The Triple-Wave Saber was, of course, not some secret technique Huang Tian had invented after coming to this world. It was an ordinary martial art he had learned back in the Five Directions Realm, with only a few slight modifications.
It was not difficult to learn, and its power was not weak. Someone with decent comprehension could spend a little time and pick up the force-generation method behind the first blade, adding seventy percent power to a cut.
The second and third blades were harder, but it did not matter if one never learned them. The first blade alone was plenty useful.
In a fight to the death, a hair's difference in strength can decide victory, let alone a difference of seventy percent. Seventy percent more power bursting out at the critical moment is enough to swing the course of a battle.
"Whsshh—"
On the long street, a strong wind gusted through and thinned the smell of blood considerably. Guan Lang, director of the Patrol Bureau, and the others stared at Huang Tian as he sheathed his saber, feeling dazed.
They knew he was strong—this was the man who had single-handedly swept thousands of mutant fierce beasts from the whole of Xinguang District. But no matter how ferocious, killing over two hundred beasts in a matter of seconds was still absurd—
They were stunned, and the audience watching the livestream was no better off. Bullet comments rolled past like a flood.
"Four seconds? Five? Huang Tian killed over two hundred mutant fierce beasts, all of them!"
"This is just too outrageous. That's more than two hundred beasts, and nearly twenty of them were Beast Soldier rank! If they'd all charged together, even a Beast General would have had to fall back, wouldn't it?"
"I've said it before: geniuses aren't bound by rank. Huang Tian has the highest talent of all eight billion people on Earth. His brilliance is beyond anything we can imagine—just look at this secret technique. Who the hell invents a secret technique in half a day with a saber?"
"Speaking of which, isn't this the first martial arts manual in all of human history? Triple-Wave Saber—learn one blade and you gain seventy percent more strength. Hiss. Just figuring out the first blade would be enough—"
"I remember some media saying humanity had no hope against the mutant fierce beasts. I was scared stiff back then. Now, looking at Boss Huang Tian, I suddenly feel humanity might still have a chance of beating them—"
"+1. In just a few days, the boss has broken through again and again. Give him a few more months and I wouldn't be surprised if he cut down a Lord-rank beast with that saber—"
"I'm not being a pessimist, but fast as the boss evolves and strong as he is, he's still just one man, and the mutant fierce beasts are beyond counting. Even if one day he can beat a Lord-rank beast, could he beat ten, a hundred? Or something above Lord rank?"
The livestream room was a boiling clamor—and in Shangyuan City's West District, a huge cheer suddenly erupted!
"Invincible! Invincible!" the patrol officers shouted excitedly, faces flushed red.
Guan Lang walked up to Huang Tian and saluted excitedly, but for a moment could not speak.
Huang Tian smiled. "After today, the city should be mostly calm. Even if a few beasts hide underground, they won't pose much of a threat."
Guan Lang lowered his hand and looked around at the devastated streets, moved. "After all this, the city really will have to be built anew from the ruins. The good thing is that the beasts are finally no longer a threat, and people can slowly return to a normal life."
Then his expression turned grave again. "But the road is long and hard. The city is pacified, yet the counties and townships below are still in chaos. Worse, city hall has received word that mutant fierce beasts have begun coming down from the Mangyuan Mountains in packs, devouring the residents of nearby towns and villages. I'm very worried we'll see a large beast tide there—
"Once we've cleaned up the battlefield, I'll take men to set up defenses at the foot of the mountains and work with city hall to move the people into the city. It will leave the city short on some supplies, but lives are lives—we can't just let people die out in the wild—"
"Roughly how many mutant fierce beasts are in the Mangyuan Mountains?"
"Hard to say. The range stretches nearly two hundred kilometers across four cities. Inside our city's borders it runs a hundred kilometers, and along that stretch alone there must be tens of thousands of beasts—and a good number of them avian.
"And there are very likely Beast Generals. Mountains that deep will have no shortage of spirit plants. Beasts already evolving quickly, once they swallow spirit plants, turning into Beast General rank is hardly surprising—"
Huang Tian nodded. "True. There are plenty of spirit plants deep in the mountains—"
No one turns up their nose at spirit plants, and he least of all. The capital might allocate him a few more, but he couldn't just sit there waiting for the capital's gifts. Do it yourself, and you'll have plenty to eat and wear.
