novelraw Chapter 303
Chapter 303
She quickly understood what the Regional Alliance Upgrade Game entailed.
Among the rioters, who had temporarily halted due to the violet-blue light curtain, waves of screams suddenly erupted. A black hole, about a meter in diameter, silently appeared at the edge of the street. It moved without a sound, and anyone in its path was swallowed into the bottomless abyss.
The dense crowd panicked, screaming as they scattered in all directions. They couldn’t understand—this area had already been covered by the blue light earlier. They had chosen to act at this moment precisely because the blue light in the surrounding zones had already ended. Why were devouring creatures appearing again in the same night?
A roar sounded from the side. With a loud boom, a three-meter-tall devouring dinosaur landed on top of a parked car.
The roof of the car caved under its weight, and the windows shattered. The dinosaur stomped its claws against the wreckage, its inorganic beast eyes locking onto a nearby person. Then, it opened its massive, razor-toothed mouth and bit down.
The person’s shoulder was caught in its jaws, blood spurting everywhere as they let out a horrific scream. Compared to the black hole swallowing people, this was far more gruesome.
Panic spread like wildfire as people scrambled to escape in a blind frenzy. A small group retreated toward the side of a building, only to be covered by a looming shadow. Trembling, they looked up—at some point, a devouring serpent had slithered down the exterior wall, its massive jaws stretching open to engulf them whole.
Devouring black holes, devouring dinosaurs, devouring serpents, devouring UFOs, devouring spheres… Previously, each blue light zone had only ever contained a single type of devouring creature. But now, in this enormous violet-blue zone, they had all appeared at once.
For ordinary civilians, facing even one type of devouring creature was a struggle. Now, it was complete and utter hell.
This so-called Alliance Upgrade Game was nothing more than a chaotic battlefield of devouring creatures. The larger devouring dinosaurs swallowed the devouring insects, only to be consumed by the devouring black holes. Devouring serpents slithered up and down the building walls, catching and devouring smaller devouring spheres that bounced toward them. But soon after, a devouring UFO hovered overhead and sucked up the serpent in return.
The devouring creatures attacked one another, but their primary focus remained on the panicked humans running, screaming, and crying below.
Many had completely forgotten about the riot, immediately sprinting toward the nearest buildings in a desperate bid to escape the creatures chasing them.
Some, however, were true desperados. Knowing their chances of survival were slim, they raised their weapons and fought with all they had, pushing forward toward the shuttle station. They planned to take the shuttle to Center 350—even if they were going to die, they wanted one last indulgence before pulling those so-called aristocrats down with them.
At this point, the military had no time to deal with the rioters. The devouring creatures didn’t differentiate; they swallowed anything and everything they could.
Armed with weapons, the soldiers focused on resisting, aiming to destroy as many creatures as possible before they grew too large to handle.
The situation had spiraled out of control.
Yu Xi grabbed hold of Xi Yuan’s heavy mechanical body and, together with Xing Min, carefully maneuvered backward to avoid the chaos.
Unlike the native civilians, they were unable to attack without activating their gamification time limit—any attack they made would be useless. Worse still, these creatures could even consume Xing Min’s pale-golden barrier, meaning they had no real way to defend themselves.
Fortunately, both she and Xing Min had leveled up again after the last blue light event, increasing their gamification time limit to 90 seconds each. Together, that gave them a total of three minutes of combat time.
But compared to the 30-minute duration of this game, three minutes was practically nothing.
And on top of that, they still had to deal with an immobilized Xi Yuan.
“…Put… me… down…” Xi Yuan’s red electronic eyes flickered, his jammed mechanical joints barely able to produce the faintest sound.
He was pleading for Yu Xi to abandon him. In this chaotic battlefield of devouring creatures, just surviving was already difficult enough. Carrying around a useless burden like him would only slow her down, placing her in even greater danger.
Right now, he was nothing more than a pile of deadweight metal. Dragging him along would only make things worse.
He would rather be swallowed himself than be the reason she got killed.
Yu Xi was on high alert, her five senses fully engaged to detect any devouring creatures approaching them unnoticed. The sheer number of creatures around meant that even drones wouldn’t be able to track them all—she could only rely on herself.
She heard Xi Yuan’s faint plea. She knew exactly what he was thinking.
But she was too busy to respond. Instead, she kicked him.
The message was clear—shut up.
Xing Min, on the other hand, turned his head slightly and glanced at Xi Yuan. “You’ve known her long enough. Do you really think she’d ever abandon a friend in a situation like this? Be quiet. Don’t add to her burden.”
As he spoke, a pale-golden light stretched from his fingertips, lengthening into thin arcs of energy. Like threads of light, they wrapped around Xi Yuan’s immobilized body, encircling him in what resembled a glowing net.
Xing Min tightened the net, effortlessly pulling Xi Yuan’s heavy body toward him. “I’ll carry you. Stay quiet.”
Xi Yuan remained in a rigid seated position, but now, he was wrapped in the light-made net, looking like a ridiculously oversized mechanical toy dog being dragged along at Xing Min’s side.
