Chapter 1367: Bombing

So, this is what being alive feels like.

Chen Ling hadn't experienced the sensation of food in such a long time. This immediate sense of reality made him realize that he truly had been human once. His eyes gleamed with excitement as he sat amidst a pile of snacks, greedily tearing open every nearby packet and pouring them into his mouth.

Apparently, this wasn't enough to satisfy him. He opened his mouth like a shark, the corners stretching almost to his ears, and devoured an entire shelf of pickled chicken feet in a single bite!

Just as Chen Ling was reveling in the pleasure of the food, a scream echoed from outside the door:

“Mon...monster!!!”

Chen Ling paused slightly, turning his head to look outside. He saw a blood-soaked survivor, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere, staring at him in terror from the supermarket entrance and letting out a piercing shriek.

Chen Ling instinctively touched his face, a feeling of helplessness rising within him.

After living in the Ghost Mocking Abyss for so long, he had almost forgotten that he still had the frightening appearance of a disaster.

Chen Ling was about to speak, but the person ran away frantically, as if fearing that a moment's delay would result in being devoured alive by Chen Ling.

After a moment's hesitation, Chen Ling decided to ignore him and continued to feast in the supermarket.

He couldn't possibly miss this rare opportunity to eat human food. As for everything else, it would all have to wait!

Under Chen Ling's voracious chewing, most of the snacks in the entire supermarket were consumed. Just as he was wondering if there was hot water for instant noodles, a flurry of footsteps sounded from outside.

“Are you sure there’s really a monster here?”

“No mistake, I saw it with my own eyes. It was a dark, hunched mass, squatting in the supermarket and eating snacks!”

“Eating snacks?!”

“We received intelligence that during the nuclear strike, mysterious monsters did appear in several cities, and nearly no survivors were left in cities where they emerged... If a monster truly appeared here, then...”

“First, signal the nearby patrol aircraft to focus on this location!”

Several armed military figures appeared at the supermarket entrance and immediately saw Chen Ling squatting on the ground, opening instant noodles. The moment they got a clear look at his face, everyone was jolted!

In fact, when they heard the young man’s description earlier, they had assumed it was someone secretly eating in the supermarket. But when they saw the scene with their own eyes, they realized that whatever this thing was, it was definitely not human.

What human's face would constantly peel like old paint? And that dark, grotesque countenance, and eyes radiating a crimson glow...

“Open fire!”

The well-trained captain ordered without hesitation.

The next second, the guns in their hands instantly transformed into several bright yellow bananas.

As everyone stood dumbfounded, Chen Ling, focused on heating water with a portable stove, waved a hand without turning around:

“Don’t bother me.”

A red paper tentacle shot from his sleeve, hurtling towards their faces with astonishing speed. It swept them all with a single blow against the wall across the street, and two or three of them, with poorer physical condition, instantly fell unconscious.

Simultaneously, chaotic shouts began to spread outwards from the street.

Chen Ling paid no attention to the situation outside. His eyes seemed to only focus on the instant noodles, already prepared with all the seasoning packets. Even without hot water, the aroma from the powder was enough to make him constantly swallow.

Items from the Era Archive couldn't be brought to the outside world. After this meal, he wouldn't know when he'd get to taste something this delicious again...

Chen Ling carefully added hot water to the instant noodles, then used a nearby broken brick to hold it down, timing his wait precisely.

One minute, two minutes...

Finding the wait too boring, he casually waved his hand outwards again. The military radio on one of the unconscious figures was immediately reeled back by the red paper tentacle.

As Chen Ling's eyes narrowed slightly, the radio, after a burst of static, began to broadcast within the supermarket.

“...Huaiying is approaching the target.”

“Squadron 113 received instructions: confirm if remaining flight range is sufficient to complete the Tongzhou City patrol mission.”

“Range is sufficient, Eagle One. What happened in Tongzhou?”

“Specifics are unclear, but after the second wave of nuclear strikes, an aurora appeared... over Tongzhou.”

“An aurora? How can there be an aurora in that place?!”

“The cause is currently unknown, and we need to investigate. We can't rule out the possibility of monsters appearing.”

“...Will monsters truly appear? What do they look like? Are they like the creatures from TV?”

“Monsters are real, and their appearance locations are completely unpredictable... That’s the most terrifying part. We know too little about them right now.”

“What’s there to be afraid of? If we really encounter one, we’ll just feed it eighteen missiles first!”

“Huaiying has arrived near the target area.”

An aurora?

At the mention of those words, Chen Ling’s gaze sharpened.

He barely listened to the rest of the conversation. The image of Yang Xiao flashed in his mind, and a sense of foreboding rose within him.

Tongzhou was a place where a natural aurora was absolutely impossible. If that were the case, then this aurora could only mean one thing...

Had something happened to Yang Xiao?

No, if something had happened to Yang Xiao, an aurora shouldn't appear at all. Moreover, with Yang Xiao's current strength, it would be far from enough to create an aurora covering all of Tongzhou.

To be safe, he should go there and check. But before that...

As a burst of aroma filled Chen Ling's nostrils, his gaze immediately fixed on the perfectly steeped instant noodles. He licked his lips, twirled a large mouthful of noodles onto his fork, and stuffed it into his mouth.

At the same time, a missile trailing fire descended from the sky.

Boom—!!!!

Under the missile's impact, the supermarket became a raging inferno. Countless shelves and steel fragments spewed from the collapsing building, and consumed by fierce flames, the entire structure crashed down.

A fighter jet screamed past overhead.

“Target bombing complete, Huaiying requests to return to base,” the pilot calmly stated, glancing at the supermarket below, now reduced to ruins.

“Is the monster dealt with?”

“Didn’t see anything... there’s nothing inside.”

“Nothing? But there was a monster sighting report just now, wasn’t there?”

“But didn't the intelligence say monsters appear in groups? Could the ground forces have made a mistake?”

Thump—

Before the pilot could finish speaking, he felt a jolt in the cockpit.

He looked up in a daze to see a figure holding instant noodles, sitting eerily atop the glass cockpit, a pair of scarlet eyes calmly observing him.