Remove all restrictions and transform into a bizarre girl.

With their equipment in hand, the 17th Detachment has begun assembling.

Everyone was ready, armed and equipped, and stood in a spread-out line.

With the officer's command, they set off.

Everyone boarded their chariots and headed to the front lines.

The chariot roared as it started, like a wild beast being awakened and stretching its limbs in the winter night.

Chen Nian sat near the side door of the carriage. Through the gap in the door, she could see the gray walls of the base slowly receding. The red lights of the signal tower in the distance flickered on and off in the twilight, and were soon obscured by the undulating terrain and disappeared into the night behind the carriage.

The carriage was full of people. After reorganization, the 17th Battalion had about a hundred men, distributed across several armored vehicles.

Chen Nian's car only carried members of three teams, with the seats facing each other in pairs and a narrow aisle in the middle. The lighting was dim and steady, casting slowly moving shadows on the interior walls of the car as it swayed.

Not everyone in Squad 17 is a Sequence Beyonder.

Among them were ordinary people, but of course, each and every one of them was a top soldier in the army.

Some of these people were cleaning their guns with their heads down, some were resting with their eyes closed, and some were looking at maps on their terminals.

No one chatted; only the deep rumble of the engine and the continuous sound of wheels rolling over the gravel road created a calm, almost white noise background in the enclosed space.

Su Wanqing sat opposite Chen Nian, holding the two crossed Nepalese kukri knives in her arms. Unusually, she didn't speak or eat any snacks, but just quietly watched the night scenery moving outside the car window.

The night outside the window grew deeper and deeper, the streetlights gradually thinned out and eventually disappeared completely, leaving only the tank's own headlights illuminating a short stretch of road ahead, like a flowing line of light in the wilderness.

Occasionally, a faint light can be seen flashing across the distant horizon before being quickly swallowed by the night.

After an unknown amount of time, the chariot began to slow down. The vibration frequency of the vehicle changed from continuous bumping to a slow gliding, and finally it came to a stop.

The car door was pulled open from the outside, and a cold wind carrying the scent of sand and hay rushed into the carriage.

Soon everyone got off the car.

The area was a plain, and a few tents served as a temporary command post.

After they came down, without any delay, the officers ordered them to immediately go into battle according to their assigned tasks.

Led by Chen Nian, Chen Nian and the others proceeded directly along a brown route.

Chen Nian walked at the front of the group. The ground under her feet gradually transitioned from compacted hard soil to soft sandy loam. Every step she took left a clear footprint.

Night enveloped the entire plain. There was no moonlight, only sparse starlight overhead and the occasional afterglow of a signal flare in the distance, which drew a brief arc of light on the horizon before fading away.

The footsteps behind me maintained a steady distance.

After walking for about an hour, Chen Nian stopped at the top of a gentle slope.

This is the place that Chen Nian and her team need to verify.

This place looks no different from other places, and I don't know what they're here for.

The cold winter wind blew from the edge of the plain, stirring up sand and bits of dry grass that stung my face.

She squinted, trying to find something out of place in the undulating terrain, but everything looked too normal: normal slope, normal soil color, normal distribution of withered grass, like a meticulously restored landscape painting.

"Is this the coordinate point?" Su Wanqing squatted down next to her and looked ahead, her tone filled with confusion. "It's just a wasteland, there's nothing there."

"Shh, don't talk," Xia Luoling said, glaring at her.

Chen Nian did not answer immediately.

She took out her terminal from her backpack, pulled up the topographic map on the mission briefing, and compared it with the terrain in front of her. The contour lines, the relative positions of landmarks, and the degree of match between the marked red circles and the current coordinates—all the data matched.

Visually, however, there is nothing unusual about this place.

"The surface might be covered up." Fang Anya walked to the other side and squatted down, her gaze falling on the edge of the depression.

"Both previous nodes used similar camouflage techniques, concealing energy fluctuations through surface cover. If we use our sensory abilities to probe carefully, we should be able to find some clues."

Chen Nian nodded and slowly unleashed her ice-type energy, allowing her perception range to extend forward along the ground.

The cold air spread across the ground like an invisible net, and when it reached the edge of the depression, she felt an extremely subtle temperature difference. The ground temperature there was about half a degree lower than the surrounding area, as if something was continuously absorbing heat from beneath the surface.

Unless one consciously perceives it, this difference is almost impossible to detect.

"There is definitely something down there, everyone be careful."

Chen Nian withdrew her senses, stood up, and focused her gaze on the center of the depression. She continued, "The energy fluctuations were suppressed very thoroughly, but the temperature difference doesn't lie."

She turned to look at the team members behind her, making sure they were all ready, then stepped down the gentle slope and walked towards the center of the depression.

I just went in.

brush brush...

Immediately, more than a dozen black, unidentified substances flew out from all directions.

It flew directly towards them.

Those black, unidentified substances flew in from all directions at extremely high speeds. In the darkness of the night, their specific shapes were almost indistinguishable, and only dark trails could be seen.

Just before they approached, Chen Nian activated the Snow-Treading Without a Trace technique, instantly sliding half a step to the side to avoid the first black shadow shooting towards her.

The dark shadow swept past her ear and plunged deep into the ground behind her with a dull thud.

"Scatter!" Chen Nian's voice was short and clear in the night.

The people behind him immediately dispersed according to the pre-arranged formation.

As Su Wanqing rolled to the left to avoid the two dark figures, she had already grasped two Nepalese kukri knives in her hands, the blades gleaming with a dim, cold light under the faint starlight.

After dodging the first time, Chen Nian did not stop. Using the momentum of her "Treading on Snow Without Leaving a Trace" technique, she changed positions several times in succession. At the same time, she used ice energy to create a thin ice screen in front of her to block the scattered follow-up attacks.

The fact that everyone dodged its attack seemed to have angered the strange creature here.

A continuous low-frequency vibration came from the ground, spreading outwards from the center of the depression.

Chen Nian could feel the ground beneath her feet becoming unstable, as if something was wriggling deep underground, arching and tearing the surface.

She looked down and saw that fine cracks were beginning to appear in the soil in the center of the depression, extending from the center to the edge. A dim, dark red glow emanated from the cracks, as if something underground was opening its eyes.

……