Chapter 238: Battle on the Highway

A familiar sense of dizziness hit.

Over seventy people seemingly materialized out of thin air with a flash of white light, plummeting from the sky.

BANG BANG BANG!!

Heavy objects fell.

Instantly, their leader, Dahe Yicheng, snapped his eyes open. His rotund shape was far more agile than it appeared. The moment he regained consciousness, he dropped headlong, his alert eyes peering from between layers of flesh.

They landed lightly, and the entire team quickly regrouped, instinctively bracing for any upcoming attack.

They had landed right beside a national highway.

But the caution lasted only a few seconds. After a swift survey of the surroundings, many broke into easy smiles; their leader, Kim Woo, even snorted as he glanced at the Southeast Awakener still shielded.

“What’s there to fear? I told you, there’s no ambush,” he scoffed.

“The drop point is random,” came the reply.

“How could those pigs from China dare attack us? They were probably petrified by the sound of our arrival,” another added.

Amid laughter and light insults, everyone casually scanned the area.

They had landed near a charging station beside the highway; ahead stretched an endless electromagnetic road.

“Quit staring—first, confirm our coordinates,” someone ordered.

“Rush into the city and round up a few administrators to track down those pigs!” another commanded.

With practiced ease, a Southeast Battle Zone Awakener lit a cigarette, a greedy gleam in his eyes. A replica of the Zombie Realm was one of the few scenarios where the apocalypse hadn’t yet erupted. For awakeners like them, it was practically paradise.

Pristine women, pre-apocalyptic life, godlike power…

A glance at the seemingly simple task steeled their resolve.

After wiping out those little rats, they’d have plenty of time to indulge.

“Wait!”

“I have a bad feeling… something’s off,” someone murmured.

After closing the mission panel, a Third-Stage Awakened armed with a longbow scanned the highway flanks with suspicion.

While the rest had already begun casual chatter, his innate perception immediately sensed that something was amiss.

Spear-like probes jutted from the ground amid fresh, disturbed soil—clear signs they’d just been unearthed.

Each probe sported a circular panoramic camera that seemed to track their every move with a soft whir.

“Aren’t there too many cameras here?” he asked.

“And… I swear, they’re watching me?!”

Frowning, he pointed at the array of scanning devices scattered around the charging station. These things… they definitely weren’t part of the original setup.

At his remark, everyone turned to look. A closer inspection left them all slightly taken aback.

“There are too many. Maybe this area is more important than we thought?”

A Third-Stage Awakened offered an instinctive explanation, but barely had he spoken when every detection device suddenly flashed red—as if an alarm had been triggered—and locked onto them with their cameras!

Boom!

Boom!!

At the same moment, an unrelenting series of sonic booms erupted from the horizon, resembling fighter jets streaking across the sky!

In an instant, even the typically calm Third-Stagers realized something was seriously wrong.

“Ambush?!”

“Something’s rapidly closing in on us!”

A recon-savvy Third-Stage shouted and, without hesitation, soared upward, his gaze fixed on the direction of the sound.

In the sky, several dark spots appeared—silver-white mechs over ten meters tall emerging from the end of the highway.

“It’s the military of this world!”

“They’re coming for us!”

A flash of shock crossed his face; within an instant, he discerned that this military force meant nothing good.

After standing firm, the other Third-Stagers, momentarily stunned, also took to the air.

Yet compared to the visibly nervous Third-Stage Beginners from earlier, the fourteen leading Intermediate Third-Stagers merely showed mild surprise.

“Interesting, they actually ambushed us,” one remarked.

“But it’s only fighter jets and six Grade A mechs?”

“Spare some lives! There’s definitely that group of Chinese pigs behind this mess… up to no good,” someone snarled.

With a cold laugh, Dahe Yicheng casually scanned the distance, a sinister grin twisting his features.

An ambush of this size posed no real threat to them. What truly surprised him was that the Chinese actually had the audacity to strike!

Ha, these forces—they must have spent six hours gathering them, right? Good, I was worried they’d hidden!

A mocking smirk played on his face.

But before he could add another word, his expression suddenly shifted.

“No!”

“How can there be more?!”

“What the…?!”

The relentless barrage of sonic booms seemed endless.

It hit him like a slap—crude and unforgiving.

After the initial six mechs, countless silver specks appeared. An overwhelming tide of black mechs filled his vision, encircling them on all sides.

At a glance, there were nearly sixty Grade A mechs—comparable in power to an entire Third-Stage squad! And the black B-grade units? They numbered almost a thousand!

Tanks! Artillery! Fighter jets swarmed in like a buzzing hive.

This wasn’t just a few squads in ambush—it was an army capable of sparking a full-scale war!

“Break out!!”

“Prepare to break out!!”

“We’re in deep trouble!!”

The Third-Stage Awakeners with the sharpest vision turned pale as they cried out in agony.

They could ignore forces of a few hundred or even a few thousand, but an army of over a hundred thousand? This wasn’t an ambush—it was a full-blown battle!

“Buzz—”

Waves of spirit energy erupted as the seventy Third-Stagers instantly formed a triangular formation, desperately planning to carve out a bloody escape route.

In an instant, dazzling lasers rained down from the distant mech swarm.

Above, a vast formation of fighter jets blanketed the sky, launching hundreds of tactical missiles amid deafening roars.

A fierce battle was about to erupt.

………….

Inside the makeshift command room, Yenir silently watched the live feed on the screen, while his team beamed with exhilaration.

“We’ve found them! We actually did it!”

Watching the chaos unfold on screen, Ming Luo’s face lit up with pure satisfaction.

Under relentless artillery fire, the enemy Third-Stagers in the battle zone could only respond in disarray.

Deathly orange flames dominated the display, with crisscrossing machine gun fire likened to a fiery dragon.

After Grade A mechs joined the fight, a dense barrage nearly wiped out the two weakest Third-Stagers in an instant, rapidly draining their spirit energy.

In brutal close combat, steel clashed with flesh!

Even though their world’s power and awakeners were at a disadvantage, sheer numbers kept the enemy Third-Stagers from rising up.

Seeing their plan succeed, they were able to inflict massive casualties on the Japanese and Korean battle zones without lifting a finger—a prospect they relished.

Unlike the excited Ming Luo and others, Yenir processed the battle’s attrition with computer-like precision.

After witnessing a Third-Stager tear a mech apart with his bare hands, he coldly ordered:

“First, Third, and Seventh Fleets, deploy the nerve toxin!”

“Second and Sixth Fleets, launch airburst bombs from the fighter jets!”

“Electromagnetic Armor Legion, prepare a saturation strike!”

“Not enough… far from enough.”

A chill gripped Yenir’s heart as he watched four red countdown lines hit zero on a tablet—unnoticed by everyone else.

【Estimated 112 seconds until Tactical Nuclear Missile A032 strikes】

….