"The environment in Bandzhen is extremely dangerous right now, everyone must wear radiation-resistant suits!"
At the Countermeasures Research Office base, Zhang Minglu distributed suits to everyone one by one, hesitating slightly when he reached the last person.
"Dean Shi, I think maybe you should stay..."
The last person was none other than Shi Jingyi.
After Guan Tong teleported away via Body Swap, she saw the message Silver Fox sent, and immediately called back, insisting on going to Sakura Prayer Country together.
From her, the Countermeasures Research Office learned that Guan Tong wasn't in Bandzhen when the nuclear explosion occurred. This undoubtedly relieved those in the base who cared about him.
But at the same time, everyone knew clearly that this war was far from over. Precisely because Guan Tong wasn't dead, this nuclear explosion could only be the beginning of the war.
Now that Shi Jingyi wanted to join the official Action Team heading to Bandzhen, the Countermeasures Research Office initially refused.
After all, Bandzhen hadn't been declared safe yet. According to satellite imagery captured earlier, Suroma had deployed a massive combined force this time—Ascendants, robot soldiers, and war mechs numbering in the tens of thousands.
If something happened to Shi Jingyi, public opinion in Beixing Country would explode. From Gao Liangwei all the way down to Zhang Minglu, no one wanted her to go.
But she insisted.
"I must go." She said to Zhang Minglu, her expression both serious and tinged with worry.
"If Little Tong..."
She stopped herself, not finishing the sentence.
She was thinking that if Guan Tong lost emotional control, the situation would become extremely dangerous, and she had to be by his side at the first moment.
This premonition was troubling, because she had just tried to contact Guan Tong through the Mind Network, and he hadn't responded at all. She didn't know what was going on.
Zhang Minglu said no more and handed the radiation-resistant gear to Shi Jingyi, but she shook her head and said, "I don't need it."
"This... alright."
He looked at Silver Fox, who was leading this operation, and said to her, "Remember, the mission isn't to get tangled up with the Suroma military—it's to get Guan Tong out of there as quickly as possible!"
The die was cast. After a large-scale nuclear explosion, there was almost no point in humanitarian rescue efforts in Bandzhen anymore.
The Countermeasures Research Office dispatched a mobile team with the purpose of assisting Guan Tong—they couldn't let him die, and they certainly couldn't let him be captured alive.
Zhang Minglu and the others knew very well that ever since Suroma successfully implemented memory transfer technology, their demand for high-value host bodies would only grow larger.
A young body like Guan Tong's—with top-tier abilities, combat power, and barely twenty years old—how many people would be salivating over it?
If the Suroma army actually captured Guan Tong, it wasn't out of the question that even Bruce himself might want to transfer his memories into him.
"I understand, Doctor." Silver Fox knew how serious this situation was and didn't waste any more time. She immediately activated the collective teleportation item.
A flash of teleportation light rose, enveloping everyone participating in this operation.
Aside from Silver Fox leading the team, there were also Zhao Ming, Bai Xuewu, Yang Ran, and Shi Jingyi—four others.
Zhang Minglu originally wanted Chen Na to go along as well; her abilities were crucial for locating Guan Tong. But Gao Liangwei vetoed it.
With a flicker of light, five figures vanished without a trace.
Zhang Minglu stood in place, pondering silently for a moment.
At present, aside from this small team dedicated to assisting Guan Tong and helping him withdraw, the Beixing military was also responding rapidly.
Sakura Prayer Country bordered Beixing, and Suroma had brazenly deployed tens of thousands of troops to a place one step away from Beixing's territory—this in itself was an extremely dangerous act.
Moreover, Suroma used extremely cruel, inhumane methods to destroy an entire city, resulting in the tragic deaths of civilians numbering in the six figures. This undoubtedly enraged the Beixing higher-ups completely.
Even if Suroma's government had previously made noise about attacking Sakura Prayer Country and starting a war, war was never an excuse for wanton, limitless slaughter of civilians.
Beixing's core decision-making body acted decisively, authorizing Gao Liangwei temporary combat command authority.
He was now stationed at the base, directing remotely. On the front lines, Colonel Dragon Soul led troops rushing to the border, heading straight for Antu City.
More precisely, straight for the Antu rainforest.
After the nuclear explosion and the appearance of war mechs in Sakura Prayer Country, Beixing also deduced that Suroma had secretly constructed a massive teleportation gate within Sakura Prayer's territory.
To pull off such a hidden operation, the location could only be that rainforest.
Gao Liangwei's battle plan was: ignore the tens of thousands of troops in Bandzhen for now, have Dragon Soul lead forces straight into the rainforest, quickly locate and forcibly seize control of that massive teleportation gate.
