Setting aside the radio intercept, Shen Cong returned to work. On November 26th, he began excavating the central barrier lake.

It was large. The color of the water suggested considerable depth. Draining it completely would take serious effort.

The banks were lined with tall trees, their bark hard and dense as metal. Out in the shallows grew a plant resembling alligator weed — clusters of small white flowers, though most had already finished blooming, and he could find no seeds. No Activity fruit either. The alligator weed ringed the entire lake in a continuous green band.

He walked the perimeter once, chose his breach point, and began calculating. The drainage channel would need to run over a hundred meters. Even for a human excavator of his caliber, that was a full day's work.

He didn't complain. He confirmed the surrounding area was clear, hefted the Condor Spade, and started digging.

He worked the entire day and fell just short of finishing.

He rested overnight and went back at it the next morning.

By ten o'clock, the channel had reached the lake bed. Cracks were already seeping water. He widened the breach, gathered every last detonator and explosive remaining in his stores, and set them all at once.

BOOM.

The blast didn't just breach the bank — it shook the entire hillside. Sections of slope gave way in small landslides across the mountain.

Then the water came.

A massive surge poured through the channel, roaring down toward the fifth barrier lake. The sound of it filled the valley — a rushing, crashing wall of water.

And in that same moment, Shen Cong felt it.

Danger.

The lake surface churned. Something exploded out of the moving water.

A creature. At least twenty meters long, seven or eight meters wide. Flat-bodied, grass-green. Four legs beneath the body. Two enormous compound eyes in the head. And there, flanking the mouthparts — a pair of massive forelimbs shaped like sickles, gleaming with a dark-silver luster.

Activity cores. Unmistakably.

The creature's initial leap hadn't been aimed directly at him. But the moment its eyes found Shen…