A man with a cockscomb hairstyle, dressed in a neon-orange prison uniform, was leaping between broken rocks. The heavy slabs of muscle across his back and arms were bulging so much they nearly burst his clothes at the seams. His eyes glinted with an unnaturally violent red, while the sound of relentless explosions pressed closer from behind.
Further ahead lay an uncleared forest zone. Even in his unnaturally frantic state, the man harbored an instinctive fear of the woods.
“Fuck, I’ll go down fighting with you bastards!”
The man executed a roll to the right. A massive crater was instantly blasted into the spot where he had just stood by a shell fired from the air. At the same time, a huge fireball gathered in his hands, which he launched straight up toward the sky.
With a loud bang, despite Feiying dodging at extreme speed, the fireball struck his left wing. Instantly losing his balance, he plummeted toward the ground in a spin.
Falling from that height meant he would be crippled if not dead.
“Third Brother!”
The crew-cut man in the driver’s seat looked as if his eyes were splitting, blue veins bulging on his neck in fury. His tightly clenched jaw could barely suppress his raging anger.
Slamming open the car door with a backhand movement, both his hands transformed into Gatling guns, spinning rapidly to sweep a barrage toward the cockscomb-haired man.
“You bastard, I’ll fucking kill you!”
A flurry of crackling sounds erupted as bullets kicked up a cloud of dust and smoke. Yet in a brief moment of respite, a scorched fireball carrying extremely high heat and molten lava surged toward them with an momentum that threatened to incinerate everything.
The woman holding the Tang straight sword barked a sharp command at her squad members, “Scatter!”
Her red leather jacket fluttered in the air draft as she swung the Tang straight sword with immense force.
“Break for me!”
The fireball was cleaved open. In the next second, a sudden twist occurred: the huge fireball exploded, splitting into countless smaller fireballs. Like heavenly maidens scattering flowers, these small fireballs dispersed chaotically with extremely fierce momentum, making it impossible to predict their landing points.
Even when the squad members raised their defensive equipment, they were sent flying by the heavy impacts of the fireballs, spitting out mouthfuls of fresh blood.
“Hahaha, keep chasing me then, and taste my big fireballs!”
As the sounds of explosions mixed with screams rang constantly around her ears, Nolan’s world-weary face grew several degrees graver.
“Retreat! The target’s rank was estimated incorrectly; in his frenzied state, he’s already teetering on Super A-class!”
They wanted to escape?
How could the cockscomb-haired man possibly let them go!
“Want to leave? No way! Weren’t you chasing me so happily just now? Since you came, you can all stay behind for me!”
He had already accumulated enough energy. While fleeing earlier, he hadn’t forgotten to set a trap.
“Rise for me!”
Following his command, flames erupted behind them, shooting up a five-to-six-meter-high wall of fire. The scorching temperature baked the surrounding air until it warped.
“Hahaha, let’s have a human barbecue today—all of you die!”
“Captain, I’ll charge through to open a breach, you must escape!” The crew-cut man Tiezhu had blood at the corner of his mouth, the chest guard of his armor scorched black by a fireball. With a look of resolve on his face, he was already prepared to die.
“No! I will never allow you to trade your life for mine. Tiezhu, cover me! I still have one last move. We’ve lost so many brothers today, this criminal must be taken down!”
Even if it cost her life!
“Captain, you can’t!”
Nolan gave him a look. “All actions follow orders.”
Gritting his teeth, Tiezhu threw caution to the wind as well. “Fine, Captain! I, Tiezhu, will risk my life to help you take him down!”
“A bunch of ants still trying to struggle—taste my Flaming Meteor!”
The man’s pupils had turned completely crimson. The tangled muscles across his entire body seemed to seep a layer of blood-red, as if magma were rolling beneath his skin. His whole body began to levitate into the air as he gathered force, the energy around him wildly surging.
With a deafening crash, a streak of silver-purple lightning split the night sky, veiling the earth in a layer of silver light.
With a sharp crack, a lightning bolt struck the cockscomb-haired man while he was still gathering force. A thunder-and-lightning power even more violent than his own directly shattered the energy accumulated inside his body, striking him down onto the ground.
Without giving him any chance to react, another bolt of lightning fell. In an instant, the man turned into a human-shaped piece of char, with genuine firelight flowing beneath the cracked fissures.
The sudden shift happened far too quickly. The two who had just intended to risk their lives stood frozen on the spot, unable to react for a moment.
A cold male voice seemed to come from very far away, yet echoed distinctly in everyone’s ears, carrying a stern reprimand.
“Incorrectly underestimating the enemy’s rank, paired with major flaws in operational strategy. The captain will write a self-criticism upon returning.”
Nolan’s eyes lit up. Shocked by the strength of the power that had intervened, she had also guessed the identity of the other party. Amidst her complex emotions was a sense of reverence toward him.
“Yes! I am Nolan, Captain of Sector A5’s Third Combat Squad. Thank you Commander Ling for your assistance! Upon returning, I will conduct a deep self-criticism of this operation and receive my punishment!”
Standing beside her, when Tiezhu heard the words ‘Commander Ling’ from the captain’s mouth, he could no longer hide his excitement, huffing and puffing out breath like a water buffalo.
The other squad members reacted the same way.
However, after Nolan finished speaking, there was no further response. The thunderclouds gathered in the sky had long dispersed, revealing a crescent moon.
He had left.
Nolan let out a sigh filled with deep regret. Failing to see her idol and performing so poorly filled her heart with remorse.
“Captain, was… was it really Commander Ling Xiao who took action just now?”
Supporting his upper body while clutching one of his wings, Feiying was equally excited. “Definitely, Big Pillar! Did your ears get deafened by that fireball too? That voice was definitely Commander Ling! Besides, with this level of lightning power effortlessly instakilling a Super A-class, who else could it be besides Commander Ling?”
“I didn’t expect Commander Ling, who hasn’t shown his face in a long time, to actually appear in Sector C of our safe zone. We really hit the jackpot! I can boast about this for a lifetime when I get back!”
Only Nolan had heard a few rumors; knitting her brows tightly, she said solemnly, “Since this person didn’t reveal his identity, we don’t know who he is either. If anyone asks, that’s the story—got it?!”
Although they didn’t know why the captain said this, since it was the captain’s order, they only needed to follow it.
The group was busy cleaning up the battlefield, while on the other side, inside that single standing corner amidst the ruins, Yinxing was busy as well.
Not long after she built up the campfire, a burst of thunder crashed in the distance, making her pull her neck back in fear.
She hadn’t expected the weather to change so quickly. If it rained heavily, her little corner probably wouldn’t provide much shelter.
To preserve her little corner, she was currently communicating with the morning glory vine, appealing to its emotions and reasoning with it to weave itself together for her.
“I’ll give you a tiny bit of energy, and you give me a whole lot of your vines in return~ My request isn’t high—just help me weave a wall over here~”
The little morning glory vine showed no movement. Yinxing’s eyes curved in happiness. “If you don’t speak, I’ll take it as your agreement! Hurry up and move!”
Tapping her finger gently on the vine, Yinxing felt as though half her strength had been drained dry again, almost causing her to faint once more.
The vine seemed to come alive, growing rapidly along the damaged wall edge. Like weaving cloth, it dropped vertically, climbed up, and intertwined horizontally. Dense leaves filled every single gap. In just a short moment, a wall woven from morning glory vines blocked the opening, leaving only a doorway for entering and exiting.
Her eyelids felt somewhat heavy, and she began to feel sleepy again, unable to stop herself from muttering a sentence under her breath: “It’s about to rain… I wonder if Ling Xiao is still coming…”