From Apocalypse To Entertainment Circle (BL)-Chapter 145: Silence in the Sands: Mission Started

The darkness was absolute, and the silence oppressive. It wasn’t the tranquil hush of night that carried the crickets’ song and the rustle of wind across the grass. No—this was a suffocating stillness, heavy and unnatural, as though the desert itself had forgotten how to breathe. The air felt thick, weighty, and each step or exhale seemed to echo too loudly against the void.

It wasn’t the silence of peace. It was the silence of absence—the kind that hinted, no, screamed, of the lack of any living creature nearby.

For all its cruelty, the desert was never truly dead. That reputation—the land of death—had been branded upon its sands by those who didn’t understand it. Certainly, the desert had its flaws: parched air, scorching days, freezing nights, predators lurking in shadow. Yet to those who listened, who watched, the desert was alive. Hundreds of species carved their lives into this wasteland. Particularly at night, when the burning sun relented, the desert brimmed with hidden movement: predators stirring, insects clicking and chirping, the distant shuffle of reptiles, and the whisper of wings slicing through cool currents of air. The breeze carried scents of survival—blood, sweat, fear, determination.

Normally, the desert never slept after dusk.

But this place? This place was wrong.

The air here was stale, unshaken. The dunes lay in eerie stillness, not a grain of sand shifting. No rustle of lizards darting between rocks, no distant howl of fox or coyote. It seemed untouched by the ordinary rhythm of nature, as if life itself had recoiled from some unseen poison.

A voice broke through the suffocating stillness.

"Commander, it looks like there are humans up ahead. Maybe half an hour’s distance."

The words came from the back of the armored jeep, calm but edged with something wary.

Kira sat there, no longer the girl in bright skirts that once caught glances in cities. Her yellow skirt was gone. She was dressed now in a black camouflaged combat uniform, the heavy gear molding to her slender form like a second skin. Blades strapped to her thighs, firearms secured across her chest, grenades clipped with neat precision to her belt—every piece of her attire screamed soldier, not ornament.

She was not merely a girl tagging along. She was one of Sian’s most important subordinates, her strength undeniable. Among her peers, she ranked a solid fifth—not by luck or favoritism, but by the sharp edge of her ability.

Yet her presence did not sit easily with the others.

Inside the vehicle sat battle-hardened men, their eyes carved deep with years of violence and survival. Against such grim faces, Kira’s youth and beauty stood out sharply. Some glanced at her with curiosity, others with veiled scorn. A handful wore the look of men who had already judged her and found her wanting.

It was understandable, in their way.

How could an eighteen-year-old girl possibly take part in an operation so secretive that even decorated elite officers had not been chosen to join?

And if they doubted Kira, their mistrust of Sian was even heavier.

Why? 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Because he was arrogant. Unbearably, incomprehensibly arrogant.

Where did his confidence come from? He was shorter, leaner than many of them. He had tossed aside his issued firearm, dismissing it as though it were no more than a broken toy. Instead, he carried only a single weapon: a silver dagger, strapped casually at his belt, gleaming faintly under starlight whenever it caught the angle of the moon.

Such behavior was, to them, unacceptable. Almost insulting.

But Lan Qisheng, sitting at the wheel, knew the truth.

He was aware of the murmurs, of the soldiers’ quiet rejection. He felt the tension that knotted the air inside the vehicle, a dissonance thrumming like an unstruck chord. But there was nothing he could do. In time, these men would learn. He had neither the time nor the patience to explain what they could not yet understand.

Just the night before, the mission had been delivered from the military base. Lan had gathered his squad in secret, outlining their objectives with the clipped clarity of a commander who knew the stakes. That night, he had introduced two newcomers—Sian and Kira—as temporary support.

No soldier had questioned the order aloud. Discipline was ingrained into them like marrow in bone. Yet silence did not mean acceptance. Not truly.

These men had fought battles where the line between life and death blurred into nothing. They had learned the truth carved by blood: that trust was the backbone of survival. To go into war was to place your life in the hands of those beside you. And here? They had been told to trust strangers.

