Direction: Beihai.
The landscape here is even more bizarre.
The earth has taken on a sickening gray-purple hue; vegetation is sparse, and the few remaining plants are twisted and deformed, emitting a faint, bioluminescent glow.
The air is filled with a thin gray haze, and visibility is extremely low.
Not far ahead, the colors of space have become wildly discordant, as if the canvases of two worlds have been crudely stitched together—that is the boundary between the Dead Zone and the reality, a dangerous and highly unstable zone.
“The instability at the edges is intensifying.”
Qing Luan carries an oversized anti-personnel grenade launcher on her shoulder and reaches her left hand toward the edge of the Dead Zone.
“We should not go any deeper.”
“Something is coming,” Shadow says concisely.
Half of his body has already merged into the shadow of a nearby boulder, his voice seemingly emanating directly from the shadow itself.
Flower Demon twirls her fingertips, and a few unremarkable seeds drift to the ground, instantly taking root and sprouting into vines covered in sharp barbs and eerie, colorful flowers, shielding the three of them.
“Seems there are two of them?” she licks her lips, her eyes, however, are incredibly vigilant.
The gray fog ahead is forcibly torn apart.
Emerging from it is an extremely grotesque combination.
Its lower body is that of a robust black stallion, its four hooves burning with ghostly green flames, leaving charred hoofprints on the ground.
Yet, its upper body features two human male torsos growing side-by-side!
The two torsos share the equine body; their skin is pale, their muscles are well-defined, and each has two arms.
The head on the left wears a ferocious and angry expression, while the head on the right is cold and calm.
The pollution emanating from both is intertwined, forming an even more bizarre and suffocating sense of pressure.
Specific Twin Aberrant Time-Variant!
Quasi-King Level!
“Two consciousnesses, one body…”
Flower Demon whispers, “This is trouble.”
“Humans…” the angry head on the left speaks, its voice like grinding gravel, “Disgusting scent…”
The cold head on the right continues, “…Wipe them out.”
Without any warning, the Twin Aberrant launches its attack!
The horse body gallops, its speed astonishing, closing the distance in an instant.
The arm muscles of the angry head bulge, manifesting two twisted battle axes wreathed in green flames, hacking wildly.
The strikes are wide and sweeping, full of destructive force.
Meanwhile, the four arms of the cold head slice rapidly through the air, outlining complex dark purple runes.
Once formed, these runes unleash countless energy filaments as thin as cow hair yet razor-sharp, winding and slicing toward the trio from devious angles.
Qing Luan lets out a sharp cry, drops the grenade launcher, and decisively pulls the trigger at the Aberrant.
BOOM!
The muzzle of the grenade launcher spits fire.
A grenade empowered by divine decree is launched at high speed toward the oncoming Aberrant.
Beside Qing Luan, the vines controlled by Flower Demon grow frantically, attempting to entangle the horse legs, but they sizzle as they are scorched by the ghostly green flames and quickly wither.
Shadow has vanished from the spot entirely.
Only the occasional flash of cold light amidst his movements through the shadows reveals that he is searching for a chance to strike a killing blow.
The battle enters the white-hot stage from the very beginning.
The coordination of the Twin Time-Variant is seamless; one leads the attack while the other controls the field, perfectly combining violent power with sinister control, leaving the three of them gasping for breath.
“You… how are you here?!”
Qing Luan asks sternly in the brief pause while deflecting an attack.
This type of specific, highly intelligent Quasi-King level Aberrant rarely acts lightly, and it is rare for them to appear so coincidentally at the edge of the Dead Zone to ambush them.
The angry head hacks away one of Qing Luan’s condensed wind blades and sneers, “Someone… found us…”
The cold head adds calmly, its voice carrying a trace of imperceptible… fanaticism?
“…A wonderful, very powerful existence.”
“Perhaps human, perhaps not.”
“It told us… that this is the Dead Zone… not the real world…”
Flower Demon fires a volley of thorns laden with toxic pollen, attempting to disrupt the cold head’s rune-drawing, while screaming, “So what?!”
The gaze of the cold head pierces through the swirling pollen and energy turbulence, landing precisely on Flower Demon, looking at her as if she were a lab mouse destined to die on the operating table.
“It also said… if we can kill you here, in the Dead Zone…”
The attacks of the Twin Time-Variant suddenly become more violent and coordinated, as the ghostly green flames and dark purple filaments weave a web of death.
“Then you will… truly be dead.”
“Disgusting humans.”
“Extinguishing you was always our race’s unfinished business.”
“Heh heh… let us add a touch of real color to this drama.”
*
*
In the northern part of the wetland, on a hill with a relatively open view.
The Captain of the 23rd Squad, the Vice-Captain, and Su Tao, Deputy Captain of the Provincial Capital Assault Team, lie in ambush behind the rocks on the back of the hill.
Using high-powered binoculars and energy-sensing equipment, they observe the black, slowly moving tide of Aberrants several kilometers away.
