Chapter 408: Mental Overload (10,000)

12:20 PM. It was long past dawn, yet Dawn City seemed to have been swallowed by the polar night; the black tide still shrouded the sky.

"Still no contact with Dawn City?"

At the Dawn Center in the direction of the Tianji Qiong Gu Strait, the operations center was a hive of activity. A massive number of reconnaissance aircraft and Nightwalker units had been dispatched, but there was still no news from Dawn City.

On the base command vehicle, Li Heping, dressed in a trench coat and military uniform, wore a solemn expression. The tea on the table had gone cold overnight.

"The Sky Patrol aircraft cannot get close. The sky in the direction of Qingbo and Zhanguan is pitch black; we can't get a signal through at all," said Chief of Staff Liu Yalou with a heavy face.

"There are quite a few convoys parked nearby, but most are just the elderly, the weak, and supplies left behind by small or support convoys. Most of the ones with firepower that were close by already pushed into Dawn City last night. Even the emergency response teams and Nightwalker organizations around us in the direction of Pingcheng and Yingdu—everyone who could go, went. The outer perimeter has already turned into a battlefield, and we simply can't break into the darkened area."

Dawn Center Engineering Commander Wei Chonglou was a tall, thin old man. Although he wore glasses, he was brimming with killing intent. "The 02 and 03 Emperor-class mechs we were rushing to complete have all been mobilized, along with Huo Jiang's 8 Interstellar Hunters. This level of firepower commitment is arguably the largest since the Apocalypse."

"The fact that dawn hasn't broken means the information about Operation Crescent Moon was accurate. This dark probe is intended to swallow Dawn City. If they fail, there will be no more dawn for us or any other theater of war," Li Heping said in a low, heavy voice.

"The darkness came without any warning. All our preparations were still caught off guard. This surprise attack has now become the decisive battle."

Just as anxious were the European Storm Alliance far away in Reykjavik, the Phoenix City in Ushuaia, South America, the North American Alaska Allied Front, the Oceania Noah, and the Republic Sanctuary Islands... Survivors remaining all over the world were now focused on the global channel from the Phoenix Society. Countless people were praying, and as news from Dawn City went silent, despair intensified with every passing second.

Dawn City.

Dawn did not arrive.

This super-metropolis, capable of housing tens of millions of humans, now seemed to have devolved into an apocalyptic battlefield, a living hell.

Hundreds of thousands of troops, millions of survivors, starships and flying hulls filling the sky, artillery fire, arc light, smoke, roars, and screams—from 4:00 PM yesterday until now, they had been fighting for nearly 20 hours straight. The raging fires on the city walls had burned all night, yet they still couldn't illuminate the sky.

The dark tide in the sky was like a wall of despair, completely shrouding Dawn City.

Viewed from an altitude of 3,000 meters, the entire city looked like a shattered circuit board—the broken highways were charred wires, the burning buildings were melted chips, and flowing across this ruin were millions of monsters.

The 138-story Tianhong Center commercial building was snapped in half. A giant Special-class spider crawled over the ruins, its massive legs embedded with the wreckage of half an armored vehicle. Sky-space fighters constantly bombed overhead. On the streets below, dozens of self-propelled artillery pieces were firing in unison; 155mm shells exploded into vortices of flesh and blood among the monster swarm, but the next moment, a centipede-like creature burrowed out from underground and twisted them into scrap metal, with screams erupting everywhere.

Above the No. 2 city wall, nearly half of the fleets from the Garrison Army, the Iron Guard Brigade, and the North American Allied Front had crashed. The Zhen Tian ship was billowing thick smoke, and the plasma main gun of a Dreadnought-class sky-space battleship was still firing in its death throes. After the blue-white beam pierced three winged monsters, the hull collided with a winged dragon monster, triggering a secondary explosion. The ammunition belts of the close-in defense guns hung in the sky like glowing pearl necklaces, while more monsters descended from the cracks in the cloud layer.

No. 21 Underground Shelter, Central Subway Station, B2 Level.

The emergency generator hummed, and the lights in the deep tunnel illuminated tens of thousands of gray, defeated faces.

The vast majority here were women, children, the elderly, the wounded, and pregnant women. The sound of artillery fire from the surface had echoed all night, and every second here felt like a year. Deep in the corners, low sobs could be heard from time to time.

"Mom, has it dawned outside? Why isn't Dad back yet?" In a corner, a daughter tugged at her mother Wu Li's sleeve, clutching a doll that had turned gray and was missing an eye.

