[Time Until Ultimatum Expires: 00:00:00]

  There were no horns declaring war, no battle cries for the charge.

  The war began the instant the first flare exploded above the 13th Street.

  BANG—!

  Pale light tore through the night, illuminating the ruins like a ghostly domain. Immediately following, the Necromancy Guild's Scavenger troops surged in from all directions like a black tide.

  "Advance! Eliminate all resistance!"

  Heavy combat boots crushed rubble, and the roar of machine guns instantly drowned the neighborhood.

  But they didn't encounter the scattering civilians they expected.

  Instead, they ran headfirst into a sudden, impenetrable yellow fog.

  [Environment Card: London Smog] Activated.

  This card, worth 2.000 Merit Points, demonstrated its suffocating control at this very moment. The once-clear air instantly turned viscous and pungent, visibility dropping to less than two meters. The toxic fog, a mixture of coal smoke, sulfur, and the smell of dead fish, not only obscured vision but severely interfered with the Scavengers' infrared thermal imagers and comms channels.

  ZZZT... "Captain, I can't see the target! It's all fog!"

  "The fog is toxic! Respiratory filters are alarming!"

  The perfectly ordered advancing formation was instantly thrown into chaos by the sudden fog. Scavengers buzzed around like headless flies in the narrow alleys.

  "Don't panic! Maintain formation! Covering fire!"

  At that moment, John Doe stood on the roof of the clinic, overlooking the chaos through Grace's faint but resilient local radar.

  He held the Yin-Yang iPad, but the screen didn't display the usual combat interface. Instead, it showed an incredibly complex—even geometrically beautiful—[Street Warfare Defense Map].

  This map was something he had "stolen" 23 hours ago, right after the Guild issued that blood-red notice, via an emergency connection from Daoist Singularity.

  Back then, Grace had sharply spotted the middle-aged general standing behind Singularity, directing soldiers in Ming Dynasty armor to move cables.

  "That's... Qi Jiguang?!"

  John didn't miss the opportunity. Using the last shred of his dignity (read: shameless begging), he asked the Eastern God of War for a strategy.

  Qi Jiguang didn't waste words. He gave him just eight characters:

  "Small forces hold firm; large forces entrap."

  "In street warfare, your terrain is your soldier. Turn streets into mazes, houses into bunkers. Don't think about head-on confrontation; act like a wolf pack—split the enemy, surround them, and eat them bite by bite."

  Now, John was executing this very tactic.

  "Bone, Zone A! Lure the enemy into the 'Dead End'!"

  "Teacher Kong, Zone B! Cut them off! Use your students to teach those uncultured brutes a lesson!"

  "Uncle George, Zone C! Fire! Remember, burn the road, not the houses!"

  With John's commands, the entire street came alive.

  Under the cover of the fog, the seemingly chaotic abandoned buildings, piles of trash, and even inconspicuous manhole covers transformed into deadly traps.

  [Zone A · Labyrinth of Death]

  A squad of twelve Scavengers was cautiously groping forward.

  "Watch the left!"

  Suddenly, a broken wall on the left collapsed.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Bone charged out of the dust. He wielded a massive chainsword stripped from a mech. Although the engine wasn't running (for stealth), the heavy metal blade carried terrifying kinetic energy.

  "Coming through!"

  Bone didn't linger. He slapped the point man away with the flat of the blade, turned, and ran into a narrow alley barely half a meter wide.

  "Chase him! Don't let him escape!"

  The Scavengers roared and charged in.

  But the moment they rushed into the alley, they realized with despair that it was a dead end.

  The end of the alley was blocked by several scrapped buses. From the high walls on both sides, dozens of sharpened steel pipes suddenly protruded.

  "Release!"

  A childish shout came from atop the wall.

  Dozens of children (Kong's students) pushed over oil drums placed on the wall.

  It wasn't boiling oil, but... slippery detergent water.

  SPLASH—!

  The ground instantly turned into a skating rink.

  The Scavengers in heavy armor became clumsy penguins. They slipped, collided, and piled up on each other.

  Then, countless bricks, and even glass bottles filled with chili powder, rained down from the sky.

  "Cough, cough! My eyes!"

  "Damn it! What kind of tactic is this?!"

  This was the essence of the Qi Army's street fighting—a variation of the "Mandarin Duck Formation." Use terrain to limit the enemy's heavy firepower, then use asymmetric means for a dimensional strike.

  [Zone C · Corridor of Fire]

  Uncle George pushed his hot dog cart to the intersection.

  "Come on, try my 'Extra Spicy Hot Dog'!"

  He didn't throw Molotov cocktails. He simply opened a valve under the cart.

