The Assault Begins
The operation commenced the moment thick night fully enveloped the port!
Yuyuer struck first. He stood resolute at the violently rocking bow, raising his dragonbone staff high. The crystal orb in his arms erupted in unprecedented brilliance—as if determined to ignite the darkness itself! The melodious fishfolk ballad transformed into a fierce war cry infused with the primal rage of the ancient ocean:
"Ancient guardians slumbering in the abyssal depths! Heed the call of the whirl-tide's name! In the name of raging waves, bring down the tide of destruction!"
The sea directly ahead of the ship churned as though seized by an invisible colossal hand gone mad! Water boiled, roared, and surged upward! Accompanied by a soul-shaking, primordial whale-song that seemed to echo from the dawn of creation, an overwhelmingly massive beast tore through the surface in a violent explosion of spray!
It was a "Canglan Giant Armored Whale"! Its body resembled a moving island, armored in thick, metallic-sheened natural bio-plating. The ferocious head bristled with spear-like giant bone spines; a pair of enormous eyes blazed with ghostly blue soulfire. It raised its tail fin—comparable to a mythical siege hammer—and, carrying the incomparable force of billions of tons of seawater, smashed down mercilessly toward Xiangxi Port's already overburdened reinforced-concrete breakwater and the Doomsday Rebirth transport ships docked inside!
BOOMMMMM——!!!
An indescribable, apocalyptic roar tore the night sky apart! The dozen-meter-high breakwater—already eroded by vines—shattered like a child's toy blocks in an instant, collapsing utterly! Several ammunition- and energy-core-laden transport ships were flattened, ripped apart, and disintegrated by the towering tsunami and cannonball-like flying multi-ton concrete fragments! On the docks, dense clusters of Doomsday Rebirth soldiers didn't even have time to scream before being swallowed like insignificant insects by the berserk sea, dragged into the abyss!
"What the hell is happening?! A… a tsunami? No! It's a sea beast! SEA BEAST ATTACK!!" The surviving soldiers and Mutants in the port were utterly terrified by the cataclysm descending from nowhere! Piercing alarm sirens blared across the entire harbor instantly.
"Enemy assault! Highest alert level! All units—toward the outer sea! Target the giant beast! Full firepower! I repeat—FULL FIREPOWER!" The masked officer atop the command tower screamed hoarsely, his voice distorting through the loudspeakers and echoing everywhere.
The surviving "Ironjaw" mechs and shore-defense turrets, after a brief moment of shock, swiveled their barrels. Energy cannon muzzles whined with ear-splitting charging hums; crimson targeting lasers locked onto the mythical terror in the water like lines of death.
Just as the energy beams were about to unleash—
Salsa's hawk swarm struck!
Dozens of shadow hawks coalesced from the deepest night, diving silently like vengeful spirits from on high! Instead of attacking the tough armor directly, they swarmed like the deadliest hornets—darting with lethal agility toward sensor arrays, exhaust vents, and energy conduits on the turrets and mechs! Their talons wreathed in extreme cryogenic mist left thick, opaque layers of unbreakable ice over precision lenses and thermal imagers with every pass. Their razor beaks, infused with corrosive shadow energy, stabbed precisely into exposed power-line junctions, triggering violent shorts and blinding arcs of leaking energy sparks!
"Damn it! Sensors offline! We can't see!"
"Power conduits damaged! Turrets overheating—can't fire!"
"It's those ghost birds! Anti-air! Anti-air NOW!"
The port's anti-air network collapsed into chaos almost instantly. Fire directed at the whale became sparse, erratic, and wildly inaccurate—most energy beams shot uselessly into the sky or sea, raising harmless splashes.
"Land! NOW!" Fa's voice cut like an unsheathed blade!
Before the plant vessel even reached the last remaining section of pier, several figures shot out like arrows from a bow, wrapped in violent energy fluctuations!
Kayla unleashed a deafening primal roar: "Fourth-Stage Transformation—Thunderfrost Cataclysm Beast!" Savage blue-white lightning and bone-chilling pale frost instantly enveloped her. Her body exploded in size within bursting energy, swelling past three meters! Muscles bulged, fur stood like steel needles—she became a thunderfrost colossus! Like an out-of-control siege ram she crashed onto the hard dock surface. Her massive thunder claws, trailing thunderclaps and ice storms that tore the air, smashed down with apocalyptic force onto the nearest Ironjaw mech futilely trying to aim! CRASH! Amid ear-splitting metal rending, the mech's thick alloy armor crumpled, twisted, and shattered like paper under the interwoven thunder-frost might! Showers of sparks erupted; the core overloaded instantly, smoke billowing as the mech collapsed paralyzed!
TISK followed right behind, roaring like thunder from clear sky: "Break for me!" His molten lava hammer, trailing blazing red-blue comet tails of ice-fire explosive power, slammed brutally into another Ironjaw's alloy leg joint! CRACK! The piercing sound of metal fracturing rang out; the mech toppled sideways with a crash! Without mercy, TISK delivered a follow-up strike infused with extreme frost directly onto the vulnerable chest plate! Ice-blue chill spread instantly, freezing the entire mech—along with the pilot still trapped inside—into a gigantic ice block. The second hammer blow shattered it into fragments!
