Virtuous Omega Chapter 63: The Encounter

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

 

It was only four o’clock in the afternoon when the light disappeared and it was dark everywhere.

Lu RanKong and Lan Yu went to the rooms where their soldiers were, then went back to the house, and on the way they met Lin Zhu and Chen YuTan who were also checking the other two battalions.

“There should be no problem, let’s get some rest.” Chen YuTan said.

Lu RanKong nodded and said, “Okay, let’s be alert at night.”

“It’s okay, we’ll take turns on duty.”

Lu RanKong walked outside and asked the two soldiers standing at the entrance of the dormitory building, “How many people are on guard outside?”

“There are ten more outside, in four directions and in front of the main control room.”

Lu RanKong patted him on the shoulder, saying, “Good job…”

“It was no trouble…” The soldier replied.

Back inside the room, Lan Yu pulled out the nutrients and asked Lu RanKong, “What flavor do you like?”

“It doesn’t matter, any flavor is fine.”

Lan Yu compared the flavors and handed over the strawberry one, so he said, “Here, try this pineapple one.”

Lu RanKong took the supplement, poured it into his mouth without looking at it, and drank it all in a few gulps.

“How is it? The pineapple flavor.” Lan Yu asked him.

Lu RanKong said, “Yes, it tastes good.” When he finished, he saw that Lan Yu didn’t respond, only squinted at him and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Lan Yu grabbed the empty sack from his hand and said, “You can’t even taste what you’re given to drink, and you still say it’s good.”

Lu RanKong said, “It’s good, it’s really good.” Smacking his lips again, he suddenly said, “So it’s strawberry.”

“It’s rare that you can tell it’s strawberry.” Lan Yu took the empty bottle back to a small bag in his backpack.

Lu RanKong laughed, “What are you talking about? It’s not like I don’t have a sense of taste.”

“I really think you don’t have a sense of taste.”

Lu RanKong came close to his ear and whispered, “How can I not have a sense of taste? I know your mouth, it’s sweet, very sweet.”

The two of them drank their nutrients and got into their sleeping bags, with Lan Yu wriggling and squirming to the side in his sleeping bag, trying to get closer to Lu RanKong. But the sleeping bag itself was bulging, so they couldn’t lean together.

“BaoZi…” He called softly to the person next to him.

“Hmm?”

“I want to sleep in the same sleeping bag with you.” Lan Yu said.

Lu RanKong closed his eyes and asked, “Do you want me to cuddle up to you?”

“No, I just feel warm next to you.” Lan Yu denied it.

Lu RanKong laughed silently and said, “Not today…”

“Why?”

“I have to go on inspection at some point and I’m afraid I’ll disturb you.” He said.

Lan Yu didn’t make a sound, but Lu RanKong heard a rustling sound from his side, and just as he opened his eyes, his sleeping bag was opened and a warm body squirmed into his sleeping bag. The sleeping bag wasn’t big, but because the fabric was special and had a certain elasticity, when two people were stuffed in it, they just squeezed together without a gap.

“When you go patrol, I also want to join you.” Lan Yu said.

“It’s cold outside…”

“I’m not afraid of the cold, there are cold-insulating clothing.”

“A cold-weather suit is not as warm as in a sleeping bag.” Lu RanKong opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

“No, I want to inspect too.”

Lu RanKong paused and asked, “Are you worried about me encountering interstellar beasts?”

Lan Yu didn’t say anything, just pressed into his arms, so Lu RanKong rolled over and faced him, let him use his arm as a pillow, as he said, “If you really want to go, then go. But go to sleep, get enough spirit. The night won’t necessarily be quiet.”

The lighting system intelligently recognized and slowly dimmed the lights in the room, leaving a small light in the corner. Everyone was resting, the whole dormitory building was quiet, only the snowflakes outside the window made a rustling sound.

After a long time, Lan Yu suddenly spoke out, “You’re pushing against me…”

“Bear with it, this sleeping bag is a little short, you can only curl your legs, so it‘s inevitable that my knee is on top of you.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Knees can be on top of that?”

“But I can’t move, and can’t help it ah… Hiss… Don’t twist, don’t twist.”

“In such a harsh environment, how can you still think of this?” Lan Yu whispered.

