Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

He grabbed the walkie-talkie on the table, his voice urgent and cold: "Reserve team, this is Zhong Lin. You are entering the battlefield now. Take them with you, alive or dead. Don't leave a single corpse behind."

A short reply came from the other end of the walkie-talkie: "Roger. The reserve team will arrive at the outskirts of Yunyin Manor in two minutes."

Zhong Lin put down the walkie-talkie and turned to Wang Hongyuan: "Have your men prepare to receive the samples. Once you have them, transfer them directly to the secret laboratory on the border, using underground passages. Do not take any public routes."

Wang Hongyuan nodded solemnly, took out his phone, and dialed his confidant's number.

He looked at the tree roots on the screen that were still wriggling slightly, and a chill ran down his spine—thankfully they hadn't been too ambitious and had gone on stage themselves, otherwise they wouldn't have escaped this catastrophic ability either.

The potential of these two individuals is more terrifying than all the previous extraordinary individuals combined.

……

Inside the crater, Liu Zhen withdrew his hand from Meng Zhaowen's shoulder.

The electric arc at his fingertips completely died out, and his entire arm trembled violently, shaking like a sieve. Blood from the wound gushed out again due to the exertion, flowing down his arm.

That last burst consumed a large amount of his biomass energy, and he needs to catch his breath.

Meng Zhaowen's palm was still pressed on the ground, and the exposed tree roots were still wriggling slightly, but the blue-white electric light on the surface had gradually faded and returned to the dark brown ordinary wood. Only the place where his fingertips touched still had a slight numbness.

The ancient tree roots that had been dormant for hundreds of years deep underground have fallen silent again, like veterans who have completed their mission, quietly retreating into the depths of the soil.

Liu Zhen squatted down, stared at Meng Zhaowen's face, and his eyes instantly reddened.

In just a few seconds, the man looked as if he had aged decades.

His once jet-black hair had turned completely white, not a single black strand could be found, as if his head was covered in frost.

The wrinkles on his face were like knife cuts, spreading from the corners of his eyes to his jaw;

His eye sockets were deeply sunken, his cheekbones were high and prominent, and his originally bright eyes were now covered with a thin layer of gray. Only when he looked at them would they light up with a faint light.

"How many years are you missing?" Liu Zhen's voice was hoarse.

Meng Zhaowen moved his chapped lips, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth down his chin, but his tone was calm: "Ten years."

Liu Zhen's Adam's apple bobbed violently. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't squeeze out a single word. Only tears welled up in his eyes, forcing him to tilt his head back and blink, holding back his tears.

He knew what ten years of life meant, knew that Meng Zhaowen had placed all his hopes on this life-or-death gamble, and knew that this person was risking his own life to exchange for victory in this revenge.

Meng Zhaowen looked up at him, her lips twitching slightly into a faint smile. The wrinkles on her face were knitted together, making her look more heartbreaking than if she were crying: "It was worth it."

As soon as he finished speaking, his finger twitched slightly.

The tree root that had pierced through Song Mingzhang's shoulder on the ruins began to slowly shrink, the wood grain tightening little by little, like a tightening noose.

Song Mingzhang let out a piercing scream as his body was dragged down the ruins by tree roots. Broken concrete chunks rolled beneath him, their sharp edges tearing at his back, creating deep, bone-revealing wounds. Blood trailed a long, red streak across the gray ruins, like a winding snake.

He was dragged across collapsed walls, across scattered, twisted steel bars, and across the corpses of mercenaries pierced by tree roots and roasted by lightning. The rough ground chafed his knees and palms, embedding countless pebbles and shards of glass.

The tree roots dragged him to the edge of the crater, then flung him violently, throwing him onto the scorched earth like a rag doll.

Song Mingzhang lay on the ground, covered in blood, with blood still gushing from the piercing wound. His right arm hung limply at his side, too weak to even lift.

His clothes were torn to shreds, covered in dust, bloodstains, and concrete debris. His face was covered in ash and blood, and half of his hair was singed by the electric spark, emitting a foul burnt smell.

He struggled to stand up, supporting himself with his left hand on the ground. He had just managed to lift half of his body when the excruciating pain from his wound made his vision go black, his arm went limp, and he collapsed heavily back to the ground.

He gritted his teeth and tried a second time. Just as his left hand braced against the ground, a thin vine, as thin as a hair, silently emerged from the soil, wrapped around his ankle, and with a gentle tug, he fell heavily to the ground again, his face hitting a sharp piece of concrete, breaking his forehead, and blood instantly blurred his left eye.

He looked up and saw two people standing in the crater.

A man covered in blood, wearing a tattered jacket, with blood still seeping from the wound on his left shoulder, his fingertips occasionally flashing a faint blue light, his eyes as cold as ice.

A man with completely white hair, deep wrinkles on his face like ravines, wearing a dark gray trench coat with several holes, his left hand still pressed on the ground, his eyes shining like two balls of fire burning to their fullest.

Song Mingzhang suddenly laughed, a laugh that was so thick with blood, blood and foam dripping from the corners of his mouth, mingling with dust, making him look like a pathetic, defeated dog. Yet, his tone still carried the last vestige of the arrogance of someone in a superior position: "You think killing me will end this?"

……

On the outskirts of Zhaoming City, armored vehicles from the Sharp Blade Brigade sped through the night.

Three specially made riot control armored vehicles lined up one after the other, their lights off, with only the faint cold light from the instrument panel illuminating the cold, hard faces of the soldiers inside. Each of them held the latest weapons and wore specially made combat uniforms that were protected against electric arcs and cuts, with the silver badge of the Abnormal Affairs Bureau pinned to their collars.

Yue Sheng sat in the passenger seat of the first car, and Xiao Lin's voice came through the radio headset: "The energy fluctuations in the direction of Yunyin Manor have subsided. The outer observation post reports that there are signs of large-scale fighting in the direction of the manor. The flames and explosions lasted for several minutes. Now the entire manor is covered in dust, and we can't see what's going on inside."

Yue Sheng's brows furrowed into a deep knot as he turned to the soldier in the driver's seat: "How much longer?"

"Seven more minutes," the soldier replied.

"Faster!" Yue Sheng commanded.

The soldier slammed on the gas pedal again, the armored vehicle's engine roared, and it sped up even more, leaving a black shadow on the empty mountain road.

This time, they couldn't be late again.

……

Outside the car window, the lights of Zhaoming City flickered in the distance, and in the direction of Yunyin Manor, a faint dark red light appeared on the horizon, like clouds stained with blood.

Inside the signal monitoring vehicle, Zhong Lin's phone screen suddenly lit up; it was an emergency message from the surrounding monitoring point.