Chapter 207 - 128: Summer

Chapter 207: Chapter 128: Summer

One minute, two minutes... ten minutes, twenty minutes...

Xu Mo stood by the window, his vital energy flowing calmly as he pushed his senses to their limit, capturing every subtle change outside. The first wave of the impact predicted for Jiang City, a flesh-and-blood storm that was supposed to crash against the city’s air defense network like a black tide, had yet to arrive.

The streets remained deathly silent, but the sky’s grayish-yellow hue seemed to have deepened, likely from the smoke and dust of distant fires continuing to drift over.

The thunderous beat and shrill cries of wings reached a heart-pounding peak, but instead of diving down as expected, the sounds became chaotic and scattered, eventually fading into sporadic, disjointed noises.

Thirty minutes, forty minutes... An hour passed.

The scene Xu Mo had anticipated—of birds frantically crashing into buildings, air defenses firing at full blast, a cacophony of screams and explosions—never materialized.

The streets remained deserted, but the utterly suffocating pressure, that feeling of a storm about to break, had inexplicably begun to ease.

Xu Mo was confused. This was highly unusual. Based on the radio broadcasts and common sense, with their nest destroyed and so many of their kind killed, there was no reason for the surviving birds to be so calm. But they were.

Another hour passed. The gray-yellow haze in the sky began to slowly dissipate. Faint human voices started to drift up from the streets, the conversations tinged with bewilderment.

"They didn’t come?"

"Looks like they flew away?"

"What’s going on? Are they not going to attack?"

Xu Mo pushed open his door, stepped into the courtyard, and looked up. Apart from the drifting dust, the only things in the sky were a few ordinary birds flying past in a panic, clearly disoriented. There was no organized attack group to be seen.

Opening his gate and walking to the mouth of the alley, Xu Mo saw that a few bolder neighbors were already cautiously poking their heads out. Like him, they were staring up at the sky, their faces holding not the ecstatic joy of survivors, but only profound confusion and uncertainty.

"Old Zhang, did you get a good look? Was that a flock of birds that just passed over? Why didn’t they come down?"

"I don’t know! I just heard a WHOOSHING sound as they flew right overhead. They were moving fast!"

"Weren’t they supposed to be retaliating? It’s over just like that?"

The murmurs of discussion gradually grew, but no one dared to relax completely. They all remained pressed against their doorways and walls, peering around warily.

Just then, the voice from the radio inside his house became clear again, capturing everyone’s attention. Xu Mo quickly returned inside.

The announcer’s voice was still steady, but if one listened closely, a trace of relief and an equally obvious note of surprise could be heard:

"Emergency update. Based on continuous monitoring from forward observation posts, radar, and drones, we can now confirm: the large-scale flock of mutated birds that broke off from the direction of the Red Star Industrial Zone and moved toward Jiang City did not launch an organized, large-scale attack against our shelter."

"Observations indicate that upon approaching our outer air-defense perimeter, the flock showed signs of large-scale confusion and dispersal. The vast majority of the birds chose to bypass Jiang City’s airspace, scattering toward the more distant wilderness and mountain forests. Only a few scattered individuals or very small clusters made a brief approach, all of which changed course or departed on their own after warning shots were fired by our air defenses."

"According to preliminary expert analysis, the primary cause of this situation is most likely that the ’Ruined Burnt Nest’ operation successfully killed or critically injured the ’Boss Level’ mutated individual that served a core command function within the flock."

"Such individuals often act as leaders, information hubs, or behavioral guides within exceptionally large groups of mutated creatures. Its death or loss of command capability caused the entire flock’s capacity for collective action to collapse, throwing them into a state of chaos like a headless chicken. The collective will for revenge or attack failed to coalesce, resulting in their dispersal rather than an organized assault."

"I repeat, the immediate threat of a large-scale, coordinated attack has been temporarily neutralized. However, the threat from individual mutated birds scattered throughout the wilderness remains. We cannot rule out the possibility of a new, dominant individual reorganizing remnants of the flock in the future. All residents are urged to remain vigilant, adhere to safety protocols, and minimize non-essential activity in the wilderness. Patrols in all sectors will maintain their current alert status..."

The broadcast continued with further precautions and reassuring messages, but the faint sound of irrepressible cheers was already drifting up from the alley.

"We won..."

"They killed the boss, haha!"

"The fight is off! We’re safe now!"

The cheers spread rapidly. People poured out of their houses, hugging and high-fiving each other in excitement, their faces finally breaking into genuine smiles. The streets were instantly full of life again. Though the sky was still somewhat hazy, even the sunlight seemed to have grown a little brighter.

Soon, patrolling soldiers and security officers appeared again. This time, their task was to maintain order. They chided the overly excited people—some of whom even wanted to set off firecrackers in celebration—telling them to hurry home and emphasizing that the alert was not fully lifted and some level of vigilance was still necessary.

Standing in his doorway and watching the scene, Xu Mo understood.

The flock of birds from the Red Star Industrial Zone wasn’t just a massive, disorganized mob after all. It possessed a clear hierarchy and command structure, and even had one or a few highly evolved "Bosses" with some kind of command ability.

Jiang City’s strike, whether by a stroke of luck or as a key part of their plan, had directly paralyzed the flock’s "brain."

Without unified command and information coordination, even a group that large would become like a pile of scattered sand. Animal instinct would override any collective will for revenge, making survival and escape the top priority. That explained why the frenzied retaliation he had anticipated never came to pass.