Long-term salvation

But no matter what, get this kid next to you out first.

"Carl of the Gallagher family."

After exchanging a glance with Bai Zi, who had already come to his side, Rhode stood up and leaned against the wall. He pulled out another grenade and threw it to buy time while checking the bullets in his revolver.

"Do you remember the exit of this storage area?"

"Remember...remember."

"Very good. Run out now and go to the RV and call Abigail over. The little blonde girl wearing a silver key necklace... Very good, you still remember." Rhodes nodded slightly. He slowed his breathing, trying not to smell the stench of the approaching corpse. "Now, listen to my orders. I will buy you time-"

Rhodes' words stopped abruptly as he heard new footsteps coming, one heavy, one light, one slow, one fast.

What followed immediately afterwards was the shrill grin of the M2 heavy machine gun!

Chapter 53: Surrender (13/15)

The divine punishment of steel descended like a torrential rain, bringing the flesh and blood to their knees and bow.

It was a reassuring sound—the 12.7mm bullets practically slammed into the monster, each strike threatening to rip it in two. Foul-smelling blood splattered, mingling with the writhing, broken tentacles on the ground like earthworms tumbling on a muddy road after rain.

After being struck, the monster let out a series of howls, resembling those of a woman in torture. It hopped around the corridor, attempting to dodge the gunfire as before, its broken tentacles rapidly closing in on its body. But it was in vain. Just as it slowed down slightly due to the heavy damage it had sustained, a rocket exploded with a shrieking sound as it pierced the monster's body!

The monster that had been so arrogant before was now scattered all over the corridor like crushed jelly, with only its lower body swaying, looking extremely funny.

Rhode poked his head out and saw Abigail half-kneeling on the ground, holding an M72A3-LAW rocket launcher. Her left fist was clenched and her face was filled with joy after hitting the target.

"YES!"

"..." Rhode silently retreated, thinking that he should carefully teach this girl how to use weapons in the future, so as not to hurt herself or innocent people - wait, the old man operating the heavy machine gun next to her seems a little familiar?!

Andrei Malenchenko Zakharov (Observer of the Soviet Perseus Kogito Foundation)

[Source: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War]

Description: Born in the Soviet Union, he represented the Soviet spy organization "Perseus." He encountered the Otherworld incident during the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II and became the sole survivor. Under Andropov's instructions, he secretly formed the Perseus organization, recruiting elite members from the KGB and the Soviet armed forces. Their mission was to investigate, study, and eliminate Otherworld phenomena within the Warsaw Pact. However, after Chernenko's death, he immediately broke away from Soviet control and purged dissidents from within the organization.

【Attitude: scrutiny/expectation/trust】

trust?

Rhodes was a little stunned, and how did this Perseus find him?

track?

There were a lot of doubts at the moment, but Rhode was not in the mood to pay attention to them for the time being. He shouted loudly:

"Don't shoot, I'm coming out now!"

"Buy me Black Forest cake, with candied cherries!"

"You're dreaming. We'll have to prepare some money for the warehouse manager to clean up this mess... I can totally imagine how dark Yuuka's face will be. You'd better not cause any trouble in the near future."

Rhodes walked out expressionlessly. He turned his head to look at the monster's body that had begun to reassemble. Tiny tentacles swaying like sea lilies were growing from the broken lower half of the latter. The tentacles merged with each other, making it even bigger. If they waited a few more minutes, this monster would obviously become a problem for Rhodes and his companions again.

At present, there seems to be no option other than to completely burn it with flames.

"I know," Abigail nodded, a foxy smile on her cute face. "That's why I asked you to buy it for me."

Rhode didn't say much, but went straight forward and began to knead Abigail's chubby face, making her scream for mercy. After teasing the girl for a while, Rhode nodded at Perseus and said:

"Although I don't know how you found us, thank you for your assistance - Mr. Andre."

Hearing this name, Perseus was slightly dazed, but he quickly regained his composure. A similar "you really know" expression appeared on his face, similar to that of Ains, and he smiled and replied:

"I just brought the weapons you left on the RV. Is this an M2 heavy machine gun? Hmm... maybe you'll need a KPV heavy machine gun in the future. Otherwise, the single shot just now would have been enough to reduce that monster to pulp."

