Gu Xichen’s cloud boots flashed beneath him. His speed suddenly magnified severalfold. The sweeping palm strikes of these few fighters barely grazed Gu Xichen’s body as their Ruyi Gloves, trailing an absolutely suffocating chill, slammed down towards his face. In a flash, the figures of several fighters vanished like specters. Immediately afterward, a wave of coldness pierced his lower abdomen and chest. They never regained consciousness again.

Jin Hu curled up weakly in the trench. He whispered instructions to the few mercenaries beside him, “Gather more explosives. If the oversight team sends more troops, we’ll just tell them to go to hell! Charging forward means certain death. If we strike backward, just long enough to break into the dense forest, we might survive!” Most of the mercenaries in the mercenary corps were hardened criminals sprung from Federation prisons. Hearing Jin Hu’s order, the mercenaries exchanged fierce glances and quickly dispersed to notify their comrades. The mercenaries grudgingly gathered huge quantities of grenades and explosives. They were ready to stake everything on a desperate counterattack.

It was at this very moment that Gu Xichen, having annihilated the last few fighters of the 18th Brigade, burst through to the enemy position. His body soared high, climbing to a height of fifty meters. Gu Xichen channeled his true qi, let out a heaven-shaking shout, “Hell Angels Mercenary Corps, follow me and kill!” His dual claws ripped downward. Two light tanks that had just charged forward were torn to shreds by the sheer force. Two deafening explosions followed. Xin Jia, bringing up the rear, casually grabbed two tanks and hurled them over fifty meters away, where they detonated with a crash.

A contingent of two hundred Federation soldiers, gritting their teeth, charged towards Gu Xichen. They raised their rifles and unleashed a wild barrage in his direction. Xin Jia spun the chain in his hand. With a sharp whoosh, the chain swept across the soldiers’ torsos at waist level. Incessant screams followed. The soldiers were flung over a hundred meters, their lumbar vertebrae shattered. They clawed and writhed on the ground in terror, emitting continuous cries of despair.

Tss-tss-tss. Zhao Yi flicked his wrist. A dozen comrades beside him simultaneously performed hand seals, directing their power downward. Hundreds of thin lightning bolts roared down. The soldiers thrown back by Xin Jia were completely incinerated. “It’s the Vice Commander!” Jin Hu recognized Gu Xichen’s voice. His bulky body immediately sprang up, roaring with joy, “The Vice Commander is here! He’s not dead!”

A surge of adrenaline erupted from nowhere. Jin Hu snatched up a heavy machine gun whose mount had been broken nearby. He lifted it and squeezed the trigger toward the dozen oversight soldiers behind him. Da-da-da-da. The dense rain of bullets shredded the federal soldiers into pieces. Jin Hu howled and led the bulk of his mercenaries surging toward the Federation troops. Gu Xichen quickly rendezvoused with Jin Hu. The Hell Angels mercenaries had already heard Gu Xichen’s call, and the remaining able-bodied fighters were rapidly gathering toward them, carrying or dragging their wounded comrades. The ferocious mercenaries, upon hearing Jin Hu’s shout, had immediately turned their weapons on the oversight soldiers nearby. The officers and men of the 18th Brigade were caught completely off guard, suffering heavy casualties. Massive quantities of grenades and explosives were detonated simultaneously. Tank after tank from the 98th Brigade was sent skyward; the battlefield dissolved into chaos. Valerius was killed. Ingles was killed. The field communication vehicle leading directly to the main command post was destroyed. The leaderless 18th Brigade descended into utter pandemonium.

A shout echoed. The Romanians on the high ground had not yet understood what had happened before Gu Xichen had already charged into the vast jungle to the east with the mercenary corps fighters. They left behind the decimated 18th Brigade. The Romanians hesitantly launched a counter-charge. They easily finished off the 18th Brigade, tearing a massive gap in the tripartite pincer movement of the Heavenly Star Expeditionary Force.

Inside the Pangu Base, Vagri smashed his favorite display console in a rage. “Valerius, my nephew! Gu Xichen… you are dead!”

“Order the 8th, 12th, and 33rd Heavy Armor Divisions to deploy! Find the Hell Angels Mercenary Corps and annihilate them!”

In the dense forest, Gu Xichen, his face ashen, led the wounded and weary mercenaries toward the southern passage to the capital. Xin Jia burrowed rapidly underground, rushing with all possible speed toward the Asian Dao Alliance base on Heavenly Star. A giant battleship hovered overhead. All its cannons pulsed with hazy electrical light, the intense energy ionizing the surrounding air so that even a slight touch would spark a faint blue arc. Hundreds of Spirit Race soldiers poured out from the jungle behind them, stopping just outside the cave where they were hidden. The mental energy of all the Spirit Race soldiers once again coalesced, transforming into a powerful mental shockwave that blasted down into the valley.

Gu Xichen shot past from the distance with a rushing sound of displaced air, and behind him, the distinct, flickering silhouette was clearly in close pursuit. Siren glanced sharply at the transparent phantom behind Gu Xichen and commanded in a low voice, “Aredia, see that hilltop? Eliminate everyone up there!”

