Chapter 48: The Psychic Threads
The psychic bombardment fell like continuous, rolling thunder, relentlessly crashing against the four-tier Sea of Consciousness barrier that Instructor Zhou had erected.
The ripples on the surface of the barrier grew increasingly violent, and spiderweb-like cracks spread at a breakneck pace. Instructor Zhou's entire body trembled violently. He clenched his teeth tightly to prevent a scream of agony from escaping, yet blood continued to drip from the corners of his mouth, falling onto his mud-soaked combat suit.
"Instructor, reduce your output if you can't hold on!" Su Qing shouted, thrusting her knife into the cranial cavity of a scaled beast and turning her head to yell.
"I can't reduce it," Instructor Zhou breathed weakly, his voice nearly shattered. "The moment I withdraw, everyone's Sea of Consciousness will be instantly crushed."
The mastermind's will from underground had poured the vast majority of its psychic computing power into directing the two third-tier scaled beasts to execute a pinpoint assault on Instructor Zhou. The cost was that the command links for the peripheral low-level scaled beasts experienced intermittent delays, causing their charging rhythm to stutter from time to time.
While swinging his blade to slaughter the scaled beasts rushing through the breach, Lin Yan sent out those few extremely fine mental tentacles. No longer merely using them for perception, he carefully attempted to gently touch the command link transmitting upward, following the psychic threads connecting the scaled beasts.
This was a gamble.
The psychic links between Seas of Consciousness were bidirectional. The moment his tentacles were exposed, the will underground could instantly lock onto his Sea of Consciousness in reverse and launch a devastating psychic piercing attack. With his second-tier peak Sea of Consciousness strength, he would never be able to withstand a targeted, full-power strike.
Lin Yan suppressed the palpitations in his heart, reining in his focus to its absolute extreme. The foundation of his ancient martial arts mind cultivation came into play at this moment. He purged all extraneous thoughts, retaining only a faint trace of consciousness attached to the psychic thread.
He did not attack. He did not destroy. He merely caused a gentle disturbance.
In the next instant, the movements of several low-level scaled beasts near the breach suddenly stalled.
Their previously synchronized pouncing actions descended into chaos. Some lunged forward fiercely, some paused in place, and two even crashed into each other.
"It works!" Lin Yan's heart trembled slightly.
However, the effective range was extremely small, only able to interfere with a small portion of the scaled beasts near the fortification. The will underground quickly detected this faint anomaly in the link and immediately mobilized its psychic power to wash away Lin Yan's interference. After merely two breaths, the scaled beasts resumed their unified charging rhythm.
"What's going on?" Old Chen seized the opportunity of the scaled beasts' confusion to continuously hack down two monsters, looking at them in astonishment.
"Their psychic commands can be interfered with, but the range is very small, and the duration is extremely short," Lin Yan quickly said in a low voice. "The enemy will correct it quickly. I cannot keep attacking. Once I'm locked onto, I'll suffer direct, severe psychic trauma."
Hearing this, a glimmer of light flashed in Instructor Zhou's cloudy eyes, but it quickly dimmed again. "There's no time to exploit it on a large scale. The enemy has ample computing power. After discovering the anomaly, it will leave redundancies. Our little bit of interference can't change the overall situation."
Before he even finished speaking, a new wave of heavy psychic pressure surged once again.
Instructor Zhou let out a muffled groan and dropped heavily to one knee. The four-tier Sea of Consciousness barrier violently collapsed inward by a large section, with cracks covering nearly the entire mental bulwark. The core of his Sea of Consciousness had suffered irreversible damage. Blood vessels within his skull had ruptured, and blood poured from his nasal cavity simultaneously.
"Instructor!" Su Qing wanted to break away to support him, but a scaled beast seized the gap and pounced, forcing her to turn back and block the attack.
"Don't worry about me, hold the breach!" Instructor Zhou braced himself against the ground, struggling to straighten his body again. He forcibly pulled up the Sea of Consciousness barrier that was on the verge of collapsing, though its radiance had dimmed by more than half. "I can hold on for another five minutes. Five minutes... if reinforcements don't arrive, we won't be able to hold."
The slaughter at the breach grew even more brutal.
Scaled beasts kept pouring in, and the warriors fell one after another. A new recruit exhausted all his strength to impale a scaled beast, only to have his chest and abdomen torn open by the claws of another, collapsing instantly in a pool of blood. The surviving combat personnel inside the fortification were reduced to Lin Yan, Old Chen, Su Qing, and two lightly wounded soldiers. The wounded piled up in the inner corners, no longer able to fight.