Wars are won by logistics, by escape routes. If they lost control of the teleportation gate, the tens of thousands of Suroma troops deployed in Bandzhen would lose their retreat, like turtles in a jar.
Meanwhile, inside Suroma's combat command center, Bruce and the others stood staring at a screen full of static, falling into silence.
The Shadow Domain Guan Tong had unleashed expanded at breakneck speed in just a few breaths, enveloping the entire battlefield and completely cutting off the remote live stream signal.
"How could he... be completely unharmed?" Someone couldn't help breaking the silence, their tone laced with despair. "That was a large-yield nuke that destroyed an entire city!"
If even an explosion of that magnitude couldn't hurt Guan Tong, then it was impossible to imagine how they could ever deal with him.
"No, impossible." Dr. Heisen shook his head repeatedly. "I refuse to believe anyone could withstand a large-yield nuclear blast while completely unprotected—not even Awakened Ones!"
"But the Shadow—"
"Eliminate the impossible, and only one reason remains!" Dr. Heisen insisted. "He wasn't in Bandzhen at the time!"
"Not in Bandzhen?"
Everyone in the room except Bruce looked stunned.
Bruce nodded. "Correct."
"Your Majesty also believes this?"
"Mm." Bruce sat back down in his chair, fingers tracing over his scepter as he spoke slowly.
"If he had been in Bandzhen and survived the nuclear blast unscathed, with his speed, he wouldn't have taken this long to reach the battlefield, leaving Uenoshi to fight alone for so long."
The others suddenly understood.
Indeed, if Guan Tong had been in Bandzhen, he should have arrived at the battlefield together with Uenoshi, or even faster.
"What a waste!"
Their gazes drifted toward the newly appointed Minister of Intelligence, as if blaming him for being too slow to confirm Guan Tong's location.
The new Minister of Intelligence looked aggrieved as well.
First of all, he'd only been in the position for a few days. Secondly, according to intelligence, Guan Tong had been in Bandzhen recently. Who would have thought that on this very day of Suroma's operation, he happened to be elsewhere?
And tracking Guan Tong's movements in real time was simply unrealistic. If it weren't for the Serpent Hair Society—an organization with some connection to Guan Tong—serving as a reference point, his whereabouts would be nearly impossible to trace.
"Your Majesty, what do we do now? His Shadow Domain seems capable of blocking communication signals. We can't reach the scene at all, and we don't know what's happening."
"We can contact them through the Mind Network." Heisen looked at Bruce. "Your Majesty should have established a connection with the commanders of the Ascendants on the scene, correct?"
Bruce was silent, neither confirming nor denying.
The others exchanged glances, knowing Heisen was probably right.
Since Bruce had complete control over those modified Ascendants, he would naturally establish Mind Network connections with their leaders, making it easier to issue commands covertly.
Even though this connection was two-way, clearly no Ascendant would dare initiate contact with Bruce through that channel on a whim.
Therefore, this two-way channel was, in essence, still a one-way, unmonitored command channel for Bruce.
After a brief moment of silence, Bruce spoke: "I can no longer reach them."
Even the Mind Network couldn't reach them?
Heisen froze. If an Ascendant couldn't hear the Mind Network's voice while fully conscious, that could only mean...
Darkness. Complete darkness bred complete terror.
When trapped within the Shadow Domain's dark world, the thousands of Suroma Ascendants on the scene all felt a tremor from the depths of their souls, as if they could smell death rapidly closing in.
"Everyone, don't panic! Maintain formation! Activate the night vision function on your goggles!"
The on-site commander's shout rang out. Before the operation, everyone had prepared contingency plans for potentially encountering and fighting Guan Tong.
They all knew that when Guan Tong unleashed his Shadow Domain, the more you panicked, the faster you died. To survive, you had to secure your visual conditions first.
Every modified Ascendant was equipped with a multifunctional electronic goggle covering nearly half their face, which naturally included the essential night vision function for seeing in dark environments.
Hearing the commander's voice, many Ascendants snapped out of it and hastily activated the function, their vision instantly becoming clear.
They then discovered that the entire Shadow Domain stretched endlessly. Even the robot soldiers and ultra-large war mechs scattered throughout were all enveloped within the Shadow Domain—its scale was almost unimaginable.
"Look, up there!"
Someone spotted Guan Tong's position, and the others looked up.
At the very top of the domain, Guan Tong hovered in midair with three pairs of shadow wings spread behind him, looking down upon the battlefield below.
"Attack!"
Autocannon rounds, homing missiles, Mind Power items... all sorts of varied attacks came surging up at Guan Tong from below.
But before they could even reach him, they were blocked by layers of shadow walls, completely unable to break through.
