Chapter 197 - 124: Withdrawal

Chapter 197: Chapter 124: Withdrawal

Finally, after a brief report over the radio, the Hound III infantry fighting vehicle shot forward, heading for the outskirts of the industrial zone.

The bird calls and sounds of impact faded with the growing distance. Once the vehicle was clear of the Red Star Industrial Zone’s core and had entered a relatively quiet buffer zone, it felt as though a great weight had been lifted from everyone inside. They breathed a collective sigh of relief, their faces showing a mixture of genuine fear and gratitude for their escape.

After driving a while longer, a temporary rally point came into view. Several reinforced buses were parked there, with a number of Observers who had already arrived gathered nearby, either waiting in line or resting.

Surrounding the buses, several armored vehicles equipped with anti-aircraft machine guns or automatic grenade launchers were deployed in a defensive formation. Their cold barrels were angled toward the sky, a silent declaration of the location’s defensive strength.

The atmosphere at the rally point was more relaxed. People gathered in small groups, talking in low voices, their faces a mix of joy from having escaped with their lives and a hint of uncertainty about the future.

After Xu Mo and the others disembarked, the Hound III didn’t linger. It immediately turned around and roared back toward the Red Star Industrial Zone to retrieve the next group.

Standing in the relative safety of the rally point, the first thing Xu Mo did was look back the way they had come. In the distance, a dense swarm of black dots still circled above the iconic silhouettes of the Red Star Industrial Zone’s ruins and smokestacks, like a malevolent black crown placed upon that land of death.

Sunlight occasionally pierced the clouds, casting sporadic and unsettling glints—like metal or keratin—off the "crown."

"My god, so many birds... I bet the Red Star Industrial Zone is going to become one giant bird’s nest and a zombie graveyard," the Observer from C-05 muttered beside him, staring at the distant scene.

"In a way, you could say these birds helped us ’clean up’ the zombies," the Observer from C-10 said with a wry smile. "Though their method is a bit... well, hard to stomach."

"Clean up? More like a new, more troublesome kind of monster has taken over!" the young man from C-08 said excitedly. "Did you see the big ones? Those wings... What if they attack Jiang City? Are our air defenses strong enough?"

"Yeah, at least zombies are stuck on the ground. These birds are all over the sky—they’re impossible to defend against!" the Observer from C-02 added, full of worry.

"If Jiang City could issue a warning in advance, they must have a way to deal with this, right?" the Observer from C-10 offered, trying to be more optimistic. "Otherwise, why would they pull us back now?"

The group continued to buzz with discussion, the topic always circling back to the threat of the mutated birds.

Xu Mo listened quietly, not interjecting. ’The challenge these birds represent has probably only just begun,’ he thought. ’Their flocking behavior and aggression hint at a logic that transcends ordinary animal instinct.’

The wait wasn’t long. Once the last infantry fighting vehicle returned and confirmed that all contactable Observers had been safely evacuated, the officer in charge began organizing everyone to board the buses.

Xu Mo followed the flow of people onto a bus, which was already crowded. Outside the window, the armored escort vehicles began to start up, and the bus convoy followed, moving slowly down a roughly cleared road toward Jiang City Shelter.

Xu Mo glanced back one last time at the receding Red Star Industrial Zone. Those ruins, the site of his cultivation breakthrough, were slowly shrinking from view. His nearly four-month-long career as a fortress Observer had come to an end.

Ahead lay Jiang City, a city with a population of one million.