Chapter 154: A Moment to Breathe
The gunpowder smoke slowly settled, but the stench of blood enveloping the defense line lingered for a long time.
The forward sentry posts entered a brief window of rest and reorganization. The soldiers rotated back in shifts; some took the opportunity to bandage their wounds and replenish their ammunition, while others stood guard with their weapons, their gazes locked firmly onto the hazy boundary of the curtain. No one dared to relax. Everyone knew that this fleeting tranquility was merely the intermission between two offensives, not the dissipation of the crisis.
Lin Yan retreated to the rear temporary first-aid station and sat down against the freezing wall. The effects of the stabilization agent had completely worn off. The fissure within his Sea of Consciousness continuously transmitted waves of dull, distending pain, like a thin iron wire repeatedly tugging at his consciousness. Closing his eyes, he circulated the ancient martial arts mental technique left by his master, slowly breathing in and out, gradually calming his turbulent Sea of Consciousness.
Instructor Wen walked up to him with a detection instrument, gently scanning it above his brow. Unstable waveforms danced across the screen.
"The amplitude of your Sea of Consciousness tremors has exceeded the standard," Instructor Wen said, putting the instrument away. Her tone held no surprise. "The burden on your origin fissure is growing heavier. You overloaded yourself several times today. If you keep pushing yourself like this, one day the fissure will rupture completely. When that happens, not even the stabilization agents will be able to save you."
"I have no other choice," Lin Yan said slowly, opening his eyes, his voice calm.
He and Gu Shen were the only two third-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivators on the Western Front. The burden of suppressing the illusions could only rest on their shoulders. He had long accepted the fact that this injury could not be healed. He had no expectations, no illusions. The only thing he could do was control the rhythm of his output, ensuring he wouldn't collapse before the decisive battle arrived.
Gu Shen was receiving a check not far away, and his condition was no better. After continuous, high-intensity combat against the illusions, his Sea of Consciousness was equally severely worn, his eyes ringed with heavy, dark circles.
"I just discussed it with Lu Heng," Gu Shen walked over and said in a low voice. "Going forward, we will take our shifts separately. One person stands watch while the other is forced to rest. Even if the corrosive breath of the curtain rises, we cannot allow both of us to overdraw ourselves simultaneously. If we both fall, the illusion barrier across the entire defense line will instantly drop to zero."
"That arrangement is safe and sound," Lin Yan nodded.
Nearby, the treatment of the wounded was still underway in a tense atmosphere.
The medics were so busy their feet barely touched the ground. Wails and suppressed groans of pain echoed intermittently. A young soldier whose chest had been pierced by the claws of a scaled beast was desperately resuscitated by the medic, but ultimately, the medic shook his head, and a white cloth was gently draped over the body. Beside him, a comrade who had fought alongside him turned his head away, his grip tightening on his firearm, his jaw clenched in silent agony.
Death here had long since become the norm.
After finishing the treatment on his arm, Chen Ye walked over to the two of them with his shock baton. The bandage on his arm was wrapped thickly, with faint traces of blood seeping through. He looked toward the dead-silent curtain deep within the wasteland.
"I counted while cleaning up the battlefield just now. Over two hundred scaled beasts were taken down in this wave. But inside the curtain, there are still a massive number of scaled beast signals we can detect. Their reserves haven't run dry at all."
Zhao Kai squatted nearby, hugging his detection terminal, continuously filtering out noise and tracking the signal movements of the priests inside the curtain.
"The priests haven't evacuated their fulcrums; they are still staying within the curtain's links to adjust frequencies. It seems they are recording our reaction rhythms, the coverage area and duration of our Sea of Consciousness barriers. Every single encounter, they are collecting data to optimize the offensive methods of the next round of illusions."
The learning ability of the ancient lizard progeny was far more terrifying than humanity had anticipated.
They did not rely solely on instinct to fight. Through the priests' psychic network, they could review every battle, adjust their tactics, and slowly choke off every single one of humanity's weaknesses.
Lu Heng walked over at this moment, holding a newly compiled cross-war-zone cipher report, his face gloomy.
