Chapter 1402
Spike: You're next!
Six o'clock in the morning.
Fighting arena.
Spike crouched in the center of the arena, his gray fur gleaming metallically in the morning light.
Its front paws pressed against the ground, and its tail swung slowly, each swipe leaving shallow marks on the concrete.
The members of the Victory Team stood in a row, their faces pale.
Daigo stood at the very front, his legs still shaking.
The three kilometers he ran yesterday, plus the extra kilometer as a penalty, are still causing his muscles to protest.
"start."
Cui Ming's voice came from the sidelines.
He sat in a folding chair, holding a cup of coffee, while Megumi Kijima peeled a tea egg for him.
Spike moved.
Its goal is clear—the new city.
Xincheng didn't even have time to react.
With a flash of gray, Spike appeared in front of him, its hind paws raised and its front paws slapping Newtown's shoulder like two door panels.
boom!
Xincheng was forced to the ground, his face pressed against the cement floor, and he swallowed a mouthful of dust.
Spike lowered his head and brought his big mouth close to Newtown's ear.
"What the hell are you training for?!"
His saliva sprayed all over Xincheng's face like a waterfall.
"Back in my EDF days, even the greenhorns were stronger than you! Is your body made of paper? Huh?!"
Spike's loud voice made Newtown's eardrums buzz.
It spat as it slapped Xincheng's back with its paws, each slap producing a dull thud.
"Push-ups! Fifty! Now! Right now! If you don't finish, I'll stuff you in the trash can!"
Xincheng scrambled to his feet, braced himself with his hands on the ground, and began frantically doing push-ups.
Spike crouched down beside him, his paws pressing against his back, patting him once for each count.
"One! It's as soft as noodles!"
"Two! Your back is sagging! Straighten up!"
"Three! You call that a push-up? That's maggot wriggling!"
Horii, watching from the side, kept swallowing hard and tried to quietly back away.
Spike's ears twitched.
The gray shadow flashed by again.
Horii felt a chill on the back of his neck and was lifted up.
Spike's claws gripped his neck, lifting him into the air like a chick.
"You want to run?"
Saliva gushed out again.
Horii's face was covered in it, and he couldn't even open his eyes.
"I hate deserters the most! With your build, you should be a heavy artilleryman! But what happened? You're out of breath after just three steps! You got stuck in the ventilation duct for twenty minutes! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?!"
Spike shook Horii, making his flesh tremble.
"Today! You work with Xincheng! He does fifty! You do a hundred! If you're short one, I'll use you as a punching bag!"
Horii was thrown to the ground, and his buttocks hurt terribly from the fall.
He got up, put his hands on the ground, and started doing push-ups side by side with Xincheng.
Spike crouched between them, patting New Town with his left paw and Horii with his right, his rhythm as precise as a metronome.
Daigo, watching from the side, felt a chill run down his spine.
He tried to make himself less noticeable, slowly shrinking behind Lina.
Spike glanced at him sideways.
"Hey you, Daigo! What are you hiding for! You think I can't see you?!"
Daigo froze.
"Exit!"
Daigo forced himself to walk out.
Spike circled him once, sniffed around his legs, and then slapped his thigh with a paw.
Daigo almost knelt down.
"Your muscles are alright, but your coordination is like crap." Spike took two steps back and pawed at the ground. "Come on, attack me. Let me see how you fight."
Daigo swallowed hard.
He struck a pose, then charged forward and threw a punch at Spike's side.
Spike didn't dodge.
It took the punch with its belly.
Daigo felt like his finger bones were about to crack.
Spike's abs are as hard as steel plates.
"That's it?" Spike looked down at him, his eyes full of disdain. "Even when you transform and fight monsters, you're still this weak and limp?"
Daigo's face turned bright red.
"I...I'm different after I transform..."
"Bullshit!" Spike slapped him to the ground with one paw, his front paw pressing down on his chest. "Humans are weak, and they won't be much stronger after transforming! You think Ultraman's power is free? It's an amplifier! Not a fig leaf!"
It lowered its head, and spit on Daigo's face again.
"You just wait! If I ever see you landing unsteadily again, I'll tie you to a carousel and spin you around for three days straight!"
Sidelines.
Lina covered her mouth, her shoulders trembling.
She wasn't beaten up, but seeing her teammates' miserable state, she felt that laughing out loud might make her the next target.
Kei leaned on Choi Myung's shoulder and whispered, "Isn't Spike a bit too fierce?"
“Fierce?” Cui Ming took a sip of coffee. “Back in EDF, it was even fiercer against new recruits. Now it’s holding back.”
