Help! I Do Not Want to Guide a Disaster

"We have reports of incoming missiles," a technician’s frantic voice crackled directly into Xinyuan’s earpiece.

Xinyuan’s entire body stiffened mid-air. Pure adrenaline replaced the blood in his veins because he had just teleported Wenzhi back to the Sovereign city, leaving himself behind to mop up the remaining horde.

Worse, the rift was beginning to bleed a dense, suffocating deep red mist. The entire sector of Yanjing was officially becoming a Red Zone. It was bitterly disappointing. Xinyuan had cherished, deeply personal memories in Yanjing City, and watching it rot into a wasteland felt like a physical blow.

Thankfully, the civilians and the weaker Guides had already been fully evacuated from the perimeter. The remaining Bureau Espers were still aggressively trading blows with the monsters, dragging the injured out of the crossfire.

As Xinyuan scanned the warzone, his brow furrowed. Chenxi was nowhere to be seen. Had the fire Esper already pulled back to the city?

He pressed two fingers tightly against his earpiece. "What is this about a missile strike, freckles?"

"The Old Blood," Wenzhi’s voice came through, sharp and grim. He didn’t need to say anything more.

"Of course," Xinyuan’s crimson eyes darkened.

He looked around, searching for the three disaster class Espers his father had sent but they were nowhere to be seen.

Nearby, Fu Muhan and Hanmei were fighting side-by-side.

"What about Chenxi and Yuzhen?" Xinyuan whispered into the comms.

"Yuzhen is already outside the dome. It has completely sealed the city," Wenzhi replied immediately, his voice competing with sudden, heavy tactical static. "And Chenxi... he’s not here."

"He’s not here either," Xinyuan muttered, a bad feeling settling deep in his chest. He shook it off, focusing on his priority. "Stay inside the city limits. I’m going to join Yuzhen on the perimeter soon."

"Do not worry about me. Just keep clear of those Disaster-class Espers," Wenzhi commanded smoothly. "Or better yet, just kill them."

"As you wish, boss," Xinyuan smirked.

Cutting the transmission, he dropped out of the sky like a falling meteor, landing heavily right beside Fu Muhan and Hanmei. Both of them snapped their heads around, their faces slick with sweat and ash.

"There are incoming missile strikes targeting the city. I have to pull back to the dome and intercept them," Xinyuan told them, his dark mist already curling around his body. "Are you two going to be okay holding the line here?"

"Yes, yes, go!" Fu Muhan panted, wiping a streak of black monster blood from his forehead. He immediately landed a punch, crushing a Crawler’s skull.

Judging by the massive, mounting mountain of dead beasts surrounding them, they were indeed holding their own.

"We can manage the zone!" Hanmei yelled over the screech of a Dovos. "Go protect the city!"

Xinyuan immediately teleported out of Yanjing and materialized right in front of the dome. The structure was a massive, fortified heavy metal plating that sealed off the underground city of Sovereign, and right now, it was reinforced by towering, solid walls of dense glacial ice. Because it was deep winter, Yuzhen’s cryokinetic abilities were amplified tenfold.

The ice Esper stood wrapped in freezing mist, his hair whipping wildly in the sub-zero wind. His glowing ice-blue eyes immediately brightened when he spotted Xinyuan materializing in front of him.

"Xinyuan!" Yuzhen grinned through the frost. "You look good."

Xinyuan barely had time to blink before a mechanical roar tore through the winter sky. Three massive, high-caliber missiles were screaming downward, their trajectory locked dead onto the center of the dome.

Xinyuan’s red eyes darkened and his dark energy swallowed him whole, launching him into the sky. He collided head-on with the first missile.

A massive explosion rocked the atmosphere, but before the shockwave could even expand, tendrils of suffocating dark mist whipped out of the blast radius. The shadows functioned like a black hole, entirely swallowing the force and heat of the explosion.

Without losing a shred of momentum, Xinyuan plowed straight into the second missile, detonating it harmlessly in mid-air.

For the third and final missile, Yuzhen took the shot. An enormous spear of solid glacial ice shot skyward, impaling the weapon dead-center and the missile was instantly encased in a thick, frozen block of ice, freezing its mechanisms entirely.

The heavy, frozen chunk of metal dropped out of the sky like a dead weight, smashing into pieces on the hard ground below.

Yuzhen let out a long, heavy breath, his shoulders dropping. "That was close."

Xinyuan landed back to earth. His jacket was half-charred and torn to ribbons from the explosion, but his exposed, burnt skin was already sizzling and rapidly regenerating right in front of Yuzhen’s eyes.

Aside from the ruined fabric, Xinyuan looked completely unscathed save for the raw, manic intensity burning in his gaze as he stared down at the smoking debris.

"Wow," Yuzhen breathed, tapping a pale finger against his earpiece. "Yaoer? Do we have any more sightings of incoming missiles?"

"Negative. But the Red Zone miasma is completely filling Yanjing now," Zhiyao’s calm voice crackled back through the comms.

"Tell the others to retreat and seal the doors," Xinyuan commanded, his voice tight as he rubbed his throbbing temples. "The dome is secure. We are hidden deep enough underground that the mutated beasts won’t be able to sniff us out anyway."

Yuzhen smirked, his tone shifting into something playful as he relayed the order. "Did you hear him, darling?"

"Loud and clear," Zhiyao replied easily before the line clicked shut.

^°^•^•^•^

The entirety of Yanjing City was completely swallowed by the Red Zone within minutes, officially rebranded as a dead territory as the suffocating red miasma flooded every single street.

The surviving Espers retreated back behind Sovereign, the city fully locked down against the encroaching corruption.

Inside the base, the medical bays were overflowing. Medical staff rushed to patch up the injured, while exhausted Espers underwent emergency guidance, everyone still trying to process the chaos of the battlefield.

Wenzhi had just finished a deep guiding session with Xinyuan, leaving the Esper to rest.

As he left the private quarters, Wenzhi made his way down to Ruixin’s primary lab.

When he slid the doors open, he found Ruixin wrapping up a check-up on Zhiyao. A few feet away, Yuzhen was completely dead to the world, snoring softly with his bright red hair completely askew and his lips slightly parted as he slept heavily in a nearby chair.

"Hello, boss," Zhiyao said, offering a tired wave as Wenzhi stepped into the room.