Night fell like a curtain, and thunder exploded across the sky.
The fierce battle in Xilan City only grew more intense. Inside and outside the city, it was total chaos. Streets ravaged by Snow Wraiths were littered with destroyed convoys, burning vehicles, blood frozen solid by the icy wind, and piles of Snow Wraith and Snow Fiend corpses. Winged Demons dangled from dark alleys and high-rises. Eerie Entities crawled out endlessly from massive sinkholes, with clawed limbs scaling buildings and vehicles alike.
Boom! Boom!
To the north and east of the city, blinding explosions lit up the sky, sonic waves rippling across the city.
Electromagnetic cannon beams fired into the heavens from every direction. Tracer rounds from 1130 CIWS cannons painted the sky with bursts of orange light.
Inside the city, the Arctic Wind Alliance’s heavy weapons had the eastern park, Capital Mall Plaza, and White Feather Riverfront locked down tight. Under Han Jun’s command, convoys ford solid defensive formations. Layered firepower and a mix of ranged Ability Users and Enhancers held the line. The situation was deadlocked.
In the south, where most of the convoys had gathered around Central Avenue, a sudden attack by Abyss Worms caused heavy casualties. Zhao Yu was forced to deploy the airborne unit for cover. With help from the Cosmic Convoy, Warriors Convoy, and Torch Alliance led by Chen Xiao, the chaos was temporarily stabilized—but losses kept mounting.
Above the eastern city, a 30,000-ton Dreadnought-class Aerospace Carrier hovered low in the sky. Lightning-2 Aerospace Fighters led swarms of drones and scout units like an endless hive flooding through the clouds to launch a massive aerial strike. The sky erupted with explosions and arcing beams. As the death aura spread, people with weaker ntal resilience began mutating under the pressure of the Dark Invasion...
anwhile, Lin Xian’s side had just repelled the first avalanche wave. The Train Corps and allied convoys caught a quick breather, but with fewer vehicles on their side and monsters surging down from Mount Fenglan, the pressure never let up.
“Lin Xian! There’s a massive horde coming out of the mine!” KIKI swooped down from above, her expression urgent. “There’s a ton of them, all headed straight for us!”
“Prep the next barrage! Everyone fall back into the convoy—let the train take the hit! Arc Pulse Resonators, ready up!” Lin Xian barked into the comms without hesitation.
After round after round of intense fighting, the barrels of cannons, artillery, and rapid-fire guns were glowing red-hot. It was ti to rotate the firepower. The rest would be up to Ability Users, Enhancers, and infantry weapons.
Whoooosh—
More and more monsters flooded the entire mining site. From afar, the slopes of Mount Fenglan looked like a waterfall—only a closer look revealed it was a dense surge of monsters charging down!
From the sky, mountains, and underground mines, these creatures were even more insane than during the Blizzard Front battle!
The sound of crawling swelled into a deafening roar, enough to make one’s scalp tingle.
Bzzzt—
On top of Dragon Mountain No. 1, A’Bai’s laser beam swept through an entire arc, instantly slicing apart hordes of monsters. As one of the team’s rare large-scale Ability Users, he was surrounded by Xiao Qing, Ning Jing, and others who constantly provided cover. But the monster tide—and especially the airborne Winged Beasts—seed to share so hive mind, focusing their attacks on A’Bai.
KIKI and Fire Bro were similarly targeted—one in the air, one underground—constantly bombarded by overwhelming monster waves.
Under the blaze of Lu Xingchen’s flas, grotesque Snow Wraiths and Snow Fiends lunged at him with gaping maws, barbed limbs, and jets of green blood plasma.
“The more I kill, the stronger I get—don’t even think about running wild!!”
Fire Bro roared with fighting spirit, igniting his aura and charging out.
“Fire Fist!”
Boom!
A colossal flaming punch blasted forward in a wave of searing heat, carving a scorched path and lting snow—and monsters—with it.
“Hold the line!!” Shi Diyuan barreled out of the monster tide like a tiger, shouting hoarsely.
“Ammo, now!”
“They’re coming!!”
Rumbling like a tsunami, the monster horde surged toward the freight terminal from all directions. At that mont, all lee fighters pulled back. On both sides, the Arc Pulse Resonators on Dragon Mountain No. 1 and the Infinite Train’s armor began charging up.
Bzzzt!
On the train’s side armor, blinding white plasma sparks exploded!
A high-voltage discharge field let out a piercing crack that seed to rip the air apart, instantly frying the Snow Wraiths piling onto the side into charred chunks that rained down in a shower of smoking flesh.
