CR CH27

Chapter 27: Crisis

Planet-Zhou-07, an A-class planet, Lizhou Demi-Beast Academy.

Amidst the ruined walls and crumbling debris, a figure was sprinting at breakneck speed. Behind him, a massive creature swept its thick, long tail, instantly collapsing the school’s glass greenhouse.

Shards of glass exploded in a massive spray, kicking up a choking, murky cloud of dust.

Bang!

Jiang Tianji dodged, flipping through a side window and into the teaching building, lifting his hands to finish off the last remaining mutated giant wolf with his Lieneng-91.

The moment the energy bullet embedded itself into the flesh, the mutation core inside the giant wolf shattered. Its body went rigid, and it crashed heavily to the ground.

Just as Ji Yandong had said, low-level mutants were no different from stationary targets; they were even more rigid and predictable than the simulated mutants used in daily training.

After all, the tasks assigned to the Baseline Troops belonged to the very bottom numbers of the D and C tiers. The difficulty was equivalent to a clean-up operation, not even meeting the threshold for a front-row D-tier mission. It was mostly intended to get these newcomers acclimated to an actual combat environment.

The teaching building was dead silent. Ancient cracks crawled across the walls, and the messy tracks left behind by the students in their frantic flight littered the floor.

Jiang Tianji navigated precariously through the overturned desks and chairs. Heavy drops of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes; his eyelashes fluttered, but he had no time to mind it.

“Requesting backup… This is Jiang Tianji. Requesting backup at Area A, South Teaching Building. Area A, South Teaching Building…”

Jiang Tianji’s hands were trembling slightly as he ran, switching on his device to enter the squad channel.

Before his words could fully leave his mouth, a response immediately came through the squad channel, bearing a voice Jiang Tianji had completely unexpected.

“On my way.” Jia Yun’s voice, which already lacked much emotion, sounded even colder through the receiver.

Immediately following was Ji Yandong’s hurried voice: “I’m coming. What’s your current situation over there?”

Jiang Tianji tried his best to maintain a calm tone: “Something’s wrong. A two-headed mutated serpent suddenly popped out just now—”

A massive explosion from behind cut Jiang Tianji off. His ears rang instantly, and in his dazed state, he vaguely heard his teammates saying something urgently in the channel.

Crash!

Jiang Tianji hastily spun his head around to check. A massive crater had appeared where he had been running just two seconds prior. The deformed, two-headed serpent burst from the earth, its four eyes staring straight at him. Having locked onto its target, it lunged toward him like a bolt of lightning.

The wind sweeping in from behind carried waves of a sickening, terrifying stench, driving a deep chill straight up Jiang Tianji’s spine.

A powerful sense of crisis caused his body to react first. Throwing himself forward in a desperate leap, he crashed into a corner just in the nick of time. The cold, hard snake scales scraped past his arm as the creature lunged into the corridor ahead, leaving a burning, stinging pain across his skin.

Jiang Tianji sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. Seizing the opportunity, he aimed and fired a shot at one of the two-headed serpent’s heads. The silver-white energy bullet accurately struck its eye.

The mutant let out a skin-crawling screech. This strike seemed to thoroughly infuriate it. It thrashed violently, and with a sweep of its tail, a small section of the teaching building collapsed. A violent tremor shuddered beneath his feet as cracks spread rapidly toward him.

This was absolutely not a capability a low-level mutant species should possess.

“What’s that sound… Jiang Tianji! Are you still there?”

“Fuck, why did the South Teaching Building collapse again? Didn’t the mutation energy quiet down?”

“No, something’s wrong…”

The Bluetooth device at his ear emitted a sharp, piercing “Zzzt—” noise. As if subjected to some sort of interference, his teammates’ voices became fragmented and broken. Jiang Tianji took a deep breath, turned around, and bolted without a shred of hesitation.

Before his device could completely fail, Jiang Tianji opened the safety system to send out a distress signal.

Even if his teammates managed to arrive, they would be just as helpless; the Lieneng-91 was incapable of inflicting fatal damage on this mutant.

In a matter of mere seconds, the surroundings suddenly grew dark and frigid. A wave of icy coldness encroached upon this wasteland as an invisible shadow closed in.

Simultaneously, the device on his wrist lit up with a deep-red danger alert.

“Anomalous data detected. Mutation energy value exceeds the safety threshold. Preliminary analysis indicates a C-grade Spiritual Field. Negative spiritual interference is at—Out of Control, Level 3… Monitoring… Secondary mutation energy… B-grade… De… will… fail in 10 seconds…”

The mechanical voice broke through intermittently. The device flashed with a hazardous red light before completely dying and failing at a certain point.

