Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 772: Section 525: Bullets Are the Best Gift (1)

Chapter 772: Section 525: Bullets Are the Best Gift (1)

Copenhagen enjoyed clear skies in the afternoon. Jason’s satellite reconnaissance confirmed there were no thick clouds nearby, which meant barring any spell-related interference, the weather would remain clear for the next day or two. Thus, Malin gathered the team of young people and distributed equipment to them—white camouflage cloaks and hoods made of material that insulated against infrared detection, silencers made of an alloy inscribed with an Array that could withstand at least three hundred rounds, and rifles with high-precision barrels.

As soon as Sudel received his rifle, he hugged it tightly to his chest—the boy knew his stuff.

Malin sighed with appreciation and as the squad left Copenhagen on snowmobiles and motorcycles, he had Salis take off. It would search for a Chaos squad for Malin to use for practice with the youngsters.

The convoy hadn’t gotten far when Salis found their target: a campsite. Dozens of Chaos were resting in a small valley. Malin confirmed the location, and led the team to the hills to the east of the encampment. From there, they enclosed the camp from the east and the south—there was a cliff to the west which the Chaos could not escape from. As for the east, Malin had already sent Fio with assorted traps for any fleet-footed Chaos that might enjoy them.

It made sense for the Chaos to choose this location for their camp, as it provided shelter from the east-west blizzards. Reaching the hill, Malin could see that the Chaos had started a fire; at least eighty or ninety of them were there, boiling water and cooking.

These were different from the armored Nagoth hunting parties Malin had encountered before. Although these had boils too, they at least still looked human.

"Foreign Chaotic Believers, this seems to be a rather large invasion," Sudel said after observing the campsite with his binoculars. "This should be their scouting party, but the number of people seems excessively high."

"Maybe it’s a hunting party, or an enslavement party," a young Church member suggested.

"I’ve spotted their mounts, some epidemic horses looking in terrible condition," Malin confirmed their mounts. "I’ll take out their warhorses, you provide me cover. Once I deal with the horses, it will cause a disturbance in the camp. Then you are free to fire at will. Remember, prioritize those running towards you. As for anyone heading north, just let them go. Without their mounts, they can only die in the wasteland."

All the villages in the land of Copenhagen had already withdrawn to nearby cities, with scorched earth policies leading to invaders either breaking the cities or starving in the wilderness.

Perhaps the Nagoth hunting parties could survive without food, but these believers would starve to death without it.

After assigning tasks, Malin slid down from the top of the slope. Before him, Lorrin and Melo had moved ahead and strangled two lazy Chaos who had been hiding behind stones.

Reaching the bottom of the slope, Malin noticed that the bodies had already been covered by overturned snow, and the World Tree Sapling even thoughtfully smoothed the snow out.

With snow everywhere, Malin pulled up his hood and proceeded towards where the Chaos had tied their plagued warhorses, following the low ground at the bottom of the slope.

While the epidemic horses could be killed with a spell, that would alert every Chaos in the camp of an intruder. Therefore, Malin decided to cast a silence spell nearby and let the World Tree Saplings have a field day with the killings.

Then he would set the camp ablaze to create chaos. Once the Chaotic Believers started to panic—that would mean Malin’s side had won.

Salis marked out the approximate location of the horses for Malin, who then adjusted the size of the spell area before casting the Silence Array.

As the World Tree Saplings began their assassination operation within the silence field, Malin noticed someone from a nearby tent walk out. He did not immediately see Malin, but he noticed something odd at the horse-tying area—horses had fallen into the snow.

The moment the man opened his mouth, Malin raised his rifle and pulled the trigger. As the bullet entered the man’s skull, a Spiritual Energy hand had already dragged the body in front of Malin—fortunately, the bullet hadn’t exited through the back of the head, meaning no fragments had sprayed into the tent.

After tossing the body into the slope base, Malin switched to his pistol, pulled back the tent curtain and saw two Chaos. One turned his back to Malin, working on meat at the cutting board, while the other was walking out with a bucket.

Malin made eye contact with the latter, who froze for a moment, failing to recognize what Malin was dressed as, before a bullet penetrated his forehead. Before the Chaotic Believer could even fall, Malin had already pulled the trigger on the second Chaos. The first bullet entered through the spinal column in his back, severing his spine, and the second pierced the back of his neck, completely silencing him.

He fell onto the table, and as Malin pulled him off, he saw that the man was still alive and also caught sight of the meat being prepared... it was the remains of a child.