Zhamisi moved like a true viper, flickering eerily through panicked clusters of soldiers. Her venomous curved blades traced lethal emerald arcs, raising sprays of blood mist. "Deep Current Venom Fang—Bone-Eroding Miasma!" Thick, impenetrable dark-green toxic fog billowed from her twin blades like living entities, instantly engulfing over a dozen soldiers attempting to regroup and counterattack. Inhuman, agonized shrieks erupted within the mist. Exposed skin blackened, blistered, ulcerated, and melted at visible speed—within seconds the victims dissolved into steaming, bubbling pools of foul pus!
Arya stood steady atop a half-destroyed shipping container, her storm bow drawn to full moon. Pure light energy coalesced along the string, radiating a sacred aura that purged evil. "Rain of Light!" With a clear shout, countless blazing white arrows imbued with anti-magic will tore through the darkness, piercing with flawless precision the heads, throats, and chest energy cores of Mutants attempting to shoulder heavy weapons or organize squads! Light-element energy inflicted massive damage on these darkness-corrupted constructs—those struck screamed in agony, either dying outright or collapsing gravely wounded!
Lin Ya pressed both palms firmly against the oil-stained, rubble-strewn dock ground. Verdant natural spirit energy surged forth like a raging river. "Thorn Tide!" Countless terrifying metallic-glinting thorns—each as thick as an adult arm, covered in razor barbs—burst from the hard ground and steel wreckage with teeth-grinding creaks, growing, entwining, and stabbing madly! They instantly severed reinforcement routes, bound isolated soldiers, and even immobilized still-activating Ironjaw mechs! The thorns constricted like awakened pythons; razor spines drove deep into armor gaps and flesh. Accompanied by nauseating sounds of bones snapping and sinews tearing, victims were crushed and ripped apart!
Rex became a mobile weapons platform. Shoulder and arm weapon bays snapped open instantly. "Nano Swarm—Ice Detonation Mode!" Hundreds of tiny silver drones erupted like an enraged hive, emitting high-frequency buzzes as they formed a lethal silver storm! They homed precisely on soldiers and technicians operating heavy shore guns, comms stations, or energy weapon emplacements. Upon closing, they triggered self-destruct. Micro ice-flame bombs detonated, unleashing instantaneous cryogenic shockwaves capable of freezing steel! Soldiers froze mid-scream into horrified ice statues; delicate equipment became brittle and shattered under ultra-low temperatures, trailing wisps of vapor.
Fa moved like the deadliest phantom on the battlefield. Her starry right eye locked instantly onto the panicked masked officer atop the command tower, frantically shouting into his communicator. "Time… Stasis!" All incoming energy beams, running soldiers, even drifting smoke—everything slowed to a crawl in her perception. With a toe-point on rubble, her form blurred into an afterimage nearly impossible to track. Short blade wreathed in condensed frost, she flickered through several impossible angles, ghosting past the chaotic core of the battlefield to appear beneath the teetering command tower! "Ice Crystal Impale—Piercing Execution!" With her icy murmur, several pillar-thick, razor-sharp giant ice spears erupted from the ground, carrying bone-chilling cold, and punched straight through the vine-eroded, weakened alloy supports! CRASH! Amid screeching metal torsion and fracture, the entire tower—its spine torn out—collapsed in a storm of flying ice shards and dust! The mid-level officer, his final scream, and his comms equipment were buried together beneath a cold tomb of steel and concrete!
The battle erupted like thunderbolts and ended like autumn wind sweeping fallen leaves. Under the apocalyptic deterrence of the Canglan Giant Armored Whale, the shadow hawks' omnipresent precision harassment, and Fa's squad's scalpel-efficient, lethal synergy, the hundreds of Doomsday Rebirth defenders—including their mid-level commander—were utterly crushed and annihilated in under thirty minutes! Mountainous military supply warehouses were swept by Kayla's thunderfrost storm, triggering massive sympathetic detonations, then smashed into infernos by TISK's molten hammer! Chain explosions sent colossal fireballs skyward, turning half the port into blazing daylight hell; thick black smoke billowed straight into the clouds!
Celestia hovered above the port periphery in the night sky, six wings spread like a judging angel. Her psychic sensing formed an invisible radar net covering the entire area. A few lucky stragglers who escaped the first wave—attempting to flee in speedboats or launch miniature signal drones—were sliced to pieces by descending lightning-fast wind blades or blasted midair into fireballs by precisely aimed thunder lances! Not a single distress signal escaped this now-dead port.
The embers of battle had not yet cooled. Lin Ya and Yuyuer moved quickly, calming and gathering nearly a hundred rescued captives—mostly port residents and forced laborers, ragged, covered in wounds, eyes filled with post-trauma daze and fear. Lin Ya channeled natural spirit energy; green halos washed over the injured, staunching blood, easing pain, accelerating healing. Using salvaged building materials and dense vegetation, he swiftly constructed a naturally camouflaged temporary shelter inside a nearby concealed seaside cave. Yuyuer spoke to them in gentle yet firm tones, instructing them to hide well, conserve strength, and wait patiently for the Alliance counteroffensive forces.