He spoke up. "I'll go to the Mangyuan Mountains too. And there's no need for defenses—we go straight in and clear the mountain."
Guan Lang paled. "Isn't that too risky? We're still not familiar with conditions in the mountains. Once we're inside, beasts could be lurking in the sky, in the woods, under the soil—one careless moment and you're wounded, or dead. And the Beast Generals that probably exist—their intelligence and strength are both high—"
"Don't worry," Huang Tian said. "I'll charge in front. You bring your men along behind to collect the carcasses and clean up the battlefield—that's all. If you can shoot and wound the avian beasts up in the sky, even better. Nothing else is required of you."
In other words, the Patrol Bureau was only there to drum along on the sidelines and tidy the battlefield. The real fighting force was Huang Tian alone.
"This—" Seeing that his mind was made up, Guan Lang hesitated for a few seconds, then gritted his teeth and agreed. "If—and I mean if—something goes wrong after we enter the mountains, we'll cover your retreat right away. You can't just keep charging deeper."
Huang Tian laughed. "I'm not stupid. If I run into a beast I truly can't handle, of course I'll pull back."
"Good." Guan Lang breathed a sigh of relief, then turned and shouted to the patrol officers around them, "Everyone, pick up the pace! Get the carcasses dealt with. When we're done, we'll take a short rest and head for the Mangyuan Mountains. The beasts are running wild there, and tens of thousands of people are still waiting for us—counting on us!"
Hearing that after a bitter fight they would go straight to the next battlefield without pause, only a scattered few grumbled—and their grumbling was about frayed nerves and exhaustion, not fear of death. In an age when humans fought mutant fierce beasts, they were patrol officers; they had long since been ready to give their lives at any moment—
In Zhi City, Mili Jian, the wealthy district was peaceful.
On the day of the Great Change, Zhi City's defenses had quickly gathered in several wealthy districts. With superior firepower and plenty of police, it took only a few days for those districts to regain their quiet.
Outside the wealthy districts, some police were still keeping order and killing beasts, but so far with little to show for it.
Gangs had seized the chance to grow stronger. Citizens were forced to band together to defend themselves. Gunshots rang out ceaselessly, beast roars echoed on and on, heard from dawn until deep into the night—in short, it was chaos—
Xiu Miluo, who had transformed himself into a young white man, sat in a café in the wealthy district, drinking coffee and basking in the sun—
The phone lay sideways on the table, its screen showing Huang Tian clearing out mutant fierce beasts.
"Tsk. In just a few days he's broken through from an ordinary man to mid Satellite rank, and he can invent secret techniques besides. Not bad at all. He should be the most talented native among the hundred-odd Paradise planets." Xiu Miluo sighed softly.
The path of cultivation was divided into Satellite rank, Planetary rank, Stellar rank, Star Vortex rank, and Domain Master—
Satellite rank might be only the first stage, beneath notice, but what mattered was this: how many days had Huang Tian spent on the path of the extraordinary?
By Xiu Miluo's estimate, Huang Tian had a sliver of a chance of reaching Stellar rank!
That was already remarkable!
In the universe, among countless life-bearing planets—native planets especially—producing even a Planetary rank was rare, while a Stellar-rank being could dominate a civilization for ten thousand years!
He said ten thousand years because a Stellar-rank being lived for ten thousand years. In other words, once one stepped into Stellar rank, one could stand invincible in the world, meeting no rival in ten thousand years!
Even Xiu Miluo himself, an employee of Supreme Paradise Company's Galactic Empire branch, was only mid Stellar rank!
"Fine talent, but what a pity. If you were on a normal planet, perhaps I'd take you as my disciple." Xiu Miluo sighed inwardly.
This native planet had already been designated by Fan Ya as a Paradise planet. The fates of everyone here were sealed: sold to the interstellar slave market, or reduced to live-action NPCs in the Paradise game—a thousand years, ten thousand, a hundred thousand—generation after generation, never able to break free—
Huang Tian was one of them. However much Xiu Miluo valued talent, he did not dare take him as a disciple. This was a blood feud over the duping and destruction of their mother civilization; taking him in would only be breeding a hidden danger for himself.
