60: Chapter 60 The Sky Rises! Ten thousand people knelt, and she rose from the ruins.

The sky, it tore open.

Not a metaphor.

It was a literal, physical tearing.

An invisible giant hand gripped the clouds, twisting them into a dark red vortex that covered the entire horizon.

At the center of the vortex was pure void, swallowing all light.

The edges of the spatial rift curled outward, like a piece of paper torn by immense force, distorting the surrounding light into eerie prisms.

The gunfire stopped.

In the heart of the War Zone, the soldiers from both sides currently exchanging fire simultaneously ceased their shooting.

Some still had smoke rising from their barrels, yet their fingers had left the triggers.

Some slowly knelt in the trenches, helmets rolling off to clatter against shell casings, making a hollow sound.

The entire War Zone fell into a silence more terrifying than the artillery fire.

In the refugee camp, those fleeing stopped in their tracks, and those wailing clamped their mouths shut.

Tens of thousands of people slowly knelt in the mud, in the ruins, and beside the craters.

Some raised their hands high, others clutched those beside them, refusing to let go.

In different languages and different accents, they shouted the same word.

"God..."

"A miracle!"

They thought that God had grown weary of the suffering of the human world and had descended to save them.

Beneath the ruins, Lin Xiaoman crawled out of a crater.

Blood from her knees mixed with mud, her pant leg was torn, and the front of her hoodie was stained with brown iodine and muddy water.

Her gaze pierced through the chaotic crowd, locking firmly onto the rift in the sky.

Not God.

An invasion.

The prelude to the apocalyptic catastrophe three years from now had already descended upon this devastated land.

Fear surged from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, chilling her to the bone. But she gritted her teeth and stood up.

With strength from nowhere, she screamed at the top of her lungs:

"Is anyone still alive?! Anyone who can move, follow me! Stay away from open areas! Find cover! Quick!"

Her voice was hoarse to the point of distortion, yet it pierced the deathly silence among the ruins.

Lin Xiaoman rushed into the ruins of a half-collapsed iron shed and, from beneath broken bricks and a still-warm corpse, dragged out Henry Bernstein.

The old man was covered in gray, one leg of his gold-rimmed glasses was broken, and his blue-gray eyes stared at the sky, unfocused.

Lin Xiaoman grabbed his arm and dragged him out:

"Professor! Professor! — Can you move?! Follow me! We can't stay here!"

Henry did not respond.

She increased her strength, her fingernails digging into the old man's cuff, her voice tearing:

"There's cover outside! You're a doctor! Those people need you! Wake up!"

Henry's gaze slowly focused, falling onto Lin Xiaoman's face, which was covered in blood and mud.

He looked down.

In his palm, he gripped a photograph that Isaac had shoved into his hand in the final second.

The photo showed a smiling young woman and a boy in a school uniform.

Isaac's wife and son.

His Adam's apple bobbed. He folded the photo and tucked it into his shirt pocket, close to his body.

"... What on earth has happened?"

Lin Xiaoman looked up, watching the rift that was currently expanding.

Her lips were ashen, her jaw clenched so tight it felt like it might shatter.

"The invasion has arrived."

—

At the temporary camp on the outskirts of the War Zone.

Everyone in Section Chief Han Zheng's team got out of the vehicle and looked up at the horizon shrouded in dark red light.

Wang Hao gripped the bronze piece in his pocket — the metal was already as hot as a branding iron, and golden light poured madly from the carvings, vibrating so fast that his entire hand was trembling.

"Everyone evacuate! This is not something we can handle!"

Section Chief Han Zheng's professional instinct led him to issue the most rational order immediately.

But Wang Hao did not move.

"Brother Han!"

He gripped the bronze piece tighter, his voice low but unusually firm,

"The bronze piece sensed this before; we cannot run."

Zhao Xiaohe grew anxious,

"Are you crazy?! We are all ordinary people! That time in Qin Province, if it weren't for the Holy Knight —"

Wang Hao turned to look at her.

