As the defenses of the eighth district collapsed like a dam breaking, the Kuroshio surged into the three lower districts like a madman.
Suddenly, eight jade heart swords roamed among the rat swarm, but even the sharpest jade heart swords gradually became unstable.
Even alloy blades can become dull, so the Jade Heart Sword will naturally have problems as well.
He Jinqiu had lost count of how many rats he had killed. He only needed to use the Jade Heart Sword to wander freely among the rat swarms and harvest them at will.
But the next second, cracks suddenly appeared on one of the jade swords, as if ice shards had suddenly appeared on porcelain, spreading out with a crackling sound.
Standing atop a tall building, He Jinqiu coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The Heart Sword has backfired!
He calmly wiped his lips, retrieved the cracked Jade Heart Sword, and left the other seven swords clashing on the battlefield.
Until the gap was pushed back by the influx of refugees!
Standing high in the sky, He Jinqiu looked on with pity as the defense lines collapsed one after another. He suddenly remembered the time when he fought floods and rescued people with his old squad leader in his early years.
At that time, they were only wearing shorts and a vest.
Everyone stood in the murky river, using their bodies as a human wall.
The raging floodwaters washed over their bodies and the riverbanks, and the sandbags they had piled up were washed away and broken one by one.
Some people tried to plug the breach in the river, but they were swept downstream by the flood and never seen again.
The scene at this moment is so similar to that time.
For some reason, he was touched.
But this rat swarm is beyond human control.
In just thirty minutes, more than ten defensive lines began to collapse, and two minutes later, four or five more breaches occurred.
Faced with the vast swarm of rats, He Jinqiu suddenly felt that despite more than ten years of hard work in cultivation, he was still so insignificant.
Are we about to lose? Where is Qing Chen? Why is the Rat King still alive? Why is the rat horde's attack still so meticulous and fearless?
In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through his mind, only to be dismissed by him.
The Azure Jade Heart Sword accelerated again amidst the rat swarm, its seven azure sword lights drawing rainbows in the black tide. Even after all seven Azure Jade Heart Swords developed cracks, they had only managed to repair seven or eight defensive lines for the refugees below!
That defense line was like a leaky bamboo tube; it couldn't hold back any more water!
"No, it's about time!" He Jinqiu suddenly looked up at the sky.
There was no sound in the sky, but he clearly saw a Li-type 'Deflection-11' piercing missile, like a comet with a long trail of flame, falling straight down.
He Jinqiu knew that Qing Chen had obtained the Rat King's exact location by analyzing the video.
Once the location is known, Qing Chen can pinpoint the coordinates and allow the Li or Qing families to carry out a precise bombing raid!
Once the location is found, how could Qing Chen not call for fire support! That's an independent director of the Li family. If he can't call for reinforcements, surely he can call for a missile?
The sewers are only three to five meters underground; that depth is simply not enough to withstand a penetrating missile!
Once the Rat King dies, the current rat horde will be unsustainable, and the million-strong rat horde that besieged Iodine Fu will not return. At that time, everyone will have plenty of time to rebuild their country.
The yaw-11 supersonic missile fell, leaving the sound behind!
With a deafening roar, the missile landed precisely on the ground next to the Flying Bird Building, igniting a massive fire and sending a mushroom cloud soaring into the sky, illuminating the entire night.
He Jinqiu had high hopes... but he slowly became disappointed.
Even after the missile exploded, the rat swarm's attack did not slow down in the slightest.
It's over.
The Rat King has moved; it's not at the location of Chika's corpse at all!
The Rat King evolved intelligence. He deployed his personal guards in the fifth district to create a false impression, making everyone believe that it was like the queen ant of an ant colony, lying in the sewers waiting to be fed.
Now, nobody knows where the Rat King is. Unless everyone wipes out all the rats in the city and turns every sewer upside down, they won't be able to find him again!
“It’s over,” He Jinqiu sighed.
But at that very moment, an older woman suddenly rushed to the key gate: "Make way, make way! Let me through!"
The refugees were stunned: "You have to queue up if you want to run! Oh, it's you?!"
They recognized her as the aunt who had stayed behind to help the parents' association after organizing the refugees. No one expected that when the defense line collapsed, she would choose to cut in line and run away!
Parents' association members came over to maintain order, shouting, "The more critical the moment, the less chaotic things must be! We've already evacuated many people. Just line up properly, you'll get your turn sooner or later! Don't worry, even if the defenses collapse, we'll use our bodies to block the rat horde. Don't cause any trouble!"
But the woman suddenly said, "What do you take me for? Get out of my way, I have important business to attend to!"
Before anyone could react, the woman had already squeezed through the crowd and entered the key door.
Then, her voice came from the key gate: "Listen up, everyone!"
Behind the key gate.
The woman stood on the hill and shouted, "So many of those young men have died! It's heartbreaking to see! They protected you as you fled to this wilderness, evacuating so many people in seven days. It wasn't easy!"
In the wilderness, millions of people stretched for nearly a hundred kilometers, sitting densely on the ground.
The old woman's voice could only reach the nearest person.
