Lu Yan climbed to the top of a stack of containers in the warehouse and fired a few rhythmic shots at the wall. Bi Lanxing immediately understood and signaled his team to cease fire.
Looking up toward the warehouse, Bi Lanxing spotted a pair of dark eyes peeking through the damp, crumbling brickwork.
Lu Yan gripped the gap in the bricks and called out, “Hey, you got the Phase Two mission too, right?”
Bi Lanxing nodded.
“I knew the final evaluation wouldn’t be as simple as the weekly tests,” Lu Yan said. “Seven terrorists, all armed—and they even assigned us a support unit to help with the assault. We know Lan Bo—he’s strong in both close combat and group fights. We’ve never had support units before, so what does that mean? It means this mission is going to be tough.”
“We’ve got at most six people per team, and some teams have already taken heavy losses. There are only about fifty people still alive right now. By the time we reach the target point, each team will probably be down to three or four. If we go in one team at a time, won’t that just be like the Calabash Brothers saving Grandpa one by one? I’m not looking to get dragged off into SERE training.”
SERE training—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape—was essentially POW training. In every monthly exam, any cadet who was “killed” early would be swept up by recovery personnel and thrown into a simulated prisoner-of-war camp. The default intensity was Level C—the highest—equivalent to an enemy prison. There, completely unfamiliar instructors would play the role of enemy soldiers: fitting them with gland suppressors, tying them up, whipping them, hurling insults and humiliation at them, stripping them of their clothes, depriving them of food and rest, blasting them with searing lights, bombarding them with piercing noise to break them mentally—and then subjecting them to endless beatings and interrogations until the exam ended.
Although cadets who successfully escaped the POW camp would be cleared of responsibility, escaping was extremely difficult. Only one or two managed it each time.
The risk of capture for agents was extremely high. Choosing this profession meant accepting the need to endure pain and extreme psychological pressure.
Lu Yan had made a mistake once during an assessment and ended up in there. It hadn’t been long—only about four hours. Instructor Dai Ning had worried it might leave a psychological shadow on such a pampered little kid, but clearly he had underestimated him. After getting out, the little rabbit hid in a closet and cried all night. The next day, he still showed up to class on time—eyes red, body covered in wounds.
Just thinking about that experience made Lu Yan’s calves tremble. Ever since, he gave everything he had in major exams, just to avoid being thrown back into that prison.
Bi Lanxing lowered his head and swapped out the magazine on his Uzi. “What’s your plan?”
“Let’s take out the terrorists together first,” Lu Yan said, thinking quickly. “Look—nowhere in the mission does it say only one team can carry out the elimination task. If it doesn’t say it, that means we can.”
Bi Lanxing considered it. “Alright. You guys go find Lan Bo. We’ll contact the other teams. In two hours, we regroup at the valley swamp one kilometer outside the temple. I’ll set up defensive fortifications in advance, then we reorganize and launch a coordinated assault.”
“Sync watches. We’re moving out.”
Lu Yan took two teammates and drove back to their original position, picked up Xiao Xun and the ragdoll cat, then headed off in another direction.
During the ATWL exam, Lu Yan had spent a few days with Lan Bo and had a rough understanding of some of his habits. So he headed straight toward water sources, conducting a carpet search of every body of water.
Lan Bo lay quietly in a stream, resting his head on an HK416 rifle. His hands hung loosely over the pebbles, a blue butterfly settled in his golden hair.
They parked the off-road vehicle at a distance and approached him on foot, stepping over the stones.
Xiao Xun instinctively scanned the target’s condition—
Overall vital data: 100%
Stamina remaining: 100%
Gland energy remaining: 100%
Emotional state: 50% content, 50% bored
Food intake: 99%
That unusual metric appeared again. Xiao Xun had never understood why Lan Bo’s data included such a category. The last time he saw him, it was at 97%. Now it had increased again. He had no idea what would happen if it reached 100%.
“He’s in a good mood. Let’s try getting closer,” Xiao Xun said.
Lu Yan jogged over, crouched down, and tapped Lan Bo on the shoulder. “Hey, brother, are you our reinforcements?”
Lan Bo opened one eye. “Noliya bigi milayer. (Rude human cub.)”
He lazily rolled over, propping himself sideways against the carbine. A droplet of water clung to his pale golden eyelashes.
Lu Yan turned to call the others over, but suddenly felt a tickle at the base of his tail. He looked back to see Lan Bo gently curling a finger around the fluffy tip.
Propping his head up, Lan Bo let out a low laugh. “Bani. (Bunny.)”
Xiao Xun noticed the change in Lan Bo’s emotional readings—his happiness had risen from 50% to 60%.
