"Harris, what have you done?"

In the midst of a roar,

Zhou Ping'an and Tang Tang lifted their heads, only to see at the place where the black tide surged over.

The workers, over a hundred, who were piling up earth and digging at the cave entrance, suddenly shuddered simultaneously, threw back their heads, and emitted piercing screams of agony.

On their bodies, black pustules grew with popping sounds, then burst open, turning their eyes a bloody red and causing fangs to protrude from their mouths.

These people had not only transformed in appearance. Their temperaments had also undergone drastic changes. Casting aside their shovels and hoes, they flailed with their newly sprouted sharp-nailed hands at any living creature moving about them, attacking and biting fiercely.

The soldiers who were a bit further away became frightened and hastily took up firearms to shoot.

However, they probably never expected such a scenario and were a little slow to react.

Just in that encounter, scores were torn, black miasma rose from their bodies, and they too began to mutate.

"Don't you folks from Zhuxia have a saying? 'Without destruction, there can be no construction'; how can you explore the inside without breaking the outer defense circle?

Such a little negative energy will pose no threat once it erupts."

A towering figure cloaked in white light, holding a broad sword, laughed heartily as he emerged from the cave with a flash.

His form was light and ethereal.

Guarding at his side was a half-mechanical, half-flesh humanoid creature with a metallic sheen on its skin and silver-white wings.

The moment this creature appeared above ground, it paid no heed to the ghastly mutated soldiers rushing at it. Instead, its silver wings flapped and fanned out to its sides,

Countless silver feathers, like hundreds of long knives, intertwined and slashed, slicing the mutating soldiers that got too close into chunks.

Behind these two figures, suddenly there was the sound of a silver whistle shattering crisply.

Blood flashed, trailing a straight line, and struck with a boom.

It came from the one who had roared in anger earlier.

Wielding a spear, his form split the sky, creating explosive sonic booms. In an instant, the tip of his spear had already reached the front of Harris, who had rushed forward with his sword.

Harris did not take a single step back.

The blade of his sword lifted diagonally in front of him, transforming into a ribbon of white, dispelling the thrusting force while he advanced half a step forward, twisted his waist, turned his arm, and his great sword arced down towards the blood light.

Spear against sword, in the blink of an eye, they clashed several times.

Neutralizing force against force, vying for the upper hand.

The shockwaves rippled outwards like tides and waves, sweeping across the area.

And the ground's soil layer was scraped down several feet.

"Is that a top expert from the warring faction? Could it be Shen Yanbei? He is actually in Dongjiang."

Seeing the several figures emerging from the cave, Tang Tang was so surprised she could hardly believe her own eyes.

Especially at the sight of the elderly man in military garb holding a blood-red spear, her emotions almost went out of control.

"Who is that man?"

Zhou Ping'an got a clearer view than Tang Tang.

He could even sense the tremendous energy sources within their bodies.

The half-biological, half-mechanical creature with silver wings, needless to say, was almost as transformed as a robot. Essentially, it was similar to the transformed beings Zhou Ping'an encountered at the Proluo State base - a battlefield creature.

He had even looked up information about them.

This was a high-level modified elite troop known as "Angel Armament" from the Eagle Alliance, not available in large quantities.

A true killing machine.

It feared neither death nor pain, following programmed instructions, executing commands, and bravely assaulting the enemy.

In critical moments, they could also self-destruct to inflict damage on the enemy.

That meant detonating thermobaric explosives.

In the video he saw that day, he caught a brief glimpse of five silhouettes, which were the experts from the Eternal Life Group.

A technician once warned him that among those silhouettes, the one with a bulging back, which looked odd, was very likely a modified creature.

And now, both of them could confirm that was indeed the case.

Furthermore, one of those silhouettes was the man emanating white light not far ahead.

Just as Zhou Ping'an had guessed, the man indeed was a swordsman, or perhaps a knight.

The thick white light on his body could even push back the surging dense black fog to one side, unaffected, which showed not only did he practice Martial Arts but also possessed some kind of mystic power.

"That must be 'Holy Light.' On the West Coast, they have integrated transformation technology with faith-based techniques. I heard they made no small achievements on the wicked path. During the conference at the beginning of the year in Linhai, I remember there were criticisms of this approach."

Tang Tang referred to when she, as a rising star officer, went to Linhai before her promotion.

At that time, Zhou Ping'an was an inconspicuous junior officer and naturally did not have such qualifications.

However, he had heard from Tang Tang about some of the secrets involved.

As for the internal debates within Zhuxia on this topic, he wasn't on either side of it.

In these times of great change, all countries sought to forge ahead, pioneering a new path to suppress other nations.

Any choice made wouldn't be strange.

"Are both of them S-class?"

Tang Tang couldn't tell.

To her, whether it was the 'Holy Light' glowing swordsman named Harris, or the spear-wielding, thunderous, military-garbed old man, their presence felt as towering as mountains...

