Chapter 172: The Perilous Situation at the Southern Outpost
The messenger hesitated for a moment, then finally gritted his teeth.
The shortage of troops at the southern outpost was obvious to all. Most of the garrison there were new recruits or defensive personnel returning from minor injuries. There were only two Sea of Consciousness cultivators, and neither was of a high rank. They simply couldn't withstand the large-scale psychic tide unleashed by the secondary priest. Having one more person who could detect alien signals in advance meant one more chance of survival.
"I'll report to my superiors. Come with me. But remember our agreement: only provide early warnings. Absolutely do not take the priest's psychic impact head-on. The moment your Sea of Consciousness shows signs of losing control, retreat immediately."
Lin Yan nodded and followed the messenger, quickly leaving the academy.
The internal corridors of the bastion were already a hive of frantic activity. Stretcher teams shuttled back and forth, constantly bringing down wounded soldiers from the front lines of the city wall. Wails, the dark red blood soaking through hemostatic bandages, and the urgent shouts of medical staff intertwined with the unceasing artillery roars in the distance, weaving an inescapable, suffocating net. Many residents along the way had been mobilized to carry ammunition and transport steel plates to reinforce fortifications. Everyone knew that tonight was a matter of life and death.
They boarded a short-range electric transport vehicle of the war zone, speeding south along the circular corridor on the inner side of the bastion. The further south they went, the heavier the icy, fishy stench in the air became, and the clearer the trembling of the rock strata.
The southern outpost was an inconspicuous link in the entire defense line of the West Bastion. Its walls were a fraction shorter than the main city wall, and the outer buffer zone was crisscrossed with ravines. Originally, it was merely a small observation post used to monitor the southern rift branches of the wasteland. No one expected the Ancient Progeny to choose this place, hidden under the cover of a feint, as their main direction of attack.
The moment the vehicle stopped beside the supply bunker behind the outpost, a bone-chilling, cold psychic wave slammed into Lin Yan's perception. The innate fissure in his brow instantly burned with a stabbing pain.
He let out a muffled groan, grabbing the side of the vehicle to steady his steps, cold sweat instantly beading on his forehead.
"It's here?" The outpost's garrison captain was a middle-aged man with a face full of scars. Seeing the messenger bring Lin Yan, he skipped the pleasantries and immediately pulled him into the reinforced concrete observation bunker. "Three minutes ago, the forward scout post reported that a massive number of scaled beasts are advancing covertly along the ravines. We can't see the priest, but people have already started feeling dizzy and nauseous."
The observation port of the bunker faced the wasteland shrouded in gray fog. The beams of the searchlights cut diagonally into the murky fog, revealing massive dark shadows writhing and advancing ceaselessly in the ravines. The numbers were dense, stretching beyond the horizon. First-tier scaled beasts led the way, with second-tier scaled beasts interspersed in the middle of the herd. The cold, orderly source of that psychic aura hid in the rear of the beast tide, never exposing its form.
The secondary priest was very cautious, using the bodies of the scaled beasts as cover, hiding in the core of the herd.
"It's gathering strength," Lin Yan said, closing his eyes and concentrating his faint perception to trace the fluctuations back to their source. With every extra bit of probing, his Sea of Consciousness fissure tore a little more. "It's not an instantaneous explosive impact. It's a slowly stacking illusion tide, pressing over layer by layer. First comes dizziness and numbness, then it amplifies the deepest fears in our hearts. The moment our minds loosen, it will unleash tangible illusions, coordinating with the scaled beasts' charge."
The two resident Sea of Consciousness cultivators at the outpost looked pale. They had already erected a thin, joint psychic barrier, but under the invisible, low-frequency fluctuations, the barrier was slowly trembling and thinning. It wouldn't hold for much longer.
"Our barrier can't withstand a full round of the priest's illusion tide," one of the young cultivators said, his voice trembling. "I saw a priest strike on the northern front before. One wave of psychic impact hit, and an entire squad instantly lost their minds and attacked each other."
The garrison captain grabbed the communicator, repeatedly calling for the support formation. The receiver only emitted the buzzing of static interference: "The signal is being jammed by rock strata resonance! Support is still on the way; it will take at least fifteen minutes to arrive. For fifteen minutes, we have to rely on ourselves to hold out."
Everyone knew that fifteen minutes, in the face of a joint assault by a beast tide and a priest, was as long as a century.
