After the birthday weekend, Shen Huaiyun’s parents returned to Borelia Tower. When they came back for the next monthly break, they bore no new scars, and even the old ones had faded to faint traces. It seemed the danger had truly passed.
However, Shen Huaiyun himself began experiencing some health issues.
At first, it was just occasional ringing in his ears and dizziness during training. He thought it was due to adjusting to the new training environment and assumed it would resolve on its own over time.
But unexpectedly, the symptoms gradually worsened. Once, while walking, a sudden, sharp pain shot through the back of his head, making it almost impossible for him to maintain his balance. He nearly collapsed to the ground.
Fortunately, no one was around. After the pain subsided, he leaned against a wall to steady himself, then turned and headed for the school infirmary.
His timing was unlucky. From a distance, he saw the white-coated school doctor pushing a stretcher inside. As he approached, he overheard the students and teachers helping nearby discussing the situation. Apparently, several students had gotten into a fight, and one of them had fallen down the stairs while trying to escape, possibly suffering a fracture.
“They said it started as a joke, but then suddenly turned into a real fight, How terrifying.”
Shen Huaiyun rubbed the back of his head. Since the pain had stopped, he thought it might just be the consequence of too many late nights. He decided to go back and find Shen Tangmo instead.
As he endured and concealed his symptoms, they grew worse day by day. He began experiencing prolonged throbbing pain in his forehead, a chilling sensation at the back of his head, frequent dizziness, and aching discomfort in his joints.
Shen Tangmo had been working overtime frequently lately, burdened with a heavy workload, so Shen Huaiyun didn’t tell him. After asking Ning Yanfeng for leave, he went to the hospital alone to see a doctor.
After listening to his description, the doctor examined him carefully, frowned, and said, “Could it be arthritis? But.”
“I’ll prescribe some painkillers for now. Go home, rest well, and keep an eye on it.”
“Alright, thank you, Doctor.”
With the medication in hand, Shen Huaiyun returned home, convinced that his symptoms might be related to his training methods. Perhaps his brain was struggling to adapt to the new helmet-based training format, while the issues with his limbs could be due to improper techniques during physical and combat training.
He wanted to ask someone for advice. Opening Zhu Ji’s chat window, he suddenly remembered that Zhu Ji had already left for Mengzhou Tower and only had access to his phone during breaks. He closed the chat and searched through his contacts for classmates instead.
A thousand miles away, at the front lines of Mengzhou Tower.
Zhu Ji was on his first patrol and escort mission outside the tower. He had set off in high spirits, never expecting his entire squad to become trapped in a swarm of Aberrants.
They had been advancing along the designated route, clearing scattered Aberrants along the way and reporting the situation in real time.
It was just after the ebb period, a time when most Aberrants should have retreated near the vents.
During the ebb, when pollution levels around the vents returned to normal, Aberrant activity typically decreased. Combined with the previous suppression efforts by the watchtowers and the Great Wall system, Aberrants usually didn’t venture out in large numbers. The few that did emerge to forage were cleared by patrols, captured alive if possible for training and research purposes.
However, Zhu Ji’s Squad 47, while on patrol, suddenly detected a dense cluster of active Aberrants estimated to be no fewer than twenty.
Such a situation was extremely rare. Outside of surge periods, collective movements of Aberrants in such numbers had almost never been observed.
Squad 47 had only deployed six members five Sentinels and one Guide making it extremely difficult to handle so many Aberrants at once. Therefore, they immediately reported the situation and called for reinforcements.
“Reinforcements will take about fifteen minutes to arrive. Why don’t we see if we can pick off a few that stray from the main group first?” the acting squad leader suggested, stroking his chin.
No one objected, as their duty was precisely to eliminate these Aberrants.
The acting leader led the team to hide behind trees, observing the movements of the Aberrant horde from a distance.
Zhu Ji crouched behind a bush, peering cautiously through the gaps in the foliage, his grip tight on the gun issued by the Watchtower. Over twenty Aberrants this was the first time he had encountered so many in actual combat.
“Zhu Ji, have you mastered the psychic bullets yet?” teammate Qian Qian whispered to him.
The young man wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and nodded.
