Mo Xiaotian's fingertips still tingled with residual electric arcs, but his nostrils were already filled with the putrid stench of decay. Staggering to his feet, he found his palms sinking not into the expected train compartment floor, but into some viscous, icy granules. Each grain of sand oozed black-red mucus, like crushed rotten organs.

"Where... is this?" His trembling voice was swallowed by the sound of waves. Looking up, he saw the entire beach had taken on a sickly gray-blue hue, as if soaked in formaldehyde. The tide line wasn't littered with seashells, but densely packed jawbone-like bone fragments and piles of garbage that clattered together with each wave, producing eerie giggles.

His head spun as he struggled to stand. A chilling sensation shot from his feet to his skull, making him shiver uncontrollably.

Confusion, fear, and bewilderment churned within him. This made no sense—he'd just been practicing his abilities in the warm train compartment. How had he suddenly appeared outside?

Splash—

The seawater ahead suddenly began boiling violently. Mo Xiaotian stumbled back two steps, stepping on something soft. Looking down, he saw a bloated corpse covered in glowing sea lice emerging from its rotting skin. Their needle-like compound eyes all turned toward him in unison. Startled, Mo Xiaotian quickly moved away, only to see something even more terrifying—where the horizon should be, a hill-sized arc of ghostly blue light was rising, seawater cascading down its smooth surface like waterfalls as something enormous emerged from the depths.

"Bzzz... bzzz..."

An eerie hum rose from the ocean depths, making the air vibrate. The arc of light continued ascending, revealing a translucent umbrella-shaped body—a jellyfish hundreds of meters in diameter. Its undulating edges framed a central glowing organ emitting azure light that would have been beautiful if not for the black, vein-like patterns pulsing within. Twelve tentacles broke through the water's surface, writhing in the air.

The scene resembled some alien creature emerging from an eldritch world. A hymn-like resonance echoed across the sea, instilling both sacred awe and primal terror in all who witnessed the colossal jellyfish. Mo Xiaotian's consciousness teetered on the edge as his eyes widened, face pale. Despite clenching his teeth, dark blood vessels began spreading across his eyes.

Fear-induced mutation!

Meanwhile, the giant fluorescent jellyfish floated closer, its cold glow illuminating the entire beach. Massive tentacles snaked downward toward Mo Xiaotian.

Just as the sound of waves in Mo Xiaotian's ears grew distant and ethereal, a sharp shout cut through the sky:

"Xiaotian, don't look!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Several sonic booms exploded above the beach as Lin Xian in power armor shot through the air. With a wave of his hand, the Black Star Forge activated, launching nanodevices that enveloped Mo Xiaotian completely. In an instant, an exosuit encased his freezing body, life support systems kicking in to provide warmth.

Before he could react, the power armor's autopilot had already carried him away, wrapped in an invisible telekinetic wave. KIKI and Lin Xian acted in unison while Shiori immediately activated her healing abilities. The restorative light rapidly purged the dark toxins from Mo Xiaotian's body. Gasping inside the armor, he finally caught his breath.

"Brother Lin, Sister KIKI, I... I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine. Calm down and focus. This might be a special-level entity!" KIKI responded immediately.

"This lord has arrived!"

Meanwhile, a fiery streak shot across the night sky like a meteor—Lu Xingchen.

"What sea monster dares face this lord's heaven-scorching flames?"

Lu Xingchen's voice tore through the mist with explosive fury. The crimson figure dove from midair, kilometer-long trails of fire streaming from the wings of flame on his back. Plasma jets from his power armor's joints vaporized the fog within a hundred-meter radius into spiral-shaped vacuum zones. The usually playful chuunibyou youth now had bloodshot eyes and a near-feral grin—clearly unleashing pent-up rage.

"Divine·Infinite Blazing Sword!"

Boom!

A magma-white pillar of fire erupted from Lu Xingchen's palm, infinite rings spinning wildly as blue flames surged. The blazing sword of fire, trailing violent Mach diamonds, struck the jellyfish's frontal canopy dead center. A translucent white biofield flickered into visibility for an instant before being pierced by Lu Xingchen's full-powered strike. The transparent edges curled and burst as rotting flesh carbonized into black snow under 3,000-degree heat. The sea boiled, steam hissing with an ear-piercing shriek as the central glowing organ contracted sharply, revealing a massive spiral-patterned maw.

Beep beep beep!

On Geddy's end, the detector was already blaring alarms. Both squads on the beach had been marked with level 4 indicators—meaning this fluorescent jellyfish was at least A-rank or had reached special-level!

The moment the markers activated, the air seemed to freeze for a second.

