Chapter Forty: The Advanced Frenzy

This technology immediately caught Joe’s attention. Though virus research was his true passion, what man could resist firing such a magnificent shoulder-mounted cannon?

With a pained expression, Harvey adjusted his aim and fired…

A blue beam shot from the cannon barrel, heading straight for the monstrous turtle of the eighth stage.

The power of this shot far exceeded Joe’s expectations. Though the caliber appeared similar to a portable high-energy cannon, a single blast from this weapon shattered a fifth of the old turtle that had left him at his wit’s end.

The immense destructive force stunned everyone.

Joe let out a delighted whoop. “My dear brother, you should’ve brought out a weapon like this ages ago! Keep blasting that old bastard—he can’t take many more hits!”

Harvey’s face turned deathly pale, and the silver-white cannon on his shoulder melted like mercury, flowing back into his military greatcoat. When his arm emerged again, Joe’s eyes widened in shock.

Harvey’s arm hung limply, limp as a noodle in places and twisted unnaturally.

Seeing Joe’s astonishment, Harvey gritted his teeth through the pain and explained, “Antimatter technology! I lowered the output, but even then, no flesh and blood can withstand the recoil!”

Joe was taken aback. “Has the Giant Tree Star already mastered such powerful technology?”

Harvey managed a grim smile. “This is native to the Zombie Star!”

Joe paused, memory flashing to the history of the Giant Tree Star plundering the Zombie Star.

“Actually, even before the Zombie Star’s collapse, several prototypes of antimatter mechs were produced. The one I have is just a part of one of those, and I only brought a few components.”

“The others—I suppose the people of the Four Stars have taken them…”

“But the human body simply can’t endure the massive recoil from antimatter strikes!”

“The original purpose of the Zombie Star’s genetic technology development was to create a batch of super-soldiers who could operate the antimatter mechs!”

“Unfortunately, that led to the outbreak of the zombie virus… and the antimatter mech technology vanished with it.”

“Who knows if the Four Stars have managed to restore the technology after all these years…”

“The prototype the Giant Tree Star took away is locked up in the royal treasury…”

“You’ve seen its power…”

“Just one use, and my right arm—with its third-stage mutant physique—has suffered a pulverizing fracture. When I get back, I’ll have to replace it with a cybernetic limb…”

“My left hand can still generate an antimatter energy shield—enough to block the aftershock from the main cannon’s dispersal strike!”

“The situation is dire—don’t waste any more time, Corpse Hunter!”

“Let’s act!”

Looking at Harvey, whose face was so pale it had lost all trace of color, his entire body trembling in agony yet still able to blow smoke rings and chat casually, Joe found himself feeling a bit of admiration for this man.

In a flash, Harvey’s vision blurred, and he saw Joe returning with Liana slung over his shoulder.

Joe grinned. “My shoulder-mounted cannon isn’t bad either, is it?”

Harvey burst out laughing. “It’s sexier than mine!”

The next instant, Harvey felt someone grab him by the waist and whisk him away at incredible speed.

Zella watched helplessly as Joe abandoned her, realizing that he now knew the Taran family had forsaken her. She went pale as death.

Harvey, carried away, was stunned by Joe’s speed. He had never imagined a human could move so fast.

Just as Joe became a blur, about to break through the encirclement, the worker bees in the sky sprang into action.

A yellow streak flashed across the heavens, and the worker bees’ tails unleashed a hail of stingers like a Gatling gun.

Where a normal bee had just one stinger, these mutated worker bees could grow them endlessly.

Each stinger was nearly a meter long and glimmered with a faint green light, their venom fierce and deadly.

They shot ruthlessly at Joe’s position, moving so fast that a direct hit would pierce right through from chest to back, head to tail.

The crow perched on Joe’s shoulder screeched in terror.

Joe’s heart tightened; without hesitation, he retreated.

Yet the worker bees were even faster than Joe at full speed.

Stinger after stinger shot at him without end.

Soon, the worker bees ceased their attack…

Joe’s face was grim as could be.

Looking around, he realized he’d been forced back to his starting point by a single worker bee.

It was from this very spot that Joe had dashed out with Liana and Harvey!

Worse still, the giant turtle had already recovered from Harvey’s attack.

Now it barreled toward them, more frenzied than ever.

Because Joe had focused all his attention on the worker bees, he hadn’t noticed the turtle’s numbing aura, which now covered the entire area.

Suddenly, none of them could move, forced to watch as the turtle lifted its massive leg to stomp them flat…

At the critical moment,

Joe felt the ground vanish beneath him, his body plunging into darkness.

This was a tunnel dug by the Licker, secretly ordered by Ye Hai from afar, to whisk them away amidst the chaos.

Along with Joe, Harvey, and Liana, Zella and the nearly ruined T-103 Tyrant were also pulled underground.

Harvey emerged from the darkness to find himself a kilometer from the battlefield.

Before him stood Ye Hai in his super-tyrant form.

There was no time for greetings. In the sky, the worker bees were already charging toward them.

Harvey bellowed, his left arm projecting a rapidly expanding curtain of light—a massive shield three meters high and two meters wide, which he drove into the ground.

Shouting into the communicator on his shoulder, he ordered, “Dispersal strike—engage!”

A blinding beam of light shot down from the sky, striking the center of the sixteen worker bees.

A deafening roar split the air.

Unlike the precise strike that pierced the earth like a sword, the dispersal strike didn’t bore into the ground, but instead formed a colossal sphere of light nearly a kilometer wide.

In an instant, it erupted, vaporizing everything within the sphere and nearby.

At the epicenter, the landscape transformed dramatically.

In a heartbeat, a ring-shaped mountain more than five hundred meters tall rose up.

The blast’s aftershock reduced everything around Ye Hai and the others to dust.

Even with Harvey’s shield, the group felt their skin being flayed by the wind.

Luckily, the dispersal strike’s power faded rapidly.

Within seconds, calm returned to the world.

Gazing at the newly risen mountain and the flattened wasteland around them, everyone drew a sharp breath.

If not for Harvey’s antimatter shield, they would all have been reduced to ashes by the blast.

As they marveled at their narrow escape,

Harvey fell backward, his left arm completely gone and a massive dent in his chest.

At that moment, Ye Hai’s eyes narrowed…

He turned to look behind him…

In the sky, tens of thousands of giant worker bees swarmed like a wall, escorting a colossal queen bee over fifty meters tall, rolling forward like a tide.

The ground trembled as countless eighth-stage mutants charged in from all directions.

Suddenly, Ye Hai’s pupils contracted sharply…

With his extraordinary eyesight, Ye Hai could see clearly…

Between the two pairs of compound eyes on the queen bee’s head was embedded a human face.

That face—Ye Hai had just seen it on an ID badge not long ago.

He remembered the name: Tang Jie.