At this moment, inside the shelter.
Liu Yuan and Yun Huang had just stepped through the energy barrier.
The ashes outside the barrier seemed to possess a life of their own, surging wildly into the passage cleared by the Black Knight moments earlier. They crashed against the shimmering curtain with a grating, bone-chilling screech.
"The situation isn’t good," said Sun Cheng, the shelter’s leader, his expression grim as he observed the barrier. "The core’s energy reserves are already more than halfway depleted."
Sun Cheng was one of the regional supervisors for this examination, a man of considerable experience. Yet even he found the current circumstances unprecedentedly dire.
"How long until reinforcements arrive?" Yun Huang asked, her voice calm but laced with unspoken worry.
Sun Cheng gave a bitter smile. "Due to my oversight, I failed to realize the ashes don’t just affect living beings—they corrode structures as well. Our signal relay was damaged early on."
"Communications with headquarters have been cut off. We can’t call for help. The only information I have is that Jiang—"
His words abruptly stopped.
He realized he’d said too much.
Perhaps it was because the Black Knight’s actions had shaken him, making him momentarily forget the two were examinees and speak to them as equals.
But some things were better left unsaid.
Jiang, the garrison commander, was blocked outside the Origin Realm. This shelter wouldn’t receive reinforcements for at least another two or three hours. They could only…
Only rely on themselves.
If this information got out…
Morale would collapse. What might have been defensible would become impossible.
"Moreover," Sun Cheng continued, lowering his voice and glancing beyond the barrier, "those things gathering outside… they’re not ordinary low-tier Origin Realm creatures."
Yun Huang followed his gaze.
Through the flickering barrier, she could barely make out shifting shadows.
They crouched within the ashes, their forms grotesque and varied, but the aura they exuded was uniformly malevolent.
Their oppressive presence was no different from the giant centipede they’d faced earlier.
No—stronger.
At least seventh-tier in strength.
"They’re waiting," Sun Cheng said, his grip tightening on his weapon until his knuckles turned white. "Waiting for the barrier to fail."
This was information that couldn’t be hidden.
It already weighed on everyone like a mountain.
The heavy atmosphere in the shelter stemmed from this very realization.
Examinees wept quietly. Staff members wore grim expressions.
It was clear to all—once the barrier shattered, annihilation would follow.
Yun Huang listened, her gaze shifting between the dimming barrier and the Black Knight beside her.
Her eyes flickered, as if weighing something unspoken.
……
Time passed, minute by minute.
The shelter’s energy depletion rate far exceeded Sun Cheng’s estimates.
His expression darkened. "The barrier… won’t hold much longer."
"Everyone, I’ve decided we’ll launch a preemptive strike in five minutes…"
"At the very least, we can thin their numbers before retreating to the shelter. The remaining barrier might buy us some breathing room."
"Any objections?"
The remaining officials didn’t respond.
They remained silent, heads bowed, fiddling with their phones.
Under the bleak sky, the faint glow of their screens illuminated their faces.
It wasn’t that they had the luxury of distraction.
Though their phones had no signal…
They could still draft final messages.
Sun Cheng’s plan was sound—perhaps the best under the circumstances.
Once the barrier fully collapsed, they’d be forced into a fight to the death with no chance to regroup.
But no matter how sound the strategy, war meant sacrifice.
No one could guarantee they wouldn’t be next.
A young team member tapped at his screen.
"Mom, your son has failed in his filial duty. This time… I might not make it back."
"Please take your medicine on time. Don’t overwork yourself. Brother will take care of you."
Beside him, a grizzled veteran typed a far shorter message.
"Wife, the bank card PIN is our daughter’s birthday. Move the study cabinet—there’s a hidden compartment underneath with my savings. Find someone to look after you both."
A female team member let silent tears fall onto her screen.
"Turns out I never really liked you that much. Let’s break up."
Then she tapped "Send when connected."
Not all messages were tender.
In a corner, a man with a scarred face angrily deleted and rewrote something.
In the end, only two words remained:
"Worth it! Worth it!"
As if summarizing his life lived on the edge.
This was a ritual.
A severing of the past, an acceptance of death.
Five minutes—agonizingly long, yet fleeting—passed in the quiet tapping of screens and stifled sobs.
Finally, the first person finished, gently placing their phone inside a prepared metal box.
A container meant for the belongings of the fallen.
Now, it held their last words to the world.
Click.
A soft sound, yet it carried the weight of an order.
A second phone joined the first. Then a third.
One by one, they placed their devices inside.
The box filled quickly.
Sun Cheng watched, his eyes reddening.
He didn’t rush them.
When the last phone was set down, the atmosphere in the shelter shifted.
The despair and dread from earlier seemed sealed away with those phones.
In its place—a steely, unyielding resolve.
When Liu Yuan and Yun Huang had arrived, the officials had seemed disorganized, sprawled haphazardly on the ground.
Now, they straightened, one after another.
Fear had left their eyes.
Only calm remained.
And the determination… to march toward death.
They were the official combat personnel tasked with safeguarding the Origin Realm.
Now, with the realm in chaos, duty demanded they fight—even if it meant charging into certain doom.
Yun Huang observed silently, an indescribable emotion stirring within her.
She had witnessed death. She had dealt it herself.
Yet the quiet dignity of these people, facing annihilation without flinching, moved her deeply.
"Time’s up, brothers."
Sun Cheng’s voice was hoarse.
He was the first to step forward, toward the faltering barrier.
The rest followed.
No grand speeches. No heroic last stands.
Not for survival—but to buy time.
To whittle down the enemy, however slightly, for the slimmest chance…
That someone, somewhere, might still come.
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
ng to die together with you." Lin Xuan is dead, his body thrown into the river by his scumbag lover and her accomplice. She, the president of the Su Group, is decisive, ruthless, and ice-cold. For three days and three nights, she had his body fished out of the river, and without hesitation, she kissed the bloated corpse of Lin Xuan. She laid down beside him in a cold coffin, their fingers intertwined, a smile lingering on her lips as she closed her eyes. The noble and cold-hearted woman, only bending for one man—Lin Xuan. Lin Xuan, with his golden finger, is reborn and returns to the day of his wedding to the treacherous woman. Su Qiang comes to steal the bride. Lin Xuan's eyes light up, eager to pledge his loyalty on the spot, but instead, her kiss transfers a glass of drugged wine into his mouth, causing him to pass out... 【Male Protagonist with Single Female Lead】【Yandere Tycoon】【Action-Packed】【True vs. Fake Heir】
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
