Seven days on the road. For the Ice Regiment’s thousand‑vehicle convoy, that was already considered a hard push, even though in the old prosperous days this distance would’ve taken only a few hours.
During those seven days, Magnus Specter personally deployed twenty off‑road trucks to rotate at the front. While they advanced, the women up front used the Super Fire Crystal to drive away chickens, ducks, geese, and rats—not harming them, just forcing them aside so the convoy could keep moving.
The rush wasn’t only to help everyone reach a temporary base sooner and get some rest. More importantly, it was to save animal blood. A convoy this size had to replace its blood coating every forty‑eight hours. Each replacement took more than three hundred barrels. One fifty‑liter barrel could cover around three to five cargo trucks—only a thin layer was needed, no need to soak the whole vehicle.
If Magnus himself didn’t handle the process, coating the convoy once would take fifteen Super Fire Crystals and fifteen women who’d Awakened twice. Even with the crystals, each woman still had to coat a hundred trucks an hour—barely over a minute per vehicle. Tedious and exhausting work.
The twenty‑plus barrels of snake blood they’d collected still hadn’t been touched. Magnus planned to test them after securing a temporary base, to see whether snake blood differed from the usual poultry blood.
On the seventh night after leaving Ridgehaven City, just past midnight, the massive convoy rolled slowly toward the outer road leading into Ironvale County...
Magnus had been here a few times. Not even a kilometer past the county entrance stood a mall the locals used to call “Jincheng,” six stories high. He still remembered its outline.
He told Harper Quinn to stop. Magnus stepped out to confirm their location. The beam of his high‑powered torch reached the mall’s silhouette about a hundred meters ahead. He told Harper to stay in the vehicle, then sprinted back toward the motorhome.
“We’ve arrived?”
Seven days—this was the first time Magnus had returned to the RV. Liana Jabbar and the others all stood up to greet him.
“Almost. It’s just ahead...”
Magnus let out a quiet breath, took a drink of water, exchanged a few words with them, then jumped back out. Holding the torch, he ran from the head to the tail of the convoy, shining the light on each windshield—giving the signal.
Then he jogged back to the lead vehicle and guided Harper Quinn and the twenty‑plus off‑road trucks forward. Jincheng Mall sat right at the corner of a crossroad, close to their side.
At the center of the crossroads lay a meteorite, about two stories tall. Around it, a swarm of rats skittered, weaving back and forth. A duck and a hen slept curled near its base.
As the twenty trucks drove forward, they blasted their horns. The rats scattered, the poultry jolted awake. Magnus activated the Super Fire Crystal, summoning thick Nature‑Crystal wooden logs. He swung one down, striking three rats, and the whole swarm—plus the two birds—bolted in panic.
The trucks circled around the meteorite and the walkway beside the mall, sealing the entrance, then stopped to await his command.
Telling them to hold position, Magnus lifted his head and examined the small mall. Six stories high, every window shattered. Inside, most likely swarming with post‑apocalyptic creatures.
But this time, Magnus wasn’t planning to back down. Even if he had to activate the Super Fire Crystal inside and blow holes in the building, he’d deal with the repairs later. The team needed a stable place to sleep—they couldn’t stay in their trucks forever.
The mall’s front doors had long been smashed open. Magnus didn’t go through them. Instead he glanced at a second‑floor window, then bent his knees and leapt. His hands caught the ledge. With a quick pull, he flipped his body straight through the window and into the dark second floor.
A harsh rustling burst through the second floor. Dozens of sparrows jolted awake, flapping wildly in the dark. Rats that had been sprawled asleep on the tiles scattered in panic. Wings thrashed, claws scraped—but none of them dared charge toward Magnus Specter. Most of the sparrows bolted for the outer corridors, and the rats hurled themselves down the stairs.
One rat, huge as an off‑road wagon, barreled toward the first‑floor steps. It misjudged its speed, slammed head‑first into the midway landing, and punched a crater straight into the wall. Its skull got wedged in deep. Another rat crashed into its backside, ramming it clean through; the beast tumbled out of the broken wall and slid down the outer surface of the building.
Magnus cursed under his breath. No time to worry about the mess. He fired up the Super Fire Crystal, sprinting a full circuit around the second‑floor ring. Then he dropped to the first floor and cleared out every rat‑beast and sparrow in both levels. By the time he was done, the exterior walls were smashed open in seven or eight ragged holes.
He stepped outside and signaled three sleeper trucks to roll in. The convoy eased forward; he had them stack meteor‑soil along the first‑ and second‑floor windows and the larger breaches, then ignite it to block any more creatures from squeezing inside. When the flames were stable, Magnus gestured sharply to the women inside the trucks.
The female squad members climbed out. Magnus hurried straight to the leading captain, his tone firm and clipped.
"Get steel. Seal every window on the first and second floors. I’m heading to the third. Bet there are still rats up there. If you see any, shoot. Don’t herd them out. I don’t want another damn wall smashed."
"Understood," the captain replied, already barking orders as she moved.
Magnus jogged toward the third floor. At the stairwell, his flashlight swept down the stairs—and froze. The stairway kept going. Downward.
A basement lot?
He switched direction immediately, descending to B1. The beam of his torch cut through the dark—straight onto a teeming carpet of rat‑beasts, bodies piled on bodies. Above them, seven or eight giant bats dangled like twisted shadows.
"Great. Middle of the night, and instead of hunting, you’re all down here snoring? Useless damn things."
He spat the words and pulled an automatic rifle from his spatial storage. A roar of gunfire erupted as he sprayed into the mass of creatures. Rats shrieked and fled toward the parking‑lot exit; the bats flapped erratically, scrambling after them.
When the tide finally broke, Magnus sprinted back up to the first floor, slung a whole sack of meteor‑soil over his shoulder, and returned to the basement entrance. He lit the barrier with a sweep of the Super Fire Crystal, sealing the underground access in a blaze.
From the third up to the sixth floor, barely a rat lingered. He cleared each level the same way—quick, sharp, merciless—and called the female squad up to seal the windows.
Two hundred women worked through the entire night. By dawn, when light finally touched the sky, the mall was sealed tight as a fortress. Windows, breaches, vents—every opening had been scorched shut or welded beneath thick steel plates.
Magnus inspected everything once more, traveling from the first to the sixth floor. A dozen female squad members followed. One captain walked beside him, reporting steadily.
"Commander, all vents, windows—anything that leads outside—is sealed."
A middle captain, brows pinched with worry, added,
"Commander... if we seal everything like this, can the team even breathe in here?"
"They should be able to. We’ll test it on the sixth floor."
They climbed to the sixth. Though the sun was already high, the sealed floor was pitch‑black, a suffocating kind of dark. The air pressed heavy and stale. After climbing all the way up, many of the women were already feeling faint discomfort.
Now they stood in the silent gloom, eyes fixed on Magnus Specter, waiting to see how he would force air back into this dead, sealed space.
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