Chapter 116: Battle in the Black Sea Realm (Second Update)

"The authorities are really playing for high stakes this time, though I suppose you could call it a preemptive measure," Ji Yu mused. He felt that the time when the authorities would reveal the truth to the public might not be far off. Even if they chose not to disclose everything, Ji Yu believed the desert domain in the north would likely become the flashpoint of the entire incident.

The specific outcome, however, would depend on how long the authorities could contain that domain. After all, that domain had remained firmly anchored to the land of Blue Star even without the presence of the Purple Moon. Whether it would continue to expand was one matter, but if the creatures within suddenly gained the ability to break free from the domain, the situation could turn far more catastrophic. Consequently, the current situation for the Ryan Federation was already dire.

Just as Ji Yu was contemplating the northern desert domain, a massive number of Ryan ground forces were gathering in that very desert.

***

Under the silent night, countless military vehicles shuttled back and forth across the northern sands. Over a hundred thousand soldiers were being continuously transported there from across the Ryan Federation. On the front lines, because the domain had reverted to the appearance of an ordinary desert, the soldiers were desperately trying to take advantage of the lull to rest and eat.

Near a trench, hundreds of soldiers were risking their lives to head to the forward-most positions, frantically collecting the white bones scattered across the ground. Most of the soldiers had tears in their eyes, while a few younger recruits could not help but weep in sorrow. Many of these bones had been living, breathing people only moments ago, but now they were nothing more than a pile of remains, having departed this world forever.

The terror of the Black Sea domain had long since surpassed the limits of modern human understanding. The domain had formed and expanded to cover an area of over one hundred square kilometers. Right now, it might look like a calm, ordinary desert, but just ten minutes earlier, it had been a terrifying sea churning with black water. Above that horrific expanse hung dark, ominous clouds, and endless ghost ships drifted within the waters. These ghost ships were tattered and decayed; some resembled small fishing boats, while others were as massive as modern human warships. However, the warships that appeared on the Black Sea were all pitted and scarred, many corroded beyond recognition.

Seeing those ghost ships that resembled modern warships, both the rank-and-file soldiers and the high-ranking military officials were, at first, rendered speechless by shock. And that was not all; when dense swarms of living white skeletons, averaging two meters in height, emerged from those ships, battle broke out instantly. These skeletons seemed weak, crumbling into scattered fragments under the spray of machine-gun fire. Yet, while weak, they were capable of running out of the domain and rapidly reassembling their bodies after being shattered. Blue ghost-fire flickered in their skulls; as long as the skull remained intact and the fire was not extinguished, they were immortal. When humanity discovered this, they naturally began to focus fire on the skeletons' heads, but those skulls were far harder than the bones of their bodies. A heavy machine-gun bullet would leave nothing more than a dent. Because of this, it required massive, concentrated salvos and heavy artillery barrages to barely repel and eliminate the onslaught of these numerous giant skeletons.

During the fighting, Ryan's missiles continuously blanketed the ghost ships on the Black Sea. Many of the ships were indeed fragile, but more of the massive ghost vessels began to spawn a different kind of terrifying and numerous eerie lifeform. These entities were black energy beings, resembling smoke or phantoms. They swarmed toward the incoming artillery, detonating the missiles prematurely, and as a result, many missiles failed to hit the ghost ships at all. Fortunately, the explosions were enough to clear away those smoke-like ghosts. Through the Ryan Federation’s powerful logistics and saturation strikes with ample ammunition, the military managed to clear the ghost ships from the Black Sea domain time and time again.

But good times did not last. Just a moment ago, a group of even more terrifying entities appeared on a massive steel ghost ship comparable to a human aircraft carrier. These beings stood nearly fifteen meters tall, their entire bodies shrouded in black mist, with only two scarlet, bloodthirsty pupils visible in their heads. The moment they and the massive ghost ship appeared, the Ryan military deployed the highest-yield missiles currently available. Yet, before the missiles could strike, they were enveloped by invisible black mist and detonated by the monsters' roars.

The yield of the missiles was sufficient, however; the intense shockwaves and thermal radiation swept across the small domain, momentarily clearing it once more. Yet many of those horrific beings survived the blast, and in their final moments, they launched a desperate counterattack against the human positions outside the domain. Countless plumes of black smoke detached from their bodies and surged violently toward the front-line trenches, seven or eight miles away.

The moment these black smokes crossed the boundary of the domain, they began to be weakened and slowly dissipated by some unknown rule. However, a significant amount, now thinned into filaments, successfully breached the front-line defenses. In an instant, these black strands acted like invisible parasites, burrowing into the soldiers' bodies.

Then, the soldiers underwent a horrific transformation. Screaming, their bodies began to swell rapidly. Blood poured from their seven orifices, and then the flesh and bone within them violently separated. One skeleton after another tore itself free from their mangled bodies. The gruesome, bloody scene shocked the military to its core, but under a swift order and a barrage of bullets and artillery from the rear, those nearly five hundred skeletons—born from the deaths of Ryan soldiers—were instantly destroyed.

With that, the battle reached another lull. The Black Sea grew calm, but on the illusory boundaries within the domain, ghost ships began to appear once more. However, before these vessels could fully reach the waters revealed by the domain, the Black Sea shifted again, returning to the state of a normal desert. This gave the Ryan military a brief moment to catch its breath.

As they collected the remains, many young soldiers began to show signs of wavering.

"Is there really any hope for our world?"

"When will this fighting ever end? Maybe we'll all be dead here before long, too."

"The domain keeps expanding, and the enemies we face grow stronger and more bizarre each time. Even nuclear bombs can't completely destroy this damned domain—do we really have a chance of winning?"

Pessimism spread rapidly, and there was no one to comfort them, for not only were they harboring negative thoughts, but many mid-to-high-ranking officers had succumbed to the same despair. In the six months of fighting near the Black Sea domain, more than three thousand soldiers had died. While this number might seem small, the endless combat and constant fear were devastating to morale.

Under the clear moonlight, the commander of the Northern Military Region stood on a high platform in the distance, watching the silhouettes of the front-line soldiers and the tranquil desert, and let out a silent sigh.