Then let the witch offer her loyalty

Chapter 225 The Fall of the City

Chen Moxin carefully considered what Lang Yue had said and finally understood.

"You only feel good when you kill someone, huh?"

Wolf Moon grinned, his eyes narrowing into crescent moons as he showed a row of sharp teeth: "That's right, I kill people for the thrill, I don't kill those I don't enjoy."

After saying that, he licked the corner of his mouth, as if reliving the scene of blood splattering not long ago.

Chen Moxin shook her head, raised her hand to rub her temples, and tried to keep her tone calm: "As I just said, although the cube world is fake on an objective level, the feeling of being in it is absolutely real. I have experience with this."

Wolf Moon yawned and pouted, "In the end, it's still all fake."

Chen Moxin said helplessly, "Why do you care so much about whether it's true or false? It will distort your feelings, you know?"

"You'll see what I mean when you come with me to experience Resonance. It's absolutely amazing."

Wolf Moon showed no interest, lazily lying down next to a tree, curling up with his arm as if he were about to fall asleep at any moment, waving his hand and saying, "No fun, no fun, you guys go ahead."

"Instead of wasting time playing those virtual games, you might as well find a few real people for me to chop up."

Chen Moxin remained silent for a moment, then left the containment room without saying a word.

When he returned, he was carrying a wooden stick.

Wolf Moon was startled and quickly scrambled to his feet, hiding behind a tree. He cautiously peeked out from the side of the trunk, his face contorted in a smile that looked more like a grimace: "Go, go, I'll go, okay? You're the boss, you make the decisions!"

She chuckled awkwardly, glancing uneasily at the "dog-beating stick" in Chen Moxin's hand, clearly still traumatized by the previous beating.

"Honestly, you really forced me to use my trump card." Chen Moxin chuckled briefly, threw away the wooden stick, and waved to the two of them, "Let's go, let's go through the registration process first."

The rest was a natural progression.

Chen Moxin wrote down the details of Lang Yue and Zhou Yan's participation in the cube resonance and submitted them for review.

After approval was granted, everyone began to study the relevant information together.

This resonance was aided by prior intelligence compiled by Mo Zeyuan and others.

However, because they failed so quickly, they didn't have much useful information. All they knew was that it was an escort mission and that the mission location was on Gaia, the home planet of the Human Alliance.

Two days later, after the preliminary preparations were completed, Chen Moxin and the other four entered the resonance chamber together.

The participants in this resonance event included both men and women. Since they had to undress before entering the nutrient chamber, to avoid unnecessary embarrassment, the men and women were separated into different resonance rooms, and technicians of the same gender were assigned to each side to operate and guide them.

At this moment, Zhou Yan and Lang Yue behaved very differently.

Zhou Yan was a man who had seen a lot. He had even been to the giant ship of the Witch Alliance. Even when he was in enemy territory, he could still put on a great acting show. He was a perfect little special agent.

She didn't react much at this point, and did whatever the technician asked her to do, cooperating very well.

Wolf Moon seemed a bit childish, very curious about all the instruments in the resonance chamber. She looked around, sniffed around, and even put anything interesting into her mouth, which scared the technicians so much that they had to rush to snatch it away.

Half an hour later, all the preparatory work was completed, and the soaking was finished.

"Hunter and witch in position, resonance begins."

...

...

...

The moment the Stargate Project was declared complete marked an unprecedented step forward for human civilization.

Humanity has torn open the veil of reality, opening the door to the unknown world. Hypotheses that once existed only in theory have finally become tangible realities.

Beneath the star gate, space is no longer a cage, and time is no longer a shackle.

People can travel freely through the vast galaxy, searching for traces of other life in distant star regions, or exploring ancient mysteries that have remained unsolved since time immemorial.

However, after its brief period of glory, the Stargate, the greatest creation in human history, awakened something beyond the material.

Initially, the laboratory instruments showed unusual fluctuations in data, and the signals captured by scientists contained strange frequencies that were difficult to decode.

What followed was a bizarre and grotesque nightmare. Countless psionicists awoke in the long night, their minds shattered, as nightmares tore at their consciousness, bringing indescribable fear.

It is an existence beyond human comprehension, defying all known physical laws; all who have come into contact with it have been driven mad, their consciousness twisted and distorted.

Seven years after the successful experiment to tear apart the Stargate reality veil, disaster spread to Gaia's home planet.

