Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
Miao Chengmin knelt on the ground with a thud, his hands gripping the soil as he tilted his head back, allowing the afternoon sunlight to penetrate his dark eye sockets.
"Brother Chengmin!" George ran down from the high embankment with four or five other zombies who admired Miao Chengmin, surrounding him. They wanted to help him up but hesitated, gently patting his back instead.
"I don't understand," Miao Chengmin said, his head drooping as he scooped up a handful of disturbed earth and spoke to himself. "We didn't let Virgil get the Chaos Crystals. Why can she still resurrect these Mindless Corpses?"
George and the other zombies were souls from the Divine Realm, fully aware of the consequences. Although they didn't know how Virgil was resurrecting Soulless Zombies, they understood that if she wanted to destroy this world she hated, she would need to create a brutal army with immense destructive power. Now Virgil had that capability, and her plan had already begun, which meant that Tu Jiaomin's sacrifice and Miao Chengmin's efforts were all in vain.
Miao Chengmin felt utterly devastated; his heart ached. Tu Jiaomin's death was an indelible pain for him, and her sacrifice did not yield the expected results. Virgil could still create Soulless Zombies at will; she clearly did not regard the Vanguard's Spirit Corps at all.
George was nudged by a nearby Spirit Corps member. He turned around, and the member pointed to a pool of blood not far away.
"Keep an eye on Brother Miao," George said as he stepped forward. Just as he was about to lower his head, he noticed clear signs of police tape marking off the edge of the graveyard. Strangely enough, there was not a single person around.
There were signs of human activity here.
George expanded his vision—an ability he had learned in the Divine Realm—and carefully searched the nearby ground. Aside from some scattered pits and uneven terrain, there were sporadic shoe prints. As George approached the bloodstain, he spotted a dropped work ID in a dense thicket nearby. The position of the ID was tricky; only from George's angle could one discern its significance. The bloodstain intensified the eerie atmosphere of the graveyard, where all bodies had mysteriously vanished.
George picked up the work ID from the bushes and glanced at it; at the top of the card was written: Gravekeeper Position Certificate.
His gaze moved downward to reveal a man's portrait, with his name printed below: Shi Jinwen.
"Shi Jinwen..." George tilted his head slightly to let sunlight illuminate the ID.
"Hmm?"
George sensed something was off; at the edge of the portrait on the ID, he caught a glimpse of a shadow in his peripheral vision. He magnified his view again and couldn't believe what he saw as he lowered his hand in disbelief. The distant whistling sound had caught Miao Chengmin's attention; with support from other zombies, he slowly stood up and gazed at the horizon.
"Is that an airplane?" one zombie asked.
"No!" George shouted as he ran along the path, "That's a person!"
Miao Chengmin felt a jolt of alarm surge through him as an indescribable sense of foreboding washed over him.
At this moment, 15 kilometers away from Spirit Corps Vanguard:
"This is An Xiaotian, repeat, this is An Xiaotian. I am approaching the target point; there are 14.38 kilometers remaining. I expect to conduct a search operation at 3:26 PM."
The perspective shifted from Fierce Eagle's wing trailing flames over the highway to distant views. After an hour of flight, An Xiaotian felt bored since armor could cruise at a constant speed. Comparatively, it felt more like riding in a vehicle while enjoying the scenery outside through orange-tinted windows—transitioning from bustling city traffic to increasingly sparse highways replaced by patches of green vegetation, with glimpses of scattered villages beyond the mountains. After reporting his status, An Xiaotian idly watched the few vehicles below while immersing himself in memories of when he opened his eyes on his way to the plateau years ago and locked eyes with Yang Meng, whom he loved dearly; those emotional thoughts drifted back to earlier times.
"Ah! What are you doing, you bad guy!"
"Brother Tian Tian, get up and play with me!"
...
Scenes from when he traveled to Tibet with Yang Meng flashed before him; he remembered that winter break during their senior year when it was Yang Meng's birthday. Before reporting to military camp, he had taken time off to take Yang Meng on an impromptu trip. He opened his eyes in the car and saw Yang Meng straddling him with her legs while using her fingertip to silence him before saying, "Why do I always want to tease you?"
"Who knows?" That year, An Xiaotian wrapped his arms around Yang Meng's neck and without hesitation pressed her enticing lips against his own. "Who said I'm your..."
