Consciousness swirled in chaos. Ning Yu felt as if he had been thrown into a frantically spinning machine, each rotation accompanied by tearing pain. He tried to open his eyes, but found his eyelids as heavy as lead. The sounds from the outside world came intermittently, indistinctly, as if coming through thick frosted glass.
"Merge...begin..." The voice rang out again, haunting him like a nightmare.
As the excruciating pain subsided slightly, Ning Yu finally forced himself to open his eyes. His vision was blurry, but he vaguely saw that he was trapped inside a huge, pale golden light shield. Complex runes flowed across the surface of the shield, emanating a chilling energy fluctuation.
"Damn it, what kind of hellish formation is this!" Ning Yu cursed under his breath, trying to activate his supernatural abilities. However, all he received in response was utter silence, as if his powers had been completely sealed away. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't activate even a fraction of them.
Just then, a powerful energy surge poured down from the sky, slamming violently into the light barrier. Ning Yu groaned, feeling as if his internal organs were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand, the intense pain causing his vision to blur.
"Ning Yu!" A frantic shout came from afar; it was Mu Xue's voice.
Ning Yu turned his head with all his might and saw Mu Xue rushing towards him recklessly. Her face was full of anxiety and worry, and she wielded her long whip like the wind, repelling the enemies who stood in her way one by one.
"Don't come any closer!" Ning Yu tried to shout to stop her, but found that he didn't even have the strength to speak.
Mu Xue had suffered many injuries in her efforts to reach him. Her combat uniform was torn in several places, revealing bandages stained with blood underneath, but she paid no attention to it, her beautiful eyes fixed only on Ning Yu's figure.
"Get out of my way!" Mu Xuejiao shouted, her long whip shooting out like a venomous snake, wrapping around an enemy's neck. With a sharp tug, accompanied by a crisp cracking sound, the enemy collapsed limply to the ground.
"You...you're courting death!" The enemy leader was furious upon seeing this and unleashed a fierce energy attack straight at Mu Xue.
Mu Xue was unable to dodge in time and took the hit head-on. She flew backward like a kite with a broken string and crashed heavily to the ground.
"Cough cough..." Mu Xue struggled to get up, but couldn't help coughing up a mouthful of blood. She simply wiped the blood from her mouth, her gaze fixed firmly on Ning Yu, who was trapped in the formation, and said, word by word, "I said... I would protect you..."
As soon as she finished speaking, Mu Xue's eyes suddenly became glazed over. She covered her head, groaned in pain, and swayed as if about to collapse...
"Boom!" Another loud noise rang out, and the light barrier trembled violently, as if it would collapse at any moment. Ning Yu was shaken by the impact, his blood surging, and a mouthful of blood welled up in his throat, which he swallowed forcefully.
"leader!"
"Boss!"
Outside the protective barrier, Ning Yu's members were all injured. They were already slightly inferior in terms of supernatural abilities, and now, under the interference of this mysterious energy, they were unable to exert their original strength and were forced into retreat. On the other hand, the enemy seemed to have been injected with adrenaline, their attacks becoming increasingly fierce, and their defensive fortifications were on the verge of collapse and about to be breached.
"Hold on! We have no way out!" a burly man roared hoarsely. He was Ning Yu's second-in-command, named Lei Bao. He was honest and brave in battle. At this moment, his left arm had been cut by the enemy, and blood stained half of his sleeve, but he was oblivious and continued to hold the front line.
"Lei Bao, conserve your strength and prepare to break through!" Ning Yu shouted, enduring the excruciating pain. He knew that in their current state, they were no match for the enemy's attack. Rather than making pointless sacrifices, it was better to preserve their strength and wait for an opportunity.
“But Chief, you…” Lei Bao wanted to say something more, but Ning Yu interrupted him.
"This is an order!" Ning Yu's voice left no room for argument.
Lei Bao gritted his teeth. He knew this wasn't the time to argue; he had to obey orders. His eyes red, he scanned his brothers and roared, "Brothers, retreat!"
Upon hearing the order, the surviving team members, suppressing their grief, began an organized retreat. However, the enemy would not let them go easily, relentlessly pursuing them. The fierce fighting continued, with people falling every moment.
Trapped within the formation, Ning Yu was frantic with worry, yet utterly powerless. His powers were sealed, and he was unable to move, forced to watch helplessly as his brothers fell one by one into pools of blood.
"Am I really going to die here?" A sense of despair flashed through Ning Yu's mind, but he quickly dismissed it.
"No, I can't give up! I still have Xue'er, and so many brothers waiting for me to come back!" A fierce fire reignited in Ning Yu's eyes, and he began frantically searching his memories of the system, trying to find a way to break the deadlock.
"System, system, come out here!" Ning Yu roared in his mind.
"Ding! Host detected to be in an extremely dangerous state. Activate emergency plan?" A cold, mechanical voice suddenly rang in Ning Yu's mind.
"Emergency plan? What's that?" Ning Yu was stunned at first, then overjoyed, as if he had grasped the last straw. "Quick, activate it!"
"Activating the emergency plan requires a large amount of energy. Confirm activation?"
"Confirmed! Start it now!" Ning Yu didn't care about anything else anymore. All he wanted now was to survive, for himself and for the brothers who were still fighting for him.
As Ning Yu confirmed, a massive flow of information flooded into his mind. At the same time, a sharp pain followed, as if someone was branding his brain with a red-hot iron. The intense pain almost made him faint.
This chapter is not finished, please click the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