The captain quickly adjusted the deployment: "Lock the heavy oscillation cannons on the narrow parts of the ravines; concentrate fire when the scaled beasts bunch up. Rifle squads, split into left and right bunkers to intercept the alien beasts charging up in sections. The two Sea of Consciousness comrades, maintain the barrier. Lin Yan, you are responsible for reporting any changes in the priest's fluctuations to us."
Lin Yan leaned against the inner wall of the bunker, forcing himself to steady his breathing. He didn't dare continuously catalyze his perception, only maintaining a shallow level of sensing. He was like a taut thread, constantly capturing the changes in the alien psychic flow.
The beast tide on the wasteland was still advancing steadily, without recklessly charging. The priest was waiting, waiting for the psychic pressure to accumulate to a critical point before launching a general offensive synchronously. This was a tactic honed through countless beast tide offensives: first, use psychic power to break the human mind, then use physical bodies to slaughter and reap.
"The fluctuations are strengthening. The first layer of the illusion tide is about to spread!" Lin Yan suddenly called out.
The moment his words fell, an invisible, cold tide swept across the entire outpost.
Everyone in the bunker felt their heads suddenly grow heavy. Faint, blurry hissing whispers echoed in their ears, and the light and shadows before their eyes wavered. Many saw phantoms of scaled beasts pouncing and biting flash at the edges of their vision. The two Sea of Consciousness cultivators gritted their teeth, frantically consuming their origin. The originally translucent barrier suddenly lit up with a layer of white light, barely catching this wave of impact. A trace of blood spilled from the corners of both their mouths simultaneously.
"Hold on! Don't stare at the illusions! Stare at the weapons in your hands and the comrades beside you!" the captain roared loudly, stabilizing the morale of the troops.
Outside, the first batch of scaled beasts had already charged to the barbed wire in front of the outpost. Their sharp claws tore at the metal mesh, the piercing sound of ripping metal cutting through the fog. The oscillation cannons roared to life, scorching shockwaves sweeping across the ravines. Several first-tier scaled beasts at the very front were instantly blown to pieces, their foul, dark green blood splattering across the dirt and rocks.
Yet, the beast tide did not collapse. The scaled beasts behind stepped over the corpses of their kind, continuing to fill the gap forward.
One wave of the illusion tide fell, bringing a brief lull.
The priest was gathering strength for a second, even more intense psychic impact.
"It's moving toward the left ravine, trying to bypass the front of our psychic barrier and cut in from the flank!" Lin Yan's brow throbbed with severe pain, and black lines began to blur his vision. Suppressing the dizziness, he reported the exact direction.
The captain immediately transferred half of the rifle squads to the left bunker, aiming their gun muzzles at the fork in the ravine.
Not long after, the second wave of the illusion tide arrived as expected.
This wave was far more vicious than the last. The illusions were no longer blurry shadows and whispers. Many soldiers clearly saw their fallen comrades walking out from the black fog, reaching out their hands to them, tempting them to step out of the bunker. Two new recruits lost their grip on their minds; their feet subconsciously took a step toward the outside of the observation port. An old soldier beside them reacted swiftly, slamming them to the ground and fiercely slapping their cheeks.
"It's fake! Hold steady!"
The barriers of the two Sea of Consciousness cultivators were already covered in cracks. Their origin was severely overdrawn, their bodies trembling violently. It looked like they were about to give out.
"The barrier is about to shatter!" the young cultivator cried out anxiously.
Lin Yan's mind raced as he weighed the options.
His Sea of Consciousness was injured. If he stepped in to share the pressure of the barrier, the fissure would inevitably expand further. There was even a risk of it collapsing directly, turning him into a mindless one. But if the barrier broke, everyone in the outpost would be swallowed by the illusion tide. Before the scaled beasts even charged in, they would slaughter each other.
Deep in his inner lining pocket, the last strong-dose stabilization agent lay quietly. It was his final trump card.
"Captain, tell them to drop the barrier. I'll guide the fluctuation to deflect. I can't take it head-on, but I can try to lead the illusion tide toward the empty wasteland on the flank."
"It's too risky!" the messenger urgently dissuaded.
"There's no other choice." Lin Yan slowly straightened his body and closed his eyes.
Instead of raising a defensive barrier, he opened up his innate fissure. This fissure was a weakness, but it was also a natural channel. The psychic power of the secondary priest would instinctively converge toward the direction of the damaged Sea of Consciousness. He was going to be the bait, drawing the illusion tide that was meant to blanket the outpost toward the uninhabited valley on the flank.
The cold illusion tide instantly found its target. The psychic flood that was originally spreading across the entire outpost suddenly deflected, with the majority surging toward Lin Yan's position.
