Chapter 175: Descent into Chaos

Under a leaden sky, despair reigned supreme.

The smoke over the battlefield hung like the thick mists of hell, blinding all hope.

As Yenir staggered out of the hospital, the world seemed shrouded in screams and tears.

The sounds intensified relentlessly, pounding into his ears like a clanging iron pot.

At the evacuation point, survivors had descended into utter chaos. Those scrambling to reach the Underground Fortress jostled violently, each unwilling to yield, knowing that a single second’s delay might lead them straight to death.

Even hiding offered no true escape.

Driven by the instinct to survive, many lower-ranked Awakeners within the crowd tore away their last semblance of humanity and launched frenzied attacks on ordinary civilians ahead. Gunshots and angry shouts rang out as soldiers struggled to suppress the mob, while mutated beasts from the breach above seemed to sense the turmoil below.

Amid bloodcurdling shrieks, a dark swarm of mutated birds swooped down, snatching victims before they could even react, and in moments, crushing their skulls.

The masses screamed and scattered like headless ants in a state of panic.

Rear order had completely collapsed.

The besieged soldiers could only hastily form lines in a desperate attempt to stop the diving flocks, but with elite forces already at the front, the low-ranked troops were powerless against the mutant onslaught.

The chaos escalated further.

After witnessing scores of humans being hoisted into the air only to plummet to their deaths, one Awakener outside the crush could no longer contain his terror.

His eyes burned red as if all sanity had been lost, and he viciously kicked a woman jostling ahead of him.

“Get out of the way! Get out!”

“Let me in!”

A massive hand swept aside the crowd like discarded trash. The woman he kicked had her insides brutally torn apart.

In his violent dash forward, the Awakener paid no heed to the child falling from her grasp; he only gasped and pushed on.

He saw it—a breach in the front lines. At its edge stood a towering Fourth-Stage mutant, as if embodying ultimate terror.

It wouldn’t be long before a continuous stream of monsters poured through that gap into the Safe Zone. By then, aside from the Underground Shelter, nowhere would be safe.

He didn’t want to die.

He had concealed his true strength to avoid being drafted to the frontlines—all for the sake of survival!

Other Awakeners, mimicking his ruthlessness, began to attack the congested crowd. In an instant, a torrent of screams filled the air. No one could have imagined that those meant to protect them would now fight over a chance to access shelter, turning on the very civilians they were meant to save.

After stomping on a little girl’s head, the first Awakener to strike was drenched in blood, his wild eyes fixed on the passage leading underground.

“Let me in… let me in…”

Clutching a dagger, he relentlessly stabbed those in front of him.

Once refined and gentle, he now resembled a demon—willing to kill anyone if it meant he could stay alive.

Just as several Awakeners teamed up to dispatch a few soldiers guarding the shelter and prepared to force the door shut, a violent burst of Spirit Energy erupted behind them, precisely dismembering the group.

A cloud of bloody mist exploded, and the cries died instantly.

In the ensuing panic, the crowd instinctively looked back.

Outside the cracked hospital, hovering mid-air, Yenir slowly retracted his right hand.

“Fall in order!”

At his command, Yenir looked to the sky as his aura surged wildly.

“Boom!!”

With one swift blow…

An immense surge of Spirit Energy erupted, and with a mere spark of power, the entire sky was bathed in blinding light.

0.1 seconds later,

Thousands of mutated birds vanished from the sky as if erased from a painting. The kilometer-high cloud cover was pierced, letting sunlight bathe the earth once more.

The crowd fell silent until, after Yenir turned away, a burst of excited shouts broke the stillness.

They recognized him.

The man who had acted was none other than the renowned Yenir!

………..

“Charge!”

“Brothers! Help me block that breach!”

On the collapsed front line, a bloodied Commander struggled to rise from the rubble, his left eye grotesquely shattered by flying stones.

Covering his head with one hand, he staggered upright and, with a hoarse cry, raised his longsword high.

In his gaze, a Fourth-Stage monster silently dominated half the view, having just demolished a section of the line.

Yet, a vast swarm of blood-sniffing mutants surged like an ant swarm, pouring into the city.

They had to hold the line! Even if defeat against a Fourth-Stage foe was inevitable, a soldier’s duty was to fight until the last breath, never retreating.

Behind him, countless Awakener soldiers roared and charged at his command.

Bodies, corpses—both clashed in a brutal melee.

The two dark forces collided violently, as if devouring each other in a desperate grasp.

Even if the charge was futile, dying in the midst of it would still be an honorable end.

Ignoring the monstrous maws snapping at him, the Awakener soldier at the front brandished his knife and attacked fiercely. In less than a second, a torrent of mutants descended like an ant swarm and bit off his arm.

If you lose a hand, use your foot; if you lose a foot, use your mouth!

Caught in the mutant horde, each warrior was swallowed whole like a sandbag in a flood.

In a mix of fury and despair, everyone fought desperately to halt the monsters’ advance.

Even as their bodies were gnawed down to mere sticks, their patriotic determination drove them to fight back like beasts, roaring and biting at the mutants.

One soldier, spitting out a mouthful of foul flesh and clinging to half a leg, laughed maniacally. Trapped among the monsters, he had no chance of survival.

Just as he lunged for the throat of the nearest mutant with his remaining strength, a pair of sharp claws swept across his head, shattering it.

His broken body crumpled into the horde, devoured completely.

With each successive suicide bomb detonation, at a high point along another front line, several high-ranking commanders watched in agony as bursts of fire lit up the sea of corpses.

That light was the last glimmer for every soldier in their final moments.

“How much longer can we hold out?!”

Their cries tore through the air.

Once the battle reached a brutal, close-quarters melee, military losses surged at an unimaginable rate. Watching their comrades fall in groups, every commander trembled with fear.

These were the last elite soldiers of the Huaxia Battle Zone. Yet, the relentless tide of corpses showed no sign of dwindling.

There were just… too many…

Ever since the appearance of the Fourth-Stage mutant, the hidden horde of monsters had poured in as if sensing that the end had come.

In the distance, they could even see a sea of densely packed Third-Stage monsters!

With a single, simple charge, the entire Safe Zone would be utterly obliterated!