In the eyes of an ordinary man who had driven a taxi for eight years, there burned something that made Zhao Xiaohe's remaining words get stuck in her throat.

"I know! I know I can't do anything."

He lowered his head, looking at the flash of golden light in his palm that could not be masked by the dark red skylight.

"But I am a descendant of Kindling, even if I am just an ordinary person — I still have to stand here."

Section Chief Han Zheng opened his mouth, but was interrupted by Professor Zhou.

The sixty-one-year-old veteran archaeologist stood up, his gray hair illuminated a stark white by the apocalyptic skylight.

"Let him go."

He looked at Section Chief Han Zheng, his voice unnaturally calm,

"I am going too."

Chen Yiming was stunned,

"Professor, you..."

"The bronze piece guided us here, not so we could watch a disaster movie."

Professor Zhou waved his hand, his gaze sweeping over everyone.

"If we retreat now, will we still be qualified to receive the guidance of Kindling in the future?"

The sentence landed.

Everyone fell silent.

Section Chief Han Zheng was silent for five seconds.

He picked up the satellite phone, dialed the encrypted frequency, and reported the situation with the fastest speech rate possible.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a full half-minute.

Finally, a calm voice came through,

"Go."

A pause.

"Humanity not only possesses Kindling; humanity also has humanity itself."

Section Chief Han Zheng hung up the phone.

He turned around to face everyone.

Five soldiers, Professor Zhou, two graduate students, and Wang Hao.

His gaze swept over every person's face, finally settling on the bloody horizon ahead.

"Mission objective — protect the survivors! Hold out until the members of Kindling arrive!"

The engines of the three off-road vehicles roared simultaneously.

The vehicles turned, made a U-turn, and rushed toward the War Zone being engulfed by the rift in the sky.

Outside the car windows, the dark red skylight dyed the profiles of everyone the same color.

—

Just as Section Chief Han Zheng's convoy was heading against the flow.

In the heart of the War Zone.

As the rift in the sky expanded, the temperature plummeted. It wasn't the chill of an autumn breeze — it was a cold that seeped out from the marrow of one's bones.

The white breath they exhaled turned into an eerie pink under the dark red light.

The void at the center of the rift churned twice.

Two black shadows fell from the void.

They slammed heavily into an open space less than four hundred meters from the refugee gathering area, the shockwave overturning the nearest row of shacks, sending broken bricks and mud flying.

The dust settled.

Two Shadow Erosion Beasts.

Four legs, reverse joints, their bodies covered in roiling black mist. Exactly the same as the one that appeared at the Yongchang Steel Structure Factory.

E-Rank.

The refugees kneeling in prayer finally saw clearly — this was not God.

Hideous faces, bodies covered in black mist, twisted joints.

They were demons.

Screams tore through the silence. Everyone began to flee — but where to? There were ruins everywhere.

"Shoot! Open fire!"

The remaining soldiers finally reacted, bullets and shells pouring out, shell casings falling to the ground with a clatter.

The metal bullets passed through the black mist as if passing through a puff of air. It had no effect whatsoever.

A young soldier carrying an RPG pulled the trigger at a Shadow Erosion Beast.

The rocket hit. The light of the explosion illuminated half the ruins.

The smoke cleared, and the strange beast hadn't even changed its posture.

The boy's hand dropped.

"No... it's not working... what kind of monsters are these..."

The second Shadow Erosion Beast turned toward him.

The next second, another dark shadow fell from the rift in the sky.

Its size was three times larger than the first two.

Six articulated limbs, the front two shaped like scythes, its compound eyes reflecting a dark green light — a giant mantis.

E-Rank.

It spread its scythe-like forelimbs, emitting a hiss that pierced the eardrums.

Target — the refugee camp.

And on its path of advance, behind a concrete bunker that had not yet completely collapsed,

Lin Xiaoman was tightly covering a child's mouth, pressing Professor Henry and a dozen other survivors against the wall base.

The scythe was raised high.