The barrier wall of the Serenitea Pot was violently torn open, revealing a hideous rent.
Like a breached floodgate, refugees clad in the signature turquoise robes of the Sumeru Akademiya surged through, enveloped in an aura of despair. They merged into a chaotic "green tide," instantly swallowing the cold gravel beach of the landing zone. The air was squeezed thin, blending dust, sweat, and terror into a heavy, metallic stench that pressed down on everyone's lungs, making every breath a suffocating, stinging pain.
Shoving. Weeping. Roaring.
A frail scholar stumbled forward, swept along by the crowd, glasses crooked. A child's piercing cries pierced the chaotic din like a knife. The throats of the Millelith soldiers had long since gone hoarse, their shouts to maintain order completely swallowed by the boundless chaos. The makeshift tents pitched at the edge of the landing zone were battered askew, and the crude supply points hung by a thread.
On a slightly elevated slope, Ganyu's ice-blue hair had lost its usual smooth luster, stained with grayish-yellow dust. Her slender fingertips pressed desperately against the unfurled parchment roster, repeatedly and forcefully rubbing one name: "Jingyi." The sweat and dust smudges on her fingertips blurred that spot of ink into a hazy blue-black, mirroring the unfathomable anxiety in her heart.
Ahead, the light curtain of the large spatial portal was violently fluctuating, emitting a low, groaning hum under the unbearable strain. Its edges began to rapidly collapse inward and close like a melting candle!
The final wave of refugees stumbled, wept, and practically crawled across the threshold that was about to vanish.
The light curtain shrank inward sharply and vanished completely.
Inside the doorway, it was empty, not a single person remained.
Ganyu's heart sank heavily. It felt as though she had plunged into a bottomless, freezing abyss, icy to the core. A premonition of disaster slammed into her shoulders like a cold boulder. She gripped the parchment in her hand, the thin paper emitting an unbearable groan within her palm, nearly being torn apart.
Just at the moment when the large portal completely dissolved—
"Screech—!!!"
A tearing sound, sharp enough to pierce the eardrums, exploded without warning at the edge of the landing zone!
On the barrier wall not far away, purplish-black electric arcs burst forth like twisting vipers! Space was forcefully ripped open like a piece of rag by an invisible giant hand, exposing an irregular breach with edges flickering with dangerous energy!
A slender figure tumbled out from the distorted tear, cast out by a tremendous force!
"Thud!"
She crashed heavily onto the sharp, cold gravel beach, kicking up a cloud of dust. The turquoise Akademiya uniform was torn in multiple places, caked in mud and gray dirt, looking utterly wretched. The round-rimmed glasses hung crookedly on the bridge of her nose, the lenses covered in cracks. Yet her arms remained locked like iron hoops, tightly shielding three volumes of ancient books bound tightly with gold-stamped ribbons—a posture as if she were cradling a treasure heavier than life itself.
It was Jingyi!
Deadly trouble followed hot on her heels!
She struggled to stand up, but her signature black Mary Jane platform shoes with their thick soles and chunky heels caught squarely and deeply in the crevices of two jagged, sharp stones!
"Snap!" A barely audible yet teeth-gritting sound echoed.
"Urgh-ah!" Piercing, excruciating pain exploded instantly from her ankle, shooting straight to her brain! Jingyi's vision went black, her body completely losing its balance as she pitched forward heavily onto the cold gravel once more, the ancient books in her arms striking the stones with a dull thud.
Even more terrifying was what lay deep within the fissure!
A bloody stench rushed forward! Two Riftwoods, their entire bodies covered in dark purple scales and protruding fangs, reeking of sickening sulfur and rotting flesh, lunged fiercely out of the still-unclosed spatial rift! Their blood-red eyes, burning like coals, locked unwaveringly onto the huddled, defenseless Jingyi on the ground.
"Roar—!!!"
One of the Riftwolves let out a bloodthirsty howl, its barbs-covered claws frantically churning the gravel, sending sparks flying! Its hind leg muscles bulged, and it pushed off fiercely!
It transformed into a dark purple blur!
Opening its maw, dripping with viscous saliva and carrying a foul, stinking wind, it lunged straight for Jingyi's unprotected, pale, and fragile neck!