Agonizing pain poured into his Sea of Consciousness like molten iron. Countless terrifying illusions frantically drilled into his mind: the ferocious silhouette of the Elder in the cavern, the densely packed incubation eggs in the rift, the scattered corpses across the wasteland... Countless scenes of fear stacked and squeezed together. His body trembled uncontrollably, his teeth biting down until his lower lip bled.
He desperately held onto that single anchor point in his mind — the scent of the master's thatched hut left on the mountain, and the calm breathing rhythm from when he had guided the youths to fortify their Seas of Consciousness earlier.
He could not sink into it.
"Now! Open fire, strike the middle of the beast herd. The priest is in that area!" Lin Yan roared hoarsely.
The captain seized the fleeting opportunity and immediately ordered the oscillation cannons to adjust their coordinates. Heavy oscillation shells whistled as they crashed into the middle of the beast tide!
Boom!
A violent explosion erupted in the core of the beast herd, and a cloud of dark green blood mist soared into the air. The advance rhythm of the beast tide suddenly stalled. The psychic fluctuations commanding the illusion tide shook violently, showing obvious disorder. The priest had been injured!
But it lasted only an instant. After the disorder, the priest's rage immediately counterattacked through the psychic channel. A more violent impact slammed fiercely against the fissure in Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness.
Lin Yan's vision went black, and he fell straight backward.
"Lin Yan!" The messenger reached out and caught him.
His consciousness drifted at the edge of darkness. The fissure in his Sea of Consciousness had been torn open with a new wound, and ceaseless stabbing pain enveloped his mind. His hand trembled as he reached into his pocket for that last stabilization agent.
Should he inject it?
If he did, he could temporarily suppress the severe pain and stabilize his Sea of Consciousness. But after the double overdraft, the subsequent damage would very likely be irreversible.
On the wasteland, the injured secondary priest abandoned the slow buildup of strength. No longer pursuing the erosion of the illusion tide, it directly drove the remaining beast tide into a frantic charge, wanting to break through the walls while the outpost's defenses were in a gap.
The remaining scaled beasts roared, swarming and pouncing toward the outpost's fortifications.
The roaring engines of the support formation finally echoed from the distant bastion corridors, but they were still the last stretch of distance away from the outpost.
End of Chapter.
The shortage of troops at the southern outpost was obvious to all. Most of the garrison there were new recruits or defensive personnel returning from minor injuries. There were only two Sea of Consciousness cultivators, and neither was of a high rank. They simply couldn't withstand the large-scale psychic tide unleashed by the secondary priest. Having one more person who could detect alien signals in advance meant one more chance of survival.
"I'll report to my superiors. Come with me. But remember our agreement: only provide early warnings. Absolutely do not take the priest's psychic impact head-on. The moment your Sea of Consciousness shows signs of losing control, retreat immediately."
Lin Yan nodded and followed the messenger, quickly leaving the academy.
The internal corridors of the bastion were already a hive of frantic activity. Stretcher teams shuttled back and forth, constantly bringing down wounded soldiers from the front lines of the city wall. Wails, the dark red blood soaking through hemostatic bandages, and the urgent shouts of medical staff intertwined with the unceasing artillery roars in the distance, weaving an inescapable, suffocating net. Many residents along the way had been mobilized to carry ammunition and transport steel plates to reinforce fortifications. Everyone knew that tonight was a matter of life and death.
They boarded a short-range electric transport vehicle of the war zone, speeding south along the circular corridor on the inner side of the bastion. The further south they went, the heavier the icy, fishy stench in the air became, and the clearer the trembling of the rock strata.
The southern outpost was an inconspicuous link in the entire defense line of the West Bastion. Its walls were a fraction shorter than the main city wall, and the outer buffer zone was crisscrossed with ravines. Originally, it was merely a small observation post used to monitor the southern rift branches of the wasteland. No one expected the Ancient Progeny to choose this place, hidden under the cover of a feint, as their main direction of attack.
The moment the vehicle stopped beside the supply bunker behind the outpost, a bone-chilling, cold psychic wave slammed into Lin Yan's perception. The innate fissure in his brow instantly burned with a stabbing pain.
He let out a muffled groan, grabbing the side of the vehicle to steady his steps, cold sweat instantly beading on his forehead.
