Chapter 93: “Commander, Don’t Be So Tense. It’s Not Like I’m Going Out to Die.”
The city guards departing from the Chinese Restaurant split into two details. Yves led half the men straight to the South Wall.
Mori’s special strike team was already primed and waiting.
The sky had not yet plunged into total darkness; twilight lingered along the horizon.
Phase One of the [South Wall Special Strike Team: Accelerated Awakening Protocol] was set to commence.
Fully suited and geared up, Mori stood steady while two subordinates ran final safety checks on the ultra-high-tensile polymer tether strapped securely around her harness.
Yves stepped up before her. “Are you prepared?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“The second you hit your limit, yank the line to signal us. This is merely a baseline trial; we have room to calibrate through trial and error. Do not push yourself beyond reason. Seed City cannot afford to lose an elite strike team captain.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Can you feel the food’s tactical buffs yet?”
Yves’s brow remained knit in a deep scowl.
Mori had just finished the provisions brought back by the Commander—an entire plate of braised offal.
According to the descriptions on the diner’s menu, she would gain complete immunity to parasitism, mental corruption, mind control, and mutation debuffs for the next six hours.
That single factor widened their margin for error considerably.
Mori tilted her head slightly, as if checking her internal state.
“It tasted incredible? I never imagined innards could be cooked into something so fragrant. Not a single trace of gaminess.”
Yves: “…”
“Just a joke,” Mori smiled faintly. “Commander, don’t be so tense. It’s not like I’m going out to die.”
“Refrain from such talk.”
None knew the lethal risks of awakening better than Yves.
Both the Dark Star and Red Flag Society factions had suffered appalling casualty rates among their recruits during awakening attempts.
Even with detox serums on hand.
Seed City possessed far too little empirical data on Awakeners and the awakening process. To date, only two viable paths had been observed.
Both had been carved out through sheer, bloody trial and error.
The first was swallowing an energy crystal raw—a pure gamble against fate.
The second was confronting mutated monstrosities in a life-or-death crisis.
Such was the path taken by Zhou Xue and Heixi.
Both avenues required the candidate’s internal toxic corruption to reach a critical threshold.
A fortunate few, like Hall and Shelley from Dark Star, had downed crystals and transitioned smoothly into Awakeners without displaying severe rejection symptoms.
Others possessed enough raw grit and luck to endure agonizing torment after ingestion, pulling off the transformation at the final second.
Far more were neither lucky nor blessed with such stubborn vitality.
Like the fallen operatives from both factions—and a squad of city guards who had perished in dead silence.
This was not Yves’s first attempt.
A squad of city guards had signed their final testaments and stepped forward when Seed City stood at the precipice, swallowing crystals to brave the odds.
Out of eight men in that squad, only two survived.
And became Awakeners.
Indeed, the Seed City administration harbored Awakeners of its own.
Yet one of them suffered severe, unexplained biological rejection shortly after awakening.
With their intelligence so woefully shallow, Seed City’s medics had no idea how to staunch the massive waves of blood the awakened guard was vomiting; conventional treatments failed completely.
To this day, that soldier remained in a deep coma.
The other awakened guard had emerged in stable condition, but possessed a purely auxiliary ability:
—[Cloak].
It masked the user’s presence and scent from mutated creatures.
The vast index of mutant intelligence currently in Yves’s hands was the fruits of that [Cloak] Awakener leading forward wilderness reconnaissance teams.
Yet that was the ceiling.
Civil order within the walls demanded enforcement, daily perimeter defense devoured manpower, and the Black Fields required armed supervision.
When the crisis at the South Wall erupted and the iron black wheat began mutating, overseer casualties spiked sharply. After garrison reassignments were made to plug the gaps, the city’s three-shift patrol schedule was forced into a grueling two-shift rotation.
Manpower was stretched to the breaking point; throwing more men into volatile awakening trials risked losing what little garrison remained.
Civil order had to hold. The administration could not survive such attrition.
