Epoch of Twilight

"It’s the first line of defense at the front, and it’s the most important one," Commander Xia said, with a tinge of emotion.

It was a gray fort, and its large size can be seen even from afar. It was very different from the fort used during the World War II; it was a hemispheric giant battle beast, fully armed.

Various types of weapons with different calibers had filled every single inch of this hemispheric fort. Some magnificently large cannons could be spotted within its grounds too. The dark hole was so huge that it could fit even more than one person of average adult-size. It certainly looked formidable.

When one looked over, either horizontally or vertically, one by one, the number of forts were so great that one was able to see them all, stretching until the end of one’s line of vision – it was definitely shocking!

As they got closer to those forts, Luo Yuan could not hold back his emotions.

No words could describe how he felt, as the feeling brimming within him was complicated and rather complex. He harbored uncontrollable excitement; a feeling of returning home that made him so eager to check it out, yet overwhelmed by a faint fear, as he had been away for too long, which had now alienated him from the human society. As he had been living a life without any restrictions for the longest time, he was worried as to whether or not he was able to readapt to society, with its ever-binding social norms. However, these faint emotions were not strong enough to overpower him from wanting to get inside.

There were thousands of such forts and two-thirds of them were situated at the outer rim. Its walls were about three meters thick, and served as a barricade to almost any kind of attack. The ground had a layer of iron flooring about half meter thick on top of the cement. Apart from the operating personnel, each fort had a battalion of artillery troops as a reserve force.

Then, about ten kilometers away, a fort suddenly fired and a long streak of flames was seen shooting towards the sky, as if the heavens had punished a hovering mutated beast, leaving it in agony to struggle and fall to its death.

"Can the threat of the beasts break through the defense?" Luo Yuan withdrew his gaze, as he turned his head to ask.

Commander Xia paused for a moment before he replied, "Basically, it can defend any threat by beasts below the level of five."

He then continued to explain, even when Luo Yuan had not probed further. "It’s a rating system of the Construction Area to divide the degree of danger indefinitely. The scale of level one was lesser than ten thousand, while the scale of level five was about one million to five million. However, this rating system was not very accurate because the density, impact, size and strength of each individual did play a pivotal role too. The most dreadful problem in the Construction Area was neither the mutated beasts nor the mutated birds, but the threat of the insects. Their large number and smaller body size had made it difficult for defense.

Previously, we had one insect threat in our Construction Area. We suffered a great loss as it ruined a few cities at the outer rim."

...

"That’s large!"

It looked like nothing from afar, but as it got nearer, it was not only huge and heavy but also boasted a height that was greater than ten floors. In addition, it had an area of more than ten thousand, almost the size of a giant beast lying horizontally on the desert. Furthermore, its body was full of weapons and it exerted an oppressing aura, which made the group grow anxious.

Even Luo Yuan felt uncomfortable and insecure with those cannons.

All of a sudden, the giant iron door of the fort was flung open, and a completely enclosed jeep drove over at high speed.

Luo Yuan stopped both the giant lizard and the king kong, dismounted from the former, and waited for the jeep to come closer.

When the door of the jeep was opened, two tanned soldiers quickly got out and trotted over. "This is defense line no. 151 military fort. Are all of you survivors?" One of the officers with a lieutenant military rank shouted to ask, while glancing at the giant beast uncontrollably.

"Hello lieutenant, four of us are the soldiers from the 19th army, 15th force. Because of the plane accident, we had lost contact. I’m Xia Qiang, the company commander of the third corps, fifth company. These are the survivors." Commander Xia saluted with excited expression along with other three soldiers.

The lieutenant returned the salutation with a surprise: "Oh, four of you are the comrades whom we have lost contact with? You are so lucky to have survived, but the 19th army is not anywhere around here. I heard that they have been positioned at a new oil field, I’m not certain with the details though. You may need to report at the Department of Military Affairs at the Construction Area."

Commander Xia nodded as he had obviously mentally prepared for this.

