Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 65
Secret Dispatch from the Qingfeng Vanguard
Chilling gales rolled down in tumultuous waves from Mount Cang Lei, sweeping across the rusted corrugated iron roofs of the suburban laborers’ quarters in western Bo’an City. Though midday had barely arrived, the sky had darkened into an ominous, premature twilight. Heavy, leaden gray cloudbanks hung low over the decrepit tenements, suffocating the atmosphere beneath a damp, clammy pressure that carried a nauseatingly rank stench.
A solitary silhouette cloaked in a jet-black tactical mantle slipped with ghostlike speed through the muddy alleys strewn with refuse and stagnant puddles. The dark hem whipped violently against the biting northern wind. The upper half of his face was securely shielded beneath a silver mask, its surface etched with chilling, grotesque arcane motifs that radiated a frosty gleam.
This was none other than “Fan Shen”—Lin Feng’s clandestine hunter persona.
Less than an hour earlier, the jade hunter communication talisman tucked discreetly into the lining of his belt had suddenly vibrated with frantic urgency. Three staccato pulses of maroon-colored mana—the highest emergency frequency designated by Captain Yang Zuo when establishing their squad’s comm channels: Life-or-death crisis. Assemble immediately at Stronghold No. 3.
Coming to a halt before a scrap metal depot camouflaged beneath corrugated tin sheets bolted against the mountain’s rocky foot, Lin Feng raised his hand and tapped against the reinforced steel door frame: three heavy raps, followed by one crisp tap.
Screeech——
A narrow inspection slit slid open along the door. Behind the wire mesh, the bloodshot, razor-sharp eyes of Wind Scout Ye Bin darted outward, instantly recognizing the familiar silhouette and the silver mask. An internal iron bolt retracted with a metallic thud. The heavy door parted just wide enough for a single body to squeeze through before slamming shut. The magical locking mechanism snapped into place with a dry, decisive clack.
“You’re finally here, Fan Shen. Get inside—the captain has been pacing like a madman waiting for you.” Ye Bin’s voice was raspy and parched, his breath reeking of cheap shredded tobacco mixed with the bitter tang of suffocating tension.
The subterranean operational shelter lay buried deep beneath the scrap depot’s sub-basement. Originally an air-raid fallout shelter constructed decades ago during the border wars, its reinforced concrete walls were blotched with damp mildew, large slabs of stucco peeling away to expose twisted, rusted rebar. A single mana lantern hung suspended from the low ceiling, creaking faintly as it swayed, casting a sickly yellow glow that stretched the elongated shadows of five figures across the hard-packed earthen floor.
The air inside was thick and suffocating, so taut that the only sounds breaking the stillness were the muffled clinks of metal gear and ragged, labored breathing.
All four veteran members of the Qingfeng Hunter Squad were assembled, yet not a shred of their usual carefree, battle-hardened swagger remained.
Seated at the head of a battered wooden table, Captain Yang Zuo propped both elbows against the tabletop, his thick, sinewy fingers interlaced so tightly that his knuckles were blanched white. The rhino-hide chestplate over his torso was caked in dried black grime and jagged, vicious claw marks that he hadn’t even had time to clean away. The jagged scar slashing from the corner of his left eye down to his jawline twitched uncontrollably. His eyes were streaked with violent crimson veins, looking as if he had gone days without sleep in the depths of the untamed wilderness.
In the corner of the room, the burly Qin Kui sat slumped against the wall on the floor. His heavy alloy round-shield, weighing hundreds of pounds, stood propped beside him, its surface emitting a feeble, flickering pulse of Light magic. He gripped his head in his hands, grinding his teeth together with an audible, grating crunch.
The squad’s Water Mage, Liu Biyu—affectionately known as Sister Caijie—stood leaning against a rusted iron shelving unit. Her hands trembled violently as she repeatedly rubbed an antiseptic-soaked gauze pad against the leg of her field trousers. Yet no matter how furiously she scrubbed, the deep, purplish-black stain soaked into the coarse fabric refused to lift. Instead, it continued to emanate a pungent, sour, and thoroughly sinister stench.
