Chapter 46

In that instant, all sounds erupted from silence.

Every alarm in the entire underground city blared, the shrill sirens carving cracks into their eardrums.

Yan Yue let out a scream.

At the same time, countless terrified screams echoed from the hall and corridors.

“Fuck, fuck, what happened? Don’t scare me.” Han Ya looked around in terror, but the first thing he saw was the spiderweb-like cracks splitting open overhead.

His face instantly paled.

“An earthquake?!”

Horne only felt his arm tighten as Hels grabbed him and yanked him outward fiercely, roaring, “Run!”

All the sounds immediately blended into chaos. They didn’t know what was happening, but they all bolted toward the emergency exit.

Horne followed Hels, sprinting madly toward the hall exit. He turned his head and shouted, “Han Ya!!”

Han Ya trailed behind, dragging Yan Yue along. His shout tore through the air: “Fuck! Fuck! Run!”

Boom!

Another massive explosion.

Amid the blood-red emergency lights, the building swayed left and right. Dust fell from the ceiling, followed by shards of glass, lights, and chunks of the ceiling itself.

The shaking from the explosion made it hard for Horne to stand. He staggered two steps before Hels immediately pulled him up.

Hels’s roar exploded beside his ear, nearly drowned out by the screams.

“This shaking…

“…it’s a penetrating bomb!!”

Boom! Another explosion, with an even stronger shock.

The shockwave detonated simultaneously far down the corridor, instantly tearing through the walls. A gigantic spike stabbed fiercely into the base’s guts.

Horne’s heart leaped to his throat.

A penetrating bomb pierced deep with ultra-high kinetic energy, detonating with a delay at critical underground points to cause structural collapse—specially designed to destroy underground facilities.

This was human military technology.

How could it be human technology?

This was a precise strike targeted at this underground base.

But how could such technology…!!

“It’s a delayed penetrating bomb! Get to the surface! To the snowfield!” The base’s people reacted quickly. Someone shouted it out.

The base’s broadcast suddenly blared: Emergency evacuation! Emergency evacuation!

Another earth-shattering roar, and the ground beneath their feet cracked. The walls snapped like breaking ice, “Crack, crack, crack—”

They could barely stand. Every step took all their strength.

Beyond the hall, the screams from afar were even more horrific.

Their position was right in the hall, which led directly up to the Frost Plains.

Boom—

Crack! A crisp snapping sound.

“Up! Evacuate now—”

The roar beside his ear cut off abruptly.

The wall collapsed. A support pillar in the hall snapped in half. Iron shards sprayed like bloody rain, slicing swiftly across that person’s throat. The head fell, rolling, as the ceiling crashed down, turning flesh to pulp.

Horne rushed past nearby, hot liquid splattering his face.

The Underground Base had existed for a century. Though it had safety issues, it was still disaster-resistant and quake-proof. Normal attacks or natural disasters couldn’t destroy it. But penetrating bombs were different. This bomb seemed calibrated exactly to demolish this base.

And such bombs weren’t in the Underground Base’s research. Under the Tower’s control, Loch City’s humans couldn’t possess such power.

Within ten seconds of the first support pillar falling, the second one groaned and then snapped with a “crack.”

“Get up!! It’s collapsing! Collapsing!” Someone screamed at the top of their lungs.

The exit wasn’t large. Some had climbed out, but more crowded below.

“Help! Save me!” Desperate pounding and cries rose and fell endlessly.

This was just the prelude. In a few minutes, there would be the biggest destruction. If they didn’t escape now, they were dead.

“Help me move the wall! Help! Help!” Heart-wrenching screams from inside.

As Horne ran, he suddenly realized something.

This base had three underground levels. They were on the topmost one, in its entrance hall.

There were still people in the corridors, on sublevel two, and sublevel three.

They couldn’t come up.

The bottom load-bearing structures would be destroyed by the bombs. The Underground Base would collapse irreversibly downward.

This was a targeted terrorist attack.

Debris squeezed between floors flew wildly. Blood pooled on the ground.

Then another explosion. Cracks spread from underfoot, and the ground instantly tilted.

Horne staggered, missed a step, and fell backward.

“Horne!” Hels shouted. In an instant, he grabbed Horne’s arm.

Han Ya shouted from nearby, “Horne!!”

Horne gritted his teeth and roared, “Don’t worry about me, run first!”

They couldn’t stop for a second. The final destruction could come anytime.

Han Ya dragged Yan Yue away as she sobbed loudly.

Hels gripped Horne, veins bulging on his arm.

