Chapter 320: Terminal

Chapter 320: Terminal

Beacon??

For a moment, Chen Jian could not even grasp what Lin Yu was trying to say.

But soon, the other's voice rang through his headset once more.

“We are in the mountain city!”

“We have eliminated a mountain‑city dweller! He is a human! A flesh‑and‑blood human!”

“He can speak; he is no different from us!”

“He has been tracking us! No—he is the one commanding those monsters to hunt us!”

“We slipped into the mountain city! The monsters did not follow!”

“They are forbidden to ravage the city’s structures—it's the man we killed who is steering those monsters!”

“Beacon! You must activate the beacon!”

“That person is controlling the monsters via the beacon!”

When the words fell, Chen Jian suddenly realized.

The so‑called “beacon” Lin Yu kept mentioning was the very device the three imperial guards had seized earlier!

Indeed, the monsters were being puppeteered by that beacon.

But the question remained: does it still work?

Even if it does, can Lin Yu truly command the monsters through it?—

No, now is not the time to ponder that.

After a brief silence, Chen Jian issued a decisive order:

“Fuxi, restore the beacon’s function and dispatch a drone to drop it over Jinling City at once.”

“How long will it take? Give me an estimate!”

“Twenty‑five minutes.”

Fuxi’s voice crackled through the headset.

“Understood, twenty‑five minutes.”

There is still time.

According to Yu Qian’s reports, Jinling’s defenses can hold for at least another two hours.

And those two hours are enough for us to finish our trial‑and‑error.

With that thought, Chen Jian pressed on:

“Lin Yu, how did you get in touch with us? Do you have any other communication gear?”

“None!”

Lin Yu’s voice sounded hurried, punctuated by violent clatters.

“We seized the mountain‑city dweller’s communicator; it has a radio attached—yet it clearly does more than just transmit.”

“There’s a screen on it!”

“The screen displays a wealth of data! There’s even a map!”

“I’m trying to learn how to operate it, but these monsters have gone mad—”

“Careful!”

Another voice erupted, accompanied by a massive crash, and Lin Yu’s words were cut short.

“Lin Yu! Lin Yu!”

Chen Jian frantically called over the radio, receiving no reply.

What the hell is happening?!

Monsters

They’re already dead at the monsters’ hands?

Damn!

After a hard‑won chance that might finally end the war, and before a minute of conversation passed, that hope is shattered again?!

In that instant, Chen Jian wished he could fly to the mountain city and snatch Lin Yu from the monsters’ grasp.

But he knew he could not.

All he could do was pin his hope on Lin Yu, praying he could evade what he called “the monsters gone mad.”

Yet, how great were those odds?

Chen Jian’s anxiety flared, and at that moment Lin Yu’s voice rang again.

“Monsters! The monsters have gone berserk!”

“This device works! It can command the monsters!”

“But it must link through the beacon!”

“I can see the location of every monster!”

“Many are near Jinling City, yet I cannot command them!”

“The display shows the beacon is offline!”

“You must locate the beacon and activate it!”

“Once the beacon is activated, we—”

“The beacon is already in our hands!”

Chen Jian cut Lin Yu off and continued:

“The beacon will be deployed in twenty‑three minutes! What else do you need from me?”

“No—wait, I need you to tell me how to operate this thing!”

“When I touch the screen it gives feedback, but I don’t know how to truly command the monsters!”

Screen??

Feedback?

Undoubtedly, it is a touch screen.

The mountain‑city folk built an entire system to steer the monsters they enslaved!

And what Lin Yu has uncovered is a control terminal!

Now things are steady.

Chen Jian’s heart hammered wildly.

He forced his mind to steady and then spoke:

“First, tell me what’s on that screen!”

“Countless bright spots, countless buttons, yet I have no idea what those buttons mean!”

“I can’t stop! That level‑one monster has already broken into the city; I must get out quickly!”

“Don’t rush.”

Chen Jian’s mind whirred at breakneck speed.

If the device in Lin Yu’s hand was indeed an operation terminal, there was no doubt he was working off an existing combat system.