“This thing can’t recognize the environment, he only recognizes you.”

Lan Yu closed his eyes, not saying another word to Lu RanKong. Although both said they had to rest, now the time was actually only after 5 pm, so how could they sleep? Besides, they were so close together that Lu RanKong soon became excited and wanted to kiss for a while.

After about an hour, Lu RanKong got out of his sleeping bag and said, “You lie down first, I’ll go for a round. I’ll be right back.”

Lan Yu also followed and went outside, “We said we would go on the inspection together.”

“It’s really cold out there.”

“Cold, but I also want to go…”

Seeing Lan Yu had gotten up to put on the cold helmet, Lu RanKong gave up, so the two picked up the ion gun, walking out of the room together.

Just outside the door the sound of wind was raging, and from the warmth of the room into the freezing cold of the snow, even with the cold-insulating suit, Lan Yu felt a sudden chill.

Lu RanKong lifted his hand to look at the terminal and asked, “It’s -50 degrees, can you take it?”

“Yes…” Lan Yu said.

They both turned on the overhead lighting and walked toward the station gate, ready to circle the station. Heavy snow had fallen during the night, and the dense flakes quickly built up a loose layer on the ice, plunging Lan Yu into the snow with every step he took, submerged to his calves by the snow.

Two soldiers stood at the main entrance, saluting the two of them, “Colonel K, Colonel Lu.”

“How long have you been standing?” Lu RanKong asked.

“Just got here…”

“An hourly change of watch?”

“Yes…”

“That’s not bad, hold on a little longer and you’ll be in.” Lu RanKong both continued to walk out, asking as they went, “Did you find anything?”

“No, everything’s fine.”

It was pitch black outside, and the lighting overhead was blocked by the snowflakes, so they could only see a meter or two in front of them. The two men were holding ion guns and stepping through the snow.

“How long has this leap station been closed?” Lan Yu asked as he walked.

“It was closed many years ago.”

Lan Yu thought for a moment and said, “Was this station closed when the interstellar channel was opened six months ago?”

Lu RanKong knew what he wanted to ask and explained, “The leap point of Veya Planet is not only the way to Kaiju Planet, but also the way to another Planet. At first, the route to the first planet was closed, but not the other one. As a result, half a year ago, the data was secretly changed, and someone went from here to the first planet, opening the interstellar channel. Since then, simply shut down the entire leap station.”

“What about someone else coming back to Veya Planet and opening the leap station?” Lan Yu asked.

Lu RanKong shook his head, “Veya Planet seems to be in an unprotected state, but in fact the whole planet is under close surveillance. Any approaching unidentified Star Warship will be identified and the automatic weapon system will attack. Only the interstellar beast, unlike the Star Warship, can’t be identified, so it can reach the Veya Planet.”

Unknowingly, the two had walked to the back of the leap station, which was a relatively flat open area with only a few hundred meters of small, not very high ice mounds.

The snow slowly stopped and the wind began to blow, but the view wasn’t blocked by snow flakes, so it was possible to see a little further.

Lan Yu looked around and said, “Actually, this Veya Planet is quite beautiful, but it’s too cold.”

“If you like, I can take you to Cili Planet. It’s not as cold, but the view is similar.” Lu RanKong kicked away a small mound of snow with his foot, found nothing underneath, and continued on his way.

After taking two steps, he realized that Lan Yu hadn’t followed him and kept standing still. He asked, “What’s wrong?” 

“Wait, wait, I think I heard something.” Lan Yu said.

Lu RanKong smiled and also listened carefully with his head sideways.

“Just now there seems to be a movement somewhere, a snap, like the sound of a branch breaking.”

Lu RanKong looked around and said, “There are no trees on this planet, which direction did you hear the sound?”

Lan Yu stared for a moment and then said, “The sound is gone, wait a little longer.”

Both of them stood still and raised their ion guns to catch the unusual sound in the wind and snow.

Crack… 

Another slight sound, if any, mixed in the whistling wind.

The two men simultaneously held their guns flat in front of their eyes and marched quickly toward the ice mound to the right rear, splitting left and right to go around the rear as they approached it.

Lan Yu swiftly rounded the ice mound, but found nothing behind, looked around, and slowly lowered his gun. Lu RanKong on the other side also put his gun away and relaxed as he walked towards him.

