Chapter 238: Lingering Warmth in the Blood-Stained Alley
The sound of the retreating beast tide slowly spread outward along the maintenance tunnel. The faint scratching of claws and the low, uneasy hisses gradually faded, eventually vanishing beyond the open gate of the shelter pod. Inside the tunnel, only the unceasing stench of blood remained. Human blood mingled with the foul, dark green stench of the scaled beasts, trapped within the sealed rock layers, pressing heavily upon the air. The concentration of spore toxins did not drop immediately. The Spiderweb Ancient Being had not withdrawn the spores permeating the cabin; it had merely ceased the additional release. The invisible psychic shackles still hung in every corner, though no longer reinforced by the psychic assaults of the scaled beasts.
Lin Yan lay on his back on the cold steel plate, his gaze unfocused as he stared at the rough rock ceiling above. After summoning every ounce of strength for that final strike, all the taut tension suddenly drained from his body. Agony surged like a tide, rushing up simultaneously from hundreds of wounds across his entire frame. He wanted to turn his neck, but even the slightest movement sent heart-wrenching pain from the torn wound on his waist. His limbs felt as heavy as lead; lifting even a single finger was an immense struggle. His consciousness swayed repeatedly on the edge between clarity and darkness, countless fragmented images flashing intermittently through his mind: his master teaching him ancient martial arts moves, the ordinary, bustling life within the barrier city, and the crimson vertical pupils of the giant beasts in the tunnel just moments ago.
He had not lost consciousness. The lingering sting on his tongue still weakly anchored his mind, though his eyelids were so heavy they were nearly impossible to keep open.
"Lin Yan... Lin Yan."
A hoarse, faint call came from beside him. Scholar Su, leaning against the rock wall, summoned his remaining strength to inch toward him. With every inch he dragged himself forward, more bloody foam welled up from his severe chest wound. His movements were slow and arduous, leaving a faint trail of blood on the steel plate. Once he reached Lin Yan's side, he reached out with a trembling hand and gently touched Lin Yan's blood-stained cheek.
Lin Yan struggled to turn his head. It took a long moment for his gaze to focus, finally making out Scholar Su's ashen face. His cracked lips moved slightly, his voice barely a whisper: "The compartment... is everyone... alright?"
"They're fine. Everyone is still alive." Scholar Su nodded gently. The movement of his chest tugged at his wound, and he couldn't help but cough muffledly, a mouthful of bloody foam falling onto his lapel. "They heard the commotion just now. They didn't dare make a sound; they've been hiding."
Behind the heavy iron door of the storage compartment, the suppressed sobbing gradually subsided, replaced by cautious whispers. Someone pressed against the door, and after hearing no beast roars outside for a long time, finally gathered the courage to crack it open a sliver to peek out. A woman with a deathly pale face poked her head out. Seeing the tunnel floor littered with scaled beast corpses and two blood-soaked figures lying in a pool of blood, she clamped a hand over her mouth, nearly crying out, but quickly pressed it harder, swallowing the sound back down.
Following her, several wounded personnel who could still barely stand and the surviving military police also emerged, supporting themselves against the walls. They had been tormented to the brink of collapse by the spore toxins earlier, but now that the oppressive pressure had eased slightly, their reason slowly returned. The gruesome scene before them silenced everyone. Scattered remains, crisscrossing bloodstains on the steel plates — the entire tunnel was practically soaked in blood.
"Quick! Get the first aid kits! Hemostatic bandages!" A military police officer snapped back to reality and rushed back into the compartment, frantically searching for the shelter pod's emergency medical supplies.
The others quickly crowded around. No one dared to move Lin Yan or Scholar Su casually; it was obvious to everyone that their injuries were at the absolute limit, and a rash move could very well cost them their lives. Someone crouched down to carefully wipe away the dried blood from Lin Yan's face, while another checked the wound on Scholar Su's chest, their brow furrowing deeply at the continuously seeping blood. The emergency supplies had long been mostly consumed; only a handful of hemostatic bandages, hemostatic powder, and painkillers remained, far from enough to treat so many severe traumas.
