Happy Pond Hopper

Southwest Federal City, City No. 5, is vibrant and bustling.

The mountain city is where three rivers converge, and the city's brilliant lights reflect on the river surface, creating a dreamlike scene.

Right there in the city, soldiers were gathering from the shadows, their arms wrapped in purple armbands.

These soldiers, like streams, converged from all corners and rushed towards the manor on Ginkgo Mountain.

The buildings on the mountain stood silently, like unnoticed giants.

This unit is highly disciplined and decisive in its actions. Whenever new soldiers arrive, someone will ask them questions.

"Password!"

"Change the Sky and Replace the Sun! Respond to the order!"

"The Rivers Are Always Present!"

Then, someone will double-check the electronic beacons. Each electronic beacon has a 168-bit dynamic code, which cannot be forged.

Gradually, more and more soldiers gathered, and eventually they split into two teams. One team was responsible for destroying the entire power system of City No. 5, while the other team continued to attack Ginkgo Manor!

As they arrived at the Ginkgo Mountain, a skilled fighter emerged from the shadows, carrying the corpse of a hidden stake. "Deal with it. Move on! Decapitation!"

As he spoke, the expert turned around and looked back at the dark hut on the mountain.

That's where the patriarch is located, the most mysterious place within the Qing family.

As usual, the lights in the cabin were off.

Its most mysterious aspect isn't that it hides some deadly weapon, but rather that, apart from Shadow and a few others, no one can get close to that house.

All the servants serving the master of the house were deaf and mute, so no one could hear any secrets from them. The actions of all the servants were controlled by a mysterious person using sign language.

At this moment, thousands of soldiers maintained communication silence and charged up the mountain.

Along the way, experts kept emerging from the shadows; they had all infiltrated beforehand to deal with the hidden agents.

Suddenly, someone in front of them raised their right arm.

The soldiers behind him crouched down at the same time, holding their guns and keeping watch around.

One of the experts glanced at the time on his watch.

0:00.

In an instant, the lights of every home in City No. 5 went out, and the thousands of Cloud Flow Tower that operated year-round in the city also came to a stop.

The Ginkgo Manor, like a celestial palace, was also plunged into boundless darkness.

When all the lights that humans take for granted disappear, it's as if the whole world falls into silence.

Only after this scene unfolded did the soldiers begin to advance.

This indicates that the troops that destroyed the power supply system have succeeded.

In the darkness, the soldiers panted, and only the heavy sound of their footsteps could be heard in the world.

There are also pine trees on both sides of the mountain path and stone steps, and the rustling sound of pine needles rubbing against each other as the wind blows.

However, before they even reached the halfway point of the mountain, they suddenly saw someone carrying a kerosene lamp, standing at the end of the stone steps, coldly looking down.

There was a boy with him.

Behind him were dozens of deaf-mute people with their hands tucked into their sleeves.

Everyone wore a white chrysanthemum on their chest to commemorate the recently deceased.

When the soldiers looked up and saw the end of the stone steps, for some reason, their breath caught in their throats.

But then the middle-aged man carrying the kerosene lamp shoved it into the boy's hand, then turned to the deaf and mute people and gestured in sign language. "Kill them all."

In an instant, dozens of soldiers turned their purple sleeves inside out, revealing that the back of the sleeves was pure black and embroidered with a white ginkgo leaf.

Somehow, when they turned their sleeves black, the color suddenly took on a somber hue, as if they were bidding farewell to someone.

The white ginkgo leaves against the black background looked particularly somber.

The next moment, dozens of skilled fighters hidden among the soldiers began their slaughter.

One by one, the deaf-mute people on the mountain leaped down into the mountains and disappeared. Several skilled soldiers behind the ranks saw something was wrong and immediately tried to run, but before they could get far, they saw that the deaf-mute people dressed in white linen clothes had already arrived at the foot of the mountain and blocked their way.

The deaf-mute people had blank expressions, and some even had red eyes, as if they had just been crying.

Among the nine escaped masters, three of them rolled up their sleeves, revealing black silk cloth and white ginkgo leaves on the back.

The middle-aged man at the end of the mountain road saw this scene and knew that the outcome was already decided.

Perhaps even those who started this bloody incident never imagined that they would have so many family heads under their command.

The old man had stayed in the house for more than ten years. He seemed to be indifferent to the world, but it was as if he knew everything and had not missed anything.

He whispered to the boy beside him, "Boring."

After saying that, the middle-aged man took the kerosene lamp from the boy and turned to slowly walk up the mountain.

