novelhk Chapter 137 The Power of Heaven and Earth and Life-or-Death Rescue
Chapter 137 The Power of Heaven and Earth and Life-or-Death Rescue
Chapter 137: The Power of Heaven and Earth and a Life-or-Death Rescue
In the instant the earthquake struck, the world seemed to lose all its rules.
The ground was no longer a solid support, but had become a raging wave, tossed up and down, torn apart side to side. The enormous roar came not only from underground, but also from all around—trees snapped with a teeth-grinding sound, boulders rolled down the hillside, crashing to the ground with dull thuds. Screams, cries, the sound of tents being torn apart, the sound of tableware shattering... all the sounds mingled together, forming a terrifying symphony of the apocalypse.
Lin Yan remained as steady as a rock amidst the shaking; his Foundation Establishment stage cultivation allowed him to maintain his balance even with such intense ground tremors. However, his heart sank. The intensity of this earthquake far exceeded his expectations! His divine sense clearly "saw" that within the massive mountain behind the camp, the rock strata were fracturing and sliding rapidly over a large area!
"Quick! Run this way! Get to the middle of the open space!" Lin Yan's voice rang out again. Although the surroundings were chaotic, his voice was strangely clear, carrying a calming power that accurately reached the ears of every panicked person. As he shouted, he moved like a ghost across the violently shaking camp.
A child, terrified, collapsed to the ground, crying and screaming, next to a tent pole about to topple. Lin Yan flashed past the child, scooped him up, and shoved him into the arms of a bewildered man nearby: "Hold him tight, get to the open space in the middle!"
An elderly couple's tent was tangled in the twisted frame, and they couldn't get out. Lin Yan's fingers were as sharp as knives, and with a slight release of his true energy, he easily sliced open the canvas, helped the two elderly people out, and guided them to a safe area.
"Xiao Qi!" Lin Yan shouted, "Go wait at the edge of that high ground over there!" He pointed to a relatively flat high ground with exposed bedrock on the far left side of the canyon. It was an area he considered relatively safe and unlikely to experience a secondary landslide, based on his instantaneous assessment of the geological structure using his divine sense.
Although Xiaoqi was also startled by the dramatic change in the world, it unconditionally obeyed Lin Yan's orders. It transformed into a white shadow, nimbly avoiding the cracks in the ground and the rolling pebbles, and quickly scrambled up the high ground. Then it nervously looked back at the camp.
In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Lin Yan used his agility to pull terrified campers from collapsed tents and under trees, moving them to safety in the nick of time. Lin Yan continued rescuing people amidst the chaos. He was incredibly fast and possessed superhuman strength, pulling, tugging, or lifting, carrying those who were stunned, trapped, or running blindly away from danger zones, gathering them on the higher ground where Xiao Qi was. In just three or four minutes, he had rescued more than a dozen people.
"Stay here! Don't run around! Stay close to the ground!" Lin Yan shouted to the gathered, still-shaken crowd. His tone was authoritative and unquestionable. Some people wanted to follow him to help with the rescue, but he sternly stopped them: "Stay put! Protect yourselves and those around you! Running around will only cause trouble! Xiao Qi, come with me!" Xiao Qi followed behind Lin Yan, preparing to set off along the left ridge.
Just as he finished speaking—
An even more terrifying roar, as if the sky were collapsing and the earth were sinking, came from the mountainside on the right side of the canyon behind the camp! It wasn't the muffled sound of an earthquake, but the deafening roar of the mountain itself tearing apart and collapsing!
Lin Yan turned around abruptly, and even with his composure, he couldn't help but gasp!
Behind them, the entire hillside appeared to have been ripped open by an invisible giant hand. Billions of cubic meters of rock, soil, and trees mingled into a destructive torrent, cascading down towards the campsite below with overwhelming force! Its speed was like a gigantic, deadly waterfall! Under the night sky, only a vast, moving dark shadow could be seen, pressing down with an all-consuming momentum!
Nature's wrath was on full display at this moment! Faced with this destructive power, the strength of an individual seemed so insignificant! Lin Yan could even feel the overwhelming aura of death, an intuitive warning that even a Foundation Establishment cultivator would have no chance of survival if he were caught in it!
For the first time, he truly felt the meaning of "the power of heaven and earth"! It was a cold and absolute force of law that transcended individual struggles and human power! A chill, mixed with lingering fear, instantly swept down his spine. If he hadn't reacted quickly and gathered everyone in this relatively high open area beforehand, the entire campsite would probably have been completely buried by now, and no one would have survived!
"Boom—!!!"
The main body of the landslide, accompanied by a deafening roar, grazed the edge of the camp and plunged into the Madison River below. The immense impact generated a shockwave that swept across the area like a hurricane, instantly tearing apart and blowing away several empty tents at the edge of the clearing. Everyone was so terrified by the sight that they lay prostrate on the ground, trembling with fear.
However, the disaster was not over!
The massive amount of debris crashing into the river triggered a catastrophic chain reaction. First, the landslide acted like a giant dam, instantly cutting the Madison River in half! With the river blocked, water levels on both sides rose and overflowed at a visible rate!