Wu Li remained silent and didn't answer. She stared at the ceiling. Every explosion caused the fluorescent tubes to shake violently, and large amounts of concrete dust peeled off. The crowd erupted in brief screams, which were quickly replaced by muffled sobs.

Boom!

Another massive explosion detonated above, throwing the entire underground shelter into a panic.

"Damn it!" Retired veteran Zhang Jianjun, who had lost a leg, threw away his cigarette butt and walked toward the guards on his mechanical prosthetic limb. "Give us guns! We're going to fight!"

Zhang Jianjun's words seemed to ignite something; the crowd began to stir, and some swarmed over.

"We can't keep staying here!"

"The darkness isn't invading right now; we can contribute!"

"Everyone, please retreat to the safe zone—" the commander in charge of the guards said with a complex expression. "Our mission is to..."

"If they all die, there's no point in us hiding here." Wu Li emerged from the crowd. Her face was covered in dust, but her gaze was incredibly firm. "The apocalypse has arrived. Men, women, the elderly, children—it's all the same..."

"Right!"

"Give us weapons! We can kill monsters!"

"We can't just wait here to die..."

At this moment, the hundreds of Garrison soldiers behind the commander all wore heavy expressions. The mutation had been isolated, and their comrades were sacrificing themselves outside. They could no longer bear to hide underground, listening to one voice after another disappear from the communication frequency. At this moment, everyone stood up without hesitation.

"Company Commander."

Commercial Plaza circular defense line. The eardrums of Zhuang Yan, commander of the 7th Division, had been ruptured six hours ago; he could only hear by turning the volume of his headset to the maximum.

"The Fifth Avenue has completely fallen? Where is the Armored Division!?"

Within the defense line, the armored division of over 12,000 people now had fewer than 4,000 left defending with heavy weapons.

"Division Commander, over there!"

Chen Yan turned his head. Three hundred meters away, a convoy of survivors smashed through burning roadblocks and rushed over. The convoy consisted entirely of powerful, weaponized base vehicles that drove straight into the rear of the line, where thousands of survivors were now helping to fortify the defense.

"We are the Iron Sun Convoy, here to provide support!" Jian Zeyang led the team at the very front and shouted into the communicator, "We've brought supplies for you!"

"Artillery, prepare! Cover them!" Chen Yan shouted.

At this moment, in the city's defense line, there were no ranks, no units—only humans who could still pull a trigger.

Fifth Avenue Blocking Point.

A young Garrison soldier lay behind an electronic screen on the roof of a commercial building, trembling as he held a sniper rifle. He was sixteen years old and had been in the Garrison sniper training for less than two months because of his evolved perception.

Twenty minutes ago, his squad leader pushed him into this bunker: "Count to two hundred before you come out!"

When he counted to one hundred and seventy-three, only the sound of monsters chewing bones remained outside.

Now, looking through a gap, he saw his squad leader's upper body stuck under the wheel of a Humvee, still clutching a detonator in his hand; the remains of the deputy squad leader who had rushed into the monster swarm clutching an anti-tank mine; and more corpses whose identities he couldn't distinguish. There was a head with slightly curly hair that looked no older than him. Li Xiaofeng recognized him; during physical training, he was always ranked at the bottom with him.

Li Xiaofeng found himself laughing, an absurdity born of excessive fear. He raised his sniper rifle and aimed at the nearest monster at the street corner below, which was gnawing on a corpse.

Bang!

A headshot.

"The 28th one." Li Xiaofeng retracted his rifle, looking at the squad leader's corpse in the distance, and whispered to himself, "Squad leader, I've already broken your record."

The entire Fifth Avenue was surrounded by the monster tide, with hissing and roaring everywhere. This gunshot instantly attracted a large number of monsters.

Then, a second gunshot.

A third.

The entire street seemed to have only this sound of gunfire left. Li Xiaofeng's laughter turned into wailing, but his skilled reloading movements never stopped, until a spider monster's chelicera pierced his lung.

As he fell to the ground, he saw a hint of gray-white light emerging from the cloud layer in the east.

That was not dawn.

It was more winged monsters.

Boom, boom, boom!

City West Neon Street. This place had turned into a massive ruin of darkness following an explosive shockwave. The buildings in the surrounding blocks all collapsed toward the direction of the shockwave, forming a giant sinkhole with a diameter of over a thousand meters.

Beneath the edge of the cracked surface, various underground water pipes and cable facilities of Dawn City were exposed, with water spraying and sparks flying, like the earth of the apocalypse.