Right behind him, the lights of every home in City No. 5 shone again, as brilliant as the Milky Way.

It seems that the power system here has never been destroyed.

The middle-aged man, leading the boy and Xinghui, walked to the outside of the small house. "Patriarch, they are too weak. I did not make a move."

The old man inside said, "Come in. How smart can people be to sell off their ancestral property? If the Qing family were given to them, their empire would collapse in less than ten years. They're all just self-righteous fools."

The middle-aged man pushed open the wooden door and looked at the old man's back, which had become even more hunched overnight. "If we had found Li Bingxi's wife sooner, we might have been able to kill Li Bingxi sooner, and perhaps Xiao-jun wouldn't have had to... I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize," the old man said calmly. "Li Bingxi is cunning and shrewd. It was already quite an achievement to find where his wife was being held. You've done a great job in this matter. As for Jun's situation, even if Li Bingxi had died earlier, it would have been difficult to change his fate. Don't be sad. This was the ending he chose, and he has no regrets."

The middle-aged man fell silent.

The old man slowly stood up, smiled and waved to the boy next to the middle-aged man, "You must be Qing Wu? Little Zhunti has mentioned you many times."

The dark-skinned youth took two steps forward, only to see the old man scrutinizing him closely. "Your father served me for thirty years, and now it's your turn to serve the next head of the family. Once you take this step, there's no turning back. Are you willing?"

Qing Wu nodded. "I'm willing. I've met him, and he is indeed better than the others."

The old man said, "Xiao Zhun mentioned it to me. He said you only asked to be Shadow Candidate because you wanted to see if Qing Chen was qualified. So, have you observed enough?"

Qing Wu shook his head. "He didn't participate much in the Shadow Struggle, so I haven't observed him much."

"Then why are you willing to be with him?" the old man asked.

"His ability to transcend the Shadow Struggle is a skill in itself," Qing Wu said calmly. The young man showed no humility in front of the Qing Clan Head. "However, he is not the Clan Head yet. Before that, I must continue my cultivation. Only when he truly becomes the Clan Head will I go and follow him."

The old man sighed, "Your entire lineage is Martial Arts Enthusiast. Your grandfather was, your father was, and so are you."

The middle-aged man suddenly said, "Being Martial Arts Enthusiast fanatic is great. You don't have to think about so many worries. If someone tells you what to do, you do it. In your whole life, it's enough to do one thing well."

"They're happier than us," the old man said softly, taking a silver necklace from his pocket and placing it in the middle-aged man's hand. "From now on, it's yours. No regrets?"

The middle-aged man shook his head. "I don't regret it. I already have Qing Wu, and I gave up on the idea after his mother passed away."

"It's up to you. Xiao Zhun is going to give it to you anyway, and he probably knows you won't refuse," the old man said.

"The battle is still ongoing at Forbidden Zone No. 002," the middle-aged man said, putting the Shadow Gate necklace around his neck. "I've been to Forbidden Zone No. 002 before; I can go and help."

"No need," the old man shook his head.

"Let them fend for themselves?" the middle-aged man asked.

"If he is to die, then that is his fate," the old man said. "The Qing family spoils their children too much, which makes them forget the spirit of their ancestors. The Qing family should be like wolves, but now they have all become sheep. They are willing to sell even the most important things. What else can't they sell? I want a true Qing bloodline, not a useless person."

"What if he dies?" the middle-aged man asked rhetorically.

"Then let the Qing family vanish with him," the old man waved his hand. "You're tired. Go collect the bodies of those down the mountain."

"Those who want to kill you, whether or not to kill them, I mean..."

"No need," the old man smiled. "Those are all top-quality whetstones. Keep them for Qing Chen to use."

The middle-aged man nodded. "Understood."

With that, he turned and left with Qing Wu, carefully closing the wooden door behind him.

In fact, he didn't plan to go to Forbidden Zone No. 002. Based on his understanding of that shadow, since the other party knew that he would die in this battle, yet still dared to bring Qing Chen to the battlefield, it meant that he was certain that Qing Chen would survive.

This is his trust in his shadow, a tacit understanding built up over the years.

The middle-aged man walked down the mountain and told his son, "Go into seclusion after you get down the mountain. It's not appropriate for you to get involved in the current affairs. You are a sword to be passed down to the next head of the family, and you cannot draw your sword now."

"Understood," Qing Wu nodded.

The middle-aged man glanced at the bloodstains below the mountain, then looked back at the wooden house.

Perhaps many people have forgotten that the old man was once a shadow, and the one who fought his way to victory from among a group of shadows.

