Chapter 43: The Bystander’s Perspective Without Special Effects…

In the fog zone, cries of alarm rang out one after another from different people.

“There’s a bug!”

“It actually dared to ambush us in the fog!”

Jack immediately realized something was wrong. He stared straight ahead as the thick white mist swallowed the traces of those around him without a trace.

He reached out to grab, but grasped at empty air. Nir’s bewildered voice sounded from the other end: “Boss, where are you?”

But Jack clearly saw a bug hiding in the mist, crawling toward the direction of Nir’s voice!

He barked in a low voice, “Don’t move!”

With that, he raised the weapon at his waist, pulled off the safety, and fired rapidly into the thick fog!

Bang! The mist was struck, and the bug’s figure dissipated along with it.

As an Oasis Sand Bandit with rich experience surviving in the desert, one who prided himself on having seen every situation, Jack immediately judged that it wasn’t a real bug at all!

What kind of damned place was this, with so many illusory bug mirages?

Or was it the strange mist? Inhaling it caused hallucinations?

With that thought, Jack immediately covered his mouth and nose, ordering all the sand bandits who could hear him to do the same.

But the next moment, pain shot through his calf. The Oasis Sand Bandit leader staggered and nearly fell to the ground.

He crashed right onto the back of the short, skinny middle-aged man. Nir shouted, “Boss!”

They turned back just in time to see a pair of ferocious, bloodstained mandibles withdrawing into the mist, a pair of scarlet, tiny bug eyes silently watching them.

Jack cursed. In the next instant, he rolled away, dodging the bug’s attack.

“You idiot!” he rasped. “Shoot it! Hit it!”

Nir: “Boss, your injury!”

Jack: “Have you forgotten? I’ve already received the gods’ protection!”

His wound no longer hurt, and he could stand up swiftly in a short time—this was the gods’ blessing!

Nir fell silent and raised his gun, firing bang bang.

The bullets kicked up sand pits, but the bug dodged with extreme speed. Before Nir could line it up in his sights, it nimbly switched its forelimbs and vanished into the depths of the mist in the blink of an eye.

The short middle-aged man lowered his raised gun, panting heavily as he turned back to help Jack up. “Boss, the bug ran away!”

Jack said coldly, “I’m not blind.”

He gripped Nir’s upper arm and slowly straightened his waist, raising his voice. “Mase people! Respond if you hear me!”

Sounds echoed everywhere—the explosive cracks of bullets whizzing about.

Soon, responses came. “Heard you! I’m here!”

“And me, I’m here!”

Jack felt slightly relieved, the haze in his mind from the bug’s sneak attack easing a bit. He thought he now understood the dangers of this area: just the fog obscuring their vision and bugs that were hard to distinguish as real or fake.

He sneered derisively.

Even if they couldn’t tell real from fake, then just shoot them all!

A human figure hurried toward them, its gray-black silhouette growing clearer in the mist.

Nir shouldered half of Jack’s weight and was the first to sensitively lift his head, looking that way.

“What the hell are you doing, running so fast? Aren’t you afraid of getting lost?!

“…Wait, where’s your rope?”

Jack said nothing, his eyes fixed on the figure drawing closer.

He slightly slowed the rise and fall of his chest, instinctively holding his breath.

The gray-black figure said nothing and continued closing in on them.

Jack took a step back. Nir also sensed the danger. He arched his back and growled viciously, “Stop right there, or I’ll shoot!”

As if it finally heard them and sensed the threat, the figure halted and slightly turned its head, exposing the ear area.

In the next moment, the mist parted slightly.

They finally saw the figure’s true appearance.

They couldn’t make out the face, only vaguely recognizing it as a soldier’s uniform from over a decade ago, with a gray base color, black lines dividing the body’s sections, and a thick mask like a gas mask enveloping the entire head.

Nir was still puzzled. “Who the hell are you? How’d you get here?”

No mistake—this was the uniform worn by ordinary soldiers on the specially dispatched Federal Ships during the Insect Clan invasion. There were special Federal Ship symbols on the shoulders, waist, and outer thighs.

But a Federal soldier suddenly appearing…

Alarms blared in Jack’s mind. He screamed, “Stop! Don’t come any closer! Take off your mask, I want to…” Shoot!

