At the same time.
In a mountainous region dozens of kilometers from Qing City.
Streaks of blazing exhaust flames cut across the pitch-black sky like meteors, plunging toward the depths of the mountains.
Every searing trail of light represented an expensive Hypersonic Remote Guidance Missile.
This kind of high-tech weapon.
Even during the Golden Age, it required a complete military-industrial system to manufacture, and its cost was far from low.
In the technology-depleted Red Moon Era, the value of every hypersonic missile was even more incalculable.
In a short period of time, these weapons were essentially one less with every use.
Of course.
The power of these weapons absolutely matched their exorbitant price.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
One high-precision guided missile after another.
Propelled by flames from their engines, they shot toward the forbidden zone that had appeared in the mountains at terrifying speeds far exceeding the speed of sound.
Even when they swept past hundreds of meters overhead.
The fierce winds created by the missiles passing through the sky still forced the vegetation below to bow instantly.
Several ancient trees growing at the edge of a cliff could not withstand that terrible wind pressure. Their thick, black roots let out a groan before they slowly toppled toward the ground.
Rumble!
Several missiles carrying immense kinetic energy crashed into the dark, rolling mountains.
At once, seven or eight enormous dark-red fireballs blazed into existence before everyone's eyes.
The flames were dark red at first, then burned fiercely into scorching white light. Like miniature suns, they drove back the darkness as shockwaves tore up vast stretches of earth.
Within the mountain forest, those bizarre trees that had grown like demons under the Red Moon's influence, all claws and fangs.
Those closer to the blasts were directly vaporized and reduced to dust.
Even those far enough away to avoid the first wave of the most powerful explosive flames were uprooted by the following shockwaves and scattered across the ground.
Large numbers of Mutated Creatures had gathered wherever each missile landed.
Among them were even Supernatural Mutated Creatures of enormous size, stretching dozens of meters long.
Affected by the Red Moon, these creatures had grown larger, their claws and fangs sharper, their movements swifter, and their senses of danger keener.
They had detected the warheads plummeting from the sky long ago.
But under precise strikes traveling at several times the speed of sound, the only thing these aberrant creatures could do when destruction arrived was raise their heads and glance at the sky.
The flames surged like a tide.
Instantly swallowing huge numbers of aberrant creatures.
Even powerful Tier 2 Supernatural Creatures had only death awaiting them if they were caught in the aftershock of the explosions.
Their tough bodies were ripped apart. Some portions of flesh had not even fully separated from the bones before they were vaporized and destroyed by the extreme heat.
When the aftershocks of the explosions gradually faded, only a few thick beast bones remained upon the scorched earth.
Proof that those powerful Supernatural Creatures had once appeared there.
Powerful supernatural mutant creatures had almost no ability to resist humanity's cutting-edge weapons.
This should have been something greatly encouraging.
Yet in a temporary field base not far from the mountains.
Inside the command room.
The head of the Combat Department's command headquarters, a tall man in field uniform with graying temples, lowered his binoculars with a face so dark it seemed ready to drip water.
"Something's wrong!"
The uniformed man gripped his binoculars tightly, veins bulging across the back of his hand.
"What happened?"
Beside him stood an elderly scholar-like man in a white coat, who could not help asking.
"A total of sixteen missiles were deployed, but only seven successfully detonated."
"The others vanished into thin air."
There had been no explosions.
Nor had they encountered any obstruction.
One moment, they had still been flying through the air at high speed. The next, they had vanished from sight.
Even the specialized instruments responsible for adjusting their trajectories had not detected the slightest signal fluctuation.
"The environment within a forbidden zone, even its physical laws, differs from the outside world. We should be thankful that this forbidden zone was discovered early. Otherwise, once it expanded further, not even one of those missiles would be able to detonate."
The old man in the white coat adjusted the glasses on his nose and spoke calmly.
"You're right, but..."
Thinking of the brutal battle that was about to erupt, the uniformed man could not help sighing again.
Having spent decades fighting forbidden zones and Mutated Creatures on the front lines, he was naturally not a sentimental man.
Yet when he thought of the young soldiers who had accompanied him for years, brimming with vigor like his own children, vanishing before his eyes just like that.
His heart still ached.
"The thermal weapons left behind by the Golden Age are becoming less and less useful in the current environment."
The graying minister raised his head and looked toward the almost endless Mutated Creatures in the forbidden zone deep within the rolling mountain range, then sighed.
"One day, humanity's thermal weapons will lose all effectiveness. Forced to live within forbidden zones and fight those monsters, only Awakened Ones and Supernatural Beings will be able to cut through thorns and briars, bear the burden, and carve out a future for surviving humanity."
"Unfortunately..."
The old man beside him was equally grave.
"There are simply too few Awakened Ones in human society. The people of the Golden Age researched for decades, but even when humanity had completely fallen behind in its struggle against the Red Moon, they still failed to develop a controllable evolution method."
"Now, we have even less hope of accomplishing it."
Within the same mountain range.
At the other end.
Inside an inconspicuous valley, a towering Willow Tree stood shrouded in hazy mist, several brightly colored butterflies fluttering around it.
Lush Willow Branches cascaded down from the canopy like a green waterfall, swaying gently in the breeze.
With the help of the butterflies' Spring Return Technique talent.
In just one short week, the Willow Tree had grown rapidly, and its accumulated vitality had reached the limit of a Tier 1 Lifeform.
The Willow Tree's height had also grown from just over fourteen meters to nearly thirty meters.
Such a massive size had never been seen in the world before the mutation.
Even in the aberrant world affected by the Red Moon, a giant tree over thirty meters tall would stand head and shoulders above the rest of the forest.
Dusk arrived.
Su Heng's consciousness descended into the body of the Second Template Willow Tree.
He first checked the Willow Tree's condition.
Then, he faintly sensed an unusual disturbance coming from another part of the mountain range.
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