Chapter 48
Qi is deadly?
Normally even though the hopper bug was fast, Chu Shen could have definitely avoided it. After all it was maybe half as fast he himself was. However it was truly unfortunate that the bug was behind Chu Shen when it climbed onto the platform.
Chu Shen once again sensed there was a bug behind him as the hopper leaped towards him. Forcing his body to move sideways he dodged most of the blow, but unfortunately the hopper bug was truly too fast. Instead his helmet was cut at the seams, barely avoiding his neck.
Radiation poured into his suit, alarms started blaring. However Chu Shen didn’t hesitate. He ran towards the hopper bug, firing his pistols as he went. The hopper bug landed on the edge of the platform but fell due to the repeated shots of the pistols, dying from the neurotoxin.
The abnormal scout flew down and landed next to Chu Shen. His radio activated and a deep gruff voice came on. “Soldier, you’re suits integrity has been compromised. If you have anything inside the pocket dimension to fix your suit up, act quickly otherwise the radiation will fry you alive.”
Chu Shen meanwhile was basking in something completely unexpected. Qi! It was Qi! Ever since he arrived in this realm for some reason he had not been able to absorb Qi and now he could!
Upon hearing the radio though he suddenly thought of a possibility. He had read on the ship that radiation was various forms of energy transmitted through space but now that he thought of it, wasn’t this also the definition of Qi?
Of course! Radiation was deadly to normal people! So of course their armor and spaceships would block radiation or rather, Qi. This was why Chu Shen couldn’t gather Qi even when he could sense it. It was indeed being blocked.
Instead of pulling out a suit patch as the abnormal scout had suggested, Chu Shen instead unsealed his helmet completely. The scout was taken back by the young face that confronted.
Then he started yelling. “WHAT THE H*LL ARE YOU DOING! YOU’LL DIE IF YOU DO THAT!”
Chu Shen didn’t say a word but rather shook his head. Then he started circulating his Qi. The Qi in the area started gathering towards him. The energy circulated through his internal meridians.
With the fresh surge of Qi it was like basking in a hot shower. A soothing feeling came over him as the Qi penetrated his body. Feeling refreshed Chu Shen immediately took off, ignoring the abnormal scouts astonished look. He started looking for more hoppers, shooting them the second he saw them.
Circulating his Qi, Chu Shen was able to keep gathering Qi as he fought. Honestly the Qi expended wasn’t a whole lot. Most of what he was using to fight the bugs was his physical body.
Chu Shen fought with the abnormal scout, who looked on him with awe. They fought the bugs continuously for two hours. Now the horde of bugs had thinned a lot however now it was rare to encounter a drone bug. Hopper bugs were exceedingly more common now.
The floaters were tasked with thinning the horde out before they reached the fortified positions. They were doing a good job too but most were starting to fall back due to return fire.
The plasma bugs weren’t so good at hitting small agile targets like the floaters but the tanker bugs were finally starting to slowly crawl up. They were huge cockroaches. There was a large tube sticking out of the bugs neck, pointing straight forward along with a bunch of smaller tubes sticking out of its back.
A floater flew past, dropping bombs as it went by. The tanker bug looked up. The small tubes on its back started glowing blue. Then over twenty basketball size plasma balls flew upwards.
The floater dodged most of them but one burned a hole through the back of the floater. With smoke billowing out of it the floater fell down into a swarm of bugs before exploding. It left a huge crater from all the bombs it held inside it exploding as well.
Chu Shen saw the sight and immediately focused on the tanker bugs. These he knew were going to be tough. The biological armor was thick, almost ten times as thick as the drone bugs were. Not to mention the large plasma tube on the front.
While he was puzzling over how to kill such a creature, a large explosion went off. It was a one of the one-man scooters. There were five of them in a small group floating in the air. They were out of reach of most bugs and so far had stayed out of the fight.
Their explosives were best for penetrating a tanker bugs skin, not for large explosives like the floaters. Firing in unison the group of scooters launched small, baseball size mortars towards the tanker bug.
The explosives hit the creature. The shaped charges unleashed a blast that sent metal shrapnel cutting into the creature’s hard outer shell before reaching the inside of it. The flammable material used to create the plasma balls ignited in the explosion. With a loud WHOOOSH, the tanker bug went up in flames.
Because of the nature of plasma, it was not explosive however it was extremely flammable. Chu Shen looked around for a little bit before finding an appropriate tanker bug. Once he did he took off for it.
Meanwhile the abnormal scout had taken off towards a tanker bug himself. Flying down he landed next to one of the plasma tubes. Because of the hard exoskeleton and the way the scout had flew in, the tanker bug didn’t notice him.
The scout waited until after the tube had fired off a plasma ball before dropping one of the explosive disks from his right arm into the tube.
The disk fell downwards until it reached the inside of the beast. Three seconds later the disk exploded, making the bug burst into flames. Of course the scout was long gone by then.
Chu Shen though, dashed forward at breakneck speeds. Reaching the side of the tanker bug, he swung the hammer with all his might. The hammer hit its side, cracks appeared in the armor where it was hit.
Unfortunately, that was all that happened. The tanker bug slid sideways a couple inches while Chu Shen used the force of the blow to flip backwards, landing on the dusty ground. He frowned. So one blow wasn’t going to cut it.
He got an idea though. Turning his hammer around he reversed it so that the spike end was now where the blunted end usually was. He leapt upwards onto the creature’s back. Using the spiked end as a pick axe he swung it downwards, penetrating the exoskeleton.
Using the spiked end he pulled a hunk of the armor off with brute force. With the proper leverage it was easy. Then Chu Shen had a problem. What did he do now?
He put back the hammer and instead pulled out the pistols. Firing them rapidly into the hole in its armor, Chu Shen fired towards where he guessed the heart and plasma chamber was. The beast shuddered in agony as the needles went through its body, delivering their deadly payload.
Plasma fired out randomly from its tubes as it started jerking around. It started twitching and jerking its legs as Chu Shen kept firing. After a couple rounds the thing started to slow down. Then it fell to the ground and the plasma balls stopped shooting.
Chu Shen hopped off the tank bug and nodded in appreciation. ‘Heh. That thing was pretty big.’
With that Chu Shen turned around and promptly started off towards another tanker bug. It seemed these things were most definitely the bigger threat.
- N/a
