Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 580 Commando Team

As the commander, Chen Jing naturally saw the situation at the bottom of the pit. He immediately ordered, "Prepare for the first wave of artillery fire! All units, load No. 4 incendiary shells and unleash three waves of progressive barrage to cover the entire bottom of the pit!"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a series of muffled thuds were heard, and a dense barrage of shells was launched, tracing graceful arcs through the air before landing in the large crater.

The puppets reacted quickly, with countless mycelia rapidly weaving a large net that caught the vast majority of the shells falling from the sky. Only a very small number of shells managed to pass through the mesh, and more than 90% of the remaining shells were not even triggered.

The mycelial golems are afraid of fire, but these few stragglers alone are not enough to burn all the mycelial golems at the bottom of the pit. Chen Jing frowned and immediately said, "Cease fire! Loaders of all units, change the fuses of the incendiary bombs to timed triggers, and set the detonation time according to the flight time of the shells in the previous round! Continue the second round of shelling in ninety seconds!"

The explosive incendiary shells produced by Bai's military industry all adopt a modular design, and the fuse installed at the front of the shell can be replaced at any time. In addition to being used as shells, these shells can also be modified into time bombs and landmines, and can even be used as warheads for ballistic missiles. They can be described as a highly versatile type of ammunition.

For a skilled loader, changing the fuse and setting the detonation time only takes a minute. Apart from the hunters, the second-phase hunting team brought by Bai Lingqiu consists entirely of experienced retired veterans who operate these heavy weapons.

After being hired by the Bai Group, these retired veterans usually work as consultants, weapons testers, or security personnel. But when it comes to critical moments, once the equipment is deployed, this group of people can instantly become a highly capable private army.

Ninety seconds had passed, and before the trails left by the first volley of shells in the spore fog had completely dissipated, the second volley of shells had already followed those trails and fallen into the crater once again.

Two seconds later, flames erupted inside the pit!
The hunters behind the artillery position cheered – although the battle had nothing to do with them so far, who wouldn't enjoy watching modern heavy firepower fight against powerful monsters?
In Charles's words, seeing such a grand spectacle, even if he could only stand on the sidelines and watch, would still be worth the ticket price.

The towering flames and thick smoke lasted for more than ten minutes before the incendiary agent inside the explosive bomb was completely consumed.

Looking at the large pit billowing with thick smoke, Yang Qiaoxi couldn't help but rub her nose and whisper, "I don't know why, but I suddenly have a very bad feeling."

“It feels right.” Sun Hang waved the tablet in his hand at her. The dense dots on the screen hadn’t decreased much—the explosive bomb made a lot of noise, but its actual lethality to the mycelium puppet was lower than everyone expected.

"Tsk... How could this be? Aren't these things supposed to be very afraid of fire?" Charles exclaimed in astonishment.

“Biographies evolve adaptively in response to changes in their environment, and the same mechanism applies to the monsters, but they do it even faster,” Zhulong said calmly. “In the last battle, many mycelial puppets were burned to ashes, and those that escaped back to the bottom of the pit brought this information back with them… So many days have passed, enough time for their memes to undergo corresponding mutations.”

At the same time, at the hunting party's command post not far away, Chen Jing and Bai Lingqiu reached the same conclusion.

“Since incendiary bombs aren’t very effective, let’s just bombard them with conventional shells!” Meng Yunfeng pointed to the cluster of light spots on the screen that had only decreased by less than 10%. Even if the monsters have evolved fire resistance, pure kinetic energy can still effectively kill them. The main purpose of the heavy weapons we brought this time is to eliminate those puppets and weaken the monsters’ defenses… Although those free hunters have a lot of bad habits, we spent a lot of money recruiting them, so we didn’t send them to watch the show. My suggestion is to conduct multiple rounds of bombardment first, and after a gap is torn in the upper-level puppets, then send the hunters down…”

“Too late.” Chen Jing shook his head. He recalled the first time he fought these mycelium golems, and how the shattered golem fragments reassembled themselves. “As long as these mycelium golems aren’t burned to ashes, even if they’re blown to pieces, they can regenerate. By the time the hunters descend to the bottom of the pit, they will be facing thousands upon thousands of mycelium golems, with no chance of even touching the monster itself.”

