Swallowed Star Volume 4 - Chapter 4: GRADE 3 RAT TIDE

VOLUME 4 CHAPTER 4: GRADE 3 RAT TIDE
The black rat tide seemed infinite, and was wide enough to cover the whole highway. It seemed to stretch on for over 100 meters. With each rat monster being 30 cm in length, there were definitely over ten thousand monsters in this rat tide. And this rat tide counts as a small one. Even a wargod will die if he gets caught in it!
So Luo Feng only had one choice……
“Run!” Luo Feng immediately started sprinting on the highway.
“HU, HU, HU~~”
Wan Dong and the other two had threw away their blades, shields, and other weapons a long time ago. Each of them were sprinting as the rat tide behind them chased incessantly. The distance between them shortened from 20 meters, to 15 meters, 14 meters, 13 meters…..
“Fuck!”
“What’s taking the army so long!”
“If they don’t come soon, we’re dead”
Wan Dong and the others cursed in their hearts and clenched their teeth as they accelerated, increasing the distance between them and the rat tide. They directly pulled away to 30 meters. Only after that did Wan Dong and the other two start decelerating.
“I can’t run anymore”
“Me neither”
Wan Dong and the other two exchanged glances, and all of them were in bitter pain. Their maximum sprint speed is way faster than this rat tide, but since it’s their maximum, they won’t be able to maintain it for long! For example, it was pretty good for the humans before the Grand Nirvana period to run 100 meters in 10 seconds.
100 meters, in around 10 seconds.
But what about 1,000 meters? Can they do that in 100 seconds?
10,000 meters? Could they do it in 1,000 seconds? In fact, before the Grand Nirvana period, the record for the males 10,000 meter run was around 1,580 seconds.
Fighters now are the same. Wan Dong and the others can run 60 m/s in their maximum sprint speed, but they’ve been running for nearly half an hour now. Right now, they can barely keep up a speed of 40 m/s! Only when the rat tide nears them do they force themselves with their lives on the line to run faster!
Wan Dong and the others have ran about 300 miles! One could imagine how tired they are!
“Hurry up and come, army”
“This is pretty close to the resupplying base, how come the army still isn’t here” Wan Dong and the other two were starting to lose feeling in their legs; their muscles were too tired to run any faster.
And Luo Feng maintained an astonishing speed of 60 m/s while carrying his blade and shield. Wan Dong and the other two have used up most of their energy, but Luo Feng is still in peak condition!
Luo Feng was already pretty far from the rat tide, so he quickly lost them.
“Eh?” with a glance, Luo Feng saw a deep blue shadow coming from far away in the sky. At first, he thought it was some sort of flying monster, but as the deep blue flying object neared, Luo Feng realized what it was. It was some sort of flat, round, saucer shaped military aircraft!
Most of the military’s aircraft are made in this shape, since it’s easier to attack and defend against flying monsters in the air.
“Army!”
“It’s the army’s aircraft!” the exhausted trio suddenly gave an excited yell, and each of them started accelerating.
Luo Feng, who was still sprinting, also slowed down. He raised his head and watched the military aircraft rush towards the monster horde. When it was around 100 meters above the ground, it started hovering perfectly above the monster horde. With Luo Feng’s eyesight, he saw a gigantic cannon come out of the bottom of the aircraft.
“RUMBLE~~~”
A neverending flame started ferociously shooting out the cannon, directly covering the rat tide below. The temperature of the flame was probably a couple thousand degrees, and most of the rat monsters were burned alive. Suddenly, the usually neat rat tide crumbled entirely. They ran in all directions while giving off horrified yells.
However, under the cage of flame, most of the rat monsters were directly burned to death. A portion of the rat monsters ran into the abandoned fields beside the highway, directly burrowed into the ground, and disappeared.
“You four fighters, a grade 3 rat tide has emerged in a thousand mile radius. Please return to the resupplying base. It’s not too late to come back to the wilderness after the rat tide alert has been called off” a sound carried from the aircraft. Suddenly, it split the air as it flew away, headed off to save the other fighters.
Wan Dong and the other two let out a deep, long breath.
“We’ve kept our lives”
“We were so close to being finished”. These three were extremely tired.
“Luo Feng” Wan Dong couldn’t help but to yell into the distance, “Anything to eat? Give us something to eat! To drink?”
Luo Feng laughed as he came over. The Wan Dong in front of him wasn’t cold and sullen like before. He was exhausted, and filled with joy! After sprinting for his life for around 300 miles, his body used up an astonishing amount of energy. Luo Feng took out a bag from the side pocket of his backpack and took out three balls: “These three are high energy candies, hm, and here’s a sack of water”.
Luo Feng handed them over, and each of them swallowed the high energy candy. The water in the sack was split up and quickly finished.
“Luo Feng, thanks” said Wan Dong thankfully, “Let me introduce to you. The one beside me is called Wang Ke. The other is called Jiang Tu”.
“I’ve long heard about Crazy’s famous name” said the handsome Wang Ke as laughed.
“Crazy, your one high energy candy tastes better than the most expensive delicacy. I was starving, but now I feel much more comfortable” said Jiang Tu, who had a huge beard.
Luo Feng walked and chatted with Wan Dong and the other two.