Around those out-of-control psionicists, corrupted psionic energy can transform humans into twisted, alien life forms known as "Dead Apostles."

The Dead Apostles retain the physical structure of humans, but their inner selves are no longer human. Driven by endless madness, they roam through ruins, cities, and mountains, killing any still healthy human beings.

[With the fall of most major cities in the world, hundreds of millions of people were slaughtered, defenses around the world collapsed rapidly, and civilization began to crumble.]

Psychic energy was once the foundation of humanity, bringing prosperity to civilization and sending humanity to the stars.

Now it has become a cradle for the dead, pushing civilization to its grave.

...

Consciousness was dragged into an abyss by an invisible hand; in an instant, all was silent, and time seemed to stand still.

The darkness was boundless, like a thick liquid, swallowing all the senses, as if hearing, touch, and sight had all been stripped away, leaving only the soul adrift in nothingness.

No one knows how much time has passed; it's like a long, dreamless sleep, or like the blink of an eye.

Until some indescribable perception exploded deep within consciousness, the darkness began to crack, and a thin beam of light quietly seeped in, illuminating the edge of consciousness.

Chen Moxin was the first to open her eyes. Her vision was still blurry, and her eardrums seemed not to have gotten used to the new frequency yet, but the pungent smell had already entered her nasal cavity.

A scorching wind swept over me, carrying the smell of rusty metal and an even stronger stench of blood, as if a slaughter had just ended.

"I'll go, what's going on?"

Alexander exclaimed beside him, his voice filled with undisguised shock.

Chen Moxin got up and went to the edge of the rooftop, looking into the distance.

Sunlight streamed down through the thick clouds, but it brought no peace. The light created by the Tyndall effect was like a red-hot blade, stinging the eyes.

Standing beneath their feet was a towering clock tower, and in front of them stretched a vast city.

Traces of civilization can be found everywhere – on streets, in buildings, on billboards, and at subway entrances.

But at this moment, everything was engulfed by madness.

On the road, various vehicles were colliding, their bodies twisted and overturned, or stuck in the guardrails, many of them burning fiercely due to fuel leaks.

Countless people were running, screaming, and fighting. Regardless of age or gender, they were all searching for anything they could use as a weapon to attack any of their kind they could see.

A man was smashing a steel pipe hard on another person's head, causing blood to splatter everywhere, but he still wouldn't stop.

A group of women repeatedly stabbed each other with hairpins, their faces and hands covered in blood, but their eyes were filled with madness and excitement.

Some people have no weapons, so they scratch each other with their bare hands, or even bite each other with their teeth.

Further away, a building caught fire, and dozens of burning figures ran through the flames, but none of them fled the fire. Instead, they ran towards those who were not on fire, grabbed them, and jumped into the flames.

All these bizarre and insane humans share a common characteristic: the corners of their eyes are covered with thorn-like black marks, all of them dead beings formed by the erosion of madness.

“This doesn’t look like the Twin Cities…” Zhou Yan stared blankly at the city streets, swallowing hard. “So, this is the Resonance World?”

At this moment, many points of light appeared before everyone's eyes. They unfolded in an orderly manner in the air and eventually formed lines of text.

[Time: Gaia calendar 2580]

Location: DX16-154124-A "Gaia" homeworld

The requirements for this resonance are as follows:

[Escorting Zhou Si, Chief Academician of the Human Union Academy of Sciences, and his family to the "Donglu II" starport for evacuation]

If the number of deaths among the escorted targets exceeds one, the resonance will be deemed a failure.

As hunters who had participated in cube resonance before, Chen Moxin, Alexander, and Lei Lie were quite experienced with the whole process and did not get confused like Zhou Yan. They quickly got into the zone.

They looked at their clothes; they were standard military uniforms with the Human Alliance logo, complete with various combat equipment and identification documents, indicating that their identities had been pre-set by the cube.

That's good, otherwise, if you don't have the proper status and are suddenly asked to escort a high-ranking official, the official might not be willing to go with you.

Based on the intelligence we have so far, Chen Moxin analyzed, "Just like the preliminary information given by Mo Zeyuan and the others, this resonance is an escort mission."

"Compared to our first resonance, this resonance mission is very simple and clear, but I don't think that's good news."

Alexander and Lei Lie both understood what Chen Moxin meant.

