The Spell's Range Covers the Entire Territory of China? Hand It Over to the Nation

49: Chapter 49 A Step Towards HeavenOutside the Wall.

A Corpse Beast had already charged right up to A Mu.

A nauseating stench rushed toward him, and A Mu could even clearly see the tattered scraps of cloth stuck between its teeth. He squeezed his eyes shut, held his sister tightly beneath him, his back ramrod straight, waiting for the final, agonizing pain.

”Brother, listen.”

His sister suddenly tugged at his sleeve.

Listen? Listen to what?

A Mu instinctively perked up his ears.

Amidst the cacophony of ghostly wails and howling, he heard a low, deep hum.

It was like an ancient, massive bell being struck, or perhaps some colossal mechanism was activating.

Crack—Rumble!

The earth was shaking.

But he felt no pain.

A Mu suddenly snapped his eyes open.

In that instant, he witnessed the most incredible and magnificent scene of his life.

That eternally fixed, cold, and merciless golden light barrier, less than five meters in front of him, had split open.

It wasn’t shattered.

Instead, it opened slowly to both sides like two majestic Heavenly Gates. Golden runes danced and flowed in the air, finally transforming into a wide passage spanning a hundred meters.

As the gates swung open, an indescribable aura surged out.

It wasn’t wind.

It was materialized Spiritual Qi, the lingering resonance of the Magnificent Chapter of a Prosperous Age.

The Corpse Beast, which had been ferocious and ready to pounce just moments before, was struck by this aura and actually retreated several steps with a mournful cry, as if it had encountered its natural predator.

It was afraid.

It sensed an existence behind the gate that was ten thousand times more terrifying than itself.

”That is...”

A Mu stared blankly into the opening.

There were no machine gun nests or barbed wire fences as he had imagined.

Only rows of soldiers clad in dark green exoskeleton armor.

The leader, a dark-faced brute, held a long saber glowing with blue light, his face solemn.

”Clear the way.”

Zhao Tiezhu strode across the boundary that once represented life and death, his boot landing on the foreign soil covered in mud.

”Leave these beasts to us.”

Before the words even faded.

Whoosh!

An afterimage flashed by.

A Mu didn’t even see how the dark-faced brute attacked. He just saw a blur before his eyes, and a sharp screech exploded in the air.

The next second.

The Corpse Beast, which was about to devour people, suddenly split perfectly down the middle. Its massive body collapsed into two halves. The cut surface was smooth as a mirror; not even blood had time to spray out.

”Damn, Company Commander, your ’Splitting Mount Hua with Force’ move is pretty cool!” came a voice from a Young Soldier behind them. ”But your point of force was slightly off by three millimeters. If you moved a bit to the left, you could have saved 20% of your strength.”

”Get lost! I did it for the dramatic effect!”

Zhao Tiezhu broke character instantly, pointing his long saber at the dozens of monsters still stunned ahead.

”Brothers! These things used to have tough hides and were hard to kill, but now the country has blessed us, making our minds sharper and our strength greater.”

”If anyone still needs two strikes to kill a pig, you’ll be washing my socks for a month when we get back!”

”Charge!”

Boom!

This wasn’t a battle.

It was a massacre.

It was a dimensional strike from a higher-dimensional civilization against low-dimensional beasts.

A Mu was stunned speechless.

He watched as a small, slender soldier, facing an oncoming monster, neither dodged nor flinched. He merely shifted slightly at the last second, precisely stabbing his not-so-long dagger into a piece of soft cartilage behind the monster’s ear.

Just one strike.

The multi-ton monster collapsed as if its bones had been removed, going limp on the ground.

And in the rear, several snipers were performing miracles.

They didn’t even look through their scopes; some were even chewing gum while closing one eye. Their muzzles swung casually, followed by a few ’bang, bang, bang’ gunshots.

Hundreds of meters away, several agile monsters preparing to ambush the refugees had their heads explode simultaneously, like watermelons.

In less than five minutes.

Only five minutes.

The terrifying monsters that had driven tens of thousands of refugees to despair, collapse, and the brink of death were reduced to piles of shredded meat.

The entire battlefield fell into a terrifying silence.

The refugees stood with their mouths agape, forgetting even to breathe.

This was the army of Dragon Summer?

This was the power from inside the Wall?

These weren’t soldiers; they were clearly a group of War Gods wearing human skin!

”Alright, stop gawking!”