Aredia, her red hair flowing wildly, stood up. She smiled confidently and dismissively. The hilltop where Ducatohol Som was located was well within her line of sight. From her angle, she only needed to casually toss a few fireballs over to annihilate every single (Roman) person up there. A ring of fire enveloped Aredia, her long hair blazing fiercely. Aredia condensed an orb of black fire, no bigger than a thumb, the heat wave sweeping across the entire cave. Siren casually positioned himself behind Aredia, right beside Ingles and Aredia. Siren remembered the note Gu Xichen had given him: Vagri cannot be trusted.

Ingles smiled enigmatically. He activated his communicator and calmly issued an order: “Capture the Taoist Xiaozhang alive. Strive to kill Gu Xichen.” Siren hesitated for a moment, then immediately struck towards Ingles. Ingles, who had been prepared, met the blow with a punch. Siren, struck unexpectedly, was sent reeling back by Ingles’ sudden burst of power. Siren crashed against Aredia’s back. Realizing something was wrong, Aredia grabbed Siren’s hand, casually hurled six fireballs onto the ground, and detonated them. The six incompletely formed fireballs exploded, collapsing an entire section of the cliff face, over four hundred meters wide. The resulting landslide dragged the more than a thousand Spirit Race warriors standing on top down into the valley, crushing and injuring a large number of the Holy See personnel standing directly below.

Aredia was immune to the energy of the fireballs she had unleashed. She enveloped Siren with her own power, and the two transformed into a cloud of fire, rocketing toward the dense forest. Ingles and the other four simultaneously donned a type of shimmering black skintight soft armor. They rose from the flames unscathed and jointly attacked Siren. The air filled with shrapnel of all sizes. Rifles of various calibers spat fire. Assorted bombs materialized out of thin air around Siren and Aredia. Blades left faint trails as they sliced back and forth with piercing sonic booms, while massive waves of high-temperature flames burned over everything.

As soon as the five of Ingles struck, lethal attacks of every kind blanketed a space spanning several kilometers. Siren and Aredia evaded every strike, weaving nimbly through the blades, bullets, bombs, razor filaments, and flames. No attack managed to singe a single hair on their heads.

Suddenly, a bizarre black shadow appeared amidst the distant fireworks. It was a massive wheelchair, upon which sat a grossly deformed ‘monster.’ A powerful mental shockwave slammed into them. Siren and Aredia’s vision went black simultaneously, and they were both flung backward by the oppressive psychic impact. Most of Siren’s bones shattered instantly. He managed to pry his eyes open just enough to vaguely see the monster laughing hideously, its mouth wide open, with copious amounts of saliva dripping from its lips.

“Ah!” Siren screamed, jolting awake from a deep nightmare. He coughed violently a few times, shoving the terrifying, distorted face from his mind to the side.

He was in a vast square hall, over a hundred meters long and wide. The four walls, floor, and ceiling were constructed of dull gray alloy panels. The hall was empty save for a single, murky water tank in the center. Six high-powered incandescent lamps cast an indifferent, cold light from the ceiling. Every inch of the alloy panels reflected a lifeless, emotionless sheen. In the open tank, there was a foot-deep pool of thick, pale purple liquid. Siren lay naked within it, only his face exposed above the surface. A one-inch-wide filament ring was fixed to Siren’s forehead. Several electric lamps flickered rapidly on the ring. Siren’s spiritual energy was being continuously siphoned off through this ring; he couldn't concentrate any power at all. A filament spider, about a foot in diameter, perched on Siren’s lower abdomen. Its eight long, slender filament legs were deeply embedded in the muscle near Siren’s dantian. Numerous rune-shaped filament needles continuously emitted strong electromagnetic interference, completely isolating Siren’s primary meridians. He couldn't muster even a sliver of true qi.

Besides these two apparatuses, over seventy percent of Siren’s bones were broken, and his internal organs had sustained severe impact. His body was as battered as an egg crushed by a mad dog—a truly catastrophic state. The purple fluid in the tank merely sustained Siren in a state between life and death; it offered no aid whatsoever to his recovery.

“Hey, is anyone there?” Siren sighed deeply. “Since you didn’t kill me, come out and let’s talk terms!”

Click. A doorway opened in a corner of the hall. A middle-aged man in a Major General’s uniform walked in slowly. A faint whirring of motors sounded behind him. A massive electric wheelchair followed him into the hall. Siren’s neck was broken, so he could only strain his eyeballs, looking intently toward the direction of the sound. The muscles in his body tensed violently, and his heart hammered.

The middle-aged Major General looked completely ordinary, his eyes empty and vacant. However, Siren had an extremely deep impression of the deformed monster sitting in the wheelchair behind him. This creature, no larger than a boy of thirteen or fourteen, yet possessing a head the size of a bull’s, with bluish veins surging beneath its smooth scalp like small fingers—this was the one who had shattered Siren and Aredia head-on with a single mental shockwave. Which volume was this again? Even his mind had forgotten.