Free Web NovelChapter 87: Unpredictable Warzone (2)
Inside the rift was a broken world. At first glance, it looked disturbingly similar to the red zones.
Thick red miasma drifted through the air. The ground stretched endlessly beneath a crimson sky.
It looked like a red desert. One filled with monsters.
The screech of a Mutated Dovos echoed overhead.
Another answered.
Then a third.
Xinyuan stood in the middle of them, the shadow wings at his back spreading wide. His scythe gleamed beneath the red sky as three enormous bird monsters circled above him waiting.... Watching.
They attacked together.
Xinyuan’s shadow wings beat once.
The air exploded.
One moment he was standing still. The next he was above them.
His scythe flashed. A wing separated from a body.
A screech followed.
Before the creature could recover, Xinyuan appeared beside its neck.
Another swing. Another corpse.
The second Dovos charged immediately. It never reached him.
Its head hit the ground before its body did.
Only one remained.
The final monster shrieked and attempted to flee.
Xinyuan’s expression didn’t change. The shadow wings carried him forward.
His scythe rose. Then fell.
The third corpse crashed into the desert. Just like the others.
When the battle ended, Xinyuan landed lightly on the ground.
The shadow wings behind him shifted restlessly. His left eye still glowed crimson.
The red light pulsed softly beneath the miasma.
For several moments he simply stood there, thinking. Because when he had first entered this place, it hadn’t looked like this. There had been no red miasma or mutated Dovos. Just a dead world overflowing with Devil Lizards.
But everything changed.
The miasma appeared. The corruption thickened.
The landscape began transforming and the stronger monsters emerged.
Xinyuan slowly looked around.
A familiar feeling settled in his chest. One he didn’t like.
This wasn’t merely a large rift. This was one of the rifts responsible for creating red zones.
A rift capable of corrupting an entire region.
If it remained open much longer, sector Two would become the next red zone.
The realization made him sigh heavily.
"Damn it." His hand rubbed the back of his neck as his vision flickered, blurring at the edges.
At the same time, the chain tattoo on his back suddenly moved. Glowing red, the chains wrapped around his neck like a living thing before settling there.
The moment they did, the corruption around him surged and Xinyuan felt stronger. Much stronger.
His expression darkened.
He hated this feeling. Because it felt good. Too good.
His wavelength loved corruption almost as much as it loved Wenzhi’s guiding energy.
The thought immediately brought Wenzhi’s freckled face to mind.
The corner of Xinyuan’s mouth twitched upward.
Then immediately flattened as the corruption continued pouring into him. His body welcomed it greedily, absorbed it effortlessly like a starving man being fed.
The researchers had always said the same thing. The blurring vision was a sign. A sign that his body was absorbing too much corruption.
A sign that he was approaching a dangerous threshold.
Xinyuan never fully understood it. He only knew what happened afterward.
The power, loose grip in control and eventually madness.
Fortunately, he had no intention of reaching that point today.
A sudden gust swept across the wasteland.
Xinyuan stilled.
There was no sight of monsters or movement.
Only silence.
The corpses of the Dovos surrounded him. The battlefield was empty.
He took that as his cue to leave.
The city needed evacuation plans.
The shadow wings spread once more and beat heavily. The force launched him into the air. Toward the massive opening connecting this world to reality.
He was only a few seconds away from leaving when a roar erupted across the entire wasteland.
Xinyuan stopped, hovering in front of the rift.
The massive opening behind him resembled a giant eye more than a tear in reality and for a moment, everything was silent.
Until Xinyuan looked down. His eyes widened.
The red haze below was moving. Not because of the wind or the corruption. But because something was running through it.
The ground trembled as hundreds of mutated monsters... Monsters he had never even seen before emerged from the crimson fog all charging in one direction. Toward the rift.
His hands clenched.
There was no way he was letting them escape.
The chain around his neck glowed brighter. His right eye suddenly turned red.
Now both eyes burned with the same crimson light.
The dark mist surrounding his body exploded violently. The corruption around him responded immediately.
The red miasma twisted together with his darkness until the two became almost impossible to distinguish.
Xinyuan moved, his body vanishing in the miasma.
He appeared directly in front of the charging horde, the ground cracking beneath his feet.
The monsters didn’t stop.
Neither did he.
Dark mist shot upward like countless living tendrils.
The flying monsters were caught instantly. Their wings were wrapped, crushed and torn apart.
Bodies rained from the sky. Others weren’t even given the chance to reach him.
The mist sharpened and solidified. Hundreds of blades formed at once.
The front ranks of the horde were ripped apart. Blood painted the desert.
Xinyuan stepped forward.
His crimson eyes glowed brighter. His psychokinesis erupted. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Monster after monster was hurled into the air. Some exploded before they landed. Others were torn apart by the dark mist before they could even scream.
The red haze swirled around him.
His speed increased. His attacks became harsher. More ruthless and violent.
Anything that moved toward the rift died. Anything that tried to fly past him lost its wings. Anything that survived was met by his scythe.
The battlefield quickly became a slaughterhouse.
Yet the monsters kept coming endlessly and relentlessly as though the entire world inside the rift was attempting to spill into reality.
Xinyuan wiped blood from his cheek and charged forward again.
Because no matter how many appeared, none of them were getting through.
~°~
Outside the rift, things were finally stabilizing.
The remaining Devil Lizards were being cleared away. Airships had arrived throughout Guanguan City. Survivors were being evacuated in waves.
For the first time since the rift appeared, there was hope.
Yuzhen remained in his ice form. His bright blue hair stood out among the chaos.
A crying little girl clung tightly to him while he carried her toward one of the evacuation trucks.
The Esper waiting beside it quickly accepted the child.
Yuzhen immediately gave a cheerful salute.
The little girl stared at him and smiled through her tears.
Yuzhen grinned back. Only after making sure she was safe did he turn and hurry away.
He returned to where Chenxi and the other Espers had gathered closest to the rift.
Everyone was watching the rift... waiting.
The giant eye-shaped opening floated above the city.
Nothing had emerged for a long time. Not since the Mutated Dovos.
Even the Devil Lizards had stopped appearing.
Which somehow felt worse.
Yuzhen slipped beside Chenxi.
Both of them looked upward.
Around them, the Espers from the Rift Bureau were doing the same.
No one spoke. No one looked away.
The silence felt heavy as though everyone was waiting for something terrible to happen.
Finally, Yuzhen broke it. "Do you think he’s alive in there?"
