Chapter Fifty-Five: First Encounter with the Planter—Nothing Different

“Landing, landing! Go! Go! Go!” Colt seemed quite enthusiastic, yet Winchester and Narukawa were more cautious, moving slowly to flank both sides of the “main battlefield.”

“It looks like the ground is littered only with Satan corpses? That’s odd, has someone already cleared this area?” Colt led the group steadily toward the center of the port town, while Winchester and Narukawa had already reached its far edge.

“Is there anything else?”

“No. Could they have all been picked off by snipers?” In a place only visible to Colt’s vice squad, Winchester and Narukawa whispered to each other.

“That shouldn’t be possible, right? We’ve only been sniping ordinary Satans, not the plant Satans native to this area.”

“Unless… they’ve merged with the plants?” Sensing something wrong, they turned toward Colt’s position, just as Narukawa spotted a restless plant nearby.

“Watch out!” Narukawa drew his RC—6 and fired a shot at the tree standing in the middle of Colt’s path.

“What’s going on?” Colt neither heard the gunshot nor Narukawa’s warning, but he did catch the sound of a bullet striking.

“Quick, there’s danger there!” Narukawa dashed toward Colt, and though Winchester’s curiosity was piqued, he too began to run.

“Captain, that tree—it’s moving!”

“So we need to protect them!” Beneath that tree were Colt and Wenxin, while Thomson and George patrolled two other streets.

“Wenxin, Colt, get out of there quickly!” When the two heard this, they looked utterly confused.

“What’s happening?” Colt was puzzled, unaware that the earth beneath his feet had begun to soften.

“What’s going on with the ground?” As the two realized it, the plant’s roots were already pushing through the surface.

“Move!” Winchester and Narukawa shoved Colt and Wenxin aside, and in that instant, the roots snatched Winchester, who had been standing where Colt had been moments earlier; Narukawa, a step ahead, managed to pull Wenxin to safety.

“Winchester!” Colt, having been rescued, tried to go back for him, but several treemen blocked his path.

“Damn it!” Colt gritted his teeth, while Narukawa, separated by a sudden wall of trees, was forced apart from the others.

“Winchester, stay alert.” Narukawa sliced through a branch with a single stroke; though another root coiled around Winchester’s waist, Narukawa easily tore it away.

“Damn it, sword technique!” Narukawa’s composure seemed shaken, but facing what felt like a city full of plants, he could only resort to his long-hidden sword skills.

As for Winchester, the proximity left him no choice but to draw his dagger and fight.

“Narukawa, are you all right?” At that moment, Tyron’s channel suddenly opened, while the channels to the others shut down.

“Cut the chatter. Do you have any solution?”

“Remember that prisoner?” Tyron seemed intent on sparking Narukawa’s memory.

“So? If there’s an antidote, just say it!”

“There’s medicine in your right arm. Target at six o’clock, elevation twenty, distance two hundred.”

“Understood!” Narukawa took out an antidote round and two armor-piercing bullets, handing them to Winchester.

“Your five o’clock, elevation twenty, distance one ninety-eight. Load order AAB. Fire three shots in succession—follow my lead!” Winchester didn’t hesitate, quickly loading the rounds into his cylinder and firing three times in a row.

“It’s hit. Now what?” As if by magic, the plants dissolved into heaps of mud. The treemen remained unaffected, but they couldn’t withstand Colt’s group’s onslaught.

“All right, once we clear this area, it should be safe!”