125: Chapter 125 Desperate Situation and the Torrent of Dawn

At 7:30 AM, Lin Mo turned the car key, and the SUV's engine hummed to life.

In the back seat, his daughter held her sketchbook with half a sandwich in her mouth, chirping about how they were going to draw family portraits in art class today.

Lin Mo glanced out the window.

The autumn wind swirled fallen leaves, carpeting half the road—many times more than at the same time in previous years.

He didn't pay it much mind and turned on the car radio.

The host's steady voice came through: "Last night, a biological laboratory in the east of the city was violently attacked by an extremist animal protection organization; dozens of experimental chimpanzees are missing."

"A mass escape of monkeys has occurred at the city zoo. Relevant departments are handling the situation. Citizens are advised to stay safe while traveling."

Lin Mo smiled, treating it as just another piece of social news.

He stepped on the brake, and the car stopped.

The morning rush hour traffic was gridlocked, with red taillights stretching from the intersection all the way to the horizon.

He didn't notice that in the trees lining the road, countless dark shadows were jumping rapidly through the branches and leaves, silent, except for the large patches of yellowing leaves they shook loose each time.

After dropping his daughter off at the school gates, Lin Mo turned the car around and headed toward his company.

But today seemed exceptionally difficult; with only twenty minutes left until he had to clock in, the cars ahead hadn't moved an inch.

Lin Mo honked his horn irritably, his fist slamming hard against the steering wheel.

"Damn it, why is the traffic so bad today? This is a six-lane road!"

In a gap between honks, he suddenly caught sight of a convenience store by the roadside.

The floor-to-ceiling glass was smashed to pieces, the rolling shutter door had been bent open by brute force, and snacks and drink bottles were scattered on the ground, yet there was no one around.

He looked up.

The public security surveillance cameras along the road were falling off their poles one by one, as if their bases had been ripped apart by something, crashing onto the sidewalk and shattering into pieces.

Lin Mo had a faint feeling that something was wrong.

Just then, from the far end of the traffic flow ahead, a heart-wrenching scream rang out.

Following that were dense, chaotic sounds of running, and people shouting, "Run!"

Car doors ahead were constantly opening, and many owners leaned halfway out of their vehicles, turning to run back with faces full of terminal terror. Some tripped and were trampled by those behind them, unable to even let out a cry.

Lin Mo's blood instantly ran cold.

He pushed open his car door, braced himself on the roof of the SUV next to him, and looked forward.

Screams pierced the silence of the morning rush hour.

Several dark shadows leaped from the treetops, crashing heavily onto the roofs of small cars, causing them to cave in.

The leading chimpanzee was a full 1.8 meters tall and was wearing a set of combat fatigues?!

It clutched a piece of rebar as thick as a bowl, smashing it through a car window.

It dragged out the screaming driver, its two coarse hands grabbing the person's arm and leg respectively, and gave a violent pull to both sides.

A heart-wrenching scream exploded for a moment, then stopped abruptly.

The chimpanzee casually tossed the remains onto the ground, its crimson eyes scanning the fleeing crowd, letting out a sharp, tooth-grinding roar.

The other chimpanzees nearby also moved.

Some swung sledgehammers, smashing people's heads into a pulp.

Some carried fire axes, decapitating people with a single stroke.

Others held sharpened rebar, impaling people directly and shaking them in mid-air.

Finally, someone reacted; a policeman was the first to open fire.

The next second, even more bullets swept back from the opposite side.

Those chimpanzees held captured rifles, their fingers pulling the triggers with movements as skilled as soldiers trained for years; they were not ordinary beasts at all.

The policeman fell in a pool of blood on the spot, his body riddled with holes.

Lin Mo was so terrified he scrambled back into his car, turned the steering wheel all the way, and floored the accelerator. The tires shrieked against the ground as he forced a path open, turning around to rush toward the school.

On the way, more dark shadows jumped down from the buildings.

A chimpanzee landed on his hood, its fist smashing through the windshield, spraying glass shards across his face.

Lin Mo jerked the steering wheel, slamming the creature into a lamppost, and sped away with his foot on the gas.

Only one thought was in his mind: pick up his daughter.

When he reached the school gates, the place was already in total chaos.

The security booth at the entrance had been overturned, and the iron gates were twisted into scrap metal.

