Volume 2: Setting Out on the Journey Chapter 29: The Ruins

Fully armed, the five members of the Hurricane Squad left the frontline city, deliberately choosing to take paths where there were fewer star beasts.

“Swallow, hand me your ammo box,” Captain Shen Feng said, looking at Jiang Yunyan, who was drenched in sweat. “If you keep going like this, you’ll burn out your stamina too fast. If we suddenly encounter star beasts, you won’t be able to fight.”

“Ha ha, then I’ll trouble you, Captain,” Jiang Yunyan laughed happily. “Honestly, I can carry the ammo box for a short time, but I just can’t handle it for long.”

With that, Jiang Yunyan passed the ammo box on her back to Shen Feng.

Shen Feng caught it effortlessly with one hand and slung it onto his back. To the squad’s strongest member, this weight was nothing.

“Click!” Jiang Yunyan opened another box, revealing a completely black machine gun, its muzzle gleaming with metallic luster.

Besides the machine gun, there was a massive amount of linked ammunition, densely packed to fill the entire box.

One could only imagine how many bullets there were.

“Swallow, you changed guns?” Wang Jue beside her couldn’t help but ask, “What kind of gun is that?”

“Thunder, model G35, caliber 17.2 millimeters. It combines sniper and automatic fire functions, and can switch modes freely. Everyone knows about the sniper mode, so I won’t say more. As for automatic fire, it can shoot from a minimum of 500 rounds per minute up to 1,000 rounds, with adjustable firing speed,” Jiang Yunyan boasted proudly. “And this thing is several times lighter than my previous heavy machine gun. The entire body, even the muzzle, incorporates some Harosium alloy, so even during continuous firing, barrel heat won’t affect bullet accuracy.”

Harosium is a new type of mineral harder than steel but as light as foam.

“Swallow, haven’t you forgotten? I still have my Godslayer Cannon here. Why waste money on a new gun?” Wang Jue sneered. “In terms of power, can that gun really compare to the Godslayer Cannon?”

“Rookie!” Jiang Yunyan narrowed her beautiful eyes. “What do you know?”

“Hahaha...” Su Yu nearby suddenly burst out laughing. After suppressing it, he said to Wang Jue, “Wang Jue, the Godslayer Cannon’s destructive power is indeed tremendous. But it consumes star energy, not bullets. Plus, it can’t distinguish friend from foe. I wouldn’t want to suddenly get blasted by it while fighting star beasts and perish alongside them.”

“Although Thunder’s maximum consumption of a thousand rounds per minute is a bit extreme, don’t forget that Yunyan’s role in our squad is to provide fire support. If we fall into danger, her suppressing fire could very well save our lives.”

“Generally, unless dealing with a specific high-level star beast or covering a retreat, we don’t usually need the Godslayer Cannon.”

At this, Jiang Yunyan pouted with pride. “Before, I only had two guns—a pistol and a heavy machine gun for continuous fire. I could provide fire support but couldn’t deliver one-shot kills.”

“But this time, it’s different. With Thunder, which can switch between sniper and automatic modes anytime, I can adapt to the situation.”

She was immensely satisfied with her new machine gun, Thunder.

A weapon combining sniper precision with automatic firepower is an irresistible temptation to any firearms enthusiast!

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone to the lengths of ‘selling everything’ and even borrowing money from her own sister just to buy it.

For warriors using firearms like them, mastery of various guns was a given. If one were a lone wolf, they would likely pick powerful sniper rifles for one-shot kills.

But upon joining a squad, most would choose heavy automatic machine guns capable of delivering sustained fire.

Whether for rescue, suppression, or rear guard, heavy automatic machine guns are undoubtedly superior to sniper rifles!

That’s why most firearm users in warrior squads carry heavy machine guns rather than sniper rifles.

“Sounds pretty good,” Wang Jue raised an eyebrow. “But every advantage comes with an obvious drawback.”

“What drawback?” Jiang Yunyan hesitated, her expression faltering slightly. “I don’t see any downside to Thunder.”

“Of course there is. And it’s a problem almost every firearm user faces.”

Upon hearing this, everyone stopped and looked at Wang Jue with curiosity.

“The drawback I’m talking about is ammunition!”

Seeing their expectant faces, Wang Jue smiled and explained, “Yunyan herself said that when Thunder switches to automatic mode, its ammo consumption is outrageous. At a thousand rounds per minute, with each rune bullet weighing at least twenty shell casings, fifteen thousand rounds weigh about 300 kilograms.”