  The pre-buried gas pipes (actually abandoned biogas lines) were connected.

  BOOM!

  A hundred-meter-long fire dragon roared into the sky, forcing back a squad of mech infantry attempting to flank.

  The fire wasn't scary because it burned; it was scary because it cut off the enemy's retreat and herded them into an extremely awkward position—the open ground of the crossroads.

  There, was the "Kill Zone" John had prepared for them.

  The battle was brutal.

  Despite the fog and terrain advantage, the Scavengers were regular army. After a brief chaos, they quickly adjusted tactics.

  Heavy machine guns began blind firing; high-explosive grenades indiscriminately bombarded every suspicious building.

  Casualties began to mount.

  "Ah! My leg!"

  "Help! I can't make it!"

  More and more neighbors fell in pools of blood. Some hit by stray bullets, some crushed by collapsing walls.

  The ground floor hall of the clinic had been converted into a temporary field hospital.

  But the situation here was worse than the front line.

  No anesthesia, no plasma, only a few rolls of yellowing gauze and expired alcohol.

  "John! We're out of medicine! Not enough hemostats!"

  Aunt Mary, hands covered in blood, cried out. She was just a seamstress; she didn't know how to treat gunshot wounds.

  A young man, shot in the abdomen with his intestines spilling out, grabbed Mary's hand, face pale. "Auntie... am I going to die... I haven't even had a girlfriend yet..."

  Despair spread among the wounded. More lethal than the wounds was the loss of hope.

  John heard everything from the second floor.

  His heart bled.

  He knew if he didn't get powerful medical support now, this ragtag army of civilians would soon collapse from heavy casualties.

  "Must save them."

  John looked at the name reserved on his iPad.

  [Florence Nightingale]

  [Summoning Cost: 2500 Merit Points.]

  "Grace, use the remaining 975 Merit Points to maintain her existence!"

  "Understood! Boss!"

  John took a deep breath and pressed the golden cross icon.

  "Lady with the Lamp, please... light up this place!"

  HUM—

  A soft white light, smelling faintly of disinfectant, lit up the blood-filled clinic hall.

  From the light walked a woman in a black Victorian dress and white apron, holding an old-fashioned oil lamp.

  Nightingale.

  She didn't smile gently as legend said. Instead, her expression was stern as granite, her eyes commanding unquestionable authority.

  She wasn't here to be a nanny. She was here to fight.

  To fight Death.

  "What is this mess?!"

  Nightingale's opening line startled the weeping Aunt Mary.

  "Throw that dirty cloth away! That will kill him with infection! Open the windows! Air circulation is more important than the toxic fog!"

  She strode over to the young man with spilling intestines. She showed no hesitation or fear (a calmness toward gore that made the hemophobic John ashamed).

  She slammed the lamp onto the table.

  Something magical happened.

  The light from the lamp wasn't ordinary light. It formed a ten-meter-diameter [Absolute Sterile Field]. Within this field, all bacteria, viruses, and even dust were instantly purified.

  "Don't move."

  Nightingale pulled silver scissors and a needle from her pocket.

  "Bear it. No anesthesia, bite on this wood."

  She shoved a piece of wood into the young man's mouth, then worked with lightning speed—cutting away necrotic flesh, stuffing the intestines back in, and suturing the wound.

  Her movements were dazzlingly fast, every stitch precise.

  "Next!"

  Before the young man could thank her, she had already rushed to an old man with a broken leg.

  "Who dares to make noise in my ward?!"

  When a wounded man screamed in pain, Nightingale slapped his forehead (Physical Anesthesia).

  "Quiet! Your screaming affects others' heart rates!"

  This was the [Berserk Healer].

  Under her command, the chaotic clinic hall instantly turned into an efficient machine.

  Aunt Mary became the head nurse; neighbors with slight first-aid knowledge became assistants.

  "This is the rear! As long as you have a breath left, I will snatch you back from the Reaper!"

  Nightingale's voice, carried by the lamp's light, reached every fighter's ears.

  It was a stimulant more effective than any pre-battle speech.

  On the front line, Uncle Miller wiped blood from his face.

  "Hear that? We have a miracle doctor!"

  "As long as the head isn't chopped off, we can be saved! Brothers! Fight them!"

  Morale soared.

  Lines that were on the verge of collapse miraculously stabilized.

  Watching this, John finally let out a breath.

  But he knew it wasn't enough.

  The ground crisis was temporarily relieved, but the threat from above... had just begun.

  WHIRRR—

  From the sky came the dense sound of propellers.

  The Guild's drone swarm had arrived.

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