Autophagy

The plan Song Lei had used in the morning was working out pretty well for Section A. However, Section C wouldn't go down without a fight too. They were slowly managing to counter the mobile assault force by forming one of their own.

"This is going to be brutal..." Song Lei muttered. What he was currently thinking about was the whereabouts of Clark. The main forces of section A were currently fighting. However, Song Lei and Aston were pretty sure that this wasn't their whole numbers as they couldn't see any of the elite trainees amongst them.

"Look there," Aston said while pointing towards the opposite side of the base that the battle was taking place. Song Lei followed his finger and turned his head. He saw twenty or so people led by Clark come out of the woods by jumping off the trees or charging out of the bushes. The weird thing was, they were all incredibly fast and agile, even when compared to other trainees.

Currently, half of the Section C forces were fighting against the assault made by the Section A main forces. The remaining were silently looking out for any sneak attacks while scattered around the base. Because of the relatively big size of the base and the fact that their numbers were low, they couldn't properly answer the attacks of Clark and his group. In no time, they were steamrolled and scattered. Even though they kept calling for reinforcements from the other sides of the base, they would collapse before those reinforcements came.

"It seems like you were right when you said that this was going to be brutal," Aston said with an awkward smile on his face.

"Seems so..." Song Lei said. They kept watching the general state of the battle for a long time. Although it was mostly one-sided, it still took a long time for it to finish. When everything was over, Song Lei and Aston jumped off the tree and started going back to their base quickly.

When their base got in their sight, both Song Lei and Aston had to hide behind the bushes.

"We should've thought about this..." Aston muttered. Currently, the whole Section A encampment was being attacked.

"It was pretty obvious. How could Section C who was thrashing our forces during the day go down so easily?" Song Lei said. The reason was easy to understand.

"Most of their forces were attacking our base," Aston finished his words.

At the moment, Both Song Lei and Aston were in a dilemma. If they were to let section C trainees do whatever they wanted, their side would fall into a big disadvantage. On the other side, interfering would be incredibly dangerous.

Suddenly, a thought passed Song Lei's mind. He turned his head towards Aston and asked with a grim expression, "Where are your research documents?"

After hearing Song Lei's words, Aston lifted his shirt slightly and pulled a batch of papers from under it. Song Lei sighed a deep breath of relief when he saw those.

"Unfortunately, these are not all," Aston said. "These are the most important ones, however, there are still some research papers left in our tent."

Song Lei's relaxation didn't last long. No matter what happened, they couldn't let those papers go into the hands of either side.

"Then we should get them," Song Lei said. "Even if we don't help the base out, we have to get your papers."

"You're right. I'm thinking about how we should go about it," Aston explained what was going on in his mind. Currently, there were approximately fifty section C trainees attacking their base. Section A, on the other hand, could barely scrape together thirty people, all made up of scouts.

"We can just sneak in, right?" Song Lei asked. However, his ingenious idea didn't seem to satisfy Aston as his expression was just as solemn as before.

"No, we can't," he said. "The base is being watched."

"What do you mean?" Song Lei asked while raising one of his brows. "By whom?"

"By Section C. Look there," Aston said as he pointed his finger towards a certain place. Song Lei looked in the direction Aston pointed at. At first, he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, however, as he kept staring, he realized that there were a few silhouettes in the forest, silently hiding and watching the battle just like them.

"Why are they hiding?" Song Lei asked. "Shouldn't they just join?"

"They must be thinking of taking down those who try to escape. Or it could be that they're trying to block any information being delivered to Clark and his assault team," Aston made an educated guess.

"So it will be impossible for us to retrieve the research papers stealthily," Song Lei asked one last time just to confirm.

"Yes. That's the case," Aston said.

"Then we don't have any other choices than joining the battle," Song Lei said.

"Not really," Aston said. He looked around carefully for some time and continued by saying, "Follow me."

Aston started walking through the forest silently. This was one of the skills that were taught to them in the orphanage. The ability to minimize the sound they made everywhere. This skill was especially useful in a place such as this forest that was loud with lots of ambient sounds. They could cloak their presence very well.

Seeing that Aston was being silent, Song Lei also utilized this skill and started following. In no time, they managed to get behind one of those silhouettes. Taking a closer look, Song Lei was able to see that this person was just another Section C trainee.

By now, he had understood what Aston was telling him to do. Song Lei walked behind the trainee silently and punched him square on the chin with all of his power. The trainee was instantly knocked out by Song Lei's punch as he fell down. Before his body hit the ground, Song Lei managed to stop him and carry him to Aston's side.

"Good job," Aston praised Song Lei's clean punch. After pulling the trainee to a far enough distance, Aston crushed the neural spider on his nape. As soon as he did so, the unconscious trainee started having seizures.

"This should be able to keep him unconscious till the morning," Aston said.

After they were done with this particular trainee, they both started taking down the other ones that were waiting in the forest. Fortunately, they managed to finish them all off one by one without getting noticed by anyone.

In the end, they were left with a pile of unconscious Section C trainees. Unfortunately, they didn't have any ropes with them to tie these people up.

After they were done piling up the bodies, Song Lei and Aston returned to the base. By now, the battle was nearing its end. Obviously, Section C had managed to win. All of the Section A trainees had been tied up and taken captive.

"We are late..." Song Lei muttered. However, much to their surprise, half of the Section C trainees split up from the group. They walked into the forest and disappeared, leaving behind about twenty people. "Where are they going?"

"Considering the direction, they must be going back to their base," Aston said. "I'm starting to get a gist of their plan."

"What do you mean?" Song Lei asked.

"Did you realize that both sides are really bad at fighting compared to an average trainee?"

"Mm," Song Lei nodded at Aston's question.

"These are the worst trainees of both sides," Aston continued his explanation. "Section C must've sent them here knowing that they wouldn't meet much resistance. They probably thought that they could hold on until these forces conquered Section A's base and came back."

"But they calculated wrongly," Song Lei cut Aston off. "They couldn't hold on and now their base has been conquered."

"Right. That must be the case," Aston said. Song Lei thought for a second as a smile appeared on his face.

"Isn't this really good for us? We should utilize this chance," he said. Seeing Aston nod, they started scouting the base from every single angle to see what the remaining Section C trainees would do.

After watching them for approximately ten minutes, they decided that it was the time. The remaining trainees had all spread into different parts of the base and were constantly patrolling the area. This was good as if Song Lei and Aston were careful enough, they could take the enemies out one by one.

By using the dark of the night, Song Lei and Aston left the forest. They kept their bodies low, close to the ground so that they could utilize the dark to their best. Their enemies were patrolling as groups of two, so they had to knock them out without any of them being able to make any sounds. This was a very hard feat to achieve, however, it wasn't impossible for Song Lei and Aston.

They knew the layout of the base very well. If they could utilize their knowledge to their best, they would be able to resolve this issue easily....