His aura of dignity was completely obliterated.
He thought back to all the times he had wielded his black sword with ease, fighting his way through different mission worlds. Now, he almost wanted to cry.
But Yu Xi had no time to notice Xi Yuan’s current state. The area was simply too chaotic—dense crowds, rampaging devouring creatures, and crumbling debris from destroyed buildings. She had too much to pay attention to.
When her phone vibrated, she didn’t even have a second to spare to check it.
Xing Min, maintaining his pale-golden shield to block falling debris and stray bullets, pulled out his own phone and glanced at the screen.
Notification: The current site “Devourer’s Domain” has been upgraded from A-rank to S-rank.
**
Yu Xi wasn’t particularly surprised that “Devourer’s Domain” had been upgraded to S-rank. Even she found the current situation tricky to handle.
However, for some reason, Meng Sha’s enigmatic smile from earlier flashed through her mind again. A vague sense of unease settled over her.
If the ranking went any higher, the site would exceed its threshold and shut down.
This time, they had yet to confirm the location of the hidden station. Furthermore, Lin Wu and the others were outside the light curtain and wouldn’t be able to enter for the next thirty minutes.
If the hidden station really was in Center 350, then during these thirty minutes, they couldn’t just focus on avoiding the devouring creatures—they had to confirm the hidden station as soon as possible.
Yu Xi looked at the shuttle station in the distance, the epicenter of the riot, where the crowd density was incredibly high. That, in turn, had attracted even more devouring creatures.
As they devoured people, they were slowly growing in size and had even started consuming buildings. Given their current position, getting past the chaos and boarding a shuttle before the station was completely destroyed seemed almost impossible.
Yu Xi turned to Xing Min and asked, “Where are the other shuttle stations that go to Center 350?”
“You want to go to Center 350?”
“Yeah. Besides the hidden station, there’s also a large number of armed mechanical units there. Each one is equipped with heavy weaponry, making them an incredibly powerful combat force. Even though they’re all deactivated right now, the buildings in that area haven’t been damaged yet. Plus, since it’s the center of government control, there has to be a way to reboot those machines!”
And as long as they could reboot the mechanical units, Xi Yuan would be restored as well.
Xing Min reacted quickly. Before she even finished speaking, he had already pulled up the locations of the shuttle stations and cross-referenced them with the population density map. He pinpointed the station with the lowest number of people.
That station was on the far side of the previous blue light zone. Based on their speed, it would take them roughly seven or eight minutes to get there. Since there were fewer people, the devouring creatures would also be relatively fewer.
With their destination set, the two of them quickly moved out.
Since they had to traverse the city, Yu Xi redeployed her drone, using it as an eye in the sky. Neither she nor Xing Min activated their gamification—while they had a total of three minutes, they could only use it when absolutely necessary.
The city had turned into a full-blown battlefield. Devouring creatures roamed and slaughtered freely, military personnel fired back, and small explosions erupted constantly.
The rioting civilians were untrained. Even with weapons, they weren’t much of a threat and often panicked under attack, firing wildly and unintentionally causing friendly casualties.
Luckily, Xing Min’s shield allowed Yu Xi to focus solely on avoiding the devouring creatures, without worrying about other threats.
They ran through the chaos, maneuvering Xi Yuan’s immobilized body through the frenzied crowd. Shockwaves from explosions, stray bullets, falling debris, civilians driven mad by desperation—all of it was blocked by Xing Min’s protective barrier.
Yu Xi knew that time was their most valuable resource. While there were many devouring creatures, they hadn’t yet reached their maximum size, and because of their sheer numbers, they were also consuming each other.
If they wanted to reach Center 350, these few minutes were critical.
Worried that Xing Min’s pace might slow them down, Yu Xi grabbed him by the waist, leaving him in charge of checking their surroundings while she used the drone’s vision to navigate at full speed.
The two had already activated their mental link, eliminating the need for verbal communication. A single thought was enough for them to understand each other perfectly.
Because of this, they reached the shuttle station in half the time Yu Xi had estimated.
The shuttle station was small, incapable of transporting a large number of people to Center 350 at once. As a result, there weren’t many rioters gathered here—just a small group using it as a distraction to divert the stationed troops’ attention.
However, once the devouring creatures appeared, the rioters had long since scattered, leaving only the soldiers still fighting desperately outside the shuttle station.
The squad captain, a man in his early thirties, remained composed despite being outnumbered. He had half of his team stationed at key defensive points, using heavy weapons to hold off the devouring creatures, while the other half prepared to activate the shuttle.
They weren’t fleeing.
Their goal was to reach Center 350 and assist the troops there in reactivating the mechanical units.
Because of the strict population control in Center 350, a massive number of mechanical units had been deployed, but only a small contingent of soldiers had been left behind to guard the area.
Now, with the riot underway, all of the mechanical units had shut down, leaving Center 350 in an even worse situation than Center 300.
“Attention! Withdraw in order, batch by batch! Get inside the station!”
The captain received the signal to begin the full evacuation. His squad members were all elite soldiers, following his orders precisely. Their counterattack had been effective, wiping out most of the devouring creatures in the area, giving them just enough time to retreat into the station.
