Chapter 27: Blood-Stained Dawn
The darkness before dawn over Jiang City was utterly torn apart by artillery fire.
Facing those mythical beings—the Steel Giant and the Fla Phoenix—humanity’s mightiest war machines finally revealed their most ferocious side, yet appeared pitifully small.
The mont the shells touched the Fla Phoenix, they were detonated prematurely by the terrifying heat, bursting into brilliant yet useless fireworks.
The Steel Giant completely ignored the machine-gun fire that only tickled its tal hide. With every step it took, the earth trembled.
A casual swing of its massive tallic arm could send an infantry vehicle weighing over ten tons flying like a toy.
A young soldier hid behind a barricade, watching helplessly as the comrade beside him was cleaved in half by a whistling steel plate.
Warm blood and viscera splattered across his face.
He could no longer bear that hellish sight. Letting out a broken scream, he threw away his gun and turned to flee.
But before he could take more than two steps, a giant hand woven from steel bars and cables descended from above, seizing him and the ground beneath him as if grasping a handful of dirt.
With a bone-grinding shriek of twisting tal, his body was crushed into an unrecognizable pulp.
“Fire! Fire! Don’t stop!”
Colonel “Thunder Hawk”, eyes bloodshot, roared hysterically from the command vehicle.
But it was a futile struggle.
The battlefield had beco a slaughterhouse.
Every punch and every step of the Steel Giant brought the earth’s collapse and steel’s grave.
Every flap and dive of the Fla Phoenix ignited a sea of fire that consud all in its path.
Against such apocalyptic power, humanity’s pride—its courage, discipline, and tactics—was utterly aningless.
Fear spread through the army like a plague.
Yet Liu Gang and Sun Na’s power was not infinite either.
The corrosion of the curse and the grueling battle before had long driven them to the brink of exhaustion.
Their current outburst was more like burning their final life force.
“All units, abandon conventional weapons! Activate the ‘Hive’ system!”
Colonel “Thunder Hawk”, his eyes red, gave a near-insane order.
At once, dozens of specialized combat vehicles opened their hatches. Rows upon rows of launch pods rose, resembling a vast beehive.
The next second, thousands of micro self-detonating drones sward out like a plague of locusts, surging toward the Steel Giant and the Fla Phoenix!
This was the military’s newest weapon, developed to combat urban warfare and cluster targets—each drone a walking micro-bomb.
The Steel Giant swung its massive beam-forged arms, trying to swat away the deadly “swarm,” but the drones scattered nimbly before clinging to its tal body like maggots to bone.
“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom—!”
An unending chain of explosions thundered across the Steel Giant, each like a deafening drumbeat.
Every blast carved deep craters into its armored body, severing the steel rods that served as its bones.
The Steel Giant’s movents slowed; its colossal form trembled, swaying under the relentless bombardnt.
anwhile, the Fla Phoenix—Sun Na’s fiery incarnation—was also struggling.
Its flas dimd, its wings tattered; every flap ca with visible effort.
They were powerful, yes, but not true gods.
Even though their curses had been lifted, their strength and spirit had not recovered.
Under the nation’s rciless, saturation-level assault, even their seemingly godlike power would eventually burn out.
“Now’s the mont!”
“All tank units—fire main cannons!”
Colonel “Thunder Hawk” seized the opportunity.
Dozens of main battle tanks roared in unison, armor-piercing shells streaking with destructive energy and slamming into the battered Steel Giant.
“Boom—!”
The Steel Giant’s chest exploded into a massive crater; its imnse body finally gave way, collapsing backward with a thunderous crash that sent clouds of dust into the air.
“Ah—!”
After intercepting the final incoming missiles, Sun Na scread in agony.
Her burning form quivered in midair, her once-bright flas dimming fast.
Like a wounded bird, she fell from the sky, crashing onto the Steel Giant’s wreckage. Her fire scattered like countless dying embers before fading away, leaving behind her charred human form.
When the first light of dawn pierced the smoke and illuminated the scorched earth—gnawed and scarred as if by monstrous jaws—everything was over.
Blackened soil, twisted tal, and burning ruins…
All silently bore witness to the horror of the night before.
……
【Faction: Radiance – Player: tallurgist – Eliminated】
【Faction: Radiance – Player: Arsonist – Eliminated】
【Remaining Players: Radiance – 5 | Shadow – 3】
Zhang Jie, sprinting swiftly through the city, suddenly froze mid-motion, nearly falling from the edge of a skyscraper.
Two cold, emotionless system chis pierced his mind like twin icicles.
Liu Gang… Sun Na…
Dead?
They were dead.
Zhang Jie stood blankly, his mind a void.
He could still hear Liu Gang’s raspy voice: “Kid, you must succeed.”
He could still see Sun Na’s wild, manic grin.