Sensing the opportunity, the Border Collie alpha quickly pushed the Siamese omega and the ragdoll omega beside him toward Lan Bo.
The two omegas had different external biological traits—the ragdoll’s manifested in the ears, while the Siamese’s showed in the feet.
“Ah, rando. (Ah, kittens.)” Lan Bo rubbed the ragdoll’s ears and the Siamese’s paw pads, his blue eyes curving into a smile.
His happiness level shot from 60% to 100%.
Behind the monitoring screens, Bai Chunian sat with his fingers interlaced under his chin, elbows on the desk, his expression dark. “That was careless.”
On the map, the dots representing cadets were all converging toward the temple. The dots remained green—no one had been hit or killed—which meant that although different teams had encountered each other, no one had opened fire. The green dots were growing denser, almost all clustering within a kilometer outside the temple.
Only one team remained farther away, driving in from the valley—it was safe to assume Lan Bo was with them.
“So they’re planning to cooperate and wipe us out,” Bai Chunian murmured. “K, how many cadets are still alive?”
“Fifty-four.”
“Bi Lanxing is already building bulletproof fortifications, and he picked a strong position—easy to defend, hard to attack. Probably for the sniper unit,” Bai Chunian observed through the feed. “He’s got a real sense for tactics.”
The Red Crab instructor said proudly, “Of course he does. Look who trained him.”
“Brother Ning, take out a few of them before they fully group up,” Bai Chunian marked several points on the map in red. “Break up their encirclement.”
“Mm.” Dai Ning tucked the communicator into his ear, pulled on a skull mask, and nimbly vaulted out of the temple ruins.
“Brother Zheng, provide fire suppression from the rear and cover him. There are too many of them—attrition warfare won’t work for us. Brother Han, follow and make sure ammo and stamina are supplied.”
Profiling instructor Zheng Yue slung his gear over his back and followed Dai Ning over the temple wall. Han Xingqian closed his notebook, slipped it into his pocket, and headed down the steps.
Zheng Yue found a concealed reverse slope, set up his rifle, and lay prone, covering Dai Ning as he infiltrated the dense student encirclement.
But among the cadets was an okapi omega with a J1 ability—Sleepless Sentinel. It seemed like a trivial skill, but in real combat it was incredibly powerful. Because it consumed almost no gland energy, it allowed the user to maintain extreme vigilance for an exceptionally long time.
When Dai Ning was still fifty meters away, he was spotted by Huo Jiaqi. A sharp whistle pierced the valley.
“Damn it.”
Bai Chunian’s voice came through the comms just in time. “Fall back. Don’t let them wipe everyone out.”
During instructor training exercises, the coaches wouldn’t use differentiation abilities above J1. So facing a full-on charge from over fifty elite trainees was far from easy.
Under Bi Lanxing’s deployment, all surviving trainees redistributed the gear they had collected: ghillie suits and high-precision sniper rifles went to the sniper squads, assault rifles and rifles went to the combat squads, while tactical and profiling squads spread out, each restructured into smaller teams.
The fifty-four surviving trainees were thus divided into nine standard counter-terrorism squads, each equipped with at least one breacher, an adaptive field specialist, a shield bearer, a capture specialist carrying restraining equipment, a rear guard for vigilance, and a sniper.
Dai Ning specialized in close-quarters combat; if a stealth attack failed, there would be no second chance. Zheng Yue held off the pursuing trainees, but about a thousand meters away, in a dense thicket fortification, two sniper rounds hit his shoulder instantly.
All weapons in the training field were enhanced with Bai Chunian’s coexisting ability: Pain Deception. The explosive pain from the two sniper rounds drenched Zheng Yue in cold sweat.
Han Xingqian activated his J1 ability, Endurance Reset, in time to restore Dai Ning and Zheng Yue to peak condition and assist them in relocating.
Bai Chunian’s expression turned unusually serious.
“Red Crab, divide the area into three zones and find me the weakest point to breach.”
“K, lay mines at the positions I marked.”
“Lorenz, snipe Bi Lanxing.”
The instructors’ faces grew stern; they immediately executed Bai Chunian’s commands.
Except for Bai Chunian, the other instructors had mostly been stationed at the special training base for eight years. Each year, they conducted year-end military exercises, but they had never faced a scenario this tricky.
It seemed the arrival of a few new trainees subtly affected the cohesion and competitiveness of these young recruits.
Lu Yan’s team maneuvered their armored vehicle past the others’ encirclement and circled to the rear of the temple. With signal flares on their belts, once they secured the rear, the front-line trainees would begin their assault support.