"...What happened to the new recruits afterward?"
“They’re all alive.” Cui Ming paused. “Most of them.” Ju Jianhui remained silent.
In the fighting arena, Spike finally let Daigo go.
It turned around and glanced at the remaining people.
Ye Rui and Zong Fang both took a step back at the same time.
"You two!" Spike roared, "Come at me together! I'll teach you what teamwork is!"
Ye Rui and Zong Fang exchanged a glance and shook their heads simultaneously.
"Not going?" Spike grinned, revealing his fangs. "Then I'll take them one by one!"
It pounced on Zong Fang.
Munakata, the most experienced fighter in the Victory Team, attempted to block.
Spike's claws slapped his arm, sending him flying. He rolled three times on the ground before coming to a stop.
"Your defensive stance is wrong! Your center of gravity is too high! I could knock you over with one slap!"
Spike chased after him, pressing his claws onto Zongfang's back and pinning him to the ground.
"Push-ups! Eighty! Now!"
Zongfang gritted his teeth and got up to start working.
Ye Rui, watching from the side, turned pale.
He wanted to run, but his legs were too weak to move.
Spike finished dealing with Munakata and turned to look at him.
"You, the one with glasses! Come here!"
Ye Rui walked over shakily.
Spike used his claws to lift his chin and looked him over.
"You're as skinny as a bamboo pole. Are you a technical soldier?"
"Yes, yes..."
"Technicians need training too!" Spike threw him to the ground. "Your job is to make sure you don't get slapped to death on the battlefield! Otherwise, what good are all your skills!"
Ye Rui lay on the ground, hands supporting his weight, and began doing push-ups with a mournful face.
Spike crouched in the center of the field, watching the Victory Team players crawling all over the ground, his tail swishing impatiently.
"A bunch of trash!" it roared. "Back in my day in EDF, even the worst soldier I led could do two hundred push-ups with one hand! What is this?! Morning exercise?!"
It walked to the side of Xincheng, who was exactly on his forty-eighth day, his arms shaking as if he had been electrocuted.
"Two more!" Spike roared. "Hold on for me!"
Xincheng gritted his teeth, his face flushed, and finally finished the last two.
He lay on the ground, like a dead fish.
Spike flipped him over with his paws and sprayed his face with saliva again.
"Tomorrow! Sixty! If you don't finish, I'll throw you into the sea to feed the fish!"
Xincheng didn't even have the strength to nod.
Horii fared even worse; when he reached his seventieth, his arms gave way, and he collapsed to the ground.
Spike lifted him up with his claws and shook him.
"Thirty left! Trying to slack off?!"
"I...I really can't go on..." Horii's voice was choked with sobs.
"No good?" Spike lifted him up to his face, his nose almost touching his cheek. "Do you know how I trained back in the day? Fifty kilograms of weight! Ten kilometers! And then three hundred push-ups! You're barely scratching the surface!!"
It threw Horii back onto the ground.
"If I don't finish, I won't get any food today!"
Horii let out a wail, gritted his teeth, and continued to hold on.
Sidelines.
Cui Ming finished his coffee and stood up.
Spike.
Spike turned his head, his ears perking up.
“Ten-minute break,” Cui Ming said. “Let them catch their breath.”
Spike grinned, seemingly dissatisfied, but still took two steps back and squatted down.
"Consider yourselves lucky!" it roared at the groaning Victory Team members on the ground. "Ten minutes later! We'll continue! Today I'm going to show you what real combat training is all about!"
The members of the Victory Team lay on the ground, supporting each other, their eyes filled with tears.
Daigo looked at Megumi, his eyes full of pleading.
Kijima sighed and walked over to Choi Myung's side.
“Cui…”
"No," Cui Ming interrupted her directly, "This is only the beginning."
"But……"
“They were too weak.” Cui Ming looked at the mess on the ground and said in a calm tone, “If you’re soft-hearted now, you’ll feel even worse when they die later.”
Megumi Kijima remained silent for two seconds.
Then she walked back to the sidelines, took out a few towels from her bag, and threw them to the team members.
"Go ahead and wipe it clean," she said. "Continue in ten minutes."
Daigo took the towel and wiped the drool and sweat from his face.
He looked up at Spike.
The gray bulldog was squatting in the center of the arena, its front paws on the ground and its tail swishing slowly.
The sunlight shone on it, and its gray fur looked like a layer of armor.
Daigo suddenly felt something.
This dog.
It might be even more terrifying than a monster.
Spike seemed to sense his gaze and turned to look at him.
That look seemed to say:
What are you looking at?
You're next. (End of Chapter)