Secondly, the moment the landslide body fell into the river channel, it squeezed the river water to form a terrifying giant wave tens of meters high, mixed with mud, sand and wood debris, which, like a tsunami, violently rushed upstream (towards the campsite) and downstream along the river channel!
"Water! The flood is coming!" Someone downstream screamed desperately, pointing towards the river.
A murky wall of water, several meters high, carrying broken trees and rocks, roared like thunder as it swept towards the ruins of the camp by the river and the clearing where Lin Yan and his group had stood before climbing the high ground! This would be the deadly third wave of attack, following the earthquake and the landslide!
"Everyone, hold on to something stable! Heads down!" Lin Yan shouted again. At the same time, Lin Yan directed Xiao Qi to keep up with his speed along the ridge, first having it find a relatively flat area on the left slope to clear away the rubble and broken wood that had rolled down from the earthquake. Then, he rapidly circulated his true energy, maximizing his Wind Control Technique, and his body moved like lightning, actively rushing towards the direction of the surging wave! He couldn't just stand by and watch the giant wave sweep the campers downstream into the river!
In the instant he rushed towards the riverbank, his divine sense, like the most sophisticated radar, expanded at full power, instantly sweeping across the turbulent and murky water! Within a radius of fifty miles, no sign of life could escape detection!
Eleven people! Eleven people are struggling in the flood, either swept underwater or clinging to floating logs. The situation is extremely critical!
Without the slightest hesitation, a pale blue aura of water-attribute spiritual energy appeared around Lin Yan, as if he had merged with the river. With a "plop," he plunged into the cold, turbid, muddy, and debris-filled raging waves!
The water was pitch black, with visibility almost zero, and a powerful undercurrent pulled everything apart. But Lin Yan's divine sense was his eyes. He was like the most agile fish, or rather, like an underwater lightning bolt, ignoring the resistance of the current, rushing toward the nearest sign of life.
A young man, swept to the bottom of the river and wedged between two rocks, had already choked on water and lost consciousness. Lin Yan grabbed his collar, released a small amount of true energy, shook the rocks apart, and pulled him to the surface. He then used a gentle force to toss him towards the high ground bank where Xiao Qi was, while simultaneously transmitting a message to Xiao Qi: "Catch!"
Xiao Qi nervously watched the water from the high ground. When she saw a figure flying towards her, she immediately darted over and skillfully used her body to cushion the impact, allowing the person to land smoothly.
Without pausing, Lin Yan dived back into the water. His next target was a middle-aged woman clinging to a piece of driftwood, about to be capsized by a wave. Lin Yan pulled her up from underwater and pushed her and the driftwood toward the shore.
The third was a child, swept to the middle of the river, bobbing up and down. Lin Yan braved the waves and pulled him out just as he was about to sink…
The rescue was extremely tense. Lin Yan not only had to contend with the raging river, but also avoid tumbling logs, rocks, and even the carcasses of drowned animals. He pushed his speed, strength, and spiritual perception to their limits. Every dive, lift, and push was precise and efficient. Sometimes he needed to use his true energy to shatter obstacles in his path, and sometimes he needed to create small whirlpools to separate the drowning person from the main current.
Those few minutes felt like centuries to the anxious survivors on the shore. They only saw the figure of the Eastern boy appear and disappear in the terrifying torrents, each time he appeared, carrying one drowning person back to shallower waters near the shore, or simply tossing them onto higher ground. He was like a death-defying warrior dancing in the water, snatching lives from the clutches of the River Styx.
When Lin Yan rescued the last fisherman, who had been swept the furthest away, from a flooded tree branch and brought him back to shore, he stood in knee-deep water, slightly out of breath. Looking back, he saw that the campsite was completely unrecognizable, utterly destroyed by the mudslide and flood. The river was blocked, forming a continuously expanding barrier lake, and the water level was still slowly rising.
He counted the number of people. Including the eleven he later rescued from the water and the seventeen who had initially gathered in the open area, there were a total of twenty-eight people. They were all transferred to the bedrock high ground that Xiao Qi had previously been guarding. Although they were all in a sorry state and still in shock, some with minor injuries, at least they had all survived.
The high ground was temporarily safe, far from the landslide and the rising river. The survivors supported each other, looking down at their homes, now a vast expanse of water, their faces filled with fear, sorrow, and... boundless gratitude for the soaking wet boy standing by the water's edge.
Lin Yan climbed to higher ground, looked at the survivors, then at the still slightly trembling earth and the sporadic sounds of landslides echoing from the darkness in the distance, and let out a long breath. Faced with this natural disaster, he felt a profound sense of powerlessness for the first time, and at the same time, an unprecedented awe for nature arose within him. Individual strength, in the face of the true power of heaven and earth, is ultimately limited.
"It's alright now," he said to the group, his voice a little hoarse but carrying a strange, reassuring power. "We're safe for now. Everyone check each other's injuries, huddle together, and conserve your strength. Dawn is approaching."
A faint glimmer of dawn was already appearing on the eastern horizon.