Merely watching the two of them exchange blows, seeing the shockwaves that ensued, was enough to leave her feeling breathless.

Even the half-mechanical being with silver wings whirling and striking seemed beyond her capabilities to defeat.

"Not just two, there's a third one; you misjudged."

Zhou Ping'an squinted his eyes but didn't move forward.

There was a Thunder Formation ahead, concealed with great care. On one hand, he didn't want to get blasted; on the other, he vaguely felt that showing himself now was not a good idea.

"You mean, that half-mechanical...?"

"No, look at that guy who looks like an old farmer."

Zhou Ping'an pointed towards the right side of the cave entrance, where dozens of mutated pitch-black soldiers had charged through, yet curiously, a small group of people hadn't been affected by the onslaught.

An old man with a hunchback and a goat beard, looking very rustic as he smoked a dry pipe, exhaled smoke from his mouth and nose which seemed inconspicuous under the dark fog.

What was crucial was that his appearance was somewhat eerie.

And his form and actions were starkly out of place with the surrounding environment.

This hunchbacked old man, who looked like an ordinary farmer, might seem unremarkable, but even Zhou Ping'an hadn't noticed his extraordinariness at first glance. However, upon setting eyes on this person, he couldn't help but feel a faint sense of threat.

It proved that this person was definitely another S-Class strength holder.

"That's someone from the Hongguang Group,"

Upon Zhou's hint, Tang Tang used the light to take a closer look and was quickly able to identify which faction these people belonged to.

"If I'm not wrong, the Eternal Life Group has also mixed in, probably forming an alliance with the Hongguang Group to explore together,"

Tang Tang's mind was working rapidly.

First and foremost, she felt a sense of alarm at the formidable strength of the various parties present.

At the same time, she was somewhat anxious.

"Junior Brother, this won't do. If they're collaborating, their power is significant. Once they resolve their internal disputes, they could indeed beat us to the discovery,"

She knew just how much her Junior Brother cared about the ruins outside the city; it was rare to see him so earnestly invested in something.

Just as he had said.

If the martial arts she was cultivating were merely calculus,

then the benefits that might be obtained from Madame Zhao Yue's ruins could be likened to the knowledge needed to build a spaceship.

In another sense, that could be a heritage of a method capable of transcending the ordinary.

To see that possibly snatched away by others truly would be a great pity.

But now, making a move to snatch it by entering the ruins of the cave was not a good plan.

The opponents had three S-Class strength holders out in the open, each of whom looked tough to deal with.

If they joined forces, even Junior Brother would have no way to withstand them, right?

"It's not that simple; they might have unleashed something troublesome by forcing their way through,"

Zhou Ping'an gently concealed his True Qi and took Tang Tang's hand, retreating backward.

When the several people in front started to fight amongst themselves, he had been interested in watching the show to see if he could find an opportunity.

But at this moment, he felt a chill in his heart.

A coldness on his back.

And then, with his exceptional vision, he had already spotted that where the ground was shrouded in black qi, the dispersal was eerily even, tracing out a vast pattern following some mysterious trajectory...

"Retreat..."

Upon sensing that something was amiss, the first reaction was to step back and observe, to understand the situation before taking action.

Zhou Ping'an, when reading books or watching dramas, had always despised those protagonists who, despite realizing something was wrong, would still let their curiosity lead them to their deaths.

It was as though they couldn't be the hero without going through some life-threatening peril.

He did not want to break that rule.

The more dangerous it seemed, the better it was to get as far away as possible.

Zhou Ping'an retreated quickly, but the situation in the field changed even faster.

The indiscriminate black tide of qi had surged far away, then suddenly rolled back.

Rumbling like a tidal wave crashing against the shore.

Amidst the loud noise,

a black figure made entirely of airflow appeared within the black qi, with the head of a Minotaur and twisted horns.

"Minotaur, you've got to be kidding?"

Tang Tang could hardly believe her own eyes.

Was this what they dug up from the ruins?

Was it an illusion? Or had she not fully woken up from her brief rest?

"Keep quiet, there's more than one,"

Zhou Ping'an continued to retreat backward.

The black qi ripples had swept across more than two thousand meters, and he had not yet escaped this domain.

He could already sense a peculiar qi mechanism rapidly condensing around him.

...

At the entrance of the cave, as the Minotaur figure started to take shape, it stood three to four meters tall.

It roared with its mouth wide open.

In its hands, a giant axe blade formed of black fog shone with a dark and sharp light.

Without any show of movement,

seemingly attracted by the overwhelming Qi-Blood unleashed by the military uniformed elder and the Hades swordsman in their duel, it stepped over twenty meters in a single stride. The axe swung horizontally with both speed and heft, creating a whirlwind that flattened the ground.

Before the blade even reached its target,

the bodies of the dozens of mutated soldiers it passed exploded with a series of "pop" sounds into clumps of dirty blood.

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