At the sound of Lin Feng’s entrance, Yang Zuo’s head snapped upward. He drew in a ragged breath, attempting to suppress the turmoil churning in his chest, and pointed a trembling arm toward the only empty chair at the table.
“Take a seat, Fan Shen. You’re the last to arrive. The situation... is completely screwed.”
Lin Feng did not sit. He remained standing tall beside the table, his posture immaculately upright. When his voice emerged from behind the silver mask, it was low and composed, yet infused with an undeniable gravitas that commanded immediate focus:
“What could possibly happen to throw the entire Qingfeng Squad into such disarray? Did your morning reconnaissance patrol along the outposts of Cang Lei Ridge run into a Commander-class magical beast?”
“If it were merely a Commander-class beast, I wouldn’t have hauled my miserable hide sprinting back here like a stray dog!” Yang Zuo brought his fist crashing down upon the wooden table. A ceramic mug bounced into the air, splashing fresh water across the surface. His voice trembled with raw fury: “What we laid our eyes upon... damn it all, it is ten thousand times more foul and demonic than any beast!”
With a violent sweep of his arm, Yang Zuo cleared away the scattered cigarette ash and unrolled a large-format military map crafted from waterproof-lacquered sheepskin.
His rough, calloused fingertip slammed onto a mountain basin perched more than a thousand meters above sea level on Mount Cang Lei—an area marked by a bold, deep-blue circle: Lake Tianjing.
“Lake Tianjing!” Lin Feng stared at the encircled landmark on the map, his obsidian pupils flickering behind the silver mask.
“Yes, that exact damn lake!” Yang Zuo grated out, the corded muscles across his cheeks twitching violently. “The largest natural alpine reservoir situated at the very headwaters of Mount Cang Lei—the gathering basin fed by pristine glacial meltwater and the purest subterranean springs. Fully eighty percent of the municipal drinking water, purification plants, and agricultural irrigation sustaining more than half a million souls in Bo’an City are channeled straight from Lake Tianjing through three colossal open-air stone aqueducts!”
Yang Zuo paused, dragging his forearm across the icy sweat beading on his forehead, his breath hitched in his throat:
“Under our routine pre-storm monitoring contract with the Hunter Union, the four of us conducted an inspection patrol along the aqueduct corridor early this morning, moving from the foothills up toward the reservoir. Yet, the instant our vanguard pushed past Purple Vine Gorge to approach the shoreline... a nauseating, purplish-black miasma had completely engulfed the valley.”
“Across the entire shoreline... were carcasses.” Liu Biyu suddenly chimed in, her voice quivering so violently it cracked. Her eyes were glazed with sheer horror as the infernal vision flooded her mind: “Not one or two beasts... but dozens, nearly a hundred corpses of wilderness beasts! Blood-eyed Wolves, Blood-Rock Pheasants, Brutal Mountain Boars... every single one of them had been deliberately skinned and gutted!”
“Gutted?” Lin Feng’s brow furrowed.
“This wasn’t some savage territorial brawl between beast packs!” Ye Bin strode toward the table, his trembling fingers slamming an enchanted dagger down onto the sheepskin map with a dull thunk. “The incisions across their underbellies were perfectly straight and chillingly precise—slit clean from their throats all the way down to their groins! Their viscera had been violently scooped out and suspended from wooden sealing stakes driven in fan-shaped formations along the rocky shoals. The lifeblood draining from hundreds of slaughtered beasts had been channeled along intricate runic trenches gouged into the granite bedrock, gushing in torrents straight into the depths of Lake Tianjing!”
Ye Bin swallowed a mouthful of bitter bile, his breathing ragged and uneven:
“Lake Tianjing was renowned for being crystal clear, transparent down to five meters where every smooth pebble could be seen. But this morning, the entire water surface had degraded into a turbid, purplish-black sludge, thick and viscous like rotting carrion blood! Noxious bubbles continuously gurgled up from the lake bed, releasing a rancid, suffocating stench so lethal that wild birds across a ten-mile radius plummeted from the canopy, their feathers corroded away!”
The bunker plunged into a sepulchral silence. The flickering, jaundiced mana light illuminated four faces contorted by a volatile blend of fury and primal dread.
“Sister Caijie is a Water Mage—did you attempt to extract a water sample to test for toxicity?” Lin Feng asked, turning his gaze toward Liu Biyu.