"Communications terminal... is there still a signal?" Scholar Su panted, looking at the military police officer.
The officer immediately ran back to the command compartment and found the terminal Lin Yan had used earlier. The screen was still lit, but the signal bar was completely blank. The gate had been destroyed by the scaled beasts, and the psychic interference and spore shielding deep within the underground rift had severed their communications with the headquarters of the six barrier cities. The distress signal couldn't get through; no one outside knew what was happening here, and reinforcements were indefinitely delayed.
"The signal is dead," the officer said in a low voice upon returning. "I tried sending the distress message repeatedly, but it was all in vain."
Scholar Su closed his eyes, a chill spreading through his heart. Repelling this wave of the beast tide was merely luck. The Beast Commander had retreated with the remaining ordinary scaled beasts deep into the rift, the ancient beings in the cavern were still present, and the supreme ruler was still watching this area. This retreat was not a rout; it was merely a temporary pause. They had figured out the trump cards of this small group of survivors and the limits of Lin Yan's endurance. Once they finished regrouping, the next attack would be far more perilous.
Lin Yan listened to the conversation quietly, his unfocused gaze drifting toward the open gate at the tunnel entrance. The cold wind from the underground wasteland blew in through the gap, carrying the damp, frigid air from deep within the rock layers. He understood Scholar Su's concerns. In today's battle, they had won only a momentary respite, not victory. The ancient beings' scheme had spanned decades; the scaled beasts were merely chess pieces they had cast toward humanity. The gaze of the supreme ruler had never wavered.
"First... move the wounded into the compartment. Reinforce the gate," Lin Yan said slowly, each word costing him immense effort. "Pile the scaled beast corpses against the inner side of the gate... as a temporary barricade... They fear the lingering psychic residue of their own dead. They won't return easily in the short term."
He had seen this tactic during his underground patrol missions. Low-tier scaled beasts had an instinctual dread of the dissipating psychic remnants left by their fallen kin; it could buy them a precious sliver of time to rest.
Everyone sprang into action immediately. Several wounded personnel who could still move worked together to drag the massive scaled beast corpses, piling them behind the damaged gate to barely block most of the tunnel opening. Others dismantled steel frames and removed abandoned pipelines, using bolts and steel cables to bind and reinforce the broken gate frame. No one spoke. Everyone buried their heads in their work in silence; the air was filled only with the sounds of metal scraping and heavy objects being dragged.
A middle-aged military doctor crouched beside Lin Yan, carefully cutting open his combat suit, which was already soaked through with blood. The wounds were dense and numerous. The deepest gash on his waist had nearly pierced through the flesh. There were multiple lacerations on his calf and upper arm, along with several areas of internal bleeding caused by blunt force trauma. The doctor's expression grew increasingly grave. He carefully sprinkled the remaining hemostatic powder onto the wounds and wrapped them layer by layer with bandages. His movements were gentle, yet Lin Yan still twitched slightly from the pain, cold sweat constantly beading on his forehead.
"He's lost too much blood. We have no plasma, no transfusion equipment," the doctor said in a low voice to Scholar Su. "Whether he can pull through depends on his own foundation and luck. The physical foundation built through ancient martial arts is stronger than that of ordinary people, but with injuries like this... it's hard to say."
Scholar Su nodded silently. His own wounds were being treated simultaneously, bandages wrapped tightly around his chest; even the slightest movement brought excruciating pain. He looked at Lin Yan lying beside him. The youth had his eyes closed, his breathing faint but relatively steady, as if he had fallen into a light sleep. Yet his fingertips still trembled occasionally; the lingering spore illusions in his Sea of Consciousness were still quietly tormenting him.
