319: Chapter 319 Ants Have Become a Crisis!

The armored transport vehicle moved at a steady speed through the ice crystal debris and frost layers.

Night in the micro-world arrived exceptionally quickly.

When the last ray of sunlight was completely swallowed by the layered ice crystal frost overhead, the surroundings plunged into a pitch-black darkness that made one's scalp tingle.

Nights at a normal scale at least had moonlight and starlight, but in the micro-world—

The ice crystal particles in the air, magnified hundreds of times, refracted the light completely, occasionally flashing with a cold glint that looked exactly like tiny lightning.

Beyond the field of vision, everything was a thick, gray-white. The temperature continued to drop.

The interior of the carriage was lit; the lighting system included with the building modules was quite effective.

Most people were already drowsy.

The continuous high-intensity combat and mental exhaustion meant that once they felt a brief sense of safety, their bodies immediately made the most honest reaction—collapsing into a heap.

Ye Qingyue leaned on her sister's shoulder, drool flowing onto half of Ye Qingxue's sleeve.

Ye Qingxue expressionlessly pulled her arm away three times, but couldn't pull it free.

She gave up on the fourth attempt.

Luo Qinghan sat in the corner of the carriage, eyes closed in a light doze.

But with her alertness, she could distinguish even the sound of a speck of dust falling on the ground.

Xia Muqing held a data panel she had dismantled from the onboard equipment in her arms—others hugged pillows while sleeping, she hugged data.

The panel was densely recorded with the silver light spectrum she had half-analyzed; it was her "bedtime reading."

The only person not in the carriage was Lin Yuan.

He stood on the roof of the vehicle.

The night sky of the micro-world had no stars—or more accurately, the starlight was too faint, turning into a uniform gray-white under the layers of refraction from the ice crystal particles.

But Lin Yuan's gaze was not on the sky.

North-northeast direction.

There was light.

Faint. Restrained.

Normal natural light sources would be scattered and magnified by dust in the micro-world, making them visible from an extremely long distance.

But this light source was clearly artificially blocked and controlled—only from a specific angle could one see a faint, almost non-existent line of light.

It was not the fluorescence of frost-mutated insects.

It was not the spontaneous combustion of phosphides under the ice.

It was an artificial light source with disciplined brightness control.

Lin Yuan's gaze shifted slightly.

He did not wake anyone up.

Instead, he crouched down and took two silver modules the size of fingernails from his backpack.

The modules vibrated slightly in his palm, and three seconds later, they automatically assembled into twelve devices smaller than grains of rice—micro-cameras.

Another use for the smart building modules.

Others used them to build houses and vehicles; Lin Yuan used them to build spy equipment.

But cameras alone were not enough.

Sending someone to scout at this distance was both time-consuming and risky—

The night in the micro-world was full of frost-mutated insects that could hunt without light—they adapted even better to the extreme cold after being evolved by the white frost, and their activity was far higher than their counterparts before the Apocalypse.

Even a powerhouse of Luo Qinghan's level could not guarantee absolute safety while marching alone at night.

He needed a carrier that would not arouse any suspicion.

Lin Yuan tapped the roof of the car rhythmically three times with his knuckles.

The vibration conducted along the metal surface.

Thirty seconds later, an ice ant crawled onto the roof, following the source of the vibration.

The miniaturized humans and ice ants were about the same size. This type of ant, evolved by the white frost, was covered in a layer of light blue ice crystal carapace and was a size larger than its pre-Apocalypse counterparts.

The ice ant stopped in front of Lin Yuan, its antennae waving back and forth.

It seemed to be confirming whether this strange thing in front of it was food.

The answer was clearly negative—but Lin Yuan pinched a small piece of debris from the module scraps and threw it in front of the ice ant.

The ice ant snatched it up without hesitation.

Then, Lin Yuan used a layer of adhesive film so thin it was almost non-existent—also a byproduct of the building modules—to stick a micro-camera onto the ice ant's back.

The weight was close to zero.

The ice ant felt nothing at all, turned around, and left with its spoils.

Lin Yuan tapped the roof again.

Another ice ant crawled up.

