Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 479 – Scorched Earth

(Thanks to my brother Inspiration for the gift—the fifty-gift bonus chapter is here. Happy May Day to everyone, by the way!)

The wind of the far northern ice plains cut across faces like knives.

Over three hundred elite soldiers of White Bone Pass filed out of the Rift, their boots crunching over frozen ground mixed with ice shards and gravel.

The Pureblood commander stood at the very front of the formation, hands clasped behind his back, his gaze sweeping over the gray, abandoned base in the distance.

“Not even a single person putting up resistance.”

He let out a sneer, then waved a hand behind him.

“First squad, search the base and secure the entrances and exits. Second squad—”

“Beep.”

A crisp female electronic voice came from the direction of the base.

Everyone froze.

“The Scorched Earth Plan has been initiated. Countdown: 10.”

The cold, mechanical voice of Blue Star’s language blared from the loudspeakers on the base’s outer walls—perfectly enunciated, utterly devoid of emotion.

The Pureblood commander frowned. He couldn’t understand the Blue Star language, but his instincts told him something was off.

“9.”

“8.”

“There are people in the base!” Hu Ya was the first to react—not because she understood the words, but because she heard the voice. She hefted her battle axe and was about to charge forward. “Blue Star people are hiding inside!”

Those words were like a spark landing in dry firewood.

The three hundred-plus conscripts had come to plunder, their minds filled with thoughts of “Blue Star is full of resources—anything we find is free loot.”

Now hearing there were still living people in the base meant ready-made spoils.

“Charge! Whoever grabs it, keeps it!” Someone shouted.

The demi-human soldiers of the male camp moved first. Lion-men, bear-men, leopard-men—all peak Level 6 physiques, the ground trembling with every stride as they howled and lunged toward the base.

The Pureblood commander didn’t stop them.

The Second Elder had said “suppress them,” but never said they couldn’t take spoils.

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“7.”

“6.”

“Ning Shuang! Hurry up! If we’re late, there won’t even be scraps left!” Hu Ya yelled at the top of her lungs, already three strides into her sprint.

Long Su and Long Yao followed suit. Long Shuangling was more reserved, but her feet were also moving forward.

Lin Fan stood still.

“Don’t rush.”

Hu Ya was frantic: “Don’t rush? Look how fast those guys in the male camp are running. By the time they’re done looting—”

“I said, don’t move.”

Lin Fan’s voice wasn’t loud, but every word pierced clearly into the ears of the forty-plus women in the female camp.

It wasn’t Mental Strength compulsion.

Just pure tone.

That tone nailed Hu Ya’s feet to the ground.

She couldn’t explain why, but her body made the judgment before her mind did—when this woman said don’t move, you’d better not move.

“5.”

“4.”

Lin Fan watched as over two hundred male camp soldiers surged toward the base gate like a mob heading to market.

The Pureblood commander followed behind with his guards, his pace unhurried, his mid-Level 7 aura steadily radiating outward.

She counted silently in her head.

This Chu Chen person really did things ruthlessly.

This was clearly a repeat of the Magic City Rift tactic—an empty city ploy.

The thermonuclear warheads Blue Star had stockpiled before the Post-apocalypse had enough yield to wipe everything within a five-kilometer radius off the map.

Based on the yield of the warheads Lin Fan had scanned buried underground earlier.

The energy level roughly corresponded to a full-power strike from a peak Level 7—and a large-area attack at that.

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For Level 6 demi-humans, this was a full-damage strike falling from the sky.

For a Level 7 Pureblood, it wouldn’t kill him, but it would definitely give him a nasty surprise.

“3.”

“2.”

Long Su whispered, “Sister Ning Shuang, what is that voice saying?”

Lin Fan glanced at her.

“Countdown.”

“Countdown to wha—”

“One.”

“Zero.”

The ground trembled first.

It was subtle—like something deep beneath the earth had shifted in its sleep.

Then came the second tremor.

This one was anything but subtle.

The frozen ground beneath their feet heaved upward in a single massive slab, rocks and ice shards hurled skyward by an invisible force.

Half a second later, a searing white pillar of light erupted from the very center of the base, punching through the earth and shooting straight into the heavens.

