325: Chapter 325 Suddenly I feel that being alive is pretty good!

The next day.

Twelve hours into the march, Huo Yan finally encountered what he had been anticipating for a long time.

Danger.

Real, genuine danger that would make him draw his blade.

On the horizon at the end of the ice field, a black line appeared.

That line was moving.

And it was getting wider.

Huo Yan's pupils contracted sharply.

He had lived for nearly a hundred years and had seen this sight far too many times.

Every time he saw it, it meant that many people were about to die.

"Beast Tide."

His voice was very low, but loud enough for those around him to hear.

In the rear, the century-old warriors stopped in their tracks almost simultaneously, gripping their weapons and locking their gazes forward.

No orders were necessary.

This was an instinctive reaction etched into their bones.

A hundred years of the Apocalypse had made "preparing for battle upon seeing a black line" as natural as breathing.

Ling Shuanghan saw it too.

Standing at the junction of the two teams, her ice-blue eyes narrowed slightly.

Her gaze pierced through the ice mist, accurately judging the scale of the Beast Tide.

Tens of thousands.

At least tens of thousands.

Ice Corpses and Frost Evolution Beasts were mixed together like a moving black ocean, converging along the ice field toward the Rift Core.

They surged across the ice.

Their frozen limbs made dense cracking sounds, like countless dry bones snapping at once.

The white breath they exhaled condensed into fine ice mist on a microscopic scale, gathering above the Beast Tide to form a grayish-white fog canopy.

The scale was so massive that it covered the entire path ahead of the march.

From left to right, it stretched beyond the horizon.

Ling Shuanghan's expression did not change.

It wasn't that she wasn't afraid.

It was that she had been afraid too many times, to the point of numbness.

She turned to face her eight hundred warriors, her voice steady:

"All personnel prepare for battle. Battle formation, three layers deep, heavy armor in front, long-range in the back."

The moment the order was given, the eight hundred people began to move.

Their movements were as fast as if they had rehearsed ten thousand times.

Because they truly had rehearsed ten thousand times.

The heavy armor warriors in the front row raised their Ice-iron shields, forming a human wall.

The melee warriors in the middle row drew their weapons, the blades reflecting the pale light of the ice field.

The long-range Ability Users in the back row began to condense energy, the air filling with faint fluctuations of various attributes.

Ling Shuanghan stood at the very front of the formation, her right hand resting on the hilt of the sword at her waist.

This was her standard operating procedure when facing a Beast Tide for the past hundred years.

Open a passage.

Pave a bloody path with human lives.

People died every time.

Dozens at the least, hundreds at the most.

But there was no other way.

She was just about to order the charge—

"No need to fight."

A voice came from ahead.

It was very calm and casual, as if saying, "No need to turn on the light, it's not dark yet."

Ling Shuanghan's movements froze.

She turned her head to look toward the source of the voice.

Lin Yuan stood at the front of the team, his back to her, facing the direction of the Beast Tide.

His hands were in his pockets.

His posture was exactly the same as yesterday.

Exactly the same as the day before.

It seemed as though his stance wouldn't change at all, whether what lay ahead was a flat road or tens of thousands of monsters.

"No need to fight?" There was a hint of uncertainty in Ling Shuanghan's voice.

She wasn't questioning Lin Yuan's judgment.

After a full day of marching yesterday, she had learned one thing—

Whatever this man said was the law.

But before them were tens of thousands of Ice Corpses and Frost Evolution Beasts.

Tens of thousands.

"No need to fight."

Lin Yuan repeated, then took out a batch of devices from the supplies.

They were silver-gray cylinders, slightly larger than a fist, with dense small holes on the surface.

Ling Shuanghan recognized them—she had seen them during the supply demonstration yesterday.

Repulsion Devices.

But she hadn't paid much attention to them yesterday.

Because in her understanding,

a device that could repel a few mutant insects and one that could repel tens of thousands of beasts were two completely different concepts.

Lin Yuan didn't explain.

He placed a Repulsion Device every ten steps along the marching direction, lining them up.

His movements were unhurried, as if he were arranging flower pots in his own yard.

Ling Shuanghan watched his back; her lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing.

She chose to wait.

Wait for the result.

The last device was placed.

Lin Yuan stood up and brushed the ice shards off his hands.

"Activate."

He pressed the controller.

All the devices lit up with a pale blue light at the same time.

Then—

The sound vanished.

It didn't truly vanish.

A low-frequency sound wave, almost imperceptible to the human ear, diffused from the devices, forming an invisible wall.

Ling Shuanghan felt it.

There was an extremely subtle tremor in the air, as if something was vibrating at a very high frequency.

A layer of goosebumps appeared on her skin.

But that was all.

For humans, this sound wave had almost no effect.

