays weren’t the best hiding spots. Brother Tree might not be willing to let you hide on his head. Such a large tree wasn’t one that any regular person could climb either, but it wasn’t a big problem for me. Tier three was enough to scare the tree to the point of immobility.

From far away, I could hear Shangguan Chenhong growl, “Frontline, hurry and chase him. Everyone else, come back with me to guard the town. We definitely can’t allow him to return alive!”

I was speechless. You really should have gone up the walls and experienced it yourself. If you had seen those horned mice get turned into a forest of ice shish kebabs, you definitely wouldn’t dare to split your forces. Do you have a death wish? Or maybe you want to become dead shish kebabs?

Shangguan Chenhong was commanding them blindly without understanding the situation. He hadn’t shown his power either. At first, I had thought that he might be concealing his true power. After all, his energy level was abundant. To my senses, he seemed to have already reached tier one. But just earlier I had recalled the high tier “mages” from my past life. I abruptly understood the true reason this guy wasn’t fighting.

They’ve split their forces. With a steep decline in their numbers and an energy gun I’ve just gotten in my possession, I seem to have the advantage now?

Originally, my plan had been to use my knowledge of the land to escape their chase and reach the town before them to grab Zhu Yuanzhou. Then, I would reason with him that some aberrants were out there and the people inside needed to join forces and such, allowing him off the hook. I would be half reasonable, half threatening to get him to cooperate with me to make Shangguan Chenhong into a mere figurehead. That would allow us to resist the aberrants together.

But now, should I switch to an even safer plan and capture Shangguan Chenhong first as a hostage before I return to “reason” with Zhu Yuanzhou?

I had only just fled their attempts to kill me. I was even still in hiding, yet I was already considering abduction. I was a little speechless at myself. After I regained “Jiang Shuyu’s” memories, I seem to be getting bolder and bolder…

But this shouldn’t be a bad thing?

In this life, I had to depend on myself to live on. I had to protect my family. I had to assist Dàgē in establishing our base. I had so many things I needed to do. More than what was left of Guan Weijun’s caution and tenacity, I needed Jiang Shuyu’s audacity and drive!

Lifting the energy gun, I gazed at Shangguan Chenhong, who was heading back, and smiled.