As long as you have the courage, fierce ghosts go on maternity leave.

Chapter 370: The base is under attack

When the last of the black beetles’ corpses was absorbed, Alexander loudly ordered the team to move forward. The team, now moving much faster, soon reached their destination.

This abandoned base was unlike the simple defensive base, built upon a small county town from before the apocalypse, consisting of several small residential buildings.

Among these buildings were huge white stone turrets, far larger than those at the defense base, with fierce cannon barrels covering them.

The enormous white net that once shrouded the entire base was now completely torn apart, and even the white stones on the walls were cracked and no longer emitted the forbidden energy.

There were no beetle corpses scattered around the perimeter of the abandoned base like at the defensive base, which didn’t surprise Alexander. These black beetles devoured not only plants and humans but also their dead kind.

Even those black beetles with white patches had only lost control of their bodies; they weren’t truly dead. If undiscovered, they would slowly expel the forbidden substance from their bodies until they returned to normal.

This process was exceedingly slow, but the base had been abandoned for a full half year. Even at a slow pace, those beetles would have long since recovered and left. Inside the base, the scene was equally desolate and ruined.

"Bllaned, where is the supply vehicle?" Walking into the base, Alexander, standing amidst rubble and debris, asked a soldier beside him.

Bllaned, the base’s deputy commander and Atos’s assistant, was ordered to lead the team and follow Alexander’s command throughout the mission.

"Commander, the supply vehicles are all in the garage closest to the city gate. Follow me!" Bllaned led Alexander towards the eastern city gate. There, a massive garage extended underground.

Approaching the ten-meter-wide garage door, Bllaned pulled down four huge manual iron gates on both sides. With a loud bang, the twenty-meter-tall giant iron door crashed down.

Behind them, several soldiers simultaneously turned on their bright flashlights. The blinding sunlight shone down the sloping road into the underground, revealing a vast underground garage to Alexander.

This huge underground garage, occupying the entire town, contained numerous giant modified trucks, each over ten meters high and more than twenty meters long.

Seeing these behemoths, Alexander finally understood why the base, with enough food supplies for two years, still cared about these thousand trucks.

These vehicles, with heads larger than train locomotives, dwarfed any person standing under their wheels, not even reaching the axle.

"How about this? This is a post-apocalyptic modified heavy truck. It’s 16 meters tall, 29 meters long, and can carry a maximum load of 4600 tons! It has dual engines, plus two small auxiliary engines. The only downside is its slow speed, with a maximum of 70 kilometers per hour. Without damaging the truck, we can only maintain a speed of forty to fifty kilometers per hour."

Alexander was astonished by the figure of 4600 tons. This wasn’t a ship or a train; it was a truck!

In Alexander’s memory, the largest transport aircraft could only carry a few hundred tons. As for trucks, he wasn’t even sure if there were any that could exceed a thousand tons.

Of course, in this post-apocalyptic world, there were no traffic rules, nor were there other vehicles. On the plains, these trucks’ wheels were like tanks, and since the trees had been cleared by the beetles, there was nothing to obstruct their path.

"Count the supplies and prepare to set off!" Alexander ordered urgently after his initial astonishment. Since leaving the defense base, he had felt a growing sense of urgency, which had now intensified.

The supply trucks had already been sorted by category, making inventory easy. Soon, Bllaned returned:

"Commander! The supplies have been counted. We’ve selected a thousand trucks. Three of them are loaded with white stones and white stone grenades, five with various research instruments and essential supplies, and the rest with compressed food, three thousand tons per truck."

"Notify everyone, we’re setting off immediately to return to the defense base and meet up with Commander," Alexander ordered.

The maximum load capacity of the modified truck was nearly five thousand tons, but food, not being as dense as ore, meant that packing three thousand tons per truck was already the limit, even with high compression. Millions of tons of dehydrated, highly compressed food would be more than enough for the base to use for a long time.

With a rumble, a thousand behemoths started up, kicking up dust and smoke in the underground garage.

The huge wheels turned, slowly making their way up the gentle slope. Wherever the vehicles passed, bricks and stones cracked, and the ground bore deep tire tracks.

Alexander sat in the front passenger seat of the leading vehicle, with Deputy Commander Bllaned driving.

Throughout the journey, Bllaned continuously urged the convoy to speed up via the walkie-talkie.

This was a convoy of a thousand vehicles! If they were to encounter a swarm of black beetles at this time, though not fearful, the absence of the underground garage and the white stones to block the beetles’ senses meant that the food on the trucks would definitely become a target for the beetles.

Even if everyone could defeat the swarm of black beetles, these modified heavy trucks were delicate and a sudden stop could destroy them. In case of any damage, there was no one here who could repair them.

"Commander, calling the commander!" Bllaned’s urging had brought the vehicles close to the defense base when a voice from a scout came over the walkie-talkie.

"What’s happened?" Alexander quickly unplugged the walkie-talkie from its dock and asked.

"The drone sent ahead has spotted a large swarm of beetles. The defense base is under attack by beetles, the number unknown, but preliminary estimates suggest it’s at least ten times the size of the last beetle swarm! There’s been no sound of cannon explosions, it’s very possible that the beetles have breached the defense base."

The voice over the walkie-talkie caused both Bllaned and Alexander’s faces to turn pale.

Last time, because they lacked Ghost Energy and couldn’t use Ghostly Piercing Vision, Alexander couldn’t determine the exact number of beetles.

But considering that the base’s cannons fired continuously for nearly half an hour, one could infer that their number was far more than tens of millions, perhaps even billions. Ten times that number was an unsolvable problem.

"Alexander, don’t panic too much! The base has an underground bunker, over ten meters deep! The bunker is surrounded by white stones, so in the short term, these beetle offspring won’t be able to attack the people inside! They definitely won’t be harmed!" Although Bllaned’s face was equally grim, he still tried to comfort Alexander.

But even he didn’t believe his words; a beetle swarm of this magnitude, unless like the rear base, hidden hundreds of meters underground and completely sealed off, would eventually breach the defenses.

At that moment, a hissing electrical noise came from the walkie-talkie, followed by Atos’s voice: "Alexander! Calling Alexander! No matter where you are, turn around immediately.

Defense Bases 5 and 6 have not yet seen a beetle swarm. Enter the rear base from there and ensure the supplies are delivered safely. Under no circumstances are you to return!"

Following this, the crackling sound of electricity came again, accompanied by a chilling sound of chewing and flapping wings.