Chapter 791: Chapter 791

The wind was picking up.

The voice of Li Chen jolted Gu Shen out of his haze.

The sound of pebbles hitting the mask was harsh... The Source Armor came with a certain noise-cancellation effect, so the piercing sound was a clear indicator of the force with which the pebble struck.

He lifted his head and looked towards the distant sky.

The fragmented stones already swirling across the horizon faintly exhibited the tendency to form a Storm.

The "Chi Huo" dispersing around him conveyed back an "irritably uneasy" emotion!

He was not the only one to notice this anomaly.

Within this group of explorers, other Transcendents with sensitive perceptions were present.

Yuan Yuan and Su He, at the front and rear ends of the team, both looked up.

The two deputy captains exchanged a glance.

A composed voice filled the command channel.

"Everyone raise your source energy fuel efficiency to 120%, we’re going to speed up..."

The voice had barely ended.

Several old hands had already made the adjustment, evidently they too had noticed the unusual state of the environment.

The Source Armor’s energy technology, after North Continent’s lengthy research, had basically matured, in fact in special circumstances, the Source Armor had a "break through the limit" option reserved, but this meant a significant dissipation and waste of Source Material.

On missions beyond the Fortress, every Transcendent must conserve their energy.

After the fuel efficiency breached 100%.

The Source Armor could operate on overload, significantly improving forward efficiency... but in exchange, it drastically reduced the mileage!

Such an order was not given unless absolutely necessary!

Within five seconds, the fuel efficiency of the Source Armor had increased to 120%, and the entire team’s speed began to soar. On the fog-filled wasteland of the Old World, the silhouettes of the twelve team members blurred like arrows, shooting out with a hiss!

"Captain, what’s the situation now?"

Zhu Xiao spoke up on the public channel, a hint of tension in his voice.

"The wind pressure has suddenly increased."

Yuan Yuan calmly replied, "A Storm might form... if we’re fast enough, we should be able to escape before the Storm takes shape."

"My Source Eyes detected Source Material disturbance in the due north direction." Li Chen immediately reported his scouting results, "In an hour, these Source Materials should begin to coalesce into a Storm."

Members of the team glanced at each other.

This should be considered good news... if the restive Source Materials were gathering in the south, it would have been terrible!

The direction for their return was the south.

With the Storm coalescing to their north, they had at least one escape route back home.

Gu Shen fell into deep thought.

Li Chen’s Source Eyes had limited sensing capabilities, only detecting a Storm forming due north... but his own "Chi Huo" had a wider sensing range!

There were not just one, but several gathering points for the "wind pressure."

In the distance, several Storms were brewing.

"Encountering a Storm in the Old World is not an unusual thing."

Seeing Gu Shen silent, Yuan Yuan transmitted a comforting message, "Most explorer teams can escape... as long as they detect its approach in time and don’t get caught in it."

Gu Shen snapped out of his contemplative state and subconsciously responded.

Then he asked, "And if we are caught in the Storm, what would become of us?"

"Of course... death."

Yuan Yuan’s answer came without hesitation.

He looked at Gu Shen, puzzled by how such a clever guy could ask such a simple question?

"The Storms of the Old World carry only untamed Source Material, a force that is impossible to tame. The mortal flesh simply cannot withstand such ferocious Extraordinary Power, not even the Divine Throne could confront it, only avoidance is possible... No one thinks of entering a Storm and coming out alive. Once caught in it, there’s only one outcome, and that is complete obliteration."

Yuan Yuan’s voice was low, "True annihilation."

The flesh would obviously be torn apart by the Storm.

No matter how much one reinforces their skin, it can’t withstand such terrifying power.

In the face of such a massive Source Material Storm, the spirit is like a lone boat on a raging sea.

After the flesh is shattered, perhaps the spirit could survive a second or two longer.

Soon after... it would be submerged in the raging sea.

Gu Shen nodded, signaling that he understood.

"Then I have some bad news for you, a Storm will reach our current location from the west in one hour, and following this escape route would only lead to a dead end," Gu Shen transmitted calmly, "Li Chen’s results are incorrect, this is not an ordinary Storm, there are at least ten pressure points, with each one brewing a Storm that will converge to the south."

Yuan Yuan’s expression turned somewhat ashen.

If this statement hadn’t come from Gu Shen, he would have never believed it!

Since he joined the Investigation Corps and started executing missions beyond the Fortress, he hadn’t encountered a Storm of such terrifying magnitude in all these years... and the worst part was, all these Storms were moving southward?

It meant... there would be an unprecedented tide of Source Material crashing upon the Giant Wall at the True Wing Defense Line!

If the scale of the Storms was as Gu Shen described.

Then, can the Umbrella Defense Line hold?

He subconsciously reached for his forehead, but his palm pressed against the cold Source Armor Mask. With just the slightest pressure, a very light "click" sound emanated from the outside of the mask, causing Yuan Yuan’s pupils to shrink... This sound drew his attention!