Just like news, the fewer the words, the bigger the story.

The simpler the task description and the fewer the requirements, the greater the difficulty of the task itself.

Alexander rested his chin on his hand and pondered, "The mission requirements state that if the number of deaths of the escorted target exceeds one, the resonance will be considered a failure, which means there is only one death slot."

"These conditions are very demanding. We must act quickly, or we'll be in trouble if something unexpected happens."

"As Mo Zeyuan and his colleagues wrote in their report, Zhou Si's location was in Shelter No. 4, underground, in the local government building."

At this moment, Lei Lie suddenly noticed something and pointed behind Chen Moxin: "Look there."

Chen Moxin turned around to look.

A majestic building stands not far away, its overall structure symmetrical and its exterior composed of countless glass curtain walls, exhibiting a very modern and simple aesthetic. Numerous holographic projections are also suspended on the curtain walls.

“Judging from the holographic sign, that’s the local government building, where Zhou Si and his family are trapped.”

The goal is now within reach.

However, the scene was truly terrifying.

The exterior glass of the government building has many bullet holes and shattered glass from the explosion; many pieces are completely broken, with glass fragments hanging down like interlocking dog teeth.

Outside the building, the streets were stained with blood, broken roadblocks were piled up haphazardly, and many military trucks and armored vehicles were overturned on the ground, their fuel tanks leaking and burning fiercely.

Some soldiers in combat uniforms were on the scene; they were likely the guards responsible for protecting the government building, and they were still putting up a fierce resistance.

But it has reached a dead end.

Behind the sandbag bunker, a soldier with a bullet wound in his arm was trying to change a magazine. His hands were trembling uncontrollably due to excessive blood loss, and his fingers were stuck between the trigger and the magazine, unable to fit it in.

"Damn it...damn it..."

He muttered to himself, constantly cursing himself.

"Hold your hand steady, I'll do it!"

A comrade nearby ran over, intending to help him load the ammunition.

Suddenly, a blurry figure lunged at him, and an iron crowbar instantly pierced the soldier's neck, causing blood to spurt out.

He didn't even have time to utter a sound before he collapsed to the ground, convulsing and then falling silent.

"Hehehe! Awesome!!!" The scoundrel holding the crowbar laughed wildly, pulled the crowbar from the corpse's neck, then suddenly bent down and bit the dead soldier's neck, making a horrifying chewing sound.

"Fuck your mother!!!" the wounded soldier roared, picked up the gun that his comrade had helped reload, and sprayed bullets at the dead soldiers.

Bullets kept piercing his body, but they couldn't bring the assassin down immediately. He seemed to feel no pain at all, laughing wildly as he charged at the soldier and stabbed the crowbar in his hand into the soldier's eye.

"Pfft!"

The sound of flesh tearing rang out, and blood quickly stained the surrounding ground red.

Just as the perpetrator was ravaging the corpse, a rocket shot out from a second-floor window of the government building, hitting him with a "boom" and shattering him, thus ending his madness.

However, the death of one Dead Apostle is meaningless, as there are far too many Dead Apostles present, at least a thousand.

Some of them were wearing hospital gowns and breathing masks on their faces.

Some carried machetes and wore hip-hop clothes with a distinct street style.

There were even sheriffs wearing helmets and tattered police uniforms.

These madmen had twisted, crazed smiles on their faces, the black marks around their eyes were extremely grotesque, and their bodies were covered in blood. They approached the government building like flies that smelled rotting flesh.

Unlike zombies, Dead Apostles retain human intelligence and understand tactics; they won't mindlessly charge into heavy firepower.

Sure enough, while a tank's machine gun turret was firing at a crowd, a suicidal thug found a grenade on a nearby soldier's corpse, crawled over the chassis from behind to the front, and, laughing maniacally, stuffed the grenade, with the fuse removed, into the gun barrel.

With a deafening roar, the tank's gun barrel was severed at the end, causing the unfired ammunition to explode along with it, and billowing black smoke billowed out from the gaps in the turret.

The crew members, engulfed in flames and screaming in agony, crawled out of the cockpit, only to be attacked by the dead men who had obtained weapons. One by one, they fell into pools of blood and were burned to a crisp.

Judging from the current situation, the defending forces are already unable to hold out, and it is only a matter of time before they are completely annihilated. The government building is about to fall completely.