And truthfully, those strangers—this girl, this beautiful, arrogant man—did not inspire confidence.

No, they looked like they belonged in a drama, not a battlefield.

Still, orders were orders. The mission was set. After the briefing, they departed under the cover of night. To avoid detection, they did not use helicopters; the roar of engines would have betrayed them across dunes. Instead, armored jeeps carried them westward, weighed down with weapons and supplies. The desert spread vast before them, the horizon endless.

In one jeep rode Lan Qisheng, Kira, Sian, and four soldiers. The commander’s hands stayed firm on the wheel, his calm voice carrying over the radio to coordinate with the other two vehicles shadowing them across the sands.

When Kira spoke, remarking about sensing humans nearby, the four soldiers traded mocking glances.

Lan, however, did not mock. He knew who she was. What she was. Without hesitation, he ordered all vehicles to halt. They would continue on foot.

The desert’s vastness was their greatest enemy. Their intelligence, though credible, had its flaw: the enemy laboratory was not fixed. It shifted locations daily, moving like a shadow. Somewhere in this ocean of sand, the lab existed—but it was a ghost, slipping through their grasp each day.

The last reported location had come from a spy, two days earlier. That spy had gone silent since. All Lan could do now was follow the ghost’s last footprints, a site still three hours away by vehicle.

Kira’s words contradicted that intelligence. Humans, half an hour away? Impossible. Unless...

The vehicles stopped. Doors opened. Boots sank into cool sand.

Supplies were unloaded with swift, practiced motions. The night air was sharp, cutting through the stillness.

Then Sian stepped out.

The starlight seemed to pause for him.

Dressed head-to-toe in black, his clothing clung to him like a shadow, covering every inch of skin but his face. Long, pale hair was tied neatly back, strands gleaming faintly under the stars. His hands—bare, ungloved—looked like they were carved from jade, the dagger at his side glinting like quicksilver.

His features caught the moonlight, sharp and striking. Eyes that gleamed with unfathomable depth. Lips full and faintly red, too vivid against the pallor of his skin.

The same men who had mocked him earlier fell silent.

He was too beautiful to ignore. Too beautiful to dismiss. Handsome, yes, but not in the rugged way they knew. His beauty was otherworldly—commanding without effort, delicate without weakness. Some men flushed, embarrassed to have scorned him. Others swallowed hard, disturbed by the strange gravity he exuded.

He looked less like a man, more like a figure carved out of myth. A deity standing upon the sands.

Sian lifted his gaze to the horizon. The stars scattered like dying embers across the black canvas of sky, faint and far. He stared, silent, as though the world beyond the dunes whispered secrets only he could hear.

The silence stretched, deep and strange—until a girl’s voice broke it.

Lively. Heavy.

"Leader, it’s been so long since I felt this way."

Sian turned toward Kira. His voice was calm, unhurried, but his eyes flickered with unspoken knowledge.

"What feeling? Freedom?"

Kira’s laughter rang against the barren night, bright and startling.

"No, Leader. The feeling of the battlefield. The scent of blood close at hand." She grinned, sharp and wild, her teeth flashing white in the dark. "Strange, isn’t it? Even when we were rolling in mud and blood, licking our wounds before throwing ourselves back into the fight... I think—no, I admit—those might have been the happiest days of my life."

Her smile faded. Shadows crossed her face. The warmth of her laugh drained, replaced by a coldness that seeped like frost.

They said every person carried a story, that everyone was the protagonist of their own tale. Kira was no different. Sian had his story, and so did she.

Kira was no different. Sian had his story, carved in tragedy after the end of the world. But Kira?

Her nightmare had begun long before the apocalypse.

For her, the end of the world had been a kind of liberation.

Perhaps that was why she had smiled and laughed, even as the world collapsed. Why had she radiated joy in chaos? Because before then, she had been hollow. A doll without spirit, drifting through life.

Only in ruin had she found herself alive.

And now, on this silent night, with the desert poised on the edge of something unseen, her words hung heavy in the air.

The soldiers shifted uneasily. The desert remained unnervingly still. And ahead, somewhere in the dark, waited the unknown.