Even though Yu Xi had mentally prepared herself, that night, when she was startled awake by the relentless pounding outside her window and pulled back the curtains to look, she was still stunned by the sight outside.
Without the gray fog, her sharp vision allowed her to clearly see the chaos beyond.
Under the dark night sky, cold winds howled, swirling thin shards of ice everywhere like a massive blender—or a cutting machine. The evergreen trees on the mountain had been stripped to bare branches, and the wind carried fragments of leaves, branches, and even pieces of buildings.
Everything was swept up by the storm, smashing into every object in its path: the mountain, tree trunks, and even the villa where she was staying.
The eight steel pillars of the villa emitted a sharp, grating sound from the continuous impacts. The walls and glass vibrated under the onslaught, creating a cacophony of bangs and scratches. It was impossible for anyone in the villa to remain asleep under such conditions.
Soon, there was a knock at Yu Xi’s door. Jian Shou stood outside, nodding when she answered quickly. “You’re awake? Come upstairs and take a look.”
It was Jian Shou’s turn for night duty. In the control room, several of the external surveillance screens were already dark.
The cameras, originally installed around the villa and on the middle and lower sections of the steel pillars, had been reduced from over a dozen to only seven or eight functional ones. The rest seemed to have been destroyed by the ice blades.
“The temperature outside is dropping rapidly. It’s now minus 25 degrees,” Jian Shou pointed to the temperature monitor. “When I came downstairs earlier, it was still at minus 18.”
“When did the drop start?”
“Half an hour ago. It was around minus 3 when it began.”
“It dropped over 20 degrees in just half an hour?!”
“Yes. The temperature fell too quickly, and the water pipes didn’t have time to react. Here—” Jian Shou pulled up a 3D diagram of the villa and steel pillars, pointing to the mid-lower sections of the pillars. “This part seems to have frozen.”
“Aren’t there insulation systems in place?”
“That’s the issue. The pipes were designed to withstand sub-zero temperatures, and the insulation system is automatic, activating when it gets too cold. But the drop was so rapid that the system didn’t react in time, and the pipes froze before the insulation could activate.
Now the insulation is running, but the pipes are completely frozen. It’ll take a while to thaw them out.”
“So, the villa is temporarily without water?” For Yu Xi, this wasn’t a big problem. First, her Star House storage held two boxes of metallic ice. Second, controlling and melting ice was one of her primary abilities, so turning ice into water wasn’t difficult.
What concerned her more were the villa’s outer walls and glass. While they were made of reinforced, explosion-proof materials designed to withstand extreme weather, the current conditions were clearly beyond the definition of “extreme.”
“Additionally, the sudden drop in temperature has caused the carbon crystal underfloor heating to consume more electricity. At this rate, the fuel crystals originally expected to last eight or nine days will only hold for five or six. Should we lower the indoor temperature setting—from 15 degrees to 7 or 8 degrees, for example?”
While 7 or 8 degrees was still tolerable with additional layers of clothing, it would save a significant amount of energy.
“That won’t be necessary,” Yu Xi replied. She had more than enough fuel crystals. Prioritizing the current situation over the uncertain future of low-hovering vehicle needs was more important. “Don’t worry about the fuel. As long as we can stay in this villa, let’s stay comfortable.”
Jian Shou fell silent for a moment at her words.
He hadn’t forgotten that he was the one who had driven her to the megastore and warehouse district that day.
Despite purchasing enough supplies to fill multiple large suites, she had only taken a few takeout bags back to the car. Despite not visibly retrieving anything from the warehouse, when Hei Mu later worried about fuel, she had produced a box of fuel crystals—and now she was reassuring him again.
Where had she stored all of this?
And the low-hovering vehicle originally parked on the platform—where had it gone? The earlier winds couldn’t possibly have been strong enough to blow it away.
He hadn’t been by her side as long as Hei Mu, but after three years as her bodyguard, he couldn’t overlook the changes in her strength and these oddities.