“Lin Xian! There’s movent in the rear too!”
Chen Sixuan’s voice ca through the comms. Lin Xian turned and saw a swarm of dark figures approaching from the city. The ground was trembling beneath their steps.
“Don’t panic! We can hold them!”
He shouted into the convoy channel, “Tighten defenses! Sweep with weapons! lee only moves within the convoy or on the rooftops, no going outside!”
“Got it!”
“Roger that!!”
Rat-tat-tat!!
From a Fast Runner Convoy war rig, Li Yi fired a rapid-fire gun wildly into the horde, yelling into the comms: “Lei! Do what Captain Lin says! Get your *ss back!!”
“On it!”
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Surrounded by monsters, Lei’s body sparked as claws and stingers raked across his armor. Shouting in fury, he blasted a few away and sprinted back through the chaos. At the sa ti, Luo Yang’s focused beam, Chen Sixuan’s teor-3 sniper round, and Lü Chang’s spinning blades all fired at once, blowing apart the Snow Fiends chasing him. A massive hand reached from a building—Da Lou—and yanked Lei onto the train roof.
Bzzzt!
In that instant, the train’s side armor sparked again, disintegrating the pursuing monsters in a blaze.
“Soone’s hurt!!”
KIKI unleashed a shockwave, pulling Li Guangwen and Liao Ming out of the horde just in ti and using her psychic power to fling them back to the train.
Xiao Yuan and her group provided covering fire and rushed over to catch them.
Seeing their severe injuries and gushing blood, Xiao Yuan imdiately shouted, “Quick, get them into the dical pod!”
“Firepower up!”
BEEP!!
Two 1130 CIWS cannons roared to life again, their brutal tal stream wiping out the left-wing monster horde in seconds, buying everyone a brief mont to breathe.
“Hold steady!”
“KIKI! Fire Bro, strike now!”
“On it!”
“I’m here, b*tches!”
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
The entire freight rail station, spanning several kiloters, had beco a war zone. The ground was burning. Apartnt buildings collapsed. Blizzards howled, echoing with the shrieks of Snow Wraiths.
"Right now, her brainwave activity is a complete ss, but all her physical functions are stable. We suspect it might be related to so kind of Ability."
In the brightly lit, makeshift operations hall, a doctor in protective gear spoke to Xiao He.
"Ability?"
"Yeah. The Nightwalkers Organization had similar cases before, but we can’t be sure. At least for now, things don’t look too bad—she should wake up soon."
Hearing this, Xiao He nodded. Finally, a bit of good news.
At that mont, in the airport’s backup hangar, Wei Kexue and his team had just finished installing a detector and were hurriedly inputting so kind of module and formula into a computer.
"Professor Wei, it’s done. I’ll go notify Captain Xiao and the others," one of the research team mbers said while wiping sweat from his forehead.
"No need. I’m not done here yet," Professor Wei replied urgently, his glasses reflecting the lines of code rapidly scrolling on screen. "Go check on Professor Ding for —and Uncle Guo is on his way. He’s injured. Go pick him up."
"Got it!"
As the others left, Wei Kexue glanced in the direction they had hurried off, swallowed nervously, then quickly shut his laptop while no one was looking and climbed up the boarding ladder of the aircraft.
But just as he got in, a hoarse voice ca from behind.
"I majored in chanics and information systems in college. I’m currently the lead tech of the Emperor Operation Team. This old Tongxing Aircraft may have automatic controls, but solving the Dark Night Information Relay Transmission issue in such a short ti? Impossible."
A weary figure stepped out of the shadows.
Yu Yuheng adjusted his glasses and looked at Wei Kexue. "We’ve never tested this with human signals. The original success rate of this plan was already low. The best approach is to use ourselves as the test subjects—fly up, lure the S-Class Eerie Entity, get it to mark us, and then run the observations."
"But Professor Wei, you’re missing sothing. The Ultra-Pure Germanium Detector doesn’t calculate results that quickly. Even if you die, we might not get any data."
Standing on the ladder, Wei Kexue froze. He looked at Yu Yuheng, face darkening, lips trembling. "But I don’t have a better idea..."
"I do."
Yu Yuheng pulled a laptop from his bag and walked toward another aircraft. "Two computing modules. If soone covers us, we’ll have a better chance dealing with the S-Class Eerie Entity."
"Team Leader Yu!" Wei Kexue’s eyes widened.