Several children were carried out of the compartment by the adults, staring at the ground covered with giant beast corpses, their eyes filled with terror. One very young boy broke free from his mother's embrace and slowly walked over to Lin Yan. He pulled a crushed, deformed compressed biscuit from his pocket and gently placed it beside Lin Yan's hand. He didn't dare speak; he just stood there with wet, glistening eyes, watching quietly.
Sensing the movement, Lin Yan laboriously lifted his eyelids and looked at the little boy. On his pale face, the corner of his mouth twitched upward in the faintest hint of a smile.
Deep within the cavern, the consciousness of the ancient beings continued to resonate.
The Beast Commander was gathering the remnants, tallying the losses. All three third-tier scaled beasts had perished, along with a massive number of low-tier beasts. This was the most devastating loss since it had taken command of the scaled beast horde. Its psychic tendrils were filled with unwillingness, constantly transmitting messages to the ancient beings, requesting to regroup immediately and flatten this tiny shelter pod.
The Spiderweb Ancient Being slowly released a signal to soothe the agitated Beast Commander. It was in no hurry to fight again. The resilience displayed by this human youth today had exceeded expectations; the potential erupted from the combination of his Sea of Consciousness and ancient martial arts physique was worth observing. The spore toxins had already left their mark on the Sea of Consciousness of everyone in the shelter pod. The seeds had been planted; there was no need to harvest them in a rush.
The supreme ruler hovered above the dim cavern, its consciousness sweeping over the shelter pod's gate, now temporarily blocked by a pile of corpses. It saw the busy survivors in the tunnel, saw Lin Yan, dying yet still alive, and saw the way humans supported each other in the face of desperation. Over its long existence, it had witnessed countless species annihilated in the hunt, yet this race always managed to tear open a sliver of hope right on the brink of inevitable death.
It issued no order to attack.
Waiting was a far more interesting hunt.
Inside the shelter pod, night fell upon the underground wasteland. Here, there was no sun or moon, only the jumping numbers on the monitoring screens. Bandages, bloodstains, and exhaustion shrouded everyone. Behind the gate, the pile of scaled beast corpses silently blocked the darkness; the stench of blood in the tunnel lingered, refusing to dissipate.
Lin Yan drifted between half-consciousness, sinking and floating between pain and illusions. He didn't know if he could survive the night, nor when the next beast tide would come. But in this moment, the low murmur of survivors was in his ears, and the warmth of his companions was by his side.
They had survived. At least, for tonight.
End of Chapter.
Lin Yan lay on his back on the cold steel plate, his gaze unfocused as he stared at the rough rock ceiling above. After summoning every ounce of strength for that final strike, all the taut tension suddenly drained from his body. Agony surged like a tide, rushing up simultaneously from hundreds of wounds across his entire frame. He wanted to turn his neck, but even the slightest movement sent heart-wrenching pain from the torn wound on his waist. His limbs felt as heavy as lead; lifting even a single finger was an immense struggle. His consciousness swayed repeatedly on the edge between clarity and darkness, countless fragmented images flashing intermittently through his mind: his master teaching him ancient martial arts moves, the ordinary, bustling life within the barrier city, and the crimson vertical pupils of the giant beasts in the tunnel just moments ago.
He had not lost consciousness. The lingering sting on his tongue still weakly anchored his mind, though his eyelids were so heavy they were nearly impossible to keep open.
"Lin Yan... Lin Yan."
A hoarse, faint call came from beside him. Scholar Su, leaning against the rock wall, summoned his remaining strength to inch toward him. With every inch he dragged himself forward, more bloody foam welled up from his severe chest wound. His movements were slow and arduous, leaving a faint trail of blood on the steel plate. Once he reached Lin Yan's side, he reached out with a trembling hand and gently touched Lin Yan's blood-stained cheek.
Lin Yan struggled to turn his head. It took a long moment for his gaze to focus, finally making out Scholar Su's ashen face. His cracked lips moved slightly, his voice barely a whisper: "The compartment... is everyone... alright?"
