64: Chapter 64 A Brush with Death

"Comrade."

These two words were still echoing in Chen Xi's ears.

A burning, unfamiliar emotion was surging from the deepest depths of his heart.

He hadn't even had the time to savor this warm current yet.

"Beep— Beep— Beep—!"

The sharp, ear-piercing alarm of the Great Wall Command Center suddenly exploded in his mind!

A blood-red warning covered his entire field of vision!

[Warning! High-intensity light source detected! Energy level: Unknown!]

Before the voice could even fade...

A brilliant, indescribably massive pillar of light tore through the pitch-black night curtain.

Like a sword of judgment from the heavenly courts, carrying an aura of total destruction, it slammed ruthlessly into the three-hundred-meter-wide river surface!

Boom—

The river water was instantly vaporized, letting out a dull explosive roar!

Thick water mist surged into the sky, as if the entire Suzhou Creek was boiling!

...Year 2026, Great Wall Command Center.

After the extreme silence came utter chaos!

"What is that!"

"Report! It's a searchlight from a Japanese Army warship! The power has been cranked up to over a hundred times its normal value!"

"They've found the Drone!"

"No! Its scanning trajectory is random! It's searching indiscriminately!"

"Quick! Have Tianhe analyze the trajectory! Perform evasive predictions!"

Before the ballistics expert could finish, he was cut off by the head of the Meteorology Group, whose voice was distorted by fear.

"There is no trajectory! Its movement is completely irregular! It's being operated manually!"

These words caused everyone's hearts in the Command Center to sink to the bottom.

No regularity meant that Tianhe's terrifying computing power, capable of predicting the orbits of stars, had completely lost its utility at this moment.

"Good God..." A young technician watched the pillar of light on the screen sweeping back and forth like the Grim Reaper's scythe and slumped into his chair in despair.

This time, there was no heaven-earth coordination.

There were no cloud engineers.

There was no omnipotent Tianhe.

In that pitch-black canyon from eighty-nine years ago, only Chen Xi remained.

Elder Long stared fixedly at the screen, a deep sense of powerlessness appearing for the first time in his bloodshot eyes.

He slammed a fist hard against the cold control console.

"Chen Xi..."

...Year 1937, above Suzhou Creek.

Chen Xi's world became incredibly pure.

He couldn't hear the exclamations in the Livestream room, nor the clamor of the Command Center.

His mind went blank; all emotions and all thoughts were completely cleared away.

In his world, only three things remained.

That approaching pillar of light that represented death.

That fragile Drone swaying in the wind.

And his own heart, beating wildly like a war drum.

All his senses and all his spirit merged into one with that tiny Drone at this moment.

The light was coming!

Without any warning, without any instructions.

Relying on the instincts of a top-tier player and battle-hardened muscle memory, Chen Xi's finger suddenly pulled down on the virtual controller!

Dive!

Like a stalling fighter jet, the Drone's nose dipped, and it plummeted straight toward the cold river surface!

The brilliant pillar of light swept past the altitude where the Drone had just been, missing it by the narrowest of margins.

The screen of the Livestream room instantly turned a deathly white!

The harsh sound of static and Chen Xi's rapid breathing reached the ears of every viewer through the speakers.

Everyone's heart felt as if it were being squeezed hard by an invisible giant hand!

The light was gone!

Color returned to the screen.

Pull up!

The moment before it touched the water, the Drone's nose jerked up, and it soared back into the sky.

"Phew..."

In the Command Center, a collective gasp of relief broke out.

But before they could even finish catching their breath...

That pillar of light swept back again from an even more tricky angle!

This time, it was faster! More ruthless!

Chen Xi's heart tightened.

"Stick to the rock wall!"

His fingers danced rapidly across the controller.

The Drone performed an extreme sideslip, almost brushing against the wall of the abandoned factory on the opposite bank as it dove into a narrow shadow cast by the building.

Buzz—

The pillar of light swept past the edge of the Drone once more.

The scorching temperature even caused the Drone's metal casing to emit a slight sound of deformation.

[Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!]

[Scared the life out of me! I almost threw my damn phone!]

[This isn't a game anymore! This is dancing with the Grim Reaper!]

[The streamer's reaction speed... is that even humanly possible?]

The Livestream room went completely wild.

The Great Wall Command Center, however, was dead silent.

All the experts understood that those two evasions just now were already at the limit of human reaction speed.

Next time, Chen Xi couldn't possibly have such good luck.

The white-haired chief meteorology expert stared fixedly at the drifting pillar of light on the screen, his voice hoarse.

"It's narrowing the search range..."

"It's learning... it's judging the areas where the Drone might be hiding..."

"It's hunting."

Elder Long's face was whiter than paper.

He knew that the purest duel between top-tier hunters had begun.

On the battlefield, Chen Xi's forehead was already covered in fine beads of sweat.

Sweat dripped down his chin, soaking his tattered casual clothes.

He didn't have time to wipe it.

His eyes were locked onto every movement of the light pillar, his brain performing calculations at a speed beyond human limits.

Angle, speed, lead time... He was Tianhe.

This time, he was his own "cloud brain"!

The light came again!

This time, it flicked upward from below!

It blocked all paths of retreat downward!

"Into the shadows!"

A low growl escaped Chen Xi's throat.

He performed a maneuver that no one could understand.

He didn't dodge.

He controlled the Drone and proactively charged toward the pillar of light!

Just as the light pillar was about to swallow the Drone, he jerked it upward, slipping into the hollow under a broken bridge by the riverbank!

The bridge hollow provided perfect cover.

The pillar of light swept futilely over the top of the bridge.

A textbook example of perfect evasion using the terrain!

Thunderous applause erupted in the Command Center!

The young technician who had looked despairing just moments ago was now flushed with excitement.

"He did it! He succeeded again! He found a blind spot!"

Elder Long's tense body finally relaxed slightly.

As long as he could find patterns and hiding spots, there was still hope.

However, the next second...

His hope was once again shattered into pieces.

Boom!

A massive explosion!

The broken bridge that the Drone had used as cover was accurately struck by a secondary gun from the Japanese warship and blown into a million fragments!

The Japanese Army was telling Chen Xi in the most brutal and unreasonable way...

That on this sea of death, no safe corner existed!

Having dodged the scans three times in a row, the Soldiers in the warehouse and the viewers in the Livestream room thought they were temporarily safe.

Chen Xi's nerves also slackened slightly due to the high intensity.

He needed to adjust his posture to prepare for the next, even more extreme evasion.

He controlled the Drone, preparing to perform an extreme low-altitude maneuver close to the cliff wall to gain a wider field of vision.

Under his control, the Drone flew at high speed like a nimble swift, hugging the uneven rock wall.

Everything was flawless.

It was just off by a hair.

Just a tiny, tiny bit.

The edge of one of the Drone's rotors lightly grazed a sharp, protruding rock on the wall.

Screech—

An extremely faint sound of metal friction rang out, yet it was incredibly clear on this silent battlefield.

In the Livestream room, this light sound was captured by the high-sensitivity microphone and instantly amplified, like sharp nails scraping across a blackboard!

In the warehouse, the Soldiers who had just relaxed felt their hearts leap into their throats!

In the outpost on the opposite bank...

That brilliant searchlight pillar, which had been sweeping back and forth frantically, suddenly stopped.

The entire world seemed to have been put on pause.

Then.

Slowly, with the precision and malice of a predator discovering its prey, the pillar of light shifted inch by inch toward the source of the sound.