“The problem is, while 300 kilograms isn’t much for us warriors, carrying that much ammo for hundreds of miles will exhaust you. By the time you face star beasts, all the bullets will be gone in just over fifteen minutes.”

Wang Jue shrugged toward Jiang Yunyan. “For firearm users like you, ammo is definitely more important than star energy, right?”

“Uh...” Jiang Yunyan fell silent, realizing Wang Jue had hit on the biggest unsolved problem for firearm warriors everywhere.

“Knowing this flaw, I brought twelve thousand high-damage rune bullets and three thousand armor-piercing rune bullets this time, and I’ll have to trouble the Captain to carry some of them,” Jiang Yunyan said with a self-mocking smile. “But I’ve already decided that I’ll only switch to automatic mode when we really need fire support. Otherwise, I’ll mostly use sniper mode to conserve ammo.”

She knew very well that the higher the star beast level, the less effective firearms become—sometimes almost completely useless.

Almost all damage to star beasts comes from cold weapons.

But what of that?

If we encounter star beasts too powerful to handle, Shen Feng and the others will deal with them. She only needs to take care of the second- and third-tier beasts.

If she can’t handle the high-level ones, that doesn’t mean she can’t fight the lower-level ones!

“Don’t worry,” Shen Feng broke the slightly tense silence. “I know a bit about Thunder. Although it can’t do much damage to fifth-level star beasts, it can handle most fourth-level ones. In fact, the strongest member of our squad isn’t me—it’s Yunyan.”

“After all, even though I’ve broken through and wield the Red Star Mirror, I wouldn’t dare provoke fourth-level star beasts before reaching the Orange Star Mirror. Compared to me, Yunyan’s cultivation is lower, but she can injure or even kill fourth-level star beasts with her firearms.”

“To be honest, as the squad leader, I can’t do that.”

With that, Shen Feng decisively ended the topic. “Alright, enough talk. Let’s keep moving.”

At his words, Jiang Yunyan, wrapped in linked ammunition belts and holding Thunder, stayed in the middle of the formation with Jiang Yunxin, protected by the others.

Captain Shen Feng led at the front, with Wang Jue and Su Yu bringing up the rear.

...

Two hours later.

The group emerged from the forest. Looking at the vastly different scenes ahead and behind them, disbelief spread across their faces.

Shen Feng had done his homework beforehand, so he regained his composure much faster than Wang Jue and the others.

Once everyone recovered, Shen Feng spoke, “If we follow this road, it will take about a day to reach our destination—the ruins.”

Su Yu, Jiang Yunyan, and Jiang Yunxin all wore strange expressions.

Wang Jue also stared oddly at the highway visible only within the safe zone.

Looking down the cracked and broken highway, they saw rusted, dilapidated car skeletons everywhere, covered in vines to the point that one might not realize they were cars at a casual glance.

On either side of the highway grew waist-high wild grass, and at the end lay the disaster-stricken ruined city.

“Captain,” Su Yu hesitated before voicing her doubt, “This wasn’t the safe zone before, was it?”

“No,” Shen Feng’s face remained calm and unreadable. “Our mission is to reach the cities where humans lived before the ‘Dark Era.’ With the arrival of star beasts, humanity suffered heavy casualties. The ancients and some super-strong warriors had to protect us as we fled continuously until we established our current safe zone.”

“During this time, many strong warriors died fighting star beasts, even several ancients fell. The safe zone was established at the cost of a few ancient lives. Humanity barely secured a place to live, avoiding extinction by the star beasts.”

“Over the years, our numbers of strong warriors have gradually increased and regained much of their strength. Plus, many alien races fled to our Blue Star, not only sharing the burden of fighting star beasts but also greatly enhancing our power.”

“It’s because of these allied races that we’ve been able to reclaim land bit by bit from the star beasts. After fully exploiting these territories’ resources, we established the border battlefield and slowly advanced forward until it became the frontline.”

“If it weren’t for the combined strength of humanity and these races, we’d still be no match for the star beasts. Perhaps that border battlefield would be the new safe zone, and the frontline would become the new border.”

Shen Feng shrugged. “The head of Ningchuan Pavilion told me all this. As for things he didn’t tell me, it’s probably because my cultivation isn’t high enough.”

“These things are too early for us to worry about now. What matters most is improving our cultivation quickly!”

“I believe that once our cultivation reaches a certain level, we’ll understand everything—what we can and what we can’t.”

“Alright, we’ve rested enough.”

“Let’s go!”

The purple light of the setting sun shone upon the broken highway as Hurricane Squad of five marched steadily forward along the ruined road...