But she didn't care and just kept shouting: "Now, many people think that the Lower Three Districts may not be able to be defended, but I think we can still try! You all know what has happened in the Lower Three Districts these past few days. Everyone in the other districts has died, and only we are still alive. I think that's a miracle. Now I implore everyone, if you are capable, come back with me. They need you there!"
As soon as the voice fell, the three lower districts fell silent, listening to the voice from the Key Gate.
None of them expected that this woman was actually there to call for backup!
For the past seven days, the Key Gate has only allowed entry and not exit, evacuating millions of people. No one ever imagined that those who left would... return.
On the desolate land, the old woman looked at the refugees and said, "No matter what you think, the Lower Three Districts have changed for the better now. That's my home, and I want to protect it! It's just two or three million rats, we still have more than six million people!"
After saying that, the woman rushed back to the other side of the key gate and ran towards the defense line without looking back.
In the wilderness, the refugees who had been sitting on the ground, waiting for the conglomerate to come and pick them up, began to make a commotion.
Further away, someone asked, "What did she just say?"
The person closest to the Key Gate thought for a moment and said, "We said we should go back together to protect the Lower Three Districts. Many people have died there, and it's about to fall."
The sounds of discussion gradually spread, like boiling water in the early spring wilderness—noisy and grand.
"Go back? Since we can't hold on anymore, what's the point of going back? We barely managed to escape!"
"Yeah, we'd definitely die if we went back. So many people couldn't hold them off, so it seems pointless for us to go."
Everyone was whispering among themselves.
Just then, some people stood up from the crowd and silently walked through the crowd toward the Key Gate.
Someone grabbed one of the middle-aged men's sleeves: "What are you doing? Are you really going back?"
The middle-aged man stood there for a long time before saying, "I was actually a member of the parents' association, but at first I was scared, so I hid in the crowd and ran away. I didn't expect it to be this bad, and I didn't expect them to hold out for so long..."
The reputation of the parent-teacher association has gradually spread during this disaster, and everyone knows that the parent-teacher association is in control behind hundreds of clubs.
The mistress once told Qingchen that more than a thousand family members had run away out of fear.
Qingchen's answer was that he wouldn't force anyone; anything that could cost him his life had to be done voluntarily.
However, those more than a thousand family members endured seven days in the wilderness, and every time they heard the refugees praising the parents' meeting, they felt ashamed and wanted to disappear.
They sat in the wilderness, every minute and every second an ordeal, yet they had no courage to go back.
Now, we can't wait any longer.
The middle-aged man thought for a moment and said, "I'm going back. All of you parents here, if you've been feeling as tormented sitting here as I have these past few days, then come with me."
Hundreds of family members were seen walking briskly through the crowd.
And their words, which they had just spoken, once again spread throughout the wilderness.
The sight of millions of people sitting together as refugees is magnificent; their voices, as they sit and discuss matters, can even resonate with the earth.
Those few hundred people walking among millions of others appear so lonely and insignificant.
Gradually, refugees got up from the ground and followed behind them, and more and more of them joined them.
The family members felt that walking was too slow, so they started jogging instead.
These figures in the wilderness, like a swarm of rats, converged into a torrent, rushing into a key door!
"Excuse me, we need to get back!"
In front of the Key Gate in the Lower Three Districts, the refugees watched as people kept rushing back from the back of the gate. No one expected that someone would actually return from behind the gate!
Someone joked, "Everyone, make way for them... They can't leave even if they want to, they've blocked the door. Why don't we go and fight them, since we can't leave anyway..."
As they spoke, the refugees who were still in line left the queue with wry smiles, making way for the Key Gate: "Let's go see if there are any tables, chairs, or benches, and get some to use as weapons."
"Where are we supposed to find tables and chairs? My family is so poor we only have one bed..."
"Take your bed apart."
"Why don't we tear down your house?!"
...
...
Behind the defensive line, Xiao San, who had just been relieved, roared, "Quick! Reinforce the line! The defensive line can't be breached! There are hundreds of thousands of refugees behind us. If the rat horde gets through, they'll all die! Get the reinforcements in now!"
However, after the mistress finished speaking, she looked around blankly and realized that the defenses did not collapse because someone was careless or cowardly, but because there was no one left!
The entire Lower Three Districts defense line was divided into hundreds of sections, and there were forty or fifty sections where everyone had been killed!
Seven days ago, he could have counted the number of casualties, but how could he count them now? He couldn't!
Someone said, "We can't hold on! Little San, we can't hold on anymore! We can't hold the line any longer. Let's retreat into the building and fight a street battle. Hold on, split into small groups and guard the stairs and windows. Maybe we can still fight!"
The mistress gritted her teeth: "Bullshit! What about the refugees behind us if we retreat? They'll all die sooner or later even if they retreat into the building! We must hold on!"
The parents said, "Keep guarding it at all costs!"
As she spoke, the mistress picked up her knife and rushed towards the horde of rats, intending to use herself to block a gap in the defenses.
So be it, I'll stay here even if it means dying.
Kunlun and Iodine Potion, they were willing to risk their lives, so what can't I do?
However, the next moment, a loud thud of footsteps came from behind him.