Chapter 151: The Frontline Ablaze
The pale cyan morning light struggled to pierce through the murky gray fog that blanketed the world, finally falling upon the battered city walls of the West Bastion.
After a sleepless night, the soldiers on the city walls had bloodshot eyes. Ammunition boxes were stacked in layers, and the artillery barrels maintained their unwavering aim toward the wasteland. Intermittent bad news from the other war zones echoed through the shortwave channel, each piece of information pressing heavily upon everyone's hearts.
The harassment against the southern bastion had taken shape; scaled beasts repeatedly assaulted the outer sentry posts under the cover of illusions. The concentration of corrosive breath in the western war zone had skyrocketed, triggering a massive outbreak of hallucinations within the city, forcing them to deploy their few remaining Sea of Consciousness cultivators to maintain order in different districts. The six major war zones were almost simultaneously entangled by the power of the curtain.
The ancient lizard progeny had not chosen to concentrate their main forces for a decisive battle. Instead, they had ignited the flames of war synchronously across all fronts, splitting and stretching humanity's resistance, forcing them to lose focus and be overwhelmed.
In the command room, six independent spectrum windows were laid out on the light screen. The purple waves in every single window were restless and undulating; there was not a single stable area.
"The North Sentinel has been completely out of contact for over three hours," Lu Heng said, his voice low as he tapped heavily on the block corresponding to the North Sentinel with his fingertip. "The last sporadic spectrum fragments we captured showed that the priest there had pushed the illusion web nodes into the city proper of the North Sentinel. Even if there are survivors hiding in the underground bunkers, it is merely a cornered beast's last stand."
No one spoke.
The fall of the North Sentinel was like a heavy club striking everyone's hearts. For twenty-five years, the six bastions had supported each other like the horns of a formation. Even during the most perilous moments of the rift crisis, no bastion had ever lost contact so silently.
Instructor Wen picked up the newly compiled casualty statistics, her brow furrowed. "After last night's round of full-front pressure, the reported number of Sea of Consciousness cultivator injuries across the war zones has surged. Many newcomers who had just broken through to the second tier couldn't withstand the continuous wash of corrosive breath, leaving their Seas of Consciousness with permanent trauma. In the future, the number of people who can go to the front lines will only decrease."
Gu Shen stared at the light screen, his tone grave. "The matrix is consuming our foundation. It knows perfectly well that the cultivation cycle for Sea of Consciousness cultivators is extremely long; for every one that dies, we lose one forever. Scaled beasts can be continuously hatched in the mother nest. We cannot afford this war of attrition."
Lin Yan stood quietly to the side, silently releasing a wisp of perception to sweep across the boundary of the curtain outside the Western Front.
In an instant, dense psychic needles surged into his Sea of Consciousness. The origin fissure twitched violently, and a sharp pain spread through his consciousness. He slightly turned his head, suppressing the stifling sensation rising in his throat, and quickly retracted his perception.
He had long been accustomed to this pain, and he knew in his heart that there was absolutely no possibility of healing this injury. In the future, during every battle and every vigil, it would follow him like a shadow, limiting his upper limit. He could only exert his strength as much as possible within the shackles of his pain.
"There are currently no signs of the curtain on the Western Front advancing inward, but the corrosive breath is still steadily rising," Zhao Kai said, sliding the screen to bring up the Western Front's spectrum curve. "The priests are still adjusting the links, as if accumulating strength. I speculate that before the North Sentinel completely loses its value of resistance, the Western Front will remain inactive."
"It is leaving us time to digest our fear," Lin Yan said slowly. "It wants us to watch our allies fall with our own eyes, keeping our nerves taut as we wait, allowing panic to slowly spread throughout the city. When people's hearts approach the breaking point, launching an attack will yield the best results."
As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the command room grew even more oppressive.
The tactics of the ancient lizard progeny had long gone beyond relying solely on physical combat. Spirit, psychology, and time were all weapons in their arsenal.