Before he finished, the other lunged at them!

The damaged mask dangled precariously, half the faceplate falling away to reveal not a normal human face, but half a head occupied by pitch-black insect limbs and mandibles!

The eerie insect limbs lashed out suddenly, about to strike Jack!

The bandits were terrified out of their wits!

They threw themselves backward onto the ground, rolling in the sand, grabbing their weapons in panic and firing at the insect-occupied mutant!

“Get lost! What the hell is that thing!”

Nir cursed wildly, staring at the mutant’s twisted head. For the first time, his mind went blank, desperate to crawl away from it!

But he still worried about Jack. His fingers trembled as he fired two shots at the mutant.

He didn’t even check if they hit before scrambling over to check the sand bandit leader’s injury.

“Boss… Boss!”

…

The landship convoy finally arrived near the marked location late at night.

Though they had scouted the tracks, they still hadn’t spotted the Joint Group, and unrest stirred inside the landships.

Had they gone to the wrong place?

Or had the sand bandits not brought the Joint Group here after all?

“Impossible. Those tire tracks are proof!”

Gris’s voice came through the comm buckle, full of conviction.

“I was lying on the ground at the time. I absolutely heard the sand vibrating. It definitely wasn’t a landship—it was those old, obsolete sedans you can’t even find in Golden City’s secondhand market. Last time, I spent twenty thousand bucks to get someone to inquire… cough. Anyway, these tracks are absolutely left by the sand bandits!”

Xie Jianxun sat in the passenger seat, drowsy.

The voice from the comm buckle jolted him awake instantly.

Twenty thousand—that was enough for a ship ticket spot… He envied it as he touched his wrist, thinking about tallying up his earnings so far.

Wages from the inn, the mechanics shop, and the commission from Desmond’s rampage output that he absolutely had to add—it was a tidy sum.

He touched empty air on his wrist.

Xie Jianxun sighed. Right now, he especially wanted to pin those sand bandits down and pummel them, then make them hand over his light brain with both hands.

This light brain had been a bit pricey. If he had a chance to get it back, he’d stuff it straight into his pocket and never flaunt it.

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have worn the light brain on my wrist. Wasn’t that just advertising, ‘Hey, here’s a fat sheep’?”

Xie Jianxun only realized this afterward.

He hugged his shoulders, closed his eyes, and frowned, thinking, Well, it’d still be a little lamb fresh out of the fold.

Traces of people camping and lighting fires began to appear around them, along with remnants of used camp supplies, further proving the sand bandits had stayed here.

Xie Jianxun overheard the scout’s report when they returned.

“…Remnants from over fifty people, including folding cookware, canned goods, and disposable utensils…”

Hearing this, Xie Jianxun breathed a sigh of relief. At least the Joint Group members were still alive.

The Patrol Army Captain nodded, about to speak when the words froze on his lips.

A moment later, he peered into the distance as if spotting something no one else had. “What’s that?”

The deputy, squatting beside him assembling parts, stood up at the sound.

Looking in the direction of his gaze, he couldn’t help sucking in a breath.

“That’s… fog? But no, the books say fog needs humidity, right?”

Xie Jianxun was baffled.

He gripped the landship’s railing and tiptoed to look, but saw nothing.

The Mechanical Puppet held his waist and lifted him high, still no anomaly visible.

“A fog zone has appeared there,” the Mechanical Puppet promptly explained his confusion.

Xie Jianxun was shocked. “Are my eyes different from yours? Or am I the only original model here?”

The deputy instantly replied, “Our helmets have rangefinders that spot dangers early… Here, have this.”

With that, he rummaged around and handed Xie Jianxun a monocular telescope.

A hazy fog zone was indeed rising in the distance—this was the view Xie Jianxun got through the lens.

White and vast, it blanketed the sandy gravel wasteland entirely.

At first, he could still make out faint details, but as the fog thickened, Xie Jianxun nearly shoved his eye sockets into the telescope and still couldn’t see clearly.

Suddenly, his waist lightened as someone set him down.

The view in the lens darkened abruptly, filled with a large swath of inorganic blue. Xie Jianxun poked his head curiously and found the Mechanical Puppet at the other end, trying to peer in at him.

