novelraw Chapter 159: White Hell
Chapter 159: White Hell
An avalanche colliding with a petrification flow dragged the world into chaos, a scene of composite destruction surpassing any known human disaster.
The violent tremors made the earth shake wildly, like the deck of a ship in a storm.
Even a warrior with excellent balance like William could only half-kneel on the ground, using his rifle to support his body and avoid being thrown over.
More deadly was the dense fog that instantly swallowed everything, a mixture of high-density ice crystals and rock dust.
This was no ordinary mist. It was icy and choking, containing hard particles that could cut the retina, and even carried the spiritual reverberation of the Petrification Worm, forming an "information black zone" that conventional means could not penetrate.
Visibility was compressed to less than a meter, reaching out a hand and not seeing one's own fingers.
In this white hell that isolated vision, hearing, and sense of direction, the tactical chain built by the team members through eye contact and hand signals was severed.
Each person became an isolated island, surrounded by chaos and the unknown.
"Everyone, report your positions! Keep the comms open!"
Klaus's roar was muffled and distant in the thick fog. His newly freed arm was bleeding profusely, but he still struggled to try and rebuild a command system amidst the chaos."Julian! I'm okay! But my vision is completely obscured!"
"William... situation is bad, [Zulu's Gaze] is offline!"
William's voice carried a note of urgency.
The world before his eyes was no longer the spiritual dimension, but a screen of snow-like static noise disrupted by violent, chaotic spiritual energy.
The injured Petrification Worm, like a giant shark diving into the deep sea, had vanished from his radar.
Lin Jie's brows furrowed tightly. This was the worst-case scenario.
They had not only lost track of the UMA, but also lost each other.
In this impenetrable, sightless fog, they could be fatally ambushed from any angle at any moment, or accidentally injure a teammate in the confusion.
The team was being split apart, consumed by this chaos.
Just as this despair, capable of breaking an elite squad, was about to spread.
A calm, crisp female voice, like a lighthouse beam piercing through the chaos, reached everyone's ears.
"Everyone, stay where you are. Use me as the coordinate origin point and recalibrate your orientation." Gretchen spoke.
In this battle of mysticism and primal violence, this German female technical expert projected the rigorous light of reason represented by the emerging sciences of the late 19th century onto the battlefield.
"My visual system is also obscured. The [Hertz Resonator] is also unable to lock onto life signals due to excessive spiritual interference."
Her speech was steady and rapid, like reading an experiment report.
"But the 'Seismic Stress Wave Spectrum Sensor' built into the environmental monitoring mainframe I carry, the latest development from the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences, is unaffected."
"What is that thing?"
Julian couldn't help but ask.
"A precise pressure gauge," Gretchen explained in plain language. "It can capture the weak, specific-frequency stress vibrations produced in the earth's crust rock layers by moving objects. I just... successfully locked onto the worm's 'vibration fingerprint'."
For a moment, Lin Jie felt his scalp tingle.
He understood why the Munich Branch was called the "fortress".
Because they not only had powerful warriors, but also geniuses like Gretchen who could translate cutting-edge scientific theory into battlefield advantage.
"Listen to my instructions."
Gretchen's voice became the only order within the chaos.
"Starting now, real-time broadcast of the target's three-dimensional coordinates. Margin of error, plus or minus half a meter."
"The target is currently moving at high speed towards your eleven o'clock direction, horizontal distance thirty-two meters, seven meters underground... Its speed is fast, rock offers no obstruction before it..."
"It's turned! The target is maneuvering along the rock layer structure towards Supervisor Klaus's position! Estimated in three seconds... two... one... It will break through the wall from behind that half-buried boulder to the supervisor's left!"
Gretchen's broadcast was like a death sentence, cold and precise.
Using data and calculations, she constructed an invisible yet clear "real-time radar map" on the chaotic battlefield for all her teammates.
The art of combat lies in transforming fleeting information into victory.
After Gretchen's last syllable fell.
William's accumulated combat instinct found its outlet.