Whether it was the familiar old‑school system he knew, or the Battle‑Cranium system he’d only encountered after arriving in this world, the actual operation was not complicated.

Select a target, issue the command, choose the combat objective, and it’s all done.

The reason Lin Yu found it complex was most likely because he had never seen this system before, so he didn’t know where to begin.

But with the simplest guidance, he could pick it up in no time.

“First, locate the bright spot that represents the monster! Find the one nearest to you on the map!”

Chen Jian said.

“Got it—found it! What’s next?”

“Touch that bright spot with your hand! An options menu should pop up on the screen!”

“Understood! I see it!”

Lin Yu’s voice trembled with excitement, and Chen Jian pressed on:

“If there’s a ‘move’ option, select it first, then draw a path on the map; the monster will follow the path you draw!”

“Got it, I—”

“Bang!”

Another deafening crash cut Lin Yu’s voice short.

At that moment Chen Jian was frantic, and as the link with Lin Yu went dead, Fuxi’s voice slipped in through the gaps.

“The beacon has been fully restored; it should reach the skies over Jinling City in six minutes!”

“Understood.”

Chen Jian replied gravely.

His fingers trembled slightly from a surge of adrenaline.

Just one more step!

If he could re‑establish contact with Lin Yu, the main beacon could fly over Jinling City.

“I get it now!”

Through the headset, Lin Yu’s voice erupted.

“I know how to use it!”

“The Jinling City beacon is back online!”

“Tell me what to do!” As soon as the words left his mouth, Chen Jian seemed to shed a great weight and relaxed suddenly.

He drew a deep breath and then spoke:

“Select the monster outside Jinling City.”

“Swipe with your hand to box it in.”

“You probably haven’t played games, but this is no different from one.”

“Do whatever you wish.”

“Let those monsters turn on each other!”

“Got it!”

Lin Yu’s voice rang again.

“Permissions—here it shows restricted access.”

“But that’s fine!”

“I’m done!”

Two hours later.

Inside Jinling City.

Yu Qian stepped down from the city wall, bewildered.

The wound across his chest had been torn open by the massive recoil of a shot; blood seeped through the gauze and stained his shirt crimson.

The searing pain twisted his features, yet despite that he felt an unprecedented lightness.

He had never imagined that this battle, brutal to the extreme, would end in such a manner.

Just an hour earlier, when the monster named “Beikun” shattered the last defensive line formed by the volunteer battalion and its guard troops, pressing its colossal body toward Jinling City, an utterly inexplicable anomaly unfolded before Yu Qian’s eyes.

Like a bolt of lightning, the massive beast twisted, rolled, and writhed in place.

It crushed many houses in Jinling City, yet lost any sense of direction for its attack.

The soldiers who could not retreat stood before it; minutes earlier they would have been pulverized, pierced by its sharp tentacles, or swallowed whole into its gigantic maw and turned into putrid mush.

But now it seemed to have lost all perception, utterly ignoring the targets before it.

The lucky survivors fled in panic, yet at a certain instant a few of them, as if daring death, surged forward.

Their deadliest weapons were only hand grenades, but when those grenades were hurled into the monster’s gaping maw, the damage was still far from negligible.

A series of massive explosions rang out, and the grenadiers fell back instantly.

This near‑suicidal charge sent shivers through the onlookers, yet soon they were astonished to see that even after such a “provocation,” the creature made no retaliatory move.

——

No, it would be inaccurate to say it made no retaliation at all.

What it did was a feeble, hollow show of resistance.

Its twisted body rolled everywhere, the entangled worms that clung to it scattered as if severed, spreading across the ground like a heap of dying nematodes.

The monster had destroyed its own greatest deterrent, a sign that its death was at hand.

Yes, it remained repulsive and terrifying.

Drawn by its bodily fluids, every maggot in the soil surged up, trying to converge on its flesh; the sheer mass of writhing larvae assaulted the eyes of the onlookers, making them want to vomit.

But that was the limit of it.

