The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the bright, pleasant sunlight outside the window.
The general trend was surging like a storm.
It was still rainy and windy in East Island.
The mild sunlight shone through the dense twigs in the yard and the window, landed on the floor, and formed a couple of light beams with dust in them. The silence seemed to be spreading around the world. Time passed gently in space. Everything felt elegant and out of the world.
Li Tianlan felt dizzy and confused. At some point, he even thought that he was hallucinating.
Before he closed his eyes, it was still raining in Zhongjing, and the neon lights were hidden somewhere far away. Just after the blink of an eye, how came…
Where was he?
He was a little confused.
He struggled to get up from the soft bed but accidentally twitched the wounds on his body. The pain all over his body suddenly woke him up.
After the battle in the mountain forest in Zhongjing, the apparent wounds caused by sword and saber were just shallow cuts. The gun wounds he got when he was chasing Heavenly Calamity were the most serious. He got hit twice in the stomach and once through his shoulder. But luckily, that pistol called Whisper wasn’t that powerful. It just had great speed and strong penetration force. It wouldn’t be deadly if one wasn’t hit in the vital parts. But if the bullets of Whisper were half or even one third as powerful as the bullets of Grim Smile, he would be torn into pieces already.
Li Tianlan felt his state of health in silence with a calm look. He survived the battle, but the situation wasn’t very good. The gunshots made him bleed a lot and brought out the old injury. The worst part was, he knew there was gonna be some hard battles waiting for him, deadly hard battles, so what he needed most right now was his combat capability. But based on his state of health right now, Li Tianlan could still struggle to keep his combat capability, but he definitely didn’t want to bear the consequences of it.
He was receiving transfusion in the arm. His wounds still felt as painful as usual but he could take it. It seemed like someone applied the medicine for him again. Li Tianlan sighed. After completely waking up, he realized that he went back to the well-hidden little courtyard with the great surrounding environment in Changdao. Just when he was about to get off the bed and stretch his body, someone opened the bedroom door.
Ning Qiancheng was wearing the combat suit, carrying guns and a long sword. Almost fully armed, he walked in. He saw Li Tianlan who was about to get off the bed, froze for a second, then said in surprise,
You’re awake? Shit, finally.
Li Tianlan was a little confused about why he used the word finally.
Where are you going?
He stopped for a second, then said as if he was thinking about something,
How long have I been in a coma?
Three days.
Ning Qiancheng said quickly,
Qingyan and I are living next to you. We wanted to check on you before we take off. How are you feeling? I’ll go get the doctor.
He took out his phone and made a call before Li Tianlan could say anything. It seemed like he was calling Horsewoman, which Li Tianlan didn’t care about. His face had turned very pale.
Three days!
He had actually been in a coma for three days?
No wonder he felt unexpectedly well right now. Such a long time had passed, with all kinds of medicine working with his physical constitution, his injury had at least recovered for a small half. After all, he had drunk a full set of Immortality Potions from the Wang family of Beihai. No one could compare to his amazing restore ability.
But even after three days of recovering, he was still very weak right now, which showed how badly he was injured before passing out. According to Li Tianlan’s own prediction, he was in a coma for one night, at most.
But three days…
In this sensitive time, seventy-two hours was enough for a lot of things to happen.
How are they doing?
Li Tianlan lowered his voice and spoke under his breath.
It was a vague question. But Ning Qiancheng immediately understood what he meant. He thought for a second and answered briefly.
Right now the situation is good, and I know some cases. It seemed that Samsara used their special channels for you. They helped some of the scattered people out there like us and took them back. There are about seven hundred people who are safe in Changdao right now. Apart from that, about two hundred people died in the battle, and another three hundred were trapped outside Changdao.
Li Tianlan listened in silence and didn’t say a word.
Ning Qiancheng was talking about the people on that list. There were about a thousand and two hundred people; now seven hundred were safe in Changdao, two hundred had died in the battle, the remaining three hundred and the support personnel were still outside Changdao.
But what about the people who were not on the list?
The battle of Changdao was urgent in the first place. Now the situation was extremely muddled, which meant that they had achieved what Zhongzhou State wanted. No matter Zhongzhou State, Changdao or the other dark forces in the Dark World, no one had the patience to carry on this mess, especially Changdao. This was their home court, they were naturally in charge of the final battle.
After three days, it seemed that now Li Tianlan was standing right in front of the originally urgent battle of Changdao.
