The darkest hour is always just before dawn.
In the classroom of Class 3-3, the lingering smell of gunpowder and blood in the makeshift fortress made every breath feel like swallowing razor blades.
Li Mingyu leaned against the gap, which was heavily barricaded with alloy experimental tables and piles of heavy corpses, blood seeping through the bandages on his arm again.
He listened vigilantly, the muffled thudding sounds from outside the wall seemed to thin out, and the ghouls' roars transformed from hysterical shrieks into whimpers, like beasts licking their wounds.
Suddenly,
A faint hum, barely audible yet powerful enough to stir the soul, pierced Li Mingyu’s ears. He straightened up abruptly. “Brother! Listen!”
A deathly silence instantly swallowed all groans and gasps.
Everyone held their breath, even Chen Xue’s fingers, wiping a wound, froze mid-air.
Li Zhenguo, like a wary alpha wolf, silently pressed himself against a cold crack in the window sill, one eye cautiously trying to discern the dim chaos outside.
The darkness was like thick ink, but this time, its depths were not unchanging.
A sudden red light spot, pulsing rhythmically like a ghostly heart, coldly flickered three times on top of a distant building before abruptly extinguishing.
Immediately after, there were three more short, urgent flashes. After a brief pause, a faint blue light also responded from a closer direction.
It was a signal! Not the desperate wails of the dying, but a deliberate, precise communication! His heart was suddenly clenched, then pounded wildly against his chest, the roar of immense hope almost making Li Mingyu lose his footing.
“It’s a sentinel points !” Zhao Xiaowen cried out, her voice distorted from tension, “They’re pinpointing our location! They’re clearing obstacles!”
“It’s the 77th Army’s internal identification code! The frequency matches, it’s the Razor Squad!” Wang Lei clutched his arm, wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, his voice hoarse with excitement, “Followed by the signals for Falcon and Hummingbird! They’re moving so fast!”
The dim classroom was suddenly illuminated as if by an invisible torch.
Faces etched with exhaustion, blood, and fear were instantly seized by a near-reverent ecstasy. Wu Tao was the first to cry out, desperately covering his mouth to keep the sound from being too loud.
The abyss of despair seemed to bottom out instantly, spewing forth scorching lava. Chen Xue desperately hugged Ling Chen, who was still unconscious, tears streaming down her face, dripping onto his pale cheek. “We’re saved… we’re saved…”
Ling Chen also smiled faintly.
Even the usually composed Li Zhenguo, his knuckles pressed against the edge of the crack, turned white, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
The spine he had kept tense for countless hours suddenly relaxed with a wave of aching numbness. The Boulder’s response was even faster than his most optimistic expectations!
Elite vanguard squads had already penetrated the surrounding area and were rapidly clearing obstacles to establish forward outposts! Their position signals were now like lighthouses in the dark ocean!
“Communicator! Open a short-range encrypted channel!” His command was resolute, filled with barely suppressed excitement.
Zhou Xiaoyu stumbled towards the communications soldier, Zhao Hai.
The man who had been huddled in the corner protecting the heavy radio was now fumbling, his trembling fingers almost unable to unfasten the radio’s clips.
The crackling static instantly filled the small space, followed by a slightly hoarse but remarkably steady young male voice amidst the interference:
“Nightingale, Nightingale, this is Razor Team One. Iris position confirmed, repeating position. Coordinates locked. Obstacle clearing in progress. Estimated fifty minutes to contact point. Hold on. Over.”
“Repeat! Coordinates locked! Obstacle clearing in progress! Estimated fifty minutes to contact!” Zhao Hai practically roared the repetition, the dust on his face cleared by joyful tears, leaving two comical streaks.
A tremendous surge of power instantly swept through the entire makeshift fortress.
The female students cried and hugged each other, while the male students punched each other’s chests, their eyes gleaming with a wolf-like ferocity.
Sun Qiang’s metallic fist slammed heavily against a nearby exposed, twisted rebar, producing a dull metallic clang. A way out was ahead! Fifty minutes!
As long as they could endure this final, deepest darkness before dawn!
“Everyone!” Li Zhenguo’s voice suddenly rose, carrying a sense of strength born from desperation, instantly quelling the surging emotions.
“Fortify! Fortify! Turn this place into an iron lump! Don’t let those bastards outside take another step in!”
