The dense, oppressive tide of rats didn't appear boundless; it spanned the entire width of the highway, stretching perhaps a hundred meters in length. With each rat beast measuring thirty centimeters, this swarm undoubtedly numbered tens of thousands of monsters—already qualifying as a minor rat tide. Even a Warlord-level martial artist would be swallowed and annihilated!
Thus, Luo Feng had only one choice...
"Run!" Luo Feng immediately bolted down the expressway.
"Hoo, hoo, hoo—"
Wan Dong and the other two had long since discarded their battle knives, shields, and other weapons, running for their lives. The rat tide behind them relentlessly closed the distance, shrinking from twenty meters to fifteen, fourteen, thirteen meters...
"Damn it!"
"Why isn't the army here yet!"
"If they don't come soon, we are truly finished this time."
Wan Dong and the others cursed inwardly, gritting their teeth and suddenly accelerating, managing to widen the gap between themselves and the rat tide back to over thirty meters. Only then did the three of them slightly ease their pace.
"I can't run anymore."
"Me neither."
Wan Dong and the other two exchanged weary, pained glances. Their maximum sprinting speed was significantly faster than these rat beasts. However, maximum speed was inherently unsustainable! It was like pre-Great Nirvana humans; running a hundred meters in ten seconds was considered a breakneck pace.
A hundred meters took nearly ten seconds. But what about a thousand meters? Could they manage 100 seconds? And ten thousand meters? Would 1000 seconds suffice? In reality, the men's world record for ten thousand meters pre-Great Nirvana was around 1580 seconds.
It was the same for these martial artists. Someone like Wan Dong could instantly hit 60 meters per second, but they had been fleeing for nearly half an hour, and now they could barely maintain a speed of 40 meters per second! If the rat tide got close, they would desperately push themselves to run even faster!
By the time Wan Dong and the others fled to this point, they had covered nearly 150 kilometers! One could only imagine their exhaustion!
"Army, hurry up."
"We are very close to the military zone; why haven't the troops arrived?" Wan Dong and the other two felt their legs going numb; extreme muscular fatigue prevented them from running any faster.
Luo Feng, however, carrying his battle knife and shield, maintained an astonishing speed of sixty meters per second, surging ahead. Since the trio’s energy reserves were heavily depleted, Luo Feng, being in peak condition, quickly left them far behind.
"Huh?" Luo Feng spotted a dark blue shadow separating from the distant horizon. At first glance, he thought it was some kind of flying monstrous bird, but as the dark blue object approached, Luo Feng clearly recognized it: a flat, circular aerial fighter craft, resembling a flying saucer!
Most current military aerial vehicles utilized this flat, circular design because such a shape offered advantages in defense and offense when encountering flying monsters in the air.
"The army!"
"It's a military fighter!" The utterly exhausted Wan Dong and the other two let out excited cries, their speed suddenly surging once more.
Luo Feng, who had been running, also stopped and looked up. He watched as the aircraft dove toward the horde of beasts. When it was about a hundred meters above the ground, the fighter hovered directly over the mass of rats. With Luo Feng's vision, he clearly saw a massive cannon muzzle emerging from the aircraft's underbelly.
"Rumble—"
An endless torrent of intensely hot flames erupted from the muzzle, directly engulfing the rat tide below. Under the scorching heat, likely thousands of degrees Celsius, countless rat beasts burst into flames and were incinerated on the spot. The previously organized rat tide instantly collapsed, shrieking in terror as they scattered in all directions.
However, within the blaze, the vast majority of the rat beasts were burned to death. Some managed to escape into the overgrown fields alongside the highway, burrowing underground until they vanished.
"Four martial artists, Class Three rat tides have erupted within a thousand kilometers radius. The four martial artists must quickly return to the supply base. It will be safer to venture into the wilderness after the rat tide alert is lifted." A voice came from the fighter jet, which then swiftly broke through the air and departed to rescue other martial artists.
Wan Dong and the other two let out long sighs of relief.
"We clawed our way back to life."
"It was close; we almost didn't make it." The three were utterly spent.
"Luo Feng." Wan Dong couldn't help but call out to him in the distance, "Got anything to eat? Toss us some food! And water?"
Luo Feng, still some distance away, smiled and walked over. The Wan Dong before him lacked his usual cold indifference; there was only exhaustion and the sheer joy of survival! Fleeing nearly 150 kilometers on the knife-edge of death had consumed an astonishing amount of stamina. Luo Feng reached into a side pocket of his backpack, pulling out a bag and offering three energy pellets. "Here are three high-energy sugar pellets, and... oh, here's a full waterskin too."
As soon as Luo Feng handed them over, the three immediately swallowed a pellet each, and the waterskin was quickly divided and emptied.
"Luo Feng, thanks." Wan Dong said gratefully. "Let me introduce you: this gentleman next to me is Wang Ke. The other is Jiang Tu."
"We've long heard of the great Luo Madman," said the handsome Wang Ke with a smile.
"Luo Madman, one of your high-energy sugar pellets tastes better than any delicacy right now. I was starving; I feel much better," chuckled Jiang Tu, who had a large beard.
Luo Feng walked alongside the three, chatting.
