There were no screams; every living member of the Ursus Patrol exploded instantly. Only fresh blood surged from the corpses toward Flandre Scarlet's palm. Looking at the basketball-sized sphere of blood she had carefully selected in her hand, Flandre gave a chilling smile.
"Sss~ Haa~"
In a single breath, she completely absorbed all the blood in her hand.
"Burp~" After letting out a full burp, Flandre began flying back while humming a little tune.
It was already afternoon when she returned, yet she was the first one back. Upon inquiry, she learned that the other two battlefields were still in the midst of fierce combat. Because the overall quality of the people Talulah led was inferior to Buldrokkas'tee's Shield Guards, her side currently had the disadvantage.
"Then I'll go help!"
As soon as Flandre heard there was a fight to be had, she rushed off excitedly. She remembered Talulah had gone west, so she flew directly in that direction.
"Wait, Talulah said for you not to go... Oh no!"
By the time Alina realized and tried to stop Flandre, the girl had already flown far away. She hadn't learned "Flight Spell" yet, so she could only contact Flandre through their blood connection. But at this moment, Flandre indicated she was on such a HIGH that she simply couldn't stop.
Soon, she spotted the two sides engaged in battle.
Talulah, who had not yet been "Black Snake-ified," still primarily used physical combat; her powerful and terrifying fire-based Originium Arts had not yet been fully developed. Faced with a well-equipped Reconnaissance Squad that outnumbered the Reunion Movement several times over, all she could do was use the complex terrain to constantly skirmish, focusing on wearing down the enemy's manpower and energy. While she couldn't block the Reconnaissance Squad as effectively as Buldrokkas'tee did in the east with his Shield Guards, she still made things incredibly frustrating for the enemy.
However, there were experts among the Reconnaissance Squad; they deliberately acted as if they were going to charge directly at the settlement, forcing Talulah to intercept them in a head-on confrontation. At this point, the Reunion Movement was clearly being suppressed. Only because Talulah was at the very front, and everyone knew their families were behind them, did they vow to never retreat, preventing the front lines from collapsing. But if the fight continued like this, even if the Reconnaissance Squad eventually retreated, their losses would be immeasurable.
Just then, a swarm of dozens of red-and-black bats flew over from the east in a dark cloud. As soon as the bats appeared, they dove straight into the crowd of the Reconnaissance Squad.
Though the bats looked small, each one possessed terrifying strength. With every pounce, they either knocked a man down directly or worked in groups of two or three to carry a man hundreds of meters into the air before dropping him. The equipment the Reconnaissance Squad considered sophisticated was torn open as easily as thin, brittle paper by the bats' sharp claws. If someone managed to kill a bat, it would explode with the force of an Originium grenade. Furthermore, once anyone stained with bat blood died, dozens of bats would burst from their corpse to continue the hunt.
Even though there were only dozens at first, they soon turned into several hundred bats that blotted out the sky.
Faced with this unwinnable situation, the men of the Reconnaissance Squad finally lost their will to fight. This thing was too terrifying. Not to mention their high attack power and extreme agility, the key was that they exploded with horrific force when killed—and even if they exploded, more would just swarm out of the bodies of fallen comrades, increasing in number the more they fought.
But by the time they wanted to retreat, it was too late; the dark swarm of bats already far outnumbered the Reconnaissance Squad. The bats split into several groups, specifically targeting and picking off the enemies from the Reconnaissance Squad. By the time Talulah snapped out of it, the group of nearly a hundred Ursus Patrol members who had just been suppressing them had been completely overwhelmed by the bat swarm.
"This... what on earth is this!"
Forget the Ursus Patrol; even the Reunion Movement members were frozen in fear. If not for the fact that the bats' attacks were highly targeted and didn't touch them at all, they probably would have fled long ago.
"Flandre, is that you?"
Looking at the dark mass of bats nearby, which had grown from hundreds to over a thousand, Talulah couldn't help but feel a chill, even though she suspected it was Flandre.
"Guessed right!" "Flandre's rescue mission is a grand success!"
The bat swarm parted, and Flandre jumped out with a smile.
"Is your side finished?" Talulah asked.
"Mm-hmm. The path to the north was hard to travel, so there weren't many people. Flandre easily wiped out all the bad guys. When I got back and heard you were in trouble, I came over to help!"
Flandre landed in front of Talulah. Talulah reached out and patted Flandre's head before speaking to the people nearby.
"Someone come and strip these corpses. Take back everything that can be used." "As for the bodies, toss them into the woods. There are many wild beasts in this area; they'll help digest these fellows."