However, just then, one of the soldiers monitoring with a drone called out in alarm.
“Captain! Black hole incoming from 3 o’clock! Wait—black holes also detected at 5 o’clock, 7 o’clock, and 9 o’clock! They’re all converging on us fast!”
Devouring black holes.
The one devouring creature their weapons couldn’t handle.
Against black holes, their only option was to run.
The captain wiped his face, forcing himself to stay calm. “Everyone retreat! Forget the order—just run! Now!”
But no matter how fast they ran, they couldn’t outrun the moving black holes.
The black holes had clearly sensed the presence of the soldiers, as well as the scattered debris of the destroyed buildings, and were intent on devouring everything in their path.
One soldier was caught almost immediately. He felt the pull of the devouring force from behind.
What awaited him was a bottomless abyss, carrying the scent of death.
“Xiao Lu!”
The squad captain, standing on the fence at the station entrance, witnessed the horrifying scene unfold.
At the critical moment, an attack came from an unknown direction. The attack was formless and colorless, but it exploded right in the center of the black hole, like an airburst grenade.
The black hole chasing after his soldier cracked like a shattered mirror. A network of fractures spread across its bottomless abyss-like surface before it broke apart with a sharp snap, vanishing into thin air.
The captain instinctively turned his gaze toward the source of the attack. Behind where the black hole had been, two figures were sprinting forward—one was a young man, seemingly dragging something behind him, while a young woman ran a step ahead, holding a delicate pink-colored weapon in her hand.
Her expression was solemn, but her eyes were locked onto his face, as if confirming something.
The two approached at an astonishing speed. In the blink of an eye, the young woman was standing in front of him.
“You’re heading to Center 350 to reboot the mechanical units?”
“Yes…” He had no idea how she knew that. Their plans had only been discussed internally within their squad. There was no way she could have overheard them from such a distance…
“Then we’re going together.” Her words weren’t a request—they were an order. “Everyone, into the station and onto the shuttle!”
As soon as she finished speaking, she pushed off the fence and, with incredible agility, vaulted onto the station’s rooftop. The sheer speed of her movements left the captain momentarily stunned.
He had just received assistance from her, so there was no time to question her identity. His soldiers immediately rushed toward the station entrance, while the woman on the rooftop systematically destroyed every black hole chasing after them.
“Move!” Xing Min shouted.
Snapping back to reality, the captain led his squad in a full sprint toward the station. Still, he couldn’t help but ask, “Can she handle this alone?”
“Don’t worry, she can. She’ll be here in a moment. Just wait for her.” Xing Min had taken Xi Yuan ahead to ensure that a shuttle remained available.
Yu Xi had already activated her 90-second gamification time limit. During this period, she was practically invincible.
On the tracks, several shuttles were prepped and ready, waiting for the team to board before departing for Center 350.
Outside the station, the Air Hair Dryer in Yu Xi’s hand had been replaced with a small rocket launcher. With pinpoint accuracy, she obliterated every black hole in her vicinity. Then, her weapon shifted again—this time into a magnetic-guided missile launcher.
Crouching slightly, she aimed at the devouring UFO approaching from ahead and fired the guided missile. Then, without pausing, she turned and annihilated a five-meter-tall devouring dinosaur roaring at the street entrance.
She didn’t jump down from the rooftop. Instead, she sprinted along the station’s roof, following Xing Min’s guidance. Every devouring creature in her path was wiped out before it could get any closer.
When she reached the designated point, her weapon transformed back into the Air Hair Dryer. Without hesitation, she aimed in the direction Xing Min had indicated and fired.
The airburst blasted open a hole in the rooftop. Without missing a beat, she leaped into the gap, landing directly inside the station. She then immediately vaulted off the stairwell railing, plunging downward.
The shuttle was right below.
She landed, pushed off again, and in an instant, reached the last shuttle waiting at the platform.
The doors were open. The captain, Xing Min, and Xi Yuan stood by, waiting for her. The moment she jumped onto the shuttle, a soldier quickly shut the doors and accelerated the vehicle to maximum speed.
The shuttle burst out of the station, weaving along the tracks as it ascended toward Center 350.
Yu Xi shattered one of the shuttle’s side windows and grabbed the laser rifle from the captain’s hands. Taking precise aim, she fired at the two devouring UFOs chasing them.
The laser rifle lacked the sheer destructive power of the magnetic missiles, but that didn’t matter—what mattered was efficiency. Within just a few shots, both UFOs exploded, disintegrating into thin air beside the tracks.
She turned back and handed the rifle to the captain.
He was still visibly in shock. It took him a moment to remember to accept it.
“Th-Thank you!” He could only manage those two words.
“Hm.” Yu Xi didn’t say much else. Her gaze lingered on his face for a moment before she gave him a slight nod.
She hadn’t been mistaken earlier.
His hair color, age, and eye color were all different, but she recognized that face.
In Paradise Island, he was called Ron.
In Flan City, he was called Kao.
What was his name this time?