Killing it was still no simple task.

Yet when it could no longer strike back, even a cold‑steel blade could eventually grind it down to death.

——

And the anomaly did not end there.

Besides that “North Kun” beast, the surging horde of monsters on the periphery fell into even greater chaos.

At first, they seemed lost, wandering aimlessly like ants whose pheromones had been scrambled.

But soon, those colossal “ants” turned on one another.

It was undoubtedly the first time, perhaps the only time, that humanity on the wasteland had witnessed such a massive, self‑destructive carnage among monsters.

The entire outskirts of Jinling City became a battlefield of beasts, and unlike the assaults of heat‑based weapons, the clash of monster against monster was far bloodier, far more savage.

The “might makes right” scenario Yu Qian had imagined never materialized; he watched, helpless, as a creature clearly of at least second tier—perhaps higher—was besieged by a swarm, and after spitting its final corrosive droplet, was torn to shreds.

Not a single monster survived that fight.

For the whole field had turned into a complete inferno.

The toxic fog thickened like a towering wall; poisonous liquid surged across the ground, and when it mingled with the monsters’ blood it emitted a faint, crackling pop.

Spores drifted on the wind, while scorching heat and biting cold tangled together, and a gale seemed to rise from the void itself.

Now the inferno was spreading toward Jinling City.

“All units, evacuate immediately.”

Yu Qian gritted his teeth against the searing pain in his chest and addressed the dazed archbishop beside him.

The archbishop knelt, praying to his “Holy Trinity,” when Yu Qian yanked him up and barked angrily:

“Get up!”

“It’s not the Holy Trinity that will save you; look closely, it’s the Huaxia army!”

Yu Qian pointed skyward; a drone hovered above the battlefield, its hanging pod carrying the captured equipment he had once seen in the base.

According to the squad leaders who had just briefed him, it was called a “Beacon.”

That beacon made those once‑formidable monsters disintegrate in an instant.

Yu Qian knew nothing of the beacon’s mechanism.

But he also knew his survival had nothing to do with the faith of the Mechanical Cult.

The archbishop, lifted by Yu Qian, wore a mask of ecstatic bewilderment; Yu Qian almost wanted to slap him awake.

“Move faster!”

“We have no time left!”

“The wind is shifting; the poison will be blown our way!”

“Everyone must retreat at once!”

“Now!”

Yu Qian shouted into the archbishop’s ear; the man finally snapped awake, nodded repeatedly, and sprinted toward the few remaining Holy troops.

Simultaneously, Yu Qian began gathering his own remnants.

The volunteer regiment of three hundred had been whittled down to fewer than a hundred.

Their casualties were no less than those of the Mechanical Cult’s Guard and the Holy army.

Yet Yu Qian had no time to mourn the dead; he still bore responsibility for the living.

“Forget the corpses.”

Yu Qian spoke as evenly as he could:

“We lack the means to carry all these bodies; let them rest here.”

“Take every wounded with you.”

“All of you, move at once!”

At his command, the fallen rose from the ground.

The ragged column staggered toward the outskirts of Jinling, and as they passed the dying carcass of the North Kun beast and reached the city wall, smoke began to rise from the distant road’s end.

Yu Qian lifted his gaze to the horizon.

A battle‑scarred convoy emerged before him.

It was the Huaxia army’s convoy.

He rushed forward, and the moment he saw Chen Jian leap from the heavy‑troop vehicle, his body, propped up only by will, collapsed once more.

Chen Jian seized his arm, glanced at the blood seeping from Yu Qian’s chest, and ordered:

“Xie Liu, start the transfusion.”

“The wound has reopened; stitch it anew.”

“Understood!”

Xie Liu stepped forward; Yu Qian’s lips trembled as he tried to speak, but Chen Jian shook his head and cut him off.

“No need for more words.”

“The battle is over.”

“Rest well.”

Yu Qian nodded slowly.

The world before his eyes gradually faded into darkness.

Yet when he slipped into total unconsciousness, everything he saw suddenly flared to life.

(End of Chapter)