Aethercross-Real Game，The Borderland of Reality and Fantasy

Chapter 16: The Night Assault

In the deep of the night, Sky awoke to the girl's uneasy movements in his arms. His eyes immediately sought Arachne.

She was drenched in cold sweat, her clothes clinging to her shaking body, clearly trapped in a terrifying nightmare. Suddenly, she screamed, waking up in terror, gasping for air.

Raimondo, awakened by the disturbance, sat up in confusion: "What's happening?"

"Arachne, what's wrong? Were you having a nightmare?" Sky asked, his voice filled with concern.

Arachne's eyes brimmed with an unprecedented level of fear. She stuttered, "They're here... they've come..."

"Who's here?" Sky inquired, bewildered.

After several deep breaths, Arachne attempted to compose herself: "I can feel them... those chilling, mighty presences. They're close, almost upon us."

As Sky started putting the pieces together, she cried out again, "They're right beneath us!"

Suddenly, an unsettling vibration came from below the base, growing stronger rapidly.

Raimondo called out from the window, "Sky, you need to see this!"

Sky hurried to the window, where he was greeted by a startling sight. The nearby ground was shaking violently, with cracks appearing from nowhere, sprawling across the terrain.

The metal walls of an indoor training area screeched in protest, warping, and then collapsing with a deafening crash.

The base was immediately filled with the piercing sound of alarms. As the alarms blared, swarms of genetic warriors, mostly still in their nightwear, streamed out of the dormitories. The commanding voice of an officer boomed over the base's PA system: "Enemy attack! Enemy attack! All genetic warriors, gear up and head to the armory, prepare for combat!"

From the fissure in the ground, a deep, menacing growl echoed, as if the legendary abyssal hell was just below, and its dreadful inhabitants were about to break free. With a thunderous roar, an enormous creature surged forth from the earth.

It was a fearsome, mutated sandworm, its body sheathed in a shell as hard as steel. Composed of segments, each segment resembled an independent combat unit, bristling with lethal spikes. The head was a vision of horror: a massive circular mouth lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth, ready to shred any obstacle in its path.

The creature's speed was surprisingly rapid; despite its immense bulk, it emerged entirely from the ground within tens of seconds. It was at this moment that its true form was revealed: a mutated sandworm, stretching over 20 meters in length and two meters in width. As it surged from beneath the earth, it evoked the awe and fear akin to a prehistoric leviathan returning to the modern world.

The sandworm wriggled its head, as if adjusting to the new surroundings, before unleashing a massive, menacing roar. Its mouth, lined with jagged mandibles, swung open to expel a stream of acrid, stench-filled acid. This liquid splashed against the metallic walls of a nearby training facility, instantly sizzling and dissolving the metal.