"The situation in the other war zones is equally dire. The Southern Bastion defense line lost a second-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivator, and the Eastern Bastion is running critically low on ammunition, constantly requesting supplies. The six major bastions are fighting individually. Communication is intermittent, and the support channels have been locked down by the wasteland rifts and the curtain." He paused, then looked at the three of them. "The high command currently has a very risky proposal."
Lin Yan raised his eyes to look at him.
"Find a fleeting, blank frequency band within the curtain's resonance network, and dispatch an extremely small elite squad to attempt to pierce the curtain and head to the outer perimeter of Rift No. 79 to investigate the true situation of the mother nest," Lu Heng said slowly. "It is not a full-scale assault, only reconnaissance. Only if we can find the core area where the matrix breeds scaled beasts and dispatches priests will we have a chance to find a way to break this deadlock."
Chen Ye's eyes lit up slightly, but then quickly dimmed. "But to get through the curtain, you'd need a Sea of Consciousness expert to lead the way, right? Once locked onto by a priest, the squad will be trapped to death in the phantom array."
"That is the difficulty right here." Lu Heng looked at Lin Yan and Gu Shen. "To lead the squad requires at least third-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivation. But once inside, you have to soak in the corrosive breath and the illusion web for an extended period. The risk is extremely high. Furthermore, once inside, any old Sea of Consciousness injuries will be continuously stimulated, risking collapse at any moment."
Lin Yan fell silent.
He wanted to go.
Deep down, he had always wanted to see with his own eyes what the mother nest, which had bred twenty-five years of disaster, looked like behind the curtain. But he knew his own shortcomings perfectly well. The Sea of Consciousness fissure was a sword hanging over his head. Penetrating deep into the curtain, where the layered illusion web resonance continuously washed over his Sea of Consciousness, carried a risk far higher for him than for Gu Shen. If the fissure tore completely, he would instantly lose all ability to resist, dragging the entire squad down with him.
"I need time to think about it," Lin Yan did not answer immediately.
"No rush," Lu Heng nodded. "Windows of opportunity don't come around all the time. Zhao Kai will have to monitor continuously for a long time before there is a chance to capture that fleeting weak frequency band. Before we find the opportunity, we continue to defend the defense line to the death."
During their conversation, a commotion broke out within the city.
Several civilians, having subconsciously lost control of their minds, were running frantically through the streets, screaming at thin air. The continuous permeation of the corrosive breath had begun to create an increasing number of psychiatric patients. Instructor Wen received the notification and hurriedly took her teaching assistants to the urban district to set up temporary, small-scale psychic barriers to stabilize the situation.
Dusk slowly descended. A gray, heavy sunset hung at the edge of the wasteland, its light dim and powerless.
Lin Yan switched to his rest shift and returned to his assigned dormitory. Closing the door shut out the noisy echoes of gunfire and the voices of people outside. He sat cross-legged on the bed, continuing to circulate his mental technique to regulate his breath. Within his Sea of Consciousness, the fissure lay dormant quietly, continuously emitting a hidden pain.
He reviewed today's battle over and over, deducing the operating mode of the illusion web's links, and simulating the dangers he might encounter after piercing the curtain in his mind.
He knew clearly that the road ahead was long.
He was currently only a third-tier. The distance to the ninth tier, the pinnacle of human cognition, was separated by countless life-and-death checkpoints. In the future, every breakthrough would require him to struggle out of the jaws of death. And this injury would accompany him through this long road. It would not heal, it would not disappear. At least at this stage, there were no signs indicating it held any other possibilities.
He did not yet know that in the desperate situation of that distant, decisive collision with the matrix's origin, this fissure, which currently brought only pain, would become a rule-breaking opportunity unique to him, one that no one else could replicate.
The earpiece chimed softly. It was Zhao Kai's voice, pressed extremely low:
"Lin Yan, I just captured a set of brief frequency shifts. Very faint. I'm not sure if it was a coincidence. I will keep a close watch to see if it can be reproduced."
Lin Yan opened his eyes and looked out the window at the dark wasteland shrouded by the curtain.