Then, the lieutenant looked at Luo Yuan and his group with curiosity. He had met many survivors before. Some were in shabby wear, fixed eyes, excited and crying in distress, while some were a bit of a rebel and fierce, but none was as special as this group of people.

Their shirts were surprisingly clean and neat, as if they were new; their fingernails did not have any dirt in them, depicting that they were cleaned often; their complexion was fair and face ruddy, obviously they were not malnourished. Other than exuding a state of excitement and joy, their calmness made them look more like they were in an era of peace, instead of survivors of an apocalypse.

However, what made him more curious was the sudden order he received from his superiors before he came out, which was to welcome the group of evolved people riding on a mutated beast, with special treatment.

He had not seen the footage of the battle between Luo Yuan and the desert’s crypt worm, thus he did not know the evolved ability that Luo Yuan shown was so important to the Construction Area. After all, the underground mutated beasts had always been tricky, as they usually hide deeply underground where there was no effective detection method up-to-date.

What was more serious was that there were many such underground creatures in the desert region and the Construction Area almost had to deal with hundreds of attacks daily, which took away the life of thousands. On top of that, they were becoming more cunning as they moved very swiftly. After they attacked once, they will flee deep into the ground and almost could not be killed. As such, it was definitely a nightmare to humankind.

...

The outer appearance of the fort looked menacing, akin to those in a science-fiction horror story, but its interior was rough yet spacious.

It comprised a bumpy cemented surface, coarse walls without a coat of painting and large words of slogans to motivate and inspire guests. What really caught their eye were the rows of large rocket vehicles at both sides. If a few kids were to walk along the road, their height was incomparable to that of its tire.

The group followed a few soldiers into the fort where they were simply asked a few questions and had their pictures taken. Huo Dong was held on to the box of canned food given by the lieutenant just as when they were given a pass, with a stamp hanging around their necks. These somehow made Luo Yuan feel a sense of warmth.

What differed this from the olden days was that these passes were not plastic ones, but instead merely a piece of wood strung by a thin hemp rope. After the apocalypse, the resources were apparently insufficient, hence materials such as plastic could not be wasted on items like these.

There were many forts around this region, where the group had to stop frequently after a certain distance for security checks. Fortunately, it did not take much time as they were let through quickly after their passes had been inspected. After they passed through thirteen forts, the endless checkpoints finally came to an end.

Along the way, Commander Xia was faced with alternating emotions; at times he would be silent, emotionally excited and sometimes preoccupied with troubles. He could not imagine what would happen to his family, as he was a mere human being lost in the war. As the Construction Area encouraged birth giving, and strictly prohibited singlehood especially among the women, it had led him into marriage. As his wife had now become a "widow" ... he must have sufficient mental strength to live with this fact.

When Luo Yuan opened the box filled with a dozen canned food, he found out that the canned foods were packed into wooden materials too. The outer part of the can was carved with simple symbol to indicate the type of the food, date and level. Eight cans of meat were ranked as level four, while the other four were vegetables ranked as level one.

Level four also symbolized the dark blue rank, while level one depicted that they were white.

Apart from being emotionally excited since five in the morning when they woke up, up to the current time of four o’ clock in the evening, they did not stop along the way. Other than water, they had consumed nothing at all. Luo Yuan then opened up all the cans.

These things could be relatively precious and expensive for common people, but were nothing much to Luo Yuan and his company, as they were not only used to having deep blue rank meat but also those of green ranks.

The meat in the can appear to be flour-like in texture as the tough meat of mutated beasts had already been ground. Starch seemed to have been added in to make it taste better than how it originally tasted. It was not only rich in flavor but also easy for consumption. As the group had not tasted even a single ounce of spices for a long period of time, it had stimulated their appetite.

The group even finished the dehydrated vegetables.

There was quite a distance between the first line of defense and the Construction Area. It was only 7 o’clock in the evening, but Luo Yuan could finally see the dim lights from afar!