However, the number of Enforcement Officers seemed endless. A fourth wave of aircraft had already emerged from the distant mist, their formation more dispersed, clearly trying to avoid being wiped out by a broad-range lightning strike.

They began to adopt harassment tactics: a small number pinned down Blue Bird, while the majority continued to pour cannon fire onto the train.

The protective ice shields and energy barriers on the train's exterior had already sustained multiple breaches. Sweat dotted the foreheads of Leng Ningxue and Yu Nian as the pressure to maintain the defense grew heavier.

"We can't let them stall us," Bai Cheng ordered decisively, her eyes fixed on the battle from the control room.

The train's engine roared as it suddenly accelerated, carving a silver arc through the sky filled with lasers and thunder, charging boldly toward the thickest part of the mist.

In the sky, Blue Bird had already locked onto a shuttle-shaped mothership faintly appearing in the distance, a Thunder Spear condensing in her hand like a blazing sun.

The battle had shifted from surviving an ambush to an active breakout.

Although the individual combat power of the Enforcement Officers was far inferior to Bai Cheng’s group, they were well-trained and coordinated seamlessly.

Just as the first wave of Enforcement Officers was being routed by Blue Bird's thunderous momentum and the reinforcements were stalling the train's escape with harassment tactics, almost all participating Enforcement Officers simultaneously sensed an anomaly from the energy cores implanted in their bodies.

It was the final command sent remotely via dark red runes by the leader deep within the Mist Source Core.

As if by agreement, they stopped their attacks. The remaining aircraft hovering in mid-air retreated in an orderly fashion, forming a loose encirclement.

A faint dark red light suddenly emanated from the armor on each Enforcement Officer's chest. Following that, an invisible pulse of energy erupted from the cores inside them, rapidly weaving and spreading through the air.

In an instant, it formed a dark red, translucent barrier covering several nautical miles, completely sealing off the train and its surrounding waters.

"A barrier?" Zi Yuan's eyes narrowed. She slashed out with her long blade, but the edge passed through the barrier as if it were a phantom, failing to stir even the slightest ripple.

Lu Duo manipulated vines to coil and strike, Leng Ningxue condensed ice spears for a volley, and Blue Bird blasted a Thunder Spear at the center of the barrier.

All attacks seemed to strike into another layer of space; the barrier remained motionless, and not even its energy fluctuations were disturbed.

Bai Cheng leapt out of the train and reached out to lightly touch the surface of the barrier.

Her perception was like a clay ox entering the sea, completely unable to penetrate it.

"It's not a physical barrier," she said in a low voice. "It's a spatial isolation formation. Our attacks are being directed to other dimensions, unable to act directly upon the barrier itself." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Outside the barrier, the Enforcement Officers hovered motionless, but their bodies beneath their armor began to decay visibly to the naked eye.

Their skin rapidly lost its luster, the coral-like protrusions at their joints cracked and peeled off, and their auras withered sharply.

Yet they showed no intent to retreat. Instead, they all aimed their laser cannons at the interior of the barrier, energy condensing at the muzzles as if a devastating volley would be triggered the moment anyone tried to break through by force.

Just then, a figure slowly descended from the sky.

It was an exceptionally tall Enforcement Officer captain, his armor inlaid with golden patterns.

He hovered at the outer edge of the barrier, looking down at Bai Cheng and the others through the translucent screen. His voice, amplified by the formation, was cold and carried blatant mockery:

"Heroes from beyond the domain, your strength is indeed impressive to force us to use the Abyssal Wall." A cold sneer curled his lips.

"Unfortunately, you know nothing of the Emerald Sea's power. This barrier is fueled by the life force of all of us. True, for every second it is maintained, we draw a step closer to death, but the price is worth it."

He raised his hand, and a stream of dark red light flowed from his ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) palm into the barrier. The screen's color deepened abruptly, and the sense of oppression within intensified.

"Once the formation is activated, a Level 1 alert is sent to all Enforcement Cities in the Emerald Sea.

Those who come next will no longer be these ordinary rapid response units."

A cruel satisfaction flashed in the Enforcement Officer captain's eyes. "They will be true Purifiers, ranked above King-class, carrying Judgment Weapons capable of flattening this entire sea region.

Every extra moment you stay here is another shovel of dirt for your own graves."

Following his words, the distant and muffled sound of a horn echoed from deep within the mist outside the barrier, as if some massive entity were awakening.

Shadows beneath the sea surface surged frantically, and at the Mist Source Core, those cold, giant eyes narrowed slightly, as if waiting for this hunt to reach its conclusion.

Bai Cheng looked up at the rapidly decaying but still steadfast Enforcement Officers outside the barrier, then toward the even larger energy fluctuations approaching through the distant mist, her expression solemn.

The train was trapped, powerful enemies were imminent, and the method to break this bizarre barrier seemed hidden within the burning life cores of those Enforcement Officers.

But they were clearly determined to sacrifice themselves for the formation and would not give any opening.

Time was slipping away, drop by drop.

On the train, the gazes of Leng Ningxue, Zi Yuan, Yu Nian, Blue Bird, and the others all turned toward Bai Cheng.

They understood that while the enemy's spatial barrier seemed unsolvable, Bai Cheng happened to possess spatial-type abilities that humans could almost never master, and she had already reached King-class Second Tier.

Even if she couldn't forcibly shatter this Abyssal Wall, she might be able to tear a rift in the screen using her similar spatial properties, buying time for the train to break out.

Bai Cheng stood silently before the barrier, a pale golden glow once again swirling in her eyes.

She didn't act rashly, but instead concentrated her perception on the energy structure of the screen.

It wasn't pure spatial isolation; it was more like peeling a local space away from the current dimension and temporarily anchoring it, rendering internal and external attacks ineffective due to dimensional misalignment.

The energy provided by the Enforcement Officers burning their lives was the very fuel maintaining this anchor.

"The essence of this rule-based barrier is dimensional offset," Bai Cheng suddenly spoke, her voice calm but clearly reaching everyone's ears.

"I can try to open a temporary return channel on the barrier, reconnecting the local space with the current dimension. But the channel will only last for a very short time; we must hit it in one go."

She lifted her hands, and silver-white spatial ripples rose between her palms. When they touched the dark red energy surface of the barrier, a faint cracking sound actually rang out.

The barrier shook violently, and the Enforcement Officer captain's face outside changed drastically: "Impossible... She's interfering with the dimensional anchor!"

This was the ace card their Enforcement Officers had always relied on!

Spatial power surged around Bai Cheng. Fine beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, yet she continued to step forward steadily.

A silver-white crack, just wide enough for the train to pass through, slowly bloomed on the dark red barrier.

It was a gap forcibly pulled back to the original dimension.

At the edges of the crack, dark red and silver-white energies collided violently, emitting a piercing hum.

"Now!" Bai Cheng shouted.

Blue Bird's lightning wings flared as she charged into the gap first as a bolt of electricity. Her Thunder Spear swept out, forcing back the Enforcement Officers who were trying to plug the gap.

Leng Ningxue and Zi Yuan guarded both sides of the train, while Yu Nian urged her vines to reinforce the edges of the gap.

The train's engine went to full power, passing through the rift like a silver meteor—

The moment the rear of the train cleared it, the gap collapsed violently, and the dark red barrier resealed itself.

But Bai Cheng and the others had escaped. The train accelerated without hesitation, heading straight for the Mist Source Core.

Outside the barrier, the Enforcement Officer captain watched them disappear into the distance, his decaying face filled with shock, fury, and disbelief.

Deep within the mist, those cold, giant eyes slowly turned, as if finally becoming serious.