"They're fine. Everyone is still alive." Scholar Su nodded gently. The movement of his chest tugged at his wound, and he couldn't help but cough muffledly, a mouthful of bloody foam falling onto his lapel. "They heard the commotion just now. They didn't dare make a sound; they've been hiding."
Behind the heavy iron door of the storage compartment, the suppressed sobbing gradually subsided, replaced by cautious whispers. Someone pressed against the door, and after hearing no beast roars outside for a long time, finally gathered the courage to crack it open a sliver to peek out. A woman with a deathly pale face poked her head out. Seeing the tunnel floor littered with scaled beast corpses and two blood-soaked figures lying in a pool of blood, she clamped a hand over her mouth, nearly crying out, but quickly pressed it harder, swallowing the sound back down.
Following her, several wounded personnel who could still barely stand and the surviving military police also emerged, supporting themselves against the walls. They had been tormented to the brink of collapse by the spore toxins earlier, but now that the oppressive pressure had eased slightly, their reason slowly returned. The gruesome scene before them silenced everyone. Scattered remains, crisscrossing bloodstains on the steel plates — the entire tunnel was practically soaked in blood.
"Quick! Get the first aid kits! Hemostatic bandages!" A military police officer snapped back to reality and rushed back into the compartment, frantically searching for the shelter pod's emergency medical supplies.
The others quickly crowded around. No one dared to move Lin Yan or Scholar Su casually; it was obvious to everyone that their injuries were at the absolute limit, and a rash move could very well cost them their lives. Someone crouched down to carefully wipe away the dried blood from Lin Yan's face, while another checked the wound on Scholar Su's chest, their brow furrowing deeply at the continuously seeping blood. The emergency supplies had long been mostly consumed; only a handful of hemostatic bandages, hemostatic powder, and painkillers remained, far from enough to treat so many severe traumas.
"Communications terminal... is there still a signal?" Scholar Su panted, looking at the military police officer.
The officer immediately ran back to the command compartment and found the terminal Lin Yan had used earlier. The screen was still lit, but the signal bar was completely blank. The gate had been destroyed by the scaled beasts, and the psychic interference and spore shielding deep within the underground rift had severed their communications with the headquarters of the six barrier cities. The distress signal couldn't get through; no one outside knew what was happening here, and reinforcements were indefinitely delayed.
"The signal is dead," the officer said in a low voice upon returning. "I tried sending the distress message repeatedly, but it was all in vain."
Scholar Su closed his eyes, a chill spreading through his heart. Repelling this wave of the beast tide was merely luck. The Beast Commander had retreated with the remaining ordinary scaled beasts deep into the rift, the ancient beings in the cavern were still present, and the supreme ruler was still watching this area. This retreat was not a rout; it was merely a temporary pause. They had figured out the trump cards of this small group of survivors and the limits of Lin Yan's endurance. Once they finished regrouping, the next attack would be far more perilous.
Lin Yan listened to the conversation quietly, his unfocused gaze drifting toward the open gate at the tunnel entrance. The cold wind from the underground wasteland blew in through the gap, carrying the damp, frigid air from deep within the rock layers. He understood Scholar Su's concerns. In today's battle, they had won only a momentary respite, not victory. The ancient beings' scheme had spanned decades; the scaled beasts were merely chess pieces they had cast toward humanity. The gaze of the supreme ruler had never wavered.
"First... move the wounded into the compartment. Reinforce the gate," Lin Yan said slowly, each word costing him immense effort. "Pile the scaled beast corpses against the inner side of the gate... as a temporary barricade... They fear the lingering psychic residue of their own dead. They won't return easily in the short term."
He had seen this tactic during his underground patrol missions. Low-tier scaled beasts had an instinctual dread of the dissipating psychic remnants left by their fallen kin; it could buy them a precious sliver of time to rest.
Everyone sprang into action immediately. Several wounded personnel who could still move worked together to drag the massive scaled beast corpses, piling them behind the damaged gate to barely block most of the tunnel opening. Others dismantled steel frames and removed abandoned pipelines, using bolts and steel cables to bind and reinforce the broken gate frame. No one spoke. Everyone buried their heads in their work in silence; the air was filled only with the sounds of metal scraping and heavy objects being dragged.
