The Great Worm Lich Chapter 189 - Steam Civilization

Chapter 189: Steam Civilization

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Only Old Man Xu heard Zhang Lisheng’s whisper. Not paying any attention to it, the old man asked, “What disaster is about to happen? Boy, sometimes the way you talk is so uncouth, but sometimes the way you talk is somewhat formal. What is going to happen?”
Zhang Lisheng ignored Old Man Xu and merely put his ear on the window with a blank expression. Then, his face began to puff out like an inflated balloon.
Seeing the teenager using his spell without saying anything, Old Man Xu realized that something was not right. Turning solemn, as though there were springs at his buttocks, he sprang up right away and looked at the darkness outside of the window.
Unfortunately, the Old Man Xu was not specialized in any spell that allowed him to enhance his sense of hearing and visual ability. Standing inside the speeding bus in the middle of the dark night only made him dizzy. Naturally, he could not see anything at all. Instead, he could only ask Zhang Lisheng in a whisper, “Boy, is there something wrong?”
“Uncle, listen to me if you want to live. Be prepared! We’ll jump out of the bus later!” Zhang Lisheng whispered without turning his head around.
Even though Old Man Xu had expected something to happen, it had never crossed his mind that the teenager would say something like jumping out of the bus. astonished, he shouted out loud—”What do you mean by jumping out of the bus?!”—and caught the attention of everybody on the bus.
“Old Xu, what did you say?” Captain Hu, who was discussing with Director Liang at the moment about what should they do when they came across another government military checkpoint, whether should they call to talk to the senior officers of the Cape Town garrison whom they knew or should they try their luck first, asked loudly.
“I… Hehe… I-I was saying that erm, we’ve been sitting in this us for more than ten hours already and my legs are a little sore now. So sore that I feel like jumping out of the bus already! Don’t you guys agree with me…” The slick and sly Old Man Xu stuttered for a moment before coming up with a seemingly reasonable reason.
It was a pity that when the old man was halfway into his lie, the person he least wanted to face stood up and smiled amiably while interrupting him, “Old Brother Xu! Why should you lie? Your Junior Brother doesn’t seem to be simple, huh?”
Colors drained from Old Man Xu’s face right away. Gulping a mouthful of saliva, he did not dare to say anything more. Zhang Lisheng, who was by the side stood up instead and smiled wryly. “It’s not that I’m not simple, but it’s just that the checkpoint we came across just now doesn’t seem normal. There are only a total of 40,000 people in the South African Army, but there are already eight armed armored vehicles and more than 300 armed and elite infantry on one side of the checkpoint just now. Adding both sides on each other would amount to 16 armored vehicles and about 700 infantry. Which country would use a ground force close to 2% of its military on a checkpoint…”
“Director Liang, I was deep in my thoughts just now, so I didn’t look outside of the window. Is it true that the checkpoint just now had a situation like this?” Captain Hu’s expression immediately changed as she asked hastily.
“I didn’t pay any attention either. However, before the bus reached the checkpoint, I did indeed see many armed armored vehicles and soldiers on the road. Don’t panic, I’ll call my friend in the Cape Town garrison to see what is going on. ”
“Stop the bus! We’re being used as a bait by the South African government!” Captain Hu did not wait for Director Liang to make the call and quickly made a judgment before shouting out loud.
The driver who was originally a soldier driver officer slammed the break, causing the speeding bus to make a sharp and ear-jarring sound on the road before coming to a halt.
The entire bus fell into silence, only the panicked heavy breathing of the crowd could be heard. A few seconds later, Consultant Zheng once again broke the silence and looked at Zhang Lisheng before asking, “Young man, since you’ve already seen through those black men’s possible trick, I don’t understand why you didn’t inform us but wanted to jump down from the car and flee instead?”
“Because I can also hear some mysterious sounds resonating in the distance. Although I don’t know what it is, I can tell that there are a lot of them,” Zhang Lisheng replied honestly. “And when I recall how those South African government forces are on standby, I feel that there should indeed be a bait in front to attract the attention. I should see how the situation would turn out first before I can relax.”
Upon hearing the teenager’s explanation, the crowd burst into a clamor. Only Consultant Zheng clicked his tongue chuckling loudly and replied, “Young man, your honesty really makes me be at a loss for words. Actually, you did nothing wrong as well. As a human, we need to either have strength or intellect. If we don’t have both and would become panicked in a critical situation, it serves us right to die too.”
As his nightingale-like laughter resonated in the bus, a bloody fist suddenly punched through the floor of the bus with a ‘thud’.
Then, in the panic fleeing of several people, a blob of bloody flesh wiggled its way like noodles into the bus and started to be molded into a humanoid figure by an invisible hand in the air.
Seeing that the great wizard had started to get prepared now, some of the few smart people in the bus immediately cast their own life-saving tricks as well.
At this time, Director Liang, who had already made a few calls and all that he obtained was perfunctory answers, also had his expression turned grave. Directly, he said straightforwardly, “Captain Hu, the situation does indeed seems not right.”
“Director Liang, I’m well-informed already. Everybody, don’t panic! The reason we came to South Africa is to look for the entrance to the supernatural realm and then collect intelligence, isn’t it? This is our luck for having the chance to come across the aliens from the supernatural realm the moment we reached Cape Town!” Seeing that the situation was starting to get out of hand, Captain Hu calmed the team down and shouted solemnly with a grave expression. “Now that everybody is here! Our mission will officially start now! My first order–everybody, get out of the bus now!”