The Bluetooth earbud emitted a burst of static noise, continuously grating on Jiang Tianji’s already taut nerves. He ripped the earbud off and threw it aside, the taste of iron in his throat making his entire mouth dry.

Taking advantage of the brief gap, he quickly checked his gear. The energy storage of his Lieneng-91 was down to 46%. His equipment was fried, and his teammates were still on their way.

An indescribable sensation welled up from the depths of Jiang Tianji’s heart. Reason seemed to drift further and further away. In this world where he could hear nothing but his own ragged breathing, uncontainable emotions surged forward like a tidal wave.

It felt as though he had plunged into some sort of deep web, with shadows devouring his spiritual power bit by bit. Jiang Tianji’s gaze gradually grew vacant. He even forgot where he was; running had become an entirely meaningless endeavor.

Strands of darkness enveloped him, transforming into large hands that covered his eyes and clamped around his ankles.

Only a single thread of faint light remained before his eyes. The last shred of clarity allowed him to hear the screeches drawing closer and closer behind him.

Jiang Tianji struggled to dodge, but his body lost all strength, rendering him unable to move. Just as his vision was about to plunge entirely into darkness, he caught sight of a cluster of blue fireflies.

Their glow was not piercing; it was like fireflies in the night. The seemingly gentle energy burned the pitch-black curtain away completely. The moment he clearly saw the blue fireflies, Jiang Tianji’s spiritual power was pulled back by a force, and his chaotic thoughts snapped back to clarity.

He snapped his eyes open, and the piercing sunlight filled his vision. A massive shadow covered the ground beneath his feet. Jiang Tianji heard that screech ring out almost flush against him, and he immediately threw himself to the side.

The two-headed serpent barely grazed past him, crashing into the adjacent corridor. One side of the five-story teaching building came crashing down with a roar.

A hazardous, dark glow gleamed from the crevices of its scales. When it had grazed past him, its crimson eyes had been incredibly close. Jiang Tianji could even see his own reflection within its cold, lifeless eyes, causing a grim chill to spread throughout his entire body.

“Ugh!”

Before he could react, a thick snake tail came flying straight at his face. Unable to dodge in time, Jiang Tianji was smacked flying, crashing violently against a nearby wall.

“Cough, cough…”

Bright red blood spilled from the corner of his lips. His fingers trembled slightly, his forest-green pupils reflecting nothing but the monster amidst the ruins.

Jiang Tianji forcefully squeezed the trigger. The Lieneng-91’s energy bullet struck the two-headed serpent’s vital spot once more. This time, it seemed to inflict a small area of scorching on its scales. The giant serpent screeched and rolled across the ground in place, lunging toward Jiang Tianji in a towering rage.

Jiang Tianji propped his body up to dodge, but the moment he moved, a burst of agonizing pain shot through his shoulder.

“Hiss—” The screech of the two-headed serpent was shrill and thin, practically blending together with the ringing in his ears.

He couldn’t dodge it.

In that split second, Jiang Tianji used almost every ounce of his strength to grip his gun tightly.

In a world where time seemed to slow down several-fold, a multitude of thoughts seemed to flash through Jiang Tianji’s mind. When his mind became overloaded with thoughts, instinct took the lead in dominating his body, followed closely by a surging wave of unwilling defiance.

“Fuck.” His arm was shaking violently, perhaps due to his injuries, or perhaps due to fear.

Jiang Tianji’s brows locked together tightly, his hollow eyes staring at a single point in the void. An invisible shadow seized the vulnerability to slip in; his spiritual power could not be concentrated, and his consciousness was gradually being devoured.

He squeezed the trigger one last time, watching the energy bullet graze past the opponent’s scales once more, only managing to achieve a scorching effect. Lines of crimson bloodshots crawled into his eyes.

Jiang Tianji breathed raggedly. No one knew what he had thought about during these brief few seconds, but he suddenly turned the muzzle around and fired a shot directly into his own injured left shoulder.

“Ugh!”

The silver-white energy rapidly expanded, covering the majority of his body. Jiang Tianji let out a muffled groan.

His thoughts became entirely chaotic. Following the agonizing pain, his body went numb, gaining a brief lease on life, but his spiritual power had completely sunk into the mire.

When he opened his eyes once more, the last shred of sanity within his gaze had also been swallowed by the shadows.