A middle-aged military doctor crouched beside Lin Yan, carefully cutting open his combat suit, which was already soaked through with blood. The wounds were dense and numerous. The deepest gash on his waist had nearly pierced through the flesh. There were multiple lacerations on his calf and upper arm, along with several areas of internal bleeding caused by blunt force trauma. The doctor's expression grew increasingly grave. He carefully sprinkled the remaining hemostatic powder onto the wounds and wrapped them layer by layer with bandages. His movements were gentle, yet Lin Yan still twitched slightly from the pain, cold sweat constantly beading on his forehead.
"He's lost too much blood. We have no plasma, no transfusion equipment," the doctor said in a low voice to Scholar Su. "Whether he can pull through depends on his own foundation and luck. The physical foundation built through ancient martial arts is stronger than that of ordinary people, but with injuries like this... it's hard to say."
Scholar Su nodded silently. His own wounds were being treated simultaneously, bandages wrapped tightly around his chest; even the slightest movement brought excruciating pain. He looked at Lin Yan lying beside him. The youth had his eyes closed, his breathing faint but relatively steady, as if he had fallen into a light sleep. Yet his fingertips still trembled occasionally; the lingering spore illusions in his Sea of Consciousness were still quietly tormenting him.
Several children were carried out of the compartment by the adults, staring at the ground covered with giant beast corpses, their eyes filled with terror. One very young boy broke free from his mother's embrace and slowly walked over to Lin Yan. He pulled a crushed, deformed compressed biscuit from his pocket and gently placed it beside Lin Yan's hand. He didn't dare speak; he just stood there with wet, glistening eyes, watching quietly.
Sensing the movement, Lin Yan laboriously lifted his eyelids and looked at the little boy. On his pale face, the corner of his mouth twitched upward in the faintest hint of a smile.
Deep within the cavern, the consciousness of the ancient beings continued to resonate.
The Beast Commander was gathering the remnants, tallying the losses. All three third-tier scaled beasts had perished, along with a massive number of low-tier beasts. This was the most devastating loss since it had taken command of the scaled beast horde. Its psychic tendrils were filled with unwillingness, constantly transmitting messages to the ancient beings, requesting to regroup immediately and flatten this tiny shelter pod.
The Spiderweb Ancient Being slowly released a signal to soothe the agitated Beast Commander. It was in no hurry to fight again. The resilience displayed by this human youth today had exceeded expectations; the potential erupted from the combination of his Sea of Consciousness and ancient martial arts physique was worth observing. The spore toxins had already left their mark on the Sea of Consciousness of everyone in the shelter pod. The seeds had been planted; there was no need to harvest them in a rush.
The supreme ruler hovered above the dim cavern, its consciousness sweeping over the shelter pod's gate, now temporarily blocked by a pile of corpses. It saw the busy survivors in the tunnel, saw Lin Yan, dying yet still alive, and saw the way humans supported each other in the face of desperation. Over its long existence, it had witnessed countless species annihilated in the hunt, yet this race always managed to tear open a sliver of hope right on the brink of inevitable death.
It issued no order to attack.
Waiting was a far more interesting hunt.
Inside the shelter pod, night fell upon the underground wasteland. Here, there was no sun or moon, only the jumping numbers on the monitoring screens. Bandages, bloodstains, and exhaustion shrouded everyone. Behind the gate, the pile of scaled beast corpses silently blocked the darkness; the stench of blood in the tunnel lingered, refusing to dissipate.
Lin Yan drifted between half-consciousness, sinking and floating between pain and illusions. He didn't know if he could survive the night, nor when the next beast tide would come. But in this moment, the low murmur of survivors was in his ears, and the warmth of his companions was by his side.
They had survived. At least, for tonight.
End of Chapter.