14: Chapter 14 When Fire Rain Falls from the Sky

The ground first jumped without any warning.

It wasn't the vibration from a passing truck, but as if the entire slab of earth had been struck hard by a giant hammer from underneath.

Before Jack could steady himself, the grating, low-frequency roar finally caught up to the speed of light, filling his entire eardrums.

Humm—Humm—Humm—

The dark sky above split open.

There was no slow-motion bomb-dropping scene like in the movies.

When Jack looked up, he only saw countless black dots falling from beneath the massive silver aircraft bellies.

They were too dense, dense like a black hailstorm, or a swarm of bloodthirsty locusts.

"Get down! Everyone get down!"

Jack almost instinctively roared, lunging toward Brother Bao, who was closest to him, and shoving the stunned Tactical Master into the freshly dug trench.

The first incendiary bomb landed.

The detonation point was right in the very center of those five acres of cornfield. There was no scene of shrapnel flying everywhere,

only a bizarre moment of pause, followed by an orange-red gelatinous cloud of fire that splashed wildly in all directions along the ground, like a basin of molten lava being thrown out.

It was napalm.

Once touched, it ignited; it wouldn't stop until death.

The heatwave arrived before the sound. Jack felt the exposed skin as if it had been scalded by boiling water, and his eyebrows and hair emitted a scorched, foul odor.

"My grain!"

A heart-wrenching howl pierced through the sound of the bombing.

Jack turned his head sharply. Right at the edge of the cornfield being swallowed by the sea of fire, the stooped figure wasn't running away in the opposite direction; instead, he frantically charged toward the blaze.

It was Old Man Li.

The old man, who had pinned the red land deed to his chest, couldn't see the planes filling the sky at that moment,

nor could he see the raging fire that could burn a person to ash. His eyes were fixed only on those five acres—the lifeline he had just been allocated in his life and hadn't yet managed to store in the granary.

"Dad! Don't go! That's fire!" Jack even forgot this was a game. He scrambled out of the dirt trench with hands and feet, trying to grab the old man.

"That's our family's grain! Dalang! Help put out the fire! Hurry!"

Old Man Li clutched a tattered padded jacket and waved it futilely,

charging into the wall of fire that was already half a man's height. He intended to use that ragged garment to extinguish this purgatorial fire descending from the heavens.

But against napalm, this was like an ant trying to put out a volcano with its saliva.

Another B-29 roared overhead.

This time, the rain of fire landed on the roof.

The thatched roof, patched and repaired for decades to save money, instantly turned into a giant torch the moment it touched the flames.

"Er Ni!"

A scream echoed from the courtyard.

The female streamer, Dai Dai, had originally huddled behind the grinding stone, trembling all over.

But when she saw the burning main beam crashing down toward Second Girl, who was cowering in the corner, her body moved faster than her mind.

There were no tactical maneuvers, nor any graceful footwork.

She lunged forward like an ordinary girl who only knew how to throw tantrums, fiercely shielding the little girl, who was crying hysterically, beneath her.

Crack.

The burning roof beam heavily smashed onto Dai Dai's lower leg.

"Ah—!!!"

A piercing, distorted shriek echoed throughout the entire livestream room.

Pain feedback: 60%.

This was the setting Dai Dai had chosen herself in pursuit of 'immersion'.

At this moment, this was not just data; it was a genuinely fractured bone,

the agony of skin being scorched by high-temperature flames, the direct death signal transmitted from the nerve endings to the brain.

The livestream view shook violently; this was the camera twitching due to Dai Dai convulsing in pain.

The audience couldn't see her face, only hearing that chilling wail and the distinct sizzling sound of flesh burning.

"Sister... Sister..." Second Girl, pinned underneath, her face covered in ash, cried as she tried to push Dai Dai.

"Don't... don't move..." Dai Dai's teeth chattered from the pain, tears and snot smeared across her face,

but her hands desperately braced against the ground, creating a final sliver of survival space for the little girl beneath her.

"Don't come out... It's all fire outside..."

Brother Bao peeked his head out of the trench.

He still gripped the axe he used for chopping wood.

As a top FPS player, he was accustomed to analyzing situations, finding cover, and calculating trajectories.

But now, he could only watch.

Fire was everywhere. There were no enemies, no gun muzzles, only those high-flying 'iron birds,'

casually scattering death upon the world as if viewing ants.

No cover could withstand this fire. No tactic could counter this bombardment.

"Damn it!"

Brother Bao slammed the axe into the ground.

An unprecedented sense of powerlessness flooded him like a tide.

All his skills, all his reaction speed, amounted to nothing in the face of this unequal industrial slaughter.

Another explosion sounded at the village entrance.

The blast wave, carrying bricks, stones, and sparks, rushed over like a wall.

Jack watched helplessly as Old Man Li, who was still trying to fight the fire at the edge of the cornfield, was swept up like a dry leaf by the gale and thrown heavily into the ruins several meters away.

"Dad!"

Jack was knocked over by the blast wave and rolled several times on the ground, but he got up, scrambling and staggering, rushing toward that figure.

The night sky over Andong was completely illuminated.

But this light was not hope; it was destruction.

The air was thick with a nauseating smell—a mixture of burnt corn aroma, the scent of charred wood, and a faint, cloying smell of scorched flesh.

It was the smell of human beings.

In the livestream room, eighty million viewers were dead silent.

The barrage of comments vanished. Those who had been clamoring to see a 'cool gunfight' or even mocked 'farming being boring' were now holding their breath in front of their screens.

This was war.

There was no 'niceties,' no declaration of war.

