As a citizen of the nation of great eaters, Shen Cong had inherited — partially, at least — the Chinese tradition of consuming essentially anything that moved, flew, burrowed, or swam, provided it was non-toxic and filled a stomach. The apocalypse had simply made that inheritance more immediately relevant. With conventional agriculture gone and the landscape populated exclusively by mutated creatures, dietary flexibility had ceased to be a cultural personality trait and become a survival requirement.

The Giant Stag eggs: excellent. He made a note to seek them out again.

The Giant Stag meat itself: another matter. Dry, fibrous, coarser than Burrower flesh which was already difficult, and with low Activity density relative to the effort of eating it. He tried some, confirmed the assessment, and set the rest aside. When food was plentiful, there was no reason to eat things that were actively unpleasant.

Meal finished. Time to sleep.

He was still awake when the radar alarm sounded.

He came upright fast, pulled up the display. Several contact points, moving in from the north toward Vajra’s position at speed. He had the Half-Activated Armor on and the northern window open within thirty seconds, watching.

At two hundred metres, he could see them clearly.

People. Or near enough.

Five half-beasts. Three male, two female. Each one showed significant physical distortion — bone structure changed, body proportions wrong, the specific variety of mutation that produced the half-beast category rather than the evolved-person category. Their clothing was in tatters, most of their skin exposed, the remnants more gesture toward modesty than actual coverage.

And they were coordinating.

At one hundred metres, the five exchanged a series of low guttural calls and dispersed — spreading into a flanking pattern around the truck, approaching from different angles simultaneously. A containment formation. Primitive, but deliberate.

Half-beasts learned to organise.

Shen Cong frowned. The half-beasts in Juchao’s urban areas had been driven out during the early post-apocalypse period and largely written off. Apparently some had survived in the open territory between settlements and developed beyond what he’d expected. Mutual cooperation implied a social structure of some kind. That was new data.

He felt something that might have been sympathy, briefly. Half-beasts represented a failed branch of evolution — human beings whose mutation had produced distortion rather than enhancement, who’d lost cognitive ground along with everything else. In the abstract, that was a genuinely unfortunate outcome.

In the immediate: they were trying to surround him. That simplified the question considerably.

He didn’t move to act. Not yet. Their physical enhancement was in the three-to-four-bull range — comparable to the Provisional Government’s mid-tier evolved people. Not a threat to him at current capability. He was curious what approach they’d take.

Four of the five took cover behind large rocks in the surrounding area. The fifth — one of the females — stepped into the open and began throwing stones at Vajra.

Ah. Lure-and-ambush. A classic distraction technique: display bait, wait for the target to emerge and chase, hit it from concealment. A technique used against low-intelligence animals.

He spent a moment considering what it meant that they’d deployed it against him.

Either they assume I’m low-intelligence, or this is just the template they use for everything.

The Dog-Croc Battle Standard caught his attention briefly. Still extended above the roofline. Had absolutely zero deterrent effect on the Giant Stag beetles. Now, apparently, zero deterrent effect on half-beasts either. As a warning display it was performing below expectations.

“Wasted effort,” he said aloud. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he meant the Battle Standard or the half-beasts’ strategy.

He raised the crossbow, sighted on the female throwing rocks, and fired.

The Worker-Ant mandible arrow skipped off the stone beside her.

A warning shot. He had no strong interest in killing these creatures. Their threat level was below most of the evolved beasts he dealt with regularly. Drive them off, go back to sleep.

The female half-beast reacted appropriately — startled, shrieked, ran. The four in cover did not follow. Still committed to the ambush. Still waiting for him to exit the vehicle in pursuit.

He pulled out the Type 92 handgun and fired twice at the rocks sheltering one of the males.

That got them moving. All five cleared the area.

He watched the radar. The contact points moved north, slowed, stopped. A new contact appeared briefly — possibly emerging from a den or natural shelter that had been blocking the radar return. They gathered. He waited.

Less than ten minutes later, the contacts began moving south again.

His remaining drowsiness evaporated.

He took the QBZ-95 from its mount and returned to the window. “Don’t mistake patience for a discount.”

The new approach was modified: all five threw rocks simultaneously this time, using the three-to-four-bull strength to hurl genuinely large chunks of stone. The impacts registered on Vajra’s armour as approximately nothing.

But the principle was clear — they’d assessed his response to the first approach and adapted. He’d warned them. They’d come back anyway. That removed the remaining ambiguity about what needed to happen.

He picked a target, sighted, and fired.

The first two rounds went wide — his rifle accuracy was limited, though his stability and target tracking were strong enough to correct for it. The third round caught a male half-beast in the chest.

Giant Stag carapace: stops machine gun fire.

Human tissue: does not.

The half-beast went down with a sound that was equal parts human and not, bleeding severely, not immediately dead.

Shen Cong adjusted without pause and put a round through the skull of one of the females.

Two down in rapid succession. The remaining three processed this, turned, and ran. He shifted to suppressing fire at their retreating silhouettes — no particular expectation of hitting them at night, running, with his current rifle accuracy, but he had twelve hundred rounds freshly restocked and the deterrent value of sustained fire was real.

A full magazine emptied. No confirmed hits on the retreating three. They vanished into the dark.

He waited. No pursuit — the terrain beyond the road wasn’t something he needed to follow anyone into at night, with unknown variables. When the area read quiet, he went out and collected what he needed from the two bodies.

First half-beast: Activity core in the canine teeth, Activity Value 0.467H. Second half-beast: Activity core in the hip bone, Activity Value 0.481H.

Weak. His own Activity Value was at 1.211H. These two were barely a third of his level.

He put the cores away, confirmed the radar was clean, and went back to sleep.

He’d been unconscious for less than thirty minutes when the alarm fired again.

Six contacts this time. Moving from the north.

(End of Chapter 119)