"Say no more. Let’s go. If this thing draws that bug in, we won’t get another shot." Yu Yuheng decisively climbed into the second Tongxing Aircraft, shut the automatic cockpit, and started the master control program.
Wei Kexue paused, took a deep breath, then got into his cockpit.
The free-wing lights on both aircraft lit up simultaneously.
Vrrrmmmm...
At that mont, several heavy military trucks rolled into Xilan Airport, stopping just outside the command center. dical staff and guards carefully helped the injured Guo Sicheng inside, along with a few elderly researchers following behind.
Uncle Guo looked anxious. The mont he stepped into the command hall, he barked, "Whose genius idea was this?! The Ultra-Pure Germanium Detector relies on WIMP collisions with atomic nuclei to generate signals! But using this tech on biological samples—especially living cell mbranes—requires extre sensitivity and resolution! You can’t risk damaging the samples! This has to be tested on live subjects! Remote ops? Human signals? What kind of nonsense is this?!"
"Word is there’s an aerial experint going on. Uncle Guo insisted on coming in person," a military officer escorting them saluted Xiao He, then added with a helpless look, "We already got clearance from the commander."
Xiao He nodded, watching the exhausted scientists rush in. "Uncle Guo, what exactly do you an?"
"We’ve been running tests for weeks just to detect the Dark Mark on the human body. And now they want to do unmanned testing? Is Wei Kexue out of his mind?" Professor Zhang, standing beside Guo Sicheng, exclaid.
"Uh..."
"But Professor Wei said he consulted with you and that you approved this plan." A female researcher from the convoy looked puzzled.
"I approved it? When?! With that detector and Disaster Flora being so important, how could I agree to unmanned testing? If sothing goes wrong, what are we supposed to tell the front-line soldiers?! Where is that brat Wei Kexue?!"
Xiao He’s expression darkened. As a soldier, he didn’t understand much about research, but from Uncle Guo's reaction, sothing clearly wasn’t right. He turned toward the rest of the research team.
"Where are Professor Wei and Team Leader Yu?"
Even Jingtian of the Nightwalkers looked puzzled, scanning the room.
"Professor Wei is still setting up the modules," so researchers replied as they walked in from the hangar.
But before they could finish speaking—Vroooom!! Twin roars from jet engines echoed not far off.
Xiao He and Jingtian’s faces changed instantly.
"Fang Chen," the young Ability User, took off into the air. Monts later, a voice crackled over the comms.
"Two Tongxing Aircraft just launched!"
"Crap!!"
Xiao He slamd his comms button. "Professor Wei!"
Crackle...
Wei Kexue’s voice ca through. "Sorry, Captain Xiao. Things escalated too fast—I didn’t have ti to explain. Team Leader Yu and I are airborne now to secure the target. Please take care of Professor Ding and Uncle Guo."
"What?! Just the two of them?!"
"D*mn it." Jingtian's face sank. Two scientists with zero combat ability going up against an S-Class Eerie Entity? There’s no way they’ll survive.
Guo Sicheng snapped to his senses, face twisting in anger. He roared into the comms, "Wei Kexue, get back here right now! The Ultra-Pure Germanium Detector has a super narrow detection window! Distance precision is everything! This plan won’t work at all!"
"But there’s still a 5% chance, isn’t there?"
Wei Kexue’s voice echoed in the comms, stunning everyone into silence.
The command center fell deathly quiet, the only sound being his voice in the radio channel.
"Teacher, I rember your first lecture. You talked about how, in 1895, Röntgen discovered X-rays by accident while studying cathode rays. A 0.01% chance led to a new era in science. You said even if the odds are tiny, even if the path ahead is uncertain, soone still has to take that step. This ti, we’ve got a 5% chance. I believe, if it were you, you'd make the sa choice."
Guo Sicheng opened his mouth, stunned. He turned to the dark sky outside the command room window. His steady hands now trembled slightly.
After a long silence, he finally spoke. "That damn kid... Don’t forget to calibrate the neutrino signal frequency."
"Understood, Professor." Wei Kexue’s voice suddenly felt brighter.
"Uncle Guo..." Professor Zhang looked at him with a complicated expression. Just hours ago, this old man was ranting about scolding Wei Kexue, and now, there was sothing resolute in his eyes.
Uncle Guo raised a hand, turned to the team. "What are you all standing around for? The young ones are up in the sky risking everything—we old bones can’t slack off! Let’s track the data and run the asurents!"
"Yes, sir!" The researchers responded in unison.
He turned to Xiao He and said, "Captain Xiao, please have all the instrunts moved here. We’ll work from this location!"
