Chapter 38: Post-Battle Debriefing
非常抱歉，我在翻译时疏忽了，不小心把“此起彼伏”和“需要我继续帮你翻译下一章吗？”这两处中文留在了译文里。我已经把它们修正为英文，以下是纯净的完整版本：
Chapter 38: Post-Battle Debriefing
The gunpowder smoke slowly settled. The wilderness was left with only the intermittent, dying howls of the scaled beasts, accompanied by the relentless groans of the wounded inside the outpost.
The field medical shed was the busiest place at this moment. Stretchers shuttled back and forth. Warriors with severe Sea of Consciousness overdrafts lay in a row; some clutched their heads and trembled all over. The damage caused by psychic impacts was invisible and intangible, yet it was far more torturous than flesh wounds. Once the core of the Sea of Consciousness was damaged, the mildest consequence was lifelong headaches, while the most severe would lead to a complete loss of the ability to cultivate the Sea of Consciousness, reducing them to cripples.
Instructor Zhou led the four-man squad to tally the casualties. On the western defense line, there were no fatalities, but three outer patrol warriors had suffered Sea of Consciousness trauma and needed to be transferred back to specialized hospitals in the bastion city for rest. The two veterans had both sustained new abrasions, and their Sea of Consciousness was severely overdrawn; after sitting down, they silently swallowed stabilizing agents. Su Qing's face was pale, and a layer of cold sweat covered her forehead. Having endured the continuous, overlapping psychic stings for a long time, her mental power was nearly exhausted.
When it was Lin Yan's turn, the medic activated the Sea of Consciousness detector once again. On the holographic screen, the pale white waves were faintly undulating, covered in tiny, jagged spikes.
"Severe contusions on the surface layer. Fortunately, the core is stable with no signs of concussion," the medic put away the instrument and instructed him solemnly, "For at least the next twelve hours, it is strictly forbidden to actively release your mental tentacles or mobilize the power of your Sea of Consciousness. Let it repair itself. Forcibly using it will tear the barrier. If you damage the core, the price will be too high for you to bear."
"I understand," Lin Yan replied in a low voice. He walked to a relatively quiet corner of the fortification, sat down, and closed his eyes. He no longer probed outward but quietly turned his awareness inward to inspect his Sea of Consciousness.
The pale white barrier was in ruins, with cracks crisscrossing it like thin ice repeatedly torn by a gale. His core remained safely dormant, firmly staying at the second-tier peak. The three bitter battles against the beast tide, facing the third-tier scaled beast's large-scale psychic pressure multiple times, and the continuous multi-line defense had only thickened his foundation. It still hadn't allowed him to touch the threshold of the third tier.
To cross the watershed of the third tier, mere tempered combat in controlled battlefields was no longer enough. Only true, life-and-death extremities, on the brink of total annihilation, could possibly catalyze a breakthrough.
A moment later, Instructor Zhou gathered the squad to review the defensive battle in the temporary operations tent. A topographical map of the area surrounding the outpost was spread out on a simple wooden table, with the attack routes of the three waves of the beast tide and the high ground position where the third-tier scaled beast had stayed marked in red ink.
"All three waves of attacks were merely probes," Instructor Zhou said, his finger tapping heavily on the high ground where the third-tier scaled beast had been. "The enemy constantly changed their attack directions and adjusted the intensity of their psychic impacts, continuously testing the upper limits of our defenses, our ammunition consumption rate, and the endurance limits of the warriors' Seas of Consciousness."
A veteran rubbed his throbbing temples and spoke, "Previous beast tides were just mindless, all-out charges, fighting until their strength was completely depleted. This time was completely different. Their advances and retreats were orderly, and they knew how to cut their losses."
"The research institute's assessment is that this third-tier scaled beast's psychic abilities far surpass those of its peers, possessing stronger tribal psychic linkage," Instructor Zhou frowned. "The report can only be written this way. But I always feel something is off. Its tactics are too methodical, as if someone is planning them from behind. Unfortunately, we don't have any evidence to support this conjecture."
This sentence was separated from the truth by only a thin layer of soil. But the Lizardmen were hidden deep in cave nests a thousand meters underground, remotely transmitting orders through the scaled beasts' Sea of Consciousness network. In the twenty-five years since the catastrophe, humanity had never captured a single Lizardman individual, so they naturally had no way of knowing about the existence behind the scenes. All the bizarre tactics were simply attributed to the innate gifts of high-level scaled beasts.
Instructor Zhou continued to comment on everyone's combat performance, his gaze finally landing on Lin Yan.