Soon, new orders were issued.
The Western Front entered a long-term, high-pressure vigilance mode. Soldiers were divided into three shifts for defense, with no more complete rest holidays. All students at the combat readiness academy stopped their regular cultural courses and threw themselves entirely into illusion resistance and combat training. Instructor Wen led the few remaining Sea of Consciousness teaching assistants to set up simple, small-scale psychic barriers, prioritizing the protection of hospitals and refugee resettlement areas.
The rotation intervals for Lin Yan and Gu Shen were compressed once again. In the past, they could rest for half a day after a shift; now, they were only given two hours to regulate their breath and recover.
Stepping out of the command room, the atmosphere on the streets was even heavier than the night before.
Many residents were voluntarily packing simple bags and transferring to the underground air-raid shelters. The suppressed cries of children, hushed conversations, and the heavy footsteps of people carrying supplies intertwined. Several civilians whose minds had already been damaged would suddenly stop in the middle of the street, muttering to themselves to an empty corner.
Chen Ye led an assault squad on patrol through the街区 (streets), maintaining order. Seeing Lin Yan come out, he walked over quickly.
"I just went to the resettlement point. Many people are afraid to close their eyes at night; the moment they fall asleep, they fall into the same gray illusion," Chen Ye sighed. "If this continues, we won't even need the scaled beasts to charge in; the city will erupt into riots first."
"What we can do is limited," Lin Yan said, looking toward the blurry, distorted boundary of the distant wasteland. "There aren't enough barrier devices to cover the entire city. We can only prioritize guarding the key areas."
"The academy is already in chaos," Gu Shen added. "Many students learned that the North Sentinel had lost contact and had a mental breakdown. Some are now afraid to even touch Sea of Consciousness cultivation, terrified of ending up like that third-tier cultivator at the North Sentinel."
The three of them headed to the combat readiness academy together.
There were no neat shouts in the training ground as in the past. Many students sat on the ground, their faces pale. Instructor Wen was on the stage. She didn't deliver a passionate mobilization speech; she simply told them the reality calmly.
"Fear is normal. But the alien race behind the wasteland will not stop just because we are afraid. If you don't want to be swallowed by illusions or torn apart by scaled beasts, you can only solidify your foundation." Her gaze swept over the crowd. "The choice is in your own hands."
Lin Yan stood outside the fence, watching.
He remembered when he had first descended the mountain, completely ignorant of this world, knowing only that the alien race was terrifying. Along the way, bones, blood, shattered illusions, and the sight of fallen comrades had gradually filled his memory. He had felt fear too, especially when the old Sea of Consciousness injury flared up and intense pain swept through his consciousness; he had truly felt his own fragility.
But fear could not solve any problems.
At noon, the wind on the wasteland suddenly changed its scent.
The faint, rotting stench had now become thick and pungent. Zhao Kai sprinted over with the detector, his face changing drastically.
"Alert! The resonance frequency of the Western Front curtain is beginning to rise! The nodes are charging synchronously. This is not a small-scale harassment; the scale of this one is different!"
The alarm on the city walls rang out sharply once again.
"All personnel take your positions!" Lu Heng's roar echoed across the defense line. "Lin Yan, Gu Shen, prepare to erect the psychic barrier and strip away the illusions! Heavy firepower squads, lock onto all markable nodes at the forefront of the curtain!"
Lin Yan focused his mind, and his Sea of Consciousness slowly spread out.
The stabbing pain from the fissure arrived as expected, like an icy chain binding his consciousness. Gritting his teeth to steady his mind, he and Gu Shen took separate positions. Two Sea of Consciousness barriers, one in front and one behind, spread out in front of the sentry post.
Beneath the curtain, countless distorted lights and shadows slowly floated. One illusory scene after another emerged from the darkness, obscuring the true landscape of the wasteland.
This time, it was no longer a probing attack by thirty-something scaled beasts.
Within the gaps of the layered illusions, dense outlines of scaled beasts were slowly advancing forward.
