Heavy snow blocked the road north and cast a grey pall over the journey.
Over two meters of accumulation, a low overcast sky, the ground completely featureless — step outside the ruins of Laian County and you’d lose direction immediately.
“How many C1 doses do you have left?” Shen Cong didn’t like raising his voice. He stayed in the vehicle and used the walkie-talkie.
One of the death-eaters answered: “Three doses.”
“We’re not moving today. Could be several days. Watch yourselves.”
“Understood, Colonel Chen.”
Being snowbound wasn’t a significant problem for Shen Cong. He had no hard deadline for reaching Huai’an. So he didn’t shovel, didn’t push out, and simply stayed inside.
In fact, this snowstorm was exactly what he needed.
Great Vajra had taken serious Activity drain from the Fireworks and centipede bomb attacks. With the Golden Jiao Totem running continuously in the Activity-rich snowfall, the recovery rate was climbing fast. By evening, Great Vajra would be back at 3H. And when that happened, tonight was the night to test the Siphon upgrade method.
He’d been anticipating this for a long time. His own Activity Value was close to 2.4H — the Lv1 era was within reach, and he was impatient to get there.
Crack.
Another ant pupa split open in the burrow. With Blackhead in attendance, Black Two emerged.
The Vajra Ant Squad was taking shape.
“They should get some exercise.”
He’d been cooped up for too long. Snow days didn’t come with obligations. He decided to take the ants for a walk.
He modified the Half-Activated Armor — adjusting the foot extensions into a pair of runners, improvised snow skis. Then he produced two lengths of rope, tied them to the body nodes of Black One and Black Two.
He climbed to the roof and released all three ants — Blackhead too — into the open air.
Contact with snow alarmed them immediately. The cold was deeply uncomfortable. Ants normally cease activity below ten degrees Celsius, retreating into the nest to conserve energy through the winter.
But Vajra Ants were mutated. Their cold tolerance had improved beyond the baseline. After a brief moment of hesitation, they overcame the discomfort and began moving across the snow surface.
Shen Cong gripped the reins on Black One and Black Two and settled into position on the improvised skis.
Slowly, they pulled him forward.
The Vajra Ants weren’t fast in the snow, especially towing his weight, but they found their rhythm. The sled moved. They slid across the snowfield in the falling flakes, Blackhead running enthusiastically alongside. The distance from Great Vajra grew — a dot, then barely visible — before he turned them around and came back.
It felt like something from a childhood he remembered more fondly than it had actually been.
Pass after pass, the snow surface filled with tangled trails.
In the military jeep, Zhao Zilong and the others were playing cards.
Snow had nearly buried the jeep — they could barely see their surroundings from inside and had to periodically climb to the roof to check the perimeter.
One of the death-eaters hauled himself up for a sweep and stopped.
“Colonel Chen is sledding.” A long pause. “He has two giant ants as pets pulling a sled. Wait — three giant ants.”
The Eastern Theater Command had apparently been trying to tame evolved beasts as companions for some time, even fielding a dedicated unit for it. They hadn’t developed a classification system for evolved beasts — the Command’s strictly militarized structure meant everything was handled through tactical planning rather than standardized tiers. Shen Cong still preferred his own grading system, and had recently added a new category above Super-Heavyweight:
Nuclear-Weight — creatures that required nuclear weapons to eliminate. Xuanwu and the Great Earth Dragon were the known examples.
Old Wei and Zhao Zilong climbed up to see.
“The colonel really knows how to enjoy himself.” Old Wei watched the distant figure on the snow. “Though I can’t share his peace of mind right now. I don’t know how long this snow keeps falling or when it’ll melt. We could be stuck here a long time.”
Zhao Zilong was quieter. “We have three C1 doses. I hope it’s enough to reach Huai’an.”
The one who’d been on watch said: “Three is fine. Dahu and I are both tired of needing injections just to stay alive. If we don’t have enough — we stop taking them. Leave the doses for you, Zilong. Go out doing something that means something. Better that than dragging it out.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Zhao Zilong said.
The one called Xiao Bei laughed. “Zilong, someone wise once said — living well is itself something meaningful. For us, maybe the meaningful thing is one act of righteous sacrifice. When it comes to that, maybe the King of Hell takes pity on us. Dahu gets reborn as a woman, I get reborn as a man, and the two of us finally get to be proper best friends instead of this.”
Dahu immediately objected: “With my masculinity? I come back male every time, however many lives it takes.”
Old Wei grinned. “You two stop arguing. Both of you reborn as women, eighteen years later I’ll find you and make you both my concubines.”
Dahu: “Old Wei, you really think you’re surviving eighteen more years? More likely you’ll be reborn inside Xiao Bei’s belly, and I’ll have to fight you for custody.”
Xiao Bei: “Roll it back. I’m getting you pregnant first.”
Zhao Zilong watched this exchange for a moment, then jumped off the roof. “You three are radiating so much fraternal energy I’m getting goosebumps.”
After the sledding, Shen Cong came back inside.
The day settled into its usual rhythm — study, some games, practical work. He used the captured sharkskin to patch over the destroyed photovoltaic panels, protecting the gaps while also replacing the rubber tire skirts with sharkskin — more Activity-resistant under weapons fire. Whatever materials he had, he put them toward improving Great Vajra’s defenses.
He also worked on the Tyrant Broadsword. Using the captured core weapons as reference, he began carving a blood groove into the blade — a practice from the rat-catcher weapons he’d examined, the hollow-ground channels that increased bleeding and tissue damage on penetrating wounds.
By evening, he was watching Great Vajra’s Activity Value tick upward, increment by increment, toward 3H. Only 0.012H remaining.
Half an hour of absorption. He watched it.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Thirty minutes.
In the falling snow, as darkness came fully down, Great Vajra reached 3.012H — the Talent ceiling. Level entered: Lv1.
He had already switched to the Bull Demon King Totem as a precaution. Lower field-force storm intensity. Safer margins.
He gathered his full attention, established contact with Blackhead, and gave it clear instructions: if he went down and didn’t get up, destroy the Bull Demon King Totem immediately. Stop the field-force storm. Stop the Siphon.
“Hah.”
One slow breath. He focused completely and began observing what happened when Great Vajra crossed the Lv1 threshold — how the Activity Value changed.
What he felt was something genuinely new. The liquid-state Activity in Great Vajra was beginning to convert — solidifying, anchoring into the metallic framework. Like the frame itself becoming an Activity core. The transition was visible in his perception, granular and clear.
He watched every small detail. This was both a test of the upgrade method and a research opportunity. He wasn’t going to miss any of it.
Nineteen-bull strength. Come on.
Then, in the moment when Great Vajra’s liquid Activity began converting to solid, it happened.
A backlash. Activity pushed back through the Exchange channel — a mass of it, pouring into his body all at once.
BOOM.
He felt like he’d swallowed a firecracker and it had gone off in his stomach. An enormous force detonated through his internal organs, his limbs, his whole body simultaneously.
CRACK.
He didn’t need Blackhead. His own hand smashed the Bull Demon King Totem in the same instant — stopping the field-force storm, cutting the Siphon.
He sat with it. Waited.
He hadn’t lost consciousness.
Internal organs registering some pain — not severe, not lasting. Activity-assisted recovery running immediately. Within moments, the ache was fading.
He checked his Activity Value. From 2.398H — to 2.411H.
An increase of 0.013H. In one moment. What Great Vajra would have taken half an hour to absorb under the totem, the Siphon had transferred to him instantaneously.
The Siphon upgrade method worked.
(End of Chapter 239)