Seeing him peek, it even blinked.

Xie Jianxun said speechlessly, “Bro, move aside. Your face is blocking my view.”

The Patrol Army Captain said, “One piece of good news and one bad. Good news: the sand bandits’ movement path is confirmed. Bad news: we’re probably going to have to enter that fog zone too.”

The deputy: “Captain, are you sure they’re inside?”

The Patrol Army Captain nodded slightly. “Afraid so.”

The closer they got to the fog zone, the more they appreciated its vast extent.

Finally, they stood at the edge of the fog zone, hesitating whether to proceed—the chaotic yet clear tire tracks meant the sand bandits had charged straight in.

Now everyone was puzzled.

“Why did they rush in without hesitation? Didn’t they think the fog zone was dangerous?” the deputy said, confused.

Xie Jianxun ventured a hypothesis. “Something they want inside?”

Gris: “Maybe they just got lost. Let’s go check it out! Go in and see!”

Aisia hurriedly pulled her back, eyes wide. “Where’s your crutch?”

The mercenary girl: “Oh right, forgot… Look at my memory. Still not used to walking with a stick.”

They had no intention of charging in recklessly. After some thought, they decided to leave some people outside as backup.

The Patrol Army Captain opened his mouth to assign personnel. “This vehicle, this one… come with me. The ones over there, stay outside. As for you four,”

He turned around, facing them sternly.

“Frankly, I’d prefer you all stay outside.”

Gris was the first to glare at him. “They’re all inside—how can I stay out here?!”

The Patrol Army Captain: “Just as I expected. So I’ll reluctantly allow you four to ride with me or the deputy. No acting on your own. Report any situations promptly, and request permission before any extra actions…”

He rattled off five or six rules in one breath. Only Xie Jianxun tilted his little face up and nodded earnestly in agreement.

The Mechanical Puppet watched Xie Jianxun. Gris stared at her crutch, itching to snap it. Aisia watched Gris, afraid she’d break it.

The Patrol Army Captain: “…”

He increasingly felt that, by comparison, this was truly a well-behaved child—far less trouble than the others?

So he invited, “Ride with me?”

Xie Jianxun happily agreed and solemnly boarded the Patrol Army Captain’s landship passenger seat… though it was no different from the others.

Just as they finished preparations and advanced toward the fog zone, a gunshot suddenly rang out from within.

Bang!

It pierced the air and sand.

Tension gripped everyone at once.

“Are the sand bandits venting on the Joint Group? Damn it!”

The Patrol Army Captain twisted the landship key hard and shouted, “Vanguard team, advance with me!”

The landship rumbled to life, quickly approaching the fog zone before one wheel entered it.

As the Patrol Army Captain turned the steering wheel, he quickly said, “Unscrew that telescope of yours and adjust it to defog mode.”

Xie Jianxun took out the monocular telescope the deputy had given him and, following instructions, twisted the brass dial on the side.

Sitting wasn’t good for observing, so he knelt half on the passenger seat’s leather cushion, peering through the lens at the distance.

As the view in the lens gradually cleared, Xie Jianxun finally saw the true scene in the fog zone.

“Someone’s there!”

He simply sprawled on the hood, zooming in on that spot. “Brown pants, leather jacket, older guy, lots of beard on his face… It’s a sand bandit. I’ve seen him before.”

“Any sign of the hostages?”

Xie Jianxun immediately widened the telescope’s field of view, searching everywhere, then shook his head in disappointment. “No sign, just a few vehicles.”

He reacted at once. “They’re in the vehicles?”

It made sense once he thought about it.

They were still halfway down the road, so if anything happened, the sand bandits would definitely get out to investigate themselves. There was no way they’d go to the trouble of herding all the hostages out of the vehicle.

The Patrol Army Captain nodded.

Xie Jianxun had just been about to look away when he suddenly saw that sand bandit go berserk, flailing his arms and legs nonstop.

The bandit even rolled and crawled to the ground, then yanked out his weapon like a man who had just survived a disaster and unleashed several bursts of fire at thin air.

Xie Jianxun: “…”

He was utterly shocked and even began to doubt his sanity.

“Could it be that they aren’t sand bandits at all, but a gang of radical lunatics?!”