That is the main force of the Time-Variant side in this skirmish, the scale far exceeding expectations.
“The main tide shows signs of shifting toward the southeast.”
The Vice-Captain of the 23rd Squad stares at the energy spectrum on the screen and says in a low voice.
“Southeast? Isn’t that the direction of Beihai…”
Su Tao’s brows are tightly furrowed.
The Captain of the 23rd Squad is about to say something when a cold, bone-chilling sensation runs up his spine to the top of his head without warning!
It is the intuition developed from countless life-or-death battles—the instinct for fatal danger!
“Careful!” he roars without hesitation, his muscles tensing as he dives to the side!
A dark purple, nearly silent beam of light grazes his scalp, slicing the massive rock he was leaning against into two without a sound, like a hot knife through butter!
The cut surface is smooth as a mirror.
A short figure already stands ten meters in front of them.
It is an Aberrant less than 1.5 meters tall, yet its head is unusually large, occupying almost half of its body!
The head is dark purple, its skin covered in layers of folds resembling the sulci of a brain.
Intricate and bizarre silver patterns flow between the folds, seemingly squirming slowly; looking at them for too long makes one dizzy.
It has no discernible facial features; there is only a thin slit in the center of its face that opens and closes occasionally, revealing a bottomless darkness behind it.
The polluting scent it radiates is not as violent or outward as other Quasi-King levels; rather, it is extremely restrained and concentrated, yet the pressure this aura brings to the three is even greater!
It is infinitely close to a true Quasi-King level!
The Captain, Vice-Captain, and Su Tao are all battle-hardened elites; they realize instantly that they have encountered an unprecedented enemy.
Without any communication, the three strike simultaneously!
The Captain draws a heavy, large-caliber customized pistol.
The muzzle flashes with blinding blue-white electricity as a condensed energy beam shoots toward the Aberrant’s head!
The Vice-Captain waves his hands, and several shuttle-shaped darts fly with sharp whistles, blocking the Aberrant’s evasive space from every blind angle.
Su Tao lets out a low drink as a faint golden glow surrounds her, and she lunges like an arrow released from a bow.
A slender tactical straight blade in her hand draws a cold arc, stabbing straight at its neck—she excels in close-quarters combat, with shocking speed and explosive power.
Facing their combined attack, the big-headed Time-Variant only lifts its head slightly.
The slit in the center of its face snaps open!
There is no sound, and no light is emitted.
But the energy beam fired by the Captain vanishes into thin air when it is still 3 meters away.
The Vice-Captain’s darts fall to the ground with a clatter as if they had struck an invisible wall.
As for Su Tao, she feels as though she has crashed into a pool of viscous, cold glue.
Her speed plummets, her movements become incredibly sluggish, and that sharp strike cannot advance a single millimeter when it is half a meter from the target!
It does not even make any defensive or counter-attacking moves; it simply… looks at them.
“History… space… time…”
A dry, ancient thought, seemingly composed of countless overlapping, fragmented voices, echoes directly in the minds of the three.
It does not sound like language, yet it can be understood by them.
“A trap… spanning these dimensions… just for you…”
The silver patterns on the large head shine brightly.
“The actors… are in place…”
“The performance… begins…”
An invisible force field erupts!
With the Aberrant as the center, the light in the space within a 50-meter radius begins to twist, the scenery blurs, and gravity itself seems to become chaotic.
The Captain, Vice-Captain, and Su Tao feel as if they are trapped in a constantly rotating, crushing kaleidoscope; their bodies and minds are suffering unimaginable pressure.
This is not a simple physical attack, but an imprisonment and crushing of space, and even deeper levels of rules!
*
*
All across the wetland, the fires of war ignite almost simultaneously.
At the cave exit, Lin Mo and Chu You face the unfathomable Yan and Ayane Hanyu.
At the southwest evacuation point, Tie Jiang, Yu Chan, and Mongoose face off against the Quasi-King level Giant Strength Aberrant.
On the eastern edge, Qing Luan, Shadow, and Flower Demon engage in a perilous life-or-death battle with the bizarre twin Time-Variants.
At the northern hill, the Captain, Vice-Captain, and Su Tao are caught in a deadly trap set by that Aberrant which is infinitely close to the Quasi-King level and wields strange powers.
And within the crevice space where Mirror Lake and Gu Qiancheng are—
These scenes happening simultaneously are displayed in their entirety before Gu Qiancheng by Mirror Lake through special means.
“Did you hear that? Junior…”
Mirror Lake watches Gu Qiancheng’s solemn expression, a satisfied smile blooming on his mask-like face.
He spreads his arms, and the gray mist churns behind him, seemingly transforming into a heavy curtain.
“The overtures of the stage have already sounded.”
“Your companions are shedding the first drops of real blood for this performance destined to be a tragedy.”
“This is a grand funeral meticulously prepared for you, for all of you.”
“And you and I…”
Mirror Lake’s fingers point across the air at Gu Qiancheng’s chest, “will be the only two…”
“Lead dancers.”
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