Compared to the unknown in the darkness outside, of course, the brightly lit bus seemed to be much safer in comparison. For this reason, nobody carried out the Captain’s order right away.
However, just as everybody else hesitated, Zhang Lisheng had already pulled Old Man Xu forcefully and walked towards the door of the bus in great strides. At the moment when the huge door of the bus creaked open, he jumped down from the car.
In the cool breeze of the wilderness, a series of beasts howling continued to resonate through the dark night.
After taking a few refreshing breaths and looking up at the dark clouds in the sky that had completely covered the moonlight, Zhang Lisheng murmured, “Great! It looks like heavy rain is coming soon…”
“A heavy rain is great? In this wilderness that has no shelter at all, wouldn’t we be completely wet if heavy rain falls? Boy! Why do you want to pull me forcefully and let me be the first person to get down from the bus…?” Old Man Xu muttered in dissatisfaction.
“Uncle, we could originally hide somewhere safely to watch a great show, but it’s your loud voice that caused the plan to dash to pieces! Just this alone is already enough for me to repay half of the favor of you giving me the witchcraft True Book. Stop being so noisy anymore! Why don’t you think about it yourself? We’d only become a target if we continue to stay on the bus in such a situation.”
Old Man Xu became stunned for a moment before finally composing himself. “You have a point. However, boy! You really are ruthless! To think you could actually describe it as ‘a great show’…”
As the old man was muttering, horror dawned on Zhang Lisheng right away. With one foot, he tripped the old man and crouched down on the ground making the illusion that his body was small.
Right at that instant when the teenager crouched down, a series of dense buzzing sounds resonated from the distance. Then, in the midst of the ear-piercing whooshing sound that soared across the sky, thousands of round wasp pupae the size of a chicken egg flew towards them, crashing onto the bus and causing it to be riddled with holes.
Judging from the density of the attack, there should be no survivors left in the bus after this single round of attacks. However, in fact, under the protection of the flesh shield that shrouded the insides of the bus, there was no casualty at all within, though the light inside had dimmed.
After blocking the stone catapult attack, the flesh shield on the bus wall began to wriggle and shrink back to become an ordinary-sized living corpse. Consultant Zheng smiled. “We’ve already blocked this first round of attacks, but I can’t be so sure about the next round. It’s much safer for us to go down from the bus now.”
Then, he proceeded to lead his living corpses to get down from the bus.
After he left, the young wizards and witches who finally snapped back to reality rushed against one another towards the door of the bus.
“Don’t they know about breaking the window and jumping from the bus?” Zhang Lisheng who crept up from the ground and saw the crowded scene at the bus door walked to the front of the bus and dug out a stone bullet before muttering to himself, “The texture is of stone and it has the size of an egg. There’s even water droplet on the surface… Water droplet, steam… Don’t tell me that there really is a steam civilization…”
When the teenager was making an assumption of the enemy’s background from the bullets they left behind, the young wizards and witches who ran down from the bus calmed down and began to take the initiative to gather according to their teams.
The wizards who cultivated the Witchcraft’s Gate of Death began to command their wizard gus to jump out of their bag-packs or items of luggage to form a shield in front of the crowds.
The wizards who cultivated the Gate of Sacrifice and Life also began to strain their bodies and move in a stance to charge out their energy.
“Let’s go, boy! It’s time for us to assemble! There’s no use for us to think of an idea now that we’ve come to such a situation. Gathering is much safer now.” Upon seeing that the group had finished assembling, Old Man Xu pulled Zhang Lisheng’s arms and hastily ran towards Team Leader Cui and the three others.
Just as the two of them returned to their teams, the bus suddenly started and sped away into the distance.
“The car is gone! Why did the car leave…”
“The reason the car left is to distract the enemy’s attention. The driver Zhang Min, our comrade, has already decided to sacrifice his life to save us. Everybody, pay attention! All of us must be very careful now!” Captain Hu explained at the front of the group. “Our current situation is terrible and it’s a good thing Director Liang knows the way! Heading to the west should be safe…”
All of a sudden, a loud bang resonated and cut off the captain’s order. Then, a pile of blazing fire began to ignite on the distant road.
Zhang Lisheng looked at the devastating fire and muttered to himself, “The bus exploded.” Then, he proceeded to turn his attention back to the several dozens of ferocious-looking wizard gus crouching on the ground not far away.
A crimson red centipede that was about a meter long, a Yunnan mountain scorpion that was as huge as a basin, a wasp that was as huge as a fist was flapping its wings buzzingly… Naturally, these poisonous insects were indeed horrifying in the eyes of an ordinary person, but when the teenager saw it, he could not help but feel absurd. He really did not understand why these kinds of wizard gus would be worthy to be nurtured by their owners’ blood essence.
“Don’t tell me these wizard gus have some other omniscient power…” He muttered to himself. “But is it possible to have so many wizard gus with omniscient power?”
As Zhang Lisheng was muttering to himself, Captain Hu began to assign tasks to Cui Xiaodong who had turned into a faint silver-grey complexion. “Team Leader Cui, you have the protection from the Golden Bull Gu’s omniscient power, so you have the most powerful strength, agility, and defense among everybody. You’ll protect Director Liang and walk at the frontmost area of the team. Do you have any objection, Consultant Zheng?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Alright, let’s go!”