Forbidden Zone of the Human Race

Fu Yingxiao’s eyes widened. He could not move a muscle as he stared at the blueprint in shock. 

Chen Tianhua froze. “How many times has it been?” 

Search bit.ly/3iBfjkV for the original.

Fu Yingxiao could no longer hide the truth. 

“E-eleven times over the past ten years. The first few times were only requests for a few low-tier beast soldier and beast general specimens. This time, they wanted a beast king specimen. It wouldn’t make sense to spend too many resources to kill a beast king, so we… got the eggs instead.” Fu Yingxiao smiled bitterly. 

How did he rise to this position so quickly? How did he get to know Chen Tianhua’s work progress? It was all thanks to him receiving data from the Shura race. Plus, he was basically half a disciple of Chen Tianhua’s, so it wasn’t surprising when his research progressed. He had made great contributions himself, too. This time, he wasn’t dumb and had wanted to decline the request. But what the Shura offered was just too tempting. Since there were so many prodigies and masters attending the event in the city, he believed they could hold the beasts back even if they angered the beast kings. 

Even if they had to sacrifice some people, the benefits outweighed the costs. That was how Fu Yingxiao had justified his actions to himself. Yet how dumb did his scheme look in hindsight? 

Chen Tianhua remained expressionless, but his fists were clenched tight. The Twelve Great Prodigies knew how valuable fearsome beasts from Earth were, much more than anyone else. In the past, humans were often defeated by the power of the beasts and unable to retaliate. But now humanity had slowly gotten back on their feet and started expanding into interstellar travel. In that case, the beasts would become a massive resource. 

Chen Tianhua understood that humans were only a small speck of dust in the universe. Although they had been affected by the Great Disaster, the consequence of it was tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times stronger bodies compared to ordinary humans before the disaster. But they were still tiny in comparison to the vast universe. 

These beasts were Earth’s greatest gift to humans—bioweapons were just one of the products manufactured from them. And which martial artist didn’t dream of owning one? 

Chen Tianhua even had an idea to use beast cores as an engine core because they were far beyond the limits of human scientific understanding. They were a beast’s second life. They would never turn into new beasts, no matter how long one waited, but they were the concentration of beasts’ strength from their lifetimes, portable super sources of energy.

Chen Tianhua looked at Fu Yingxiao and sighed, “Do you have a way to make them stay?” 

Hang City didn’t currently possess the ability to stop a Shura spacecraft. 

“I can try!” Fu Yingxiao snapped to his senses and started to arrange a way to contact the Shura visitors, using every sweet, honeyed word to trick them into returning. Even stalling for time would be good. There were already several tier seven masters coming with their people. 

Xiang Ning had been forgotten. Looking at the dense crowd of security robots, he took out the Devourer. He wasn’t sure why the Devourer had been so irritated and unstable these days. He sensed that it was unhappy that it had been starved for so long. It appeared in its rare, gooey form like an angry dragon, sweeping across the robots. 

Although he easily defeated the robots, there were just too many for him to break through their ranks. He had activated his Eight Gates skill yesterday; if he did it again today his body might not recover as easily. He was already extremely grateful for the healing potions that prevented taking permanent damage from him exceeding his body’s limits, so why would he want more unnecessary risk? After all, if he suffered permanent damage, his healing potions would be useless. 

After disabling more than fifty robots, he’d had enough. He must get out before he exhausted himself and had no time to wonder why no human staff had arrived on scene. 

Eight Gates! 

......

On the other side, the situation at the front line fortresses of Hang City had suddenly turned grave. Five carriages of people had been trapped due to a beast attack. If they couldn’t leave within ten hours, it would be a total loss! But the Hang City fortresses were already urgently understaffed, so how could they afford to send a rescue team? Could they give up the city to save the five carriages? Impossible. 

Yet the five carriages were filled with all the top young martial artists of the area, as well as the hopes of the people. Hang City was under a lot of pressure from every direction. Given no choice, all they could do was request that the young elites who had arrived in the city for the competition participate in the battle. In reality, they were actually hoping the masters accompanying them would join; that was the way to guarantee victory. 

Lei Zhongyuan, who had received the announcement, frowned and looked at the time. “Where the hell is Xiang Ning? Why does his number say ‘no signal’?”

“Instructor, what do we do now?” Fang Rou worriedly asked. 

“Don’t worry. Based on the kid’s abilities, he should be fine. Old Mu, we’ll leave it to you. Don’t you guys have a member who’s unable to head to the front lines? I’ll lead your students to the fortress at the front, you take care of him and wait for that punk Xiang Ning. We’ll head out there now,” Lei Zhongyuan suggested. He was also acting urgently because this assignment held the potential to boost his teams’ ranks. There were many criteria to win that promotion, too, particularly leading rescue missions, value of beasts killed, and other hidden criteria that would help boost their team score. Only three teams would advance to the next stage. 

If they didn’t leave now, based on Xiang Ning and Wu Rui’s capabilities, they could work together and end up with at least one of them advancing—at least if the time frame was short. But as time passed, all the other major cities would have more advantages and it would become even more difficult for their city to rank high. 

This rescue mission would score high. 

Mu Ronghua nodded. “Alright, I understand.” 

Lei Zhongyuan didn’t waste time on chit-chat, immediately arranging for transport and informing the organizers. They received notice that in twenty minutes, they would be taken to Fortress One of Hang City. There were two carriages trapped by a beast horde near there; they were the first target for rescue. 

......

On Xiang Ning’s side, he had already opened three Gates, finally breaking through the ranks of robots and out of the tunnels. Or rather, the robots seemed to have stopped pursuing him so his escape was quick. He had already destroyed many robots at that point. They weren’t cheap robots, either, made of durable, expensive materials. Each of them had an ability equivalent to a tier two martial artist with a high cost of production. Once too many of them had been destroyed, the alarm sounded again. 

Fu Yingxiao was alerted again and wondered what was happening to the underground base. Seeing as Chen Tianhua was frowning, he quickly opened the surveillance footage and his eyes widened with shock. “Isn’t… isn’t he the… janitor?” 

Yes, Xiang Ning had just cleaned his office not too long ago. Due to his great work ethic, Fu Yingxiao had even given him a large tip. But now he was almost forced to tears as he watched Xiang Ning’s frantic destruction of his robots and the small, but growing, hill of scrap next to him.