The camera instantly zoomed in: the gleaming white fangs were a mere three inches away from the skin where her pulse beat with life! The breath of death was freezing cold!
"Jingyi—!!!" Ganyu's cry was heart-wrenching, Cryo energy frantically gathering at her fingertips to form sharp ice prisms, but the distance was too great! The angle was too awkward!
The nearby Millelith soldiers reacted extremely quickly, hastily nocking their arrows! The cold arrowheads gleamed with a chilling light in the dimness, aiming at the lunging demonic shadow! Yet the monster's speed was too fast! The soldiers' fingers trembled slightly from tension, making it difficult for the arrowheads to instantly lock onto the trajectory of that fatal strike!
Ganyu's ice prisms had only just finished forming—
It was too late!
Life and death hung by a thread!
In the nick of time, hanging by a hair!
"Whoosh!"
A figure burst out from behind a pile of overturned tent ruins from a flanking angle like a cannonball wrapped in gale-force winds!
It was Limeng!
His gaze was sharp as a falcon's, without a shred of hesitation, his running motion carrying an engineer's uniquely calculated precision. Along his sprinting path, an inconspicuous jar fired from crude terracotta caught his eye—it was an activated carbon jar he had made himself a few days ago by smoldering and grinding waste corn cobs, originally intended to filter impurities in the water purification hub.
At this moment, it became his sole, albeit most primitive, weapon at hand!
Without a moment's pause, he stooped, scooped up the jar, and swung his arm while running, the motion fluid and continuous. The terracotta jar carried all his strength and the momentum of his sprint, piercing the heavy air with a whistling wind to smash with fierce, pinpoint accuracy into the hideous skull of the Riftwolf lunging through the air!
"Bang—Crash!!!"
The terracotta jar shattered upon impact!
The finely ground black activated carbon powder stored inside burst forth instantly like a detonated black smoke grenade! Dense, choking, blinding black smoke billowed and spread, blanketing the two monsters that had just crawled out of the rift and had not yet fully dispersed!
"Awooo—! Roar!!"
Wails of agonizing, distorted pain burst frantically from the rolling black smoke! The activated carbon powder penetrated everywhere, blinding the monsters' blood-red eyes and choking their open jaws and nasal cavities! Their vision instantly turned pitch black, and the violent coughing and suffocation made them thrash their heads and scratch wildly, the fierce momentum of their pounce completely disrupted and shattered by this sudden "poisonous fog"!
An opportunity! Fleeting!
"Fire arrows!" Limeng's roar sounded like thunder, piercing through the monsters' screeches and the crowd's chaos, slamming precisely into the ears of the poised Millelith soldiers.
The soldiers, whose bowstrings had long been taut, locked their gazes and decisively released their fingers!
"Whoosh! Whoosh!"
Two arrows flashing with a cold light tore through the rolling black carbon fog like the fangs of death, seizing the fatal moment when the monsters were paralyzed by pain and completely lost their vision!
"Splat!" "Splat!"
The sharp arrowheads pierced viciously into the skulls of the two Riftwolves! Dark purple, stinking blood mixed with white brain matter splashed violently, blooming like two evil flowers in the black dust and quickly blackening the surrounding gravel and ground.
The two monsters twitched, collapsed heavily, and fell silent.
The crisis was temporarily averted.
Limeng had no time to catch his breath before rushing to the side of Jingyi, who was curled up on the ground. Her small body trembled violently from intense pain and fear, yet her arms remained locked like the sturdiest fortress, tightly shielding the ancient books in her embrace like a mother bird fighting desperately to protect her chicks in a storm. Her right ankle was twisted outward at a shocking angle, a purplish-blue swelling spreading at a visible rate like fermenting dough until her skin stretched taut, as if it were about to burst the next second. The agonizing pain turned her little face as pale as paper, beads of cold sweat soaking the stray hairs on her forehead and sticking to her skin.
As for that lone black Mary Jane high-heeled shoe that had finally shaken free from the gravel crevices, its chunky heel remained gleaming as new, reflecting a cold rigidity amidst the chaos and bloodshed, with only the exquisite sole caked in mud and debris. It lay crookedly upon the blood-stained gravel, silent and stubborn, like an ill-timed, sarcastic footnote.