The awakening initiative was suspended.
Until now.
The threat at the South Wall had reached a point where it could no longer be deferred, while other B-rank horrors lurked hungrily beyond the North Wall.
Zhou Xue and her peers could not shoulder every crisis. Protecting Seed City was the government’s duty.
The administration had to make a move.
In the wake of the cataclysm, humans were no different from any other flora or fauna.
Some manifested transcendent gifts, some were swallowed whole, and others rotted quietly into the earth.
If this was simply natural selection wearing a modern mask, it was unforgivingly cruel.
Fortunately, the Chinese Restaurant had emerged.
Opaque as its motives were, it served as an invaluable lever.
At the very least, should an awakening fail, its food could preserve a soldier’s life.
That alone changed everything.
…
“Captain, safety checks complete.”
“Good. Commander, I’m heading out.”
Yves said nothing, acknowledging her with a single, solemn nod.
The path mapped out for Mori mirrored the combat-driven awakening of Zhou Xue and Heixi.
Searching for a catalyst while locked in life-or-death struggle against mutated beasts.
Precedents were far too few to extrapolate a reliable pattern; Mori had to find the way herself.
Mori secured her transparent face visor. “Commander, when I return in one piece, I’m definitely going to—”
A squad member beside her lunged forward, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Captain! Don’t go raising flags like that!”
Unfortunately, the visor took the brunt of the slap, leaving her mouth completely uncovered.
Still, Mori let the sentence trail off.
She chuckled softly. “Fine, I won’t say it.”
Her expression turned sharp and focused. “Captain Mori of the South Wall Special Strike Team requesting authorization to initiate the Awakening Protocol.”
“Authorized.”
“Yes, sir!”
She snapped a crisp salute to Yves.
Immediately after, Yves watched Mori pivot smoothly. Grasping her rappel line with practiced ease, she vaulted up the ramparts in the blink of an eye.
Strike Team Member Two was already entrenched with a rifle team. Spotting Mori’s arrival, he called out, “Captain, positions primed. Suppressive fire ready on your mark.”
“Wait for my signal.”
Leaving behind those terse instructions, Mori kicked her combat boots off the stone masonry and plunged off the edge of the South Wall.
Touching down beyond the perimeter.
The Black Fields Quarantine Sector.
Before her shift began, Long Ya received a rather unusual briefing.
The overseer announced to the incoming labor detail that planting iron black wheat seeds would no longer be required in their assigned plots.
In other words: once the mature stalks were harvested, the soil was to be left fallow.
Baffled, someone ventured in a quiet voice, “What happens once all the mature wheat in the field is harvested?”
“Your mandatory service concludes.”
A chorus of ecstatic gasps rippled through the ranks.
No one doubted an overseer’s direct order. Iron black wheat matured rapidly; this meant they wouldn’t have to endure the full two-month sentence!
Long Ya felt a wave of relief wash over her chest as well.
Yet once she stepped into the field, she noticed the convicts across the chain-link fence had clearly received no such directive.
Wait.
Long Ya observed the surrounding plots with keen attention.
Certain fields were no longer being replanted, while others were still actively sown.
Was the administration scaling back the footprint of the Black Fields?
It was very likely tied to the Chinese Restaurant.
Long Ya steadied her breathing.
She hadn’t slept well last night because of the smuggled bundle.
Her mind had spun in circles for hours.
She knew she lacked the sharp intellect for high-level political machinations, especially when the ruling brass was involved.
Those playing politics were all sly old foxes.
She’d see if another letter arrived after her shift ended tonight.
If the authorities were up to something, Auntie Qian would surely find a way to warn her.
The guards hadn’t intercepted the parcel last time, and they likely wouldn’t tonight either.
Perhaps things outside were far better than she had feared.
Just like this announcement of an early discharge.
…
Outside the North Wall Safe Zone, deep in the northern urban ruins.
The two Awakener strike teams had run headlong into a brutal, grueling quagmire.