If even he could sense something was different, surely Hei Mu had noticed as well. Yet Hei Mu had said nothing and continued to care for her life as meticulously as ever.
As for Jian Shou, he often thought back to the time they had narrowly escaped from the warehouse outside the city. When she brought him to a private clinic to treat his injured arm, the dismissive attitude of the doctor didn’t bother him. He was used to the natural divide between humans and sub-humans.
But Yu Xi had coldly warned the doctor to set the bone properly, not allowing any aftereffects.
Though he hadn’t said a word then, he’d made a silent vow: no matter what disaster this planet faced, he would do his utmost to protect her.
So, even as he noticed her changes, he asked no questions and carried out her orders with full dedication. Perhaps, one day after all the disasters were over and they were truly safe, he would ask.
But not now.
As they spoke, the others in the villa woke up. Xing Min, Hei Mu, Yan Shang, and Xi Yuan stood in the doorway to the control room, their tall, broad-shouldered figures almost too dazzling, looking like models backstage at a fashion show.
Yu Xi caught Xing Min’s glance, coughed lightly, and reined in her wandering thoughts. “There’s no major issue for now. Let Jian Shou stay on night watch. The rest of you can go back to sleep. Xing Min, come to my room for a moment.”
All eyes immediately turned to her again.
As Yu Xi met their gazes, Yan Shang was the first to look down and step away, disappearing into the hallway.
Although Hei Mu nodded at her, indicating he would go check the situation on the lower levels and that she could call him anytime if needed, Yu Xi was left with a strange feeling of being misunderstood after he left.
Meanwhile, Xi Yuan, leaning against the doorframe, cast a glance at Xing Min, let out a soft snort, and turned to leave with his hands in his pockets.
Yu Xi:
What? Busy?
She couldn’t help but feel like some inexplicable misunderstanding had occurred…
The terrifying storm of ice blades only subsided gradually before dawn.
Yu Xi, dressed in polar-grade cold-resistant gear, climbed up the staircase from the second-floor window to the villa’s platform. From there, she inspected the exterior of the hovering villa. The outer walls were covered in countless scratches, but thankfully, the structure was sturdy, and the scratches were superficial.
Additionally, since the villa was elevated, heavier debris like branches and building fragments couldn’t reach such heights, so there was no major structural damage.
The blade-shaped hail, though sharp and terrifying in varying sizes, was thin and lacked the impact force of similarly sized hailstones. Most of the villa’s glass remained intact, with only two sections showing cracks. Fortunately, the glass was reinforced and double-layered, so it wasn’t likely to break anytime soon.
The resort houses at the foot of the mountain weren’t as fortunate.
The resort, mainly consisting of one- to three-story villas, lacked the reinforced construction of the disaster-resistant hovering villa. The glass windows were shattered in many places by the ice blades, unable to withstand the onslaught of flying debris carried by the fierce winds.
On the first and second floors, broken windows allowed the storm to pour in. Ice blades, along with the frigid air, invaded the interiors, injuring many people. Cries of pain and calls for help echoed everywhere.
Those who had hoped the disaster was over with the fog’s disappearance were dealt another devastating blow—this time, the psychological impact far outweighed the physical injuries.
Some, unable to bear the situation, screamed and ran outside, even as others scrambled to retreat from the windows to avoid the deadly ice blades.
Amid the chaos, conflicts erupted between natural humans and sub-humans over secure shelter. In some buildings, sub-human residents were tied up and their sub-humans driven out of safe rooms. To the natural humans, survival space was now limited, and the lives of sub-humans were far less important than their own.
When the ice blade storm finally ended, the resort resembled a battlefield.
Debris from branches, buildings, and even human remains littered the area.
The military was in no better shape. The houses in the resort weren’t sturdy enough, and the perimeter walls they had spent so much time building to defend against the blood ghouls had half-collapsed under the onslaught of the storm.
