Chapter 173: The Lingering Tide and Hidden Wounds
Darkness sank deep into his consciousness like an icy tide, wrapping him in countless ferocious phantoms.
Lin Yan leaned half his body against the messenger's embrace. His ears were filled with a chaotic mixture of scaled beasts' roars, the booming of oscillation cannons, and the cold, hissing shriek of the secondary priest continuously piercing his Sea of Consciousness in a fit of rage. The backlash from the previous wave had torn a new breach in his fissure, and his origin was leaking uncontrollably like a punctured water bag.
His fingertips gripped the strong-dose stabilization agent in his inner lining pocket so tightly that the plastic edges dug painfully into his palm.
If he injected it, he could forcibly seal the restless wounds in his Sea of Consciousness and stabilize his mind in the short term. He might even be able to mobilize his perception again to help the defenders lock onto the priest's position. But he was acutely aware of Scholar Su's earlier warning. He was already carrying the lingering injuries from the battle with the Elder. If he overdrew himself continuously and then took this shot, the damage would very likely become permanently solidified. From then on, every step on his cultivation path would be accompanied by heart-wrenching pain, and he would risk having his Sea of Consciousness collapse at any moment, turning into a mindless one.
"Lin Yan! Hang in there!" the messenger yelled, forcefully supporting his shoulder. "Reinforcements are almost here! Don't endure it alone!"
The battle at the outpost had reached its most perilous moment.
Having been severely wounded by the oscillation shells, the secondary priest no longer dared to hide behind the beast herd to gather strength and spread large-scale illusion tides. Abandoning the slow tactics of psychic erosion, it directly drove the remaining scaled beasts into a desperate charge. Second-tier scaled beasts rammed into the barbed wire over the corpses of their own kind, their thick, powerful claws tearing at the steel bars with piercing, deafening snaps. Several riflemen relied on the bunkers to take turns firing, but the bullets only splattered drops of green blood against the beasts' thick keratin scales, rarely achieving a fatal blow.
The two Sea of Consciousness cultivators had exhausted their origins. They had collapsed against the bunker walls, completely drained and unable to even maintain the simplest psychic barriers. All the pressure fell squarely on the shoulders of the garrison infantry.
Gripping a short blade, the captain personally impaled a first-tier scaled beast that had lunged into the breach in their fortifications. Foul, dark green blood sprayed across his armor. He turned to look in Lin Yan's direction, his brow twisted into a tight knot: "Hold out for thirty more seconds! The reinforcement convoy with oscillation cannons is arriving!"
Lin Yan's consciousness was torn back and forth between clarity and sinking into the abyss.
He did not immediately twist open the cap of the agent.
The power gained by gambling with his life was like drinking poison to quench his thirst. If he used this last agent today, he would have no safety net left when facing alien races of the Elder tier in the future. Slowly, he unclenched his hand holding the agent and switched to the ancient martial breathing technique taught by his master. He only regulated the qi and blood of his physical body, allowing the agonizing pain in his Sea of Consciousness to continue churning, and stopped actively taking on or luring the priest's psychic fluctuations.
His role as bait ended here.
Without a target to anchor onto, the priest's frenzied psychic impact lost its focus, scattering chaotically across the sky above the outpost. With the power dispersed, the lethality sharply decreased. It merely caused bouts of dizziness and nausea among the defenders, no longer able to directly conjure deep-seated illusions that devoured the mind.
Just then, from the direction of the inner circular corridor of the bastion, several support vehicles equipped with heavy oscillation turrets pierced through the gray fog and sped toward them!
Headlights tore through the murky night, and the roaring engines drowned out the shrieks of the scaled beasts. The Sea of Consciousness cultivators of the support squad disembarked simultaneously, instantly deploying several continuous, pure white psychic barriers that steadily enveloped the fortifications of the southern outpost.
"Support in position!" the leading cultivator shouted orders. "Split into two groups: one to maintain the barrier and block the psychic waves, and the other to coordinate with the artillery fire to lock onto the core of the beast tide!"
