Chapter Fifteen: I Will Stand Behind You

A short while later, the special operations team members stumbled in from all directions, looking utterly disheveled. It was clear from the expressions on their faces that morale was low.

"Is everyone alright?" Wang Yinlong asked.

"Liuyun wasn’t so lucky—he got hit by a tree branch and broke his arm," Ye Qiang replied as he took a seat next to Wang Yinlong.

Wang Yinlong glanced at the group and saw Liuyun clutching his twisted right arm with his left hand, his face pale and contorted in pain.

"You’ve all had a tough time," Wang Yinlong said, feeling troubled himself.

The Space Force was an elite unit of China, skilled with all kinds of firearms and adept at operating various types of drones. Some could even fly planes, drive tanks, and wage information warfare. But now, these elite soldiers were reduced to fighting monsters with primitive stone tools.

There was simply no other way—they had to find a solution to deal with the creature. Otherwise, how could they safely draw water from the lake? But what could they use? Their equipment was woefully inadequate. The stone implements they carried couldn’t possibly breach the creature’s defenses, let alone kill it. Should they try fire? But they had no gasoline. Poison? They risked contaminating the water supply.

"Do you have any good ideas?" Wang Yinlong looked at Ye Qiang.

Ye Qiang could only shake his head helplessly.

…

As the group sat in gloomy silence, the rest of the main force arrived. Some of the elderly were carried in by the Space Force.

Once the advance team had regrouped, Wang Yinlong briefed everyone on the lake and the monstrous creature within it. To give them a clearer sense of the beast, he placed the carcass of a small animal by the lakeshore. Before long, the monster emerged again, dragging the animal’s body into the water.

Witnessing the creature’s size firsthand was far more shocking than anything Wang Yinlong’s words could convey. The group fell silent. A beast like this—if it appeared in the real world, you’d need tanks and aircraft to deal with it. Yet here they were, without so much as a decent blade among them. The only advantage the advance team had was their numbers.

But what good were numbers? They could hardly hope to overwhelm the monster by sheer mass alone.

Chen Nian sat quietly in a corner, observing the environment: forest, trees, a small lake, riverbank, the monster, simple stone tools, a large group of people… All these details coalesced in his mind.

…

"Let’s put our heads together and see if anyone can think of a way to deal with this monster," Wang Yinlong said to the crowd.

Zhou Zhicheng stepped forward. "The monster’s back is covered in thick scales—I doubt even a gun could penetrate them. A frontal assault is hopeless. If we want to deal a fatal blow, we’ll have to flip it over somehow…"

"Flip it? How? That thing is monstrously strong. If it so much as grazed one of us, we’d be seriously injured," Ye Qiang, who had already witnessed the creature’s strength, said gravely.

"Maybe we could dig a big pit and fill it with sharp spikes… What do you think?" someone else suggested.

A pit? How big would it have to be? The creature was over ten meters long. To trap it completely, they’d need a trench at least thirty or forty meters long, seven or eight meters wide, and five or six meters deep. Anything smaller, and the creature could just avoid it.

And without proper tools, how long would it take to dig such a pit? The advance team had plenty of people, but with a trench that size, at most a hundred could dig at once. If they hit a tough layer of earth halfway through, who knew how long it would take? The team only had three days in this alien metaverse—surely, they couldn’t afford to waste all their time on one monster. If that was the case, they might as well look for another water source.

Seeing everyone at a loss, Wang Yinlong felt overwhelmed. He knew far more than the others. He was well aware that other countries had likely sent in large contingents of their own; some might already be establishing strongholds. As the saying goes: the first step is the hardest, but once you’re ahead, you’ll stay ahead. If they could establish a base first, they could forge cold weapons sooner, and with those, craft even more advanced tools. With better equipment, their exploration would proceed much faster. More importantly, if their rivals gained a technological edge, would China’s team be able to explore in peace? If there was a technology gap, and they ever ran into the others, the consequences could be dire.

The advance team had to make good use of their three days. Even if they couldn’t seize an advantage, they had to avoid falling behind. That was the whole reason for deploying ten thousand people as the vanguard.

…

"Wang, Captain—why don’t you let me take command of the mission to eliminate this monster?"

In the hush that followed, Chen Nian suddenly stepped forward. Instantly, every eye turned to him. Even Chen Nian himself was taken aback. He had come up with a plan in his head, but wasn’t entirely confident, and had still been hesitating about whether to step forward. Yet here he was…

"Are you controlling me?" he asked silently in his mind.

"Yes. I think your plan could work. I have to admit, you’re quite capable in some respects."

"But…"

"I know you’re not completely confident—you’re afraid you might get someone killed. And you’ve never commanded others in a realistic environment like this; you’re worried it won’t be like a game in the metaverse. But Chen Nian, you have to seize this opportunity. Don’t you feel you’ve been too invisible in the advance team? Have you forgotten what you hoped for when you came here? Didn’t you want to prove yourself?"

"You should have a sense by now what this world is like. Individual strength, no matter how great, is of little use—at least for now. If it came down to personal combat, we’d be the strongest in the advance team. But if a hundred people swarmed us, we couldn’t withstand it either. That’s why we need our own power base. And to have that, we must attract the authorities’ attention. Ideally, join the Space Force. If you remain invisible, forget about joining them—next time, you might not even be allowed in. Look at some of the others in the advance team—I’d bet they won’t be included next time, or if they are, they won’t be in the inner circle."

"Why are you more ambitious than I am? What exactly do you want?" Chen Nian retorted.

"I just want to stay alive. This body only has a year left. If you’re not motivated, I’ll have to push you. Besides, don’t you want to protect your friends? I think, sooner or later, they’ll end up here too. When that happens, you can’t protect them all by yourself, can you?"

"I know all that. But if I fail, it could all backfire spectacularly," Chen Nian said, his tone growing serious.

"Don’t worry. Just go for it—I’ll cover you."