Meanwhile, the research team, which had been tirelessly analyzing blood-red soft bodies, developing anti-bloody organism weapons, and studying the gray fog, suddenly found themselves faced with a new disaster. Just as they had begun to make progress, the gray fog disaster seemed to have passed, only for a new one to arrive—and they were powerless against it.
In the command center, the communications officer ed on nearby shelters. Damage varied depending on the type of refuge. The best-preserved shelter was about 200 kilometers away, nestled in a mountain near the sixth district.
Built underground, that shelter had only faced initial fears of becoming a new seismic zone. After that, the gray fog and ice blades had little impact on it.
“Full evacuation?”
“Yes. These buildings won’t last much longer. Based on the patterns of past disasters with the blood lotus and gray fog, the ice blade storm is unlikely to be a one-time event. If it lasts more than half a month, all the structures here will be destroyed. Waiting until then to evacuate would leave us completely passive.”
“But didn’t we recently bring back new materials for the walls? The team checked them—they’re damaged but still usable. We could use them to reinforce the buildings and withstand the ice blades.”
“True. We also don’t have enough low-hovering vehicles, and traveling 200 kilometers by land is too far. Besides, that’s someone else’s shelter—we’d be at a disadvantage there.”
“They wouldn’t take us for free. Their research team is understaffed and lagging behind because they’ve been focused on defense construction. They need our scientists…”
At this, everyone understood. The other shelter needed their research team, which the military had rescued from a nearby institute during their early evacuation from the city. This group of researchers, including several prominent figures, was now a high-priority asset for the military.
However, the evacuation proposal wasn’t immediately approved. The military’s leadership was divided into two camps, each with its own concerns. Ultimately, they decided to remain at the resort for two more days before voting on the matter.
These two days were primarily for addressing the situation of the injured. The ice blade storm had left many severely wounded. Without timely treatment, they wouldn’t survive the 200-kilometer journey to the mountain shelter.
The military began dismantling the new wall materials to temporarily reinforce the buildings and reallocate housing for the residents.
While the resort houses were being reinforced, Yu Xi worked on strengthening the hovering villa’s outer walls.
In the early hours, before Jian Shou came knocking, she had already made an attempt. Strangely, she found herself unable to control the ice blades outside. She later enlisted Xing Min to investigate further.
She had Xing Min create a protective energy barrier outside the window and quickly captured an ice blade within it. After sealing the window and removing the barrier, she began studying the ice blade.
First, she tried to manipulate it with her ice-controlling ability. Though she managed to move it, the process was unusually difficult and left her feeling strangely weak.
Even more puzzling, the ice blade didn’t immediately melt indoors. She eventually took it to the bathroom, placing it in the sink to melt it into water.
Just as before, the process of melting it felt obstructed and sluggish.
Though she had trained her ice manipulation ability to seamlessly transition ice into water, melting this blade took her nearly two minutes. This uncharacteristic struggle left her deeply unsettled.
The ice blade melted in the sink, turning into water, but the water was murky, mixed with specks of crimson red and dust-like particles.
“What is this?” Yu Xi shone a flashlight on it, inspecting it carefully.
Xing Min leaned slightly closer and said, “It looks like remnants of the gray fog and the bloody organisms.”
“So the composition of this ice isn’t just water. No wonder it was difficult for me to control,” Yu Xi muttered, staring at the murky pool of liquid in the sink. She felt uneasy, recalling how these substances had turned normal humans into blood ghouls. “Do you think this stuff could still be alive in this form?”
“Wait a moment,” Xing Min replied, closing his eyes as though sensing something.
After a few seconds, he opened them and shook his head. “It’s no longer alive.”
Yu Xi nodded, opened the sink’s drain, and let the murky liquid flow away. She turned on the faucet to rinse it, only to remember that the water pipes had frozen.
Since she was on the sixth or seventh floor and the frozen pipes were lower, around the first or second floor, plus insulated by the steel columns, she couldn’t unfreeze them. In the end, she used her stored water to clean the sink.