Without looking back, relying on his memory of Klaus's position and Gretchen's coordinate guidance, he turned the Winchester's muzzle as if he had eyes in the back of his head and pulled the trigger towards the announced location.
"BOOM!!!"
A special explosive shell loaded with illumination powder rose in the thick fog, like a small sun lighting that area bright as day.
In the dazzling blaze, a huge, gray-brown worm covered in mud and rubble, its maw gaping like an abyss, burst through the wall from behind the boulder like a locomotive charging out of hell.
The timing, location, and posture of its appearance matched Gretchen's prediction perfectly.
And Lin Jie had been waiting for this moment.
He had been waiting since the battle began for an "operating table" that would allow him to precisely deliver the four deadly "scalpels" in his hand into the enemy's vital points.
He abandoned aiming with his eyes.
He entered a state of focus similar to "locating by sound" from the martial arts novels he read in his past life.
In his world, there was only Gretchen's metronome-precise coordinate broadcasts and the fleeting stage created by William's flash of light.
He entrusted all his trust to his teammates.
"Timing!"
Lin Jie roared in his heart.
His body moved faster than his thoughts.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The [Serene Heart]'s gun body erupted with a rapid, rhythmic four-shot burst in his hands.
Four silver Salt-Core Bullets carrying the team's hopes, at extreme speed, trailing a connected line of guardian halos, like "homing missiles" given life, were precisely poured one after another into the Tatzelwurm's defenseless, massive maw.
This was a textbook example of extreme hunting completed through cutting-edge science and technology, rich combat experience, and pure team trust.
Time froze once more.
The Petrification Worm's enormous body stiffened mid-air, its impending fatal pounce frozen in the final moment before completion.
It did not roar.
It did not struggle in the slightest.
Because the final judgment had already descended within its body.
The four Salt-Core Bullets were like "purification bombs" detonating inside its body.
The high-purity Consecrated Salt, containing alchemical power that countered chaos and disorder, triggered an irreversible chain disintegration within the closed body of this "geological organism".
From its "stomach" to its "circulatory system", to every "energy unit" constituting its body.
Its body structure, capable of assimilating matter, was being dismantled and reduced from the inside out.
Its gray-brown, rock-like skin began to show fine cracks. The cracks rapidly expanded, like ancient sandstone weathered for centuries.
Finally, under the tense, expectant gaze of everyone.
Its massive body silently shattered from within, ultimately turning into a sky-scattering, gray dust devoid of spirituality and vitality mid-air.
With the death of the UMA, the spiritual source sustaining the chaotic force field also vanished.
The thick ice fog and dust enveloping the valley began to settle and dissipate like a receding tide.
The dim daylight once again pierced the clouds, illuminating this ravaged battlefield.
What appeared before everyone's eyes was a tragic, weary scene, like a classical war painting.
Every member of the joint investigation team was exhausted, each bearing injuries.
Klaus half-knelt on the ground, using his shotgun to support his teetering body.
William's body was covered in wounds from flying rubble.
Julian sat slumped on the ground, unconscious from mental energy depletion.
Gretchen sat slumped weakly beside her instruments.
Lin Jie, too, felt his vision go dark in waves, his mind exhausted from the four extreme "blind snipes".
But they had won.
On the higher slope not far away, saved by the avalanche Klaus triggered, the three "Root Guardians" stood quietly.
Their faces held complex expressions: shock at the formidable combat power displayed by I.A.R.C., vigilance towards their own previous arrogant attitude.
But more than that, confusion and doubt about whether the "absolute non-intervention" balance they had upheld for centuries was correct.
Their leader, a Druid elder with white hair and beard, walked down step by step from the slope, leaning on a wooden staff.
He crossed this battlefield soaked with blood, sweat, and will.
He ignored the scattered, still-hot shell casings on the ground, and the charred marks of residual alchemical energy.
He finally stopped before the investigation team, led by the half-kneeling Klaus and the gun-holding Lin Jie.
He did not say thanks, but he also did not mention anything about "expulsion" again.
"At the foot of the mountain, in my camp, there is still some ale that can warm the body."
The battle was over.