Jiang Nuan could see the Poseidon Building from far away.
The fifteen-story behemoth stood at the end of the street, its gray-white walls wrapped in thick fog that writhed like a living thing. Large patches of the exterior had peeled away, and chunks of debris fell every few seconds, striking the ground with a dull thud.
Before the apocalypse, it had been a shopping mall. Afterward, it was converted into the core residential district of Zone E, with every floor divided into densely packed living quarters.
Now, it was slowly and irreversibly tilting toward the southeast.
Even more unnerving were the hundreds of screams and hysterical sobs of terror and despair coming from inside the building, still clearly audible through its thick walls.
“Report, sir! We failed to breach the main entrance!”
The captain of the special operations team stumbled back, his voice hoarse.
“Three of the load-bearing columns in the first-floor lobby have snapped. The entire entrance is sealed off by concrete. We tried clearing it, but debris is still falling continuously. No one can stand there safely!”
Jiang Nuan stood two paces behind Lu Shiyan and watched him activate his tactical terminal.
A holographic projection lit up. A three-dimensional model of the building floated in midair, with countless red points flickering and colliding across its floors.
More than five hundred lives.
“Abort the conventional entry plan,” Lu Shiyan said calmly. “The main entrance, east-side entrance, and parking-garage entrance are all blocked. A frontal assault will only accelerate the structural collapse.”
His fingers moved across the holographic projection, bringing up real-time data on the building’s tilt.
The numbers kept changing.
Jiang Nuan stared at the figure, automatically converting it in her mind into the building’s load-bearing limits.
At this rate, once the building’s angle exceeded its structural threshold, every floor would fold and collapse like a row of dominoes.
In less than forty minutes, this place would become the grave of five hundred people.
Another dull boom came from inside the building, and the ground beneath their feet trembled.
The people’s cries pierced through the thick walls.
Her gaze fell on the holographic projection, and her mind began working at high speed.
Fifteen floors. More than five hundred heat signatures scattered across different levels. Every front entrance destroyed.
Wait.
Jiang Nuan stared at the sectional view of the three-dimensional model, and her eyes suddenly locked onto something.
She had spotted two heavy-duty freight-elevator shafts preserved in the mall’s original structure.
Before the apocalypse, large shopping malls like this had freight systems independent of the passenger elevators, with separate load-bearing structures and reinforced shaft walls.
After the building was converted into a residential complex, the freight elevators had been removed and the shafts sealed off—but the structural framework itself remained.
Her gaze swept rapidly across the floor sections. On the third, seventh, and eleventh floors, the main ventilation ducts of the central air-conditioning system ran through the entire building. Their diameters were large enough for an adult to squeeze through sideways.
Use the freight-elevator shafts as vertical routes and the ventilation ducts as horizontal access points between floors.
A complete evacuation route had taken shape in her mind—one that bypassed every blocked entrance.
“The freight-elevator shafts.”
The moment she spoke, she felt Lu Shiyan’s gaze fall on her face.
He did not look away.
“The mall’s original structure has two heavy-duty freight-elevator shafts, one on the east side and one on the south.”
She pointed to the two locations on the three-dimensional model.
“The shaft walls are independently reinforced and separate from the main load-bearing system. Even if the primary columns have broken, the shaft walls should remain stable in the short term.”
Her finger slid to the sectional view of the floors.
“The main central-air-conditioning ducts run all the way to the top floor, with a maintenance hatch every two floors. We can enter the ventilation ducts through the hatches and use them to connect horizontally to the freight-elevator shafts…”
She paused, rapidly calculating the crowd density and the rate at which people could move through the passages.
“People on floors three through seven can use the east shaft. Those on floors eight through twelve can use the south shaft. There aren’t many people above the thirteenth floor, so they can evacuate via the exterior fire escape.”
Lu Shiyan said nothing, but his eyes never left her face.
Jiang Nuan did not notice his gaze. Her entire attention was fixed on the holographic map.
“But the freight-elevator shafts are sealed,” she said, frowning. “The outer entrances are blocked by several tons of concrete. Conventional explosives would trigger a chain reaction and cause the building to collapse.”
She looked at Lu Shiyan.
“I’ll handle it,” Lu Shiyan said.
Jiang Nuan knew exactly what he meant.
Spatial cutting.
Using his ability to precisely slice apart and remove the several tons of concrete blocking the shaft entrances without triggering any secondary structural collapse.
The precision required for this ability was absurd. The margin of error could not exceed ten centimeters, or the load-bearing structure of the shaft would be damaged.
On the White Whale, after teleporting an entire medical pod, his face had gone so pale that he could barely remain standing.
Jiang Nuan’s lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing unnecessary.
Instead, she lowered her head to the projection and calmly called out the coordinates, adding a warning: “The shaft’s safety line is fifteen centimeters from the outer edge of the blockage. Your cutting boundary cannot cross that distance.”
Lu Shiyan turned and walked toward the east freight-elevator shaft.
A massive pile of concrete fragments and twisted steel bars blocked the entrance, sealing it completely.
Jiang Nuan’s eyes followed his back as he raised his right hand.