Apart from these people, there were also less than three hundred people breaking out, some of which had made contact with us. Right now everyone had gotten close to Changdao, and everyone was in combat ready posture. We are going nowhere now, just waiting for orders. In the past few days, the defense East Island set around Changdao was broken through for a few times. They lost heavily, so they had tightened up the defense. Right now we had made contact with most of the people outside Changdao. We’ll find the perfect time and initiate internal and external attacks. We’ll try to bring as many people in Changdao as possible.
Ning Qiancheng walked over, took off the bottle of liquid medicine hanging above Li Tianlan’s arm, and carried it. Then he laughed and said,
Let’s go and get some sunshine.
Li Tianlan nodded and walked out of the room, still thinking about what Ning Qiancheng just said.
Right now there were at least seven hundred special warfare elites of Zhongzhou State in Changdao. If a census was initiated, this number might reach eight hundred. After all, there were a small group of people who broke into Changdao before Samsara used the special channels to help them.
Meanwhile, there were about six hundred people who were trapped outside.
It added up to a thousand and three hundred or a thousand and four hundred at most.
This meant that they had lost one third of the two thousand elites that entered East Island in the beginning.
And along with the final breakthrough, the number would get bigger.
East Island set the defense line around Changdao not for keeping the elites of Zhongzhou State out of Changdao, but for making Zhongzhou State lose as many people as possible.
In the external world right now, almost every Zhongzhou elite was followed by East Island elites; they had been hunting them for days now. From this perspective, the final breakthrough was just as important as the battle of Changdao that might break out at any minute.
And Zhongzhou’s goal was to let as many people go into Changdao as possible and to gather all the power for the final battle.
East Island wanted to make Zhongzhou State lose their people at the minimum cost. That was the reason why they chased and killed them in secret and set defense line in Changdao. They did everything to initiate the final frontal and rear attacks at the same time and to kill as many Zhongzhou elites as possible.
If they could kill them all, there wouldn’t be the battle of Changdao anymore.
Even if they couldn’t kill them all, they just needed to kill most of them. The small group of Zhongzhou people who got into Changdao was not something they needed to worry about.
So this battle would be extremely fierce and miserable.
Are there any information inside East Island that we can use?
Li Tianlan asked in a low voice. Right now his body was very weak, and exhaustion could be felt in his movements. But in this state, he could keep his combat capability. And as time passed, his state of health would only get better and better.
No.
Ning Qiancheng shook his head.
Lately, it has been really hard for us to get information inside East Island. We also know very little about the defense line around Changdao.
It was just as he expected.
It was just as Li Tianlan expected, this final breakthrough around Changdao could be the preview of the final battle. East Island would definitely block all information while increasing the input of manpower in order to keep the intelligence from being exposed.
From this perspective, everyone in Zhongzhou State was in a passive position.
Because even if they wanted to save the elites outside Changdao, they couldn’t do it due to the lack of information about the defense line around Changdao.
How strong was the defense force around Changdao right now? Was it breakable or just a complete piece of steel?
No one knew.
Given that Ning Qiancheng was fully armed but still waiting for an order, it was obvious that the commander of this operation was also hesitating.
Li Tianlan hesitated and said nothing in the end.
He actually knew that a major reason why they couldn’t get any information about East Island right now was that the intelligence network in East Island that Han Shixun from Zhongzhou State had been building for years had been destroyed.
But Samsara was different.
Right now the mysterious force that worked with Samsara had a much deeper foundation and a much higher degree of concealment than the network that Han Shixun built. If this mysterious force decided to intervene, even if they couldn’t get the core intelligence of East Island, they could get some open secrets, which would make Zhongzhou State’s situation a lot better than now.
Obviously, this was a force that only worked with Samsara at the moment.
Samsara worked with Zhongzhou State in order to fight against East Island.
But what did they work with this mysterious force for?
What did this mysterious force want?
In a trance, Li Tianlan seemed to have some ideas or intuition.
.
Maybe what Samsara really needed or what it really wanted to work with was this mysterious force hidden in the dark.
And their final goal might be against Zhongzhou State or the complete opposite of what Zhongzhou State wanted.
Li Tianlan felt complicated inside.
Yes, complicated.
He still a hundred percent believed in Qin Weibai, but he felt a little weird about Samsara.
If everything turned out to be true.
Then was being silent about it right now treason in a way?
Treason?
He snorted. Did he belong to Zhongzhou State?
He kept hypnotizing himself, but he felt more and more frustrated inside. If he continued to dig deep this question, he was about to lose himself.
It was hard to predict the general trend.
It was hard to predict human hearts.