That perilous path leading to the mother nest seemed to have cast a faint, elusive shadow.
End of Chapter.
The forward sentry posts entered a brief window of rest and reorganization. The soldiers rotated back in shifts; some took the opportunity to bandage their wounds and replenish their ammunition, while others stood guard with their weapons, their gazes locked firmly onto the hazy boundary of the curtain. No one dared to relax. Everyone knew that this fleeting tranquility was merely the intermission between two offensives, not the dissipation of the crisis.
Lin Yan retreated to the rear temporary first-aid station and sat down against the freezing wall. The effects of the stabilization agent had completely worn off. The fissure within his Sea of Consciousness continuously transmitted waves of dull, distending pain, like a thin iron wire repeatedly tugging at his consciousness. Closing his eyes, he circulated the ancient martial arts mental technique left by his master, slowly breathing in and out, gradually calming his turbulent Sea of Consciousness.
Instructor Wen walked up to him with a detection instrument, gently scanning it above his brow. Unstable waveforms danced across the screen.
"The amplitude of your Sea of Consciousness tremors has exceeded the standard," Instructor Wen said, putting the instrument away. Her tone held no surprise. "The burden on your origin fissure is growing heavier. You overloaded yourself several times today. If you keep pushing yourself like this, one day the fissure will rupture completely. When that happens, not even the stabilization agents will be able to save you."
"I have no other choice," Lin Yan said slowly, opening his eyes, his voice calm.
He and Gu Shen were the only two third-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivators on the Western Front. The burden of suppressing the illusions could only rest on their shoulders. He had long accepted the fact that this injury could not be healed. He had no expectations, no illusions. The only thing he could do was control the rhythm of his output, ensuring he wouldn't collapse before the decisive battle arrived.
Gu Shen was receiving a check not far away, and his condition was no better. After continuous, high-intensity combat against the illusions, his Sea of Consciousness was equally severely worn, his eyes ringed with heavy, dark circles.
"I just discussed it with Lu Heng," Gu Shen walked over and said in a low voice. "Going forward, we will take our shifts separately. One person stands watch while the other is forced to rest. Even if the corrosive breath of the curtain rises, we cannot allow both of us to overdraw ourselves simultaneously. If we both fall, the illusion barrier across the entire defense line will instantly drop to zero."
"That arrangement is safe and sound," Lin Yan nodded.
Nearby, the treatment of the wounded was still underway in a tense atmosphere.
The medics were so busy their feet barely touched the ground. Wails and suppressed groans of pain echoed intermittently. A young soldier whose chest had been pierced by the claws of a scaled beast was desperately resuscitated by the medic, but ultimately, the medic shook his head, and a white cloth was gently draped over the body. Beside him, a comrade who had fought alongside him turned his head away, his grip tightening on his firearm, his jaw clenched in silent agony.
Death here had long since become the norm.
After finishing the treatment on his arm, Chen Ye walked over to the two of them with his shock baton. The bandage on his arm was wrapped thickly, with faint traces of blood seeping through. He looked toward the dead-silent curtain deep within the wasteland.
"I counted while cleaning up the battlefield just now. Over two hundred scaled beasts were taken down in this wave. But inside the curtain, there are still a massive number of scaled beast signals we can detect. Their reserves haven't run dry at all."
Zhao Kai squatted nearby, hugging his detection terminal, continuously filtering out noise and tracking the signal movements of the priests inside the curtain.
"The priests haven't evacuated their fulcrums; they are still staying within the curtain's links to adjust frequencies. It seems they are recording our reaction rhythms, the coverage area and duration of our Sea of Consciousness barriers. Every single encounter, they are collecting data to optimize the offensive methods of the next round of illusions."
The learning ability of the ancient lizard progeny was far more terrifying than humanity had anticipated.
They did not rely solely on instinct to fight. Through the priests' psychic network, they could review every battle, adjust their tactics, and slowly choke off every single one of humanity's weaknesses.
Lu Heng walked over at this moment, holding a newly compiled cross-war-zone cipher report, his face gloomy.