"Lin Yan, your flank early warning and interception were crucial in holding the western defense line. Being able to continuously capture the flanking signals of multiple scaled beast squads under the third-tier scaled beast's domain-wide psychic suppression, and holding the gap, is extremely rare. But remember the medic's instructions. During this period, you are forbidden from using your Sea of Consciousness. Rest and heal."
"Understood."
After the debriefing, the squad took turns to rest. The outpost maintained its highest level of alert. Sentry posts were rotated, energy cannons continued to aim at the rift, and the Sea of Consciousness early-warning array operated without a moment's pause. Although the beast tide had temporarily receded, everyone knew in their hearts that this was merely a brief intermission.
Leaning against the cold rock wall, Lin Yan did not fall asleep immediately. His mind replayed the scenes of the entire battle over and over: the heavy psychic pressure descending like a blanket from the third-tier scaled beast, the stinging pain of psychic stings from multiple scaled beasts attacking simultaneously, and how to divide his Sea of Consciousness power under immense pressure to resist the heavy pressure while maintaining vigilance and shooting accurately.
He mentally deduced and optimized every detail of the battle.
In previous training, he had only learned layered defense. Through this battle, he experienced firsthand that when domain-wide psychic suppression enveloped the entire body, the consumption rate of the Sea of Consciousness would multiply exponentially. He could no longer spread out his barrier evenly as usual; he had to concentrate his strength to protect the core, retaining only the finest perception tentacles to maximize the conservation of his mental power.
This was practical combat insight gained from a life-and-death struggle, something the training hall could never simulate.
The night slowly flowed by, and the lights in the outpost flickered. In the distance, the direction of the Black Mountain rift was pitch black. The psychic fluctuation belonging to the third-tier scaled beast had disappeared; it had retreated to its underground nest. Deep underground, the Lizardmen were aggregating all the data collected from these three waves of the beast tide: the distribution of human warriors' Sea of Consciousness tiers, their defense methods, their maximum endurance times, the lethal power of energy weapons, and the defensive weaknesses of the outpost's fortifications.
A true general offensive plan was slowly taking shape in the dark underground. Meanwhile, the humans on the surface were still busy treating the wounded, repairing fortifications, and submitting battlefield reports, merely predicting that the scale of the next beast tide would be larger.
The rest period passed bit by bit. Lin Yan sat in meditation quietly, relying on his ancient martial arts breathing techniques to slowly regulate his body, giving his damaged Sea of Consciousness barrier time to repair. The bottleneck of the second-tier peak still stood tall, but his foundation had become increasingly thick and solid under the baptism of the three brutal beast tides.
End of Chapter
Chapter 38: Post-Battle Debriefing
The gunpowder smoke slowly settled. The wilderness was left with only the intermittent, dying howls of the scaled beasts, accompanied by the relentless groans of the wounded inside the outpost.
The field medical shed was the busiest place at this moment. Stretchers shuttled back and forth. Warriors with severe Sea of Consciousness overdrafts lay in a row; some clutched their heads and trembled all over. The damage caused by psychic impacts was invisible and intangible, yet it was far more torturous than flesh wounds. Once the core of the Sea of Consciousness was damaged, the mildest consequence was lifelong headaches, while the most severe would lead to a complete loss of the ability to cultivate the Sea of Consciousness, reducing them to cripples.
Instructor Zhou led the four-man squad to tally the casualties. On the western defense line, there were no fatalities, but three outer patrol warriors had suffered Sea of Consciousness trauma and needed to be transferred back to specialized hospitals in the bastion city for rest. The two veterans had both sustained new abrasions, and their Sea of Consciousness was severely overdrawn; after sitting down, they silently swallowed stabilizing agents. Su Qing's face was pale, and a layer of cold sweat covered her forehead. Having endured the continuous, overlapping psychic stings for a long time, her mental power was nearly exhausted.
When it was Lin Yan's turn, the medic activated the Sea of Consciousness detector once again. On the holographic screen, the pale white waves were faintly undulating, covered in tiny, jagged spikes.
"Severe contusions on the surface layer. Fortunately, the core is stable with no signs of concussion," the medic put away the instrument and instructed him solemnly, "For at least the next twelve hours, it is strictly forbidden to actively release your mental tentacles or mobilize the power of your Sea of Consciousness. Let it repair itself. Forcibly using it will tear the barrier. If you damage the core, the price will be too high for you to bear."
"I understand," Lin Yan replied in a low voice. He walked to a relatively quiet corner of the fortification, sat down, and closed his eyes. He no longer probed outward but quietly turned his awareness inward to inspect his Sea of Consciousness.
The pale white barrier was in ruins, with cracks crisscrossing it like thin ice repeatedly torn by a gale. His core remained safely dormant, firmly staying at the second-tier peak. The three bitter battles against the beast tide, facing the third-tier scaled beast's large-scale psychic pressure multiple times, and the continuous multi-line defense had only thickened his foundation. It still hadn't allowed him to touch the threshold of the third tier.