But for the Ice Corpses and Frost Evolution Beasts—

When the vanguard of the Beast Tide was about fifty steps away from the devices, it suddenly stopped.

It wasn't slowing down.

It was a sudden halt.

As if they had hit a wall.

The first few Ice Corpses froze in place, their frozen heads swaying from side to side.

They seemed to be searching for the source of the sound that caused them instinctive fear.

Then they turned.

They didn't turn back and run.

They detoured.

They bypassed the team from the left side.

The Ice Corpses behind them followed suit.

The Frost Evolution Beasts further back also turned.

Like river water encountering a giant boulder, they naturally split and detoured from both sides.

There was no hesitation, no testing; not a single one tried to force its way through.

They simply bypassed it.

They bypassed it cleanly.

Watching this, Ling Shuanghan released her grip on the sword hilt.

The eight hundred warriors behind her maintained a perfect three-layer deep battle formation.

Heavy armor in front, melee in the middle, long-range in the back.

Every person's expression conveyed the same thought—

Did we prepare for nothing again?

The Beast Tide surged past both sides of the army.

Tens of thousands of Ice Corpses and Frost Evolution Beasts came within less than twenty steps at their closest.

A cold aura rushed toward them, carrying a stench of mixed rot and frost.

The Ice Corpses' joints cracked, and the Frost Evolution Beasts' claws scraped the ice with ear-piercing sounds.

The noise was deafening.

But not a single one crossed that invisible line.

The army of 5,769 people marched quietly in the very center of the frost Beast Tide.

The queue remained strictly zoned—

The female survivors from Blue Star in the front and middle sections advanced steadily under the protection of the goddesses.

Ji Wushuang walked on the right side of the team, her eyes alertly scanning the Beast Tide, ready to strike at any moment.

But her hand never rose.

Because it wasn't necessary.

Luo Qinghan walked on the left, looking expressionlessly at the swarm of Ice Corpses surging past her.

Her inner thoughts were roughly as follows:

In the memories of her past life, every single one of these things was a threat that needed to be taken seriously.

Now, they were running past her like a flock of sheep being driven along.

And the tool used to drive the sheep was a few fist-sized lumps of iron.

She really lived her past life in vain.

In the rear, Ling Shuanghan's male subordinates were fully armed and waiting in combat readiness.

The heavy armor shields were held upright, and the unsheathed blades gleamed with a chilling light.

The standard posture of century-old elites.

And then they just held it like that.

They kept holding it.

They held it for a full two hours.

For two hours, the Beast Tide continued to surge from both sides, its scale not diminishing in the slightest.

For two hours, not a single Ice Corpse or Evolved Beast crossed the sonic defense line.

For two hours, the eight hundred century-old warriors in the rear maintained their battle formation, gripping their weapons tightly—

Not a single person struck.

Not even one.

The arms of the heavy armor warriors in the front row began to ache.

Not because of fighting.

But because they had been holding them for too long.

A younger warrior couldn't help but whisper to the veteran beside him:

"Senior... can I put my shield down?"

The veteran was silent for three seconds.

"Why are you asking me? I want to put mine down too."

"So, should we?"

"...Wait for the order."

The order did not come.

Because Ling Shuanghan didn't know whether she should order the dissolution of the battle formation either.

From her experience, a Beast Tide could change direction and charge at any moment.

But from her experience over the past two days—

If this man said "no need to fight," then there really was no need to fight.

In the end, she gave the order.

"Dissolve battle formation. Maintain vigilance and march normally."

Eight hundred people breathed a sigh of relief simultaneously.

The sounds of shields being put down rose and fell, like a belated disarmament.

Huo Yan sheathed his blade and walked over to Ling Shuanghan.

His expression was very complex.

Extremely complex.

So complex that Ling Shuanghan knew what he wanted to say with just one look.

"Speak."

Huo Yan was silent for a while.

"Your Majesty."

"Yes."

"These past hundred years... have we been fighting in vain?"

Ling Shuanghan did not answer.

She looked toward the front of the team.

Lin Yuan was walking at the very front, hands in his pockets, his pace as relaxed as if he were strolling through a park.

On his left and right, tens of thousands of Ice Corpses and Frost Evolution Beasts surged past.

The putrid stench, the grating sound of joints, the cold mist—

These things didn't seem to exist for him.

He was even talking to Ye Qingxue.

Ling Shuanghan couldn't hear what they were saying.

But she saw Ye Qingxue's expression change from calm to helpless, and then to that subtle look of "Why am I even talking to this person?"

It was probably another conversation that a normal person couldn't understand.

Ling Shuanghan withdrew her gaze.

"It wasn't in vain."

Huo Yan looked at her.

"Those hundred years taught us one thing."

Ling Shuanghan's voice was very calm.

"What thing?"

