Total Annihilation

She stood between two machines, the gap roughly the width of a man's shoulders.

She dodged just in time; the next instant, a gene monster's misshapen body wedged itself into the space she'd just occupied.

This gene monster was larger than any she'd seen before, its head nearly filling the width of the gap.

It had been crawling along the machines, observing Tu Ran in the crevice.

In its eyes, she was a piece of fragrant, tempting meat, waiting to be devoured.

But though its body had grown, its brain still wasn't sharp enough to accurately judge whether its frame could move freely through the gap.

The immense impact from jumping down had wedged it in place.

Its eight legs pushed desperately outward, hissing "Sss, sss, sss," as it strained with all its might to pull its head free. After several attempts, the head showed faint signs of shifting.

It seemed delighted, its cries changing pitch.

But it forgot there was still a human standing beside it—why would anyone wait for it to pull its head out?

Tu Ran raised her machine gun, backed up a few steps to a safe distance, and unleashed a dense barrage at its head.

Bullets slammed into its skull one after another, black viscous blood spurting out in wet splatters.

Moss rapidly sprouted from beneath its eight limbs, creeping toward Tu Ran.

She retreated until her back hit the wall.

These two machines were placed flush against the wall, and the gap between them had only one opening.

Now that opening was sealed by the gene monster's head.

Tu Ran looked up. The machines were at least seven or eight meters tall, their surfaces smooth with nothing to grip—she couldn't climb them.

Dark green, foul-smelling moss closed in fast, the machine surfaces it covered hissing and sizzling.

The moss was corroding the metal.

It lunged toward Tu Ran wildly, surrounding her from every direction.

Tu Ran's eyes darkened.

Her pitch-black pupils remained calm.

"Bloom, Moon, Full, Round!"

She chanted the words one by one.

As the final syllable landed, the monster's human-like face twisted in agony.

Its eight legs convulsed violently, clawing at its own body as if trying to dig something out.

The aggressive moss halted, hesitated for a second, then began retreating rapidly.

At that moment, a vine bearing vivid blossoms was sprouting and growing at speed inside its organs, piercing through its viscera, squeezing between its bones. Thorny branches scraped along its slick internal membranes, blood gushing out and pooling in its abdomen.

The branches surged forth, its stomach acid utterly unable to resist.

Finally, they tore through its belly, crawled up its throat and esophagus, and burst out from its mouth, nose, and eyes.

Dozens of delicate flowers playfully vied to bloom atop the branches.

They bloomed across its deformed, grotesque corpse.

The monster slept forever, wrapped in flowers.

This was the first time Tu Ran had used "Bloom, Moon, Full, Round" as a weapon, and witnessing its power, she couldn't help but gape.

Ranged attack—strong, truly strong.

The thick smoke had mostly dispersed by now, and Xie Hong had probably woken up as well.

This gene monster's death was too strange; Tu Ran couldn't leave an intact corpse behind.

The monster's head still hovered about a meter above the ground. Tu Ran crouched and slipped through underneath.

Standing up, she looked at the massive monster wedged between the machines, its body enveloped in flowers. She grabbed an armor-piercing round and stuffed it into the cluster of blossoms.

She immediately backed away, retreating from the gap.

The moment she emerged, she spotted Xie Hong buckling on his helmet.

"Get down!" Tu Ran shouted.

She herself ducked into a blast-proof room.

Hearing the shout, Xie Hong instinctively hit the ground.

The next second—"BOOM!"

After the thunderous blast, bits of corpse rained down like a downpour, splattering everywhere.

Tu Ran, experienced in such matters, had already made her way to the workshop's safe room and stayed clean.

Xie Hong, unfamiliar with this kind of thing, suffered the brunt of it.

He thought lying flat would keep him safe.

Instead, he was drenched, his pristine, high-grade combat suit instantly stained and filthy. Worse, the monster's blood and flesh were corrosive—his entire suit hissed and crackled.

Xie Hong's heart raced. If the suit gave out and leaked that corrosive liquid inside, he'd be in real trouble.

He quickly activated "Ice Freeze," coating the back of his combat suit in a transparent layer of ice, and the hissing vanished instantly.

Xie Hong moved a few times; the ice cracked and fell away, taking the corrosive flesh stuck to it along with it.

He let out a breath of relief. Looking around, he saw mottled, splattered wreckage everywhere. A shiver ran through him—thank goodness he'd put on his helmet in time, or that shower would've put a hole in his head too.

He glanced at Xie Wei, who was stored in the corner. Thanks to his ice layer, the man was perfectly safe.

Only after checking all this did Xie Hong turn his gaze to the "culprit" behind it all.

The culprit walked out of the safe room with an innocent look.

"General Xie Hong, hello. I'm here to reinforce you," Tu Ran said.

Xie Hong: "...I feel like you're here to send me off."

"You sure know how to joke, General Xie Hong."

Xie Hong shot her a look, then shifted his gaze. "Have you seen my communicator?"

He'd searched for it before the explosion but hadn't found it.

Now the ground was a mess—even harder to locate.

His communicator had already been stomped to pieces and kicked away by himself, so how would Tu Ran know? She shook her head. "No idea. Mine was chewed to bits by the monsters too."

Xie Hong paused mid-search, thinking it over. It seemed his communicator had also been snagged and crushed by a gene monster.

"General Xie Hong, it looks like the gene monsters here are cleared out. Should we head to the west and north sections to support them? Before I reached the east section, those areas also requested help from Zero."

"I'll go. You take him out of the factory." Xie Hong pointed to Xie Wei's location.

Tu Ran didn't argue. "Fine."

She walked over to Xie Wei, pushed aside the ice shell covering him, and revealed the curled-up man inside.

She picked up his laser gun with her right hand, draped his arm over her shoulder with her left, and half-carried, half-dragged him outside.

Xie Hong, meanwhile, cut through the factory interior, heading toward Xie Xu's position in the west section.

Tu Ran walked out through the factory's main entrance. Outside stood a ring of fully armed guards and more than twenty pioneers.

Among them, she spotted several familiar faces.

Ding Naiqing, Yao Bei, Zhao Yan.

They seemed ready to enter the factory.

"Ran Jie?!"

Ding Naiqing stared at her in disbelief.

They'd been hastily pulled in from other sections; the commander had ordered them to reinforce the north and west sections of Sankar Arsenal while searching for survivors in the east.

After a series of explosions in the east, all its surveillance had been destroyed, and no one who'd entered that area showed any life signs on their communicators. The east section had already been presumed lost—total annihilation.