Qing Zhun can suppress people, then the old man can certainly suppress them too.

Thinking you can sneak into the Ginkgo Manor unnoticed? That's a ridiculous idea.

Upstream of the Spring Thunder River, a unit from Kashima Prefecture is heading towards the area.

Their task was to take over the upstream laboratory, which was part of a deal between the Kei family and Kashima.

From a distance, the fortress-like laboratory stood quietly in the wilderness, as if everyone inside had already been evacuated.

Kashima's forces launched a drone to conduct reconnaissance, but before the drone could get close, a unit quickly attacked.

In the night sky, some people heard the roar of huge engines. They looked up and were shocked to see the Qing Clan's Scepter Aerial Fortress suddenly descending from the sky.

The sight of that colossal flying object, resembling a city, sent chills down the spines of the Kashima soldiers.

"Aerial Fortress! How could there be Aerial Fortress here?!"

With a deafening roar, the main electromagnetic cannon of the Scepter immediately fired, blasting the Kashima unit to smithereens.

In the blink of an eye, the Kashima unit was blasted to pieces by the irresistible Aerial Fortress, leaving only a dozen or so men out of the original five hundred.

The Scepter did not stop. The commander on the bridge glanced at it briefly and said coldly, "Continue to advance north. Have the escort fleet advance north and blow up the Kashima F119 and F121 forward bases before leaving."

This commander had personally carried out a god-slaying mission. He personally guided the Deity's Scepter in the sky from the Scepter to shatter Prison No. 18, helping Qing Chen fake his death and retrieve the Heaven and Earth Chessboard.

At this moment, the Scepter sailed away, and the Kashima commander, who had survived, looked into the distance and saw the figures of the ground troops attacking him.

As those people approached, he was astonished to recognize Qing Qu!

This ground force turned out to be the elite unit under Shadow's command!

"How did you get here?" the commander gasped, a huge shrapnel lodged in his abdomen; he was already dead.

Qing Qu chuckled and said, "Where else would we be if not here?"

"Your shadow is dead, aren't you going to provide support?" the commander asked.

Qing Qu finished off the commander with a shot to the head. "Shadow needs our support to kill Li Bingxi? Are you underestimating Shadow, or overestimating Li Bingxi?"

When Chen Yu first made his move, he created the effect of being invisible by using six suns, with the aim of preventing Li Shutong and the Shadow Unit from appearing on the battlefield through the Shadow Gate.

In fact, the Shadow Unit never had any plans to provide support from the beginning.

Because the shadow knew that in that one minute, killing a demigod was as easy as killing a dog, and he didn't need any support.

Qing Qu looked south. "I wonder if that new boss survived... He's quite an interesting person, I hope he doesn't die."

On the battlefield outside Forbidden Zone No. 002.

One by one, the swifts collided with the shells. Some swifts' wings brushed past the sides of the shells, actually cutting a huge gash in them with the force of paper, and changing the direction of the shells.

Some swifts crashed directly into the shells and exploded with a bang.

All of Little Yu's painstakingly folded swiftlets turned into fireworks. Shrapnel rained down, and Zard used an earthen wall to protect everyone from being injured by the shrapnel.

Qing Chen said, "Charge straight into their formation, don't stay in one place."

"No," Zard suddenly said, "My older brother hasn't slept for three days and three nights. He's at his limit. We can't leave him here alone."

Qing Chen was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"He didn't dare let Little Yu face this war, nor did he want Little Yu's hands to get blood on them. Actually, they should have switched identities three days ago, but he forced himself not to sleep, determined to hold on until the battle was over," Zard said, praising, "So great!"

Qing Chen thought for a moment, "Then move towards him, wherever we go, we shouldn't stay in the same place."

Just then, a green dragon suddenly appeared in the night sky and rushed straight towards Huan Yu. It was a dragon painted by the Chen family painter, which meant that there were still experts from the Chen family present!

Qing Chen immediately conjured Black Sniper and pulled the trigger again and again towards the Azure Dragon.

However, the bullet that pierced the Azure Dragon's body did not reduce it to ashes.

Qing Chen aimed at its head again, but although he hit it, the bullet only got stuck in the Azure Dragon's skull, just like how he had failed to penetrate the Jinwu Guard's breastplate before.

Ordinary bullets seem unlikely to pose a fatal threat to the shikigami of the God Era or the paintings of the Chen family.

In an instant, Qing Chen used the power of thunder to generate a powerful electromagnetic field inside the Black Sniper rifle barrel. With a loud bang, the metal bullet inside the barrel burst out at an unparalleled speed.

