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Warning: This chapter includes sensitive content such as ethnic, religious, racial, and intergroup issues, feminist viewpoints, patriarchal ideas, misandry (hatred of men), and discrimination against women. Should you wish to avoid this content, I have indicated the start of controversial discussions with an exclamation mark (!), or you may choose to skip the chapter entirely. 

 ^[1] TL note:  I don’t like this chapter. I feel the urge to dispute its contents, but I know debating  this topics won’t work, and most people will stick to their own opinions anyway, so … Continue reading

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Chapter 220. Middle East Journey (2) Physical C*strati*n

     The Middle East is in chaos now, unprecedented chaos.  

     Those who could flee had long since escaped when the situation first began to simmer. The ones left behind don’t know which direction to run or what means of transport to use.  

     The locals quickly realized that accidentally straying into the territory or airspace of those awakened monsters meant certain death, there was no way out. Fleeing was futile, hiding in place was the only option.  

     BOOM!

     Those hiding in the outskirts of Egypt heard a deafening crash. West of the ancient capital Memphis’ ruins, a massive black eagle with wings that might have spanned a hundred meters plummeted from the sky, slamming hard onto a small pyramid.  

     The pyramid collapsed, sending dust billowing into the air.  

     Before they could process what had happened, another creature fell no, streaked down from the sky: a slightly smaller white giant tiger, also sporting a pair of feathered wings. Under the harsh sunlight, its fur gleamed as if it could emit light.  

     The black eagle had just struggled free from the rubble, not yet taking flight, when the winged tiger seized its massive wings and smashed it into the ground —BAM! BAM!— shaking the earth with each impact.  

     The black eagle let out a series of piercing, agonized shrieks.  

     The white tiger demon nimbly dodged the eagle’s claw strike, its razor-sharp teeth sinking into the black eagle’s neck. Its claws slashed toward the eagle’s mid-abdomen, right where the four-chambered heart, should have been.  

     “Huh?”

     The winged tiger demon had pierced the eagle’s ventricle, yet there was no heart, not even a drop of blood. Instead, the black eagle let out one final shriek before crumbling into ash, completely disintegrating into the arid yellow earth of the Middle East. Not even bones remained.  

     The locals in Egypt watched as the winged tiger demon, having just slain the giant eagle, suddenly transformed into a modern aircraft. They rubbed their eyes, this was even harder to believe than the giant eagle.  

     “Hah?!”

     “What the hell?”

     “Hallucinations? Am I dying?”

     “Did that plane turn into a tiger, or was the tiger actually a plane? Why would a tiger become a plane?!”

     Just as the crowd began to question their sanity, the aircraft’s cabin door slowly creaked open.  

     From the aircraft descended over thirty individuals with jet-black hair and dark eyes, likely of Asian descent, both men and women. They were dressed in identical camouflage uniforms, each wearing matching golden masks that revealed only their eyes.  

     …

     “This fight was pointless. All cost, no gain. This Ancient Egypt dungeon is seriously not worth it,” Wang Xue muttered, eyeing the pile of sand on the ground with clear disdain.  

     Ye Mo sensed the lingering energy and replied, “Mainly wind-based, with an excess of dark spiritual energy.”  

     “A variation of puppet sorcery,” Ji Li supplied the term. “It binds and fuses the soul to the body, preserving intelligence and spiritual energy, but in a way far more sinister than necromancy. The controlled creature endures the constant decay of its flesh and the agony of a tearing soul, all while fully conscious and trapped in this state for millennia.”  

     Wang Xue: “*Damn.*”  

     The team leader from the Supernatural Investigation Bureau, responsible for liaising with Egypt and other Middle Eastern nations, was named Yin Hong, with Jian Xing as deputy. After a brief phone call, they exchanged nods with Ye Mo’s trio.  

     The group then set off toward Cairo.  

     …

     Watching their retreating figures, the locals who had stepped out of their sweltering homes for some air finally erupted into chatter:  

     “Are they Survivors?”  

     “Chinese Survivors.”  

     “If the Chinese Survivors are here, does that mean Egypt can be saved?”

     “I’ve already signed up on the Survivor app, I want to become a Survivor like them!”  

     “Me too!”  

     “…”  

     Meanwhile, international news outlets began reporting on Chinese Survivors arriving in Egypt for relief efforts. The footage of the winged tiger demon transforming into an aircraft had already been uploaded online.  

     While several major Survivor groups had reached Egypt, none matched the sheer spectacle of the Chinese team, because the identity of the winged tiger demon’s master was unmistakable:  

     The Chief Survivor.  

     For many nations across the globe, this was far from welcome news. It signaled that the Chief Survivor had now openly aligned with the Chinese government.  

     …

     Cairo, Egypt. Once a bustling tourist hub, now lay eerily quiet, its streets nearly deserted. This phenomenon wasn’t unique to Egypt; in the face of a survival crisis, the global tourism economy had collapsed.  

     Historic cities, in particular, were high-risk zones for “Reality Dungeons.”  

     But the true devastation was in the details: crumbling steel skeletons of buildings, commercial streets strewn with wreckage, abandoned cars, shattered glass, bloodstains even corpses. Faint sobbing echoed from the shadows, and fractured spirits lingered in the ruins. The scene was nothing short of apocalyptic.  

     Seeing this, everyone felt heavy-hearted. They might have experienced worse scenes in the dungeon, but there was still a gap between the copy and the Earth where they lived.

     Or perhaps, precisely because they’d brushed against death so often, they clung harder to this planet, their only true sanctuary.  