The test for the Western Front had finally arrived.
End of Chapter.
After a sleepless night, the soldiers on the city walls had bloodshot eyes. Ammunition boxes were stacked in layers, and the artillery barrels maintained their unwavering aim toward the wasteland. Intermittent bad news from the other war zones echoed through the shortwave channel, each piece of information pressing heavily upon everyone's hearts.
The harassment against the southern bastion had taken shape; scaled beasts repeatedly assaulted the outer sentry posts under the cover of illusions. The concentration of corrosive breath in the western war zone had skyrocketed, triggering a massive outbreak of hallucinations within the city, forcing them to deploy their few remaining Sea of Consciousness cultivators to maintain order in different districts. The six major war zones were almost simultaneously entangled by the power of the curtain.
The ancient lizard progeny had not chosen to concentrate their main forces for a decisive battle. Instead, they had ignited the flames of war synchronously across all fronts, splitting and stretching humanity's resistance, forcing them to lose focus and be overwhelmed.
In the command room, six independent spectrum windows were laid out on the light screen. The purple waves in every single window were restless and undulating; there was not a single stable area.
"The North Sentinel has been completely out of contact for over three hours," Lu Heng said, his voice low as he tapped heavily on the block corresponding to the North Sentinel with his fingertip. "The last sporadic spectrum fragments we captured showed that the priest there had pushed the illusion web nodes into the city proper of the North Sentinel. Even if there are survivors hiding in the underground bunkers, it is merely a cornered beast's last stand."
No one spoke.
The fall of the North Sentinel was like a heavy club striking everyone's hearts. For twenty-five years, the six bastions had supported each other like the horns of a formation. Even during the most perilous moments of the rift crisis, no bastion had ever lost contact so silently.
Instructor Wen picked up the newly compiled casualty statistics, her brow furrowed. "After last night's round of full-front pressure, the reported number of Sea of Consciousness cultivator injuries across the war zones has surged. Many newcomers who had just broken through to the second tier couldn't withstand the continuous wash of corrosive breath, leaving their Seas of Consciousness with permanent trauma. In the future, the number of people who can go to the front lines will only decrease."
Gu Shen stared at the light screen, his tone grave. "The matrix is consuming our foundation. It knows perfectly well that the cultivation cycle for Sea of Consciousness cultivators is extremely long; for every one that dies, we lose one forever. Scaled beasts can be continuously hatched in the mother nest. We cannot afford this war of attrition."
Lin Yan stood quietly to the side, silently releasing a wisp of perception to sweep across the boundary of the curtain outside the Western Front.
In an instant, dense psychic needles surged into his Sea of Consciousness. The origin fissure twitched violently, and a sharp pain spread through his consciousness. He slightly turned his head, suppressing the stifling sensation rising in his throat, and quickly retracted his perception.
He had long been accustomed to this pain, and he knew in his heart that there was absolutely no possibility of healing this injury. In the future, during every battle and every vigil, it would follow him like a shadow, limiting his upper limit. He could only exert his strength as much as possible within the shackles of his pain.
"There are currently no signs of the curtain on the Western Front advancing inward, but the corrosive breath is still steadily rising," Zhao Kai said, sliding the screen to bring up the Western Front's spectrum curve. "The priests are still adjusting the links, as if accumulating strength. I speculate that before the North Sentinel completely loses its value of resistance, the Western Front will remain inactive."
"It is leaving us time to digest our fear," Lin Yan said slowly. "It wants us to watch our allies fall with our own eyes, keeping our nerves taut as we wait, allowing panic to slowly spread throughout the city. When people's hearts approach the breaking point, launching an attack will yield the best results."
As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the command room grew even more oppressive.
The tactics of the ancient lizard progeny had long gone beyond relying solely on physical combat. Spirit, psychology, and time were all weapons in their arsenal.
Soon, new orders were issued.