From the nearby urban ruins came dense scraping sounds—like countless tiny claws dragging across concrete or rusted metal being twisted by invisible hands. In the darkness, a skyscraper's glass curtain wall suddenly shattered, raining shards without any footsteps, only viscous dripping sounds oozing from alleyway depths.

The sea's rhythm changed too. Once-regular waves grew chaotic as deep vibrations pulsed underwater—something massive shifting in the abyss. Bone fragments on the beach trembled at high frequency, resonating with some low-frequency soundwave. Black-red mucus seeped from between sand grains, converging into streams that crawled unnaturally back toward the sea.

On Lin Xian's power armor holographic display, the radar's edges suddenly swarmed with red dots—formless, contourless life signals converging from all directions. Eastward, a tunnel in the abandoned highway screeched with metal deformation. Westward near the tide line, seawater abruptly receded to reveal rock walls honeycombed by gnawing. Northward in the city's thick fog, a long-dead streetlight flickered twice before its bulb exploded, the mist echoing with an infant's wailing shriek that cut off abruptly.

"Level 4 markers... trouble's coming!" KIKI sensed intense spiritual fluctuations surging from everywhere. Though no creatures were visible yet, everyone's vision was darkening—a sign of escalating dark energy concentration. A suffocating pressure weighed down on them.

"KIKI, A Bai, let's finish this fast!" Lin Xian made the call immediately. With the monster over water, only A Bai, KIKI and himself could attack effectively at range.

"Got it!" A Bai responded instantly. His specialized armor allowed direct flight as his eyes transformed into black-red beams fired from the power armor's laser emitters. The twin lances of light tore through the night like judgment swords piercing the jellyfish's translucent canopy.

Simultaneously, KIKI activated her flying blade array. Thousands of VK Electric Blades became a dense river of steel under her telekinesis, each crackling with lightning. The blade storm resembled a flowing galactic river as her glowing eyes guided them to break the sound barrier instantly toward the colossal jellyfish.

In that moment—Fire Bro, A Bai, and KIKI all struck together. The jellyfish's biofield shattered completely.

Thud!

Just as the fluorescent jellyfish's tissues disintegrated under the assault, its glowing core suddenly emitted a violent shockwave. For an instant, Lu Xingchen's flames froze midair while A Bai and KIKI's powers stuttered. Everyone heard their armor's cooling systems emit abnormal hums—like icy fingers crawling along pipelines into reactors. Oxygen circulation turned foul as frost patterns resembling twisted human faces formed on visor interiors.

This unprecedented attack mode put Lin Xian on high alert. Not long ago, he'd sensed that mysterious container's power-dampening fluctuations. This couldn't be good.

Without hesitation, Lin Xian aimed at the jellyfish's exposed spiral maw and activated Gravitational Lens! Check latest chapters at novel-fire.ɴet

Hummm!

Space itself vibrated as all sounds on the beach abruptly ceased.

The world changed. Azure fluorescence distorted as everyone saw the jellyfish's light dim abruptly. A warped space vortex formed within its massive maw—a black-water whirlpool in midair where even the core's blue glow bent at the edges.

Within the distorted space, darkness rapidly disintegrated and reformed like smoke being spirally consumed. Intermittent glimpses of an orange dawn scene flashed in Lin Xian's vision—the original sunrise over the sea!

Lin Xian's pupils constricted at the sight.

The "daytime" world's light piercing through the distorted space exerted tremendous gravitational force, instantly shredding the jellyfish's maw and core.

Boom!

In the next instant, Lin Xian, Fire Bro, KIKI and A Bai withdrew simultaneously. Under their combined assault, the special-level creature was already torn apart. Glowing jellyfish tissues rained down, raising massive waves as the creature emitted deep hums, its remaining tentacles still twitching.

"Why isn't it dead yet?" Lin Xian frowned. The jellyfish's central core was now a hollow void, its canopy edges nearly diced by KIKI and A Bai. Yet the carcass remained suspended midair instead of falling.

"Captain Lin, abnormal entities are approaching!" Ning Jing's squad closed in as the group formed a defensive circle midair, watching both coastline and city warily.

"Trouble!" Lin Xian gritted his teeth. Their assault had been lightning-fast—this monster, while threatening, shouldn't have been unkillable at full strength. The real problem was their level 4 markers. Unless removed, they might face more than just one special-level.

Seeing the violently trembling sea, KIKI urged Fire Bro: "Burn it to ashes now!"

"Obviously!" Fire Bro raised a flaming fist, preparing a large-scale incineration attack.

Just then, a sharp sonic boom interrupted him. A short-haired girl wielding a mechanical greatsword flew unaided by any power armor, surrounded by shimmering distortion waves that made her appear wreathed in heat haze—Vanessa!