Zhao Tiezhu shook the blood droplets from his saber and turned around. His fierce face now looked somewhat benevolent. He looked at the ragged, mud-caked refugees and waved his large hand toward the open golden gate behind him.

”Listen up, everyone!”

”Regardless of which country you were from before, once you pass through this gate, you must abide by Dragon Summer’s rules.”

”Elderly and children first! No shoving! Anyone who shoves gets a beating from me!”

”There is food inside! Hot water! Plenty of it!”

These few sentences needed no translation, because the words for ’eating’ and ’hot water’ were universal human languages.

The crowd froze for two seconds.

Then, an earth-shattering wail erupted.

The crowd surged toward the golden barrier like madmen.

But this time, there was no pushing, no trampling.

Because at the entrance, there were rows of solemnly-faced female soldiers and medics providing guidance.

”Slow down! There’s enough for everyone!”

”The injured go left! Those with children go right!”

A Mu shakily stood up, holding his sister, feeling as if he were walking on cotton. He shuffled step by step toward the entrance.

Closer.

Closer still.

When his foot crossed the original golden boundary line.

The feeling was like surfacing from the deep sea and taking a huge gulp of fresh air.

The gloomy sky was gone, replaced by a vast expanse of azure blue.

The stench vanished; his nostrils were filled with a pleasant, tear-inducing fragrance of grass and trees.

Even the suffocating fear that had weighed down his heart instantly dissipated.

Faintly, he seemed to hear the sound of a musical ensemble.

It was Su Yun’s Magnificent Chapter of a Prosperous Age.

The zither plucked melodiously, the flute sounded gracefully.

This music was not rousing, yet it was like a gentle hand softly smoothing out every wrinkle on everyone’s Soul.

”Is this... inside?”

A Mu’s legs gave way, and he dropped to his knees with a thud.

There was no blood here, no corpses, only a level concrete floor and, not far away, mountains of supply crates.

”comrade, can you still walk?”

A young Dragon Summer Young Soldier walked over, holding a disposable lunchbox that was still steaming.

The Young Soldier looked to be only eighteen or nineteen, still bearing a bit of baby fat on his face. Seeing A Mu’s miserable state, a flicker of pity crossed his eyes.

”Here, eat it while it’s hot.”

The Young Soldier pressed the lunchbox into A Mu’s hand. ”Braised Pork Rice. We just have a lot of meat here, so we can eat as much as we want.”

The lunchbox was hot.

It burned A Mu’s palm.

But he couldn’t bear to let go.

He tremblingly lifted the lid.

Cubes of rich, dark-sauce Braised Pork lay atop crystal-clear rice. The meat juices seeped into the grains, emitting an overwhelmingly potent aroma.

In that moment, A Mu, who had been an intellectual and tried to maintain a shred of dignity even while fleeing, completely lost his composure.

He grabbed a piece of meat, ignoring the heat, and stuffed it into his mouth.

The fat exploded on his tongue. That long-lost taste of ’civilization’ instantly shattered his psychological defenses.

”Wuu... wuwu...”

A Mu gulped down the food while sobbing uncontrollably.

Tears and snot dripped into the rice, which he then shoveled into his mouth along with the liquid.

It was too delicious.

It was truly too delicious.

He wasn’t crying over this bowl of rice.

He was crying because Hell and Heaven truly were only one step apart.

Not far away, his sister, A Ya, was also fed a mouthful of milk by a medic. A hint of color returned to her previously ashen little face. She watched her brother cry like a child, but she herself giggled, pointing at the sky and saying:

”Brother, look, it’s getting light.”

A Mu looked up.

Through his tear-filled eyes.

He saw countless armored personnel carriers marked with a red five-pointed star rumbling past him.

They didn’t stop.

They drove against the flow of people, rushing out of the golden gate and into the gloomy wasteland outside.

Bright red flags snapped in the wind atop the armored vehicles, as if intent on burning through all the oppressive haze.

”Where... where are they going?” a refugee nearby asked blankly.

The Young Soldier who had been pouring water for A Mu smiled, revealing a set of bright white teeth, and said proudly:

”Where are we going?”

”To the outside, of course.”

”Even though you all got in, there are still many more people outside just like you, and we have to save them all!”

”Our Company Commander said, as long as it’s within our sight, we can’t leave a single person behind!”

A Mu froze.

He watched the retreating silhouette of the steel torrent and suddenly recalled a line from an ancient Dragon Summer text.

Under the heavens, all land belongs to the King.

So this was it.

This was the One Step to Heaven.