Liu Biyu bit her lip, holding up her right hand wrapped in white gauze before Lin Feng’s eyes.
“I attempted to cast a basic ‘Water Sphere’ to extract a sample and analyze its chemical composition. But... the instant my Water mana made contact with the lake surface, the crystal-clear mana construct was dyed pitch-black in the blink of an eye! A foul, violently corrosive energy surged along my psychic link, charging straight toward the meridians in my right hand. If the Captain hadn’t reacted instantaneously with an Earth Wave to blast me clear, my entire right arm would have decomposed down to bare bone!”
As she spoke, Liu Biyu peeled back a corner of the medical dressing. Beneath the coarse cotton, three of her fingertips were a bruised, necrotic purple. Minute, spiderweb-like black capillaries crawled beneath her translucent skin, radiating an ominous, chilling deathly miasma.
“And that mana-corroding virulence was merely the surface!” Ye Bin continued, his eyes gleaming with the keen edge of an experienced scout. “While Caijie was being treated, I activated Wind Flash to sprint into the snow-pine forest north of the lake to track the culprits’ footprints. There, I discovered three obsidian obelisks deeply rooted into the earth, covered in gruesome, blood-crimson glyphs. Those glyphs... do not belong to any orthodox elemental magic branch sanctioned by the Magic Association! They depicted three-eyed wolf skulls and twisted black flames. That is ancient Curse Sorcery and sacrificial Dark Magic!”
“Sacrificial Dark Magic...” Lin Feng murmured under his breath, the icy gleam beneath his silver mask narrowing into a razor-sharp focal point.
Within the recesses of his mind, disparate fragments snapped together into an inescapable revelation.
A primary reservoir serving as the vital lifeline for an entire metropolis.
Hundreds of wilderness beast carcasses slaughtered in a ritualistic sacrifice.
Black blood and virulent curses mingling into the water supply, sending foul bubbles churning toward the sky.
And... the leaden, ash-gray clouds that had smothered Bo’an City for days on end, accompanied by that faint, blood-hued droplet of rain that had splashed across the back of his hand earlier today after he exited the Sacred Brook Spirit Tower!
“For an incident of this magnitude, have you submitted a report to the municipal authorities and City Hall?” Lin Feng asked, looking directly at Yang Zuo.
At the mention of “the authorities,” Yang Zuo’s expression shifted from severe strain to livid, apoplectic rage. His broad chest heaved like a bellows, and his boulder-sized fists slammed into the table:
“Reported? Bullshit! I just hauled my ass back from City Hall!”
Yang Zuo gnashed his teeth so hard they groaned, his words hissing through his clenched jaw as if shredding his vocal cords:
“The very second we uncovered that nightmare, Ye Bin and I gunned our mana bikes at redline speed back to the city, barreling straight into the Bo’an Bureau of Natural Resources and Urban Affairs to bang down the door of Deputy Bureau Chief Zhou Peng! I brought withered tree branches corroded by the lake water; I brought tactical maps pinpointing the exact coordinates of the forbidden ritual arrays, begging them to issue an immediate red-level citywide alert and seal the three primary headwater sluice gates for emergency purification!”
“And what was their response?” Lin Feng asked coldly.
“What was their response?” Yang Zuo barked out a bitter, strangled laugh, a grotesque grin warped by the visceral hatred of a working-class hunter discarded at the bottom of the societal ladder: “That wretched bastard Zhou Peng was busy partying with his sycophantic lackeys and representatives from the Ling Clan’s commerce guilds, celebrating the conclusion of the high school graduation tournament! He was reeking of expensive imported liquor, sprawled out on a plush velvet couch. When I slammed the table demanding the immediate quarantine of our water supply, he didn’t even deign to cast a single glance at the physical evidence!”
