Epoch of Twilight

As time went by, everyone was relieved to hear the sound of footsteps fade away. After the beast left, they all lay on the ground like exhausted construction workers. They could still hear roars from the outside as well as the sound of bomb explosions and humans screaming. All that noise was like a heavy dark cloud pressing down on them. Luo Yuan continued to meditate. It was horribly quiet in the chamber and the bombing sounds were getting louder and more frequent. They heard the sound of fighting jets passing by and the hustle and bustle of the city. The frequency of the battles was getting higher. Luo Yuan could even smell the smoke of guns.

“The army has focused their attacks and increased the frequency. They even brought out the fighting jets. The poisonous mist must be gone,” Luo Yuan whispered before he opened his eyes and looked around seriously.

He thought the war had to come to an end soon if the poisonous mist was gone and the army had began to attack. In fact, the war continued from morning till evening. and did not stop until night time. Apparently, the situation was worse than he had imagined. Fighting at night was not as effective. It only caused more injuries and deaths. However, Hedong City was too important to the province. Most factories had moved there because other places in the province had been in ruins since the mutation outbreak. Hedong City had become the new heavy industry and scientific study center in just a few months. The entire Jiangnan Province would be evacuated if Hedong City was conquered and the whole province would be taken over by green forest.

There was a lot of food in the chamber, but everyone seemed to have lost their appetite. They had a snack and then squeezed back in the corner together. The chamber became darker during the night. Luo Yuan’s face felt itchy. He touched it with his hand and realized there were a lot more holes on it. It had been almost twelve hours since the morning. The blood on his wounds had coagulated, and he felt a slight pain whenever he touched it. Any normal person would be worried about getting disfigured. Luo Yuan felt mad and upset every time he thought about the volcanic craters on his face.

“Do you think it will end tomorrow?” Wang Shishi asked uncertainly as she opened her eyes wide in the dark.

“Don’t be afraid, Shishi. The army is fighting the mutants, I think everything will be alright by tomorrow. There are about 100,000 soldiers based in Hedong City, 200,000 if we add the veterans who were recruited again. The defense system was weak because of the mist, but now that the mist is gone, it will be easier to kill them,” Huang Jiahui whispered.

“Brother Luo, Sister Huang, is that true?”

Luo Yuan remained silent for a second. Then he said, “Yes. Perhaps it will all be over when we wake up tomorrow morning.”

It would really end so soon? Luo Yuan did not know why, but he had a bad instinct. He did not believe that it was a coincidence that the beasts had attacked the city during all this chaos. The probability was relatively low. It seemed like someone had been behind this. While the mutants grew stronger, their intelligence became higher as well. Luo Yuan had bumped into several mutated beasts before and realized their intelligence was a lot more advanced than that of regular mutants. They still had the intelligence of beasts though, which was why it was difficult to determine whether biological conflict was possible. He suspected that the beasts’ mutated genes could break the restrictions of their intelligence and turn them into highly intelligent beasts, or even give them the power to control a whole group of mutated beasts. Luo Yuan shivered involuntarily at the thought. It would be really horrible if that turned out to be true.

Creatures with similar intelligence to human beings were a lot scarier than just physically superior, gigantic mutants. In millions of years of history, human beings had managed to occupy the top of the food chain on the earth, and had even left the earth to explore other planets nearby. The key to all those breakthroughs was not their size or physical strength, but their intelligence. It might not be something tangible, but it was still the core element and motivation for human development and evolution. A new highly-intelligent species would be a threat to the human race. Wang Shishi calmed down when she heard Luo Yuan’s words. Luo Yuan sighed. There were too many things on his mind. The bombing sounds started fading at midnight.

The next morning, Luo Yuan opened his eyes and moved his arms and legs. He listened to the bombing sounds outside and realized it was getting more serious than ever. The choking smoke of the bombs and guns carried the awful smell of blood. The girls slowly woke up and heard the turmoil outside. Their rosy cheeks instantly turned pale. After a while, Luo Yuan got up and said, “Let’s check it out.”

“Please be careful!” Huang Jiahui spoke after a short silence.

Luo Yuan nodded and stepped out the chamber holding his knife. A big wave of heat greeted him as soon as he opened the trapdoor. He frowned as he walked out of the bathroom. The entire house had been terribly damaged. It looked like a Grade 12 typhoon had just passed by. There were deep, big footprints on the rocks and limestones as well as several big holes in the walls. The pillar in the living room, which was about half a meter in diameter, had snapped and formed an accidental V as it supported the house. Besides that, there were numerous big cracks on the ceiling, some of them the size of a fist. However, Luo Yuan did not pay much attention to the mess.

He saw a lot of destroyed buildings as he peeped through the holes caused by the beast’s attack. There were black clouds gushing up from the ground, accompanied by red flames and bombing sounds. He looked towards the direction of the districts and saw an upside down, dented, scraped tank with its belt spinning continuously in the air.

Suddenly a 5-meter tall rhino-like beast came out of the back of a building. It walked a few steps before it was suddenly attacked by a fighting jet. Blood gushed out from its body as it roared hopelessly before it slumped down on the ground. Its entire body was shaking. When the battle ended, the fighting jets flew past the sky above the district. Suddenly, they got hit by a huge rock thrown from a tall corporate office building. The jets exploded into the air.

A gigantic red gorilla was standing on the rooftop of the corporate building. It jumped onto the ground from the burning building, creating a deep crater on the road. It kept beating its chest like a big drum. The gorilla was about 10 meters tall with a body of red fur. It looked like it was on fire while it walked down the street. Luo Yuan took a deep breath and stepped back instinctively. Even though the gorilla was a few miles away, he was still terrified. It had to be a blue or even higher rank creature.

A woman with blood stains on her body rushed out from the corporate building. She immediately got frightened by the scary scene in front of her and fell to the ground. A strong wind blew across the street as the woman was captured inside a huge palm and stuffed into a big dark oral cavity. Luo Yuan could hear the woman’s hopeless screams. At that moment, two fighting jets came, aimed at the gorilla and started firing non-stop.

The beast covered its eyes with its huge palm and let the fighting jets attack its body. Barrage appeared around it as the gorilla kept stepping back. It roared extremely loudly before it finally came to a stop. The next second, a cluster of open-air missiles were released. They hit the gorilla and exploded.