The Withdrawn Fist

Countdown 168:00:00.

The world was bright again.

The square on Whale Island was silent at first. Then sobs began to rise from the crowd, until everyone broke down and wept aloud.

Of the 4,811 Time Walkers in the academy, 4,139 remained. Because they had participated in the Lower Three Districts defensive line, nearly everyone except the children was wounded.

Of the 132 City No. 10 family members from the Parent's Association who had boarded the island, 19 had died, leaving 113.

They too were all wounded.

And Kunlun... every one of them had died.

Qing Chen stood silently in the square. He could barely bring himself to look at the remains of the Kunlun members. There were 631 bodies there, and only Iodophor's body was still relatively intact.

The flesh around Iodophor's neck was gone, leaving only white bone. His hands had been chewed into a bloody mess, yet they still tightly protected his abdomen.

There was something there that he had brought back with his life.

"It looks like he's hiding something in his abdomen," Lu Yuan said softly.

Lu Yuan tried to move Iodophor's hands away, but they remained clasped tightly together. He could not pry them apart at all.

Lu Yuan crouched beside the body, wiping away tears over and over, crying too hard to speak.

This was the first time Kunlun had suffered casualties on such a scale. They had never encountered anything like it before.

Qing Chen walked over and said quietly, "Let me."

As he spoke, he bent down and lifted Iodophor's arm. The arm that had been clutched tightly around his abdomen loosened the instant Qing Chen touched it.

Qing Chen froze for a moment.

He knew Iodophor had already passed away, yet his body had still reacted like this.

The twelve Pluggable