Lin Yan once again released his mental tentacles, searching for an opportunity to try and disturb that psychic thread again.
This time, the underground will was prepared. The outer layer of the link was wrapped in a cold psychic defense. The moment Lin Yan's tentacles touched it, he was immediately met with a cold psychic backlash.
Intense, piercing pain instantly exploded in his skull. Lin Yan's body swayed violently, and his vision went black. Large areas of cracks on the surface of his Sea of Consciousness burst open instantly, and a scalding wave of pain spread throughout his body along his nerves.
He gritted his teeth, stubbornly stabilizing his mind, and quickly withdrew his mental tentacles, severing the connection.
He was a fraction of a second away from having his Sea of Consciousness pierced in reverse along the thread.
"Too dangerous," Lin Yan gasped silently.
The enemy was now on guard. The risk of this path had multiplied, and he could no longer attempt it lightly. The reaction speed of the mastermind's will far exceeded his imagination. Perhaps it did not know exactly who Lin Yan was, but it had realized that an unfamiliar psychic node was attempting to interfere with its command network.
In the distance, a faint glimmer of firelight finally lit up on the horizon beyond the Black Mountain.
"Look! Firelight!" a lightly wounded soldier shouted excitedly. "Reinforcements! It's the vehicle searchlights of the reinforcements!"
Everyone's gaze instantly turned toward the distance.
But that glimmer of firelight was still far away. It would take at least another five minutes to reach this position.
"Five minutes," Instructor Zhou repeated in a low voice. His Sea of Consciousness barrier was swaying precariously, consuming his very foundation with every passing second. "Hold on. Just hold for another five minutes."
Deep underground, that calm will also detected the signal of the approaching reinforcements.
It did not panic. It quickly adjusted its tactics. No longer insisting on slowly wearing them down, it directly commanded the two third-tier scaled beasts to concentrate all their remaining psychic power to launch a single, total, explosive psychic impact against the fortification, intending to completely crush this last small defending force before the reinforcements arrived.
The two third-tier scaled beasts raised their heads and roared simultaneously.
A psychic tide, far more ferocious and sinister than any before, began to gather over the wilderness.
Lin Yan gripped his blood-stained short blade tightly, his Sea of Consciousness core stretched to its absolute limit.
The final five minutes of desperate combat had begun.
The ripples on the surface of the barrier grew increasingly violent, and spiderweb-like cracks spread at a breakneck pace. Instructor Zhou's entire body trembled violently. He clenched his teeth tightly to prevent a scream of agony from escaping, yet blood continued to drip from the corners of his mouth, falling onto his mud-soaked combat suit.
"Instructor, reduce your output if you can't hold on!" Su Qing shouted, thrusting her knife into the cranial cavity of a scaled beast and turning her head to yell.
"I can't reduce it," Instructor Zhou breathed weakly, his voice nearly shattered. "The moment I withdraw, everyone's Sea of Consciousness will be instantly crushed."
The mastermind's will from underground had poured the vast majority of its psychic computing power into directing the two third-tier scaled beasts to execute a pinpoint assault on Instructor Zhou. The cost was that the command links for the peripheral low-level scaled beasts experienced intermittent delays, causing their charging rhythm to stutter from time to time.
While swinging his blade to slaughter the scaled beasts rushing through the breach, Lin Yan sent out those few extremely fine mental tentacles. No longer merely using them for perception, he carefully attempted to gently touch the command link transmitting upward, following the psychic threads connecting the scaled beasts.
This was a gamble.
The psychic links between Seas of Consciousness were bidirectional. The moment his tentacles were exposed, the will underground could instantly lock onto his Sea of Consciousness in reverse and launch a devastating psychic piercing attack. With his second-tier peak Sea of Consciousness strength, he would never be able to withstand a targeted, full-power strike.
Lin Yan suppressed the palpitations in his heart, reining in his focus to its absolute extreme. The foundation of his ancient martial arts mind cultivation came into play at this moment. He purged all extraneous thoughts, retaining only a faint trace of consciousness attached to the psychic thread.
He did not attack. He did not destroy. He merely caused a gentle disturbance.
In the next instant, the movements of several low-level scaled beasts near the breach suddenly stalled.
Their previously synchronized pouncing actions descended into chaos. Some lunged forward fiercely, some paused in place, and two even crashed into each other.
"It works!" Lin Yan's heart trembled slightly.