Yang Zuo mimicked the oily, supercilious cadence of the bureaucrat, his face twisting in revulsion:
“‘Captain Yang, have you hunters spent so many years baking under the sun and drenching in the rain that your brains have rotted into mush? Lake Tianjing spans thousands of acres—what difference does a handful of rotting animal carcasses leaking a drop of blood make? It’s nothing more than rogue poachers butchering wild game outside the barriers and dumping the offal! As for all this talk of dark curses and evil rituals, it’s nothing but fairy tales cooked up by idle doomsday cultists. Get the hell out of here, and don’t you dare stir up mass panic while the city is preparing to welcome the Provincial Inspection Delegation! If you dare peddle reckless rumors that jeopardize the real estate market or the mana-ore stock prices of our illustrious patrician clans, I will revoke the Qingfeng Squad’s hunter credentials on the spot!’”
Clang——!
This time, it was Qin Kui who could no longer contain his boiling grievance. The burly warrior drove his open palm against his heavy alloy shield, sending a deafening, vibrating screech bouncing violently off the concrete bunker walls:
“Those corrupt, parasitic bureaucrats! All they care about is clinging to their cushy seats and counting the bribe money slipped into their pockets by the Ling Clan! Lake Tianjing has already turned completely toxic; a single night of torrential downpour will flush that poison and black curse straight into the faucets of every household in this city! We hunters bleed our guts out to protect the frontier, yet they treat us like rabble fabricating sob stories to beg for government subsidies!”
Tears welled in the corners of Liu Biyu’s eyes. She choked back a sob: “Hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens out there... they have no idea. They are boiling water to cook their dinners right now; little children are drinking the water flowing directly from that reservoir...”
The bunker plunged once more into a bleak, dead-end gloom. Helplessness, despair, and burning indignity hung heavy upon every breath of the four hardened hunters. Facing savage magical beasts, they could draw their blades and charge without flinching; but facing the blind, rotten apathy of bureaucratic power, they were reduced to desperate men smashing their bare knuckles against an unyielding iron fortress.
Amidst this suffocating, maddening despair, Lin Feng suddenly took two measured steps forward.
Extending his hand, his slender, calloused fingers pressed firmly against the quadrant of the map depicting Lake Tianjing.
“It is not that simple.”
His voice was chilled and razor-sharp, cutting through the room’s lamentations like an icy scalpel.
Yang Zuo, Ye Bin, Liu Biyu, and Qin Kui snapped their heads up in unison, their eyes locking onto the silver-masked youth.
Lin Feng stood ramrod straight, his spine rigid as an unyielding battle spear. Beneath his dark tactical cloak, the Primordial Dragon Pendant pressed against his chest was throbbing with scalding pulses of heat—as though the ancient soul of a primordial dragon were awakening, roaring in furious warning against an impending apocalyptic calamity.
A memory flashed through his mind—from several days ago, within a damp, shadowed recess of the Bo’an Magic Black Market.
On that afternoon, while scouring the underground stalls for rare medicinal ingredients to treat the paralyzed meridians in his little sister Xiao Mo’s legs, the acute spiritual perception granted by the Primordial Dragon Pendant had drawn his attention to two men draped in ash-gray cloaks conducting a clandestine exchange in a blind alley. They had traded an iron coffer etched with the emblem of the Nether Church, their hushed, fragmented whispers carried to his ears by the breeze:
”Has the ‘Frenzy Blood Spring’ concoction been fully refined?”
”Everything is prepared. The sacrificial array at the headwaters has already suppressed the natural spiritual ley lines. The moment the seeds of frenzied blood dissolve into the reservoir, the storm clouds gathering over the peaks of Mount Cang Lei will turn into a rain of blood... When that crimson deluge falls, the wild beasts will tear through the municipal boundary barrier...”
At the time, he had assumed it was merely a dangerous contraband transaction between underground syndicates. But now, connecting every stray thread—the gutted carcasses ritualistically sacrificed along the shoals, the purplish-black putrefaction of Lake Tianjing, the turbid, blood-tinted raindrop that had landed on his hand at the dueling colosseum, and the insidious whispers of cult infiltrators... the full, horrifying picture stood laid bare before him!
“Fan Shen... what do you mean?” Yang Zuo swallowed hard, his lips trembling.
Lin Feng lifted his chin. The glacial light in his eyes pierced through the eye slits of the silver mask, striking like physical daggers into the heart of every person in the room:
“They are not poachers, nor are they merely poisoning the reservoir for conventional mass terrorism. The perpetrators operating beside Lake Tianjing... are zealots of the Nether Church!”