"It's here?" The outpost's garrison captain was a middle-aged man with a face full of scars. Seeing the messenger bring Lin Yan, he skipped the pleasantries and immediately pulled him into the reinforced concrete observation bunker. "Three minutes ago, the forward scout post reported that a massive number of scaled beasts are advancing covertly along the ravines. We can't see the priest, but people have already started feeling dizzy and nauseous."
The observation port of the bunker faced the wasteland shrouded in gray fog. The beams of the searchlights cut diagonally into the murky fog, revealing massive dark shadows writhing and advancing ceaselessly in the ravines. The numbers were dense, stretching beyond the horizon. First-tier scaled beasts led the way, with second-tier scaled beasts interspersed in the middle of the herd. The cold, orderly source of that psychic aura hid in the rear of the beast tide, never exposing its form.
The secondary priest was very cautious, using the bodies of the scaled beasts as cover, hiding in the core of the herd.
"It's gathering strength," Lin Yan said, closing his eyes and concentrating his faint perception to trace the fluctuations back to their source. With every extra bit of probing, his Sea of Consciousness fissure tore a little more. "It's not an instantaneous explosive impact. It's a slowly stacking illusion tide, pressing over layer by layer. First comes dizziness and numbness, then it amplifies the deepest fears in our hearts. The moment our minds loosen, it will unleash tangible illusions, coordinating with the scaled beasts' charge."
The two resident Sea of Consciousness cultivators at the outpost looked pale. They had already erected a thin, joint psychic barrier, but under the invisible, low-frequency fluctuations, the barrier was slowly trembling and thinning. It wouldn't hold for much longer.
"Our barrier can't withstand a full round of the priest's illusion tide," one of the young cultivators said, his voice trembling. "I saw a priest strike on the northern front before. One wave of psychic impact hit, and an entire squad instantly lost their minds and attacked each other."
The garrison captain grabbed the communicator, repeatedly calling for the support formation. The receiver only emitted the buzzing of static interference: "The signal is being jammed by rock strata resonance! Support is still on the way; it will take at least fifteen minutes to arrive. For fifteen minutes, we have to rely on ourselves to hold out."
Everyone knew that fifteen minutes, in the face of a joint assault by a beast tide and a priest, was as long as a century.
The captain quickly adjusted the deployment: "Lock the heavy oscillation cannons on the narrow parts of the ravines; concentrate fire when the scaled beasts bunch up. Rifle squads, split into left and right bunkers to intercept the alien beasts charging up in sections. The two Sea of Consciousness comrades, maintain the barrier. Lin Yan, you are responsible for reporting any changes in the priest's fluctuations to us."
Lin Yan leaned against the inner wall of the bunker, forcing himself to steady his breathing. He didn't dare continuously catalyze his perception, only maintaining a shallow level of sensing. He was like a taut thread, constantly capturing the changes in the alien psychic flow.
The beast tide on the wasteland was still advancing steadily, without recklessly charging. The priest was waiting, waiting for the psychic pressure to accumulate to a critical point before launching a general offensive synchronously. This was a tactic honed through countless beast tide offensives: first, use psychic power to break the human mind, then use physical bodies to slaughter and reap.
"The fluctuations are strengthening. The first layer of the illusion tide is about to spread!" Lin Yan suddenly called out.
The moment his words fell, an invisible, cold tide swept across the entire outpost.
Everyone in the bunker felt their heads suddenly grow heavy. Faint, blurry hissing whispers echoed in their ears, and the light and shadows before their eyes wavered. Many saw phantoms of scaled beasts pouncing and biting flash at the edges of their vision. The two Sea of Consciousness cultivators gritted their teeth, frantically consuming their origin. The originally translucent barrier suddenly lit up with a layer of white light, barely catching this wave of impact. A trace of blood spilled from the corners of both their mouths simultaneously.
"Hold on! Don't stare at the illusions! Stare at the weapons in your hands and the comrades beside you!" the captain roared loudly, stabilizing the morale of the troops.
Outside, the first batch of scaled beasts had already charged to the barbed wire in front of the outpost. Their sharp claws tore at the metal mesh, the piercing sound of ripping metal cutting through the fog. The oscillation cannons roared to life, scorching shockwaves sweeping across the ravines. Several first-tier scaled beasts at the very front were instantly blown to pieces, their foul, dark green blood splattering across the dirt and rocks.
Yet, the beast tide did not collapse. The scaled beasts behind stepped over the corpses of their kind, continuing to fill the gap forward.
One wave of the illusion tide fell, bringing a brief lull.
The priest was gathering strength for a second, even more intense psychic impact.