The pillar was over two hundred meters in diameter.

There was no sound.

At least not in the first fraction of a second.

The human ear and brain needed time to process information on this scale.

Then the sound came.

Not a simple “boom.”

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It was a solid wall of air, crushing outward in every direction at supersonic speed.

Where the shockwave passed, frozen earth churned into liquid, rocks were ground to dust, and the air itself compressed until it ignited.

The male camp soldiers at the front didn’t even have a chance to scream.

A sixth-rank body before a nuclear blast wave was no different from a sheet of paper.

Under the combined assault of searing heat and overpressure, their bodies expanded, tore apart, and vaporized in an instant, leaving behind nothing but a fleeting trace of bone ash.

The Pureblood Commander reacted fastest. The moment the pillar appeared, he erupted with full Spirit Energy to shield himself. His mid-seventh-rank energy barrier held for three seconds.

Then it shattered.

The shockwave caught him whole and hurled him nearly a kilometer away, snapping two weathered signal tower remnants on the way. When he landed, his left arm and half his ribs were already unrecognizable.

A mushroom cloud rose.

A gray-white column of cloud surged skyward, expanding and churning beneath the far northern sky. The cap at its summit spread outward in every direction, blotting out half the heavens.

All forty-plus members of the female camp stared in stunned silence.

The war axe in Hu Ya’s hand clattered to the ground.

Her mouth hung open, the mushroom cloud reflected in her eyes. She couldn’t utter a single word.

Long Su’s legs gave out and she sat down hard on the ground. Long Yao supported her, trembling herself.

The residual force of the shockwave, laced with searing heat, rushed toward them.

Lin Fan moved.

Her emerald Life Domain expanded around her, enveloping all forty-plus female camp members within its glow. The domain’s light was faint—almost translucent—just enough to block the lethal heat and radiation of the shockwave. But only just.

She didn’t fully dissipate the physical force of the blast.

Over forty people were knocked sprawling in every direction. Some were thrown seven or eight meters. Others slammed their knees into rubble, blood streaming. Hu Ya, thanks to her larger frame, held her ground, but her arms went numb from the vibration and the webbing between her thumb and forefinger split open.

Long Su fared worse—she was flipped clean over by the blast wave and rolled several times before cracking the back of her skull against a chunk of frozen earth. She blacked out on the spot.

Long Yao’s left leg was fractured. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead from the pain, but she gritted her teeth and didn’t make a sound. Long Shuangling’s face was slashed open by flying debris, blood blurring one eye.

The healing energy of the Life Domain slowly mended their fatal wounds—internal organ trauma, intracranial bleeding, bone fractures—quietly repairing these life-threatening injuries to the threshold of “not dying.”

But nothing more.

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Lin Fan withdrew her domain and surveyed the female camp members scattered across the ground.

Forty-three people.

All alive.

Thirty-one had already lost consciousness. The rest were barely semi-conscious. No more than five could still think clearly.

Hu Ya knelt on the ground, her hands braced against the frozen soil, gasping for breath. She lifted her head, her face streaked with blood, and looked at Lin Fan, who stood motionless in place.

“Nin… Ning Shuang… what is this…”

Lin Fan crouched down and patted her on the shoulder.

“A welcome gift from Blue Star.”

Hu Ya’s vision went black, her head lolled to the side, and she collapsed.

Lin Fan stood up and brushed the dust off his hands.

The mushroom cloud was still slowly expanding overhead.

In the direction of the base, only a vitrified crater over three hundred meters in diameter remained, its rim soil fused by the extreme heat into a smooth, obsidian-like surface.

Three hundred Dragon Clan expeditionary forces.

They had come howling and roaring, and now not even ashes remained.

That guy Chu Chen—had he really calculated even this step?

He retrieved his personal communicator from the System Space.

The moment he opened it, Chu Chen’s voice came through.

“Nine Rifts detonated in sync, all hits confirmed. Preliminary estimate: 2,000 Dragon Clan expeditionary forces eliminated.”

A follow-up message came right after.

“You didn’t get blown up, did you?”

Lin Fan took a drag of his cigarette and replied with four words.

“The temperature was just right.”