"The situation in the other war zones is equally dire. The Southern Bastion defense line lost a second-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivator, and the Eastern Bastion is running critically low on ammunition, constantly requesting supplies. The six major bastions are fighting individually. Communication is intermittent, and the support channels have been locked down by the wasteland rifts and the curtain." He paused, then looked at the three of them. "The high command currently has a very risky proposal."
Lin Yan raised his eyes to look at him.
"Find a fleeting, blank frequency band within the curtain's resonance network, and dispatch an extremely small elite squad to attempt to pierce the curtain and head to the outer perimeter of Rift No. 79 to investigate the true situation of the mother nest," Lu Heng said slowly. "It is not a full-scale assault, only reconnaissance. Only if we can find the core area where the matrix breeds scaled beasts and dispatches priests will we have a chance to find a way to break this deadlock."
Chen Ye's eyes lit up slightly, but then quickly dimmed. "But to get through the curtain, you'd need a Sea of Consciousness expert to lead the way, right? Once locked onto by a priest, the squad will be trapped to death in the phantom array."
"That is the difficulty right here." Lu Heng looked at Lin Yan and Gu Shen. "To lead the squad requires at least third-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivation. But once inside, you have to soak in the corrosive breath and the illusion web for an extended period. The risk is extremely high. Furthermore, once inside, any old Sea of Consciousness injuries will be continuously stimulated, risking collapse at any moment."
Lin Yan fell silent.
He wanted to go.
Deep down, he had always wanted to see with his own eyes what the mother nest, which had bred twenty-five years of disaster, looked like behind the curtain. But he knew his own shortcomings perfectly well. The Sea of Consciousness fissure was a sword hanging over his head. Penetrating deep into the curtain, where the layered illusion web resonance continuously washed over his Sea of Consciousness, carried a risk far higher for him than for Gu Shen. If the fissure tore completely, he would instantly lose all ability to resist, dragging the entire squad down with him.
"I need time to think about it," Lin Yan did not answer immediately.
"No rush," Lu Heng nodded. "Windows of opportunity don't come around all the time. Zhao Kai will have to monitor continuously for a long time before there is a chance to capture that fleeting weak frequency band. Before we find the opportunity, we continue to defend the defense line to the death."
During their conversation, a commotion broke out within the city.
Several civilians, having subconsciously lost control of their minds, were running frantically through the streets, screaming at thin air. The continuous permeation of the corrosive breath had begun to create an increasing number of psychiatric patients. Instructor Wen received the notification and hurriedly took her teaching assistants to the urban district to set up temporary, small-scale psychic barriers to stabilize the situation.
Dusk slowly descended. A gray, heavy sunset hung at the edge of the wasteland, its light dim and powerless.
Lin Yan switched to his rest shift and returned to his assigned dormitory. Closing the door shut out the noisy echoes of gunfire and the voices of people outside. He sat cross-legged on the bed, continuing to circulate his mental technique to regulate his breath. Within his Sea of Consciousness, the fissure lay dormant quietly, continuously emitting a hidden pain.
He reviewed today's battle over and over, deducing the operating mode of the illusion web's links, and simulating the dangers he might encounter after piercing the curtain in his mind.
He knew clearly that the road ahead was long.
He was currently only a third-tier. The distance to the ninth tier, the pinnacle of human cognition, was separated by countless life-and-death checkpoints. In the future, every breakthrough would require him to struggle out of the jaws of death. And this injury would accompany him through this long road. It would not heal, it would not disappear. At least at this stage, there were no signs indicating it held any other possibilities.
He did not yet know that in the desperate situation of that distant, decisive collision with the matrix's origin, this fissure, which currently brought only pain, would become a rule-breaking opportunity unique to him, one that no one else could replicate.
The earpiece chimed softly. It was Zhao Kai's voice, pressed extremely low:
"Lin Yan, I just captured a set of brief frequency shifts. Very faint. I'm not sure if it was a coincidence. I will keep a close watch to see if it can be reproduced."
Lin Yan opened his eyes and looked out the window at the dark wasteland shrouded by the curtain.
That perilous path leading to the mother nest seemed to have cast a faint, elusive shadow.
End of Chapter.