Lan Yu was about to say that he might have misheard, when he saw Lu RanKong’s expression under the cold shield suddenly change, and his footsteps also stopped abruptly. His heart fluttered and he instantly reacted to the situation!

“Get down!” Lu RanKong hadn’t finished shouting, when he flung to the ground.

Just as his body smashed up a soft snowflake, the sound of gunfire rang out and the fluttering sound of an object being embedded by a bullet came from beside him. Before he could react, his foot was grabbed by a hand and quickly dragged away, while the place where he had just fallen also had a huge object slammed down, splashing the sky with snow clumps.

All this happened in a short time, Lan Yu was dragged out by Lu RanKong a few meters and rolled up. Before he could see what had been hit, he heard a long hissing sound from directly in front of him.

It sounded like the sound of a fierce beast, close at hand.

He and Lu RanKong looked over at the same time and stopped moving.

At some point, a group of beasts had gathered in the clearing in front of them, looking similar to wolves, only several times larger than the size of ordinary wolves. Like wolves, they had sharp teeth and long tongues, with saliva dripping down the corners of their mouths onto the snow.

They looked at Lan Yu and Lu RanKong quietly, their eyes glowing green in the snow. On the ice mound farther away, these giant wolves were slowly approaching, their bodies were huge, but they marched silently, like a pack of ghosts on the snowy plains.

Lan Yu and Lu RanKong didn’t move, and the giant wolves stopped a few dozen meters away from them, and the leading wolf didn’t move either, so both sides confronted each other in silence. Lan Yu’s legs were weak and he almost wanted to run away, but when he saw the motionless Lu RanKong, he forced himself not to pull his legs out and run.

Lu RanKong heard his rapid breathing and whispered without moving his lips, “Don’t move and see what their intentions are.”

“Is it not their intention to eat us?” Lan Yu said stiffly.

“They know there are many of us, and they don’t dare to act rashly.”

The leader of the hawk-thorn beast and Lu RanKong stared at each other with vicious eyes. Lu RanKong, though separated by a cold hood, had a more vicious gaze and stared at the head beast without flinching.

One minute, two minutes… 

The beasts opposite began to get irritated and restless, plowing the snow with their hind feet, wanting to rush towards the two men and tear them apart, but without the order of the head beast, they could only stay in place, showing their long cold teeth from time to time.

Lan Yu felt that time went by slowly, only a couple of minutes felt like a couple of centuries. As he had been holding the ion gun, he could no longer feel his hands and feet and became unlike his own. Only the heart in his chest was pounding, reminding him that time was still ticking away.

The head beast’s eyes gradually changed during the confrontation with Lu RanKong, with more scrutiny. Perhaps its purpose was not this group of people, so after some hesitation, it finally chose to back off.

It turned its eyes away and dropped its head, roaring lowly behind it, and some of the hawk-thorn beasts turned around and walked in the direction they came from.

Lan Yu and Lu RanKong let out a long breath of relief at the same time.

A few of them were reluctant to leave and looked at Lan Yu’s side, where the corpse of the one that had been killed was lying. Lu RanKong pulled Lan Yu back a few steps carefully, gesturing for them to take the body.

Lan Yu held his breath and didn’t move, afraid that if he did, he would be angered.

“What is this?” A sudden cry of alarm came from not far behind them.

Lan Yu and Lu RanKong looked at the same time, only to see two patrol soldiers standing there, with ion guns in their hands, aiming at the Horned Beast coming towards them.

Before they could say anything to stop it, a shot rang out, and the horned beast wasn’t hit, but it jumped. After roaring in anger, it opened its mouth to reveal its sharp teeth and pounced on the two soldiers.

The soldiers retreated while connecting shots, and the wolf jumped from side to side, actually dodging the bullets nimbly.

“Not good…” As soon as Lu RanKong said that, he heard the king of the beasts let out a long howl, and all the hawks that were crossing the ice mound stopped and turned their heads.

Lan Yu saw that their front legs were tense and their hind legs were slightly curved, and knew that they were about to pounce. Both men turned the mecha rings on their wrists, and two huge black mecha instantly stood in the wind and snow, with 666 and 999 clearly visible on their backs.

