ALL NOVEL Chapter 186 - Training Exercise 34
Mai Dongzi felt uneasy about the appearance of mutant beasts that weren’t desert creatures in the desert, but without enough information, she couldn’t analyze whether this would have any impact on them.
It wasn’t until they had been walking for another two days, and had killed so many mutant beasts that their hands were sore, that the Phantom Squad finally remembered what Mai Dongzi had said.
They had encountered so many mutant beasts that nearly every half hour in the morning, they would run into another group. The number of beasts in each group had also increased from the previous four or fifty to around one hundred.
There were too many mutant beasts, and the large rocks in the desert were too few. Without a source of replenishment, too many of their weapons were destroyed during the fights, so Mai Dongzi had no choice but to have the Phantom Squad abandon their stone weapons and switch to the large metal knives that Wang Zhelan had forged.
“Why are there so many more mutant beasts, and most of them aren’t desert beasts? Captain, do you know what’s going on?”
Zhuang Huaiya, who had killed the strange beast until his hands were weak, finally remembered that their captain had talked about this topic two days ago.
“I don’t know,” Mai Dongzi said coldly.
The past two days had left not only the Phantom Squad exhausted, but Mai Dongzi even more so.
Each time they encountered a group of nearly a hundred mutant beasts, there were surprisingly a dozen or so level-six beasts, more than twenty level-five beasts, and the rest were level-three or level-four beasts.
Mai Dongzi had to use her sound-based attack techniques to suppress the level-five and level-six beasts simultaneously, allowing the Phantom Squad to deal with the level-three and level-four ones first. Then, she would take care of the level-five beasts herself, and finally, she would step in to kill the level-six beasts.
This caused significant depletion of her psychic energy, and often, by the time she had recovered halfway, another batch of mutant beasts would appear within her “line of sight.”
The encounters the Phantom Squad had over the past two days made Mai Dongzi certain that something had happened in the areas outside the desert,
With only three days left, and more than 1,200 kilometers remaining to their destination, even if the Phantom Squad ignored the constant disruptions from the mutant beasts and focused solely on traveling, they still wouldn’t be able to reach the destination in time.
“Starting tonight, we will return to four hours of rest at night,” Mai Dongzi ordered.
“Captain, by doing this, we have no chance of completing the mission,” Yu Guangxi said reluctantly.
“The situation we’re facing right now isn’t normal. If other teams are also dealing with so many mutant beast attacks, they probably won’t reach their destination on time either. What we need to focus on now is conserving our strength and making sure that no one in our squad gets eliminated,” Mai Dongzi said.
The instructors hadn’t even explained to them how to earn points in detail.
Mai Dongzi didn’t know whether reaching the destination on time or having fewer members eliminated would yield more points, so she had to choose the option that was most advantageous for them.
That meant ensuring that none of the Phantom Squad members were eliminated, even if it meant sacrificing the on-time arrival.
There are only three days left, and they are still more than 1,200 kilometers from their destination. Even if they push the Phantom Squad to keep moving without paying attention to the mutant beasts’ “interference,” they still won’t be able to reach the destination on time.
Given the current situation, without enough sleep, they wouldn’t be able to recover the energy they had spent.
Without sufficient energy, they wouldn’t be able to fight the mutant beasts properly.
But they were facing another problem.
“Captain, my drinking water will run out tomorrow,” Durant said.
“Mine will only last until tomorrow morning,” Zhuang Huaiya said.
“Mine should last until the day after tomorrow,” Wang Yiyi said.
Everyone reported the amount of water they had, and after dividing it equally, it would last them at most until tomorrow morning.
There were only three days left of the training, but they had run out of drinking water.
Mai Dongzi quickly made a decision: “Tomorrow, we will go find an oasis for water.”
Due to the intense battles over the past two days, their water supply had been heavily depleted. Since they had already decided to abandon reaching the destination on time, wasting half a day to find water no longer seemed like an issue.
The Phantom team had already given up on reaching the destination on time. After hearing the captain’s decision, they immediately went to sleep.
Since yesterday, they had been constantly fighting beasts during the day, and even during their rest time at night, they had to fight again. Today, they were truly exhausted and sleepy.
…
The Phantom team slept soundly, while Instructor Shan and Instructor Li were worried.
When they had initially separated the teams for the competition, they had carefully calculated the distances to the destination, and each team was supposed to be about the same distance away.
Since the desert terrain was the most vast, the teams sent into the desert were the most numerous.
When they set the destination, they only considered the distances to the destinations from different terrains, overlooking the nearby Ashasha Canyon.
Before the planet Liva became a barren star, Ashasha Canyon was already known as a place of death.
The reason Ashasha Canyon was called the “Place of Death” wasn’t because there was no life in the canyon, but because any exploration team that ventured into the depths of the canyon never came back alive.
Even the detectors met the same fate. As soon as they flew into the canyon, they disappeared.
Although the internal situation of the canyon remains unknown, the outer perimeter has been somewhat explored.
The canyon is like a huge wound on the barren star, with a very complex terrain inside, home to countless mutant beasts.
It’s widely known that quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes. With so many mutant beasts in the canyon, high-level beasts are bound to emerge.
Especially after the planet was abandoned and became a barren star, the situation within the canyon became even more unclear.
Starting from more than ten days ago, something happened in the Ashasha Canyon, and large numbers of mutant beasts began pouring out of the canyon and spreading in all directions.
Over the past ten days, the number of mutant beasts emerging from the canyon could certainly be described as a small-scale beast tide.
This wave of small-scale beast tides caused every team heading toward their destination to encounter groups of mutant beasts from Ashasha Canyon.
The continuous waves of mutant beasts wore out the teams, delaying their progress. Based on the current situation, not a single team seems likely to reach the destination on time.
Many of the mutant beasts that came out of Ashasha Canyon ended up in the desert, where they encountered various teams.
Originally, the desert teams had already been delayed by the interference of the Oasis people and mercenary teams made up of desperate individuals.
Now, with wave after wave of mutant beast attacks, it’s not just about reaching the destination on time; it’s becoming difficult to even keep their teams intact without being eliminated.
This situation is still manageable only because the instructors had already shot down mutant beasts above level seven before the mutant beast groups approached the teams. Otherwise, even Mai Dongzi wouldn’t have been able to keep her team from being eliminated.