Chapter 618: Bombed
Chapter 618: Bombed
By coincidence—or misfortune—the snow wolves also heard the uproar coming from An Ran’s section of the tunnels. Drawn by the noise, many of them began surging in that direction.
Luo Feifan and Zhan Lian fought their way to the southeast corner, only to find the passage ahead blocked by a massive landslide of shattered ice.
One of An Ran’s thorn ball vines, crushed beneath the fallen ice, writhed weakly on the ground. From its torn end dripped viscous green slime.
As a snow wolf lunged toward Luo Feifan and Zhan Lian, the severed vine suddenly stirred to life, coiling around the beast. With a wet hiss, it began to drain the wolf dry, forming a new, independent thorn ball from the absorbed flesh and blood.
“We have to break through this ice!” Zhan Lian barked.
He conjured a massive drill from his spatial ability and set it spinning. The whir of metal bit into the ice, clearing the path inch by inch. But before they could even move two steps forward, another shell screamed down from above and exploded behind them, collapsing the tunnel again.
A snow wolf burst from the debris, trapped halfway through the broken ice, its muzzle twisted in a snarl.
Luo Feifan spun around, back-to-back with Zhan Lian, and unleashed a torrent of fire. The flames flared through the tunnel, painting the frozen walls red.
“I remember now!” Luo Feifan shouted over the roar of fire. “Wang Wei still has a bazooka! Damn it—get it and shoot those mosquitoes out of the sky!”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Back when they’d first met Wang Wei, the man had stumbled upon an arsenal somewhere—machine guns, explosives, even a few rocket launchers. Most of it had been lost or corroded over time, but one bazooka and a small box of rockets had survived. Yun Tao had collected them and stowed them in the back of Zhan Lian’s truck. If it still worked, maybe—just maybe—they could take down one or two of the planes raining hell from above.
The two men were trapped, their tunnel half-buried in ice.
An Ran’s side wasn’t much better off. Many of the young men who had gone out to fight the wolves, including members of Liu Zhi’s family, had been forced to retreat after the landslide cut off their path.
Just as Zhan Lian finally bored through the last layer of ice and was about to break through to An Ran’s area, another shell dropped from the sky—this time landing squarely above her.
“F**k!!!”
Zhan Lian’s entire world shook. His rage boiled over, white-hot. He wanted to tear apart whoever had ordered the strike—if only he could reach them.
The explosion ripped through the ice sheet. The ground quaked violently; the tunnels trembled as if the entire world were collapsing. Above, An Ran’s enormous fat thorn ball was hit directly—blown apart in a spray of red and green fluid that splattered across the ceiling.
Under its protection, the people inside survived. Not one was struck directly. But it felt as though they were trapped inside a glass jar that someone was shaking with both hands.
Children wailed. Adults screamed. The air was filled with the roar of panic—the sound of a world on the brink of breaking.
Through it all, An Ran didn’t fall. She stood firm amid the chaos, reaching out to hold Little Mint, who clutched Doll tightly.
The child lifted its head, eyes wide, and let out a delighted “Wow!” as it watched the shredded vines drift and shimmer in the air above. To Doll, it was all just spectacle—sparkling, new, and strange.
Children always adapt faster than adults. They learn, they change, they survive.
An Ran, however, kept her expression hard. She didn’t shout. She didn’t panic. Even as the enormous fat thorn ball—their only shield—was obliterated, she simply looked up at the falling debris. She didn’t even know where its crystal core had gone.