Chapter 172: Braving a Desperate Situation Alone

Chapter 172: Braving a Desperate Situation Alone



When Morrison lifted the last injured person onto the stretcher, his comm device buzzed again.

Isaac spoke rapidly, like someone reading out a will.

"Where's the Chief?"

"Fourth floor, with Jenny." Morrison wiped the blood on his hands against his pants and asked, "What's wrong?"

The energy readings under the Arctic ice cap had tripled in the last six minutes. At this rate, within seventy-two hours, the biofield it generated would blanket all water sources across the Northern Hemisphere.

Morrison's hand froze mid-wipe. He didn't move.

"The three-month grace period is over. Because Eclipse Sanctum's people were killed, Eclipse Sanctum has begun operations ahead of schedule," Isaac said.

In the fourth-floor hospital room, Jenny slept soundly in Wayne's arms while Emily peeled an apple nearby.

Morrison didn't ring the bell when he opened the door, so Wayne knew something was wrong.

"Talk."

Morrison repeated what he'd heard through the comm. After listening, Wayne laid Jenny on the bed and tucked her in. "Seventy-two hours."

"Yes."

Wayne stood and walked to the window, picking up the comm device from the sill. He pressed Isaac's channel.

"Can our network pinpoint Eclipse Sanctum's location?"

"Already confirmed—87 degrees north latitude, 14 degrees west longitude, 3,200 meters below the ice. But there's a problem."

"No long-range weapon can penetrate it. After the biofield reinforced the ice layer, its density is forty times that of normal glaciers."

After Wayne shut off the comm, he said something to Morrison.

"Prep the plane."

Morrison hesitated for two seconds before asking, "You're going yourself?"

"A long-range strike won't take it down. The only way is to destroy it from the inside."

Emily set down the paring knife and stood. "Wayne."

Wayne didn't turn around. If its range expanded within three days, the genetic lock affecting Jenny would resonate with it.

Emily said nothing more. She understood the consequences.

"Morrison, notify Rivera. After I leave, this place goes into maximum security. No one leaves their post without authorization."

Morrison left three times faster than he'd entered.

Wayne crouched by Jenny's bed, pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, and left the room.

After six hours of maintenance checks, Wayne arrived at Military District Hangar Three.

This stealth fighter was the highest-grade human-machine integrated combat system Griffin had designed for Predator's Talon. Only one existed in the entire world.

Before Wayne boarded, Isaac transmitted the final batch of data via the plane's radio.

"Eclipse Sanctum is surrounded by a living defense perimeter with a fifteen-kilometer radius. Any man-made object within that range will be destroyed by the biofield."

"Breach method?"

"The aircraft exterior has been coated with anti-resonance material. It can withstand six seconds of pressure."

"Six seconds is enough."

After Wayne sealed the cockpit, Predator's Talon shot down the runway at maximum speed, then immediately pulled up, soaring into the night sky.

Morrison stood at the end of the runway, phone pressed to his ear, not lowering it.

Rivera walked over. "He went alone?"

"He always goes alone."

Rivera was silent for a moment before speaking again.

"There's only one person up in the Arctic, and he's just going to take them out by himself?"

Morrison didn't answer.

The plane crossed the Pacific at six times the speed of sound, entering the Arctic Circle forty-seven minutes after takeoff.

When the aircraft reached 80 degrees north latitude, the onboard radar experienced massive interference, and the data displayed on the screens grew increasingly chaotic.

Isaac's voice through the comm cut in and out.

"Signal degradation is severe. Three hundred kilometers further and we'll lose contact completely."

"Save my position data," Wayne said.

"Already logged—84 degrees 27 minutes north latitude. If there's no response within twelve hours..."

"Then don't wait."

Communication cut out.

Nine minutes into the solo flight, Wayne noticed changes in the ice surface.

The ice wasn't pure white. Beneath it glowed a gray-blue luminescence that stretched as far as the eye could see.

All onboard sensors had failed. External temperature: negative seventy-three degrees Celsius.

But the aircraft's surface temperature was rising. The anti-resonance coating began to evaporate.

Wayne pushed the throttle to maximum.

The fighter shuddered—not from turbulence, but from the metal at the wing's leading edge deforming. The coating was gone.

The biofield acted directly on the airframe, breaking it down from the outside in, section by section.

Wayne pulled the ejection handle.

Since the explosive propellant in the ejection system had decomposed into powder, the seat couldn't eject.

He braced his feet against the instrument panel and grabbed the emergency release handle on the canopy.

The moment he pulled it, the metal handle went soft.

The canopy flew off. Wayne jumped from three hundred meters up.

The plane disintegrated into fragments mid-air but didn't explode.

The fuel lines had completely vaporized before contacting the air.

The entire aircraft turned to gray-white powder, drifting through the sky.

Wayne hit the ice, cracking it twelve inches deep. Both legs absorbed the full impact, and his right knee joint made a sharp crack.

When he stood, he pushed the kneecap back into place with his fingers. The bone reset with a crisp sound.

The surroundings were utterly silent—no sound, not even wind. Then the ice began to tremble.

Not from a distance, but from below, from all sides at once.

Cracks appeared across the ice. Something was crawling out of each one.

Gray-white skin stretched over muscles harder than steel. No hair. Eyes and mouths fused together, as if welded shut.

The first one burst out ten feet in front of Wayne. The second emerged fifteen feet to his right. The third came from behind.

Four, five, ten, fifty.

After the ice split open, countless gray-white corpses appeared.

Wayne stood still and started counting for three seconds before giving up. There were too many.

Isaac had mentioned data covering three football fields' worth of space, but the number of entities far exceeded Wayne's estimate.

The nearest evolved being began moving. Its speed matched the first-floor Adjudicator's—reaching attack range in two-tenths of a second.

Wayne sidestepped. His right hand passed between its neck and skull, then—just like at the hospital—he pulled out the spine.

The evolved being fell.

But the second was already coming. Then the third, the fourth.

Wayne threw the spine like a weapon. Its sharp end pierced through the second evolved being's body and penetrated its skull.

He shattered the third one's chest with his knee. The fourth, he twisted its neck and hurled it thirty feet away.

Four corpses hit the ground in succession. The entire sequence took exactly one-point-seven seconds.