"Your husband."
An Xiaotian suddenly realized he was talking to himself like a madman, his eyes hazily scanning the interior structure of the armor. He found that he had never wanted to talk to Yang Meng so much, to hear her sweet whispers in his ear. This desire surged within him like a beast released from its cage, violently crashing against his heart. Even though he was on a mission, this sudden longing left An Xiaotian unable to cope.
"Xiao Ling, help me dial Yang Meng's number."
"Okay."
The holographic image inside the helmet displayed Yang Meng's profile.
"Darling!"
As soon as Yang Meng answered the call, she was so excited she could barely speak—how long had it been since she last heard An Xiaotian's voice? She could hardly remember the long wait.
"Mengmeng, I finally have a chance to call you." An Xiaotian smiled as he looked ahead, as if the towering mountain approaching him was his beloved coming toward him.
"You... Oh my god, are you at the base?" Yang Meng sat up from her office chair and quickly walked outside, her radiant expression piquing the curiosity of her colleagues.
"I'm flying in the sky; I just looked down at the green grass below and suddenly remembered our honeymoon." An Xiaotian blinked. "It's been four years in a flash, baby. I really want to travel with you again, embracing each other at the top of the prairie. How long has it been? Haha, if I get the chance, I will definitely take you flying to the distant places we both want to go..."
"I don't want to! I'm scared." Yang Meng leaned against the door outside, covering her mouth and laughing through her tears as she played with her hair. "Your ability to sweet-talk is still so terrible, haha!"
An Xiaotian chuckled foolishly, longing for that enchanting girl who seemed so close yet so far away.
"What kind of mission are you guys on every day? I've heard that military forces nationwide are urgently gathering over there. Is something bad about to happen?" Yang Meng had too many questions for An Xiaotian; her mind was in chaos, and she finally managed to squeeze out this one sentence.
"Uh..." An Xiaotian was momentarily stunned. The formation and action plans of The Celestial Warriors Alliance were absolute secrets that could not be disclosed to anyone outside. Even though Yang Meng knew her boyfriend was Fierce Eagle, she couldn't learn anything about The Celestial Warriors Alliance. An Xiaotian understood that only a handful of people knew about the darkness that was about to descend upon the world; The Celestial Warriors were the only force capable of breaking this darkness, and hope was slim.
Ever since An Xiaotian became the captain of the alliance, during every sleepless night and every solitary walk he took, he would involuntarily start envisioning a city under apocalyptic conditions—the burning fragments of steel armor, wrecked tanks, piles of corpses flowing with blood, aliens standing on his homeland singing their songs under the setting sun. He even imagined himself being dismantled and dreamed of Sister Jiao An and Qin Weishan's bodies lying apart from each other. He had even dreamt of Blue Face Hero kneeling on scorched earth with a pierced chest while Titan Aibo and Xu Yicheng's bodies were piled together like garbage beside blood-stained anchors and stones cleaved from Aibo...
"Hey, Tian Tian? I'm asking you something!" Yang Meng grew impatient as he remained silent.
"Oh, sorry! I just spaced out—no, there's a mission now."
An Xiaotian's vision cleared again as he glanced at his marked location; it was only three kilometers away.
"It's okay, Mengmeng. The world is fine; don't worry. Trust us Chinese soldiers. Humanity has always been strong; disasters can never catch up with our determination to believe in hope." An Xiaotian explained lightly, but his heart felt heavy as if filled with lead.
"I believe in you," Yang Meng said. "Is Liu Xuan on a mission with you? By the way, I still don't know why he's going to your base... Um, is everything okay recently? It seems like heating has been restored in City M. I'm also thinking about whether I should transfer to your City M so I can see you every day. Plus, didn't City M just implement a policy where graduate students can get a household registration after working there for two years? And our Satellite Bureau seems to have been asked to cooperate with you guys; we need to provide satellite images for you. As secretary, I've been busy running around; things are getting more mysterious..." Yang Meng chattered on while An Xiaotian struggled to find an opportunity to respond.
As he noticed they were getting closer to their target location, An Xiaotian realized there was no time left for chatting with Yang Meng. Happiness always felt so fleeting.
"Mengmeng, I have to carry out my mission now; I'll hang up first. I promise I'll spend more time with you later." An Xiaotian spoke with an unusual sense of guilt.