In this giant sinkhole, dense, flood-like black crawling eerie bodies gradually stitched together the tissue tentacles of the Sky-Touch and the long legs of the Wanderer's torso. Soon, an eerie monster over 200 meters tall with long legs and tentacles rose from the ground, exuding an aura of heart-stopping fear.

As soon as it stood up, two giant eyes like headlights immediately lit up, its long legs stomping on the ground, shaking the mountains and rivers!

Ang-wum!

This combined monster let out a trembling roar, with air waves flying, like a world-destroying beast.

"Damn it, another S-class!"

Huo Jiang, who was leading the Iron Guard Brigade mech wing in a fierce battle in the central city area, saw this scene and immediately cursed angrily, "These monsters, can they regenerate even after death?!"

"Artillery battalion, aim and fire!"

At this moment, as soon as this stitched monster stood up, it immediately raised its hand and stomped toward the defensive line of the nearest block.

There, a regimental unit of the Iron Guard Brigade plus thousands of survivors were frantically fighting back with weapons, but those weapons were all blocked by the defensive force field stirred up by its long legs; ordinary weapons simply couldn't penetrate it.

Thump, thump, thump!

The street was roaring. Just then, two giant mech figures came thundering over with earth-shaking steps.

"Burn it to ashes this time!"

On the Zhu Que, the couple Bai Ye and Su Rui shouted sharply.

"Maximum load!"

"Maximum load!"

Wum!

The Zhu Que held high the plasma diffraction sword in its hand, the nuclear fusion power turbine engine in its chest running at high speed, and the mech's entire body of crimson energy lines emitted a high brightness. The plasma diffraction sword suddenly emitted an explosive sound, and the blade directly grew by 1/3.

Immediately, the two stepped forward, leaped into the center of the sinkhole, and slashed down with one sword.

The giant monster swung its two tentacles into the air, and the black geometric defensive force field immediately became visible to the naked eye. But at this moment, the Zhu Que's plasma diffraction sword directly slashed out a violent ionization shock, the blade cutting deep into the defensive force field, and the high-temperature diffraction sword blade carved a gap several meters deep into its skull!

"It worked!"

In the cockpit, Bai Ye and Su Rui immediately shouted.

Just at this moment, behind the Zhu Que, a giant evil god shadow appeared eerily. It stood on the ground, its four hollow eyes emitting a scarlet light, aiming directly at the Zhu Que!

"Your opponent is here!"

Before the Corpse-Carrier's laser could fire, a violent stomping sound appeared beside the Zhu Que. The Gray Mist Envoy held the oscillation ship-slashing blade with both hands, three superstring reactor phase rainbow rings behind it emitting earth-shattering hums, and the nuclear power hub in its chest exerting force simultaneously. Over a thousand megawatts of energy level were concentrated on the oscillation arc generator of the ship-slashing blade. This horizontal slash was like a wide-body passenger plane breaking the sound barrier, emitting an explosive sound. The crimson metal friction on the blade and the azure arc oscillation reflected each other, drawing a red-blue intersecting plasma arc in the air!

Bang!

This earth-shattering slash went straight for the Corpse-Carrier's throat. The moment the ship-slashing blade struck, the massive kinetic energy caused the red mist and force field shield at the Corpse-Carrier's throat to erupt in a huge explosion, with fire arcs spraying. Almost half of Dawn City could hear this cracking arc.

The Corpse-Carrier was violently knocked back by this sudden slash, a large number of tentacles on its face flying off. It tilted backward, colliding with several high-rise buildings, and then stood back up amidst the crashing of the buildings. Compared to the Gray Mist Envoy, the Corpse-Carrier was a full half-head taller, and under that massive size, even the firelight of the street was completely obscured.

"Come again!"

Lin Xian and Seeing Chu Yan did not hesitate. While the Zhu Que dealt with the stitched S-class, they rushed toward the Corpse-Carrier again!

The Gray Mist Envoy dragged its blade with one hand, running forward while pointing at the Corpse-Carrier. A large number of mechanical expansion sounds appeared on its finger armor, the energy engine sounded sharply, and a giant mechanical energy cannon with a diameter of over two meters blasted toward the Corpse-Carrier!

Boom!

With one shot, the red mist and defensive force field on the Corpse-Carrier completely blocked it. Just as Lin Xian took advantage of this gap to prepare for a follow-up strike, the Corpse-Carrier suddenly sprayed a large amount of red mist from its four hollow eyes, completely shrouding the Gray Mist Envoy. Then its eyes lit up again with 4 laser beams, blasting out, completely releasing and igniting the red mist, exploding with a bang!