The heavy oscillation cannons opened fire in succession, sending shockwaves sweeping across the ravines in concentric circles. Batches of first-tier scaled beasts at the front trembled violently, their internal organs rupturing as they collapsed to the ground. The secondary priest, hiding in the middle of the herd with pale purple patterns on its body, was finally forced to reveal itself. It was taller and leaner than ordinary scaled beasts, with several slender psychic tentacles growing on both sides of its head. The tentacles were still trembling slightly; the previous oscillation shell had severely wounded half of its body, and dark green blood dripped continuously down its scales.
Sensing that the encirclement was complete, the priest did not linger to fight. It let out a sharp, prolonged shriek. The remaining living scaled beasts immediately ceased their charge, turned around, and retreated along the ravines toward the branching rifts deep in the wasteland.
"We can't let it escape!" the garrison captain gritted his teeth. "Once the priest returns, it will quickly regroup the beast herd. The next attack will be even more vicious!"
The support team leader shook his head slightly: "We can't pursue. The depths of the ravines are unknown branching rifts with complex terrain, highly susceptible to ambushes. Our mission is to hold the outpost and stabilize the defense line. Pushing deeper now would easily lead us into its trap."
The artillery fire continued to chase for a distance, scattering the rear-guard scaled beasts, but ultimately failed to catch that slender, purple figure. The priest, leading the remnants of the tide, vanished into the thick gray fog, disappearing among the undulating ravines of the wasteland.
The sounds of fighting outside the walls gradually weakened, leaving only the occasional low wails of dying scaled beasts, slowly swallowed by the night.
The Level 1 Beast Tide Warning was not immediately lifted; it was merely downgraded from a general offensive alert to continuous wasteland vigilance. The outpost soldiers began clearing the阵地 (position), dragging away alien corpses, repairing the damaged barbed wire, and replacing the overheated cannon barrels. Stretchers were carried past, bearing two new recruits who hadn't survived until the reinforcements arrived, their bodies already cold. Victory was never clean; it was a moment of respite bought at the cost of corpses.
Lin Yan still leaned against the bunker, his face as pale as paper, cold sweat dripping continuously from his forehead down his jaw. The agonizing pain in his Sea of Consciousness had not subsided. Instead, as his mind relaxed, it became a lingering, heavy ache, like a wound slowly seeping blood after being torn open.
Having received the news, Scholar Su hurriedly arrived at the southern outpost with a portable Sea of Consciousness detector from the research institute. The moment the probe touched Lin Yan's temple, the jumping curves on the screen caused the old scholar's face to darken.
"As expected. The fissure has expanded by at least twenty percent. The new wound is deep and has already touched the foundation of your origin," Scholar Su said in a heavy voice. "Fortunately, you didn't forcibly inject that last stabilization agent. If you had, with the overlapping multiple overdrafts, I wouldn't be able to stabilize your Sea of Consciousness at all right now."
"I can still hold on," Lin Yan said in a low voice, trying to sit up straight. But with the slightest movement, a wave of dizziness struck him again.
"Holding on doesn't mean pushing through it like this." Scholar Su put away the instrument. "From now on, you are strictly suspended from training and forbidden from high-risk missions. Return to the healing pod at the bastion's general hospital for seven consecutive days of deep Sea of Consciousness maintenance. During this time, you are prohibited from sensing alien psychic signals, prohibited from catalyzing your Sea of Consciousness for cultivation, and not even allowed to do basic Sea of Consciousness fortification exercises. Whether this new wound can be stabilized depends entirely on this round of rest."
Chen Ye had also arrived at the outpost with the support formation. He had just finished a tough battle on the main city wall's defense line, and his armor was still stained with scaled beast blood. Seeing Lin Yan's condition, he let out a heavy sigh: "You always do this, putting yourself in the most dangerous position every single time."
"If the outpost couldn't be held, the entire southern line would have broken," Lin Yan said, looking at the rolling gray fog in the distant wasteland. "The priest escaped, and the hidden danger remains. It has only temporarily retreated; it hasn't been eliminated."
