People delivered to camp, convoy refueled and serviced, then out again to Bagong Mountain to collect the second group with Ding Yucai.

There had been a complication. A hundred-plus people had declined to go. Most of them were former Big-Fly Brother supporters who feared arriving in Hefei and facing consequences for what they’d been part of.

“The road is each person’s choice. I hope they’ve chosen correctly.” Ding Yucai was a temperate man by nature. He left supplies for those staying behind.

“That’s not quite right, City Lord — if they chose correctly, doesn’t that mean we chose wrong?” one of his mutants said.

“Then wish them an early death and a better next life,” another replied. “Turns out Big-Fly had a whole other side nobody saw. We were blind.”

“You know faces, not hearts. Let’s hope the Provincial Garrison leadership is better than what we knew.”

“Worry about what? If they’re bad, we push back. The Pacific Ocean hasn’t been capped off. Jinggangshan’s still standing. We can go anywhere we want.”

Ding Yucai put an end to it. “Enough. When we get to Hefei, follow the rules. Military organization isn’t Coal City — they won’t be indulging anyone. You all saw Colonel Hu. That kind of person — we don’t pick fights with him, not yet. Stay quiet and see how things develop.”

People’s thinking was endlessly varied.

Shen Cong understood this well, which was precisely why he avoided getting entangled in crowd dynamics. He sat in Great Vajra’s cab and waited for the convoy to organize itself. The priority cargo had already been sent back to Hefei; there was nothing left that needed to go in his hold.

On the return run, Great Vajra maintained its usual position — trailing the convoy at a comfortable distance.

When the convoy reached Tushan Township, the junction where the Bengbu-Hefei Expressway crossed the Hefei-Huai Road — within reasonable distance of the Mingfa Camp — Shen Cong radioed Liu Qihang.

“You’re almost home. Take them in. I have something else to do.”

He swung Great Vajra off the expressway and onto the Hefei-Liuye Expressway heading west.

It was only 4:30 in the afternoon. Still light. He’d had his eye on Xinqiao Airport for a while.

Xinqiao Airport was Hefei’s international airport, built in the Gaoliu Township of the Economic Development Zone, twenty to thirty kilometers outside the city. As airports went, it would have significant fuel reserves and equipment stockpiles. It had aircraft. Aircraft left wreckage. Wreckage had engines.

The Provincial Garrison had been eyeing it for some time. So had Shen Cong.

Aviation fuel and aircraft engines would solve Great Vajra’s power problem definitively. The engines wouldn’t need to run continuously — even limited activation at critical moments would transform what the vehicle could do.

The obstacle was the airport’s current occupants: the Pox Fly swarm, one of the seven known Heavyweight evolved beasts. The Pox Fly was probably a blowfly variant — kitten-sized individually, inheriting the fly’s fundamental biology including continuous defecation while feeding. Their mouthparts consumed metal and non-metal materials alike. In flight they were highly maneuverable, difficult to hit with firearms. In sufficient numbers they constituted a Heavyweight-tier threat.

Longgang Township came into view and the airport was visible in the distance.

Standard procedure: launch the drone.

The feed showed the airport ruins surrounded by extensive woodland. Individual Pox Flies moved in and out of the tree cover — solitary specimens were only Flyweight-tier, genuinely weak. Then Shen Cong got to see what they looked like as a collective.

A large evolved bird crossed above the woodland, apparently looking to feed on Pox Flies.

The moment it landed, the entire woodland erupted upward. Tens of thousands of Pox Flies filled the air and converged on the bird.

One minute later, they dispersed.

No bird. Several scattered deposits of fly waste where the bird had been.

Difficult. Very difficult to deal with.

Individual evolved beasts were manageable — traps, tactics, exploiting behavioral patterns. Flying swarms were a different category of problem. The colony could be anywhere in the woodland at any given moment, they responded to intrusion as a unified mass, and there was no single point of vulnerability to target.

They must have foraging patterns, though. They can’t sustain a static presence here around the clock. Observe more before committing to anything.

He recorded the footage and withdrew.

Both the Swiftclaw Leopard and the Pox Fly swarm were targets he intended to address eventually. Neither was approachable today.

He’d barely returned to the Mingfa Camp when Commander Zhao Weiliang found him.

“Colonel Hu — we have a problem. The tunnel construction team was working through the buried Qianshan Road Station on the Number 2 subway line when they uncovered a section of light rail cab. Then something attacked them — an evolved mole-type creature. Several evolved people were killed. Work has stopped.”

The Research Institute had designated it the Tentacle Monster — tentacle-like protrusions ringed its nose, suggesting origin from the star-nosed mole. Two meters tall, five meters long, equipped with the tentacles and two massive forelimbs, it could excavate tunnels underground at extreme speed and emerge without warning to attack work crews. The tentacles, breaking through soil with sudden force, could wrap around an evolved person and tear them apart.

Classification: near-Heavyweight.

“If we can’t eliminate it, we can’t guarantee the tunnel crew’s safety. They won’t go back in.”

Shen Cong frowned. “I need footage.”

The imagery was limited — the underground conditions were dark and the creature moved fast. A few helmet camera recordings from crew members had captured it: the tentacles around fifty centimeters in length, the forelimb claws showing a clear dark silver sheen that marked them as the Activity core.

From the body proportions and visible features, the Tentacle Monster wasn’t a high-Talent creature. Its combat effectiveness came from mobility and ambush — underground speed and the ability to attack without warning. In direct surface confrontation, it might register as Lightweight at best. Put the downgraded Spike King in an underground tunnel against it and the Tentacle Monster would probably dominate purely through terrain advantage. But above ground, where its advantages disappeared — different story.

The Half-Activated Armor should absorb its tentacle strikes without issue. Then close the distance and it’s finished.

“Any additional behavioral data?”

A Research Institute researcher answered: “We believe it’s living in Dongpu Reservoir. The star-nosed mole is semi-aquatic — it’s consistent with the type. Several times when it appeared, there were water traces on the ground around the entry point. We’re also developing a vibration sensor that can track underground movement direction. The seismic signature from its digging is detectable.”

“Get me the sensor when it’s ready. I’ll move then.”

A creature that ambushed from below — in an environment where he had no downward visibility — was something to approach carefully. Once the vibration tracking tool existed, the Tentacle Monster’s primary advantage vanished. Until then, there was no reason to fight on its terms.

If it kept evolving unchecked and eventually decided to come up through the ground at his vehicle, that would be a different kind of problem.

(End of Chapter 184)