The anchor point thundered. Dust roared up from the ground. Blood-red shockwaves swept across everything the eye could catch with effortless brutality.
It was only a hundred meters—yet every single step felt like wading through a nightmare.
The barrier formed by the Originium saplings was like a lone skiff on a storm-tossed sea: tiny, fragile, as if it could capsize at any moment.
But it held.
And because it held, it gave them something precious—hope, enough to push forward one step at a time.
And Bai Ling was the one at the helm.
"…Thirty seconds until the next shockwave!"
In Bai Ling's eyes, the anchor point was like a cup about to overflow. The moment it brimmed—that was when the next impact would be born.
They reached the next sapling. The anchor point was now only one final dash away.
Even if this was only one of the three, it was still a victory worth smiling about.
"Look over there!!!" Chen Qianyu blurted, twin swords already drawn as she prepared to smash the anchor point. "Are those—people?!"
Beyond them, among the shattered remains of a facility, a bent iron railing clung to a rock face by sheer luck. Several figures lay sprawled there, and one person was barely still standing.
They wore the Consortium's work gear, their bodies marked with clear injuries.
But more important than that—
That structure would not survive the next shockwave.
They had to be moved. Immediately.
"Those are the missing members of the search team! We can't just leave them!"
In Bai Ling's vision, the anchor point was already building power again. The next shockwave was cocked and ready.
"If you want to save them, you've got less than a minute, Chen Qianyu."
Bai Ling's reply came in under a second, his words accelerating into crisp command.
"Eyjafjalla—full support on Chen Qianyu. Don't worry about me."
"…Understood, Senpai!"
"Administrator. Perlica. The moment the shockwave ends, you move—straight to the anchor point and destroy it."
"No problem!"
"On my countdown—move the instant I say."
The anchor point, swollen with compressed energy, began to flicker. A stabbing red glare bled across the sky.
"Chen Qianyu—NOW!"
The instant the command hit her ears, Chen Qianyu launched herself out of the barrier without the slightest hesitation—trust made flesh. Her speed was like a released arrow; Bai Ling could even catch the faint suggestion of a sonic crack.
At the same time, Eyjafjalla's staff flared. A pillar of flame surged upward, forcibly cutting and scattering the shockwave from one angle—shielding the direction of the trapped workers so the impact couldn't reach them.
The backlash left Bai Ling with a brief, hollow moment of dizziness, as if part of his strength had been yanked away. But his gaze never left the anchor point.
"Perlica! Administrator! Move!"
They burst from the barrier and sprinted forward. The glowing blood-red core was completely exposed, still greedily drawing Originium energy from the earth.
"This ends here!"
Lightning snapped along Perlica's staff as the Administrator's Originium barrier slammed down in the same instant—crashing into the core.
A hiss, like something dying.
The anchor point's countless rippling energy waves shrank in upon themselves, collapsing faster and faster, until they dissolved into nothingness. Only a crater remained—mute proof that it had ever existed.
The world's colors seemed to brighten, just slightly.
"That's one anchor point handled."
With it gone, the oppressive pressure around the quarantine gate dropped sharply. And when they lifted their eyes toward the Cradle of Generations, they saw it—
A flaw. A small opening had appeared in what had looked like an unbreakable shield.
"So that's how it works," Bai Ling murmured.
He confirmed it in an instant, then turned back.
Chen Qianyu and Eyjafjalla were already climbing down from the ruined facility with the injured workers. Under the shockwaves, the cover had spared them the worst of it—they'd lost consciousness, but their injuries weren't severe. For Chen Qianyu, carrying them was the easy part.
"Get them to the quarantine gate," Bai Ling said. "Have the guards there keep an eye on them. Removing this anchor point should take a lot of pressure off the camp."
At the same time, Perlica's wristband finally regained signal. The voice of Di Jiang's liaison came through.
"The route to the Old Mine District is open! You can reach the second anchor point from there!"
"Understood," Perlica answered.
Not long after, Chen Qianyu was back with the team. Eyjafjalla, however, was watching Bai Ling closely.
"I'm fine," Bai Ling said flatly. "Don't stare at me like that. We're not done yet."
No rest. No pause.
He moved immediately, guiding them along the route Perlica had just received.
Compared to the first anchor point, the second was far more difficult.
The road had been wrecked by shockwaves. And on the far side of a damaged bridge, someone was trapped—curled up within the protective field of an Originium sapling.
"…Perlica. We'll have to detour," Bai Ling said. "Fast. Any rescue plan is about precision—and speed."
They pushed through the broken mining zone. Raw Originium ore lay almost naked on the surface, veins and chunks exposed in a way that made Chen Qianyu and Eyjafjalla stare.
"Senpai… this ore… it's like a miracle."
On Terra, you'd almost never see anything like this. Originium didn't form this way.
"It's not a natural miracle," Bai Ling said, glancing toward the Administrator beside him. "It's her handiwork."
The little penguin pointed at herself, suddenly at a loss for how to argue back.
Even inside the mine tunnels, with the outside world completely unseen, Bai Ling could still read the rhythm of the shockwaves with perfect accuracy—every gap, every timing window, as if he could feel the anchor point breathing.
While they waited inside the barrier for another wave to pass, Chen Qianyu looked down at the high-concentration Originium at her feet, regret on her face.
"This stuff is practically growing out of the ground. The Consortium abandoning this place is such a waste…"
"Dangerous resources always pay better than safe ones," Bai Ling replied. "But danger is danger. And right now, the stable, safer mines we already have are more than enough to build up Valley Four."
The quality here was absurdly good—no question.
But Oripathy wasn't something you could shrug off.
Severe infection left scars that suppressants couldn't erase, carried relapse risks, long-term damage—things that were simply unacceptable costs for workers.
"…True enough, Teacher Bai Ling."
"We're almost there," Bai Ling said. "When the next shockwave ends—that's our opening."
This time, the one who moved was Chen Qianyu.
The moment Bai Ling's prediction landed, she snapped into motion—an instantaneous burst, a clean launch—then her twin blades carved precisely into the anchor point.
Red light erupted.
The anchor point's structure broke down in silence, collapsing into dust. Like the first, it left behind a massive crater.
"And that makes two!"
....
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