"We all understand that," Scholar Su nodded. "Tonight's battle has proven one thing: after losing the Elder in Rift No. 79, the secondary priests have gained higher autonomous dispatch authority. Their tactical flexibility is stronger; they know how to use feints for containment and split-route sneak attacks. The command system of the underground Ancient Progeny has a much higher fault tolerance than we estimated. Take out one commander, and another will quickly step up to take its place."
The battlefield cleanup lasted until late into the night.
Wounded soldiers were transported in batches, and damaged fortifications were urgently reinforced. The outpost was left with double the garrison force on watch, continuously deploying detection buoys to monitor psychic fluctuations in the ravines. Lin Yan was arranged to board a medical transport vehicle to return to the bastion's general hospital.
The carriage was bumpy as he leaned against the soft cushion, his eyes closed. His mind repeatedly replayed the scenes of the night: the terrified youths at the academy, the logistics worker parasitized by the anchor point, the soldiers at the outpost fighting to the death, and the silhouette of the priest fleeing into the black fog.
He was currently a third-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivator, capable of playing a crucial role in localized battles. Yet, placed within this twenty-five-year civilization war of attrition spanning the entire earth, he was still insignificant. The long path to the ninth tier, paved with life-and-death tempering, still seemed endlessly far away. And with every strike, he was stacking irreversible scars upon his Sea of Consciousness.
He reached out and touched his pocket. The last remaining strong-dose stabilization agent was still resting safely in its original spot. He had kept his trump card, but the price was a hidden pain that had seeped into his bones, impossible to shake.
The transport vehicle drove into the interior of the bastion, where the streetlights still burned as usual.
The crisis of tonight had temporarily subsided, yet no one felt at ease. The broadcast continued to play全域 (global) vigilance notices, and the research institute's monitoring array was still scanning ceaselessly, searching for any second psychic anchor point hidden within the bastion. The dual offensive of the Ancient Progeny's overt and covert lines would never stop just because of a single setback.
The carriage slowly drove through the gates of the general hospital's healing zone.
What awaited Lin Yan was a long, monotonous, and flawless period of rest. Meanwhile, deep beneath the wasteland, the wounded secondary priest was already crawling along the rock strata tunnels toward deeper darkness, transmitting the news of tonight's battle to the higher-tier Ancient Progeny.
End of Chapter.
Lin Yan leaned half his body against the messenger's embrace. His ears were filled with a chaotic mixture of scaled beasts' roars, the booming of oscillation cannons, and the cold, hissing shriek of the secondary priest continuously piercing his Sea of Consciousness in a fit of rage. The backlash from the previous wave had torn a new breach in his fissure, and his origin was leaking uncontrollably like a punctured water bag.
His fingertips gripped the strong-dose stabilization agent in his inner lining pocket so tightly that the plastic edges dug painfully into his palm.
If he injected it, he could forcibly seal the restless wounds in his Sea of Consciousness and stabilize his mind in the short term. He might even be able to mobilize his perception again to help the defenders lock onto the priest's position. But he was acutely aware of Scholar Su's earlier warning. He was already carrying the lingering injuries from the battle with the Elder. If he overdrew himself continuously and then took this shot, the damage would very likely become permanently solidified. From then on, every step on his cultivation path would be accompanied by heart-wrenching pain, and he would risk having his Sea of Consciousness collapse at any moment, turning into a mindless one.
"Lin Yan! Hang in there!" the messenger yelled, forcefully supporting his shoulder. "Reinforcements are almost here! Don't endure it alone!"
The battle at the outpost had reached its most perilous moment.
Having been severely wounded by the oscillation shells, the secondary priest no longer dared to hide behind the beast herd to gather strength and spread large-scale illusion tides. Abandoning the slow tactics of psychic erosion, it directly drove the remaining scaled beasts into a desperate charge. Second-tier scaled beasts rammed into the barbed wire over the corpses of their own kind, their thick, powerful claws tearing at the steel bars with piercing, deafening snaps. Several riflemen relied on the bunkers to take turns firing, but the bullets only splattered drops of green blood against the beasts' thick keratin scales, rarely achieving a fatal blow.
The two Sea of Consciousness cultivators had exhausted their origins. They had collapsed against the bunker walls, completely drained and unable to even maintain the simplest psychic barriers. All the pressure fell squarely on the shoulders of the garrison infantry.