Malin raised his foot and crushed the still-living Chaos’s neck along with all evidence beneath his boot.

Exiting the tent, the World Tree Saplings had finished off the warhorses, so Malin took out two incendiary grenades, tossing one into the tent behind him while he entered another large tent. The World Tree Saplings had gotten there before Malin, so by the time he entered, there were no longer any living Chaotic Believers.

Malin pulled the pin of the incendiary grenade and threw it into the tent, withdrew from the tent, and casually killed two passing Chaotics—Malin’s appearance surprised them, but Malin had already confirmed their route through Salis, and with a premeditated aim, two shots later, two bodies fell to the ground.

By this time, the flames had already caught the attention of the Chaotic Believers. With Salis’s help, Malin circled around those rushing to put out the fire and then hurled an extremely effective delayed Flame Burst Spell toward the distant large tent, just as its curtain was being lifted.

Then he saw the figure who had just stepped out get directly hit by the Flame Burst Spell, taking the person and the fiery explosion back into the large tent the way he came.

The next second, the entire tent was blown away by the Flame Burst Spell.

Malin quickly followed Salis’s guidance, slipping through the snow to avoid a group of Chaotic Believers, then swiftly ran into a blind spot out of the Chaotic Believers’ field of attention and hugged the cliff face, squeezing into a low pile of snow.

The World Tree Saplings outside devoured several Chaos Hounds alive.

At this point, the Chaotics finally seemed to confirm the cause of their unidentified deaths. They screamed, as if trying to find the invader.

Then the young people Malin left at the top of the hill began their happy time at target practice—prioritizing the Chaotic Believers gathered near the hitching posts in the open area for sniping.

Salis, now carrying an incendiary grenade that Malin had given it, flew to the east side of the camp and dropped it onto a tent.

Continuous fires, heavy casualties, and unseen enemies—it was inevitable that the morale of the Chaotic Believers, who served as cannon fodder in the Chaos Army, began to collapse. Some of the Chaotic Believers who were further away ran north under Malin’s watchful eye—they couldn’t see the murderer, but the fact that their comrades to the south and east were dying incessantly meant they fled toward what they thought was the safer north.

Malin took down several with his gun—this even accelerated their escape because the essence of fleeing was to run faster than one’s comrades.

Malin didn’t shoot too much, exposing his position, and shortly after, continuous explosions could be heard from the north.

This made the second wave of Chaotics who wanted to flee hesitate—In the east and south, their comrades who had spotted the attacker were dying rapidly, while the screams of those who had fled earlier were coming from the north. These desperate fellows ultimately decided to run northeast—there was a deep ditch there, and they jumped into it, seemingly planning to escape the camp through this trough.

Lorrin and Melo had been deployed into the ditch by Salis under Malin’s command; they were there to properly welcome these fellows on behalf of their master, Malin.

Soon enough, there weren’t many left in the camp who dared to stand around; Malin began to deal with these cowards one tent at a time—Mana crawled into the tents, pinpointing targets for Malin, who would then shoot through the tent fabric.

It was like shooting targets at a range.

The last Chaotic Believer was tied up by Mana and dragged out—Malin needed a survivor to confirm the identities of these individuals. He was the most cowardly in this tent; when Malin killed the first person, two of the remaining three fled, only he chose to cower and cover his head, thus securing his chance to live—of course, in Malin’s view, even if such a Chaotic Believer could survive, he would undoubtedly live a very hard life in the time to come.

Of course, that was not Malin’s concern.

That being said, the harder the Chaotic Believers’ lives were, the better it was for Malin—the Chaotics had no redeeming qualities in Malin’s eyes, even their very breath was an error that extended, so there was only one path for them to take, only one ending they could choose: death.

Using Spell Formations to engulf the entire camp in a sea of fire, Malin returned to the hilltop with the captive. The young people looked upon Malin’s actions with awe, taking over the prisoner and dragging him toward the direction of the convoy.

"Your Excellency, I witnessed your performance. In your eyes, these Chaotics are like the most inferior actors, only capable of the most laughable performance," Sudel exclaimed.

"If you had equipment like mine, I believe you could do it too," Malin said as he caught Salis falling down and let it jump onto his shoulder. Then, as he boarded the motorbike, Fio had already returned. Malin didn’t ask if it had finished off the wounded Chaotics who were still breathing—with such cold weather, the cold alone would help Malin take care of those believers.

Not to mention, as a World Tree Sapling, Fio would definitely take care of those doomed Chaotics.

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