The First Order

This battle started and ended in a flash. When the wolves that had gone to the rear of the Li Consortium’s platoon started their attack, the tight defensive formation began to crumble.

The remaining officer was still dodging the attacks with great speed and agility, but he wasn’t going to last for much longer. When Ren Xiaosu saw the officer’s blood vessels that were glowing silver from the use of nanomachines starting to dim, he knew that the nanomachines were running out of power.

All of a sudden, the Wolf King bit into the officer’s waist from behind. Right after, it swung its head violently and sent the officer flying like a ragdoll.

Even for a wild animal as strong as the Wolf King, it still resorted to sneak attacks as a tactical priority. There was no fairness to speak of in any battles in this world. The result was the only thing that mattered.

Ren Xiaosu could not help but call out, “Hey… I have something to say, but I’m not sure if it’s appropriate!”

The Wolf King was a little puzzled as it turned around and looked at him. Ren Xiaosu pointed to another wolf who now had the officer dangling from its mouth and took out a vial of black medicine. “Let’s trade.”

With a look from the Wolf King, that wolf immediately placed the officer in its mouth down. That officer still had a few breaths left as the injuries he suffered were not lethal. However, he was already on the verge of death.

When he saw Ren Xiaosu, he was shocked. He did not expect this young man to appear here, nor did he expect Ren Xiaosu to be making deals with the wolves!

Ren Xiaosu wondered if he had betrayed humanity by making deals with these killer wolves.

After slaughtering the entire outpost, the wolves reorganized themselves on the spot. They picked up the corpses from the ground with their mouths and prepared to head back into the mountains.

The wolves did not stay around any longer. Ren Xiaosu saw the white fur on several wolves stained red with blood, and it seemed like they urgently needed to go back to deal with their injuries.

After the wolves left, Ren Xiaosu squatted down beside the officer. “Gonna ask you something. How do you usually recharge the nanomachines?”

Ren Xiaosu had already operated the nanomachines multiple times. But in the process of operating them, Ren Xiaosu realized the energy source of the nanomachines was completely dependent on the bioenergy of the human body.

However, the disadvantage was that the nanomachines needed to be “recharged” in the body for a very long time after each usage. However, the subsequent usage duration would not last for long.

So Ren Xiaosu felt that the Li Consortium’s nanomachines still had some flaws after he gained a better understanding of them. If they could not solve the energy source issue, these nanomachines would likely be of little value when encountering a high-intensity fight on a real battlefield.

Of course, Ren Xiaosu speculated that there had to be other methods within the inner circle of the Li Consortium’s forces to quickly recharge these nanomachines.

Wait! Right now, it seemed like Qing Zhen was the one who had researched the most on the subject of energy. After all, nuclear power was one of the most efficient energy sources in the world.

The officer paled, but he remained tight-lipped. Ren Xiaosu said, “Look, your injury isn’t fatal. Who knows you might still be saved if you answer my question?”

“If you let me go back, do you think you can survive?” The officer clenched his teeth and sneered, “Would you dare let me go?”

Ren Xiaosu said, “Goading doesn’t work on me.” He realized this Li Consortium officer was quite unyielding and very different from the private troops he knew. Ren Xiaosu said, “It’s too slow to use bioenergy to recharge the nanomachines. Y’all should have some sort of special charging method, right? How else could you sustain yourselves in high-intensity battles?”

The officer closed his eyes and refused to say anything “You were probably running out of power by the end of the battle, right?” Ren Xiaosu said slowly, “You were only able to fight for about ten minutes or so, but how could there be such quick battles on the real battlefield?”

At this moment, the soldier opened his eyes in surprise and said, “Why are you so interested in the nanomachines? And you even know so much? You’re just an ordinary soldier in the private army!”

At this moment, he realized that something was off. He even suspected that Ren Xiaosu had nanomachines in him. Wait a minute, they had indeed lost some nanomachines, and it was that very batch of nanomachines that the two missing officers were carrying that they were currently investigating!

But how could this be? Regardless of whether this young man in front of him could kill two elite soldiers with nanomachines in them, even if he could, their nanomachines would have to be sent back to headquarters for unlocking before they could be paired once again! Hence, the young man in front of him could not possibly use the nanomachines even if he had acquired them!

But why? Why did he keep thinking something was wrong? He was really hoping to report this back to the General Staff[1], but he did not have the chance to do so!

“Don’t expect me to breach confidentiality,” the officer struggled to say.

Ren Xiaosu sighed. “Forget it, I’ll respect you as a brave person.”

He realized he still could not underestimate the combat troops of the organizations. It wasn’t only the Qing Consortium’s combat troops that were powerful, but every organization in the world had to rely on them as well.

Without a strong military, those organizations would not be able to tower over these wastelands.

After Ren Xiaosu waited for the officer to take his last breath, he quietly watched as the silvery liquid in the officer’s body started seeping out through his skin. He was pretty familiar with this process and waited patiently for the palace to restore the batch of nanomachines to their factory settings and execute a series of other operations.

The harvest was not exactly a lot this time. After all, it was only one person carrying the nanomachines, so the amount only equated to half of what he had acquired previously.

The gauntlet still remained a gauntlet without much change to it. However, Ren Xiaosu was not in too much of a hurry now. After all, there still had to be a lot more officers with nanomachines within the ranks of the Li Consortium’s combat troops he could slowly farm.

Ren Xiaosu got an idea. Since he could reset the nanomachines with the help of the palace, did that mean he could share some of them with the students if he had excess nanomachines in the future?

Chen Wudi would certainly not require these machines. To be honest, Ren Xiaosu could not figure out exactly how strong Chen Wudi was. If he really fought him at his full strength, it was difficult to say if he could even defeat his disciple.

However, Ren Xiaosu wasn’t too bothered by this. After all, the master in Journey to the West was also no match for his disciple. When he thought of this, he felt much better.

Ren Xiaosu manipulated the shadow clone to carry the officer’s corpse and was ready to sink it into the lake as well. After all, he could not just leave the corpse lying in the wilderness. There wouldn’t be a way to explain why the wolves chose to take everyone away except for the officer.

Furthermore, if those who came to investigate the incident discovered that the nanomachines in this officer’s body had disappeared, that would pose a humongous problem for him.

No matter what, Ren Xiaosu was not willing to risk the Li Consortium finding out that he could restore the nanomachines to their factory settings. Otherwise, they would surely hunt him to the ends of the Earth.

An hour later, Ren Xiaosu was a little worried as he stood by the small lake in the mountain. Seeing that the lake itself was not that large, would the water level get higher if he started dumping more things into it in the future?

It was late at night after he finished disposing of the corpse. But instead of rushing back to the outpost, Ren Xiaosu headed into the mountains.

As there was no howling from the mountains tonight, Ren Xiaosu wanted to check on the wolves to see if they had suffered any serious injuries.