Hope ignited their last reserves of adrenaline. Heavy tables were overturned and stacked on top of the barricade blocking the door.
The few remaining precast panels were forcibly lifted and jammed into the broken windows.
Li Mingyu roared, picking up a half-human-height metal filing cabinet, the subtle glow of his Buli (Brute Force) ability flashing across his body for a fleeting moment. He no longer cared about the backlash from overusing his ability; the heavy cabinet was slammed like a boulder against the inner side of the reinforced wall.
The sounds of hammering, welding, and hoarse shouted commands intertwined, drowning out the wails of the ghouls roaming outside the window.
No one noticed.
No one noticed the dim corner in the deepest part of the classroom, which had been deliberately cleared out.
No one noticed the young man half-lying in that corner.
Ling Chen was as quiet as if he were just a meticulously disguised wax figure.
Beneath the blood-stained fringe of hair on his forehead, within the abyss hidden by his closed eyelids, cold thoughts silently surged.
The sharp signal lights burned clear marks on the dark canvas of his mind.
Frequency, position, advance speed… Razor, Falcon, Hummingbird… A complete tactical support network instantly unfolded in his consciousness, detailed down to each squad’s possible breakthrough direction, reaction time upon encountering the first layer of resistance, and preferred choices when restricted by terrain.
‘Fifty minutes… faster than expected… a sharp vanguard…’
The Boulder’s reaction speed exceeded his previous estimates, though not by much.
Of course, he wouldn’t let the people from The Boulder take them away so easily. One important reason was that he didn't have a reliable second-in-command at Linghui Academy yet.
Previously, his attempt to enslave Zheng Xiyun was actually to have her take over Linghui Academy and become the ostensible boss.
This way, whether it was attracting firepower or performing high-intelligence coordination and operations, it wouldn't arouse suspicion, making it incredibly convenient.
More importantly, Ling Chen had a larger scheme: he wanted to turn the entire Linghui Academy into a breeding ground, a place where he could evolve rapidly.
Strength, of course, was always better the stronger it was. Since there was an opportunity to fight others at the same rank, why suppress one's cultivation to engage in an over-rank battle?
Wouldn't that be foolish, unnecessarily increasing one's failure and death rates?
However, reality was harsh; Zheng Xiyun had not been enslaved by him, and nothing had progressed yet. Naturally, he couldn't leave here, and at the same time, he had to keep the military option open.
So…
A faint wisp of thought subtly seeped from deep within his glabella, like the finest spider silk, disregarding physical obstructions.
It expertly bypassed the physical barriers hastily constructed by the people in the classroom, skirted the scattered ghouls outside, whose rhythm was temporarily disrupted by the signal lights, and like a cold undercurrent, precisely threaded through the cracks in brick walls, the bends of ventilation ducts, and the cobweb-dusted darkness of stairwells, spreading towards the blood-moon-soaked, gloomy corners of Linghui Academy.
200 meters. This was the maximum length his mental power could extend, thanks to the Soul Jade and the mental application techniques he learned in his past life.
Classroom of Class 3-2.
The darkness was still too thick to dissipate. Desks were overturned and scattered, and solidified blood pools resembled ugly, dark red moss. Only the wailing of the wind through broken windows and the rustling of some small creature gnawing on bones were clearly audible.
A broken human leg bone, stained with dark red tissue fluid, leaned against the fallen door panel. A “thing” wearing a tattered school uniform, with half its skull caved in, was futilely gnawing on the already congealed and hardened bits of flesh on the door panel.
Suddenly, its decaying, hunched body stiffened abruptly.
A point of bottomless blood-red light instantly ignited in its previously dim bloodshot eyes, then abruptly extinguished. It stopped its meaningless gnawing.
Viscous tissue fluid slowly seeped from the torn opening in its abdomen, dripping onto the cold floor.
Inside its body, some dead, decaying flesh, bound by residual nerve bundles, twitched very suddenly and faintly.
Then, with an extremely awkward posture, it wobbled to its feet. No longer aimless, no longer lured by the faint scent of blood lingering in the air.
It stiffly turned its remaining half-skull, and its decaying lips seemed to pull upwards with extreme difficulty… just a little.
200 meters wasn’t actually a long distance, but for Ling Chen, it was enough to set a trap!