"I'd love that weapon, but this thing is a bit tricky," Rhode said, looking at the reassembling monster in front of him with a headache. He tried to fire a few shots at it with his revolver, but it only slowed down its reassembly speed. "We need to scavenge some gasoline, but starting a fire here could easily spread to the entire storage area."

"You can contact Atlas Corporation and other people in the Foundation to handle it."

Perseus said this deliberately, and Rhodes quickly rejected the proposal as he expected:

"No—but if this gets out of hand, I'll call them."

"Sensei, something's wrong," Bai Zi suddenly said. She stared at the monster, her brows furrowed slightly. "The smell of the 'dead but not dead' deep in the warehouse hasn't dissipated yet. This isn't normal. There must be something else inside."

"I see. I'll go inside that warehouse and take a look. Baizi, you, and Abigail are outside watching this monster... Oh yeah, and Carl, Carl! Are you still alive?!"

"Should...still be alive..."

The young man, a little dazed by the roar of the heavy machine gun, leaned against the wall and came out. He smiled miserably at Rhode, but when he saw the reassembling monster, his face turned pale. He quickly ran behind Rhode along the wall, holding up his gun nervously and asked:

"What do we do next? Shoot it?"

"Stay here," Rhodes said. He reloaded his revolver and took the M16 rifle Abigail handed him. In such a cramped environment, he still wanted a suitable submachine gun, but unfortunately the individual equipment types in the existing combat groups were too limited. "I'll go in and take a look. Don't run around, and don't let ordinary people get close to here."

"I will go with you."

Perseus said as he also picked up a rifle and after checking the magazine, he grabbed two magazines from the large black bag full of weapons and stuffed them into his clothing pocket.

"I can't guarantee your safety."

"I will die one day," the old man said, his beard twitching as if he was mocking Rhodes's stupidity, "but Perseus is immortal."

In response, Rhodes just shrugged and stopped insisting.

At this moment, the corridor was already dim. The light fixtures had all been destroyed in the fierce battle, and only the broken wires occasionally emitted sparks. Add to that the resurrecting monsters, and it felt like you were in an all-too-real nightmare, waiting in agony for the possibility of awakening.

The two men walked around the monster, whose regeneration was delayed by heavy machine gun fire, and walked into the messy Warehouse No. 36.

The stench still permeated the place, even worse than at the beginning, but deep inside the broken and fractured old furniture and debris, a torn secret door revealed a carefully hidden passage - the smell came from there, accompanied by a warm, fishy breeze.

"The power of darkness is lurking," Perseus whispered. He glanced at the decorations hanging on both sides of the passage. They looked like some kind of hair product, now gray and dry. "I have a familiar feeling. Perhaps the answer lies within."

"Answer?"

"I came here tracking down a Nazi officer who survived the Battle of Stalingrad. Although I hate to admit it, I have to say that I am indeed lucky... to have met you here, Rod."

Perseus said this and walked into the passage.

Chapter 54: The Seed of Greed (14/15)

The passage is so winding that it is impossible to see the bottom at a glance, and it can basically only accommodate two people walking side by side.

The stench still lingered here, as if it had seeped into the surrounding walls. The haphazardly carved passages were nailed with pages filled with writing, and scattered crucifixes hung among them, now also covered with a layer of greasy dust.

After carefully examining the pages in the passage, Perseus, who covered his mouth and nose due to the stench, said to Rhodes:

"The Bible, written in Middle High German, is quite old. Hum...weaklings only use weak things to arm their spirits."

"You hate Christianity?"

"I hate all religions because they are incompetent and shameless," Perseus said without a single hesitation or tremor. "'Oh! All-knowing and all-mighty God, open your eyes and look at the corpses and wreckage scattered across the ground. Save the people of Russia!' I've heard this too many times—but in the end, what can you do? Isn't it all about tanks, artillery, and the blood of millions of people?"

"Your heart is filled with hatred. Although I don't want to persuade you to let it go, I must remind you that excessive hatred will only put you at a disadvantage when facing creatures from the other world."

