This Game Is Too Realistic-Chapter 579.2: Judgment Panel

"Goddamn it, what’s taking him so long!" cursed a man clutching a light machine gun. "Don’t tell me he screwed it up."

Another man with a cold expression spoke softly. "Unlikely. The rat’s alone, and Wu Zhe isn’t a rookie. He’ll manage."

It’s just a small matter, right?

Li Jie glanced toward the side hall, voice unreadable. "Let’s hope so."

Truthfully, he trusted Wu Zhe.

The man was a veteran of the squad. Before arriving in Brocade Lake Municipality, they had done plenty of missions together, and Wu Zhe had never let him down.

Yet... despite the mission being so simple, unease gnawed at him. As if something unexpected was bound to happen. Perhaps he shouldn’t have sent Wu Zhe alone.

Unfortunately, he had no choice.

New Alliance reinforcements had arrived.

The Archbishop had ordered him to keep the New Alliance forces trapped there.

Though it was not part of the original experiment plan, if they could kill or trap the New Alliance soldiers, then what happened in Pinecone Ranch could easily be blamed on the New Alliance.

The New Alliance massacring civilians in the Brocade River Province’s settlements...

Such a story was not only convenient, but it was one the local settlement owners would relish hearing.

After all, compared to them, these holy men uninterested in worldly power, those shouting about ending slavery and oppression were far more loathsome.

Not far from their position, a New Alliance plane had punched through the anti-air fire, finally managing to reduce altitude and speed. Switching into vertical landing mode, it descended toward the rooftop of the central building of the manor.

New Alliance soldiers had already withdrawn to the top floor.

If their plane landed safely, they would immediately board and escape.

They could not be allowed to leave!

Li Jie’s eyes hardened. He raised his right hand, clenched it into a fist, then pointed at the hovering aircraft.

The Executioner beside him understood instantly, pulled the portable rocket launcher from his back, dropped to one knee, set it on his shoulder, and aimed at the plane.

"Target locked!"

Li Jie barked sharply, "Fire!"

With a muffled thump, a missile the length of a forearm shot from the tube, the dust cover shattering. Its engine ignited midair, trailing fire as it streaked toward the plane just as it steadied on the rooftop.

Spotting the missile, the plane attempted an evasion, but at such a short range, dodging was impossible.

As the missile closed in, a smile flickered on Li Jie’s lips. The next instant, something utterly unimaginable occurred.

"RPG!"

A figure in an exoskeleton suddenly screamed, sprinted from the cabin, and hurled himself into the air with his arms wide, slamming into the missile aimed at the plane.

There was no room to adjust the missile’s course any longer. In an instant, it struck him dead-on and exploded into a fiery blossom.

Shrapnel and fire briefly tore into the cabin as the shockwave rocked the plane. Thankfully, the craft itself remained intact.

The Executioners hidden in the woods were stunned. Li Jie’s mouth twitched violently.

What kind of maneuver was that?! He had never in his life seen someone intercept a missile with their body!

"Old Six!" Watching his comrade burst into flame midair, Free Sniper’s eyes bulged. He squeezed the trigger, spraying bullets wildly into the woods from where the missile had come.

Unfortunately for him, the aircraft shook violently, and his barrage hit nothing.

The Viper’s pilot, realizing the attack had come from the eastern treeline, stomped the left rudder and pushed the stick right.

The hovering Viper swung in a clean tail slide, shifting from the east to the west of the manor.

Inside, the players preparing to retreat moved with it, shooting down the swarming undead while falling back toward the manor’s western side.

"Goddamn... What was with that missile just now?" The pilot gasped, shouting to the soldiers behind him.

He was a Boulder Town Militia pilot, flying for seven or eight years, but it was his first mission where he had encountered something so insane.

Thinking of what had just happened left his heart pounding.

If not for that teammate’s sacrifice, everyone on board would already be dead.

Unlike the rattled pilot, the man who wore an exoframe remained cold. In fact, he seemed cold-blooded. Even with a comrade dying before his eyes, his face did not change. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Staring outside the cabin, Old White said grimly, "I don’t know. But I’d bet... it was the Torch Church."