The school bus driver had just brought the vehicle to a stop when he was dragged into a nearby alley by a chimpanzee leaping from a tree. His screams were short-lived, and the keys were still in the ignition.

A young female teacher was holding two terrified, crying children, slumped by the bus door, her whole body shaking like a leaf.

Lin Mo slammed on the brakes, rushed over to pull his daughter into a tight embrace, and roared at the teacher: "I have an A1 driver's license, I drove passenger transport for two years, I can drive this! Get the kids on the bus, fast, or we won't make it!"

The teacher froze for a second, then snapped to her senses, scrambling to push the children around her onto the school bus.

Soon, the school bus seats and aisles were packed with children, and the door closed with a clang.

Lin Mo sat in the driver's seat, shifted gears, floored the gas, and the school bus roared as it surged forward.

In the back, the children's crying became a continuous wall of sound. The female teacher held the smallest child, constantly trying to soothe them, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

Outside the windows, it had become a living hell.

Groups of chimpanzees wearing bulletproof vests and riot helmets, carrying captured rifles, were rampaging through the streets.

Cars were overturned, gas stations were exploding into the sky, shops were looted clean, and the ground was covered in glass shards mixed with blood.

Those who were caught were torn into pieces by the chimpanzees and thrown by the roadside. Those beasts had no humanity, squatting on the ground to feast on the remains, letting out satisfied low growls.

Several chimpanzees spotted the school bus and roared as they rushed from the roadside, leaping onto the vehicle.

Claws gripped the sheet metal, making a piercing scraping sound as sparks flew.

Lin Mo stared dead ahead at the road, the sweat on his palms making the steering wheel slippery.

He gradually realized that these chimpanzees weren't just running around randomly; they were divided into squads, blocking all the small roads out of the city and leaving only the beltway highway as a way out, as if they were herding all the refugees in the same direction.

They weren't beasts at all; they were a tactical, premeditated army.

Suddenly, a chimpanzee smashed a side window, and a furry arm reached in, trying to grab a child in the front row.

The children's screams instantly spiked.

When that furry arm reached in, Lin Mo heard his daughter scream.

In that moment, fear suddenly burned into rage.

Lin Mo was furious; was he really going to be afraid of a beast?!

He jerked the steering wheel, and the school bus slammed hard into a nearby abandoned shipping container.

The chimpanzee on the side of the bus was thrown off and instantly crushed into meat paste by the rear wheels.

He didn't dare stop.

In the small cars stopped by the roadside, people were being dragged out, either torn apart or dismembered.

Stopping meant death.

The school bus rampaged all the way, crashing through countless roadblocks and intercepting chimpanzees, finally bursting out of the city and onto the beltway highway.

Lin Mo drove the school bus on the highway for an entire day.

After escaping the city, while the school bus was driving through an empty stretch, Lin Mo saw his daughter's sleeping face in the rearview mirror and had a moment of daze.

The fuel gauge needle was nearly at empty, the bus body was battered and dented, and the side windows were all shattered, blocked with luggage.

The sky had completely darkened.

Not a single light was on along the highway; only the headlights pierced the darkness, revealing the dense crowds of refugee vehicles ahead.

Just then, the school bus gave a sudden lurch and stopped.

Lin Mo looked up, and his blood ran cold instantly.

The highway ahead was completely blocked by an overturned tour bus.

The oncoming lanes were completely separated by half-meter-high concrete barriers; there was no way across.

There were refugee cars in front and behind, packed bumper to bumper, gridlocked so tightly they could neither advance nor retreat.

Lin Mo jumped out of the bus and rushed over with a dozen men to push the tour bus.

A dozen people exerted all their strength together, but the ten-plus-ton bus didn't budge.

The sky grew darker and darker.

The people trapped on the road grew more and more panicked.

The wind began to carry the distant, blurred roars of chimpanzees and sporadic gunfire, getting closer and clearer.

A man looked through binoculars and his face went deathly pale instantly, screaming: "They're coming! The chimpanzees have caught up! They're just two kilometers away!"

Everyone panicked instantly; the sounds of women crying and children screaming became a mess. People banged on their cars trying to reverse, but they were blocked in by other refugee vehicles, with no way to retreat.

No one knew when those chimpanzees would strike.

Lin Mo gripped a steel pipe he'd picked up from the roadside, his back pressed tightly against the school bus door, shielding his daughter in his arms.