"Benefactors… thank you… thank you all!" An old sea captain, face filthy, hair and beard white, tremblingly grasped Yuyuer's cold webbed hand, tears streaming from clouded eyes. "We… we all thought… we were done for…"
"Live on," Yuyuer replied, his voice like a calm undercurrent carrying soul-soothing power. "Live, and witness the coming of peace."
The port was destroyed, captives rescued, and sufficient shocking chaos created. Fa's team had executed the mission perfectly. Without pause, they quickly resupplied minimal fresh water and portable rations, then—under cover of the towering port flames and enveloping night—slipped away like blades melting into darkness, racing north along the rugged coastline toward the vine-devoured city of Rixi.
Vine Inferno and the Hawk's Hunt
The next three days of overland travel felt like stepping deeper into the core of a nightmare-drawn map. The closer they drew to Rixi City, the more the land transcended reality into pure horror.
Former roads, crisscrossing fields, and villages once warmed by chimney smoke had been completely overtaken and devoured by a terrifying mutated plant known as "Corrosive Earth Vine." These vines had grown beyond "huge"—they were monstrous! The smallest tendrils were as thick as an adult's waist; the crisscrossing main trunks commonly exceeded several meters in diameter, the thickest rivaling small tunnels! They displayed an unsettling interwoven red, blue, and green—giant living blood vessels pulsing with malevolent energy—rooted deep in polluted soil, greedily sucking nutrients.
Crimson vines burned like giant red-hot branding irons, radiating scorching heat waves that charred and cracked the ground; any remaining metal or rock melted and twisted into grotesque shapes.
Deep-blue vines were coated in thick, never-melting pale frost, exuding soul-freezing cold that turned everything—wreckage and earth alike—into a silent ice-sculpture world.
The ink-green vines were the most vicious, constantly secreting viscous, highly corrosive and neurotoxic sap that hissed on contact, rapidly dissolving and rotting anything organic or inorganic. The air reeked of dizzying sweet-rot mixed with decay.
These tricolored vines were far from inert! Like awakened giant pythons, they writhed, climbed, and coiled slowly beneath feet, overhead, and all around. Broken concrete walls, twisted vehicle skeletons, even half-buried high-rises were mercilessly wrapped and constricted. Accompanied by teeth-grinding creaks and muffled rock-cracking booms, they were crushed into rubble, becoming fertilizer for further growth. The entire land seemed to be slowly "digested" alive by these evil plants. Besides the rustling of vines and dripping sap, the air carried a low, turbid, painful throbbing pulse from deep underground—constantly eroding sanity. This was a forbidden zone for life; even the hardiest insects and birds had vanished, leaving an utterly hopeless, silent inferno.
Along the way they encountered five patrols or small village strongholds occupied by Doomsday Rebirth forces—ranging from hundreds to nearly a thousand. These units consisted mainly of vacant-eyed, stiff-moving human/beastkin cyborgs and dozens of roaring Mutants, occasionally supported by one or two lumbering Ironjaw mechs. They were clearly tasked with clearing residual resistance, keeping this death supply line "open," and guarding captive civilians.
Against these obstacles, Fa's squad showed no mercy, annihilating them with overwhelming force. Kayla's "Thunderfrost Cataclysm Beast" form and TISK's "Ice-Fire Explosive Hammer" were absolute destroyers of mechs and Mutants—each strike accompanied by deafening booms and flying enemy limbs. Zhamisi danced like death itself, her poison fields and lethal blade-light efficiently harvesting ordinary soldiers. Arya's light-arrow rain struck with precision and fatality, like judgment picking off key targets. Salsa's hawk swarm formed an invisible sky net, providing flawless high-altitude early warning and constant battlefield harassment. Lin Ya's animated thorns acted as moving cages and meat grinders, restricting movement and inflicting massive casualties. Rex's nano-swarm became a silver reaper fog, surgically eliminating commanders, comms operators, and heavy-weapon crews. Celestia, with unmatched speed and "Spear of True Sight," flashed like lightning to eliminate the greatest threats or intercept escapees. Fa served as both battlefield command hub and lethal dagger—her starry eye's foresight and instant teleportation always placing her at the decisive point for a killing blow. Yuyuer's water magic provided crucial protection, timely healing, and—after battles—assisted Lin Ya in purifying areas contaminated by poison and corrosive fluids.
After each engagement, seeing the rescued captives—ragged, eyes reigniting with faint sparks from numb despair—brought a sliver of warmth to the corners of their hearts frozen by vine inferno and endless slaughter. Lin Ya always swiftly built relatively concealed, safe underground bunkers or reinforced natural caves with plants. Yuyuer distributed their limited clean water and food. After brief instructions—"Head east or south to find Alliance forces"—they plunged back without hesitation into the boundless, writhing tricolor nightmare. The rekindled hope in those survivors' eyes became one of the few consolations and sources of perseverance for this squad walking the edge of death.