"It is hatred that has kept me alive to this day," Perseus said lightly, as if he didn't care at all.

Rhodes did not continue to debate on this topic. On the one hand, it was torture for him to open his mouth in such a stench, and on the other hand, he was surprised by Perseus's frankness.

The two men cautiously moved through the passage. They encountered no attacks, but the deeper they went, the more Bibles and icons appeared on the corridor. The yellowed, dry pages overlapped, swaying slightly from the air flowing in. The eyeless statue of Jesus, with black tears streaming down its face, gazed sadly at the newcomers, as if weeping for humanity's folly.

After walking through the corridor, Rhodes immediately saw a circular room. On the wooden floor in the center, only a broken corner of the inverted pentagram magic circle remained. On the wooden bracket next to it was a thick ancient book that was almost completely burned, with only the melted and deformed brass metal shell left.

[Pollution points in the other world increased by 1]

The moment he entered the room, Rhode noticed the strange atmosphere, as if a huge rock was pressing down on his chest. In fact, something was actually squeezing his chest and abdomen. After trying to take a deep breath and failing, he frowned and said,

"I feel the atmosphere here is...heavy."

Perseus lowered his eyes slightly upon hearing this. He adjusted his breathing and focused his attention on the task at hand. After tapping the deformed brass book cover with his finger, the energetic old man said softly:

"It seems we've lost the means to rebind and kill this demon. Oh yes, I prefer to use religious terms to refer to them. This is actually more accurate in terms of the type and the concepts they represent. Don't look at me like that. Materialistic realists don't care about those garbled and redundant words."

Rhode looked around. Square cushions soaked in dirty liquid were neatly arranged on the curved walls. The entire circular room looked like a moldy model of a womb... To resurrect the dead? To restore youth or prolong life?

"The only option left is to completely set this place on fire," Rhode said without further ado. He pulled out two M202 FLASH 66mm incendiary rocket launchers from his storage space and handed one to Perseus. He continued, "I'll record the surroundings with a DV, then recover the ashes of the books and the remnants of the magic circle on the ground to see if the Atlas Company can recover anything from them... Just stay away if it's inconvenient for you to show up."

"I don't need them to analyze or recover. I'm very familiar with this thing."

Perseus suddenly spoke, squatting in front of the inverted pentagram formation. He reached out and picked up a little ashes before throwing it away, a sneer of disdain on his face:

"This is the scent of 'Greed,' remember? One of the Seven Deadly Sins... Of course, this name is just a random naming given to this summoning method by later generations, and it doesn't mean that there are other monsters of the same type."

"I told you before, I'm here tracking down a Nazi officer. That guy first escaped the Stasi in Europe, then traveled around South America before coming to the United States. Perhaps it was this long journey of escape that cost him all the wealth he'd looted from the corpses of Jews and Slavs, forcing him to live in that old house and wait for time and a heart attack to take him away."

It seems that Perseus did not find the warehouse directly, but went to the home of the old Nazi officer first. After discovering that the latter had died of a heart attack two months ago, he followed the clues all the way here.

In a way, he was indeed lucky.

"Have you ever seen a monster like this?" Rhode asked as he and Perseus poured gasoline from the room down the corridor. "I know you experienced an otherworldly event during World War II and survived."

"...Yes, and he was also summoned."

Perseus sighed briefly, thinking of the forests during the long Russian winter, the swift monsters and the vast network of tunnels within them.

A red flare, as bright as the setting sun, flew into the dark clouds, illuminating the soldiers fighting a bloody battle below.

"That's a long story, but there's no need to tell it here. Go ahead, Rod. The slightest trace of sin has been taken away by the belated judgment. We don't have that much time to waste."

Rhodes lit a cigarette and flicked the butt onto the gasoline trail. Flames shot up instantly, igniting the sin and corruption. A stinking heat wave rushed through the two men, sweeping away the dust in the entire warehouse.

The flames quickly engulfed the innermost room, then spread outward along the Bible pages in the passage, igniting the miscellaneous items piled up in the narrow warehouse outside. The statue of Jesus collapsed in the fire, further fueling the fire.

