Chapter 318: Eleven Under Agent Assault

Hawkins Town will finally experience an unforgettable day today.

The last ray of sunset is suddenly eclipsed; the townsfolk look up and see a burning fissure ripped through the clouds. Silver scales reflect eerie flames in the twilight, and the dragon's wing membrane spans roughly the width of a football field. As its tail fin sweeps past the church spire, a spray of sparks erupts.

The grocery store owner Jim Hopper's radio emits a shrill wail, and the glass jars on the shelves shatter en masse under the dragon's roar— the shockwave shatters the windows of three houses in the town center, and even the old lead‑type press of the Hawkins Gazette printing plant is knocked loose and scattered.

"The New York reporters weren't lying!" a worker smoking in the back alley of the pizza shop trembles, pointing at the sky. "Last week the Daily News said there were dragon‑claw marks atop the Statue of Liberty; I thought the government was testing some new kind of fighter jet."

Before he finishes speaking, the dragon suddenly folds its wings and dives, transforming into a humanoid form thirty meters above the ground.

The townsfolk only see a burst of silvery‑blue mist; a tall, hooded figure darts through the side door of the abandoned Starlight Cinema. At the entrance, a scorching dragon scale lies on the cement, its edges glowing like uranium glass.

Sheriff Jim Hopper's police car arrives swiftly, its tires crushing the broken glass outside the Starlight Cinema. The headlights illuminate the wreckage and the silver dragon‑scale fragment. Under the spotlight, the silvery‑blue scale flows like liquid mercury, its edges shimmering with an aurora‑like teal glow. He crouches, picks up a piece of the scale with an evidence bag— the tremor in his fingertips reminds him of the 'boundary membrane' he felt three months ago at the reverse world entrance, a strange sensation between bioelectric current and metal resonance.

"Damn, this thing is even stranger than the spores from the reverse world..." he mutters into his satellite phone, unaware that three hundred meters away, high in the treetops, a KGB agent's bionic owl is beaming infrared imagery to Moscow.

He really can't tell what it is, so he decides to bring it home and let Eleven see if it's another artifact from that damned reverse world.

Back at the little cabin in the woods, Jim calls out loudly, "Dinner's ready, Eleven!"

Little Eleven steps out of the bedroom; after several months, she has grown a head of sleek, jet‑black short hair.

"What's wrong?" she asks, a little bewildered.

"Take a look at this," Jim says, handing over the scale. The moment Eleven takes it, her eyes are flooded by an intense white flash.

"Ah!!" Eleven cries out in pain; the energy is so overwhelming that she feels her whole body prickle.

As Eleven's nosebleed drips onto the scale, every light bulb in the basement bursts simultaneously.

"Naimi Xisi!" she screams suddenly— the true name the dragon taught her to pronounce. Telekinetic force from her palm lifts the scale into the air. Faded Christmas lights eerily reignite within the energy field, projecting a hologram that shows the scene from three months ago:

The inverted world's blood‑red sky, a parking lot frozen in dark void, and that huge, terrifying monster.

"That thing is a dragon?" Jim crushes a whiskey glass, the shards stabbing his palm and reminding him of the feel at the reverse world entrance.

Eleven's telekinesis erupts, and the fireplace flame solidifies into a holographic New York street scene: a colossal dragon blankets the sky as it lands atop the United Nations building, surrounded by various modern appliances blown apart by the endless power of the Juan Ce Long.

"He left anchor points in both worlds," Eleven says suddenly.

"He's back."

Jim mutters to himself, "No wonder, no wonder he has such miraculous power; turns out he's a dragon from legend."

Outside the window, a branch snaps; three agents from the "Crimson Journey" disguised as hunters creep closer. The trap Jim set near the cabin is spotted by the trained agents, but the snapping branch gives them away.

"Someone's coming!" Jim Hopper's shotgun barrel presses against the window frame, frosting over. Three dark silhouettes emerge from the pine woods, their metal crates glinting with oily sheen in the moonlight— the Soviet‑proud "Aurora‑6" electromagnetic pulse device, about the size of a suitcase, its exposed vacuum tubes hissing out heat.

"Close your eyes!" Eleven suddenly grabs the sheriff's wrist.

When the KGB agent flips the switch, the entire forest plunges into absolute darkness. Jim's retina retains a final image: icicle eaves shatter into powder in the electromagnetic storm, all pine needles within fifty meters stand upright like steel spikes. Amid the ringing, he hears the scream of a liquid‑nitrogen tank's pressure‑release valve— the second agent carries a modified freezer‑room jet, its nozzle clogged with ice clumps, reducing its range to less than five meters.

"Left!" Eleven's nosebleed drips onto the windowsill as a telekinetic ripple stirs the air.

The liquid‑nitrogen white fog she shapes into an ice spear shatters into shrapnel‑like ice when it pierces the wooden wall. The agent curses, switches weapons, and draws a titanium alloy combat spike used for lunar‑module disassembly; the serrated edge scraping the pine wall produces a grating sound that makes teeth ache.

Jim's shotgun booms, sending the roof's snow crashing down. When the lead slug hits the liquid‑nitrogen tank, the coolant erupts like silver serpents, welding the agent's left foot to the snow.

An arc flashes across the third agent's wrist— it's a "Thunder‑3" taser— but it detonates the moment it contacts Eleven's fingertip.

Yet in the blink of an eye, the well‑equipped, highly trained KGB agents are all neutralized.

Jim cautiously surveys the surroundings, sees no reinforcements, and steps forward to examine the attackers' corpses.

"Damn, Soviets? How could that be!" Jim is stunned when he sees the KGB agent's credentials.

"They've definitely found you, Eleven; we have to leave right away," Jim says gravely.

!

He grabs Eleven's hand, intending to leave immediately, but she remains rooted, staring stubbornly at him.

"No, I need to find Mike and the others first; if I go, they'll be in danger," Eleven says word for word.

Jim sighs helplessly, but he knows the bond between Eleven and those kids; if the Soviets can't locate Eleven, they'll target Mike and the others.

"Alright, alright, I'm really scared of you," Jim sighs, hand on his brow.

— —

Dan Lasser's Chevrolet slams on its brakes in the thick fog, its tires rolling over a deer carcass with a burst abdomen. In the passenger seat, Eileen Watson flips on a military‑grade flashlight; its beam pierces the mist and reveals black slime clinging to the windshield, crystallizing at a visible rate— the hexagonal crystals are identical to snowflakes yet remain stable above freezing.

"The magnetic field strength is a hundred times that of the Chernobyl exclusion zone," Eileen says as her Geiger counter's glass face shatters from radiation overload. She trembles, raising a Soviet‑made Lomo microscope, "These slimes are devouring radio waves..."

Before she finishes speaking, three refrigerated trucks burst out from a side road, their front bumper's welded serrated crash bars glinting.

Inside the refrigerated truck, Major Yegorova's telescope emits the grinding of gears: "Watch the contact protection!"

When she shouts into the field radio, the Tesla coil core in the truck's rear compartment suddenly overloads. This device, retrofitted from an old radar‑station generator, spews arcs that tear the truck's trunk open, bathing the road in a stark white light.

"Damn! What's happening!" Yegorova's face turns ashen; inside the vehicle, chaos reigns, the runaway Tesla coil nearly destroys all three trucks.

(End of Chapter)