Yang Meng's heart sank; how she wished she could keep An Xiaotian by her side, but after all, her man was a soldier.
"Go ahead; it's fine. Bye-bye! I will always love you." Yang Meng's smile gradually turned into helplessness as she watched the call button on her phone dim.
"Calling in! This is An Xiaotian. I have arrived at the mission site and am circling in standby."
As soon as the call was connected, it was about to be disconnected. Perhaps this is the helplessness of being a hero. An Xiaotian put away his smile and looked down from the sky, carefully observing the graveyard below. The graves were all hollowed out, resembling a piece of rotting flesh covered in countless holes, becoming increasingly unsettling the more he looked.
"Received, Xiaotian. Proceed with the original plan immediately." Three hundred meters behind An Xiaotian, General Jiang sat in the helicopter, gazing at the small figure ahead. The armor reflected the sunlight, shimmering as it caught the light.
An Xiaotian began to circle around the graveyard, the streamlines created by the wingtips resembling chopsticks stirring a cup of water, which symbolized his inner turmoil that could not settle. After a moment of impulsiveness, he regretted having spoken privately with Yang Meng. The few words exchanged had stirred his thoughts like a hurricane, severely disrupting his focus. Was it worth it for him to make such sacrifices? Rather than saving a world that was almost impossible to survive in, wouldn't it be better to spend time with her?
But soon An Xiaotian dismissed these despondent thoughts. He was the captain of the elite defense system on Earth; if he wanted to give up, then there would truly be no hope for this planet. A thought gradually became clear in his mind: believing there was no hope was the real hopelessness. If he held onto the motivation to fight for humanity's hope, he would have to sacrifice his own love. There was no turning back; no matter what, he would not let himself sink into despair. As captain, he had to tell everyone that this mysterious war must be won by humanity.
"Xiaotian, have you activated the scanner that Nars installed for you?" Liu Xuan asked through the communicator.
"Oh, um..." To be honest, An Xiaotian had completely forgotten such an important matter—without Nars's soul imaging scanner, he was just wandering around in the sky.
"You haven't turned it on?" Liu Xuan asked.
"I did; I just don't know how to use it," An Xiaotian quickly explained and hurriedly activated the soul imaging scanner.
"Just open it with your thoughts; it's installed on your armor and controlled by neurons—it's just like using a weapon," Liu Xuan said earnestly as he began instructing An Xiaotian.
The camera lit up, scanning the forest next to the graveyard with blue-violet light. In an instant, countless blue light points appeared in front of the lens like a swarm of bees. An Xiaotian hadn't reacted yet—he only saw one particularly dazzling light point—when these light points suddenly vanished.
The imaging device completed its first scan, revealing only the forest and that eerie graveyard.
"Uh, Xuan?" An Xiaotian said in confusion. "Is there a bug with this device?"
"Nope, what's wrong?" Liu Xuan replied while assembling something with Nars's guidance.
"Come over; I can't use it."
"Isn't it just a quick scan?" Liu Xuan said in bewilderment. "I'm busy working on a cutter with Nars; I can't fly over right now. We'll be there soon."
An Xiaotian felt helpless; hearing Liu Xuan say this made him even more uncertain and he restarted the scanner.
This time he activated the recording system, intending to capture every image frame by frame in his holographic display. However, those countless blue light points did not reappear. An Xiaotian widened his eyes in disbelief; he couldn't understand what was happening. The only explanation he could come up with was that there was something seriously wrong with the soul imaging scanner. But then he seemed to see something and quickly changed his armor's course, turning back.
He saw a gray-white light point.
The sound of rapidly spinning propellers approached from behind as An Xiaotian turned his head. "Xiaotian, we've arrived," Liu Xuan said.
Two helicopters began to slowly land on a flat area far from the road. An Xiaotian flew back and stood straight beside one of the helicopters. Habitually saluting General Jiang as he disembarked, he then projected the images he had just captured from his helmet.
Liu Xuan's eyes changed color; Nars stared at that gray-white light point thoughtfully for a long time before slowly uttering three words: "Soulless."
"What is that?" Lu Sha asked.
"This indicates the location of a Soulless—a true zombie," Nars said while glancing toward the forest over there.
Comment 0 Comment Count