Xiao Xun detected the magnetic field signals underground. “They mined the area. Too many mines—can’t drive through.”
“Let’s go on foot first.” Puppeteer and Siamese O leapt out of the vehicle, carrying submachine guns. They moved quickly, landing silently, crossing the minefield directly, and climbed onto the broken European-style beams of the temple ruins.
Both omega cats had obstacle-avoidance coexisting abilities. They crossed the minefield without triggering any traps.
Lan Bo leaned on his hands, watching the cats scale the walls with amusement.
They quickly threw a steel cable: one end tied to a beam, the other thrown to Lu Yan and Xiao Xun. They secured the rope to a thick tree and climbed along the cable to the beams, approaching the temple’s center.
Lu Yan lay quietly in a high position, observing the enemies through binoculars. “One, two… five outside, the other two should be inside.”
“We have more people—we can wear them down.”
But soon, the number of fallen trainees increased rapidly; only forty-one remained on the field.
“Lanxing… he’s hiding at the rear. Someone’s targeting him.”
“Something’s off,” Lu Yan said, scanning with his binoculars. “These terrorists seem to have endless stamina and ammo.”
Lan Bo, lying atop the jeep, lazily counted bullets. “There’s one in there—a medic. Take him out first.”
“Found him.” Lu Yan’s eyes locked on Han Xingqian, wearing a skull mask and hiding in the waterfall bushes to heal others.
Lan Bo sat up, pushing a magazine into his rifle. “All of you, take out the medics. Seven become six, fewer and fewer.”
“Good idea.”
Lan Bo raised his tail tip, tossing a wet, glowing blue jellyfish to Lu Yan. “Follow me—inside. Randi, you little dummy.”
Bai Chunian monitored thousands of surveillance screens, tracking most of the trainees, but he hadn’t noticed Lu Yan’s team or Lan Bo—they were likely preparing a rear assault.
A single droplet of water echoed behind him. Bai Chunian caught it instantly. He left the command platform and walked toward the temple fountain creating ripples.
The fountain was deep and murky, obscuring the bottom. A few bubbles surfaced, and a blue jellyfish drifted on the surface.
Bai Chunian understood immediately. Squatting on the fountain’s edge, he aimed his gun at the water and smirked. “You’ve lost your toy.”
Unexpectedly, a circular black hole appeared a short distance away on the water’s surface. Lu Yan leapt from his hiding spot, Desert Eagles in both hands, firing two bullets at Bai Chunian’s head.
Bai Chunian reacted immediately, firing back. But Lu Yan had anticipated it—he closed his hiding spot, moved outside the fountain, and fired two more shots at Bai Chunian.
Bai Chunian leapt over the ruined walls to dodge bullets, calling through the comms: “Han, change positions, fast.”
He didn’t engage Lu Yan directly, instead jumping over the walls to support Han Xingqian. These kids had already identified their support and would focus their fire entirely on Han.
A sniper round predicted Bai Chunian’s trajectory, cutting off his rescue path. Bai Chunian glanced back along the bullet’s arc and saw Xiao Xun atop the temple, aiming a high-precision rifle at him.
Han Xingqian received Bai Chunian’s warning and immediately withdrew, only to be blocked by several incoming drone missiles.
The Border Collie alpha controlled the drones to trap Han. Han repeatedly used his J1 ability, Endurance Reset. When he reset enough times, the drones would reach their lifespan limit and self-destruct.
But his reset speed was slowing.
The Border Collie alpha, holding a laptop at a distance, spoke to him over the drones’ loudspeakers: “My coexisting ability weakens cloven-glanded creatures, Instructor Han.”
To avoid being picked off by the opposing snipers, Bi Lanxing hid behind the fortifications, but he didn’t stop issuing tactical commands, relaying orders for all trainees to focus fire.
Immediately, every trainee on the field concentrated their fire on Han Xingqian.
Han was forced to retreat across the small waterfall, but a bright blue figure leapt down from above. Lan Bo, shoulder-mounted with a rocket launcher, fired a high-explosive water round that hurled Han Xingqian out of the combat zone.
At that moment, signal flares rose from the rear of the temple. Lu Yan fired the “destroy enemy rear” signal. Bi Lanxing received it and immediately commanded: “Charge according to plan.”
By the time Bai Chunian reached his position, the green indicator on Han Xingqian’s body armor had turned red—he was down.
Lan Bo sat at the edge of the waterfall, the transparent hydro-steel quad rocket launcher resting on his shoulder, raising his chin slightly at Bai Chunian. His blonde hair gleamed under the sunlight.
“You loser.”