Lan Yu saw the two patrolmen tuning out the mecha as they dug into the mecha compartment. The two patrolmen also pulled out their mecha, and the horned beasts rolled up in front of them, pouncing fiercely with a sky full of snow powder. The beasts were large but nimble, dodging bullets and attempting to leap up close to the mecha.

Lu RanKong used his left arm to rip off one of the horned beasts climbing on Lan Yu’s mecha, lifting it in the air, his right arm directly against the beast’s head and fired a shot, splashing red and white things, and then threw it on the ground.

“Fly up and fight, there are too many.” Lu RanKong ordered.

With a loud boom, four mecha flew off the ground as the wolves jumped up and swooped down on them. One grabbed Lan Yu’s foot and waved its front claws in the air, leaving a scratch on the mecha’s surface before falling.

Lan Yu saw that the head beast didn’t move, but stood at the end of the herd, and when he saw all four of their mecha flying, he tilted his neck and gave a long howl to the sky. In just ten seconds, the sound of flapping wings rang out in the air, as if some big bird was flying towards this side.

“The Hawthorn Beasts are calling their servant birds to fly up and fight us, watch the air.” Lu RanKong shouted.

The sound of summoning mecha was also heard from the distant dormitory area, that was the soldiers who came after hearing the commotion. The servant birds were waiting nearby and flew into sight in a flash. Lan Yu saw that each of them was as big as a small airplane, their huge wings flapping up a gust of wind.

They landed on the ground and took off quickly when the hawk-thorns stood on their backs.

Lan Yu kept shooting in 360 degrees, but even so, there were still wings flapping in all directions, and the mecha kept making ear-splitting scratching sounds. The mecha swarm also arrived in an instant and converged on the battlefield, filling the sky with wings and gunfire everywhere.

Lan Yu had just finished off one of the hawk-thorne beasts when he saw a soldier’s mecha have its right leg ripped off and its fuselage severely damaged, falling uncontrollably to the ground. There were still some other hawk-thorned beasts on the ground that hadn’t gone up to the sky, surrounding the head beast and looking at the sky.

Lan Yu crashed through the wings in front of him and flew to the falling mecha, using his back to support him to fly again. With the immobile mecha on his back, he couldn’t straighten up for fear that the mecha would slide down. But there were servant birds coming at him from the left, right, and front, each with a hawk-thorned beast with sharp claws and teeth on its back.

Lan Yu raised his mechanical arm and fired at the front and the right, knocking back the two birds, but the left bird had already rushed to his side and the beast on his back stood up with its upper body and raised its claws.

Bang bang bang! There was a connecting shot overhead, and the beast was hit, and its body trembled with a continuous stream of bullets. A black shadow blocked in front of Lan Yu, and a huge fist of steel fell with it, hitting the servant bird’s head hard.

The servant bird hissed and fell straight to the ground with the corpse on its back.

666 mecha stepped in front of Lan Yu and said calmly, “Leave him to me…” He said, “Give him to me…” After that, he took the mecha on Lan Yu’s back and carried it on his shoulders like a sack.

The battle went on and on, with tongues of fire spewing from the dark sky and the roar of the servant birds and the hawks echoing.

Lan Yu had just hit a servant bird when he heard an alarm sound from the mecha, and the red light of low energy started flashing.

His heart tightened, knowing that the mecha had been fighting in the air, the energy consumption was particularly high, and he had used up all the energy in the energy box and the spare box, so the little that was left wouldn’t last much longer.

Lan Yu looked at the other mecha, and found that some of them were starting to land, and those that had already landed were on the ground fighting the Horned Beast, and apparently were also running out of energy.

“Reporting, my mecha is sounding the alarm and is running out of energy.”

“Reporting, my energy bar is also beeping.”

But at that moment, the head beast suddenly let out another long roar to the sky. Hearing this roar, all the servant birds stopped fighting and turned around and rushed out of the battle circle with the hawk-thorn beasts on their backs, quickly withdrawing and flying into the vast night sky.

The soldiers were about to follow them when Lu RanKong shouted, “Don’t chase them, let them go.”

In less than a minute, the servant birds retreated cleanly, and if it weren’t for the corpses of the birds and animals still lying on the ground, it wouldn’t have been possible to tell that a big battle had just taken place here.