Horne gripped Hels’s forearm back tightly. With his other hand, he tried to grab the already-broken floor. His body dangled in midair.

Under the red emergency lights, the scene below froze like a held breath.

Sublevel two and three had mostly collapsed. Debris plummeted, smashing onto corpses impaled on rebar, blood dripping everywhere. Some still moved, shouting in ear-shattering despair.

They wanted to come up, but the stairs at the corridor’s end had completely broken.

Falling meant shattering to pieces.

Horne’s face went white.

Hels hauled with all his strength, pulling him up entirely.

The moment Horne climbed up, he shoved Hels backward hard. Rubble fell.

Looking back, the spot they’d just been had already caved in.

Horne coughed a few times, pulled Hels up, and charged toward the door.

Why a penetrating bomb?

“Hels!” Horne roared. “Is this part of the plan too?!”

Hels’s grip on his hand tightened. His face changed, and he answered shortly and urgently, “No!”

Perhaps this was the base’s ultimate fate, but only after evacuating everyone!!

“Save me, please, someone, save me!”

Han Ya had just reached the entrance with Yan Yue. She heard a familiar voice and looked back—a familiar friend.

So close, within reach.

Hels and Horne rushed up behind.

“Yan Yue! Go!” Horne shouted.

That girl was still alive, but her legs had been half-severed by a fallen ceiling.

“Hurry! Faster, the hall’s collapsing!”

“The top’s collapsing too!!”

There was still a city above them. With the support below gone, this whole section would sink completely.

“Aaah—”

“I saw them! Aliens! Outside are Aliens!”

In the chaos, Yan Yue took a crying step toward her.

Just one extra step.

Horne roared, “Don’t go over there!”

The floor there had loosened.

Han Ya hadn’t expected it. He immediately reached for Yan Yue.

Only one step.

Yan Yue’s scream erupted. The floor couldn’t bear the weight, snapped, and she plummeted.

A muffled thud—perhaps many thuds, indistinguishable amid the constant falls and deaths.

“Yan Yue!!” Horne’s voice cracked. In the red light and fractures, he saw the rebar piercing her chest from below, her hand reaching upward toward him. Her eyes bulged, mouth agape as if to say something.

“Run!” Hels grabbed Horne and dragged him away.

Human technology, human technology… Wang Wudao’s words flashed endlessly in Horne’s mind. Humans could betray humans—why couldn’t Aliens betray Aliens?

What human knew penetrating bomb tech well enough to leak it to the Aliens?!

The three burst out of the Underground Base, climbed to old Loch City, and sprinted toward the city outskirts just as the sunset bled downward like dripping blood.

Horne looked back. The base’s position sank, snow cascading like a white waterfall.

A deep pit.

But it wasn’t enough. They ran out of the city ruins. Around them were others who’d escaped the base, fleeing through old Loch City’s streets and alleys, all charging farther away.

Snow fell outside, watching impassively, plunging into the cold.

Dozens of Aliens flew in the sky. They dove, killing those who’d escaped.

Bang!

Gunfire rang out, muzzle flashes erupting. One Alien dissipated.

Shrill whistles pierced the snowfield. Humans screamed as their blood stained the snow.

Red and white intertwined.

Horne felt stabbing pains in his heart.

That nauseating feeling again—so painful, so painful.

Red and white, a full-body shudder of agony.

They kept running farther, exerting every ounce of strength to escape old Loch City’s range, dodging Alien attacks while fleeing.

From afar, the sprinting Han Ya looked up and yelled, “The shockwave’s coming! Get down!!!”

“Down now!!” Others roared too.

Three seconds later, the preset massive explosion boomed from behind into the sky.

Boom!

In that instant, the terrifying sound wave pierced their eardrums. Horne lunged forward. In a millisecond, he felt someone press onto him, hugging him tightly.

“Bury your head!” Hels roared.

A diving-into-the-sea ringing in his ears. The explosion unleashed a giant wave from the center, visibly radiating outward in a huge circle.

Even prone, the shockwave flipped them farther away. In that second, the weight on him vanished, replaced by thick, biting snow burial.

Several massive booms followed as the colossal structure fully collapsed.

Polar-night silence. The world drowned in vast color. Continuous explosions left Horne hearing nothing but shrill ringing and an inescapable screech in his brain.

He didn’t know how much time passed.

Horne coughed violently twice, struggling to kneel up from the snow pile. He looked up.

The horizon bled red, like flowing blood dripping into thick black smoke.