"How did you run into a rat tide? That fighter jet mentioned a Class Three tide?" Luo Feng's home county was so close to the military zone that he hadn't personally experienced a rat tide yet.
"I've witnessed the horror of the rat tide firsthand," Wan Dong admitted, unable to help himself. "We were resting on the rooftop of a residential building in a county town when, suddenly, massive numbers of rat beasts surged from countless spots on the ground throughout the town—it was truly boundless! Terrified, we immediately used steel wires to escape from that building to another rooftop. We didn't dare set foot on the ground!"
Luo Feng gasped, fully able to picture the scene of countless rat beasts swarming the ground of an entire county town.
"Fortunately, our team was on the outskirts of the town. We gritted our teeth and bolted desperately along a narrow path where the rat beasts were less dense!"
"Along the way, we encountered the rat tide. We had no choice; our squad had to split up to divert the horde! We were lucky; by the time we reached the highway outside, we were only being chased by a small fraction of the swarm! During the escape, Wang Ke and I encountered this fellow Jiang Tu. His experience was similar to ours."
Wan Dong then forced a bitter smile. "I wonder how the Captain and the others are doing now."
In streets and alleys, they dared to separate to split the pursuing horde. But on the highway, they dared not, because the areas adjacent to the highway were overgrown fields and wilderness where human running speed was significantly hampered. The terrain, however, barely affected the speed of the rat beasts. This was precisely why everyone stayed on the highway and avoided entering the wilderness.
Luo Feng and the other three arrived at the martial artist supply base near the military zone. A large crowd of martial artists had already gathered at the entrance.
"Madman, I knew you wouldn't die."
"Madman, did you see Old Liu and the others back in County 0231?"
As Luo Feng entered the supply base, many martial artists who knew him came over to ask questions and greet him. After all, a rat tide outbreak was a life-threatening event, though fortunately, this was only a 'Class Three rat tide,' meaning its threat level wasn't catastrophic. If it had been the legendary Class One rat tide, it would have spelled disaster for the entire Jiangnan Base City!
"Old Wang, have my Captain and the others returned?" Wan Dong immediately went to inquire.
"Haven't seen them."
"If your Captain hasn't returned, there's no record here."
...
Today was destined to be a sorrowful day for the supply base. Many martial artists who were outside during the outbreak had lost their lives. Even among the three War God-level martial artists who had entered the wilderness that day, one was completely surrounded by the endless rat tide, engulfed in its surging ocean.
The frenzied, relentless attack of the rat tide actually... killed a War God!
Yes, today, a human War God had fallen!
The rat tide contained not only Soldier-level rat beasts but also Warlord-level entities, and the leaders of the horde were highly intelligent; once they fixed upon a target, they would pursue it at any cost! Rumor had it that during the struggle, the human War God caused the collapse of dozens of high-rise buildings, and likely over a million rat beasts were killed in the process.
Unfortunately, over a million rat beasts meant nothing to a horde numbering in the hundreds of millions.
Therefore...
This War God was dead!
"Rumble—" Dark clouds churned, wind swept across the land, punctuated by the occasional thunderclap. With a final burst of thunder, a downpour began to lash down.
On the rooftop of a terraced villa at the supply base, Luo Feng sat on the veranda.
"Captain, I'm fine; I was lucky. I wasn't surrounded by the rat tide."
"Brother Chen, yes, you can hear my voice. I'm perfectly fine."
"Brother Tie, haha, you can hear me clearly. Of course, I'm alive and well."
Luo Feng answered several phone calls. Evidently, the news of the Class Three rat tide in the surrounding areas had reached many martial artists even within the Jiangnan Base City. Every outbreak of a rat tide, or the even more terrifying 'ant tide,' was a time of heavy casualties for human martial artists. The death of a human War God this time was a severe loss for the entire city of Jiangnan.
"So many people died from just a Class Three rat tide."
"What about the legendary Class One rat tide?"
"Or the even more terrifying war between humans and monsters?"
The war between monsters and humans was a conflict between two civilizations, two races! Once that war began, it would unleash countless monstrous beasts—all types of terrestrial beasts in tidal waves, various flying creatures, those relying on speed, immense strength, burrowing abilities, poison, flight, sonic attacks...
They would darken the sky and cover the earth—countless flying monsters above, countless land monsters below, burrowing creatures underground, and monsters lurking in the lakes.
Rat tides and ant nests were only small components of it.
This was the most terrifying war imaginable!
"Monsters are truly humanity's mortal enemy. Currently, the oceans belong entirely to the monsters. On land, humanity holds a slight advantage. In the air, monsters dominate! Humanity is forced into defensive counterattacks within these base cities!" Luo Feng hadn't truly realized this before; he always thought monsters were simply slaughtered by martial artists, but today he finally understood...
Monsters absolutely possessed the capability to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth.
If humanity perished, what was the point of parents, family, culture, or morality?
"My strength is still insufficient; nowhere near enough," Luo Feng murmured, his gaze fixed on the boundless world stretching into the distance.
Boom!
Crack!
Thunder rumbled, and occasionally a bolt of lightning struck down from the high heavens.
"Lightning strike..." Luo Feng watched the lightning in the distant sky, vaguely grasping something in his heart.
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