Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Curtain of the Blood Night Rises

“The three fellows from the north are quite cunning…”
“They actually chose to launch a surprise attack at night!”
“Fortunately, I had already deployed the zombie crows to the northern side, just waiting for them to take the bait.”
“Good, testing organic biological weapons under cover of darkness won’t easily cause panic within the Black Market.”
“Go, fetch Joe for me!”
Ye Hai casually plucked a zombie crow from his shoulder and tossed it forcefully into the sky.
The crow soared upwards, circled briefly above Ye Hai’s head, then sped off toward Joe’s residence.

Before long, Joe appeared at Ye Hai’s side, dark circles under his eyes.
“Damn northerners, why must they disturb someone’s sleep!”
“A bunch of morally corrupt, utterly rude bastards…”
Joe, woken abruptly, was fuming with anger.
Since returning to the Black Market, he’d been busy handling countless affairs across the territory.
He’d participated in negotiations with Ye Hai as well, leaving him thoroughly exhausted.
He finally had some leisure, thinking he could get a good night’s sleep.
But that very night, the three northern factions could no longer hold back.

“Take a hundred mutant mosquitoes, fifty Tyrants, a hundred each of Lickers and Hunters, and head down the mountain.”
“I’ll go wake up Teach and Nangong…”
“Once the weapon test is done tonight, send them packing.”
“Oh, and notify Veronica’s combat squad—the relatives of Lianna.”
“Have them immediately reinforce security near the canteen.”
“And inform the outer members to strengthen patrols around the territory, and assign more men to each outpost!”
“Lately, I’ve felt a persistent sense of unease.”
Joe yawned, waved his hand, and turned to leave.

Soon, Ye Hai led Teach and Nangong to the banquet hall of the canteen, arranging some refreshments.
“Gentlemen, can you contact the fleet to observe and project the images here?”
“The satellites of Zombie Star were all snatched by you during the Great Plundering.”
“You truly are a bunch of bandits—not content with looting all terrestrial tech resources, you even took the satellites before leaving.”
“Next time you visit, bring me a couple of satellites!”
“Otherwise, communication is really troublesome.”
After Ye Hai’s words, the two nodded in agreement.

Communication on Zombie Star was indeed inconvenient.
Teach and Nangong now used their spaceships as satellites, which made message transmission somewhat cumbersome.
Moreover, both planned to send teams to explore and mine Zombie Star next; without smooth communications, many tasks would be impossible.

Soon, Teach’s men set up the holographic projection platform.
After connecting with the Borogen Stellar flagship, the platform was activated.

Instantly, a holographic image of the entire northern mountain range unfolded before them.
They pinpointed the enemy moving under cover of night, then magnified the local image.
Before long, data from space was relayed back.

The enemy force numbered about three thousand, each armed with firearms, some with high-energy weapons.
If not for the corpse catchers, and given the surprise attack by night, with the attackers prepared and the defenders unprepared, they could easily breach the defenses of the Plat Black Market.
The henchmen of the taboo figures, including the outer members of the corpse catcher organization, were a motley crew.
Facing a surprise attack, they’d be easily routed and destroyed piecemeal.

Fortunately, Ye Hai had made preparations; now, these three thousand had transformed from hunters to prey.
They were merely targets for testing the power of biological weapons.

Soon, mutant mosquitoes appeared on the screen.
Under cover of darkness, they swiftly closed in on the enemy, swooping from the dense treetops.
Hunters and Lickers darted and leaped nimbly among the forest trees.
Tyrants advanced like tanks, pushing straight toward their targets.

The battle erupted quickly…
No, it was less a battle than a one-sided massacre.
When the mutant mosquitoes suddenly burst from the treetops with savage ferocity, plunging into the crowd and feeding madly, the enemy was utterly unprepared.
Chaos ensued immediately.

The enemy began firing back, but the mosquitoes had already penetrated their ranks.
The attackers were a dense mass, lacking formation or discipline.
With bodies pressed together, errant gunfire only killed their own.
Thus, the chaos only deepened.

When the Lickers, Hunters, and Tyrants joined the fray, the scene became extraordinarily bloody.
Yet Ye Hai frowned.

These enemies were simply too weak.
They couldn’t showcase the true strength of the biological weapons.

He stole a glance at Teach and Nangong, observing their reactions.
Teach was calm, watching the slaughter without emotion.
Nangong, on the other hand, looked excited, clearly satisfied with the results.

On Chaos Star, such wars were commonplace.
Every warlord maintained a cannon fodder army, just like the enemy before them—lacking real combat ability.
But in the era of energy weapons, equipping this rabble with guns and artillery could still inflict casualties on regular troops.

Therefore, how to eliminate the enemy’s cannon fodder with minimal cost was a problem all Chaos Star warlords had to consider.

In this massacre, Nangong saw an effective solution to cannon fodder armies, and the result was impressive.
More remarkably, the biological weapons suffered almost no losses.
Nangong realized that even if the opposition wielded energy weapons, once chaos spread, they could inflict only minimal harm on the biological units.
Just this advantage—replacing cannon fodder with biological weapons—would save massive funds.
It was undoubtedly a profitable arrangement.

While Nangong was in high spirits, the feed suddenly cut out.
He looked at Teach in confusion.
“What’s going on? Your flagship can’t even maintain a holographic signal?”
Teach, stung by Nangong’s remark, looked embarrassed.
He pulled out his communicator to contact the flagship, but no matter how he called, there was no response.

Seeing this, Ye Hai suddenly sensed something was wrong.
The unease in his heart intensified.

Suddenly, the sound of fierce gunfire erupted outside.
Ye Hai was startled.
He rushed to the window, and saw about a hundred meters away, the forces of Rakan, Bell, and Hukun were unleashing a torrent of fire on the nearby guards.

Teach and Nangong’s men numbered only four hundred; with Ye Hai’s deployed Veronica combat squad, they barely reached five hundred.
Though each wielded high-energy weapons, so did the enemy—and their numbers far exceeded the defenders, even possessing high-energy artillery.
In a single exchange, the First Defense Army and the Talan Army were thoroughly suppressed and forced onto the defensive, with casualties rising rapidly.

Ye Hai’s expression turned grim.
“Damn it… Where are the sentries at the front outposts?”
“All twenty-one outposts eliminated simultaneously?”
“Impossible!”
“But how did the enemy penetrate so deep, without a single warning signal?”
“And my zombie crows—no message from them either.”
“Who’s supplying these bastards with so many weapons?”

As Ye Hai’s mind raced furiously, the ceiling above suddenly collapsed with a thunderous crash.
A massive alloy war hammer, carrying the force of a lightning bolt, swung down toward Ye Hai…