Aliens buzzed in the air. They dove or dissipated. People’s faces twisted savagely, mouths agape, eyes surging with raging fury. Laser lights flickered around like slow motion. The scene devolved into a hell of flame and ice.

All of it soundless, suffocatingly quiet.

He gaped, looking back.

The white waterfall melted. Burning snow became a black hurricane surging to the sky in his eyes.

Firelight made his pupils flicker bright and dark.

It wasn’t just the Underground Base burning—old Loch City blazed too.

A shrill whistle pierced the sea, plunging into the clouds.

Bang! A gunshot nearby. A particle cloud dissipated meters away.

“Horne, up, grab your gun!” Hels shouted from nearby.

Horne snapped back to reality.

The Aliens were still attacking fiercely!

He tore his gaze away, endured the intense dizziness, drew his gun, and madly squeezed the trigger at the Aliens in the sky.

Dazed from the shockwave, his vision fractured, barely able to see. He aimed by instinct.

“Help me!! Ah—!!”

Bang!

More humans who’d escaped were killed. The snowfield lay dense with corpses, blood blooming like flowers beneath them.

Firelight scorched the sky crimson. Aliens surged down like a black tide, slaughtering the escapees with nowhere to flee. Gunfire grew sparse and feeble, swiftly torn apart.

Bang! Bang! Horne fired several shots, finally downing one charging at him.

“Horne! Over here!” Han Ya yelled from afar, his words after lost in the rising and falling screams.

His reactions dulled. His fingers stiffened. The gun became an unbearable burden. Snow crunched underfoot.

Death and blood thickened the air.

This was humanity’s last true city.

Humans never gave up, never surrendered.

At least he never had, never compromised.

Bang! Horne gritted his teeth and fired, killing another diving Alien. But the six-winged, double-faced creatures outnumbered humans now. People around him dwindled visibly.

They screamed, falling one by one in his pupils.

The living dropped to fifty, forty, thirty.

Bang! Horne fired but missed.

Perhaps in two minutes, he’d die too.

“Horne!” Han Ya yelled.

Horne charged that way but was immediately blocked by Aliens.

In the vast snowfield, there was no cover. They could only face death.

Towering flames and roars surged in. In midair, several Aliens suddenly dissipated within seconds.

In that distracted instant, several Aliens dove. Their numbers were enough—multiple targeting one person at once.

Horne only felt a stabbing pain in his shoulder, followed immediately by his thigh, as piercing and tearing sensations assaulted him together.

He jerked in agony, the pain so intense that even breathing hurt. The moment the needle-like proboscis pulled out, blood sprayed forth. At point-blank range, he fired his gun, and an alien dissipated right in front of his eyes.

Far, far away, flickering lights swayed at the horizon’s end.

“Hels!” Horne shouted, but he wasn’t sure if the sound had actually come out. He couldn’t see Hels; his vision was a solid wall of black.

It hurt so much.

Another needle-like proboscis burst out from his chest. He looked down and could only see bloodied flesh pierced straight through from his back.

“Horne!” A hoarse, desperate roar.

He seemed to hear Hels’s voice drifting from far away, growing closer by the millisecond.

Horne instantly dropped to one knee. His trembling hand barely managed to raise the gun. With a bang, he used his last shred of awareness to pull the trigger, blowing the head off the alien that had impaled him, causing it to dissipate.

“Horne! Hold on!” Hels sprinted toward him at top speed. In the distance, Han Ya saw it happen, and his expression changed. In that instant, an alien pierced his arm as well.

It hurt so much. Horne fired again, but he missed. His hand shook, his body grew ice-cold, and he could feel his blood draining away.

There were too many aliens, and they had so few people, so few weapons. They couldn’t win.

This was a premeditated ambush.

“Hels, Hels! Get out of here!” Horne said through gritted teeth. He wasn’t sure if Hels was nearby or could even hear him.

In the next instant, an even sharper pain stabbed through his heart.

He looked down and saw the needle-like proboscis protruding from his heart.

His mouth gaped open in a desperate attempt to scream, but no sound came out.

“Horne! Horne!”

Someone roared his name in despair, but the voice sounded as if it came from across an abyss, growing fainter and fainter.

Bang! Bang! Gunshots exploded at close range, and Horne saw particles dissipating around him.

He couldn’t remember what happened after that.

He could no longer support his own weight. He touched his chest and felt only a handful of blood.

His vision went completely black. He could hear his own faint breathing, but it quickly faded away.

This was the feeling of death—he knew it all too well.

His strength ebbed away, and he toppled backward into the bone-chilling snow. All his past experiences and memories came to an abrupt end.

“Horne!!!”