Xiao He looked around at the scientists and felt a surge of deep respect. He imdiately turned and barked, "Everyone, move the lab equipnt here now! Lock down the spaceport tunnel—I don’t want even a mosquito slipping through!"
"Yes, sir!"
"What's going on?!"
"Did sothing explode in the sky?"
"What kind of weapon was that?"
"Look! Those monsters!!"
"What the h*ll is happening?!"
As the white flash streaked across the sky, every Snow Wraith, Snow Fiend, and Winged Demon below the night sky let out a shrill, piercing howl. The once-raging hordes started frantically retreating. The Eerie Entities in the sky darted away, and the monstrous tide on the ground pulled back en masse toward the snow layers and sinkholes.
This bizarre scene left every survivor and soldier of the Investigation Corps, who were locked in a life-or-death struggle, completely stunned.
At the northern city wall’s defensive line, He Zhen stared at the tide of monsters vanishing into the darkness like receding waves. Below the wall, piles of corpses were already several ters high. His pupils narrowed—he imdiately grabbed the communicator.
“Zhang Chengzhi, get two recon teams out there. Now. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is He Zhen. The monster tide on the northern front has completely pulled back. Old Zhao, how’s it on your end...?”
On the eastern wall, the electric motor hum of the Gatling guns from the cha Unit finally quieted. Steam billowed from the hot barrels. The horde in the canyon had completely vanished. Zhao Yu turned to glance at the sky—those monsters that had been harassing the Dreadnought-Class ship had disappeared too. He reported on the comm channel.
“They’ve retreated from the east side too. Wen Zhuo, what’s the situation inside the city?”
Above the Michelle Cathedral, Wen Zhuo hovered mid-air. Hundreds of massive tal beams and shattered armor plates spun around him like a storm. On the plaza below, mountains of corpses piled up. All around Central Avenue, over a hundred Nightwalkers occupied various positions—so in alleyways, others on rooftops, so in the middle of streets or parks. They were all soaked in blood and gri, eyes wild with killing intent.
Even Zhou Wuer, Peng Peng, and dozens of Nightwalkers from the Courier Unit stood atop heaps of Snow Wraith corpses, staring in bewildernt at the retreating monster tide.
“Director Zhao, the hordes near Central Avenue just pulled back. It’s really strange—might be connected to that huge explosion earlier.”
At the sa ti, others began reporting in across the command channel—Han Jun of the Arctic Wind Alliance in the northeast, Qian Dele in the north, Qin Xueming, Zhang Tianfang, and Chen Xiao in the south—all confird that the monster tide had retreated.
At the cargo track platform on the west side, the battlefield outside the joint train camp was a blood-drenched ss. No trace of snow remained across the entire mining field—only the choking stench of smoke and burning corpses lingered.
Thousands of people were gasping for breath, looking around in disbelief at the receding tide.
“They ran?”
“Did we drive them off?!”
“We won!!”
“Oh my god, we survived!!”
“Thank god.”
“This is unreal...”
Cheers and cries of joy erupted across the convoy.
Nearby, Lin Xian, KIKI, Fire Bro, Shu Qin, and Chen Sixuan regrouped with Shi Diyuan of Dragon Mountain No. 1, Ning Jing, and mbers of the joint convoy—Uncle Wu, Luo Yang, Li Yi, Shen Yao, and others.
“What the h*ll just happened?!”
“They’ve retreated from the west too,” Lin Xian reported over the command channel using his Phoenix Order.
Shi Diyuan’s face was grim. “Just got word—it’s not just here. They’re retreating everywhere.”
“Did we really beat them back?” Ning Jing frowned.
“No idea,” Lin Xian panted, glancing at the devastated battlefield. “But sothing definitely happened.”
“Quick, clean up the battlefield!”
Even though it was still pitch-black night, Lin Xian’s first instinct upon getting a breather was to restock ammo and prep for a potential renewed assault.
The sudden halt in the enemy attack had caught the whole city off guard.
Thirty minutes later, as Lin Xian was busy replenishing ammunition, a voice crackled through the communicator.
“Captain Lin, Captain Shi—this is Xiao He from the 7th Investigation Corps. We’re en route to Fenglan Mountain. A scientific team’s aircraft has crashed—we don’t have the exact location yet. Can you send soone to assist with the search?”
“Aircraft crash?” Lin Xian’s brow furrowed. Just then, Ding Junyi’s voice ca through as well.
