Boom rumble rumble...
The convoy of armored vehicles and tanks moved with heavy, noisy sounds, forming a continuous low rumble within the fog.
Squad Dragon Soul and Chen Na sat inside an armored vehicle, all looking sowhat weary. They had set out yesterday afternoon, and it had been nearly twenty hours by now. They had been constantly attacked by Nightmare Beasts along the way, making it difficult to get proper rest.
It was comndable that this reinforced armored battalion had ample firepower. Every Nightmare Beast that initiated an attack was completely eliminated by heavy firepower, and the hundreds-strong force had yet to suffer a single casualty.
But if they kept advancing like this, no one knew when it would end.
"Captain, is that kid leading the way really reliable?" Black Shark couldn't help but speak up. "What if he leads us the wrong way?"
Dragon Soul replied, "It should be fine. After all, he possesses the 'Coordinates' ability."
The person responsible for leading the way was soone the authorities had specifically found in the ability/item database. He possessed an ability called "Coordinates."
When activated, he just needed to silently recite the location he wanted to go to in his mind. By consuming Mind Power, he could obtain route guidance to the target location.
After the authorities found this person, they incorporated him into this mission. By having him silently recite "the source of fog transmission" in his mind and using his Coordinates ability, they obtained the corresponding route guidance.
This person was currently in the commander's command vehicle with the troops. He provided the route, and the commander directed the troops forward based on the information.
"I still don't think it's very reliable," Black Shark muttered. "It's not even certain if this fog has a transmission source. Maybe it's like that blizzard incident; that snow was all conjured out of thin air by the Fire Thief. Where was there any source?"
"If we don't rely on him, should we rely on you?" Silver Fox teased. "If you have that skill, why don't you lead the way for everyone?"
"Hmph, I don't have those weird and wonderful abilities, but if it cos to a fight, I'm worth ten of him!"
"Without others' weird and wonderful abilities, our operation this ti would just be running around like headless flies. After all, navigation devices and such are completely unusable in this fog. Right, Night Owl?"
Flying Eagle looked at the bespectacled young man sitting in the corner. The latter nodded and said, "It's not just electronic navigation that's unusable."
As he spoke, he pulled an old-fashioned compass from his pocket. The needle on it kept spinning in circles.
"This fog is interfering with the magnetic field."
"Damn, this is seriously spooky!" Black Shark cursed. "Who knows what kind of crap from so other planet was brought to Tianshui Star."
"Look on the bright side," Flying Eagle patted Black Shark's shoulder. "Didn't the experts say this is the first confirmation of the existence of extraterrestrial life? Most likely, the Fire Thief is also so kind of alien intelligent life form, not the 'god' many people keep talking about. Knowing that is sothing worth celebrating."
"Celebrate my ass, I think..."
A serious command suddenly ca through the walkie-talkie: "Detected a giant Nightmare Beast nearby. All vehicles stop imdiately!"
As soon as the voice sounded, the many vehicles in the convoy imdiately stopped moving.
Everyone fell silent, so quiet you could almost hear your own heartbeat.
This wasn't the first ti the troops had encountered a giant Nightmare Beast; they had encountered one before—a Nightmare Beast that looked like an arthropod. Just a small segnt of its limb was over twenty ters long; its total body length was simply impossible to estimate.
It could be said that when that Nightmare Beast swam past the convoy, no one wanted to open fire on it—perhaps the armored battalion's firepower could kill such a giant beast, but it would most likely co at a cost.
The commander was very clear that their core mission this ti was "exploration," not clearing out every Nightmare Beast they encountered in the fog. So he ordered complete silence when encountering giant Nightmare Beasts, hoping to let them pass if possible, and only opening fire if absolutely unavoidable.
Hundreds of people, each with ten [Biological Signal Detectors], each effective for about 5 minutes. Using them in rotation during the march was enough to continuously monitor the traces of giant Nightmare Beasts over a long period.
Now all vehicles stopped. Chen Na closed her eyes and silently activated her [Perception Domain] ability.