Lin Xian's eyes narrowed. From Vanessa, he sensed a terrifyingly familiar energy fluctuation.

Corpse Drivers!

Back when connecting with Chu Yan to contact the Corpse Drivers, he'd clearly sensed this dark energy. Now it emanated from Vanessa.

His armor's photoelectric lock tracked Vanessa's energy-distorted flight. Lin Xian noticed a crucial detail—dark red vein-like patterns had appeared on her exposed skin. Her ability peak surged wildly before the girl swung her greatsword in a domineering slash toward the jellyfish carcass!

Whoosh!

An explosive shockwave like a meteor tearing through air detonated above the beach. Everyone saw Vanessa's blade glow crimson at hypersonic speeds as a dark-red energy wave—like spilled dark particles—arced outward in a hundreds-meter-wide slash. Like a windshield wiper, it cleanly bisected the teetering jellyfish remains into scattered chunks!

Lin Xian, Xiao Qing, Ning Jing, KIKI and A Bai stared in shock. Beyond the brutal slash destroying the carcass, Lin Xian noticed something else—as the dark particle wave passed, the jellyfish's azure energy was instantly devoured, exploding into black mist while the transparent remains rapidly decayed into white necrotic tissue, completely inert.

Plop plop plop!

Countless chunks splashed into the sea. KIKI's team realized their level 4 markers had completely vanished.

"That powerful... did she use that so-called Crystal Lattice energy?"

"Definitely." Ning Jing said gravely. "Her power has at least doubled since yesterday, plus she's wielding something beyond evolutionary enhancement—no gene evolver could release that."

Xiao Qing watched carefully. As a combat prodigy, she recognized Vanessa's abnormal growth. Yesterday when Vanessa killed a split-tailed horror, their difference seemed negligible—Xiao Qing had even believed herself stronger. But now Vanessa's combat prowess was terrifying, making Xiao Qing ponder the Crystal Lattice's potential.

Hearing the discussion, Lin Xian's eyes gleamed. Seeing the radar's aimlessly moving red dots, he ordered: "No more talk. Radio silence—back to the train!"

"Wait." Another Geddy raised her right arm, a mechanical hatch opening to launch a specialized micro-missile toward a distant stadium. "Bait Agent?" Lin Xian asked.

"Correct." Geddy nodded.

"Move out!" Without another word, Lin Xian led the retreat toward the rail station.

From above, shadowy figures moved slowly through streets as the group flew low with Mo Xiaotian back to the Infinite train. Only upon boarding did they relax.

The entire battle had lasted under three minutes—eliminating a special-level entity, clearing level 4 markers, then vanishing from the dark creature tide's hunt. Heart-pounding efficiency.

Inside the compartment, Sun Yuzhen hugged Mo Xiaotian anxiously: "Are you okay?"

Out of armor, Mo Xiaotian shook his head at Fire Bro: "Master... I was practicing arc conduction when suddenly..."

"Silence!" Fire Bro feigned sternness despite his fear, looking down sternly. "For this blunder—six hours of body tempering! No breaks!"

"Fine..." Mo Xiaotian pouted.

Lin Xian watched Vanessa's dark-red patterns recede and asked: "This is the Crystal Lattice's power?"

"Correct." Vanessa turned, her black-red rippling eyes calming to reveal cunning brown irises. "The Crystal Lattice doesn't just enhance ability peaks. Its core function is absorbing and releasing dark energy—which can rapidly annihilate abnormal entities' vitality faster than any physical or physiological destruction."

"Faster than this lord reducing them to ashes?" Lu Xingchen scoffed, though the girl's slash had impressed him.

Vanessa met his gaze calmly: "Your fire abilities surpass mine in raw destruction. But for extinguishing dark creatures' vitality? Trust me—dark energy exceeds all known powers."

"It did feel like the monster died instantly," KIKI agreed. "Is dark energy really that potent? One slash killed a special-level?"

"Not exactly." Geddy explained: "Captain Lin and the others had already critically wounded it. Vanessa's strike mainly cleared the dark markers quickly. Normally, this monster would be troublesome—though daytime's different. At night with markers, we'd usually just repel it then retreat while clearing markers on lesser entities."

"True." Vanessa remained modest. "But with the Crystal Lattice, I at least stand a fighting chance."

She smiled at Lin Xian: "So, Sword Bearer—interested in the Crystal Lattice now?"

Lin Xian nodded: "Always have been."

"My earlier proposal then..."

"Where's your base?" Lin Xian cut straight to it.

"Near Haiyan Island—a few dozen nautical miles." Vanessa said.

"Ship?" Chen Sixuan asked.

"No." Geddy revealed: "Our shelter's quite simple..."

"Just an aircraft carrier."