May 28.
Just after midnight, everyone stood at full readiness.
From this mont on, the final magnitude-10 quake could erupt at any ti.
Most personnel had already taken shelter inside reinforced refuges, waiting for the outco.
Guan Tong and the others who were about to teleport to the epicenter stayed in the operations base.
He was part of the core team, and besides him there were about two hundred people forming the support group.
Each person in the team had a different role, but the mission was singular: ensure Guan Tong could successfully reach the Geomantic Pillar and complete the disaster mitigation task.
To guarantee the mission’s success, the research facility had invested huge resources this ti.
Every team mber carried over a hundred items, all high-value tools with special effects.
Because if the mission failed, a full-strength magnitude-10 superquake would basically destroy most of Beixing, and the cost would be far greater than these items could cover.
In such a heavy atmosphere, although so many people gathered on site, almost no one spoke; everyone silently waited for the quake to break.
They sat from before dawn until midday, when suddenly the ground beneath their feet trembled.
Everyone was startled: could the quake be happening nearby?!
A notification imdiately sounded in their earpieces: "Seismic source confird, offshore of Lincang! Coordinates as follows, teleport imdiately!"
Lincang City? That was a small coastal tourist town in the northeast.
If the location is offshore of Lincang, that ans the seismic source is on the seafloor?
People had no ti to think further; the teleportation team had already activated the group teleport items.
Dragon Soul, the commander of the team, shouted, "Deploy the strongest defenses now! Ensure Shadow approaches the Geomantic Pillar at all costs!"
Having learned from previous quakes, everyone knew they could not wait until after teleporting to deploy defenses; it might be too late and they could be struck by seismic waves.
Facing an unprecedented magnitude-10 superquake, there could be no slackening.
Before teleporting, Guan Tong himself began preparing full defenses. The volunteers who would use their abilities to protect him ford a circle around him as a core.
Hum!
Teleportation light swallowed them, and the next mont after arriving at the target location, an indescribably massive pressure descended from heaven and earth. A terrifying roar sounded as if so demon in the depths of the ground were bellowing, rcilessly shredding everyone’s eardrums.
Gale-force winds, torrential rain, lightning—every secondary disaster brought by the superquake exploded at the epicenter.
Almost instantly, the gigantic energy field at the epicenter killed many people; at least thirty figures plunged from the air into a huge vortex whose edges could not be seen with the naked eye!
Guan Tong only glanced downward once and imdiately felt a little dizzy.
The seafloor source had ford an enormous whirlpool in the sea; even a ten-thousand-ton ship would be swallowed instantly by the vortex, let alone tiny humans.
Worse, the Geomantic Pillar stood exactly at the center of that vortex!
Those who had not died instantly were frantically using items to establish makeshift footholds and defensive positions on both sides of Guan Tong, but they could not hold against the pace of destruction.
At this rate, in less than half a minute, everyone would be dead!
So he imdiately used a short-distance movent item provided by the authorities, and under the protection of positions created by the people on both sides, he continuously blinked closer to the Geomantic Pillar.
The closer he got to the Geomantic Pillar, the more the whirlpool’s horrific pull threatened to make his body lose control—several tis he felt himself about to be sucked in and had to release massive amounts of Mind Power, turning it into thousands of shadow lines cast toward the Geomantic Pillar to bind it to his body.
Yes, standing on top of the pillar was impossible! The enormous vortex beneath his feet, the storm of unknown intensity, and the lightning strikes made standing on the pillar’s summit utterly foolish.
Guan Tong had no other choice but to control his Shadow himself, binding his entire body to the Geomantic Pillar so he could maintain bodily stability while outputting Mind Power.
"Open!"
The instant Guan Tong touched the Geomantic Pillar, he attempted to pour all his Mind Power into the Wordless Book to convert it into Cracking Power.
But an anomaly occurred: when the Mind Power he injected exceeded one billion, the Wordless Book beca scalding hot, even burning through several defensive items he was wearing.
What’s happening? Does it have an absorption limit?!
Guan Tong felt sothing was wrong. During the last magnitude-9 quake the Wordless Book had also heated up.
Back then he hadn’t paid much attention because ti was tight; every second was needed to receive Mind Power transmissions, so there was no ti to study it carefully.
Now the heating returned, and it wasn’t ordinary warmth—it reached a level that could injure him, the holder!
He also discovered he couldn’t inject hundreds of billions of Mind Power into the Wordless Book at once; the maximum per injection was one billion, and at that level its heating beca uncontrollable.
If he couldn’t inject everything at once, even at one billion per second it would take ten seconds to finish conversion. Under this superquake, every extra second ant many more deaths.
Rumble—!
A thunderbolt split the sky. Dozens on the hovering platform were struck by lightning, their bodies instantly stiffening as they fell from the air.
Caught off guard, Guan Tong watched them drop into the great vortex, his heart pounding.
He didn’t see Shi Jingyi or Dragon Soul among those who fell, but he knew they were still alive.
Before this teleport, he had separately extended shadow lines to connect with those people. He knew which person corresponded to each shadow line, and those lines were still hanging up high, which ant the people they connected to were still alive.
But obstructed vision prevented him from seeing the high-altitude positions.
In the last magnitude-9 quake, dust from collapsing buildings in the city center obscured everyone’s sight; nobody could see where others were.
This ti, the visibility was blocked by a world-covering storm! Its force was like the sky splitting open, pouring all the rain down at once.
Even with goggles, Guan Tong couldn’t see clearly. He could only dimly make out so figures as they fell.
Hurry…
He felt what it ant for seconds to stretch like years. Ten short seconds felt longer than ten hours.
His one billion Mind Power, each ti input in units of one hundred million, converted into Cracking Power and injected into the Geomantic Pillar.
How much the pillar crumbled, he could not see. He only knew this Geomantic Pillar was far larger than any before.
Every second, soone fell from the sky.
Gritting his teeth, at the ninth second he felt a shadow line connected to his right pinky rapidly descend from above, which sent a chill through him.
The line wrapped around his right pinky was the one linked to Shi Jingyi; its sudden downward motion ant Shi Jingyi was falling!
Based on the shadow line’s position, he imdiately sent out many Shadows to rescue her. He couldn’t allow Shi Jingyi to fall into the vortex—no matter how strong she was, death would be certain!
As he completed the final second of transfer, he released many of the shadow lines binding him to the pillar and sent them toward the direction Shi Jingyi was falling, trying to stop her from plunging into the vortex.
But unexpectedly, the shadow line connected to Shi Jingyi stopped descending at a certain point, then moved laterally toward him.
Only then did he realize she had not been injured and falling uncontrollably; she had proactively left her defensive position to co and check the situation.
Sure enough, the next mont he saw Shi Jingyi, soaked through, erge from the storm. Her Mind Power must have been too low to maintain the Energy Shield; she relied entirely on defensive items for temporary support.
Guan Tong manipulated his shadow lines to grab her body, and at that mont Dragon Soul’s voice also sounded in his earpiece.
"Shadow! Base reports that the quake energy release has been reduced by about 40%. Mission complete, prepare to teleport out!"
Forty percent… Could more than a billion Mind Power only achieve that much?
Guan Tong thought back as he noticed Shi Jingyi give him a thumbs-up.
They both understood each other: when Shi Jingyi saw Shadow approaching, she knew Guan Tong was still alive.
This is all I can do, I have to teleport out quickly!
Guan Tong retrieved his teleport item. At the corner of his eye he suddenly saw sothing.
He turned to look and could barely make out at the edge of his vision a black wall connected to the sky, pressing forward bit by bit.
A black wall? No… it was a super tsunami!
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