Rise of the Wasteland Chapter 201 - Poisonous Gas

Chapter 201        Poisonous Gas

A heavy-duty armored vehicle that weighed over twenty tons was on a rampage in the city, destroying a large number of houses along the way as it was using brute force to open up a new path.

There were also dozens of military vehicles behind the armored vehicle. The vehicles surrounded and blocked the path with their guns and munitions, which even included two long and thick barrels. Furthermore, a nearly seventy tons worth of main battle tanks were chasing from behind as well.

Zhou Qingfeng felt extremely mad. He might have already been dead if Angie’s drone was not there to guide him. However, the chase was still going on. The frontline commander of Skull and Bones had decided to eliminate him. In order to put everything to an end, the commander had even ordered more than half of his armored vehicles to surround Zhou Qingfeng.

“Angie, Angie, show me a route. I need an escape route. I don’t want to go to the Queens anymore. All I want is an escape route that can get me out of all this crap.” Zhou Qingfeng’s head was already soaking in sweat when he yelled through the wireless radio.

Meanwhile, the entire squad behind him was completely lost. They were struggling as if they were in a sea of turbulent waves and apart from tying themselves to their seats, they refused to do anything else.

Angie, who was on Staten Island, faced great difficulty when finding an escape route for Zhou Qingfeng as the vehicles and armed personnel surrounding him were increasing exponentially. All of the large-caliber machine guns, tank guns, and individual anti-tank missiles could easily land a fatal blow on him.

However, when everyone’s life was on the verge of death, those vehicles and personnel who were desperate to chase down the ‘Cougar’ suddenly retreated. Moreover, they left in just the blink of an eye without further hesitation.

After driving the vehicle for a long period of time, Zhou Qingfeng was also exhausted. When he realized that his surroundings had suddenly turned into complete silence, he was dumbfounded.

“What the hell is going on?” Butcher stared alertly from his machine gun tower, fearing that an enemy vehicle might come out from nowhere.

Zhou Qingfeng stopped his vehicle as well. He stretched his head out of the driver seat window and said with a puzzled look, “They were still chasing my butt a few seconds ago… Why the hell did they give up all of a sudden?”

After the surroundings were extremely quiet for about half a minute, the overly suspicious Zhou Qingfeng and Butcher then shouted at the same time, “We’re f*cked! There’s a drone staring at us… They’re going to shell the entire area!”

The ‘Cougar’ roared in rage once again, but this time around, it was no longer personnel or vehicles that were attacking him. Instead, it was the artillery shells that started landing one after another. Fernando Rethnor had specifically formed an elite bomber team to deal with Zhou Qingfeng. Now it was the elite bomber team’s time to shine.

The explosion of a detonated artillery shell that landed near the ‘Cougar’ could be heard. However, the explosive sound was completely different from the grenades in the past. The explosion was relatively smaller. Moreover, it did not seem to be lethal at all.

Butcher, who stretched his head out the window, thought that those were only mini artillery shells at first. However, when the artillery shells landed accurately around them one after another, he instantly woke up to reality. He hurriedly got back into his vehicle and shouted, “Shut the door and activate the NCB defense system. Those might be poisonous gas bombs!”

Zhou Qingfeng was also wondering why the artillery shells were so harmless this time around. When he heard Butcher’s yell, a frightening coldness instantly emerged from his caudal spine. He clearly understood that poisonous gas was one of the most difficult things to guard against.

Fortunately, the ‘Cougar’ which Zhou Qingfeng got from the NYPD headquarters was a standard military armored vehicle. The vehicle came with a full set of nuclear, chemical, and biological defense systems. He immediately closed the entire vehicle and rushed forward with continuous acceleration.

As the number of artillery shells kept increasing, the poison warning device inside the ‘Cougar’ was triggered. Zhou Qingfeng cursed angrily, “So this is the masterpiece of that madman? He’s utterly heartless!”