The Western Front entered a long-term, high-pressure vigilance mode. Soldiers were divided into three shifts for defense, with no more complete rest holidays. All students at the combat readiness academy stopped their regular cultural courses and threw themselves entirely into illusion resistance and combat training. Instructor Wen led the few remaining Sea of Consciousness teaching assistants to set up simple, small-scale psychic barriers, prioritizing the protection of hospitals and refugee resettlement areas.
The rotation intervals for Lin Yan and Gu Shen were compressed once again. In the past, they could rest for half a day after a shift; now, they were only given two hours to regulate their breath and recover.
Stepping out of the command room, the atmosphere on the streets was even heavier than the night before.
Many residents were voluntarily packing simple bags and transferring to the underground air-raid shelters. The suppressed cries of children, hushed conversations, and the heavy footsteps of people carrying supplies intertwined. Several civilians whose minds had already been damaged would suddenly stop in the middle of the street, muttering to themselves to an empty corner.
Chen Ye led an assault squad on patrol through the街区 (streets), maintaining order. Seeing Lin Yan come out, he walked over quickly.
"I just went to the resettlement point. Many people are afraid to close their eyes at night; the moment they fall asleep, they fall into the same gray illusion," Chen Ye sighed. "If this continues, we won't even need the scaled beasts to charge in; the city will erupt into riots first."
"What we can do is limited," Lin Yan said, looking toward the blurry, distorted boundary of the distant wasteland. "There aren't enough barrier devices to cover the entire city. We can only prioritize guarding the key areas."
"The academy is already in chaos," Gu Shen added. "Many students learned that the North Sentinel had lost contact and had a mental breakdown. Some are now afraid to even touch Sea of Consciousness cultivation, terrified of ending up like that third-tier cultivator at the North Sentinel."
The three of them headed to the combat readiness academy together.
There were no neat shouts in the training ground as in the past. Many students sat on the ground, their faces pale. Instructor Wen was on the stage. She didn't deliver a passionate mobilization speech; she simply told them the reality calmly.
"Fear is normal. But the alien race behind the wasteland will not stop just because we are afraid. If you don't want to be swallowed by illusions or torn apart by scaled beasts, you can only solidify your foundation." Her gaze swept over the crowd. "The choice is in your own hands."
Lin Yan stood outside the fence, watching.
He remembered when he had first descended the mountain, completely ignorant of this world, knowing only that the alien race was terrifying. Along the way, bones, blood, shattered illusions, and the sight of fallen comrades had gradually filled his memory. He had felt fear too, especially when the old Sea of Consciousness injury flared up and intense pain swept through his consciousness; he had truly felt his own fragility.
But fear could not solve any problems.
At noon, the wind on the wasteland suddenly changed its scent.
The faint, rotting stench had now become thick and pungent. Zhao Kai sprinted over with the detector, his face changing drastically.
"Alert! The resonance frequency of the Western Front curtain is beginning to rise! The nodes are charging synchronously. This is not a small-scale harassment; the scale of this one is different!"
The alarm on the city walls rang out sharply once again.
"All personnel take your positions!" Lu Heng's roar echoed across the defense line. "Lin Yan, Gu Shen, prepare to erect the psychic barrier and strip away the illusions! Heavy firepower squads, lock onto all markable nodes at the forefront of the curtain!"
Lin Yan focused his mind, and his Sea of Consciousness slowly spread out.
The stabbing pain from the fissure arrived as expected, like an icy chain binding his consciousness. Gritting his teeth to steady his mind, he and Gu Shen took separate positions. Two Sea of Consciousness barriers, one in front and one behind, spread out in front of the sentry post.
Beneath the curtain, countless distorted lights and shadows slowly floated. One illusory scene after another emerged from the darkness, obscuring the true landscape of the wasteland.
This time, it was no longer a probing attack by thirty-something scaled beasts.
Within the gaps of the layered illusions, dense outlines of scaled beasts were slowly advancing forward.
The test for the Western Front had finally arrived.
End of Chapter.