The sun rose. Morning sets the tone for the day and for battle.
Last night, they'd punched through the fourth security layer. Kelte had given the troops an hour's rest. At dawn, they pushed on, aiming to crack Raven Valley base in one fell swoop. Right now, they were locked in combat at the third security layer.
"Boom-boom-boom—"
Explosions rolled without pause. The forest was a wreck, trees shredded by bullets and shells, casings and shrapnel littering the dirt. Smoke hung thick.
Hai Xia infantry squads, backed by armoured vehicles, assaulted fortification after fortification. Pillboxes, bunkers. Ye Fan's intel paid off big—enemy positions laid bare. Losses were minimal. Gains, solid. The troops had never fought a smoother battle.
"Press forward! Take the last two layers in one go!"
Kelte was in his element.
Then the vanguard hit the second defensive ring.
Smooth sailing slammed into a brick wall.
Moments after entering the second layer, Hai Xia forces took their first real ambush. Two armoured vehicles and a dozen soldiers were blown sky-high by anti-personnel mines. That was just the opener. The earlier ease flipped to carnage. Casualties climbed. Traps everywhere. The intel was useless now—worse than useless. Following it only got men killed. Squad leaders panicked.
The first four security layers? Bait. Lure them in deep, then spring the trap. Season's ambush was live.
Casualties spiked.
Kelte's face twisted—shock, fury.
Wen Na and the others paled. The intel really was a plant. Xiao Han had called it. They bore part of the blame for this reversal.
Ye Fan shook his head. "Cunning bastards. They fed their own people as bait. Almost impossible not to take the hook. That's the defender's edge. Sprout doesn't care about mutual destruction—but we do. Kelte was too aggressive. We should've listened to Xiao Han. Played it safe." He glanced at his guilt-ridden teammates and sighed.
Kelte watched the front line—soldiers fell, one after another. His expression curdled. A glorious breakthrough, reversed. Even if they took the base now, it'd be a pyrrhic victory. His merit took a hit.
Hai Xia's advance slowed to a crawl, battered and bleeding.
Then—a figure burst from enemy lines. A brutal-faced man, long blade dragging low. Chilly, colourless aura flickered around him like invisible flame. Air shimmered in his wake. He beelined for a Hai Xia squad. The soldiers opened fire. The man pivoted mid-stride, blade arcing in a crescent of light—a windshield wiper of death. Bullets met that arc and shattered, clinking to the ground.
"Martial artist!"
Before the soldiers could process, he was among them. A blink. Then light exploded—chaotic, blinding. Limbs, torsos, heads rained down. The man stood drenched in red, a living god of war.
"Pan Kuang!"
The operatives went rigid.
Raven Valley base's director. Sprout executive. The dark web was littered with his brutal track record. He'd butchered countless strong.
According to dark net battle reports, Pan Kuang's blade work traced back to Rayland. They called him "Blade Soul."
His sword-light was the last thing his enemies ever saw.
Armoured vehicles swung their guns. Heavy rounds hammered Pan Kuang's position. He moved—legs blurring, inhuman speed. Slipping between trees, he made targeting impossible. Soldiers blinked, and he was gone, bullets chewing empty ground.
Pan Kuang stalked the battlefield. A reaper. Squad after squad fell to him. He even carved through a few armoured vehicles' plating, spearing the crews inside.
In terrain with cover, Superpowers turned low-tech battlefields into slaughterhouses. With Qi shielding them, ordinary bullets barely scratched.
D-rank Superpowers could solo small armed units and likely walk away after.
C-rank? They crossed a threshold. Bodies toughened. Guns and small shells did little. They could level buildings bare-handed. In the cosmos, C-rank was the baseline—"Planet Exploration Combatant Standard Physique." Different planets, different gravities and climates. C-rank could handle most. Some cosmic races were born with C-rank bodies.
But on Blue Planet? C-ranks were nearly non-existent. This world's power ceiling sat low.
Pan Kuang was E+ rank. A hair from D. In dense jungle, butchering Hai Xia troops? Easy work. An superpower's real terror was this—cutting through armies to reach the commander. Or infiltration. Or sabotage.
Pan Kuang carved his path, stacking bodies. His trajectory? Dead straight for Kelte.
Pan Kuang's killing intent locked onto Kelte. The hairs on his neck stood up. The troops around him offered no comfort. He barked an order. "Fire the heat-seeking missile array!"
An armoured vehicle fitted with a launcher rumbled up belatedly and unleashed several small heat-seekers, all locking onto Pan Kuang.
Pan Kuang wove through the trees. The missiles smacked into trunks, exploding one by one. Only the last one threaded the gap, homing in.
His brow twitched. He slammed his feet down, skidding to a halt, dirt spraying. Both hands gripped the blade. Invisible sword aura extended. He swung—perfect timing, perfect angle—catching the missile square on its side with the flat of his blade. Deflected, it spiralled into a tree twenty metres away and burst into flame. The shockwave barely ruffled him. If Xiao Han were here, he'd see the damage—less than twenty HP.
The missile failed. Kelte's blood chilled. His gaze slid to the operatives. The meaning was clear.
"Move!" Wen Na barked. Hai Xia's operatives surged forward.
Bureau 13 watched from the sidelines. The joint operation was dead. They weren't lifting a finger.
Pan Kuang spotted the operatives closing in and withdrew at once, blade sheathed mid-retreat. No point getting bogged down.
Gunfire cracked.
A bullet streaked toward his skull.
A flicker of steel. The round split in half, clean as paper. Pan Kuang wasn't faster than the bullet—he'd already laid his blade in its path, reaction time inhuman.
Expressionless, he turned and vanished into the trees.
The tally: over a hundred dead, several armoured vehicles wrecked. Hai Xia's morale cratered. Losses were brutal. The momentum that had carried them through four defence layers had curdled into exhaustion. Kelte gritted his teeth, but even he couldn't push. The assault slowed.
---
Inside Raven Valley's inner base, Ji Jie watched the monitors. The second defensive line had fallen. Hai Xia pressed toward the last layer. The ambush had bled them, but not enough to close the gap between irregulars and a regular army.
Still. Everything was under control.
The moment Pan Kuang returned, Ji Jie sealed the passage between outer and inner base. Even if the enemy took the outer shell, they'd never find the inner sanctum. And Ji Jie had left them a gift out there.
"Deputy director. When do we pull out?"
"Now." Ji Jie's voice was flat.
At the entrance to the third secret passage, inner base personnel gathered. Lin Yao and Lambet brought up the rear. Under cover of muttered conversation, they fed updates through their hidden earpieces.
---
The last bunker crumbled under a tank round. The remaining defenders fell back into the base proper.
All defensive lines were shattered. Kelte finally exhaled.
The last two layers had cost him seventy per cent more casualties than projected. The after-action report would be ugly.
"Just the base left. They've got nowhere to run. Should we rest the troops first?" the adjutant asked.
Kelte hesitated. Then Xiao Han's intel surfaced in his mind—the inner base, the secret tunnels. A chance to salvage something from this disaster. No time to waste. If the rats slipped away...
"Move in now. Sweep every room. Pay special attention to the storage areas. There's a hidden door leading to an inner base."
The order went out. Exhausted soldiers, still battered from the bloody grind, forced themselves forward. Room-to-room fighting erupted inside the base. Gunfire echoed.
Minutes passed.
"Sir. We've located the target storage room. No hidden door. Solid walls. We even tried demo charges. Nothing."
Kelte's jaw tightened. "Bad intel again?" He turned to the adjutant. "Bring me the Bureau 13 lot. And that Xiao Han. I want answers."