The initial velocity of a regular bullet is about 850 meters per second, but this 22.5-gram bullet, under electromagnetic acceleration, reached an astonishing 3,700 meters per second!

This is no longer a sniper rifle.

This is a miniature electromagnetic railgun!

To everyone's eyes, the Black Sniper's tungsten-core armor-piercing round actually pierced through the Azure Dragon's head, and the Azure Dragon drifted away in the night sky.

Suddenly, an earthen wall on the ground transformed into a hand and then raised its thumb towards the sky.

Qing Chen: "..."

Zard actually gave him a thumbs up in such a high-profile way on the battlefield?

However, Qing Chen didn't have time to pay attention to this guy; he just felt relieved.

The creation of this miniature electromagnetic gun means that the Black Sniper will no longer be a useless tool in his hands.

During his last time travel, he faced Chen Bing and could have easily hit her with a gun, but he was completely helpless against her Jinwu Guard.

Because at that time, the bullet velocity of Black Sniper was no longer sufficient for higher-level combat.

If it's a long-range sniping attack, at extremely long distances, the bullet's flight time in the air is too long—three seconds—enough for even an ordinary person to easily dodge.

But things are different now. He has an electromagnetic cannon, which can deliver bullets within a 3,700-meter range in an instant, and the trajectory is much straighter. He no longer needs such a huge amount of computation!

Black Sniper, under the power of Thunder, has once again ascended to the extraordinary stage.

It's important to know that a real electromagnetic railgun, such as the main electromagnetic railgun of the Qingshan Hao destroyer, can accelerate a 300-gram metal projectile to 11,000 meters per second.

This is only the beginning for Qing Chen.

However, Qing Chen roughly calculated that, based on the amount of lightning plasma in his body, he could only fire this electromagnetic cannon eight times. Once he exceeded that, his lightning plasma would be depleted.

"The Azure Dragon has been killed. Quickly take Huan Yu away," Qing Chen said.

"Alright!" Zard exclaimed excitedly, "Boss, can I learn to use a sniper rifle from you? I think it's so cool!"

"Yes! As long as we survive, you can learn whatever you want!" Qing Chen said.

But just as they were talking, a middle-aged man in Chen Clan troops simultaneously twisted and broke eight Painting Scroll, and eight Vajra Bodhisattvas, each two meters tall, materialized out of thin air and rushed straight towards Huan Yu!

The Blue Calamity-Clearing Vajra, the Poison-Dispelling Vajra, the Yellow Fulfilling Vajra, the White Pure Water Vajra, the Red Sound Vajra, the Calamity-Clearing Vajra, the Purple Wise Vajra, and the Great God Author Vajra.

The painting depicts the eight Vajra warriors, each wielding a Vajra Pestle, with red silk ribbons fluttering on their backs. They are all red-haired and red-faced, with ferocious and terrifying appearances.

The ability of this painter, surnamed Chen, to unleash his full potential in a single day after a year of arduous practice is truly terrifying.

In a one-on-one duel, if the Chen family painters were fully prepared, a single A-level artist could probably wipe out an entire Field Brigade after ten years of hard work.

It's important to understand that the ability to single-handedly wipe out a Field Brigade was the definition of a demigod in the previous civilization.

But now, the painter Chen has achieved it at the A level.

Just as Qing Chen was about to raise his gun to fire again, he heard Huan Yu shout with a cold laugh, "It's not your turn to save me!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Huan Yu took out a backpack from beside him. It was the backpack he had been carrying with him since his last time he traveled through time but hadn't taken it out.

With a tearing sound, the backpack ripped open.

Hundreds of Little Jumping Frog hopped out of the backpack and charged wildly toward the Eight Great Vajras.

Zard was so happy when he saw this that he almost jumped for joy. "See? I folded it! I folded it!"

Qing Chen said blankly, "No wonder Huan Yu hasn't used it yet..."

Huan Yu suddenly cut his right palm with his left index finger, blood flowed freely, and his face turned even paler.

But Huan Yu stood proudly, and said coldly, "Formless!"

The words fell like the Clash of Metal, and everyone felt that the Little Jumping Frog suddenly increased their speed, and their previously closed mouths opened, revealing their fangs!

The originally cute origami animals have suddenly become terrifying creatures!

When hundreds of Little Jumping Frog collided with the eight giants, those Little Jumping Frog fearlessly stuck to the eight giants and bit them hard, tearing them apart and causing them to bleed profusely.

There's a 5,400-word chapter, and another chapter will be released before 11 PM tonight.