Just one minute ago, this family was drinking hot porridge, dreaming of clearing two more acres of wasteland next year; Second Girl was still counting how many days she could make that small piece of malt candy last.

One minute later, this place had become hell.

The fire was still burning.

Only the roaring sound descending from the sky had faded, leaving only the crackling sound of flames consuming wood, and the dying cries of some unknown livestock in the distance.

Jack knelt before a pile of rubble.

His hands were already covered in large blisters from the heat, but he felt no pain, frantically raking through the bricks and timber still bearing embers.

"Dad... Dad, where are you..."

Jack's throat was so hoarse it felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of sand.

In the game, he was an orphan; in reality, his parents had long since gone their separate ways in this damned capitalist society.

Only in this virtual world, only these past few days, had this old man who always scolded him for not working fast enough given him something called 'home'.

A dark, thin hand emerged from a gap in the rubble.

That hand was covered in calluses, the gaps under the nails packed with black mud, and the skin was now scorched and curled, turning dark brown.

"Dad!"

Jack and Brother Bao, who had rushed over, worked together to lift a section of the broken wall.

Old Man Li lay in the pile of ash.

If one didn't look closely, one wouldn't recognize him. His blue cloth jacket had burned away, and his chest and face were a mass of black-red, mangled flesh. His graying hair had been burned completely off, leaving only terrifying blisters on his scalp.

But he wasn't completely dead yet.

His chest was still heaving violently—he was desperately trying to draw breath, wanting one more breath of the air of this world.

"Da... Dalang..."

A faint voice emerged from the mouth that looked like a black hole.

"I'm here, I'm here, Dad." Jack cradled the old man's head, tears washing streaks of white through the black ash on his face.

"Don't talk, I'll call a doctor... I'll call..."

Old Man Li's cloudy eyes stared straight at the sky.

The sky was still dark, but reflecting the ground firelight, it was terrifyingly red.

His hand fumbled at his chest. That scorched hand trembled, stubbornly reaching toward the position of his heart.

"Land... Land..."

Jack quickly reached into the old man's tattered clothing and pulled out that object.

The red land deed.

Because it was kept close to his body, most of it was intact, only one corner was scorched black by the fire.

The red seal on it was dazzlingly bright under the firelight.

When Old Man Li saw the paper, a trace of light gathered in his previously cloudy and unfocused pupils.

He tried to reach out for it, but his hand dropped halfway through the motion.

"Still need... still have to plant..." Old Man Li's lips moved, pausing to gasp for breath after every few words,

"This is ours... no one can take it... whoever takes it... I'll fight them to the death..."

A mouthful of black blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth.

"Dalang..." Old Man Li's gaze finally settled on Jack's face, filled with deep fear and confusion.

"You say... can this land... still be planted? Will these iron birds... come again next year?"

Jack's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Can it still be planted?

If they didn't fight back against those beasts flying the planes, let alone planting crops, not a single living person would remain on this land.

"It can be planted! Dad! It definitely can be planted!" Jack clenched the deed tightly, his knuckles turning white,

"No one will dare to come again! I guarantee it! Whoever comes, I'll kill them!"

Old Man Li heard these words.

On his face, ravaged beyond recognition by the burns, a very ugly smile managed to form.

"That's good... that's... good..."

The old man's head dropped heavily.

The breath he had been holding escaped.

That hand, scarred and calloused, slid limply to the ground, its fingertips still pointing toward the burning cornfield.

That was the grain he had worked his whole life for, grain he never got to eat.

"Ah—!!!!"

Jack held the old man's corpse and let out a beast-like howl in the smoke-filled ruins.

What was this?

What the hell kind of game was this!

All the missions were clearly completed, the corn was clearly about to be harvested, life was clearly about to get better!

Why?

Why could those people just throw fire from their planes and leave? Why did we have to fill these pits with our lives?

Not far away, next to a pile of ruins.

Brother Bao knelt on the ground, holding the bent axe, head bowed; no one could see his expression.

Further away, Dai Dai sat slumped on the ground.

Her leg was broken, and the system determined she had lost mobility. And in her embrace, the little girl named Second Girl was no longer crying.

It wasn't because she had been comforted.

It was because a piece of shrapnel was lodged in the back of Second Girl's head.

The small body was slowly growing cold.

And in that small, dark hand,

half of the uneaten malt candy was still tightly clenched; the candy had dissolved into a sticky mess from the sweat and blood in her palm.

Dai Dai stared blankly at the candy.

She didn't feel pain anymore.

Even though her leg wound was still bleeding, even though the red warning on the system panel was flashing wildly, she couldn't feel any pain.

Only cold.

A coldness seeping out from her marrow.

Just then, in the center of the vision of the three people, the familiar system text, which originally only signified the end of a mission, slowly appeared.

But this time, the text was not gold; it was blood-red.

As if written in the fresh blood on the ground.

[Homestead Instance Ended.]

[Settlement Statistics:]

[You protected the land deed.]

[But you failed to protect the people who farmed the land.]

[You failed to protect the child who wanted to eat candy.]

[You failed to protect the freshly cooked bowl of hot porridge.]

The writing slowly faded, and immediately, a new line of text popped up.

It had no emotional tone, yet it struck the hearts of all players and spectators like a hammer.

[Do you want to know how to stop those iron birds from daring to fly over?]

[Do you want the fire to burn on someone else's land, instead of on your own hearth?]

Jack slowly raised his head.

Brother Bao gripped his axe tighter.

Dai Dai wiped the blood from her face.

In the vision of all three, a huge, black-iron cast option box simultaneously popped up.

[Enlist?]

[Yes / No]