The Natives of This World Are So Fierce Chapter 20: Scorching heat
Fortunately, river dredging wasn't a supermarket clearance sale. There weren't many onlookers, and they were quickly evacuated.
Officer Zhao was shouting into his radio.
"You heard me right! There's a monster in the river! We need SWAT, firefighters, and armed police support!"
They alone couldn't simply run away. Instead, they stayed beside buildings near the riverbank, using the walls as cover while watching the river.
One young police officer had the bright idea of climbing onto the roof of a nearby building.
"Raaagh!"
A strange, hoarse roar came from the center of the river, and a powerful stench spread from it with the rising gas.
Officer Zhao and the officers beside him felt their heads swim after just one breath.
Nausea and dizziness assaulted their brains.
They barely had time to think, It's poisonous, before they all collapsed.
Qin Xiaoxia had already run onto the roof of a nearby building.
The river hadn't been fully drained yet, but the Dread Marsh had already begun to rampage.
He couldn't worry about that now.
With water still in the river, he might not be able to burn the Dread Marsh to death, but he should at least be able to burn away the foul, poisonous gas pouring out of it.
At his command, the magic within his body surged into motion.
A faint purple glow was even dimly reflected in his eyes.
The wind rose.
Viewed from above, an invisible map of the wind would have shown breezes converging on the river from every direction.
Doudou stood four or five meters from Qin Xiaoxia, anxious and frantic, but afraid to approach.
The world in Qin Xiaoxia's eyes once again became a strange blend of ordinary sight and perceptual vision.
His entire body felt impossibly heavy. It took all his strength just to slowly raise his right hand.
He pointed at the Dread Marsh, which was spewing putrid gas into the river.
"Hedis, Kalon."
The magic on his arm flashed like spiraling threads of pale purple, then vanished.
An instant later, several threads of magic appeared half a meter above the Dread Marsh. They rotated into a triangular frame with a symbol resembling the character "山" at its center.
In less than half a second, the symbol turned from purple to red, generating blistering heat at the same instant.
The distant reflection in Qin Xiaoxia's eyes gradually turned red.
Perhaps several seconds passed, perhaps only an instant.
Golden-red light suddenly blazed.
Boom!
A deafening explosion erupted before anyone could brace themselves.
At that same instant.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! ...
Every window in the buildings along the river shattered.
The gas spewing from the Dread Marsh and the converging oxygen ignited, and the high pressure created by their opposing flows actually triggered an explosion.
The blast hurled all the river sludge into the sky. Moments later, a rain of black mud fell.
Shock waves swept both banks, sending every fallen leaf, piece of trash, and loose object flying.
But the explosion didn't extinguish the flames.
After the brief shock wave passed, the fire burned wildly, like a writhing pillar bristling with countless searing spikes.
Huge quantities of river water evaporated instantly beneath it, scorched by heat so intense that not even white steam could escape.
The flammable gas from the Dread Marsh, combined with the oxygen still flowing in, made for a spectacular sight.
In that brief span, the temperature across a vast stretch of Qing Town's riverside soared.
It was as though the blazing sun had descended and a heavenly furnace had overturned!
Pain threatened to tear Qin Xiaoxia apart, and he cursed inwardly in panic.
He couldn't stop!
It wasn't that he didn't want to. His already modest reserves of magic were pouring out at a terrifying rate, like a dam with an enormous hole blasted through it.
Even after the "dam" had run dry, the torrent showed no sign of slowing.
With his current mental strength and willpower, he couldn't hold it back at all.
His lips cracked, his complexion turned sallow, and his eyes dimmed.
Some of his hair began turning white from the roots.
Magic was a power jointly produced by the body and soul, intimately connected to life force.
Am I going to die...?
With that final thought.
Qin Xiaoxia collapsed, and the fluctuations of magic around him finally subsided.
Only when the violent magic calmed did Doudou, who had been stunned throughout, dare to run to Qin Xiaoxia's side.
"Big Cousin, Big Cousin, are you still alive? Don't die!"
Doudou reached out and touched him.
Qin Xiaoxia looked thoroughly dead, and no amount of shaking got a response. Now Doudou was truly panicking.
"You're the only person I know here! Without you, they'll catch me and cut me up!"
Fortunately, help finally arrived twenty minutes later.
More than a dozen fire engines and a procession of ambulances arrived from across Kehua District and even other parts of Yue City within half an hour of the incident.
Several SWAT and armed police units arrived as well.
Thanks to Doudou's desperate shouting, Qin Xiaoxia was among the first patients taken for treatment.
Forty minutes after the incident.
The chief of Yue City's Public Security Bureau and the commander of Yue City's SWAT unit stood together on the riverbank, which still radiated intense residual heat.
The Crooked Loach River had been burned completely dry, its bed scorched an ashen white.
Firefighters and cleaning company workers were urgently reinforcing the temporary river dam, afraid its precarious structure would collapse and let the upstream water cover the "crime scene" on the riverbed.
"What do you think, Tian?"
SWAT commander Tian Zhuang frowned as he studied the marks on the riverbed, then looked up at the sky, as though someone unseen were watching the place.
"Hard to say..."
This incident was no trivial matter, especially given the kind of call for help they had received from the officers on the scene before it happened.
"We'll have to wait until Zhao Ning and the others wake up. And how's treatment going for the civilians? Were the casualties severe?"
At the city bureau chief's question, Tian Zhuang shook his head with a bitter smile.
Kehua District Central Hospital.
The doctors and nurses were so busy they wished they had extra heads and arms.
As it was the nearest major hospital, almost all the seriously injured had been brought there immediately.
Patients were undergoing emergency treatment in every operating theater and emergency room.
Outside Emergency Room Two, Doudou sat with a drooping head, accompanied by Gou Junbao, who had slipped away from work.
"The patient's blood pressure is far too low, and his blood viscosity is too high. Arrange an emergency transfusion!"
"Check his blood type."
During the transfusion, the nurse beside them muttered inwardly.
It's as though his blood has been baked dry.
"The patient's heart has stopped."
"Prepare to shock. Charge to two hundred joules."
After more than half an hour of resuscitation, Qin Xiaoxia was finally wheeled out of the emergency room. The two waiting outside, one big and one small, immediately crowded around him.
"He's out, he's out! Doctor, how's my friend?"
"Doctor, is he okay?"
The lead doctor took off his mask and gave the family the customary reassurance.
"The patient's condition stabilized quickly after the transfusion. He can be transferred to the inpatient ward now..."
Before he could finish, a nurse hurried over, pushing another injured patient with a swollen abdomen.
"Make way, make way! Doctor, internal bleeding!"
"Quickly, prepare to drain the fluid and give a transfusion!"
Only on the third day did Qin Xiaoxia open his eyes, utterly drained.
Beside him were Doudou, who had stayed with him the entire time, and Huang Jiutian, who had rushed over from the neighboring city.
Gou Junbao wouldn't be coming until the next day.
The other two patients in his ward had also been injured in the incident. One had a broken bone, while the other was under observation after inhaling harmful gas.