Aliba stood in a beautiful and luxurious reception room; he was a frequent visitor. He had been here multiple times with his colleagues from the Police and Military Department. The rich owner of the mansion would always sit on the sofa opposite him with a figure-four crossed-leg position. He would never look at the gifts presented to him but instead constantly berated his men with spittle flying everywhere. Among the men he reprimanded, Aliba always displayed the best attitude and always seemed the most ardent.
However, everything would change after tonight. Aliba stepped on a blood-soaked rug on the ground. Dark blood seeped out from the rug with a squelch.
"They did a great job here," he surveyed the blood-covered walls of the mansion contented and laughed, "I think those female mutates hate us."
His vice-chief looked pale but laughed and responded with a few quips. After that, he activated his communicator and reported, "Chief, our men received a police report."
"Oh? What is it about?" Aliba asked as he took out a medium-strength cigarette from the desk in the reception room.
"A servant working for the Head of the Technology Department reported the crime. The female mutates involved in the current insurgence broke into his master's mansion and killed that man," the vice chief said and laughed.
Aliba paused for two seconds with the cigarette sticking from his mouth before he looked at his watch, "The last team of female mutates have already been out for 30 minutes... Good. Get your subordinate to inform the witness that our crime suppression team is coming. If we want to stir public sentiments, we should start now." He lit his cigarette and smiled menacingly, "Now is the time. The time to get rid of them. We will use all that equipment developed by the lab!"
"Ah, okay!" the vice-chief stood in a daze for a second before he understood. He turned and ran out to execute the order.
The last list of targets included the names of some inconsequential people. Due to Aliba's cautious nature, he did not want to risk taking on a few dozen female posthumans simultaneously, even if his men outnumbered them. He split them into teams and sent them out only to weaken their strength.
Beforehand, he already had 400 soldiers on standby. When they received his order, it took less than five minutes for them to surround the mansion where Xueqin's group was.
Meanwhile, the group had their misgivings after the screen of their communicator went black. After a short discussion, as per Xueqin's suggestion, they quickly contacted their other companions and briefly informed them about the incident. However, no one could think of any good idea for dealing with that situation.
"Let's not think about that. You guys should hurry back to the city hall." The group's last contact was Gong Daoyi: "I already urged the others to return, but no one is back yet. I am a little worried... Huh?"
Over the screen, he suddenly frowned and stared at the flash of light behind the women. He immediately shouted, "Dodge to the side!"
It was so sudden that none of them had time to think. Their bodies instinctive reacted quicker than their minds—two women and the escort jumped aside, leaving the spot they were standing. A loud boom quickly followed this. The accompanying shockwave hit them like a tsunami, slamming them against the wall.
The explosion created a rain of concrete, steel, and wood, and these fragments created a second round of attacks. As a cloud of smoke and dust surrounded them, Xueqin, with her face covered in blood, coughed and quickly summoned out her mushroom. Because of that protection, she had some remaining strength to survey her surroundings. The dust and smoke blurred her vision. She could only make out the silhouette of a person lying on the floor at the other end of the room. However, she had no clue about the person's condition.
The spot they had gathered before received the greatest damage; it was nothing but a pile of rubble. Suddenly, Xueqin noticed some movements from under the rubble. Dong Haohao, covered in dust, wriggled out from the rubble and spat out some dust from her mouth.
Even though Dong Haohao was caught in the explosion's epicenter, she was unharmed because she managed to activate her [National Tax Agency]. She quickly looked at her wrist and suddenly made a despondent comment, "I was too slow. The communicator has been damaged."
The escort recovered from the blast throwing him towards the entrance. He sifted through the rubble and pulled Bai Xiaoke and Xu Wei. Other than Xu Wei, who was now unconscious because of her head injury, the remaining women were not badly wounded.
The wall with the window where the attack came from was nowhere to be seen. The women looked outside and saw the large group of soldiers.
"When did they..." Bai Xiaoke gulped.
The women were on the second floor, not far from the ground; without the wall, the two parties could clearly see each other. The soldiers at the front looked upwards at the women. Their eyes were emotionless, as if they were looking at those hardy cockroaches found in some homes. A man who seemed like the team leader made a gesture, "They're not dead. Take aim and fire again."