Though they hadn’t spent long together, and even clashed at tis, in this bloody ga, they had been the only comrades he could rely on.
And now, they were gone.
A molten wave of grief and fury surged through his chest, almost making him howl at the sky.
But he couldn’t.
He had avenged himself, killing the 【Cursemaster】.
Yet his teammates had been devoured by another enemy force on his path to vengeance.
He had won—and lost.
An endless, suffocating loneliness consud him.
Where should he go?
Where could he go?
He stood on a rooftop, gazing at the smoke-shrouded sky, utterly lost.
His team was gone. He was alone.
He instinctively pulled out the paper brought by the falcon and stared at the elegant handwriting upon it.
【Beast Tar】.
That was his only lead now.
Tentatively, he looked up at the empty sky and murmured, “What… what should I do?”
Monts later, a sparrow landed on his shoulder, its bright eyes studying him.
Zhang Jie stared back for a long ti, then finally nodded.
Following the sparrow’s lead, he disappeared swiftly into the city.
Half an hour later, inside an abandoned subway station whose entrance was buried beneath weeds and trash—
Zhang Jie, guided now by a rat, made his way through pitch-black tunnels until he reached the platform’s end.
There, a petite figure was waiting.
She appeared to be only seventeen or eighteen, dressed in a faded outdoor outfit, with a few cute freckles on her face.
But her eyes were far older—calm and deep, like a still lake with no visible bottom.
The girl spoke first, her voice clear and crisp. “I am 【Beast Tar】, Yang Li.”
“【Windrunner】, Zhang Jie.”
Zhang Jie looked at the unassuming girl before him.
Had he not seen her in person, he would never have believed that the one commanding countless beasts and weaving vast intelligence networks was such an ordinary-looking neighborly girl.
In the heavy silence, thick with the weight of loss and uncertainty—
“What do we do next?” Zhang Jie finally broke it.
Yang Li didn’t answer.
She pulled a phone from her pocket.
On the screen was a ssage from 【Embalr】 Su Wan.
“Stay alive.”
……
The Shadow faction was equally silent.
The system notification of the 【Cursemaster】’s death had stunned them all.
“How is that possible?!”
Chen Xiang was incredulous. “How did that idiot Wang Defa get found?!”
“Could there be a prophecy or tracking-type player among Radiance?”
Lin Lan said nothing.
But a shadow of lost control clouded her face.
She calmly replayed every step of her plan in her mind.
Luring the authorities, using others’ hands to kill, cursing to weaken—the plan had been flawless, manipulating everyone like pieces on a board.
Yet the result had introduced a fatal “variable.”
The Radiance faction had not only located Wang Defa precisely but had counter-killed him in record ti—allowing Liu Gang and Sun Na to recover their strength at the last mont and inflict devastating losses on the military.
Who was it?
Who had orchestrated this from the shadows?
That swift 【Windrunner】?
Impossible.
That timid 【Guardian】?
Even less likely.
Lin Lan’s thoughts raced through all known data.
Finally, she realized: within the Radiance faction, there was an unknown Transcendent being—one with powerful intelligence capabilities!
That being was like a master chess player, watching everything from the dark, placing a single decisive move that shattered her perfect plan.
“Interesting…”
A cold gleam flashed in Lin Lan’s eyes. “It seems I’m not the only hunter in this ga.”
……
anwhile, inside the Joint Command Center, the atmosphere was so heavy it could drip.
Though they had successfully “eliminated” the targets, the cost far exceeded expectations.
Over a hundred elite soldiers dead, multiple high-tech weapons destroyed, the entire industrial district leveled…
Colonel “Thunder Hawk” stared at the devastating casualty report on the screen, face ashen, silent.
The nightmare of last night—those godlike beings of steel and fla—had shattered his pride as a modern soldier.
Chen Mo stood beside him, wordless but storming within.
He knew that this “victory” had forced the higher-ups to face reality: sheer military might was costly and inefficient.
Using mortal lives to overwhelm the Transcendent was a dood war of attrition.
A new strategy was needed.
Chen Mo seized the mont, submitting a report he had long prepared to Colonel “Thunder Hawk” and the high-ranking officials on the video call.
Its title read: “Recomndations for Responding to the ‘Jiang City Special Incident.’”
Its core idea was only two words: Amnesty Recruitnt.
“...We must admit that ‘Transcendent power’ is now a reality,” Chen Mo’s voice echoed through the silent room. “Instead of viewing them all as enemies and waging costly purges—”
“—we should divide, win over, and even recruit those open to cooperation, turning them into a force we can control.”
“I propose the establishnt of a special departnt to manage these Transcendent individuals.”
“Provide them with legal status, generous benefits, and limited privileges within the system—so that they may serve the nation.”
“We must use the Transcendent… to fight the Transcendent.”
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