According to the original battle plan, they intended to use incendiary bombs to clear out the mycelium puppets gathered on the upper level, and then expose the monster's main body to the public before deciding on the next battle strategy. Of course, if the fire caused by the incendiary bombs could force the insect grass monster's main body out of the pit, that would be the best-case scenario.

However, once these mycelial golems were no longer afraid of fire, the hunters lost the means to completely eliminate them.

“I don’t believe they can keep regenerating!” Meng Yunfeng frowned. “If we blow them up ten or eight times, into pieces smaller than a fingernail… even if they were to regenerate, it would take quite a while, right? As long as we can get these hunters to the monster’s true form, our mission will be complete.”

“Saturation bombing might work, but we don’t have the chance to try it.” Bai Lingqiu shook his head. “We don’t have that many munitions.”

“We lost a truck with one-sixth of its ammunition reserves during the crossing of the no-man's-land,” sighed a retired veteran in charge of managing the ammunition. “The first wave of attacks used up one-third of the remaining ammunition, and the remaining two-thirds are far from enough for saturation bombing.”

“It’s already very difficult to organize a third wave of people to send more ammunition over from Dragon City,” Chen Jing sighed. “The larger the convoy, the more obvious the target, and the easier it is to attract the pursuit of the Death Sandstorm… And most of the experienced hunters and guides are already here. Not to mention these puppets can adapt and evolve… Nobody knows what they will look like after the ammunition arrives.” “Then tell me, what should we do now?” Meng Yunfeng said irritably, arms crossed.

"Do as you just said," Chen Jing said.

"Huh?" Meng Yunfeng was taken aback. "Didn't they say there wasn't enough ammunition?"

"So we need to concentrate all our firepower to tear a gap in the upper puppets, open a temporary passage, and then send the hunters in," Chen Jing said. "I just calculated it on the computer. As long as we control the blast radius, we have at least a six-minute window of time—we can use drones to send the hunters directly above the pit, blast open the passage, and then immediately drop them in... Six minutes is enough time for them to reach the bottom of the pit."

Hearing Chen Jing say this, Meng Yunfeng's eyelids twitched involuntarily: "This plan... sounds like sending these hunters to their deaths... and the passage will disappear in six minutes, how are they going to get out?"

“Once the monster’s main body is destroyed, the puppets will disintegrate on their own,” Chen Jing said.

"No, no, no... What I mean is, this plan is a complete gamble, a life-or-death situation... If those hunters can't kill the monster's main body, they're doomed. I won't even mention the compensation and the group's reputation later. Just the fact that you've revealed this plan now is enough to make those hunters risk breaching their contracts to leave the hunting party... It could even lead to the worst possible outcome."

Meng Yunfeng stopped speaking halfway through his sentence.

"Mutiny." The "Shadow Lady" standing behind Bai Lingqiu finished the two words he hadn't said.

“We need to form a fearless commando team. Those who are willing to join the commando team will have their mission rewards tripled, their compensation five times higher, and there will be additional bonuses.” At Chen Jing’s signal, a security guard from the Chen Group placed a small box on the table. Inside the box were several stacks of anonymous black prepaid cards.

“Each card has three million in cash pre-deposited. This is my personal property. As long as you join the commando team, you can immediately receive a black card as an incentive for brave people.” Chen Jing continued, “Since Tian Shu Tower can offer exorbitant bounties to attract free hunters from all over the world, we can follow suit… With such a high reward, there is never a shortage of brave men.”

Bai Lingqiu and Meng Yunfeng exchanged a glance, and the latter nodded: "I think we can give it a try."

"In addition, we need a strong enough leader to lead the assault team to the bottom of the pit... Do you have a suitable candidate?"

At this moment, Cheng Ming, who had been sitting and listening without saying a word, suddenly stood up and said, "I'll go."

After he finished speaking, even he was stunned for a moment. His mind had been in a daze for a moment, as if someone had taken over his body and manipulated him to stand up and say those two words.

And now, after doing that, that guy has returned his body to Cheng Ming.

All eyes in the command tent were now focused on Cheng Ming. Even if Cheng Ming wanted to back out now, these people probably wouldn't agree so easily.

"This is an opportunity," the mysterious girl's voice rang in my ears. "A golden opportunity."

"Was that you just now?" Cheng Ming questioned in his mind.

"I just helped you seize this fleeting opportunity," the mysterious girl said. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. I won't let anything happen to you... until you complete our deal."

(End of this chapter)