The First Order

Was it the wolves? No.

The soldier’s silver snakes were fitted with extra camera equipment that could send back an image feed via the nanomachines’ neural connection. So even though that shadow was extremely fast and the image was blurry, the soldier was very sure it wasn’t a wolf.

Captain Zhou looked at him and wondered, “If it’s not a wolf, what is it?”

“It looked more like a… shadow,” the platoon member said. But at this moment, he exclaimed again, “Oh no, my silver snake is getting out of my range!”

He then chased after it and tried to keep within the control range of the nanorobotic, silver snake. However, his speed was way lower than his opponent’s. Before he could even cover two steps, his neural connection to that silver snake was completely cut off!

Captain Zhou’s expression sank. He had not believed they would encounter any danger out here. But who could have thought they would lose a portion of their nanomachines less than three hours after entering the mountain!

And they didn’t even know who did it! And for what motive!

If the opponent were a human, why did they want to steal the nanorobotic snake? As if they could use it after stealing it?!

“Captain, what do we do now?” someone asked.

Captain Zhou said with a cold expression, “Where did he run off to?”

“To the southwest!” that platoon member said.

“Give chase!” Captain Zhou said, “It’s only one person, isn’t it? Make a call to the next outpost with the radio. Tell them we’ve discovered a new target that might be even more important than the wolves. Let them know we’ll be pursuing this target with everything we’ve got and will be disengaging from Operation: Wolf Encirclement.”

In truth, this Captain Zhou was the only person in the platoon who knew why they had been deployed to the mountains. There was no hurry in trying to encircle the wolves. What was more important was to ensure they did not lose the nanomachines.

Meanwhile, Ren Xiaosu had just received the nanorobotic snake, already in an idle state, from his shadow clone. He had thought it would take a nasty battle for him to get his hands on the nanomachines. But that would not have been worth it at all, and he still preferred picking them off the nanosoldiers who had gotten separated from their groups…

But sometimes, luck could even make a person hand you a pillow right when you were feeling sleepy. Someone had actually volunteered to send some nanomachines his way.

In just two seconds, the palace reset the nanomachines back to their factory settings by clearing the remote access protocol and executing a series of other instructions. The tiny, nanorobotic silver snake transformed back into liquid metal and melded together with the rest of the nanomachines within Ren Xiaosu’s body.

It was like the newly gained nanomachines had been handed to him on a silver platter.

However, Ren Xiaosu was sad. The size of this silver snake was too small. It wasn’t easy for him to control the shadow clone before finding this one snake. If he had to go and continue searching for more of them, how many years would that take him?

No! A glimmer suddenly appeared in Ren Xiaosu’s eyes!

Lin Qi and the others kept going deeper and deeper into the forested mountains. However, they did not head up and were instead walking along the mountain pass down towards the valley.

“Captain, why don’t we give up on the chase?” Lin Qi said, a little worried. “It’s only a silver snake. I’m afraid something bad will happen if we walk too far.”

Captain Zhou shot him a look and said, “If you’re so afraid of death, why be a soldier? The wolf pack isn’t in our direction, so what’s there to be afraid of? Keep marching!”

As that was being said, a platoon member whisper-shouted, “Captain, look over there in the valley!”

Everyone turned to look at the valley and noticed a shadow dash by. That “person” looked like he had been resting over there and wasn’t expecting Captain Zhou and the others to chase him all the way here!

“Don’t let him get out of our pursuit range!” Captain Zhou ordered ruthlessly.

In an instant, the remaining four nanorobotic snakes slithered towards where the shadow had disappeared. Simultaneously, the other soldiers rushed towards the forested wilderness as a silvery glow emanated from the blood vessels in their skin.

Could the nanomachines be constantly running in their bodies and only needed a thought from their owners to instantly form into sophisticated support machinery that could aid them in achieving an even greater strength? Strictly speaking, these nanosoldiers’ strength and speed had already exceeded that of normal people. They were basically superhumans created through technology!

These nanosoldiers rushed across the uneven terrain as though it was flat ground. There were even some people who could leap across distances of more than ten meters with a single leap!

Endless gunfire rang out as they chased the shadow clone while concentrating their firepower on it. It was as though they were attempting to blast the shadow clone to shreds with their overwhelming firepower.

But even if they were physically strong, they were still recruits who had not gone through firearms training. While moving at a high speed, they could not even manage the most basic of aiming.

“Don’t waste your ammo.” Captain Zhou sneered. “Catch him first and take it from there.”

But during the pursuit, only the soldier controlling the nanorobotic snakes had suspicions. It felt like this shadow’s speed was slower than when it escaped after taking away the snake.

But since he had precious little combat experience, he wasn’t willing to casually pass judgment on the situation.

As they were closing the distance between themselves and the shadow clone, the silver snakes had already closed the gap. However, the shadow clone suddenly reached behind and took a swipe. No one knew what it was swiping at, but the shadow clone immediately picked up its pace and disappeared!

The speed at which it ran off stunned Captain Zhou and the others. ‘How can that be a fucking human?! Just what are you after? If you’re so good at running, why didn’t you run faster just now?’

But a second later, the nanosoldier controlling the silver snakes caught up to the rest. He panted out, “This is bad!”

His nanomachines had been used to form the nanorobotic snakes for scouting ahead, so when the group gave chase with all their might, he fell behind their pace.

Captain Zhou frowned and said, “What’s the matter?”

The nanosoldier said, sounding devastated, “The silver snakes have all been taken away….”

It was only at this moment that everyone realized it. Their supernatural opponent had only used this as a tactic to slowly pull the silver snakes closer to him so he could capture them all at once.

Their opponent had been targeting the nanorobotic snakes from the very beginning!

What the hell? Was he unsatisfied with how long it took to capture them one by one? Was that not enough to satisfy him?

Captain Zhou stood atop a rock looking resigned

At present, before they even encountered any of the wolves, one of the nanosoldiers had already had their nanomachines forcefully taken away. Was it even acceptable for a nanosoldier to not have any nanomachines in them?

Previously, he felt that using the nanomachines as external scouting equipment was a really good idea since it could vastly raise the efficiency of their reconnaissance.

After this incident, Captain Zhou felt he would have to go back to the general staff to report to them that this method wasn’t going to work anymore. There was someone who specialized in stealing nanomachines for fun.

“Let’s retreat.” Captain Zhou said coldly, “We can’t continue chasing him.”

After weighing the pros and cons, he felt they might suffer even greater losses if they continued the chase. They were obviously not on the same level as their opponent, so it was necessary to cut their losses as soon as possible.

But right at this moment, wolves howled from a hillside not far from them. Captain Zhou’s face turned gloomy.