The pilot froze. "Torch Church?!"

"Who else do you think spawned these freaks?" Old White muttered, frowning at the sea of heads surging outside the windows.

For the New Alliance, the real trouble might only begin after that night.

Whatever it was, it was not the time for reflection.

Seeing Ample Time and his squad at the villa’s west-side corridor, pursued by the undead tide, Old White raised his rifle and bellowed, "Open fire!"

Five players crouched at the side of the cabin, along with Lost Newbie with the mounted gun. All of them pulled their triggers together, pouring fire into the horde outside the windows.

Orange tracers rained down like a storm. The mindless creatures fell like wheat under a sickle, piling in heaps along the corridor.

Seeing Ample Time reach the window, Old White roared, "Get up here!"

Without hesitation, Ample Time smashed the glass with his rifle butt, shards scattering.

He braced a boot on the sill, exoskeleton powering his leap. He flew four or five meters, grabbed Old White’s outstretched hand, and was hauled into the cabin.

Finally, he was safe.

He collapsed to the floor, panting hard as he gulped for fresh air.

Only then did Old White notice the body slung across his back. It was a limp, blood-soaked corpse.

Using the VM’s photo comparison, he recognized the face with difficulty.

It was Zhao Tiangan, their mission target.

The original plan had been to seize him, control the settlement through him, and extract intelligence on the Torch Church. But the cultist bastards had clearly been waiting for them.

Pinecone Ranch was a nightmare. Whether the man lived or not, he was useless to the New Alliance.

"They cut our communications... we couldn’t reach you," Ample Time said between breaths.

"Not just you. Same here. Their jamming covers the whole zone..." Old White’s eyes flicked to the corpse, then back at Ample Time. "Why did you bring him along?"

Ample Time exhaled.

"He’s strange. I suspect the so-called Sanctuary isn’t what we think, a physical refuge. It might be a virtual space. Maybe even Archbishop Luo Qian himself is virtual. He has no body, so he needs hosts to interact with us. Only certain people can serve as vessels for his consciousness."

Old White stared blankly at him, unable to follow the leap in logic. "That’s... one hell of a stretch."

Ample Time panted. "It’s only a guess. We’ll need Ms. Chen to dissect his brain to find the truth. Whatever it is, we have to take him back to base."

As they spoke, Falling Feather leaped into the plane, hauled in by Free Sniper.

Then came Quit Smoking and Dog Good Names. Only four players had survived.

As for the Little Feather’s sub-bodies, they had been drowned by the horde while covering the retreat.

The sub-bodies weren’t so important, they were like Little Feather’s hair. With enough nutrients, it could regrow them.

But having too many linked to one consciousness hurt efficiency, and as a new Mother Body, Little Feather wasn’t skilled yet. It had capped the number of sub-bodies to 10.

Still, the loss of 10 K-10 Iron Wall exoskeletons left Falling Feather depressed.

Fortunately, Ample Time had promised earlier that the Burning Corps would reimburse 90% of equipment losses, otherwise the setback would’ve set him back multiple patches.

Once the last survivor boarded, the Viper transport plane pulled away, avoiding the earlier missile’s trajectory, heading west over the estate.

Glancing at the cabin, Old White suddenly looked surprised. "Hey, where’s Night Ten? He’s gone already?"

That made no sense.

That kid was infamously hard to kill.

When the Heart of Steel crashed, he was the only one who survived.

"No idea. He was the first to drop off the communication channel, even before the jamming started. He might already be dead..." Ample Time trailed off, his face shifting. "So that’s it."

Seeing his expression, Quit-Smoking asked curiously, "So what’s it?"

Ample Time shot out the words without pause. "The Guesthouse! That’s where the Spirit Interference Device is!"

As he said it, a red flare burst into the night sky.

It came from the direction of the Guesthouse.

Seeing the red glow, Old White strode to the cockpit, gripping the pilot’s chair. "We’ve still got a man there! Head for the flare!"

The pilot stiffened. "You sure?! They’ve got surface to air missiles..."

"I’m sure! We have to get him out!" Old White locked eyes with him. "Just fly us there, we’ll handle the rest!"