This explosion was almost omnidirectional. Even though Lin Xian used the fastest reaction to deploy the AT force field shield, a large number of armor fragments were still torn from his colonial armor, and he fell into the ruins with a bang, the power hydraulic valves at his elbows exposed.

And before the Gray Mist Envoy could stand up, the smoke and dust above were suddenly shrouded by a touch of giant darkness, and the next moment, the giant Corpse-Carrier raised its entire head with tentacles filling the sky, actually pouncing directly at them.

"Careful!"

Lin Xian and Seeing Chu Yan shared a mind. At this moment, they raised their arms and crossed their force field shields to block, but were smashed by the Corpse-Carrier, piercing through the force field shield. The wrist armor shattered layer by layer, the ground behind the mech sank with a bang, and dust rose everywhere!

【Warning, Gray Mist neural inhibition rate dropped, activity increased to 81%, colonial synchronization takeover efficiency dropped to 93.2%】

Viola's reminder came again.

The next moment, the Corpse-Carrier's four blood eyes lit up again, this time aiming directly at the Gray Mist Envoy's head.

It couldn't be blocked!

"Dodge!"

Lin Xian gritted his teeth and shouted, the reactor phase rainbow rings spinning frantically.

"Apostle: Magnetic Storm Oscillation!"

Woo!

Violent energy gathered. Just as the Corpse-Carrier's laser beam was about to fire, a giant magnetic storm with a diameter of over 500 meters erupted, piercing through the sky's arcs, the ground, and the air, successfully interrupting the Corpse-Carrier's laser beam.

Then the two started directly, arms accumulating power.

"Rocket Jet Punch!"

"Rocket Jet Punch!"

Boom! The 12 shock engines behind the Gray Mist Envoy's arms ignited instantly, bringing strong thrust, along with the electric hammer device on the knuckles, both fists smashed directly onto the Corpse-Carrier's face.

Just as the Corpse-Carrier was blasted away, this crimson cosmic evil god suddenly opened its giant mouth, instantly erupting with a super-high-temperature flame jet.

A white, piercing light flashed instantly. The Gray Mist Envoy's chest armor, head armor, nuclear fusion power hub defense plate, and even the surrounding ruins were instantly vaporized in a large area. The heat wave rushed out with a bang. In an instant, the orange-yellow pulse of the Gray Mist colonial's nuclear fusion turbine engine's niobium-titanium superconducting ring went out, and the next moment, the entire body's power and energy output were directly cut off, all engine groups stopped!

This huge high-heat impact almost made Lin Xian faint. In the colonial main control room, Lin Xian, lying in the survival pod, had his eyeballs twitching rapidly, and blood from his nostrils and ear canals flowed out like a faucet, staining his entire face and hair within seconds.

【Heart rate dangerous, heart rate dangerous】

【Start AED system?】

"Lin Xian! Lin Xian!"

In the consciousness space, Seeing Chu Yan, feeling Lin Xian's mental power disappearing, was also shaking transparently. Her consciousness was borrowed from the Gray Mist action brain mycelium to survive on Lin Xian's body, so she perceived all of Lin Xian's pain clearly.

"Ugh!"

Lin Xian felt as if he had walked through the gates of hell, his consciousness almost disconnected. He was jumping back and forth between his self, Seeing Chu Yan, and the Gray Mist, as if constantly switching perspectives, his head dizzy.

"Careful, it's coming again!"

Just as Lin Xian regained his senses, he and Seeing Chu Yan saw the Corpse-Carrier looking down from above, staring at the Gray Mist Envoy with those four evil god eyes.

They couldn't see the gaze, couldn't understand the consciousness and thoughts.

But at this moment, Lin Xian and Seeing Chu Yan both seemed to feel that this monster had 'seen' them located in the gray mist through consciousness infiltration, and as for the emotion at this moment, they didn't know if it was doubt or anger.

But the laser beam that followed made them feel an oppressive killing intent!

Wum!

Just at this moment, in the sky, a Hyperion directional constraint cannon suddenly blasted out a scorching destructive beam, directly hitting the Corpse-Carrier's face, detonating a large area of red mist and blasting it back.

Then three orbital star-shaking cannons fired simultaneously from three directions, hitting the Corpse-Carrier at the same time. At the same time, there was a massive amount of ability bombardment following! ===== CHAPTER 409 =====