“How’d you guys encounter the rat tide? That military aircraft said, a grade three rat tide?” the city Luo Feng was in was too close to the resupplying base, so he didn’t have a chance to personally experience the rat tide.
“I’ve finally seen how powerful the rat tide is” Wan Dong couldn’t help but to say, “Before, we were resting on the rooftop of a residential apartment in a country city, but suddenly, large amounts of rat monsters appeared all over the entire city. It was truly infinite! We were so scared that we immediately used steel wires to escape from rooftop to rooftop, we didn’t dare to go down!”.
Luo Feng was astonished, he was completely able to imagine a scene with an uncountable amount of rat monsters appearing in a country city.
“Thankfully, our squad was in the suburbs of the country city. We clenched our teeth, picked an alley with the fewest rat monsters, and ran for our lives!”.
“However, on the way, we encountered another rat tide. We didn’t have a choice, our squad could only split up and run, making the rat tide split too! We were lucky, we ran to the highway and only a small rat tide was chasing us! While running, Wang Ke and I met this Jiang Tu guy. He pretty much went through the same experience we did”.
Wan Dong laughed bitterly as he said: “I wonder how captain and the others are doing”.
In a place with many streets and alleys, they could split up and run, causing the rat tide to split up too. However, they didn’t dare do such a thing on the highway, since only the abandoned fields were beside it. It’s harder for humans to sprint in these fields. And the geographical environment of the fields doesn’t really have much of an impact on the rat monsters.
That’s why everyone runs on the highway and aren’t willing to enter the abandoned fields.
※※
Luo Feng and the others arrived in the fighter resupplying base. At this time, a large amount of fighters were gathered at the gate of the base.
“Crazy, I knew that you wouldn’t die”
“Crazy, did you see old Liu and the others in the #0231 country level city?”
As he walked into the resupplying base, quite a few fighters who recognized Luo Feng came to give their greetings and ask questions, since a rat tide explosion is an extremely dangerous case. Thankfully, this was just a ‘grade three rat tide’, so it wasn’t too dangerous. If it was the legendary grade one rat tide, then even the entire Jiang-Nan headquarters city would be in danger!
“Old Wang, have my captain and the others returned yet?” Wan Dong started asking around.
“Haven’t seen them”
“Your captain and the others aren’t back, it’s not recorded here”
……
Today was a sad day for the resupplying base. Quite a few fighters lost their lives. As for the three wargods that entered the wilderness today, one of them was actually surrounded by the infinite rat tide and was lost in it.
The rat tide crazily attacked with all they had, and….. killed a wargod!
Yes, today, a human wargod has fallen!
There aren’t just soldier level rat monsters in the rat tide, there are also commander level existences. And the leader of the rat tide is extremely intelligent, once they select a target, they’ll disregard everything else! It was said that while that human wargod was struggling, around ten skyscrapers were destroyed, causing millions of rat monsters to die.
Sadly, millions of rat monsters means nothing to the rat tide which contains billions.
Because of that……
This wargod died!
“RUMBLE~~~” the dark clouds rolled and the harsh winds covered the entire land. Sometimes, the sound of thunder could be heard, and with one of the thunder’s explosion, heavy rain started pouring.
On the rooftop of a villa in the resupplying base, Luo Feng sat on the balcony.
“Captain, I’m fine, I was pretty lucky. Didn’t get surrounded by the rat tide”
“Brother Chen, yea, I’m fine”
“Brother Tie, haha, you can hear my voice. Of course I’m fine”
Luo Feng received several phone calls, since a grade three rat tide event only appears around once a generation. Because of that, most of the fighters in Jiang-Nan city knew what happened. Every time a rat tide case occurs, or the even more horrifying ‘ant tide’, many human fighters die. In this case, a human wargod has fallen. A big loss to the entire Jiang-Nan city.
“Just a grade three rat tide caused so many people to die”
“Then what about the legendary grade one rat tide?”
“Or the legendary war between humans and monsters?”
The war between humans and monsters, is the war between two civilizations, the war between two races! Once the war begins, countless kinds of monsters appear. Ground monsters, all sorts of flying type monsters, monsters that use quantity of quality, monsters with immeasurable power, burrowing monsters, poisonous monsters, monsters with flying attacks and sound wave attacks……
The ground and the sky are covered with countless monsters. There are also burrowing monsters in the ground, and monsters in the lakes.
Things like the rat tide and the ant nest are just a portion of them.
This is the most horrifying war!
“Monsters are the enemies of us humans. Right now, the monsters have complete control over the sea. On the ground, humans have the advantage. However, monsters have the advantage in the sky! Humans are forced into headquarter cities and to counter attack from there!” Luo Feng never realized this in the past. He always felt like monsters were just being slaughtered by fighters, but today he finally realized……
Monsters are entirely capable of wiping humanity off the face of the earth.
If humanity goes extinct, what’s the point of talking about family, what’s the point of talking about cultures, ethics, and morals?
“My strength isn’t enough. Not even close to enough” Luo Feng gazed at the infinite sky and earth.
BOOM!
KA!
The thunder roared, and a flash of lightning came crashing down from the sky.
“Thunderbolt…..” Luo Feng stared at the lightning in the faraway sky and suddenly grasped something in his heart.