Towering fortresses connected by endless walls stood proudly on the land, while countless monsters surged ferociously from both ground and sky toward the fortress walls. It seemed as if they were determined to break through the barriers keeping them from reaching the distant place filled with soaring skyscrapers and majestic towers.
Faced with the mad onslaught of the beast tide, even with the fortress walls unleashing their full firepower and killing hundreds of thousands of monsters every second, it was still just a drop in the ocean compared to the tide numbering in the hundreds of billions.
As massive numbers of monsters fell, their corpses became cover for those behind them, slowly paving a path toward the fortress wall. This was a true river of blood.
Seeing this horrific scene, Wang Cheng finally understood where the black-red soil outside the walls came from. Saturated with monster blood, it was no wonder the soil reeked of death.
As time passed, the beasts drew closer and closer to the wall. It was no surprise the entire defensive system required human assistance. With such intensity and frequency, even a top-tier AI's CPU would overheat trying to keep up.
At this point, high-tier apprentice-level beasts hiding within the horde finally revealed themselves. With their appearance, the entire tide of monsters grew even more frenzied.
Watching the horde closing in, Wang Cheng couldn't help but feel a hint of anxiety.
Though they could take down sixth-tier apprentice beasts, they had no way to deal with the seventh tier. After all, the weapons they used fired physical projectiles, and no matter how fast, they only reached dozens of times the speed of sound. For high-tier beasts with incredible speed, that was still plenty of time to react. Their reflexes were so fast that even advanced AI predictive systems struggled to keep up.
As for slightly slower high-tier apprentice beasts, his electromagnetic weapons barely broke through their defenses. Their scales were strong enough to keep them safe.
Leng Yan, too, was helpless against these high-tier apprentice beasts. Beasts with heightened instincts would instantly dodge any aimed energy weapon. Their bizarre speed allowed them to avoid getting locked on at all. The only viable method to kill them was using clustered laser attacks over a wide area.
Though Wang Cheng was anxious, he remained mentally calm. Suddenly inspired, he shifted his consciousness into his internal space and tossed in a several-hundred-kilogram corpse of a first-tier apprentice beast into the gray energy.
In addition to the familiar physical enhancement, he again felt that trance-like state of harmony between man and nature.
Facing a fast-moving seventh-tier beast, Wang Cheng instinctively aimed in a seemingly random direction and pressed the fire button.
In just two seconds, the overconfident beast landed, only to suddenly sense an overwhelming danger before it could react—its head was instantly blown to bits.
Wang Cheng's merit points immediately rose by 10, though he didn't even notice. He then aimed at a rhino-like high-tier beast and fired three rounds almost instantly.
In his vision, the beast didn't seem to sense danger and charged ahead. The first shell struck its eyelid, instantly turning it to a bloody mess. The second exploded its eyeball but didn't pierce the skull due to the resistance from the eye socket muscles.
However, the third shell struck the second one mid-impact, and together they broke through the beast's skull, shredding its brain.
The massive beast—over 20 meters tall and more than 30 meters long—tumbled uncontrollably forward, crushing and injuring countless mid- and low-tier beasts along the way.
The rapid deaths of two high-tier apprentice beasts caused a noticeable, albeit brief, pause in the beast tide.
The predictive feeling of premonition only lasted for a dozen breaths before fading. Wang Cheng glanced at his merit points again—20 more had been added.
"So high-tier apprentice beasts are worth ten times the points of mid-tier ones. But killing them is way more than ten times harder. Without that harmony state, I couldn't have done it."
An hour had passed since the beast tide entered the safety zone, and the vanguard was now less than 30 kilometers from the wall. For seventh-tier beasts, that was less than a minute and a half away from the base of the wall.
Even warriors like Leng Yan were starting to feel fatigue from the high-intensity battle, though Wang Cheng felt nothing.
Overhead, aircraft fired at the dense swarm of flying beasts while scanning the ground. Suddenly, clusters of red dots appeared within 10 kilometers of the wall.
A controller on one of the aircraft immediately reported, "Detected large numbers of underground mole beasts. They're less than 10 kilometers from the wall and may surface at any moment!"
All the mid- and high-tier apprentice warriors aboard the aircraft gripped their blades and shields tightly—time to fight for their lives.
Wang Cheng and Leng Yan also received the report. The aircraft adjusted their flight posture and lowered altitude to make it easier for warriors to drop.
Wang Cheng locked onto Wang Hao's aircraft. He didn't care about others, but he didn't want to see Leng Yan heartbroken in the future.
Also, Wang Cheng didn't want to stand out too much. After killing two high-tier apprentice beasts, he stopped. Drawing too much attention from the AI wouldn't be worth it.
Soon after, with a loud boom, a cave several meters wide opened up a few kilometers from the ground. Densely packed tunnels appeared near the front of the wall.
Out of these holes came not only the digging mole beasts but also many other monsters, all rushing toward the wall.
At that moment, aircraft dipped below 100 meters, allowing waves of human warriors to leap down and face the terrifying surge of monsters.
(End of Chapter)