The people nearby immediately began making arrangements. By the time the collection was finished, the Reunion Movement soldiers were no longer afraid; they were filled with excitement. Even though the enemy had consumed some equipment during the fight and many clothes had been shredded by Flandre's bats, plenty of good items remained. They even took back the shredded clothing. Even if it couldn't be worn, it could be used for bedding or as scrap material to seal windows and doors in winter.
Combined with the Reconnaissance Squad's high-quality gear, it could be said that although they lost five or six people in this operation, the spoils were enough to arm over twenty people. And it was better equipment than what they had before. For the Reunion Movement, this was a massive profit. After all, they had long since grown accustomed to the death of the Infected.
It was already night by the time they retreated to the main camp. Another three hours passed, and it was nearly dawn when the Shield Guards, led by Buldrokkas'tee, returned from the east.
"Captain? Why are you back so early?" "Is the enemy that strong? Do you need me to assign you more manpower?"
Facing the returning Buldrokkas'tee and his group, Talulah was not happy; instead, she was shocked. Based on their plan and their understanding of the Reconnaissance Squad, there shouldn't have been a result until the two sides had been entangled for four or five days. But it was only the first day, and Buldrokkas'tee had already retreated to the main camp. Was the enemy's combat power so strong that Buldrokkas'tee believed the Shield Guards couldn't hold them off?
Buldrokkas'tee shook his head. "No, the Reconnaissance Squad has withdrawn."
"Withdrawn?" Talulah wore a look of confusion.
If the Reconnaissance Squad's operations could be so half-hearted, they wouldn't have been afraid of them for so long. In reality, the Reconnaissance Squad was like a pack of hyenas; once they found a target, if they couldn't be successfully shaken off, they would keep coming relentlessly.
"Yes, they withdrew." "Though I don't know why either!"
Buldrokkas'tee indicated he was also puzzled, but that was the reality. The two sides had fought on the front line from morning until afternoon, and just as it was getting dark, the other side suddenly chose to retreat without hesitation. At the time, Buldrokkas'tee thought it was a trap or that the enemy had found another route, so he sent men to follow them for a distance. But the result was that they indeed retreated rapidly along the path they came.
Though he didn't understand their actions, since the enemy had withdrawn and his own men were keeping an eye on them, Buldrokkas'tee brought the Shield Guards back to the main camp.
Talulah sat there in silence for a long while before speaking. "Around dusk... I suspect the news of what happened to the two groups coming from the west and north reached them. To avoid the eastern group being wiped out as well, they chose to evacuate."
Talulah then told Buldrokkas'tee the news of Flandre dealing with the north and then helping her completely annihilate the Reconnaissance Squad in the west. Buldrokkas'tee said that was very likely.
According to Ursus tradition, the three teams needed to transmit their locations to headquarters at regular intervals to better receive commands and arrangements. The three teams that came to surround and suppress the Reunion Movement this time totaled nearly five hundred people according to the numbers given by Flandre, Talulah, and Buldrokkas'tee—equivalent to more than half a regiment.
The largest group was the one in the east, with about three hundred people, but they were blocked by the equally well-equipped Buldrokkas'tee. Flandre and Talulah's sides combined were about two hundred people. Most of those were on Talulah's side. If these five hundred people had successfully completed the encirclement, the Reunion Movement might have actually been broken. While Talulah and the others could rely on their great martial power to fight their way out, what would happen to the majority of the old, weak, sick, and disabled?
But the result was completely different from what the enemy had imagined. Although the team in the north was small, they were all elites. According to the plan, they were meant to be a strike team, descending like gods from the sky to raid the Infected settlement. As it turned out, they lost all contact immediately after passing the valley.
The team in the east had been constantly sending messages earlier, claiming victory after victory and that they had reached a position ten kilometers from the Infected settlement, but then they also suddenly lost contact. This truly left the headquarters in a state of shock. Losing two hundred people at once, with another three hundred blocked halfway by Patriot—no one could withstand that. Fearing that these three hundred people would also mysteriously lose contact during the night, and with the other two routes having met with disaster, the encirclement plan had failed. Thus, they decisively sent a message to the eastern team, ordering them to retreat quickly.
That was how the current situation came to be.
Buldrokkas'tee had spent a long time in the military and knew that a deployment of this size would certainly have communication personnel and equipment, so he inquired about it. Talulah said their people had indeed found a communicator on a corpse from the western team, which she then destroyed immediately. Because the communicator had a positioning system, bringing it back would make it easy for the Ursus army to lock onto their coordinates. Once the coordinates were locked, Ursus's heavy artillery could fire from several or even over ten kilometers away.
As for the situation with the northern team... Talulah said Flandre had already fallen asleep, and they wouldn't know until tomorrow morning.