     The Chinese Survivors exchanged grim glances. The thought of their homeland suffering such ruin was unbearable. Even Wang Xue stiffened, her fingers tightening around the hilt of an invisible sword.  

     Suddenly, a swarm of rats scrambled past in panic chased by a monstrous black cat.  

     BOOM!

     Ye Mo cast a spell in the direction of the mice and cats, and fireballs jumped out from her palms and headed straight for them. After a while, most of the mice were dead.

     The black cat also turned into ashes, exactly the same as the black giant eagle.

     On the way to the designated target point, they encountered many similar monsters, which were weaker than the giant eagle. Due to time urgency, Ye Mo often dealt with them from a long distance.

     They finally reached their destination.

     With the municipal buildings in ruins, a minaret now served as the makeshift reception area. It was crowded with survivors about half locals from across the Middle East, and the other half from various countries, many of whom were familiar faces.  

     What left Ye Mo and her team both exasperated and amused was the heated argument unfolding between Cairo’s municipal officials and a group led by Lani Shannon the head of the Indian Women’s League despite the urgent crisis at hand.  

 !   The dispute wasn’t over resources or logistics, but over faith—or more precisely, the role of women in society.  

     It was no secret that the Middle East was globally renowned for its deeply rooted religious traditions, and Egypt was no exception. Cairo, in particular, housed hundreds of well-preserved mosques dating back to different Islamic dynasties.  

     None of that was the issue.  

     The problem lay in the centuries-old patriarchal interpretations of these beliefs, which had inevitably entrenched certain oppressive norms women’s subjugation to men, their treatment as property, and systemic gender inequality, still prevalent across much of the region.  

     And the Indian Women’s Gang?  

     This was the organization that had defied India’s caste system and gender hierarchy unapologetically, relentlessly. They were, without question, some of the fiercest feminist warriors in the world

     The local Middle Eastern survivors argued that allowing women into the minaret at all was already an “exceptional mercy.” They insisted female survivors should wear long robes and enter through the side door—centuries of ingrained tradition rearing its head even in these dire times.  

     “To hell with that!”

     “Blow it up!”

     “Tear it down!”

     “Who the fuck wants in anyway?”  

     “Respect? How about YOU respect US first?”

     This was the Indian Women’s Gang—the same group of ferociously unhinged sisters who had already toppled countless “filthy temples” back in India. They might be a little… extreme. But it was precisely their ruthless, uncompromising fury that allowed them to carve out a space for themselves in a society drowning in inequality.  

     In a country where gender oppression still thrived in the 21st century, the League had taken matters into their own hands—permanently.  

     These days, international news rarely carried headlines like:  

     “XXX Human Trafficking Den: Entire Client List Physically Castrated by Indian Women’s League”

     or  

     “XXX ‘Honor Killing’ Village: Every Man Fed to Sharks.”  

     Why?  

     Because Indian men—regardless of caste or class—had finally learned real fear.  

     Not to mention India, even in Pakistan next door to India and some countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia, who is not afraid of the Indian women’s gang? Even the royal families of some countries have been attacked.

     The Indian women’s gang has seen many such differences in beliefs and is committed to rescuing women trapped in misery. They simply cannot accept the male-to-female ratio of survivors in the Middle East, simply because women are completely restricted from participating in the survivor app.

     For this reason, mobile phones are restricted by law in some areas.

     What they cannot accept is that the survivors in the Middle East still wrap their faces and necks tightly in such a harsh and severe climate, just because of the local holy principle of not showing the face.

     The Indian Women’s Gang wasn’t just here to demolish temples. They were handing out recruitment pamphlets, urging women to join their sisterhood.  

     Had it not been for their leader, Lani Shannon, and her lieutenants restraining the more… physical impulses of the group, “saving Egypt” might have pivoted into “liberating Egyptian women”, not that Irani would’ve objected. This was, after all, her nth attempt at emancipating the region’s women.

     Which fortunate large group consisted only of men?

     The answer is none at all!

     As for other survivor groups, if even one male member thought of siding with the local Middle Eastern survivor groups, their own female teammates, regardless of what others thought, would teach them a harsh lesson with an iron fist!

!!!     Dressed in a cropped tank top and hot pants, Bella was currently grinding her heel into a Cobra intelligence agent’s most vulnerable area, reducing the man to a writhing, blood-vomiting mess.  !

     Yet she merely tossed her voluminous curls and flashed a sultry smile in Ye Mo’s direction, blowing them a flirtatious kiss.  

     “Hi.”  

     Ye Mo responded with a nod, while Wang Xue went a step further, giving an approving thumbs-up: “Badass.”  

     Every man in the vicinity suddenly felt an icy chill run through their nether regions.  

     Wang Xue’s attitude clearly signaled the stance of Ye Mo’s three-person team. As for the Supernatural Investigation Bureau’s current mission leader—Yin Hong, a woman herself—neither she nor her team had any intention of clashing with them over this matter.  

     Team Leader Yin Hong offered a polite smile to the heavily veiled female municipal worker from Cairo, deliberately ignoring her pleading gaze as she chose to quietly observe the unfolding drama. After all, anyone with eyes could see the outcome was inevitable Lani Shannon would be the undisputed victor here!  

     The local survivors stood no chance—They couldn’t win a fight, couldn’t win an argument, couldn’t even talk their way out of it, and there were more female survivors watching intently. And let’s not forget… rumors said the Chief Survivor had arrived…  

     Sure enough, within ten minutes, the Middle Eastern survivors finally stopped insisting on their gendered customs. The main gates swung open, welcoming all survivors without distinction.