Chapter 111: The Sightless

Li Kangshan swallowed the fungal broth, which resembled dried nasal mucus. Despite his strong composure, he couldn't help but show a look of disgust.

However, Xiluoya beside him, along with the legion of dragon knights and even the common folk, remained calm, or rather, hungrily devoured their daily rations of fungi. This soup, boiled only with water and salt, was the only food available to the people of the God-Gifted Land. With the sky obscured, only fungi could thrive on the surface; in some damp areas, they had even grown into vast forests, a sight that was quite spectacular in its own right.

But... it really tasted terrible.

Li Kangshan, who considered himself capable of enduring hardship and had indeed suffered plenty, found that his palate had been spoiled by the refined foods of the modern world. He knew his expression was rude, but in modern society, even a single apple was a premium variety cultivated over centuries—sweet and juicy, incomparable to these fungi growing in barren, polluted soil.

Li Kangshan wasn't trying to show off or seek new experiences; it was simply that after repeatedly refusing Provence’s recruitment, he felt too embarrassed to ask him for dry rations, leaving him no choice but to beg Xiluoya for food. Xu Xiaoke was in a similar situation, refusing to join Provence’s "Prism" group for reasons unknown, preferring to complete missions on his own.

Li Kangshan was surprised that his digestive system could handle such wretched food; besides the foul smell, it caused him no stomach trouble. He guessed that his status as an Apostle was aiding him. As for Xu Xiaoke, that rugged man had likely modified his own digestive system, so there was no need to worry about him.

Not far away, Provence watched the scene expressionlessly. Behind him, Klein was eating a compressed ration bar with gusto, looking smug as he observed Li Kangshan’s retching. Li Kangshan swept a glance at Klein, indifferent, and lowered his head to continue drinking his fungal soup, lost in thought.

After that night, Klein had vanished from their room, moving to Provence’s side and joining their team. This young, promising European financier was not as shallow or simple as he appeared.

Provence stroked the purple crystal in his hand, appearing confident and steady. With his young, handsome features, he possessed a startling charisma. However, no one around him had the leisure to be infatuated; everyone was rushing to rest for the next wave of demonic beasts.

The "Demonic Beast Tide," as the name implies, was a periodic behavior where the demon race attacked humanity. No one knew why they engaged in such thankless labor.

Provence’s team played a massive role during these tides. With their tacit cooperation and endless variety of abilities, they were always able to quickly kill the demon leaders, ending the tides prematurely. Every wave featured three to five lord-level demons or beasts—colossal in size and terrifying in combat power. Even the dragon knights had to pay a heavy price just to repel them, let alone kill them.

Lin Zexi’s psychic powers allowed for rapid enemy positioning, while Ran Bingqing would charge out with the momentum of an unstoppable force, carving a bloody path to buy time and space for her teammates. Then, the three mages would join forces to obliterate the targets with their strongest magic, while the others provided support.

Simple tactics, yet played to perfection by this small team. Time and again, when all seemed impossible, they would make a brilliant move, tying together all the previous foreshadowing to unleash astonishing power. Even the proudest knights had to admit the strength of the Prism squad; it was an art of combat, representing refined battle awareness and a casual yet precise attitude. It was as if they weren't engaged in a bloody slaughter, but merely completing a day-to-day job. Even Xu Xiaoke, who had fought against the Zerg for years, could not help but praise them.

However, it was not without danger. During the seventh wave, Prism encountered a king-level demon—a Demon King—capable of total elementalization. Fortunately, the chaotic mind of the demon race greatly diminished its combat effectiveness, making it far less terrifying than a true Level 5 entity. The battle took a heavy toll on them, but they still managed a hard-fought victory.

Provence and his team’s stellar performance earned them many perks, such as a rapidly evolving dragon by their side and a dozen dragon eggs resting in their spatial bags. The only one that had hatched was being raised by the newcomer, Klein. This decision was less about looking after a rookie and more about using Klein as an experiment to see what kind of chemical reaction would occur between a human and a dragon. So far, the results were excellent; bolstered by the dragon’s power, Klein had become a reliable combat unit with a promising future.