With the domain deployed, she clearly sensed a Nightmare Beast of enormous size moving slowly about 170 ters away. But what surprised her was that the beast wasn't moving on the ground; it was moving suspended in the air.
She exclaid in surprise, "It's flying!"
Hearing this, Dragon Soul looked at Chen Na. "You used your ability? Is it a flying-type Nightmare Beast?"
Chen Na, eyes still closed, nodded. Then she suddenly paused, sensing so moving creatures several hundred ters away. Those seed to be... humans?
...
Guan Tong walked through the fog, feeling sowhat strange.
For a full hour now, no Nightmare Beast had attacked him.
This was definitely abnormal. Based on his previous experience, the Nightmare Beasts in the fog, while not densely packed, were still nurous. He encountered an attack roughly every seven or eight minutes on average.
Now, with no activity for a full hour, there must be so reason.
Especially since the environnt he was in now had denser fog than before.
It was now 12:30 PM, the brightest ti of day, but visibility was only a little over half a ter. The fog had thickened to such an extent that he was forced to summon so living dead to walk around in front of him.
This way, if a Nightmare Beast launched a surprise attack, the living dead could still block for him, creating so buffer space.
But it was impossible for there to be no Nightmare Beasts in a place with such dense fog... Could there be so special circumstance?
"Boom!"
Suddenly, a deafening explosion sounded from not far away. Guan Tong was startled and instinctively looked in the direction of the sound, but his view was blocked by the thick fog.
It was artillery fire!
He definitely didn't mishear; that was the sound of human artillery.
Are there ard forces near ?
That first artillery blast seed like an opening statent, followed by the continuous sound of intense gunfire.
Yes, ard forces! And on a large scale!
Did they encounter so troubleso Nightmare Beast? Otherwise, why such a huge commotion?
Guan Tong imdiately manipulated several shadow lines to quickly approach the location of the commotion. Sure enough, he discovered an armored tank convoy, which imdiately confird to him that these were troops dispatched by the authorities.
And the weapons mounted on these vehicles were all firing at the sky at that mont, as if the enemy was coming from above.
Guan Tong manipulated his Shadow to look upward. Due to the thick fog, he could only see a short distance. Within that short distance, a large number of bat-like Nightmare Beasts were descending from the sky, smashing down towards the armored vehicles.
Compared to the defensive capabilities of the armored vehicles and tanks, these Nightmare Beasts were essentially committing suicide attacks, which shouldn't be a concern. But the next mont, a giant wing descended from the sky, piercing through an armored vehicle with a loud "clang"!
A giant Nightmare Beast!
Guan Tong knew that only a giant Nightmare Beast could possess such imnse power. This official force must have realized this too, which was why they were firing so fiercely at the sky.
Get away!
That was his first thought. Both the giant Nightmare Beast and the artillery fire from the official armored forces were dangerous to him.
If he rashly approached and accidentally took a hit from a large-caliber shell, that wouldn't be a joke!
Guan Tong imdiately manipulated his Shadow to transform into Shadow Armor covering his entire body, then quickly sprinted forward, moving away from the vicinity of the battlefield.
As he ran like this, he suddenly noticed the fog ahead was thinning.
Was he getting close to the source of the fog?
Guan Tong increased his running speed. With no Nightmare Beasts coming to stop him, he gradually realized: perhaps the closer to the edge, the fewer Nightmare Beasts there were? Or maybe this was the territory of that Nightmare Beast currently engaged with the official armored convoy, and other Nightmare Beasts were scared away?
Nightmare Beasts had no concept of eating, so whether a "food chain" existed among them, Guan Tong didn't know either.
He only knew the fog ahead of him was getting thinner and thinner, thinner and thinner. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.
About twenty-sothing ters ahead, a tall fog gate hung suspended in the air, about 30 centiters off the ground.
"That gate... is it one of the sources of the fog?"
Guan Tong looked at the suspended fog gate and walked towards it step by step.
The puzzle fragnt ntioned in the Hidden Rule, the one that could piece together the Doomsday Rules puzzle, would it be here?
His heart raced. As the fog gate drew closer, several figures suddenly rushed out from the other side, standing in confrontation with him.
