My physics masters couldn't possibly be grand mages.

Su Ming carried Lao Zhou on his back and ran in the lead, with the rest of the people following closely behind.

No one spoke, no one turned around, only the sound of hurried footsteps and heavy breathing echoed in the corridor.

Cindy glanced back at the approaching darkness one last time, said nothing, and followed at the very back of the group like a dark red shadow.

The emergency lights in the stairwell flickered a ghastly white, and the steps beneath my feet were slippery with blood from who knows who.

"Where is the car you mentioned?" Xia asked.

Su Ming was taken aback. "Go to Tieshan now?"

"Besides there, where else can we hide from Lin Yuan?"

Su Ming didn't ask any more questions, because what Xia Ya said did make sense.

In the past, the Abyss would only appear when the army clashed directly with nighttime monsters and caused a large number of monster casualties.

Normally, the military would cover the evacuation of civilians, leaving them to cover the rear.

Su Ming had never encountered a situation where he had to lead a team to face Lin Yuan alone.

He realized what was happening and quickly replied.

"I know a shortcut."

He kicked open a fire door and rushed into another corridor.

Most of the glass on both sides was shattered, and the night wind blew in, carrying with it the distant roar of a giant whale.

Their voices rose and fell, ethereal and melodious, like a strange and unknown summoning ritual.

The abyss is now within reach.

Lin Guodong looked back.

Between it and the city, in front of that black wall that stretched to the sky, something else appeared.

Hundreds of meters high.

translucent.

They emerged from the depths of the abyss, the moonlight filtering through their bodies, casting an eerie pale blue hue.

Their outlines are blurry and soft, without obvious facial features. Their heads are like a piece of dead wood with the top cut off, and two horns extend diagonally from their foreheads. At the forks of the horns hang wisps of ribbons that look like algae or mist.

Its body is slender, and the proportions of its limbs are different from those of humans.

With each step they take, the mist on their bodies spreads outwards.

The surrounding walls began to peel, the asphalt cracked, and the temperature plummeted.

They have no eyes, but Lin Guodong can sense them.

They are looking this way.

He looked away and quickened his pace.

"We're here! It's over there." Su Ming pointed to the stairs at the end of the corridor, his voice hoarse.

They stumbled and fell down the stairs like a pack of rabbits being chased by hounds.

The dark green armored vehicle was still stuck in the flower bed between the two buildings, tilted and with its doors open.

The flower bed was made of metal, so the weight of the armored vehicle itself couldn't crush it.

Su Ming jumped into the driver's seat; the key was still there. He turned it, and the engine let out a deep roar.

"It can be opened!"

Char turned his head to look at Cindy behind him.

Without a word, Cindy flapped her Bloodwing and swam to the side of the armored vehicle, gripping the crash beams at the bottom of the vehicle with both hands.

Her slender figure formed an eerie contrast with the massive armored vehicle, but she managed to lift the stuck vehicle a few centimeters, and the tires fell back to the ground with a dull metallic clang.

"Get in the car!" Char shouted.

Lin Guodong shoved Lao Zhou into the back seat, and Zhao Lina and Fang Tang followed suit. Xia Ya got in last.

He called out to Cindy, "You come up here too!"

Cindy didn't answer; she simply landed on the roof of the car.

Su Ming simply floored the accelerator.

The armored vehicle rolled over rubble and debris, shaking violently.

In the rearview mirror, those translucent behemoths, hundreds of meters tall, had already passed the building and were very close to them.

But the armored vehicles kept going faster and faster.

They drove to the edge of the city, and the entrance to the Iron Mountain Base came into view.

The gray-white reinforced concrete rises from the ground, sloping and embedding itself into the mountainside like a giant shield. The entrance is a downward-sloping ramp.

At the end of the slope, a double explosion-proof door was tightly closed, with faded numbers and warning signs painted on the door panel.

Su Ming slammed on the brakes, and the armored vehicle spun out at the entrance of the slope, the tires emitting a burnt smell.

"Sugar cubes!" he shouted.

Fang Tang had already jumped out of the car, holding a laptop in her arms.

Her fingers were trembling, but she didn't hesitate for a moment as she typed. The data cable extended from the computer interface to the recognition panel next to the car door.

The code on the screen scrolled rapidly, bypassing permission verification layer by layer.

They came from this base in the past, so they are already very familiar with the base's underlying code.

"Hurry up, hurry up..." she bit her lip, glancing behind her out of the corner of her eye.

Those translucent behemoths, hundreds of meters tall, had stopped moving at some point.

The fog spread out from their bodies, and wherever it passed, the streetlights that had been off for a long time lit up, but then burst open again, one after another.

The tallest statue stopped. Its hundreds-of-meters-tall body stood in the center of the city and slowly raised its head.

The top of that withered tree trunk pointed towards the sky, then slowly lowered, aligning itself with the entrance to the Iron Mountain Base.

Its face was split open.

Countless tiny points of light rose from the deepest part of the crack, hovering in front of it, growing larger and larger.

"Beep beep!"

The computer made a sound, and the door trembled slightly before slowly opening to both sides.

Fang Tang immediately unplugged the computer cable and rushed back into the armored vehicle.

Su Ming slammed on the gas pedal, and the armored vehicle rushed down the slope and into the tunnel.

Fang Tang huddled in her chair, clutching her laptop, her eyes glued to the rearview mirror.

The gate slowly closed, bit by bit, until it completely shut out the outside world.

"Boom!"

A dull tremor echoed through the dark tunnel.

At the same time, the beam of light condensed from the ethereal giant swept across the city.

Blue light rose from the horizon, engulfing the streets, buildings, and sky.

Everything along the way was instantly vaporized by a terrifying force.

The building was swept away; the upper half melted in the light, and the lower half evaporated. The asphalt road surface curled up like paper, and flames leaped from the edges of the light.

The earth is groaning.

The light licked across the first blast door.

Half a meter thick reinforced concrete, embedded with steel plates, and with more than a dozen hydraulic latches, were as easy to cut as tofu in front of that blue light.

The door split open in the middle, letting in a wave of heat.

Fortunately, they had already run through the second door.

The door slammed to the ground, severing the blue light.

A rumbling sound surged from behind the door.

After a brief silence, a long, drawn-out chant, like a sigh or a sob, drifted from outside the door...

They didn't look back, but continued driving spiraling downwards into the tunnel, where heavy steel doors rose and fell with a dull rumble.

The tunnel grew deeper and deeper. The beams of the car headlights cut into the darkness, illuminating the damp walls and giving them a dark green, musty sheen.

Emergency lights occasionally flashed on the walls on both sides, a stark white light, flickering intermittently.

Spiderwebs hung from the light tubes, some of them collapsed, dangling down like semi-transparent curtains.

The wheels rolled over the ground, making a soft, rustling sound. Occasionally, the car would lurch and the suspension system would emit a low creak.

Fang Tang hugged her laptop, huddled in her seat, staring out the window at the unchanging gray concrete landscape illuminated by car headlights. Her lips moved, but she didn't speak.

The Tieshan base used to house 300,000 people.

But now, it's eerily quiet here.

There were no broadcasts, no alarms, no human voices.

Although they were sitting inside the heavy armored vehicle, everyone instinctively held their breath and dared not speak.

Zhao Lina subconsciously touched her arm, unsure whether it was from the cold or something else.

Then they stopped.