Chapter 130

Chapter 130

On the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, at six in the morning, the guard troops, reserve forces, and volunteer army outside the Southeast Base began a full-scale defense of the third layer of the protective shield.

Marshal Lin Lie continued to oversee the external battlefield, prepared to respond to any sudden emergencies.

Deputy Marshal Sun Dagui handled the S-class beasts lurking beneath the protective shield while retaining enough mental strength to release the S-class protective shell to shield the civilians in the three inner rings of the base if the wall was breached.

Eight generals, including Fu Sui and Meng Li, along with the Lin Family’s A+ class Phoenix aerial defenders, were stationed outside the third layer of the protective shield. They focused on eliminating flying beasts and winged mutated insects to clear the airspace before unleashing large-scale attacks on the ground beast tide. Their goal was to carve out an isolation zone between the beast tide and the shield to ease the army’s pressure.

The old marshal, Lin Kunshan, no longer participated in the fighting. He released his S-class Phoenix spiritual entity to carry S-class Healer Lv Chun, who flew around the rear medical points. Lv Chun used her large-scale healing ability to treat any injuries that the C-class healers couldn’t manage.

Lin Kunshan’s S-class Phoenix spiritual entity was both powerful and battle-experienced, maximally protecting Lv Chun’s safety. With Lv Chun taking on the primary medical duties at the medical points, all the A-class and B-class healers, including Xu Qiao, went to the frontlines, striving to save more critically injured soldiers from the mutated beasts.

Xu Qiao and the lotus were responsible for rescuing the injured in two adjacent battle zones. Within this range, even if Xu Qiao and the lotus moved to the edges of their respective zones, the lotus would not be forced back into Xu Qiao’s body.

Xu Qiao activated her battle armor to rescue patients from the mutated beasts. The lotus, seated in a large blue vat, sent its clones toward injured soldiers. Its leaves used water-based abilities to kill the mutated beasts, while its petals provided life-saving treatment to the wounded, all while defending them. The treatment continued until the logistics soldiers transported the injured to the medical points.

Healing consumed a tremendous amount of mental energy. When her mental strength dropped to 30%, Xu Qiao swallowed an A-class wood-attribute crystal core.

During the brief gap between finding the next injured soldier, she looked at the lotus in the neighboring battle zone. The lotus’s clones rescued patients quickly but stayed in one position for a short time, making it difficult for its fragrance to hypnotize the mutated beasts.

Xu Qiao then observed the psychic fighters in both battle zones. She was constantly healing, rapidly depleting her mental strength, and the combat psychic fighters were in the same situation. Even the C-class soldiers operating heavy machine guns were experiencing stiff, numb arms and desperately needed rest.

However, the constant stream of mutated beasts gave humans no respite.

The loss of physical strength and mental exhaustion were beyond willpower’s control. After two days and nights, almost everyone had participated in a dozen high-pressure battles, and even the strongest willpower was about to give in. In this situation, despite the entire army fighting, the third layer of the protective shield held for four hours before being breached, while the second layer only lasted two hours.

At noon, the first layer of the protective shield was forced to open.

This was the last layer of the protective shield set up for the beast tide defense. Once this layer was breached, only the base’s permanently active 'Zero' protective shield and a 50-meter-high wall would stand between the beast tide and the millions of humans in the Southeast Base.

During the last beast tide, the wall was breached, and the beast tide broke through the army’s defense into the base, flattening the military camps in the fifth ring and trampling large areas of farming and breeding zones in the fourth ring, destroying numerous factories. It was only in the final moments that Sun Dagui’s S-class protective shell blocked the lower-level mutated beasts outside until the beast tide ended, with the remaining army using weapons and psychic abilities to scare them away.

Inside the first layer of the protective shield, Xu Qiao didn’t know how others were holding up, but she was reaching her limit.

She swallowed another A-class wood-attribute crystal core, retracted her spiritual entity, and looked outside the shield again.

Sun Xuan was right. With her current abilities, the lotus’s fragrance could only hypnotize a limited range of mutated beasts, but even if it was limited, it could at least buy a moment of rest for the small group of soldiers around her.

If she didn’t try, everyone would be too exhausted to fight. If she tried, even if she only gained five or ten minutes, it would be better than futile resistance and sacrifice.

“Go.”

Xu Qiao looked at the shields of the two battle zones and mentally communicated with the lotus still present in her mind.

Her lotus might be vain, but it always gave its all in every battle. It might be afraid but never retreated.

Amidst the dense mutated beasts outside the protective shield, an arc-shaped water area appeared, tightly hugging the outer perimeter of the shield. It was four kilometers long and half a kilometer wide.

In the deep winter, the water surface of the lotus pond was covered with green round lotus leaves, and clusters of ninety-nine-petaled lotus flowers bloomed quietly, presenting an otherworldly independence that contrasted with the battlefield.

But the beautiful appearance of the flowers was just a facade. Below the surface, wherever the mutated beasts crowded, the water had turned into A+ class ice, silently reaping their lives.

Above the water, the continuous fragrance caused large mutated beasts preparing to devour human spiritual entities to fall into a deep sleep, collapsing into the water to become new ice sculptures.

The lotus pond was five meters deep, completely existing above the ground, actively condensed by the lotus spiritual entity.

Sun Xuan, having seen the large blue vat many times, decisively intervened, moving the soil layer beneath the lotus pond and using his psychic abilities to dig a proper lotus pond for the lotus.