This was repeated twelve times.

Twelve ice ants, twelve micro-cameras, scattered in different directions along the ant paths under the ice layer toward that light source.

After finishing all this, Lin Yuan clapped his hands and silently flipped back into the carriage.

Ye Qingxue was watching him with her eyes open.

She hadn't slept at all.

"Is there a situation outside?" The voice was kept extremely low.

"There is an artificial light source in the distance." Lin Yuan sat down beside her. "I sent out scouts."

"Scouts?" Ye Qingxue frowned slightly. "Who?"

"Ice ants."

Ye Qingxue was silent for a full three seconds.

"...Ice ants."

"Yeah. Ice ants with micro-cameras stuck to their backs, twelve of them."

Ye Qingxue opened her mouth, then closed it again.

She no longer knew what expression to use to face this man.

A vague mumble came from beside her—

"Mm... ice ants... spy... so cool..."

Ye Qingyue had accurately caught all the keywords in her dream.

Then she turned over, moving the drool to the other sleeve of Ye Qingxue.

Ye Qingxue silently closed her eyes.

Neither sleeve would be salvageable tonight.

A night passed.

The twelve ice ant scouts moved at full speed along the ant paths under the ice at night—

The ice ants' operational efficiency was far superior to that of the miniaturized humans.

They didn't need light, didn't need rest, and the extreme cold was just a daily routine for them; as long as the ant paths existed, they could run wildly all the way.

Nine successfully reached the target area and transmitted complete footage.

The remaining three encountered other predatory frost-mutated insects on the way.

A natural attrition rate of 25%, which was acceptable.

When the first ray of light in the morning pierced through the gaps in the ice, Lin Yuan was already sitting in the carriage organizing the intelligence.

The nine feeds were aggregated on a projection panel.

The content on the screen made him raise his eyebrows slightly.

A camp.

Built in a huge ice rift—for the miniaturized humans, an ice rift was a natural canyon.

This group of people had built complete defensive fortifications using the ice walls on both sides, leaving only two entrances and exits, all equipped with sentry posts. The surface of the ice walls was polished as smooth as a mirror; any creature attempting to climb would slide off directly.

The internal barracks were of uniform specifications and arranged neatly, with spacing so consistent it looked like it had been measured with a ruler.

Number of people—about 800.

Clothing and weapons were completely different from the Blue Star style.

Gray-white lightweight combat suits, with a material between fabric and metal.

There were dull patterns and lines on the surface—not any material known to Blue Star.

Weapons were mainly melee, but with strange shapes.

Knives didn't look like knives, swords didn't look like swords; some looked like they were polished directly from some kind of natural crystal.

The defensive deployment was extremely professional—the frequency of sentry rotation, the overlapping coverage of patrol routes, the preset formations for emergency assembly—all carried the traces of long-term practical combat experience.

And at the core of the camp—

A silver-haired woman sat cross-legged on a piece of ice crystal.

Her long silver-white hair shimmered with a cold luster in the dim light, and her face looked impossibly young, but the sense of precipitation between her brows felt like she had lived for several lifetimes.

Even through the rough micro-camera on the back of the ice ant, the aura of this woman in the picture was still overwhelming.

It wasn't faked.

It was the kind of precipitation that came from truly walking out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood step by step.

And—her cross-legged posture looked relaxed, but Lin Yuan noticed a detail: her perception range covered the entire camp and even extended to the periphery of the camp. This kind of multitasking ability could not be achieved without decades of battlefield accumulation.

This woman was definitely not simple.

"Interesting."

Lin Yuan put away the panel.

"Morning."

Ye Qingyue's voice came from behind.

She rubbed her sleepy eyes and leaned over, her hair sticking up at three completely asymmetrical angles, looking like she was wearing a nest of weeds.

"What are you looking at?"

"Reconnaissance report."

"Oh—is that the one from the ice ant spy last night?"

Lin Yuan looked at her: "Weren't you talking in your sleep?"

Ye Qingyue was righteous: "I was talking in my sleep, yes. But everything I said in my sleep was the truth."

