# 182
Chapter 182
Yiyu
The military truck assigned to Village 7 screeched to a halt. Dozens of recruits and instructors sprinted toward the ruined settlement; some searched for survivors, others dug through debris, while medics set up a makeshift triage tent…
Everything proceeded with grim efficiency beneath the weight of disaster.
Within minutes a sobbing man was lifted from the rubble and carried to the aid station. As they bore him away, rescuers gently questioned him while another team clawed at the thick mud, hunting for his wife and parents.
The man stared blankly, tears streaming. This rough-hewn thirty-year-old, who could shoulder heaven itself, wept like a child.
“Please… please save them…”
“Rest assured,” Zheng Zhong, the soldier carrying him, said firmly. “It’s our duty.”
Other trucks merely flashed past the village gate, racing toward the remaining seven settlements at the foot of Mount Jin-nan—time forbade a single second’s delay.
From the tailboard of the last vehicle, Lin Qiye watched the man’s howling figure shrink with distance until the sobs faded and the ruins dissolved into rain. Though out of sight, the man’s anguish stayed seared in Lin Qiye’s mind, a knot he couldn’t swallow.
Inside the truck, silence was a tomb.
“Village 5 is next,” Instructor Hong said, gazing at a smudge of buildings ahead. “After the Five rescue team debarks, we leave the convoy and head straight into the mountains.”
They neared Village 5. Compared with Seven, this place was a graveyard—no wailing man, no living soul. Thick sludge had buried every breath of life; only broken walls told the tale.
Lin Qiye felt the recruits beside him clench their fists until knuckles cracked, eyes blazing at the mute wreckage.
Before the wheels stopped, one recruit vaulted from the moving truck.
“Great Xia soldiers are here!! Death, stand back!! Survivors will live!!”
His voice rang through the rain-soaked ruins—perhaps to no one, perhaps to everyone.
To hear was to hope.
They were that hope.
One leapt; the rest could not sit still. They sprang down, fists white, sprinting and shouting:
“Great Xia soldiers are here! Death, stand back! Survivors will live!”
The chorus echoed while the truck never slowed. Every rescuer meant for this village had already gone.
The driver, infected by the fervour, slammed the accelerator once the last jumper cleared. Engine roaring, the remaining nine shot toward Mount Jin-nan’s heart.
…
Temporary Rescue Command, foot of Mount Jin-nan.
Inside a canvas tent, two instructors finished linking satellite trackers and busily erected a comms net. Yuan Gang stood at the entrance, hands behind back, frowning at the mountain swallowed by rain.
“Chief, all rescue teams are on the net,” an instructor reported after final checks.
Landslides and downpour had wrecked local towers; only satellite links could reach the teams.
“All units, report,” Yuan Gang ordered.
“Team Eight, on site and rescuing.”
“Team Seven, on site and rescuing.”
“Team Six…”
…
“Team One, not yet at target village.”
Instructor Hong’s voice came last. Apart from Teams One, Two, Three—bound for the deep mountains—everyone else had begun.
Yuan Gang studied the map. At best, Two and Three would arrive within five hours; Team One needed ten even if roads held. He glanced at the black sky—rain wouldn’t cease; more slides were likely.
While he pondered, he failed to notice the technicians’ voices fading, the patter on the canvas thinning, raindrops freezing mid-air—everything drifting away.
When he looked up, sound had died. Suspended droplets hung like paused film; the two instructors were gone.
An empty world. Only he remained—or rather, this was no longer the world he knew.
Yuan Gang’s brows knitted. The strangeness brought no panic. He stared beyond the tent.
Across the horizon a figure strode through the stalled rain. Black tail-coat, long hair loose, a violet-iris boutonnière; a bewitching smile graced his aristocratic face—gentleman stepping from a ballroom.
Yuan Gang’s expression darkened.
“【Yiyu】.”
The man arched an elegant brow, voice warm as jade. “So the vice-captain of Shangjing City squad knows me.”
“Hard to miss,” Yuan Gang answered flatly. “True Nightmare, mind manipulator, one of the three eldest ‘gods’ of the Church of the Ancient Gods, creator of the Believers’ contract… and, most of all, that nauseating noble charm.”
Yiyu smiled, phoenix eyes narrowing. “How rude… Chief Yuan.”