He quickly concentrated his spiritual power on the transparent mask.

The naked eye could not see.

But his spiritual power captured the "abnormality" of the mask at this moment.

Due to the impact of the rubble.

The Source Armor Mask had actually sustained damage. These damages were extremely slight, just a series of scrapes, but they accumulated to the point where one area of the mask was weakened to the verge of cracking at any moment!

These pebbles... were not merely ordinary stones, they were very likely flung over from the "pressure point of the storm," and thus filled with Source Material Power. If there were more of them, they could possibly destroy the Source Armor!

Li Chen, who always kept the Source Eyes open, was the first to notice Yuan Yuan’s irregularity; it seemed the captain’s emotions had fluctuated.

Up to now, he still had not pinpointed the real danger... assuming there was only one "pressure point."

Yuan Yuan took a deep breath to regain his composure and quickly replaced his mask with a spare. Then, he issued an order over the command channel, "All members, check for damage to your Source Armor and report back."

"The captain has switched to a new mask; did his Source Armor get damaged?"

Mo Hongyi was somewhat puzzled upon hearing this.

"It seems so... the pebbles around here are a bit off," Jiang Yu frowned.

In the public channel, reports came back quickly.

The worrying situation had not occurred.

The other members’ Source Armors had only very minor "scratches," not as serious as Yuan Yuan’s, and did not require replacement, but everyone realized they were in a particularly dangerous environment at that moment.

Thanks to the breakthrough in the efficiency limit of source energy fuel, the team moved at a very fast rate.

And the faster the speed.

The more severe the wear and tear.

Yuan Yuan tried to release all his spiritual power, but unfortunately, he did not possess Gu Shen’s powerful detection capabilities, and the range he could sense was not very large. However, within his sensing range, there was indeed more than one pressure point.

This was enough to prove that Li Chen’s Source Eyes had not seen everything.

"Gu Shen... I would like to hear your opinion," Yuan Yuan said, feeling a headache coming on.

The news was just too bad.

He had not yet settled on a decision for the next step... if in an hour, the team would encounter a storm on the western side, how then could the team return to Gu Castle? Could they continue to raise fuel efficiency?

No, that would be a certain dead end!

Although the mission beyond the fortifications was accompanied by ample energy preparations.

But with burning at the 120% limit, these energies were only just enough for everyone to return to the Fortress.

If it was increased again... the returning fuel would not support the subsequent journey.

An hour after the storm, the next part of the journey would only become more urgent, and with insufficient fuel, they would definitely be caught by the storm!

What’s most important is that these "pebbles" floating in the air, at a normal speed of travel—even if these grains contained some power—would not pose a threat.

The higher the burning efficiency, the faster the speed, the more dangerous these floating objects became!

Gu Shen silently gazed into the distance; after sensing the pressure points, he, too, had fallen into contemplation.

He had considered all the issues that Yuan Yuan had previously thought of.

If only Chu Ling were here at this juncture, maybe with the massive computing power of Deep Sea, they could find a possible path to survive this storm.

But as things stood, it all seemed like a deadly impasse.

Seconds later, Gu Shen asked a question, "What’s the highest fuel efficiency the Source Armor can break through to?"

"150%," Yuan Yuan frowned slightly and said solemnly, "The extreme breakthrough of 120% burns energy at 1.5 times the normal rate. The extreme breakthrough of 150%, aside from causing great stress on the Source Armor... would burn three times the source energy fuel."

Under such a terrifying consumption of Source Energy.

Transcendents wearing Source Armor would gain an immense speed buff, and even in an environment like the Old World, they could possess unparalleled speed.

In this situation, the squad would have a very high probability of escaping the current storm!

But the price would be to consume three times the Source Material Fuel!

"My suggestion is to go for a 150% breakthrough of the Source Armor Energy!" Gu Shen spoke slowly, staring into Yuan Yuan’s eyes as he shared his idea.

First to outrun the storm, then consider other matters... Yuan Yuan fell into silence.

He had not realized it before.

In Gu Shen’s very core was etched such a "crazy" gene.

Soon, Yuan Yuan laughed self-deprecatingly. He thought his previous notions were ridiculous; facing such a situation, what other way could there be?

Could someone really have a leisurely solution?

"Achieving the ultimate state of extreme breakthrough isn’t difficult," Yuan Yuan said with a hoarse voice, "But even if we outrun the storm, our fuel will be exhausted, and then we’ll all die here."

Gu Shen pulled up the electronic map within the view of his mask.

"We can go back to the Fortress..."

He looked at the winding road home, the correct path through the labyrinth that the Investigation Corps had summarized over more than a decade. Most of the area outside this winding route was shrouded in mist.

Gu Shen, with his spiritual power, drew a straight line on the electronic map connecting their current starting point to the Gu Castle Fortress as the endpoint.

He spoke softly, "Taking a straight line that no one has ever traveled, we can return to the Fortress."