However, the effective range was extremely small, only able to interfere with a small portion of the scaled beasts near the fortification. The will underground quickly detected this faint anomaly in the link and immediately mobilized its psychic power to wash away Lin Yan's interference. After merely two breaths, the scaled beasts resumed their unified charging rhythm.
"What's going on?" Old Chen seized the opportunity of the scaled beasts' confusion to continuously hack down two monsters, looking at them in astonishment.
"Their psychic commands can be interfered with, but the range is very small, and the duration is extremely short," Lin Yan quickly said in a low voice. "The enemy will correct it quickly. I cannot keep attacking. Once I'm locked onto, I'll suffer direct, severe psychic trauma."
Hearing this, a glimmer of light flashed in Instructor Zhou's cloudy eyes, but it quickly dimmed again. "There's no time to exploit it on a large scale. The enemy has ample computing power. After discovering the anomaly, it will leave redundancies. Our little bit of interference can't change the overall situation."
Before he even finished speaking, a new wave of heavy psychic pressure surged once again.
Instructor Zhou let out a muffled groan and dropped heavily to one knee. The four-tier Sea of Consciousness barrier violently collapsed inward by a large section, with cracks covering nearly the entire mental bulwark. The core of his Sea of Consciousness had suffered irreversible damage. Blood vessels within his skull had ruptured, and blood poured from his nasal cavity simultaneously.
"Instructor!" Su Qing wanted to break away to support him, but a scaled beast seized the gap and pounced, forcing her to turn back and block the attack.
"Don't worry about me, hold the breach!" Instructor Zhou braced himself against the ground, struggling to straighten his body again. He forcibly pulled up the Sea of Consciousness barrier that was on the verge of collapsing, though its radiance had dimmed by more than half. "I can hold on for another five minutes. Five minutes... if reinforcements don't arrive, we won't be able to hold."
The slaughter at the breach grew even more brutal.
Scaled beasts kept pouring in, and the warriors fell one after another. A new recruit exhausted all his strength to impale a scaled beast, only to have his chest and abdomen torn open by the claws of another, collapsing instantly in a pool of blood. The surviving combat personnel inside the fortification were reduced to Lin Yan, Old Chen, Su Qing, and two lightly wounded soldiers. The wounded piled up in the inner corners, no longer able to fight.
Lin Yan once again released his mental tentacles, searching for an opportunity to try and disturb that psychic thread again.
This time, the underground will was prepared. The outer layer of the link was wrapped in a cold psychic defense. The moment Lin Yan's tentacles touched it, he was immediately met with a cold psychic backlash.
Intense, piercing pain instantly exploded in his skull. Lin Yan's body swayed violently, and his vision went black. Large areas of cracks on the surface of his Sea of Consciousness burst open instantly, and a scalding wave of pain spread throughout his body along his nerves.
He gritted his teeth, stubbornly stabilizing his mind, and quickly withdrew his mental tentacles, severing the connection.
He was a fraction of a second away from having his Sea of Consciousness pierced in reverse along the thread.
"Too dangerous," Lin Yan gasped silently.
The enemy was now on guard. The risk of this path had multiplied, and he could no longer attempt it lightly. The reaction speed of the mastermind's will far exceeded his imagination. Perhaps it did not know exactly who Lin Yan was, but it had realized that an unfamiliar psychic node was attempting to interfere with its command network.
In the distance, a faint glimmer of firelight finally lit up on the horizon beyond the Black Mountain.
"Look! Firelight!" a lightly wounded soldier shouted excitedly. "Reinforcements! It's the vehicle searchlights of the reinforcements!"
Everyone's gaze instantly turned toward the distance.
But that glimmer of firelight was still far away. It would take at least another five minutes to reach this position.
"Five minutes," Instructor Zhou repeated in a low voice. His Sea of Consciousness barrier was swaying precariously, consuming his very foundation with every passing second. "Hold on. Just hold for another five minutes."
Deep underground, that calm will also detected the signal of the approaching reinforcements.
It did not panic. It quickly adjusted its tactics. No longer insisting on slowly wearing them down, it directly commanded the two third-tier scaled beasts to concentrate all their remaining psychic power to launch a single, total, explosive psychic impact against the fortification, intending to completely crush this last small defending force before the reinforcements arrived.
The two third-tier scaled beasts raised their heads and roared simultaneously.
A psychic tide, far more ferocious and sinister than any before, began to gather over the wilderness.
Lin Yan gripped his blood-stained short blade tightly, his Sea of Consciousness core stretched to its absolute limit.
The final five minutes of desperate combat had begun.