Time: February 5, 10:00 a.m. Location: Zhaowu Village, Xijian Subdistrict, Langya District, Chuzhou City, Anhui Province — a vast karst cavern, 51 meters underground. Personnel: 126 men of the 1st Core-Armament Infantry Battalion, 12th Group Army; 13 researchers from the Jianhu County Laboratory; ratmen of all sizes, numbers unknown. Origin of the incident: In the wake of the great ratman sweep, tunneling operations uncovered an enormous passage more than fifteen meters in diameter. The troops pushed forward in stages and finally broke through, discovering that the passage terminated in a huge karst cavern. Course of events: The cavern ran in every direction, and a fungus resembling wood-ear grew throughout it — with clear signs of cultivation. Countless ratmen resisted inside the cavern, along with a massive rat-beast nearly twenty meters long, ridden by a Rat Knight clad in garish, multicolored hide garments — suspected to be a Rat King. After a fierce fight, the cavern's ratmen were routed and the giant rat-beast the Rat King rode was killed. Outcome: The cavern collapsed. The Rat King led the surviving swarm in a retreat, and pursuit down the tunnel network traced the exit to the surface in Quanjiao County — but by then the swarm's whereabouts had gone unknown. Command forces cleaned up the cavern and brought back the wood-ear-like fungus: an edible, high-yield species, which the laboratory named Rat Wood-Ear.

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Time: February 5, 11:00 a.m. Location: The Phase-3 wharf of Dafeng Port, Dafeng District, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, and the surrounding silty tidal flats. Personnel: The Dafeng District camp garrison; members of the coastal patrol group. Origin of the incident: The coastal patrol group, on routine patrol, noticed strange shoals of fish gathering in the shallows near the shore, followed by huge sea-beasts resembling horseshoe crabs massing on the yellow-mud flats. Course of events: The horseshoe-crab-like beasts, bodies roughly a meter square, gathered on the yellow-mud flats and gave off strange cries. The patrol members assumed they were there to mate and notified the Dafeng District camp, which arranged for companies and independents to come hunt them. But the horseshoe-crab…