It was even harder to predict his standpoint.
Right now the only thing he was definitely sure of, and he had been sure of all along, was that Samsara and Qin Weibai would never do anything to hurt him.
But he and Zhongzhou State was another matter.
This was Qin Weibai’s opinion on this.
And it seemed to be Li Tianlan’s opinion on this, too.
But why did he feel frustrated inside?
Give me a cigarette.
He walked out to the yard with Ning Qiancheng’s support. Under the sun, Li Tianlan’s pale face seemed to be glowing.
Ning Qiancheng handed him a cigarette and lit it up for him.
Li Tianlan took a deep drag, stayed silent for a while and said softly,
Anyway, it’s good to be alive.
Ning Qiancheng obviously didn’t understand what he meant. He thought he was talking about the battle in Zhongjing three days ago. Then he nodded and said with a smile,
Indeed, it’s good to be alive. Luckily, you guys got there in time. I was seriously injured back then and thought I wouldn’t make it. But I feel much better after a long sleep. Someone must feed me the medicine.
Li Tianlan was startled inside. He felt something was wrong in a trance, but he couldn’t understand what exactly went wrong.
He shook his head and stopped thinking, then he suddenly asked,
Do we have any information on the second group of elites that entered East Island?
Ning Qiancheng’s mind was suddenly lit up, and he nodded. The light of eagerness was shining in his eyes.
Yes, we do. Gongsun Qi, General of Nine Heavens, is about to land on Juban in two hours. Flaming Fire, another Super Master, took off this morning.
Gongsun Qi, Gongsun Qi…
Li Tianlan’s eyes lit up, then he asked softly,
How many people are there in the second group?
Around six hundred.
Ning Qiancheng’s face seemed a bit stiff.
Because we don’t have enough time for lurking, we can only focus on quality. The second group doesn’t have a lot of people, but everyone in it was the real elite in the Fire-flaming Realm. Zhongzhou State really gives it all this time.
Li Tianlan’s eyes looked serious in his poker face.
Six hundred superiors in the Fire-flaming Realm!
How many superiors in the Fire-flaming Realm were there in the entire Zhongzhou State?
It was no joke when they said the battle took the whole nation’s strength.
Whatever it took.
It was just like these three words.
But Li Tianlan didn’t know that apart from Zhongzhou State, the Eastern Theater of Operations in Zhongzhou State really prepared to do whatever it took to win the war.
Ning Qiancheng didn’t say or wasn’t willing to say that, in this war, General Ning Zhiyuan, the Commander of Zhongzhou Eastern Theater of Operations, had completely gone mad and lost his mind.
For this war, Ning Zhiyuan took out ninety percent of the superiors in the Fire-flaming Realm from the troop of several hundred thousand in the entire Eastern Theater of Operations.
Even if he did it for victory, it was kinda wild and crazy.
Ning Qiancheng had no comment on his dad’s decision. He didn’t want to comment, either.
So he said nothing about it.
Jesus…
Li Tianlan sighed while smoking. Just when he was about to say something, in his sight, Horsewoman walked over quickly with a pale face.
Horsewoman was still very weak, but she moved really fast. After the battle in the mountain forest, there was not only meekness but also softness in her eyes now whenever she looked at Li Tianlan. But the thing she said made Li Tianlan immediately stand up.
The final battle is about to start.
In the morning on June 27th.
Even with the official overall blockade of East Island, this piece of news swept off the whole Dark World in a short period of time like a hurricane.
Both Samsara and Zhongzhou State were anticipating. With everyone anticipating, something might be late, but it would show up no matter what.
Gongsun Qi, the Azure Dragon of Zhongzhou State, General of Nine Heavens, hadn’t arrived in Juban yet.
Ning Qiancheng and all the Zhongzhou elites hadn’t started to fight yet.
In this situation, around Changdao, all the defense lines and defense sites were under attack at the same time.
The lightning and fire lit up in every direction around Changdao. All the forces in the Dark World sent their superiors to Changdao; they were either in Changdao or outside Changdao.
Before Zhongzhou State initiated any attack, all the defense lines around Changdao were almost immediately destroyed and cashed into pieces.
In the chaos, the elites from all the superpowers and the elites from Zhongzhou State directly broke through East Island’s defense.
They drove straight in Changdao.
This was the beginning of the final battle in Changdao, and also the beginning of the fight over the general trend.
This was a disaster for East Island, but a feast for the Dark World.
In the chaos, the superpowers from the Dark World got on the stage of Changdao one after another.
It was the world against East Island!