The logic of this statement was so bizarre it couldn't be refuted.

Ye Qingxue walked over, glanced at the picture on the projection panel, and her pupils shrank slightly.

"These are..."

"A camp about 30 meters from us." Lin Yuan called up the summarized intelligence again. "800 people, highly militarized organization. Equipment and everything are completely different from Blue Star."

Ye Qingxue finished browsing quickly and gasped.

"You even utilized ice ants?"

"The one thing the micro-world doesn't lack is ice ants." Lin Yuan's tone was flat.

"Might as well use them."

Ye Qingyue raised her hand.

"I have a question."

"Speak."

"Do these ice ants... get overtime pay?"

Lin Yuan: "..."

Ye Qingxue: "..."

"Oh right, three of them died in the line of duty, right?"

Ye Qingyue looked serious. "Should we set up a monument?"

Luo Qinghan didn't know when she had walked over.

She swept a glance at Ye Qingyue expressionlessly, then focused her attention on the intelligence panel.

"Not people from Blue Star."

"Yeah."

Lin Yuan clicked on a few key screenshots.

"Look at the defensive deployment. They only guard against ground threats and have no anti-air vigilance at all—which means in their original environment, there were no conventional threats from the air."

"Secondly, the sentries rotate every three hours, which is on the long side. This means their total troop strength is not abundant; they must ensure the minimum rest time for every soldier. 800 people maintaining this intensity of defensive duty means manpower is pushed to the limit. They are using experience to make up for the disadvantage in numbers."

He clicked on the frame of the silver-haired woman.

"Third—the leader. Her sitting posture is a meditative state, but her perception coverage of the surrounding movements has never been interrupted. This kind of multitasking ability cannot be achieved without decades of battlefield accumulation."

Luo Qinghan stared at the picture of the silver-haired woman, her gaze slightly condensed.

She lived until the tenth year of the Apocalypse in her previous life and considered herself to have seen quite a few powerhouses.

But the feeling this woman in the picture gave her—

It was like she had experienced a war longer than her entire previous life.

"Your conclusion?" Ye Qingxue asked.

"Not enemies. At least not for now."

Lin Yuan turned off the panel.

"If there was hostility, with this kind of militarized execution, they would have actively searched the surroundings long ago. But they chose to hold their ground, which shows that their primary goal is survival, not expansion."

He paused.

"But they are also definitely not ordinary survivors."

His tone added a layer of depth.

"The equipment is beyond Blue Star's existing technical level. These people—are not Blue Star people."

The carriage was quiet for two seconds.

Xia Muqing popped out from the corner at some point, her eyes shining brighter than the car lights.

"Another world?!"

She was so excited she almost threw the data panel in her arms.

"The spatial rift didn't just release silver light—it also released people? This makes perfect sense theoretically! If the essence of silver light is a spatial compression wave, then tearing the dimensional barrier to form a passage during the compression process is entirely possible—"

"The point."

"That is—visitors from another world! Alive!"

Xia Muqing's expression was like a chemist who had discovered a new element in the periodic table; she couldn't wait to jump up on the spot.

"Can I go and take a sample up close? The material of their combat suit looks like—"

"Don't be in such a hurry to strip their clothes."

Lin Yuan stood up.

"Eat breakfast, and we'll leave after eating. Let's go meet these neighbors."

In the morning, the team set off after streamlining.

Lin Yuan didn't drive—

This distance wasn't long, and he needed to observe the terrain and environmental information along the way. The view from inside the car was too narrow.

Core combat strength accompanied him: Ye Qingxue, Ye Qingyue, Luo Qinghan, Su Yuyan, Ji Wushuang, Qin Ziyan.

The rest remained with the vehicle to wait for orders, with Murong Xueer in overall command.

Ten minutes after departure, the first trouble appeared.

An ice armor centipede lay across the ice in front.

At the miniaturized scale, this ice armor centipede was two sizes thicker than anyone present.

The light blue ice crystal carapace shimmered with a cold glint in the morning light, and the dense legs heaved rhythmically.

The poison fangs at the head slowly opened and closed, with a layer of frost condensing on the tips—a classic posture of waiting for prey to throw itself into the trap.