After exiting the warehouse, Rhodes saw the tentacle monster still regenerating in the middle of the corridor. It kept gathering up its flesh and tentacles, but it seemed that it didn't have much form to support its intelligence. It just stood there stupidly, waiting to be smashed to pieces by Bai Zi, who was operating the heavy machine gun, as soon as more flesh and blood appeared.

Without further hesitation, Rhode asked the others to move away and then pulled the trigger of the incendiary rocket launcher at it:

The raging flames immediately engulfed the still-regenerating monster, which let out a faint scream and walked forward tremblingly, but after a few steps, it collapsed to the ground, and no sound was heard from it again.

"Thinking about it now, we've been pretty lucky so far," Rhode said with a hint of relief as he gazed at the tentacle-like figure writhing in flames. "At least we can still use firepower to deal with the monsters we encounter. Even a powerful creature like this can't withstand a 12.7mm bullet. Did you know? When I was pinned in the corner of the corridor, the roar of the heavy machine gun was like heavenly music!"

Although no monster can withstand 12.7mm now, what will we encounter in the not too distant future?

[Side Quest: Twelve Trials·Auction Item No. 36 (Completed)]

【Task rewards begin to be distributed】

[Pollution points in the other world have been collected]

【System functions are being updated】

【Update completed】

Chapter 55 Let’s rob a bank! (15/15)

After confirming that the monster and the warehouse were completely consumed by the fire, Rhodes and his companions immediately gathered fire extinguishers from the surrounding area. While controlling the fire from spreading to other warehouses, they also called the fire department... There was a residential area next to this place, and Rhodes didn't want more innocent people to die because of a mere monster from the other world.

Leaving the storage area covered in dust, Rhodes and his companions returned to the RV and sat on the chairs they had brought out, watching fire trucks roaring in from different directions. The burly firefighters shouted loudly and rushed into the storage area dragging water hoses - at least for now, the firefighters of the United States have not been betrayed by their government, and responsibility and accountability are still the backbone of these respectable people.

Carl from the Gallagher family had completely collapsed in his chair, woodenly stuffing strange-flavored beans into his mouth, while Abigail, who was sitting next to him, quietly replaced the strange-flavored beans with lemon rainbow candies.

"Karl, come back to your senses," Rhodes patted the boy's shoulder, took away the lemon candy he was about to put in his mouth, and said helplessly, "You need to go home, take a shower, eat something, and have a good sleep."

"If I..."

"There's no if, you'll only get yourself into trouble," Rod said, digging out the money Yuxiang had hidden in the RV, counting out three thousand dollars and stuffing it into Carl's pocket. "Take the money and leave here. Forget about what happened today."

As he was speaking, Rhodes met Carl's eyes. Carl pursed his lips, raised his hand and pointed tremblingly at the storage area:

"That monster is less than a kilometer away from my home? And it's been there for decades?"

"..."

"Will I...will this happen again?" Carl suddenly grabbed Rhodes' hand and asked in pain and fear, as if the courage he had just had to shoot the monster had completely fled his body. "What should I do if I see it again? Call the police or shoot it with a pistol? But I can't get an automatic rifle or a heavy machine gun!"

What should ordinary people do when facing monsters? Who will save us?

Is there really a savior in this world?

"...Go to college, join the army," Perseus, who had been attending for quite some time, suddenly spoke up. He stood before Carl, like a towering, insurmountable mountain. "You can study, work, and train. Equip your mind with professional knowledge and temper your will with hardships and dangers. Then, like us, you can stand fearlessly before bizarre creatures, pull the trigger at them with a mocking expression, and protect whatever you wish to protect."

Rhodes looked at Perseus in surprise, but the latter still had a calm expression on his face, and the words he just said were more like what he said to his younger self.

Carl left, carrying with him the M9 pistol and two magazines full of bullets given by Rod. A strong premonition told Rod that he would meet this young man who had suffered from life but had turned back to the right path again in the future.

"I thought you would laugh at his indecision," Rhodes said as he made a cup of hot cocoa for Perseus. Considering that Perseus was a Soviet, he added twice the amount of sugar. "To be honest, I'm surprised by your performance, both when we first met and now."