Gripping a short blade, the captain personally impaled a first-tier scaled beast that had lunged into the breach in their fortifications. Foul, dark green blood sprayed across his armor. He turned to look in Lin Yan's direction, his brow twisted into a tight knot: "Hold out for thirty more seconds! The reinforcement convoy with oscillation cannons is arriving!"
Lin Yan's consciousness was torn back and forth between clarity and sinking into the abyss.
He did not immediately twist open the cap of the agent.
The power gained by gambling with his life was like drinking poison to quench his thirst. If he used this last agent today, he would have no safety net left when facing alien races of the Elder tier in the future. Slowly, he unclenched his hand holding the agent and switched to the ancient martial breathing technique taught by his master. He only regulated the qi and blood of his physical body, allowing the agonizing pain in his Sea of Consciousness to continue churning, and stopped actively taking on or luring the priest's psychic fluctuations.
His role as bait ended here.
Without a target to anchor onto, the priest's frenzied psychic impact lost its focus, scattering chaotically across the sky above the outpost. With the power dispersed, the lethality sharply decreased. It merely caused bouts of dizziness and nausea among the defenders, no longer able to directly conjure deep-seated illusions that devoured the mind.
Just then, from the direction of the inner circular corridor of the bastion, several support vehicles equipped with heavy oscillation turrets pierced through the gray fog and sped toward them!
Headlights tore through the murky night, and the roaring engines drowned out the shrieks of the scaled beasts. The Sea of Consciousness cultivators of the support squad disembarked simultaneously, instantly deploying several continuous, pure white psychic barriers that steadily enveloped the fortifications of the southern outpost.
"Support in position!" the leading cultivator shouted orders. "Split into two groups: one to maintain the barrier and block the psychic waves, and the other to coordinate with the artillery fire to lock onto the core of the beast tide!"
The heavy oscillation cannons opened fire in succession, sending shockwaves sweeping across the ravines in concentric circles. Batches of first-tier scaled beasts at the front trembled violently, their internal organs rupturing as they collapsed to the ground. The secondary priest, hiding in the middle of the herd with pale purple patterns on its body, was finally forced to reveal itself. It was taller and leaner than ordinary scaled beasts, with several slender psychic tentacles growing on both sides of its head. The tentacles were still trembling slightly; the previous oscillation shell had severely wounded half of its body, and dark green blood dripped continuously down its scales.
Sensing that the encirclement was complete, the priest did not linger to fight. It let out a sharp, prolonged shriek. The remaining living scaled beasts immediately ceased their charge, turned around, and retreated along the ravines toward the branching rifts deep in the wasteland.
"We can't let it escape!" the garrison captain gritted his teeth. "Once the priest returns, it will quickly regroup the beast herd. The next attack will be even more vicious!"
The support team leader shook his head slightly: "We can't pursue. The depths of the ravines are unknown branching rifts with complex terrain, highly susceptible to ambushes. Our mission is to hold the outpost and stabilize the defense line. Pushing deeper now would easily lead us into its trap."
The artillery fire continued to chase for a distance, scattering the rear-guard scaled beasts, but ultimately failed to catch that slender, purple figure. The priest, leading the remnants of the tide, vanished into the thick gray fog, disappearing among the undulating ravines of the wasteland.
The sounds of fighting outside the walls gradually weakened, leaving only the occasional low wails of dying scaled beasts, slowly swallowed by the night.
The Level 1 Beast Tide Warning was not immediately lifted; it was merely downgraded from a general offensive alert to continuous wasteland vigilance. The outpost soldiers began clearing the阵地 (position), dragging away alien corpses, repairing the damaged barbed wire, and replacing the overheated cannon barrels. Stretchers were carried past, bearing two new recruits who hadn't survived until the reinforcements arrived, their bodies already cold. Victory was never clean; it was a moment of respite bought at the cost of corpses.
Lin Yan still leaned against the bunker, his face as pale as paper, cold sweat dripping continuously from his forehead down his jaw. The agonizing pain in his Sea of Consciousness had not subsided. Instead, as his mind relaxed, it became a lingering, heavy ache, like a wound slowly seeping blood after being torn open.
