Chapter 757: The Blazing Black Dot (1/2, please subscribe)

Before their eyes were three massive virtual projection screens; the second and third screens were both black.

The first virtual projection screen displayed the surveillance footage from the Allied Association base headquarters, recorded a few minutes earlier.

The footage was presented from an overhead angle.

The guards at the gate were chatting with one another.

Following the road outside the main gate, one could see flowers and plants in full bloom on both sides, swaying gently in the wind.

The first few seconds of the surveillance were so peaceful and tranquil, nothing happening at all.

The timestamp in the lower-right corner was also flowing normally.

But the change came in an instant.

The first to notice the change in the surveillance was Minister Jiang.

He discovered that the surveillance image, as if frozen, suddenly locked in place, like a still picture.

The guards at the gate, like robots that had lost power, abruptly held the postures they had been using while talking, with no further movement.

The flowers and plants swaying in the wind on both sides of the road also stopped moving at that moment, frozen in the postures they had been blown into, motionless.

Even the timestamp flowing in the lower-right corner suddenly stopped changing, frozen at that instant.

"What… happened?"

"The footage is frozen!"

"Impossible! We're at the Allied Association headquarters — the signal couldn't possibly be this bad!"

Just as the three were puzzling over it…

The change suddenly descended!

First came the sound.

Thud!

Thud!

Thud thud thud thud thud thud!!

In the surveillance footage, the sound of some pair of feet rapidly pounding the ground almost merged into one continuous rumble.

Yet, as if the sounds had erupted in rapid succession and been compressed together, it produced a strange, ear-piercing sensation.

Right after that came…

Boom!!

In the surveillance footage where everything else remained frozen in place, the main gate of the Allied Association headquarters was smashed open with a tremendous crash by someone!

The moment the metal gate was sent flying, a black shadow whooshed across the surveillance screen in a flash — like a straight black line — vanishing in an instant, already far away, beyond the limits of the surveillance frame.

All of this happened so fast, so sudden, that all three of them froze for a moment, nearly failing to react.

It was only when the numbers representing the flow of time in the lower-right corner of the surveillance footage began moving again that they abruptly snapped back to their senses.

At the same time…

Whooooosh—

The gale stirred up by the violent speed of that black line had only just come howling in, blowing the surrounding flowers and plants until leaves filled the sky — some even ripped out by the roots and sent flying.

The guards at the gate were caught off guard and knocked to the ground, faces full of shock and bewilderment, clearly having no idea what had happened.

The three Captains aboard the helicopter, seeing this scene, all had their pupils contract simultaneously, faces filled with horror!

"I — I didn't see wrong, did I! Just now, it wasn't that the surveillance had a problem — everything that happened just now was all completed within that single second! The surveillance was merely, at that exact moment, slowing the flow of time down to the limit of its capability! And even so, it failed to capture any trace of that guy!"

"That black line… that guy who charged out of the Allied Association base headquarters — who on earth is he!"

"An anomaly… impossible! If an anomaly had appeared at headquarters, it would definitely have been detected immediately!"

The three wore solemn expressions, attaching extreme importance to the true identity of that black line.

They were about to set out to hunt down the cheaters, and now some unknown entity had popped up, one that seemed absurdly powerful — this was not good news.

At that moment, the second virtual projection screen gradually lit up from black.

It was surveillance footage of the coastline, from two minutes earlier.

Like a hundred flowers blooming, wave after wave of high-pressure missiles launched from the coastline, flying toward the distant sea.

Then in the next second, the footage suddenly froze!

High-pressure missiles filled the sky, trailing long plumes of exhaust, suspended motionless in midair…

No! They weren't motionless!

Minister Jiang noticed that the high-pressure missiles in the footage did have a slow, flowing motion — it was just so slow that, to the naked eye, one would think there was no change at all without looking carefully.

And at that moment…

A sharp whoosh.

A black line shot straight from beneath the high-pressure missile trajectory, crossing the coastline, and headed straight for the depths of the sea.

That black line moved at an extreme speed, stepping on the surface of the sea as if it were flat ground.

Wherever it passed, the sea surface behind it split apart with a roar, leaving a trench dozens of meters deep into the seabed, and stirring up waves over a hundred meters high!

This scene, reflected in the eyes of the three Captains, shocked them into widening their eyes on the spot, mouths slightly agape, at a loss for words.

Terrifying — far too terrifying!

That speed, that strength — if that black line were an anomaly, the three of them would absolutely be no match for it!

Even adding all the personnel present, they might not be a match! That speed was simply too exaggerated!

The flow of time in the surveillance screen returned to normal.

The high-pressure missiles whistled as they flew toward the distance; the seawater stirred up by that black line came crashing down with a roar, and it took quite a while before the seawater at the coastline returned to calm.

But the three men in the helicopter felt as if a single stone had stirred up a thousand ripples within them — terrified beyond measure, their emotions in turmoil.

"What terrifying speed!"

"That thing… friend or foe?"

"Nobody talk! The third screen just lit up!"

The third screen was finally no longer a surveillance feed, but… a live broadcast!

"It's the drones filming the live footage! The very first batch the Alliance sent out!"

"Confirmed, that black line is heading straight for the Cheater Base!"

"What the hell is that black line!"

The three of them focused their gaze and saw, on the final live feed, from an overhead vantage point—

A small black dot, charging forward at an absurd speed, sprinting like mad.

So fast was its speed that it left a perfectly straight black line behind it—none other than the fellow from the two earlier surveillance feeds!

Because the speed was too extreme, even though the drone had pulled its viewpoint very high with a wide-angle field, the black dot still quickly left it behind, running out of the live frame.

Fortunately, the drones' cameras switched extremely fast. Another drone, positioned further ahead, immediately took over the job, aiming its lens at the black dot below.

At the same time, the surrounding drones cooperated by providing camera positions, and through networked rapid computation, they synthesized the footage observed by several drones into a final composite image.

This time, although the angle was still overhead, the very next second the lens zoomed in. Under dynamic tracking, it locked onto the high-speed black dot below, barely producing a clear image that people could make out.

Yet the person shown in the frame made all three of them present widen their eyes in unison, their faces going blank with utter disbelief.

"Fang… Yue?"

In the frame, the person streaking across the water's surface at high speed, trailing a black line and even splitting the sea behind them in two, was none other than Fang Yue—the one previously judged a defector!

That traitor of the Third Squad, Qiu Dugu's prized general!

(End of chapter)