Over the course of many battles, they had also secretly scavenged a large quantity of the purple crystals found within the demons. They discovered that keeping these crystals on their person subtly accelerated their cultivation efficiency. Overjoyed, the team practically seized the majority of the crystals for themselves. Whatever orders the Archbishop had given, the dragon knights below dared not clash with Provence and his group, who claimed to be "Warriors of God," leaving them to suffer in silence.

Now, their spatial bags were nearly bursting with purple crystals. Provence was truly in a state of pained joy.

Relying on this ancient city, the pressure on humanity was significantly reduced. Protected by the city's sturdy, ancient foundations, no demon could attack directly from the underground within the city; they could only burrow out from afar, assemble, and launch suicidal attacks, rushing in like waves to meet their deaths. But once the city fell, humanity would be extinguished.

Such a rudimentary setting was like a boring, trend-following MOBA game, yet in this situation, it was impossible to laugh.

Suddenly, the earth trembled again, bringing with it that familiar, nauseating numbness. Kang De spat on the ground and muttered, "The thirteenth wave... what an unlucky number."

Provence patted him on the shoulder and said, "A few more waves and we’ll have enough contribution points. Then we can leave this godforsaken place."

Prism’s mission was to help the human faction, but completely wiping out the locust-like demon race was essentially impossible. Therefore, killing a certain number of demons was sufficient to meet the minimum mission requirements to leave this world. Although this would result in a lower rating, the extra gains—like the dragon eggs and purple crystals—were more than enough to compensate for the loss.

Kazan raised his hand, a stream of black blood gushing from his fingertips, quickly morphing into a hideous, twisted blade of black blood.

On Kang De’s wrist, the metal bracers flashed with red and green lights as the authentication process passed. The small bracers released their internal compressed space, and carbon nanotubes, structured like muscle fibers, coiled up the youth’s pale skin. They simulated additional power-generating structures while firmly protecting his body.

Complex structures formed at the joints, filled with memory alloy, capable of assisting in the explosive release of tons of force at critical moments. High-strength lightweight ceramic armor was retrieved from his spatial bag, perfectly fitting over the carbon-fiber muscles. Its super-magnetic damping field could perfectly lock the inertial motion of every water molecule, neutralizing hundreds of Gs of acceleration; even if hit by armor-piercing shells, the wearer would merely roll harmlessly, without a single muscle fiber being damaged.

Black tissue completely covered his head, forming the shape of a gas mask. Countless tiny neural optical fibers pierced into Kang De’s brain interface, stimulating his brain to operate at high speeds while receiving movement signals instantly, allowing him to control the carbon-fiber muscles with zero latency for any action.

This nano-combat suit came from a future society in the year 2150. It integrated the world’s top technology, maximizing the combination of human combat awareness and the immense power of machinery, turning the wearer into a warrior capable of tearing through tanks with his bare hands.

The self-programming carbon nanotubes could instantly read the wearer’s movement signals and exert force with micron and microgram precision—large enough to shatter a building’s load-bearing wall, small enough to pinch a piece of tofu. It could also perform perfect camouflage and invisibility for the most difficult stealth missions. Advanced combat systems captured all light wave signals and molecular changes in real time, providing the wearer with the most perfect instructions.

The nano-suit contained a perfect circulation system; even if thrown onto the moon, the wearer would feel no discomfort. The built-in condensed nuclear fusion battery was sufficient for fifteen hours of high-intensity combat and could receive remote power transmission at any time.

Tragically, however, the suit had a terrifying rejection rate. Among a hundred million people, there might not be one suitable candidate who could withstand the neural fiber connection; everyone else would be ground into pulp by the runaway carbon nanotubes. Naturally, Kang De was that one-in-a-hundred-million lucky soul, a fact that set him on the path of the Cyborg.

Only a Cyborg could rapidly process vast seas of data and identify the chaotic information falling like a waterfall. By gradually adapting to mechanical thinking, abandoning normal senses for precise, cold sensing instruments, and discarding emotional thought to imprint fixed logical programs into their thought circuits, Cyborgs alienated themselves from humanity, walking the path of the "Blind Seer."

Humans transformed perceived visible light waves into vibrant colors—a shortcut for perceiving the world, and a lie; it was merely an impression of the real world, not the real world itself. "Blind Seers" were those who gave up self-deception and resolutely chose a broader, truer vision. In their eyes, there were no colors or melodies, only fixed frequencies of light waves and sound pressure.