“Lin Xian, Wei Kexue and Yu Yuheng took a flier out to make close contact with an S-Class Eerie Entity. Their flight signal’s gone. I picked up a rough location using Hell’s Black Chrysanthemum. Sending it to you now—we’re almost there!”
Lin Xian’s face darkened. Close contact with an S-Class?
He had a bad feeling.
“Shi Bro,” he called out, “sothing went down on the mountain. I’m heading out. You’re in charge here.”
“What happened?” Shi Diyuan asked, confused, but Lin Xian was already flying off with KIKI, heading toward Fenglan Mountain.
Whooooom—
At that mont, several aircraft raced in from the northern airport. Onboard one of them, Ding Junyi sat pale-faced, her eyes reflecting a deep, chilling fear that went beyond her usual calm toward death. Her chest heaved with each breath, trying to keep her mind rational.
Xiao He, sitting beside her, noticed her expression. “Professor Ding, are you sure this is the right direction? The signal dropped from the east.”
“It’s this way.”
Ding Junyi didn’t elaborate. The Nightwalker squad was following close behind.
Xiao He nodded, issued orders through the communicator in a low voice: “Use the terrain coordinates from Director Ding to start the search. Should be on the northwest slope of Fenglan Mountain. Keep an ear out for any distress signals.”
In the black night, flight signal transmissions didn’t reach more than three kiloters. Communication across the city relied heavily on the Phoenix’s relay signal network, but the western outskirts near Fenglan Mountain had minimal coverage. They had to rely on circling search patterns to locate Wei Kexue and Yu Yuheng.
anwhile, Lin Xian and KIKI had already reached Fenglan Mountain. The 2,000-ter-high peak was steep and jagged, its dark ridges vanishing into the clouds. Most of the snow along the slopes had already been dislodged by the earlier monster tide, leaving bare rock behind.
After crossing a mountain pass and reaching the northwest side, the wind howled fiercely through the ravines. The depths below were swallowed in darkness. Amid the howling storm, the landscape blurred into shadows.
“What the hell happened? Why would Wei Kexue and the others crash here?” KIKI used her psychic shield to block the wind as they flew, glancing over at Lin Xian.
“No clue,” he replied, shaking his head. “But I think it’s connected to the monster tide pulling back.”
KIKI looked at him in shock but said nothing. They both scanned the surroundings carefully.
Then, Lin Xian’s powered armor’s electro-optical scope picked up sothing. The targeting display zood in, and in the distance on a mountain slope, a faint red light flickered.
“There!”
Without hesitation, they flew toward it.
Whoooosh—
As they descended from the sky, the wind between the cliffs roared louder and louder like a furious beast. The source of the red light beca clear: it was a crashed aircraft on a mountaintop platform, engulfed in flas. Its wings were shattered across the snowy cliffs, leaving a hundred-ter-long crash trail.
“There it is. Send the signal!”
“Got it!” KIKI nodded and used her psychic power to launch a signal beacon Lin Xian had crafted up into the clouds.
As they closed in, they saw soone frantically digging through the snow near the wreck, throwing handfuls of it at the fire. He was trying to put it out.
Getting closer—they recognized him.
“Yu Yuheng!!”
Yu Yuheng froze mid-motion, thinking he was hearing things. Then he spun around and saw Lin Xian and KIKI flying toward him. His eyes widened. He stood frozen for a second, then stumbled forward, completely overwheld.
“KIKI! Put out the fire!!”
Fwooom—
A wave of psychic force surged out from KIKI, instantly snuffing the flas. Only thick black smoke still rose from the wreckage.
“Captain Lin!” Yu Yuheng finally spoke, stumbling toward them, pointing at the flier behind him.
“Quick—help get the ultra-pure germanium detector! We found it—we found it! We found the Dark Mark!!”
His face was sared with blood, lips cracked from the cold, eyes wild with desperation and terror as he scread—
“It was that monster—it triggered the monster tide. It’s the one that released the Level-5 Mark! We were wrong—no, no, Professor Wei, Professor Ding... We were right...”
“It’s waiting. It’s watching. It’s leading us. It won’t reveal itself because it’s a...”
“Scout!”
BOOM—
Above Fenglan Mountain, the Extre Cold Vortex swirled violently. Thunder cracked across the heavens, the stormy night sky flashing like the maw of so cosmic beast.
Both Lin Xian and KIKI felt an icy chill sweep through their bodies.
In the depths of the pitch-black mountain ravines, the howling of the blizzard sounded like a mournful hymn rising from the abyss of hell.
Reviews
All reviews (0)