Having a bank to block the overflow of water, the lotus flower conserved a portion of its mental energy and no longer had the capacity to continue attacking with its water abilities. It simply existed as an ordinary lotus, growing in the water, letting its fragrance permeate the air.

The beasts that rushed up from behind fell into a deep sleep at the edges of the lotus pond. A large number of beasts in front were already asleep, but those behind, unaware of the situation, continued to surge forward, only to stack on top of the sleeping beasts in front and fall into slumber themselves.

Inside the protective shield, the soldiers who suddenly no longer needed to face the beast tide within a four-kilometer range were stunned. The C-grade soldiers holding machine guns looked around blankly at the vast expanse of lotus flowers, while the B-grade and A-grade soldiers, whether standing on the ground or hovering with their battle armor, also forgot to act.

Marshal Lin Lie, noticing this scene, immediately sent the battlefield situation in the lotus pond area to various battlefields via a light screen: "The fragrances of spiritual beings such as lotus, side-leaf cedar, mimosa, bamboo, and polygala can calm the mind and have a hypnotic effect on low-level mutated beasts. Treatment specialists with such spiritual beings, please follow Xu Qiao's example and help buy some rest time for the frontline fighters! All units, pay attention to protecting the safety of the treatment specialists!"

The images on the light screen were enough to convey everything to the soldiers. Treatment specialists with such spiritual beings, regardless of their grade, proactively identified themselves across different units.

Treatment specialists, especially those with such spiritual beings, were already a rare minority among psychics. The hypnotic defense line they formed covered only half of the third layer of the protective shield.

This was already a heaven-sent assistance. Lin Lie promptly dispatched psychics who still had energy to defend the other half of the shield still under attack by the beast tide, while allowing exhausted psychics to rest behind the lines near Xu Qiao and other treatment specialists.

When the treatment specialists could no longer hold on, these warriors, having rested just enough, could re-enter the battle to buy time for the treatment specialists to rest.

Xu Qiao held on until the lotus leaves turned transparent white and then fell into a coma.

When she regained consciousness, she felt herself swaying. Opening her eyes, she found herself lying on a stretcher on the ground, with the beast tide surging forward like a tidal wave. Rows of battle armor-clad psychic soldiers stood within a protective shield, ready to face the beasts charging in.

Xu Qiao noticed a soldier with a missing left arm, and many spiritual beings flying at low altitude had faded colors.

Raising her gaze further, Xu Qiao saw a familiar fire scorpion. Its once deep red shell was now a dull pink.

Something trickled down the corner of her eye and eventually disappeared into her sweat-drenched hair, which had been soaked countless times.

Ahead stood a tall figure in battle armor, broad-shouldered, using earth abilities to attack the beast tide outside the protective shield.

It was Sun Xuan, who hadn't noticed that Xu Qiao had woken up yet.

Her lips were dry and cracked, and her throat couldn't make a sound. Xu Qiao slowly turned her head to look behind her, seeing a tall wall.

Looking at her wristband, she realized it was only 4 PM. Were they already defending the base with only the last remaining 'Zero' shield?

There were still four hours until the beast tide ended, which would be the most intense and exhausting period for human psychics. Four hours would definitely not be enough.

If only the lotus pond could have been just a little bigger...

Xu Qiao thought blankly, as she often did during the time after her grandfather's passing. She would often daydream, imagining that when she opened the door to her house, she would hear her grandfather's voice from the kitchen saying loudly, "Jojo, you're back! We'll be ready to eat in just a moment. Why don't you watch some TV in the meantime!"

Lying flat on the stretcher, staring blankly at the sky, Xu Qiao suddenly sensed her spiritual being fading away.

Instinctively, she looked towards the outside of the protective shield.

Amidst the dense, gray-black mass of the beast tide, a patch of vibrant green reappeared, with white and pink lotus flowers peeking out from the green.

Without examining the flowers closely, Xu Qiao stood up, her gaze following the rapidly expanding edge of the lotus pond.

But the lotus pond expanded too quickly, and Xu Qiao had to activate her battle armor to chase after it. As she did, Sun Xuan suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the top of the protective shield.

From this vantage point, psychics could overlook the entire Southeast Base.

Thus, Xu Qiao saw the lotus pond encircling the Southeast Base, spreading out as far as five kilometers.

Below the water's surface, all beasts below S-level were frozen. Outside the lotus pond, the beast tide rushing in from all directions fell into a deep sleep.

There were still flying beasts in the sky, but before the senior generals could intervene, a flurry of 'snowflakes' began to fall from the sky.

Meng Li reached out, and a delicate lotus petal, pure white with a soft pink tip, gently settled in her palm.

The faint fragrance enveloped her as the petal surrounded her.

A moment later, the petal gently rubbed against her palm, and a familiar message in flowing script appeared before her: "Go rest for a while. When I'm tired, you take over."

The airspace within a five-kilometer radius became a sea of flowers, and wherever the lotus flower fell, the flying beasts fell asleep and plummeted to the ground.

The fragrance of the flowers wafted through the protective shield, causing the exhausted psychics to drift off to sleep, while those with remaining energy felt revitalized.

Marshal Lin Lie acted quickly, calling on all psychics ranked C and above to come out and prepare for battle, protecting the sleeping front-line troops, while ordering the engineers to deploy protective shield devices in the area covered by the lotus pond.

The ten-mile lotus pond was enough to restart five layers of protective shields!