Guan Tong halted and looked at the five people. They were all wearing unified bright yellow protective gear, clearly a squad.
The five of them glanced at the fog gate suspended in the air, exchanged looks with each other, and the tall man at the forefront spoke to Guan Tong, "You're a civilian expert, right? We're an official Ascendant squad. It seems that gate is the source of the fog."
Guan Tong's mind stirred. He thought that armored force might be responsible for holding off the Nightmare Beasts, thereby creating an opportunity for this squad to complete the exploration.
"Yes," Guan Tong said.
"We need to explore first. Please stay here for now. After we finish, if you need it, we can escort you back."
"Why do you get to explore first?"
Hearing this, Dragon Soul paused. Black Shark beside him spoke up, "Listen, kid. It was our soldier brothers fighting to the death against that giant bird Nightmare Beast that created the chance to get close to this gate. Of course, we should explore first!"
Guan Tong didn't agree. "That's not a reasonable justification. Without you, I would have found a way to lure away the Nightmare Beasts and explore myself."
As he spoke, he manipulated a shadow line to approach the fog gate. However, the shadow line, barely noticeable to the naked eye even in normal conditions, was detected by Night Owl, the bespectacled one among the five.
Night Owl said, "He's using a Mind Power ability to approach the fog gate!"
"You little punk, playing dirty!" Black Shark roared, pulling the rifle from his back, but he was stopped by Captain Dragon Soul.
"Black Shark, don't be impulsive."
"Captain, let
handle it~"
Silver Fox finished speaking, and her figure flickered, disappearing without a trace.
Teleportation ability? No, just speed too fast for the naked eye to follow...
Guan Tong saw a blurry afterimage left by Silver Fox's movent, then imdiately felt a gust of powerful wind attacking from behind. With a "thud," Silver Fox's high roundhouse kick landed on his Shadow Armor.
The thick Shadow Armor absorbed the force of the kick. Guan Tong wasn't hard. He imdiately manipulated shadow lines to entangle Silver Fox, while simultaneously firing the grappling hook from his Silver Hunt towards a spot on the ground far in the direction of the fog gate.
"This is... a shadow?"
Silver Fox saw the black objects winding towards her, her figure rapidly retreating to dodge, her face showing surprise.
"You're Shadow?!"
The other four squad mbers had initially seen Guan Tong clad in black armor and thought it was his special protective gear, not connecting it to Shadow. But now, seeing the signature shadow-manipulating thod of "Shadow," they suddenly realized this person's identity.
Guan Tong paid no attention. His target was the puzzle fragnt. After the grappling hook arced and embedded itself in the ground, it imdiately pulled his body rapidly towards it.
Seeing this, the five mbers of Squad Dragon Soul concluded there must be so secret at the fog gate; otherwise, Shadow wouldn't be so urgent!
"Go over!"
At Dragon Soul's command, all five rushed over.
The fastest, Silver Fox and Flying Eagle, caught up to Guan Tong's side first, but were imdiately blocked by shadow walls rising from the ground.
It really is Shadow!
If the five couldn't be completely sure before, the appearance of these shadow walls proved 100% that this person was Shadow. Because in the battle at Holy Grail Island, what everyone discussed the most was the black walls ford by Shadow, which blocked countless people's escape routes, leaving an extrely deep impression.
"I'll handle it."
Black Shark swung his right fist. A red light erupted from his fist, and with one punch, he shattered the shadow wall blocking their path.
By this ti, Guan Tong had already reached the edge of the fog gate. He saw with his own eyes that the fog was spilling out from inside the gate.
But he didn't find anything resembling a fragnt. Moreover, this fog gate had no physical form; the shadow line he had released earlier passed right through it upon contact.
Eliminating the impossible, the only remaining possibility was that the fragnt wasn't outside the fog gate, but inside it.
Guan Tong took a step into it, and his body was instantly swallowed by the fog.
The five mbers of Squad Dragon Soul, who had chased after him, stopped at the fog gate. They didn't imdiately follow him in. Instead, they hesitated, their faces showing uncertainty.
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