Chapter 512: All Regions Offline!

Bone-chilling cold.

Silent and unseen.

Lin Xian stared through the viewport at the enormous hollow face outside, his expression stunned—his breath seemed to freeze for an instant; the black void gazed at him like the abyss of hell, and in that first moment he activated the AT force shield.

A bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead; Lin Xian remained motionless, locking eyes with the strange creature outside, his right hand poised to unleash the supercritical diffraction blade, while also considering using an energy leap to evade through space.

Countless thoughts exploded in his mind at once, yet strangely, several seconds passed and the monster outside made no move to attack—it still faced the viewport with its hollow face.

Lin Xian frowned; suddenly, a thought arose: the entire room had altered its dark energy frequency—could the monster simply not “see” him?

Sound, scent, energy, frequency—he considered many possibilities, forcing himself to suppress the urge to strike, urging calm: he did not wish to draw attention in this “Crimson Night,” not when the wrecked Chengying vessel and the scattered battle corpses proved the horror within; alone, he could not face the abyss’s terror, and worse—he had no idea which direction to flee, leaving him only the desperate fight of a trapped beast.

Gazing at the black void, Lin Xian clenched his fists, staying utterly still, while quietly issuing silent orders to all his drones.

He was gambling.

Gambling that his guess was right.

After an unknown length of time, the external “hollow” vanished into the sand along with a surge of crimson mist, and simultaneously, the bone-chilling gaze disappeared.

Only then did Lin Xian finally exhale, unable to shake off the lingering dread.

“Good thing I didn’t skip the trouble—installed the whole room from the start. Clearly, the Crimson monsters are far more sensitive than those in the old Polar Night… and…”

He was puzzled—the monsters outside seemed erratic, even capable of “teleportation,” utterly incomprehensible; if they possessed such mobility, ordinary humans would have almost no chance to react or survive.

Thinking of this, Lin Xian turned off all lights inside the shelter, then placed a cold-light lamp in the room; he checked the time and sat slumped in the corner, gathering his thoughts.

Soon, it was around 10 a.m. the next day; the Crimson had grown less dark, without warning—but it seemed, at last, to be “daylight.”

Lin Xian had not slept all night, pondering whether the Crimson’s night and day truly differed so little—or if there were subtle distinctions, otherwise he wouldn’t have seen so many monsters last night.

He had no chance to perform mechanical assimilation; instead, he used available materials to install a dark energy frequency device on his power armor, but without blood essence, he could not activate it yet—the single remaining blood essence must be reserved to preserve the food supplies.

Whirrrrr~

Dozens of micro-drones flew out; Lin Xian opened a small gap in the door and released them again, this time aiming to directly connect to the main bridge for information.

As Lin Xian expected, progress improved after daylight—soon, several information drones flashed blue as they surged into the shattered main bridge; the footage showed a chamber filled with desiccated corpses, one female corpse in military uniform seated in the captain’s chair, still secured by metal safety straps; many others in the bridge remained in combat stances.

“The battle broke out suddenly—how could such a massive starship have been hit first?”

With curiosity, Lin Xian directed the drones to interface with the system and attempted to retrieve data; soon, a flood of communication logs appeared before him.

【Mission Log Summary】:

Mission Code: Ark Shield

Fleet: Phoenix City Interstellar Military, Third Continental Division, “Chengying” (flagship), “Xuanniao,” and escort units.

Mission Objective: Escort the "Noah" mobile maritime city from the Republic Islands Sea to the designated anchorage off the Costa Rica Haco Coast, establish a defensive line, receive and protect the "Dawn Center" survivor convoy evacuating from the Guatemala direction in North America, and guide them into the Noah Security Zone.

Last log update: December 13, 2069, 17:28

“Fifty-four days ago?”

Just as Lin Xian suspected—this fleet must have landed alongside Noah.

Lin Xian now opened the combat log, and immediately a voice message from the captain’s frequency played.

“Chengying! Chengying! Sonar array anomaly! Subsea geological activity index spiking! Repeat, subsea geological activity index spiking! Something’s rising! Something huge!”

“All fleet, Battle Configuration One! Electrostatic field at maximum power! Anti-submarine weapons warming! Xuanniao, you command all transport units to escort civilians southward! Phoenix City is estimated to reach North Cocle in three hours and twelve minutes!”

Then came the piercing screech of twisting metal and low-frequency hum.

“My God! What is that?! The seabed… the seabed is rising! Not a mountain! It’s alive!!”

“Damn it, it’s the 13th Star Abyss’s earthquake catfish—unrelenting, it chased us this far!”

“Captain, 190 kilometers northeast, high dark energy fluctuation detected—intelligence estimates S-class Crimson entity!”

(BOOM————————!!)

A quake-shattering roar—even through the recording—radiated devastating shockwaves.

Then communication cut off, leaving only a shrill busy tone.

Lin Xian’s face darkened; he continued scrolling through other files and quickly found a fire-message intelligence report, delivered via Nightwalker courier flying through the Crimson zone—and when he read its contents, his expression changed instantly!

The message stated that the Dawn Center’s relocation in North America had encountered a grave crisis: on the night of December 9, the Crimson spread from Star Abyss 12 and 9 in North America accelerated violently during the night; the Dawn Center in Colorado Canyon suffered World-Class Disaster #05, “Chaos,” with over one million dead, and all 219 land-based orbital train convoys went completely off-grid.

These convoys included not only survivor trains but also the Phoenix Society’s 13th and 22nd Taitiewei Brigades, six special forces units from the Second Continental Division, three aerial fleets, and massive quantities of military supplies and human survival resources transported via rail.

His own Infinite Alliance convoy, along with the Silver Star and Longshan No. 1, were all listed—total personnel across all orbital trains exceeded three million.

Hum~

In Lin Xian’s holographic field of view, a suffocating dynamic map unfolded.

The Crimson plague, like boiling pus, had completely drowned the entire Asia-Pacific continent; its boundary with the ocean’s blue formed a hellish cutting line. From the black fissures of Star Abysses 12 and 9 in North America, the Crimson surged like a ruptured lava flow, spreading at unprecedented speed, devouring remaining regions; a vivid red arrow pointed straight from the expanding abyss toward Colorado Canyon in North America’s heartland.

Altogether, the 13 Star Abysses’ Polar Night and Crimson zones now covered nearly 70% of the planet’s known surface.

But this data was from fifty-four days ago; based on prior growth rates, he estimated 90% of the surface was now covered—perhaps only a few unexplored oceanic regions and areas near the South Pole remained untouched, followed by the final polar ice caps: humanity’s last line of defense…

Lin Xian was stunned.

“What the hell—every orbital convoy off-grid?!!”

He immediately frantically searched for any other information related to the Infinite, but after much digging, found only one message—and it concerned him directly.

【December 11, 2069: Ordered to escort the Swordbearer Lin Xian to Storm Coast before the 20th, for pickup by Nightwalker Headquarters】