The unique composition of the ice blades gave her an idea: to reinforce the villa with a layer of ice.
With the daytime temperature outside remaining around -17 or -18 degrees Celsius, an added layer of solid ice on the villa’s exterior would not melt, even without additional energy spent maintaining it.
Using mountaineering equipment, Yu Xi descended to the second floor to unfreeze the water pipes in the steel columns. She then returned to the platform, retrieved ice bricks from her Star House storage, and began methodically melting and reshaping them to cover the villa’s roof and walls. She solidified the layer into reinforced ice.
The meticulous process of covering every surface consumed much of her energy, but the added protection gave her peace of mind.
As Yu Xi prepared to leave the platform, something cold brushed against her. She turned and saw a snowflake drifting down.
Looking up at the gloomy sky, she saw snowflakes falling steadily, blanketing the world below.
It’s snowing.
“Mommy, it’s snowing!” A little girl inside the temporarily reinforced Medical Center No. 3 exclaimed in awe, gazing out the window. The newly reinforced windows had small openings, but it was enough to see the heavy snow falling outside.
The snowflakes were enormous and so dense that it was impossible to miss them.
The girl’s mother shivered. The word “snow” reminded her of the terrifying storm of ice blades the previous night. Her husband had been injured while protecting them—not by the ice blades but by a tree trunk smashing through the window frame and glass. He had shielded her and their daughter with a blanket to escape but ended up severely injured by shards of glass and wood. Now, he lay on a nearby hospital bed, wrapped in bandages, unconscious.
For the little girl, however, snow was a cherished memory. Amidst the relentless disasters, this rare sight brought her a brief moment of joy. She broke free from her mother’s hand, wanting to run to the window and make a wish for her father’s recovery.
The medical center was overcrowded. A room that used to hold four beds now housed seven or eight, with family members accompanying the patients, leaving almost no space to move.
A man with a large gash on his leg hobbled back from the bathroom, frequently bumping into his wound due to the cramped space. He grimaced in pain, muttering curses. “Damn it! There’s no space for the injured, yet entire families crowd in here! Just because the heating’s good and you get hot meals on time? Damn freeloaders! Why don’t I drag my whole family in too?”
As he approached the window, the little girl, running toward it, nearly collided with him. Furious, he lashed out, shoving her away. “What are you running for? In a rush to die?”
The girl, barely seven or eight, was small and frail from the recent hardships. The man’s shove sent her sprawling to the floor, scraping the skin on her palms. She cried softly, too afraid to wail loudly. Her experiences during their escape had taught her to avoid drawing attention from strangers.
Her mother rushed over, scooping her up protectively, but didn’t dare confront the man. In these times, even under military protection, life was hard for ordinary people.
Sure, she could argue and bring in the military to force an apology, but it wouldn’t guarantee a good outcome. The man hadn’t committed murder or arson, so the military wouldn’t do much. Confronting someone with a violent temper could lead to retaliation later.
For now, it was better to endure in silence. Her husband was still unconscious; she didn’t want to risk further complications.
The man, seeing her timid retreat, felt slightly appeased and continued hobbling to his bed, still muttering curses.
However, he couldn’t shake off a strange sensation. Despite being treated and bandaged, the pain in his leg was worsening. It felt like something was burrowing into his flesh.
That night, the man woke in agony, feeling as though his injured leg was being boiled in scalding water. The pain was so excruciating that he ripped off the bandages around his thigh.
As the bandages came off, they took with them pieces of skin and flesh. What had been a wound the size of a bowl had spread across his entire leg. The flesh had rotted, turning into a blood-red, cotton-like mess.
Horrified, he turned on the light and looked closer. The flesh on his leg appeared to be
moving
, writhing as though alive.
“What is this—my leg!? MY LEG—!”
A bloodcurdling scream shattered the quiet of Medical Center No. 3.
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