The filter ventilation device quickly started working and the entire vehicle started to enter an over-pressurized state in order to prevent the contaminated air from entering the vehicle. Meanwhile, Butcher sat in the co-driver seat and looked out through the window. He saw that several people outside the vehicle, who were not able to escape in time, were already poisoned.

“It’s VX, the legendary poisonous gas that can kill an entire neighborhood with one spoon of it. It’s colorless and odorless. Hence, an ordinary person cannot detect it. A person’s central nervous system will be destroyed instantly, causing him to stop his breathing and he will die upon inhalation or if he makes contact with it.”

Everyone inside the vehicle instantly trembled with fear after they heard what Butcher said. Zhou Qingfeng then thought to himself, The landing personnel of the Brotherhood of Steel are definitely doomed. Besides that, the few thousand people from Skull and Bones who launched the attack will be dead as well.

The act of using poisonous gas bombs to harm others without benefiting themselves. They must be out of their minds!

“What should we do?” Roma was the only one inside the vehicle who was still conscious about his surroundings aside from Butcher and Zhou Qingfeng.

“We must first avoid those drones in the sky.” Zhou Qingfeng did not know what was going on in the dark. However, it was obvious that they were being monitored by the drones. There was no way their enemies could make such accurate shots in such a pitch-black environment.

“Too easy,” said Butcher. They knew that they could not just keep on hiding. The artillery shells could reach a range of tens of kilometers. However, they might not be able to escape that far. They might even get shelled to death on the way.

“Victor, maybe I can help you.” Angie’s sound could be heard through the wireless radio, “I’ve found the Skull and Bones’ drone in the infrared image. It’s flying at an altitude of 500 meters and is only about 400 meters away from my drone.

I can try to knock it down. However, that will mean that my only drone will no longer be able to provide you with any support. You need to know that you’ll be losing at least two to three days of air support information if I use my drone to knock it down since my drone will be damaged as well.”

“Just take it down! Stop hesitating and take the enemy’s drone down,” yelled Zhou Qingfeng. Do we still have any other choices left? We need to take it down immediately. Taking it down will be our chance to survive!

Hence, the drones from both sides collided with each other at a height of several hundred meters. Without guidance, Skull and Bones soon ceased the firing of their poisonous gas bombs, and Zhou Qingfeng finally got the chance to escape.

However, Zhou Qingfeng and the others did not dare to leave the vehicle even after the cease-fire. The lethal effect of VX poison gas could last from an hour to several days. He was sure that the body of his armored vehicle had been sputtered by the venom during the detonation of the poisonous gas bombs, and hence the body of his vehicle had to be washed.

The ‘Cougar’ was finally driven into a small river. Zhou Qingfeng drove the armored vehicle back and forth in the river in an effort of washing its body with the splashes of water. The process lasted for several hours and he only came out from his armored vehicle after the poison warning device was deactivated the next day.

It was a night of intense suffering… Until dawn.

Clang…… Zhou Qingfeng opened the roof cover of his vehicle and stretched his head out of it with a gas mask on his face. It was already in the early hours of the morning, but the world that was supposed to be full of flowers and birds was now completely silent. When he finally got out of the vehicle, he realized that he was in the land of death.

There were a lot of dead fish floating on the surface of the river and dead birds could sporadically be seen on the ground. Collapsed buildings, scattered ruins, abandoned vehicles, and a large number of corpses could be seen all over the road. Even the air was filled with a desolate atmosphere.

‘Quiet, very quiet, extremely quiet’ were the only phrases that could be used to describe the city at the moment as there was not even a hint of sound present throughout the entire city. An intense battle took place a few hours ago, but everything had taken an one hundred and eighty-degree turn since then. Zhou Qingfeng stood in the middle of the streets and the bright and shiny sunlight shined upon him. However, he could only feel coldness inside his heart.

It was the beginning of the actual cataclysm!

Chapter end