The moment the words “Nether Church” left his lips, the temperature inside the bunker seemed to plummet by several degrees. Ye Bin and Yang Zuo stumbled half a step backward, every drop of color draining from their faces.
It was the most sadistic and fanatical dark cult in the magic world—zealots who revered monstrous beasts and shadow, viewing the absolute annihilation of human strongholds as their holy crusade!
“Their objective,” Lin Feng enunciated each syllable, his cadence as sharp and unforgiving as a flaying knife, “is not to slaughter the populace through poisoned water. The volume of Lake Tianjing is far too vast; conventional toxins piped into the city would simply be diluted. What they poured into that reservoir is the ‘Frenzy Blood Spring’ integrated with a sacrificial curse array! As the cursed water evaporates into the clouds, the entire sky above Bo’an City is being converted into an incubator for a crimson deluge!”
He drove his finger hard against the epicenter of Mount Cang Lei:
“The instant that rain of blood pours from the heavens, the berserk mana will seep directly into the marrow and flesh of tens of thousands of Blood-eyed Wolves and savage beasts lurking throughout the primeval forests! They will succumb to absolute madness, stripped of all natural fear, transforming into a gargantuan Calamity Beast Tide that will storm down from the peaks, shred the frontier boundary barriers to ribbons, and reduce Bo’an City to an ocean of blood and leveled rubble!”
“Heavens above...” Liu Biyu gasped, clapping both hands over her mouth as she collapsed back into her chair, her entire frame quaking like a withered leaf before a tempest.
Yang Zuo and Qin Kui stood frozen like statues, chills erupting across every inch of their flesh. If Fan Shen’s deduction held true, then what loomed over the half a million citizens of Bo’an City was no mere water crisis... but an apocalyptic massacre of unprecedented scale, the likes of which had not been seen in over half a century!
“The bureaucrats in City Hall are blinded by greed and complacent arrogance,” Lin Feng said, walking over to the equipment rack and shouldering a heavy tactical pack laden with the lightning and fire magic crystals he had prepared beforehand. “Relying on them is nothing short of suicide. The cultists have not yet finalized the grand sacrificial array—otherwise, that crimson drizzle earlier would not have been confined to a few scattered drops!”
He spun on his heel, his dark cloak cutting through the air with a crisp, whipping snap:
“Our time is running out. Tonight, before the headwater tempest truly breaks over the mountains, we must infiltrate Lake Tianjing once again! We must uncover the truth, dismantle the dark array, and sever the claws of the Nether Church before it is too late!”
The youth’s words resonated through the shadowy bunker like a crack of spring thunder, jolting the dormant martial spirit and survival instinct of the entire squad back to life.
Yang Zuo stared intently at the unyielding back of the silver-masked figure. The suffocating dread and helpless grievance in his heart were instantly consumed by an incandescent blaze of battle intent. Wiping the cold sweat from his chin with a calloused hand, he reached behind his back, ripped out his heavy magic-alloy broadblade, and drove it deep into the wooden table with a resounding thud, letting out a thunderous roar:
“Damn it all! If we live, we drink the finest wine; if we die, we rot in the same dirt! The Qingfeng Hunter Squad has never been a pack of yellow-bellied curs who abandon their home! Fan Shen is right. Tonight, I’ll wager this old life of mine to storm Mount Cang Lei alongside you all!”
“I’m in!” Ye Bin tightened his grip on his Wind-enchanted dagger, his eyes blazing like a nocturnal falcon.
“Count me in as well! My shield will shatter every curse spell they fling our way!” Qin Kui surged to his feet, his circular alloy shield flaring with a brilliant, resolute radiance.
Wiping away her tears, Liu Biyu swiftly re-bound the fresh bandage around her injured hand, her gaze turning exceptionally fierce: “I will pack our entire stock of high-grade purifying elixirs and restorative draughts.”
Lin Feng looked upon the four comrades standing before him and gave a subtle, affirming nod. Reaching up to adjust his silver mask, his eyes drifted toward the reinforced bunker door leading out into the gathering gloom.
The tempest gathered over Mount Cang Lei; the winds and clouds were in tumult.
The true battle to defend this city... officially began tonight!