The gun issued to him by the Watchtower was a new technological innovation, allowing them to construct psychic bullets without needing to manifest an entire firearm. The new equipment was limited in number, currently issued only to one Guide per squad.
The acting squad leader focused on an Aberrant straying dozens of meters from the main group and quietly gave orders: “Zhu Ji, use your psychic net to create a barrier in between. We’ll take it out.”
As the Aberrant moved farther away, he immediately commanded, “Go!”
The psychic net formed within seconds. Sensing the threat, the Aberrants immediately distanced themselves from the area, while the Sentinels rushed toward the isolated Aberrant. After successfully overwhelming it with psychic attacks, they quickly retreated.
Another Aberrant was also relatively isolated from the group, and they prepared to repeat the tactic. This time, however, they failed to shatter its psychic core immediately. The sound of its fluttering wings drew the attention of the other Aberrants.
“Fall back! Now!”
Their reaction was swift, but two Aberrants were even faster.
“Watch out!” Zhu Ji’s psychic energy condensed into a shield, blocking a strike from above. The attackers were two Aberrants resembling giant mantises, their bone scythes as hard as steel. Qian Qian swung his blade in retaliation but failed to leave even a scratch.
The two Aberrants blocked the only escape route, making it impossible to bypass them.
The psychic-constructed gun was already tightly gripped in his hand, but the acting squad leader’s burst of fire toward the creature’s body failed to penetrate its carapace. Frustrated, he cursed, “What the hell kind of hardness is this?!”
“It’s not hardness it’s a psychic shield!” a squad member shouted. “Damn it, they’re new variants!”
As they stood locked in a stalemate, the other Aberrants closed in, surrounding them.
The acting squad leader scanned their surroundings. The Aberrants were temporarily deterred by their psychic energy, circling cautiously, while the two variants stood firm, blocking the path.
Gritting his teeth, he spoke rapidly: “Zhu Ji, Guides are like poison to them they won’t dare touch you. There’s an escape route at the thirteen o’clock direction. Go first and rendezvous with the reinforcements!”
“What about you all if I leave?” Zhu Ji’s right finger rested on the trigger, his mind highly alert and ready to construct a protective barrier at any moment. “Reinforcements should arrive in about five or six minutes. I can hold up a shield we can make it!”
The acting squad leader wanted to argue further, but a glance from the corner of his eye revealed the Aberrants had stopped moving, seemingly preparing to attack. He gave up on persuasion and said, “Fine! Deploy the shield!”
Six layers of psychic shields instantly descended, but under the frenzied assault of the mutants, one shattered almost immediately. Zhu Ji’s shield served as the final line of defense. Inside, the six of them seized opportunities to maintain the shield while counterattacking, but the sheer number of mutants drained their psychic energy at an alarming rate. In less than three minutes, the other shields crumbled completely, leaving only the last layer the guide’s psychic energy, which was toxic to the mutants. Hesitant to press further, they temporarily halted their attacks.
Seizing the moment, Qian Qian glanced at his communicator. “Reinforcements are just over a hundred meters away!”
Zhu Ji had exhausted his psychic bullets, having poured all his remaining energy into sustaining the shield.
He tossed his gun to the nearest acting captain.
“Take it!”
Without hesitation, the man dismantled his own psychically-conjured gun into bullets and took down two more mutants.
Then, the two calm and composed mutated creatures finally moved.
Their first strike was a test. As their bone scythes slashed against the shield, the impacted area thinned slightly, and the scythes emitted a sizzling sound as the psychic shields covering their bodies corroded.
Their compound eyes studied the rippling psychic waves on the shield for a few seconds. Suddenly, one of them lunged toward the acting captain with such speed that it left afterimages, swinging its bone scythe down at him.
“Captain! / Watch out! / Holy”
In that split second, the thought “guides are lethal poison to them” flashed through Zhu Ji’s mind. Without hesitation, he threw himself in front of the acting captain.
The bone scythe tore a gap in the shield and then cleanly severed Zhu Ji’s shoulder blade, plunging deep into his body.
The mantis-like mutant let out a pained shriek, yanked its scythe free, and scrambled backward, only to be seized and eliminated by the arriving reinforcements.
As the bone scythe was pulled out, the second wave of excruciating pain plunged Zhu Ji into darkness, and he lost consciousness.