"To survive."

She looked at Lin Yuan's back.

"To survive long enough to meet this man."

Huo Yan was stunned for a moment.

Then he also looked at Lin Yuan's back.

That man was walking surrounded by tens of thousands of monsters, his posture as relaxed as if he were walking in his own living room.

His way of solving problems was in a completely different world from Ling Shuanghan's.

Ling Shuanghan relied on lives.

She relied on a hundred years of blood and sacrifice.

She relied on the suicide notes written before every expedition and the corpses counted after every expedition.

But this man—

He relied on quantity.

Pure, overwhelming, and despair-inducing quantity.

He had enough devices to draw a safety line in front of tens of thousands of monsters.

He had enough strength that even if all the devices failed, he alone could flatten the Beast Tide.

He had enough supplies that the option of "people dying" didn't even exist in his plans from the start.

This wasn't a scheme.

It wasn't a strategy.

It wasn't some ingenious tactical arrangement.

This was a crushing defeat.

Pure resource crushing.

Ling Shuanghan suddenly felt like laughing.

She remembered the things Huo Yan had meticulously prepared before they set off yesterday—

Rearguard troops.

Casualty handling plans.

Emergency retreat routes.

Suicide notes.

The last supper.

The inventory of belongings for that blade he had used for sixty years.

Now, none of it was needed.

The rearguard troops were counting rifts.

The casualty handling plan had no casualties to handle.

The emergency retreat route required no retreat.

The suicide notes were torn up yesterday.

They were stuffed from the last supper.

That blade—

Ling Shuanghan glanced at the blade at Huo Yan's waist.

It had been two days, and it hadn't even left its sheath.

Huo Yan noticed her gaze and subconsciously touched the hilt.

"Boss, what are you looking at?"

"Your blade."

"What about it?"

"It hasn't been drawn for two days."

Huo Yan fell silent.

He looked down at the blade at his waist that had been with him for sixty years.

In sixty years, this blade had never stayed in its sheath for two consecutive days.

Never.

"...I'll have to give it a good maintenance when we get back," he finally said.

"You're just bored," Ling Shuanghan said.

Huo Yan did not refute.

Because he truly was bored.

The Beast Tide lasted for nearly four hours.

Four hours later, the last batch of Ice Corpses ran past both sides of the team and disappeared at the other end of the ice field.

Dense claw marks and footprints were left on the ice, and a faint putrid smell lingered in the air.

But the expeditionary force of 5,769 people—

Had not a single casualty.

Not a single blade had been drawn.

Not a single drop of blood had been shed.

Lin Yuan walked back and began to retrieve the Repulsion Devices.

He picked them up one by one, checked for damage, and then put them back into the supplies.

His movements were as careful as if he were gathering laundry hung out to dry at home.

Ye Qingxue followed beside him and helped him carry two.

"How many more times can these be used?" she asked.

"It depends. The batteries are enough for about three to five times."

"What if we encounter another Beast Tide?"

"Then I'll just take out new ones."

"How many more do you have?"

Lin Yuan thought for a moment.

"Enough."

Ye Qingxue had already grown accustomed to this answer.

In Lin Yuan's dictionary, "enough" probably meant "so many that you don't need to know the exact number."

She handed the device in her hand to Lin Yuan, her fingertips inadvertently brushing against the back of his hand.

She paused slightly.

Then she withdrew her hand as if nothing had happened.

Lin Yuan glanced at her but said nothing.

He put away the devices and continued walking.

Behind them, Huo Yan stood in place, looking at the traces left by the Beast Tide.

The ice surface where tens of thousands of Ice Corpses and Frost Evolution Beasts had passed was scraped beyond recognition by claws and footprints.

If it hadn't been for those devices—

If they had really tried to charge through this Beast Tide—

Huo Yan did a quick calculation in his head.

With the combat power of their eight hundred men, plus Ling Shuanghan personally taking action, it would have taken about two to three hours to open a passage.

Casualties—

At least a hundred people.

Possibly more.

But Lin Yuan's way—

Put down a few iron lumps.

Wait for four hours.

Pick back up the iron lumps.

And leave.

Zero casualties.

Huo Yan took a deep breath and caught up with the team.

He took two steps, then stopped again, glancing back at the messy ice surface.

Then he did something he had never done in his sixty-year military career.

He smiled.

It wasn't a bitter smile, nor a helpless one.

It was a smile of relief and ease.

As if a boulder that had weighed on his shoulders for sixty years had suddenly been moved away.

"Boss?" The veteran beside him was somewhat surprised to see his expression.

Huo Yan shook his head.

"It's nothing."

He turned to follow the team, his pace much lighter than before.

"It's just that I suddenly feel—"

He looked at Lin Yuan's back in the distance.

"Being alive is pretty good."