“Spatial cutting.”
The air gave off an almost imperceptible hum.
Then thin, straight silver lines appeared across the surface of the concrete mound.
The lines sliced precisely along its contours, cutting the several-ton blockage into neat cubes. The cuts stopped exactly fifteen centimeters from the shaft walls—not a fraction off.
The cubes of concrete floated for half a second before being shifted sideways through space and settling gently on the ground without causing any unnecessary vibration.
The entire process was clean and brutal, precise to an almost terrifying degree.
The special operations team members stared at the Zero Squad Captain with awe.
Many of them were seasoned demolition experts. They immediately imagined the despairing comparison: if they had been tasked with clearing a collapse of the same size, it would have taken an entire team half a day. They would have had to risk a secondary collapse, use half a crate of high-precision explosives, and still be unable to guarantee that the main structure would remain undamaged.
He, on the other hand, had merely raised a hand.
Absolute power that defied all reason.
If the object being “cut” were a person…
Several of the special operations soldiers shuddered and instinctively lowered their heads.
Jiang Nuan rarely had the chance to watch Lu Shiyan use his spatial ability from such close range, let alone see the entire process.
It was as smooth as flowing water, effortless despite the immense force involved.
Her heart felt as if something had given it a gentle squeeze.
The entrance to the east freight-elevator shaft was open.
The pitch-black shaft was exposed to the gray fog. Stale, dust-laden air poured out from within, but the shaft walls were intact, and the vertical passage extended all the way to the top.
Lu Shiyan immediately turned toward the south side.
Using the same technique and the same precision, he cut open the second entrance within thirty seconds.
Lu Shiyan’s voice came over the comms. “Passage open. Special operations team, move in.”
The special operations soldiers filed inside.
Reports came in one after another over the communications channel.
“Third-floor ventilation maintenance hatch open.”
“South-side connection to the eighth floor established.”
“Evacuation from the third floor has begun. The first group of survivors is entering the freight-elevator shaft.”
Jiang Nuan stared at the distribution of heat signatures on the holographic projection. The densely packed red points began slowly and orderly converging toward the two freight-elevator shafts.
It was working.
Her heart was still pounding, but her breathing gradually steadied.
The crowd was evacuating in an orderly fashion along the route she had planned.
Lu Shiyan walked back to her side.
Jiang Nuan noticed that his breathing was heavier than usual. The collar of his black commander’s uniform had come slightly undone, and cold sweat slid down from his temple.
Her gaze lingered on that bead of sweat for less than half a second before quickly returning to the projection.
Just then, the ground shook.
A sharper, more violent cracking sound rang out from inside the building than before.
Jiang Nuan jerked her head up.
“The main load-bearing column is about to fail!”
A cry of alarm burst through the special operations team’s communications channel.
“The main column between the ninth and twelfth floors is going to break!”
Jiang Nuan’s blood ran cold.
There were still dozens of blinking points of light on floors nine through twelve.
Lu Shiyan moved two steps in front of her, turning his back to her as he faced the building.
Through the gray haze, the fifteen-story structure was slowly and irreversibly tilting.
Everything above the ninth floor had visibly shifted, while chunks of rubble rained down.
At the current rate of acceleration, the structure above the ninth floor would suffer a cascading collapse within five minutes at most. The upper floors would fold down one after another, like a stack of cards.
The rescue team couldn’t get up, and the survivors couldn’t get down.
It was a dead end.
Unless… someone could forcibly hold up the section of the building that was about to collapse.
Jiang Nuan abruptly looked up at Lu Shiyan’s back.
Half of the black uniform’s outline was swallowed by the gray haze, but his back remained ramrod straight, as if silently declaring that he was the final barrier standing between everyone and disaster.
He didn’t turn around, but his voice carried clearly to her.
“The fastest route from the first floor to the ninth.”
Lu Shiyan was going into the building that was on the verge of collapse.
Jiang Nuan didn’t waste a second questioning him or trying to dissuade him.
She knew he had already made his decision.
Suppressing the frantic pounding in her chest, she kept her voice taut. “Take the eastern freight-elevator shaft. There’s a maintenance ladder built into the inner wall that leads straight to the eighth floor. Once you exit the shaft, go west through Electrical Room 3. There’s an emergency passage blocked by debris that leads directly to the ninth-floor platform. That’s… the fastest route.”
“Understood.”
Lu Shiyan’s back disappeared into the gray haze.
He didn’t look back or pause for even a moment.
Decisive, just like the man himself.
Jiang Nuan stood where she was, slowly curling her fingers into tight fists.
She told herself that this was simply what a tactical analyst was supposed to do: remain in the rear and provide the optimal solution.
But her heart clenched violently.
A faint stab of pain spread through her chest, leaving her momentarily distracted.
When had he… come to trust her this much?
Without hesitation, he had followed the route she had planned through the freight-elevator shaft, then walked straight into a building that could collapse at any moment without even turning his head.
The feeling of being trusted made the sheet of ice she had seemed to stand on all this time feel, for once, as though it would not break beneath her feet.
She did not blink until his back had been completely swallowed by the gray haze.
