Chapter 111 The Camp at Hualan Mountain

The members of Squad Seven boarded the deployment vehicle, with the relatively steady Drumstick at the wheel. They followed several buses filled with logistics personnel, heading toward the Hualan Mountain Scenic Area, nearly a hundred kilometers from River City.

Hualan Mountain was a national geological park. Though its elevation was not remarkable, it embraced Hualan Lake to the east, overlooked the Hualan Celestial Pool, drew the She River to the west, and rested against the great Dabie Mountains to the north, spanning an immense area. The mountain range, interlinked with the land’s ley lines, stretched on in endless succession. Its wild flora and fauna were rich and diverse, and the peak itself was home to sacred sites of Buddhism and Daoism with histories spanning over a thousand years—a grand constellation of ancient temples, monasteries, and halls. Thus, it was designated one of the most important attractions in Yan Nation.

But to the surprise of Bai Yuxi and his companions, the target of this joint operation was not, as they had imagined, extradimensional creatures lurking in the remote mountains, but rather a horde of mutated beasts rampaging among the throngs of tourists within the scenic area itself!

Based on their past experience, except for a few rare instances, both extradimensional and mutated creatures shared a trait with native wildlife: an aversion to human presence. They were highly sensitive to their environment, preferring to haunt desolate mountains, abandoned buildings, and places seldom visited by humans, rarely appearing openly before mankind. This was why the existence of supernatural beings had yet to be widely exposed to the general public.

Yet, not long ago, major Buddhist and Daoist temples, training halls, and even hotels and resorts packed with tourists during the golden autumn season in Hualan Mountain had all suffered large-scale attacks by rodents—put simply, there was a plague of rats!

This defied all common sense. While rats in Yan Nation were not a protected species and hardly rare, after the "Four Pests Campaign" of the last century, they had never again swarmed in such numbers, let alone dared to attack humans in broad daylight.

At first, the park staff assumed this was a rare anomaly, an unusual animal event such as those that occasionally made headlines around the world. They mobilized their teams for a rodent eradication campaign, deploying poison, traps, cages, and every tool imaginable to ensure that the tourist season would not be affected.

But things quickly took a dire turn. The damage to supplies and food was the least of their concerns; as the rats multiplied, more and more staff and tourists were bitten. People no longer dared to spend the night in mountain hotels or resorts—during the day, swarms of rats would even pursue and bite crowds of visitors. The poisons and traps that had some initial effect soon became useless; cages would be so crammed with rats that the doors could not close. What could anyone do?

Upon receiving intelligence, the LDH Exceedance Response Team investigated Hualan Mountain and promptly declared a moderate biological disaster, sealing off the park and closing the mountain to the public. Though the scale of this mutant beast outbreak was not as staggering as some foreign incidents, it was far beyond what a handful of people could contain. Thus, in addition to their own teams, the LDH issued emergency summons to surrounding regions, gathering a large force of exceptional individuals and response squads to cordon off the entire area and prevent the mutant rodents from spreading.

It was said that the security perimeter consisted of multiple layers: the innermost held the LDH squads, the next levels were various registered teams, and the outermost were ordinary military and police forces. Even so, the infestation remained unchecked.

By the time Bai Yuxi and his squad received the news, the LDH had even posted a public bounty to the exceptional community at large, inviting freelance exceptional individuals to join the operation, promising no restrictions or interference with their actions.

In effect, this was the official supernatural regulatory authority seeking a compromise and cooperation with the exceptional community. Although the government had always wanted to bring all exceptional individuals under its supervision, this time they lifted the restrictions, pledging not to target those willing to help. Any exceptional individual needed only to demonstrate their abilities to LDH representatives outside the perimeter and could enter to join the "hunt" without further review, and afterward, leave freely without inspection.

The official reward was so tempting to independent exceptional individuals—and the government’s credibility and the future stability of the exceptional world so important—that no one doubted their sincerity. As a result, volunteers flocked to the scene.

Squad Seven rode in their deployment vehicle, trailing behind the Firebird Team’s logistics bus for more than two hours. As they entered the outskirts of Hualan Mountain, they finally saw the cordons manned by regular military and police. The deeper they drove, the more impressive the barriers became: a “barrier wall” stretched for an unknown distance, encircling the entire scenic area—a clear sign that the authorities had spared no expense.

"Multidimensional spatial barriers," such supernatural technology, had become mature with the development of the exceptional world. However, as the primary means of containing supernatural creatures and preventing leaks of supernatural incidents, constructing a barrier wall was never cheap. Even the smallest "secondary barrier" that Squad Seven had used in the past would have been far beyond the means of a probationary team like theirs—if not for their LDH registration, which gave them huge discounts and mission subsidies when purchasing the generators. Larger and more advanced barriers were even more unattainable.

After reaching a gathering point halfway up the mountain, Bai Yuxi and his team got out to stretch and survey their surroundings. The place had once been a medium-sized resort, its dozens of villas scattered through the woods, but it had now been requisitioned by the LDH as a base camp for response teams. The villas were allocated to main combat teams as headquarters and logistics hubs, while probationary squads like the Seventh could only set up tents nearby as temporary quarters.