"Keep attacking, don't stop!" The commander shouted. "Think about those scales on that snake woman earlier—if he takes enough hits, he'll break through too!"
Everyone felt somewhat encouraged, thinking that made sense.
But those who saw Guan Tong's face through their goggles' zoom function felt a chill run down their spines.
He wasn't wrapping his entire body in shadows for absolute defense like the intelligence reports mentioned.
At this moment, Guan Tong's Shadow Armor only covered up to his neck, his face completely exposed, and those clear black-and-white eyes had abruptly turned blood-red.
"AAAAAHHHH!!!"
The Ascendants who saw his red eyes through their electronic goggles instantly fell into a frenzied state of extreme terror, letting out heart-rending screams.
The Ascendants around them were startled out of their wits, but the commander reacted immediately: "It's Scarlet Fear! Don't look at his eyes!!!"
The other Ascendants' hearts pounded with terror as they averted their gazes. Some only dared to stare at Guan Tong's feet, others half-closed their eyes and attacked blindly in his general direction.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh!"
"Boom boom boom boom!"
Suicide drones launched by robot soldiers and high-explosive missiles fired from war mechs bombarded Guan Tong in an unending stream.
They wanted to blast him out of the sky, but he didn't even dodge, letting the shadows form a defensive barrier the entire time.
"Keep attacking! He can't hold out much longer!"
The commander shouted at the top of his lungs, but inwardly he was confused as to why Guan Tong wasn't using shadow attacks.
According to Suroma's intelligence database, Guan Tong's favorite attack method was manipulating shadows to pierce enemies, or drilling into their bodies to destroy them from within.
To counter this technique, Suroma had gone through extensive trial and error to produce a small-scale mass-producible anti-infiltration armor.
Every ultra-large war mech and every modified Ascendant in the force sent to Bandzhen was equipped with a set, except for the cheap robot soldiers.
But Guan Tong wasn't using that attack method at all right now, which deeply puzzled the commander.
If he was only using Scarlet Fear's power, that would actually be a good thing.
The commander thought to himself—as long as they avoided those eyes, they'd be fi—
Before he could finish the thought in his head, an Ascendant serving as a guard beside him suddenly screamed in agony.
He whipped his head around and saw that guard clawing at his own face, eyeballs bulging, that utterly terrified expression undoubtedly the effect of Scarlet Fear's power.
How is this possible?!
The commander knew this guard well. The man was cautious and obedient, and would never have looked at Guan Tong's eyes. So how could he...
In that instant, the commander caught a glimpse of blood-red in his peripheral vision. His heart nearly stopped, and he hastily looked away.
How? That red light was Guan Tong's eyes? No, why was the light coming from below?
Guan Tong was clearly hovering high in the sky—why was that distinctive red of Scarlet Fear appearing down below?
"AAAAHHH!"
"Stay away from me!!!"
"I can't take it! Kill me!!!"
Screams began erupting all around, one after another without end, as if all the Ascendants had been dragged into that world of fear, unable to escape.
"What the hell is going on?! Can anyone answer me!"
The commander didn't know where the Scarlet Eyes were, didn't dare look around randomly, and shouted with his eyes shut.
But all that answered him were screams—more and more screams.
"He-help me—"
In the chaos, someone grabbed the commander's arm. He instinctively opened his eyes to look, and instantly his entire body froze, struck dumb with disbelief.
In that moment, he saw the entire Shadow Domain covered in densely packed eyes.
Blood-red eyes.
Above, on both sides, beneath his feet... these eyes were everywhere, nearly filling the entire Shadow Domain, staring at every Ascendant trapped within with undisguised malice.
The scene was like a painting from hell. The commander fell into a daze for a moment, unable to tell whether he was still in the real world.
In the last moment before his mind was forcibly dragged into the world of fear, he looked up at Guan Tong.
He saw the latter's left eye closed, right eye open, his expression filled with bone-deep hatred.
In that instant, he understood everything.
Why Guan Tong didn't use shadow piercing or infiltration attacks—because those who died that way died too easily, without much suffering.
What Guan Tong wanted was for every single person, every Suroma Ascendant on the scene, to die in extreme terror and extreme agony.
And to accomplish that, he had somehow projected Scarlet Fear's power across the entire Shadow Domain, filling it with Scarlet Eyes.
This way, no matter where anyone in the Shadow Domain looked, they couldn't avoid those blood-red eyes. Even with their own eyes tightly shut, the shadows would forcibly pry them open and compel them to look.
But by the time the commander realized all this, there was nothing he could do. His mental resistance item only bought him an extra two or three seconds.
Then, like everyone else, his mind was forcibly dragged into the crucible space, contributing one more voice to the symphony of lamentation across the entire field.