The Academy of Sciences covered a vast stretch of ground and brimmed with talent.

Every year, dozens or even hundreds of technological products of every kind were conceived there, brought into being, and sent out into the world, changing the way humanity lived on the wasteland.

Countless gifted people from every corner of the land also came to study, then left with full harvests and returned to their own territories, so that humanity’s plight was no longer as desperate as it had been only a few years before.

Countless people called this place the cradle of the future, the foundation of humanity, and the dream of every child.

To protect it, an army of as many as ten thousand men was even stationed in nearby Pojun Town, ready to arrive at any moment. That alone showed how important the place was.

And yet...

“Western Military Region business. All unrelated personnel, clear out at once. Three warnings. This is the second!”

The emotionless voice rang out again beside Hou Congwen’s ear, cutting off the memories flashing through his mind, and kept echoing through the research building now that the power was out.

Perhaps Qiu Hong had not been wearing the Academy of Sciences’s proper work uniform and had not declared his identity.

Or perhaps, until someone reached the rank of researcher, he was nothing but an ant in these murlocs’s eyes.

After that warning fell, Hou Congwen, who had been slumped on the ground, sprang up without thinking. He did not know where the strength came from, but he scrambled and crawled straight for the stairwell.

On the way he passed the doorway of the laboratory that had only a single gap left in it, and for an instant he hesitated.

In the end, though, feeling the threat of death as if it were whispering at his ear, Hou Congwen still did not dare make the slightest extra move. He chose to follow his own instinct.

Knowledge was a weapon only when two people stood at the same level of strength.

If the virtual realm had not yet collapsed, Hou Congwen might have tried to use that power to pull every murloc into his own home ground, split them apart, and stall for rescue.

But these murlocs, and those invaders with them, clearly understood the researchers’ only means of striking back.

Cut the power, and you cut off everyone’s only means of striking back.

“Get lost. What are you still staring at?”

Just before the stairwell, Hou Congwen turned his head with a touch of hesitation, as if he still wanted to say something.

But the moment he turned, a murloc guarding the stairwell grinned and, without the least hesitation, smashed the butt of his gun into Hou Congwen’s back.

That blow carried a tremendous force.

Hou Congwen’s whole body went like a wind-up toy and rolled straight down the stairs from the third floor.

Back and forth he tumbled, until he slammed into the platform on the first floor and finally stopped, his head split open and bleeding, his face covered in cuts.

Heh heh heh...

Seeing him in that wretched state, the murlocs on the third floor still kept their attention fixed on the laboratory with only a small crack left in it.

But the murlocs on the first-floor platform who were watching the other researchers could not help bursting into laughter. For a moment the atmosphere in the whole building turned strange and frightening, enough to chill the blood.

“Are you... are you rebelling?”

“From Pojun Town to the Academy of Sciences is twenty minutes at most. You people are far too arrogant!”

“Hou... Researcher Hou Congwen is on the Deification Ranking. If he dies, none of you will get away!”

“That’s right. Researcher Hou only just made the Deification Ranking. If he’s gone, you’ll all be buried with him!”

Watching the wound on Hou Congwen’s head grow worse and worse, a thin stream of blood flowing without stop from the back of his skull, the researchers present felt the grief of rabbits mourning a dead fox. One voice after another rose in support.

Then, when they heard that he was actually on the Deification Ranking, a murloc standing farther back finally changed expression slightly and shot a look at the murlocs beside him.

An ordinary researcher and a researcher on the Deification Ranking were absolutely two different concepts.

For the former, even if something unexpected happened, so long as it was not death, the Western Military Region could still take most of the pressure and bring them back to Murloc City intact.

But for the latter, if he truly was on the Deification Ranking, even a flesh wound would be a problem.

Never mind the Western Military Region alone. Even with the Northern Military Region added in, this whole group would find it hard to escape the Academy of Sciences’s mad revenge afterward.

“All of you shut up. We’ll treat him!”

Stepping forward, two murlocs first picked out a few troublemakers among the researchers on the ground and slapped each of them hard across the face three or four times.

Only then did they haul Hou Congwen up from where he lay, take a flask from their belts, and hold it to his lips.

What happened next was miraculous. Deep blue precious water flowed from the spout into Hou Congwen’s mouth.

In barely five seconds, the wound on his head was more than half healed.

It was not a full return to normal, but at least the bleeding had stopped and the injury had stabilized.

“Phew. We finally saved him.”

Seeing Hou Congwen slowly open his eyes from unconsciousness, many researchers let out a breath, and their tense bodies relaxed.

From the founding of the Academy of Sciences until now, because of that agreement sealed years ago with no one knew how much blood, the territory had fallen into chaos countless times, yet this place had never been touched before.

But sadly, that agreement now seemed to have lost its force.

They watched the murlocs’s arrogance with their own eyes and could do nothing about it.

“I wonder how the Dean and the other institutes are doing. I really hope we don’t see another massacre like the one back then. Our Academy of Sciences truly cannot take another loss that heavy.”

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