His daughter buried her face in his chest, crying softly: "Daddy, I'm scared."

Lin Mo stroked his daughter's head, his throat tight, unable to say a word.

Just then, someone shouted: "Look! There's light! A convoy! A convoy is coming from the other side!"

Everyone who heard the voice leaned out of their cars in excitement; sure enough, on the other side of the highway, a long dragon of headlights was approaching rapidly.

On the command vehicle at the very front of the convoy, two flags were flying.

Strangely, there was no Stars and Stripes; instead, one was the National Guard flag, and the other was a double-headed eagle flag on a black background.

The convoy consisted entirely of rugged, modified pickups, passing by one after another with a roar, with no intention of stopping.

The refugees blocked on the road weren't angry, and no one complained.

Right now, being able to kill those beasts was more important than anything.

The next second, an even more deafening roar came from the sky.

A valkyrie gunship with a black paint job swept past at low altitude.

Then a second, and a third.

Suddenly, a leman russ tank advanced at full speed along the highway, its tracks grinding over the concrete ground.

Upon seeing the bus blocking the way, the tank suddenly smashed through the central concrete barriers and then shoved the tour bus aside with its front, pushing it off the highway embankment.

The road of death that had been blocked for several hours was instantly cleared.

The tank then reversed back into the formation.

The refugees blocked on the road froze for a few seconds, then erupted into deafening cheers.

Some knelt by the roadside, covering their faces and wailing; the cries of survivors echoed across the highway.

Some waved frantically toward the receding convoy, their voices gone hoarse from shouting.

The children in the school bus also stopped crying, peering through the broken windows at the grand steel torrent, light returning to their eyes.

Lin Mo leaned against the car door, his strength failing as he slid to sit on the ground, holding his daughter tightly in his arms, letting out a long sigh of relief.

Everything was going to be okay.

...

Inside the command vehicle, Fu Haoran watched the global battlefield scan synchronized by Jarvis, his fingertips lightly tapping the table.

"Sir, at least 150,000 armed ape-men have been confirmed in the Washington area. Their main force is concentrated around Capitol Hill. The cross-world portal is still operating, and the rebel leader, Charlie, is on the top floor of the Capitol Building," Jarvis's electronic voice rang out steadily.

Fu Haoran nodded slightly, not in a hurry to order an attack.

Fu Haoran pointed to the Sams Club warehouse area in the suburbs on the map and ordered: "Notify the whole army. We rest here tonight, establish a temporary defense line, and gather the surrounding refugees."

"Send out all reconnaissance Servo-skulls to compile complete battlefield intelligence."

Fu Haoran didn't want to let his brothers charge into an enemy ambush for the sake of those congressional lords who only knew how to shift blame.

Fu Haoran stood outside the command vehicle, looking at the rescued refugees in the camp.

A five or six-year-old girl huddled in her mother's arms, clutching half an unfinished family portrait.

He was silent for a few seconds, then turned to Wade and said: "Inform the refugees that those in need can go to Sams Club for shelter. Also, arrange personnel to maintain order."

...

Meanwhile, at the top of the Capitol Building.

Charlie stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, staring toward the suburbs at the endless steel torrent.

An ape adjutant beside him reported with a low growl: "Leader, the enemy has stopped at the Sams Club warehouse area. They are establishing a defense line and have not continued their advance."

"I know." Charlie's voice was deep, without any of the muddiness of an ape, speaking in fluent English.

He understood humans too well.

The commander of this suddenly appearing army was cautious and steady, and would not make a reckless move just to save the idiots on Capitol Hill.

But he understood his own kind even better.

Humans' vision drops significantly at night, while apes' does not.

Attacking when the enemy is weary was a principle he had learned from human military history.

Charlie turned around and gave a sharp order to the adjutant: "Notify all combat units. At 3:00 AM, launch a three-pronged raid on the enemy camp. Prioritize destroying their heavy weapons and command vehicles. I want this human reinforcement to have no way back."

"Yes, Leader!"

The night grew thicker.

The temporary camp at Sams Club was peaceful, with only the rhythmic sound of sentries' footsteps.

No one knew that in the darkness several kilometers away, over a hundred thousand chimpanzees had already gripped their guns, waiting for the deepest moment of the night to launch a fatal raid.

Chapter update reminder: Chapter 125: Despair and the Torrent of Dawn, reading address.