Having received the news, Scholar Su hurriedly arrived at the southern outpost with a portable Sea of Consciousness detector from the research institute. The moment the probe touched Lin Yan's temple, the jumping curves on the screen caused the old scholar's face to darken.
"As expected. The fissure has expanded by at least twenty percent. The new wound is deep and has already touched the foundation of your origin," Scholar Su said in a heavy voice. "Fortunately, you didn't forcibly inject that last stabilization agent. If you had, with the overlapping multiple overdrafts, I wouldn't be able to stabilize your Sea of Consciousness at all right now."
"I can still hold on," Lin Yan said in a low voice, trying to sit up straight. But with the slightest movement, a wave of dizziness struck him again.
"Holding on doesn't mean pushing through it like this." Scholar Su put away the instrument. "From now on, you are strictly suspended from training and forbidden from high-risk missions. Return to the healing pod at the bastion's general hospital for seven consecutive days of deep Sea of Consciousness maintenance. During this time, you are prohibited from sensing alien psychic signals, prohibited from catalyzing your Sea of Consciousness for cultivation, and not even allowed to do basic Sea of Consciousness fortification exercises. Whether this new wound can be stabilized depends entirely on this round of rest."
Chen Ye had also arrived at the outpost with the support formation. He had just finished a tough battle on the main city wall's defense line, and his armor was still stained with scaled beast blood. Seeing Lin Yan's condition, he let out a heavy sigh: "You always do this, putting yourself in the most dangerous position every single time."
"If the outpost couldn't be held, the entire southern line would have broken," Lin Yan said, looking at the rolling gray fog in the distant wasteland. "The priest escaped, and the hidden danger remains. It has only temporarily retreated; it hasn't been eliminated."
"We all understand that," Scholar Su nodded. "Tonight's battle has proven one thing: after losing the Elder in Rift No. 79, the secondary priests have gained higher autonomous dispatch authority. Their tactical flexibility is stronger; they know how to use feints for containment and split-route sneak attacks. The command system of the underground Ancient Progeny has a much higher fault tolerance than we estimated. Take out one commander, and another will quickly step up to take its place."
The battlefield cleanup lasted until late into the night.
Wounded soldiers were transported in batches, and damaged fortifications were urgently reinforced. The outpost was left with double the garrison force on watch, continuously deploying detection buoys to monitor psychic fluctuations in the ravines. Lin Yan was arranged to board a medical transport vehicle to return to the bastion's general hospital.
The carriage was bumpy as he leaned against the soft cushion, his eyes closed. His mind repeatedly replayed the scenes of the night: the terrified youths at the academy, the logistics worker parasitized by the anchor point, the soldiers at the outpost fighting to the death, and the silhouette of the priest fleeing into the black fog.
He was currently a third-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivator, capable of playing a crucial role in localized battles. Yet, placed within this twenty-five-year civilization war of attrition spanning the entire earth, he was still insignificant. The long path to the ninth tier, paved with life-and-death tempering, still seemed endlessly far away. And with every strike, he was stacking irreversible scars upon his Sea of Consciousness.
He reached out and touched his pocket. The last remaining strong-dose stabilization agent was still resting safely in its original spot. He had kept his trump card, but the price was a hidden pain that had seeped into his bones, impossible to shake.
The transport vehicle drove into the interior of the bastion, where the streetlights still burned as usual.
The crisis of tonight had temporarily subsided, yet no one felt at ease. The broadcast continued to play全域 (global) vigilance notices, and the research institute's monitoring array was still scanning ceaselessly, searching for any second psychic anchor point hidden within the bastion. The dual offensive of the Ancient Progeny's overt and covert lines would never stop just because of a single setback.
The carriage slowly drove through the gates of the general hospital's healing zone.
What awaited Lin Yan was a long, monotonous, and flawless period of rest. Meanwhile, deep beneath the wasteland, the wounded secondary priest was already crawling along the rock strata tunnels toward deeper darkness, transmitting the news of tonight's battle to the higher-tier Ancient Progeny.
End of Chapter.