"It's moving toward the left ravine, trying to bypass the front of our psychic barrier and cut in from the flank!" Lin Yan's brow throbbed with severe pain, and black lines began to blur his vision. Suppressing the dizziness, he reported the exact direction.
The captain immediately transferred half of the rifle squads to the left bunker, aiming their gun muzzles at the fork in the ravine.
Not long after, the second wave of the illusion tide arrived as expected.
This wave was far more vicious than the last. The illusions were no longer blurry shadows and whispers. Many soldiers clearly saw their fallen comrades walking out from the black fog, reaching out their hands to them, tempting them to step out of the bunker. Two new recruits lost their grip on their minds; their feet subconsciously took a step toward the outside of the observation port. An old soldier beside them reacted swiftly, slamming them to the ground and fiercely slapping their cheeks.
"It's fake! Hold steady!"
The barriers of the two Sea of Consciousness cultivators were already covered in cracks. Their origin was severely overdrawn, their bodies trembling violently. It looked like they were about to give out.
"The barrier is about to shatter!" the young cultivator cried out anxiously.
Lin Yan's mind raced as he weighed the options.
His Sea of Consciousness was injured. If he stepped in to share the pressure of the barrier, the fissure would inevitably expand further. There was even a risk of it collapsing directly, turning him into a mindless one. But if the barrier broke, everyone in the outpost would be swallowed by the illusion tide. Before the scaled beasts even charged in, they would slaughter each other.
Deep in his inner lining pocket, the last strong-dose stabilization agent lay quietly. It was his final trump card.
"Captain, tell them to drop the barrier. I'll guide the fluctuation to deflect. I can't take it head-on, but I can try to lead the illusion tide toward the empty wasteland on the flank."
"It's too risky!" the messenger urgently dissuaded.
"There's no other choice." Lin Yan slowly straightened his body and closed his eyes.
Instead of raising a defensive barrier, he opened up his innate fissure. This fissure was a weakness, but it was also a natural channel. The psychic power of the secondary priest would instinctively converge toward the direction of the damaged Sea of Consciousness. He was going to be the bait, drawing the illusion tide that was meant to blanket the outpost toward the uninhabited valley on the flank.
The cold illusion tide instantly found its target. The psychic flood that was originally spreading across the entire outpost suddenly deflected, with the majority surging toward Lin Yan's position.
Agonizing pain poured into his Sea of Consciousness like molten iron. Countless terrifying illusions frantically drilled into his mind: the ferocious silhouette of the Elder in the cavern, the densely packed incubation eggs in the rift, the scattered corpses across the wasteland... Countless scenes of fear stacked and squeezed together. His body trembled uncontrollably, his teeth biting down until his lower lip bled.
He desperately held onto that single anchor point in his mind — the scent of the master's thatched hut left on the mountain, and the calm breathing rhythm from when he had guided the youths to fortify their Seas of Consciousness earlier.
He could not sink into it.
"Now! Open fire, strike the middle of the beast herd. The priest is in that area!" Lin Yan roared hoarsely.
The captain seized the fleeting opportunity and immediately ordered the oscillation cannons to adjust their coordinates. Heavy oscillation shells whistled as they crashed into the middle of the beast tide!
Boom!
A violent explosion erupted in the core of the beast herd, and a cloud of dark green blood mist soared into the air. The advance rhythm of the beast tide suddenly stalled. The psychic fluctuations commanding the illusion tide shook violently, showing obvious disorder. The priest had been injured!
But it lasted only an instant. After the disorder, the priest's rage immediately counterattacked through the psychic channel. A more violent impact slammed fiercely against the fissure in Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness.
Lin Yan's vision went black, and he fell straight backward.
"Lin Yan!" The messenger reached out and caught him.
His consciousness drifted at the edge of darkness. The fissure in his Sea of Consciousness had been torn open with a new wound, and ceaseless stabbing pain enveloped his mind. His hand trembled as he reached into his pocket for that last stabilization agent.
Should he inject it?
If he did, he could temporarily suppress the severe pain and stabilize his Sea of Consciousness. But after the double overdraft, the subsequent damage would very likely be irreversible.
On the wasteland, the injured secondary priest abandoned the slow buildup of strength. No longer pursuing the erosion of the illusion tide, it directly drove the remaining beast tide into a frantic charge, wanting to break through the walls while the outpost's defenses were in a gap.
The remaining scaled beasts roared, swarming and pouncing toward the outpost's fortifications.
The roaring engines of the support formation finally echoed from the distant bastion corridors, but they were still the last stretch of distance away from the outpost.
End of Chapter.