The two soldiers beside him bent down to fiddle with a colorful, cute, pink, human-sized robotic doll. The doll seemed to be an immobile robot, maintaining an unchanging, bubble-blowing pose. "Quick, let's get out of here!" Xueqin shouted urgently. They didn't waste any time. The escort quickly carried Xu Wei with one arm, and they all ran out of the bedroom. The explosive force of the previous attack was limited, so it only ruined the bedroom. With its shiny finish, the beautiful mahogany staircase was still in perfect condition.
Soldiers had surrounded the entire mansion, so the women knew they could only hide for some time. There was no one on the ground floor. The lights were switched off, and the doors and windows were locked.
Bai Xiaoke let out a heavy sigh, "Can all of you still fight—"
Before she could finish a sentence, she felt a light breeze on the back of her neck. She turned stiffly and saw a few transparent soap bubbles following behind them. The bubbles floated down the stairs, but not at a slow speed. At least, they were the source of the breeze in the stale living room.
"They're going to explode!" Dong Haohao roared angrily. When the bubbles burst, Xueqin's mushroom popped up simultaneously. The mushroom was destroyed into small bits in seconds but shielded the team from the explosion. Xueqin vomited a mouthful of blood, but no one else was injured.
When they sighed a collective breath of relief, the men outside were back in action. After a series of banging sounds, the front door started shaking violently. It barely survived a few attacks before it swung wide open.
Many fully armored soldiers flooded like a violent tide with their heavy weapons. Facing an army of a few hundred, even a posthuman's best option was to flee.
"I guess we're dying here," Dong Haohao used her [National Tax Agency] to nullify a beam of laser shot at them. Sweat appeared on her face as she said, "Let's drag down as many as we can!"
Since they had all recognized that there was no chance of surviving, they abandoned all restraints. With the protection of Dong Haohao's [National Tax Agency], the women rushed into the middle of the group of soldiers, disregarding the gunfire; it was as if every cell in their bodies had a screaming thirst for their enemies' blood. Wherever they went, severed limbs flew everywhere like a spurting water fountain.
As a crazy bloodlust had already driven them, they did not realize that their actions helped them gain more time for survival. Since the women thrust themselves into the crowd of soldiers, the soldiers did not dare to carelessly shoot at them, as they feared hurting their colleagues.
Bai Xiaoke received a direct attack on her back. It hurt so much that tears spilled from her eyes instantly. She panted heavily and stabbed the person behind her with her knife. Her vision was starting to blur. She felt drained as if she was on her last bit of strength. Her field of sight began to falter like the shaky ground beneath her. Her legs weakened, and she nearly fell.
'Is this the end for me?'
She steadied herself in a daze and realized the soldiers around her were also trying to maintain their balance. As they had not evolved, they had a poor sense of balance, so most quickly fell to the ground.
A deep rumbling sound came from the far horizon. It was the faint sound of explosions in the sky, like an endless roll of thunder on a summer night. For a moment, the mind-numbing loud noise filled their ears.
The ground resonated with the explosion sounds and started shaking as if it had been placed in vibration mode. Startled, everyone stopped. The vibrations became increasingly intense, so not even the posthumans could maintain their balance. Due to the quake, the robotic doll had already been tipped to its side. The leader of the soldiers crouched on the ground with his subordinates' protection. He looked up and shouted something. However, his voice was swallowed by the thunderous noise, so it appeared as if he was just opening and closing his mouth.
Bai Xiaoke stepped over the humans on the ground and scrambled out of the front door. When she looked up, she was stunned.
Then, she yelled in the loudest voice she had ever used in her 20-plus life, "THE RADIATION SHIELD HAS OPENED! THE RADIATION SHIELD HAS OPENED!"
She felt her blood racing through her body, forgetting everything momentarily. She continued yelling out those words. The thunder-like noise finally faded. The residents of the Garden of Eden turned pale when they stared up into the sky above them. They could still hear the high-pitched female voice in their ears shout, "THE RADIATION SHIELD HAS OPENED!"
A piece of the glass globe slowly retracted into a second piece of glass, and then another, until the entire glass globe rapidly retreated into the ground. For the first time in decades, the dark blue sky on the brink of dawn hung over the city without any barriers. The strange-smelling contaminated air from the outside world swept through the city like a gale, forcing itself through every person's nose cavity.
That odor, which couldn't even be entirely blocked out by the radiation shield previously, made a point extremely clear to everyone: whatever scrappy means of anti-radiation that the Garden of Eden possessed stood no chance against the horrifying levels of radiation outside.
There was a stench of death and the smell of rebirth. Meanwhile, a hint of marble-white light seeped from the eastern horizon.