To cross the watershed of the third tier, mere tempered combat in controlled battlefields was no longer enough. Only true, life-and-death extremities, on the brink of total annihilation, could possibly catalyze a breakthrough.
A moment later, Instructor Zhou gathered the squad to review the defensive battle in the temporary operations tent. A topographical map of the area surrounding the outpost was spread out on a simple wooden table, with the attack routes of the three waves of the beast tide and the high ground position where the third-tier scaled beast had stayed marked in red ink.
"All three waves of attacks were merely probes," Instructor Zhou said, his finger tapping heavily on the high ground where the third-tier scaled beast had been. "The enemy constantly changed their attack directions and adjusted the intensity of their psychic impacts, continuously testing the upper limits of our defenses, our ammunition consumption rate, and the endurance limits of the warriors' Seas of Consciousness."
A veteran rubbed his throbbing temples and spoke, "Previous beast tides were just mindless, all-out charges, fighting until their strength was completely depleted. This time was completely different. Their advances and retreats were orderly, and they knew how to cut their losses."
"The research institute's assessment is that this third-tier scaled beast's psychic abilities far surpass those of its peers, possessing stronger tribal psychic linkage," Instructor Zhou frowned. "The report can only be written this way. But I always feel something is off. Its tactics are too methodical, as if someone is planning them from behind. Unfortunately, we don't have any evidence to support this conjecture."
This sentence was separated from the truth by only a thin layer of soil. But the Lizardmen were hidden deep in cave nests a thousand meters underground, remotely transmitting orders through the scaled beasts' Sea of Consciousness network. In the twenty-five years since the catastrophe, humanity had never captured a single Lizardman individual, so they naturally had no way of knowing about the existence behind the scenes. All the bizarre tactics were simply attributed to the innate gifts of high-level scaled beasts.
Instructor Zhou continued to comment on everyone's combat performance, his gaze finally landing on Lin Yan.
"Lin Yan, your flank early warning and interception were crucial in holding the western defense line. Being able to continuously capture the flanking signals of multiple scaled beast squads under the third-tier scaled beast's domain-wide psychic suppression, and holding the gap, is extremely rare. But remember the medic's instructions. During this period, you are forbidden from using your Sea of Consciousness. Rest and heal."
"Understood."
After the debriefing, the squad took turns to rest. The outpost maintained its highest level of alert. Sentry posts were rotated, energy cannons continued to aim at the rift, and the Sea of Consciousness early-warning array operated without a moment's pause. Although the beast tide had temporarily receded, everyone knew in their hearts that this was merely a brief intermission.
Leaning against the cold rock wall, Lin Yan did not fall asleep immediately. His mind replayed the scenes of the entire battle over and over: the heavy psychic pressure descending like a blanket from the third-tier scaled beast, the stinging pain of psychic stings from multiple scaled beasts attacking simultaneously, and how to divide his Sea of Consciousness power under immense pressure to resist the heavy pressure while maintaining vigilance and shooting accurately.
He mentally deduced and optimized every detail of the battle.
In previous training, he had only learned layered defense. Through this battle, he experienced firsthand that when domain-wide psychic suppression enveloped the entire body, the consumption rate of the Sea of Consciousness would multiply exponentially. He could no longer spread out his barrier evenly as usual; he had to concentrate his strength to protect the core, retaining only the finest perception tentacles to maximize the conservation of his mental power.
This was practical combat insight gained from a life-and-death struggle, something the training hall could never simulate.
The night slowly flowed by, and the lights in the outpost flickered. In the distance, the direction of the Black Mountain rift was pitch black. The psychic fluctuation belonging to the third-tier scaled beast had disappeared; it had retreated to its underground nest. Deep underground, the Lizardmen were aggregating all the data collected from these three waves of the beast tide: the distribution of human warriors' Sea of Consciousness tiers, their defense methods, their maximum endurance times, the lethal power of energy weapons, and the defensive weaknesses of the outpost's fortifications.
A true general offensive plan was slowly taking shape in the dark underground. Meanwhile, the humans on the surface were still busy treating the wounded, repairing fortifications, and submitting battlefield reports, merely predicting that the scale of the next beast tide would be larger.
The rest period passed bit by bit. Lin Yan sat in meditation quietly, relying on his ancient martial arts breathing techniques to slowly regulate his body, giving his damaged Sea of Consciousness barrier time to repair. The bottleneck of the second-tier peak still stood tall, but his foundation had become increasingly thick and solid under the baptism of the three brutal beast tides.
End of Chapter