Luo Qinghan's pupils condensed.

The Lightning Ability in her body surged to her fingertips instantly—

But her movement was only halfway done.

Lin Yuan had already walked over.

One kick.

The body of the ice armor centipede broke into two halves from the middle. The ice crystal carapace shattered and splashed at the break, the break so neat it looked like it had been cut by a laser.

His footsteps didn't stop.

He didn't even look down.

"—After arriving, set the tone of the negotiation to cooperation."

He said to Ye Qingxue beside him while walking. "There are 800 soldiers on the other side who have experienced long-term war; there's no need to fight head-on."

"What leverage to use?" Ye Qingxue asked.

"Information gap. They don't understand Blue Star, don't understand the truth of the silver light, don't understand the cause of the miniaturization effect. I have these, they don't."

Two frost shell beetles crawled out from the ice cracks on the side.

Dark blue ice crystal shells, thick front limbs, rushed straight toward the team—

Lin Yuan waved his right hand casually.

The palm wind swept past.

Both frost shell beetles flipped upside down at the same time, their six legs twitching in the air twice, their ice crystal shells clattering together, and then they went quiet.

He didn't even turn his head.

Ye Qingyue whispered to Su Yuyan:

"Look, he didn't even give them a straight look. Mutated bugs are still lives, this is too disrespectful to the opponent."

The corners of Su Yuyan's mouth curved imperceptibly, but she didn't answer.

They walked for another few minutes.

A frost silk spider hung on a frost silk web between two ice pillars in front.

Eight legs tensed, compound eyes locked onto the approaching team.

Luo Qinghan condensed lightning again—

Too late again.

Lin Yuan casually broke off a piece of ice pillar fragment nearby.

The ice pillar fragment was like a spear in his hand.

He threw it casually.

The fragment pierced through the body of the frost silk spider and nailed it to the ice wall behind.

The whole process took less than a second.

"—Also, pay attention to that silver-haired woman."

His footsteps never changed rhythm.

"I can't fully determine her strength at the moment, but the lower limit won't be low. I will talk to her directly during the negotiation, and you are responsible for observing the micro-expressions and reactions of the others."

"Understood." Ye Qingxue nodded.

Luo Qinghan silently retracted the lightning that had already condensed at her fingertips.

This was the third time.

The third time she was ready to make a move, and the third time the threat had ceased to exist before she finished charging.

She looked at Lin Yuan's back.

Ice armor centipede. Frost shell beetle. Frost silk spider.

In the micro-world, these mutated insects evolved by the white frost were nightmare-level existences for ordinary survivors.

Any one of them would be enough for a small team to struggle for half a day.

But for Lin Yuan.

It was like a normal person kicking away pebbles by their feet while walking.

Not worth allocating attention to. What was in his brain was not these mutated insects in front of him—

It was those 800 people from another world 30 meters away, the truth behind the silver light, the next move on the whole chessboard.

The real threat was never under his feet.

Ye Qingyue trotted two steps from behind and poked Luo Qinghan's arm.

"Sister Luo, did you not get a chance to make a move again?"

Luo Qinghan expressionlessly: "...Shut up."

"It's okay, it's okay,"

Ye Qingyue said sincerely, "I didn't get a chance either. We are exactly the same."

Luo Qinghan took a deep breath.

Not the same.

You didn't prepare to make a move at all.

I was ready to make a move every time, only to be intercepted.

This is not the same thing at all.

But she didn't explain.

Because explaining would only make it more suffocating.

Ahead, Lin Yuan's footsteps stopped.

"We're here."

Everyone looked up.

In the distance, a huge ice rift lay across the ice field, with ice walls rising on both sides.

Like a natural canyon fortress.

There were two sentries standing at each end of the ice rift.

Gray-white combat suits, holding strange-shaped crystal weapons, their eyes scanning the surroundings vigilantly.

They spotted Lin Yuan's group.

The sharp sound of a horn suddenly sounded in the cold morning air.

The ice rift camp woke up instantly—

Dense footsteps came from inside, like a precision machine being pressed to start.