He wasn't that foolish. Besides, Huang Tian's talent was only "not bad"—it had not reached that monstrous level.
Xiu Miluo had once accompanied his master Fan Ya to visit a true genius. That genius had grasped a domain while still at Stellar rank, and using the domain as a springboard, was trying to comprehend a Law!
If one could cross the threshold of Law at Stellar rank, then even the emperor of the Galactic Empire would treat that person with marked courtesy!
Xiu Miluo thought the man's chances of success were slim, but even if he failed, the mere feat of grasping a domain at Stellar rank was enough to inspire awe. After all, comprehending a domain was one of the necessary conditions for breaking through to Domain Master in the future—and the hardest one.
And the emperor of the Galactic Empire, who governed hundreds of thousands of life-bearing planets and countless resource planets, was only late Domain Master!
That showed just how much weight a fully comprehended domain carried!
Xiu Miluo slowly took a sip of the mellow coffee and watched Huang Tian on the phone. "He's advancing fast now, but the further he goes, the harder it will be to improve. Even with no lack of resources, iron determination, and strength soaring through trials of blood and fire, reaching Planetary rank will take him two or three months at least. And from early Planetary rank to the peak, a year or two at minimum.
"Even if his talent were greater still—cultivating to the peak of Planetary rank in a single year from now, then immediately breaking through to Stellar rank—it would be useless—"
Because in one year's time, the Paradise game would officially launch. The company would send oversight squads to hold station on the many Paradise planets, and those squad members would strangle every potential threat in the cradle!
Even if some player suddenly had a fit of kindness and wanted to secretly carry a few natives away, the oversight squad would forcibly stop them. In short, one year from now, all struggle would be futile. What awaited the humans of New Star was an eternal nightmare—
Shaking his head, Xiu Miluo turned off the phone, not intending to keep watching. That did not mean he would stop paying attention to Huang Tian, though; the smart brain Yun'an would keep monitoring Huang Tian and other talented natives for him.
"Roar—" Very far away, the faint sound of a beast's roar carried over. Xiu Miluo narrowed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, letting the sunlight fall across his face, and thought about another matter. "Should I force-ripen the first Planetary-rank beast?"
As an employee of the Paradise Company and a Stellar-rank powerhouse besides, he was wealthy, and the ship Fan Ya had left him before departing held no small amount of resources. A portion of them could "force-ripen" dozens of Planetary-rank beasts. The Lord-rank beasts that had appeared around the world earlier had been his doing; otherwise, how could the beasts have mutated so quickly?
And now he was already considering force-ripening Planetary-rank beasts, because humanity possessed nuclear bombs, that ultimate weapon. Ordinary Lord-rank beasts could hardly plunge them into despair; that conviction of seeking life in death would never burst forth. It simply was not "spectacular" enough!
As for Planetary-rank beasts, they too could not take a nuclear bomb head-on, but their speed was extraordinary. Unless they were hit by saturation bombardment from dozens or hundreds of nuclear bombs, they could basically escape.
Once one or two beasts of that level appeared, they could squeeze out every last bit of humanity's conviction to survive against the odds, and do it in full view of the world!
"But isn't it a bit early to force-ripen Planetary-rank beasts now—"
As he pondered, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of something some twenty meters away: several young men and women in bright clothes, carrying designer bags and wearing luxury watches, strolling and chatting and laughing, entirely relaxed and unhurried, as though not in the least worried about the rampaging beasts.
"Far too relaxed and comfortable." Xiu Miluo sighed. "In this age, rich or poor, man or woman, old or young, healthy or disabled—everyone ought to feel that they may not live to see tomorrow! Pain, despair, determination—those are the emotions you should be feeling!"
He rose, moved, and in an instant vanished from where he stood. When he reappeared, he was standing above the vast open sea. A sweep of his mental force found one of the Lord-rank beasts he had force-ripened earlier: a huge octopus dozens of meters tall.
His mental force stirred.
"Wuu—" The octopus below immediately felt a violent pain assail it and involuntarily opened its mouth, letting out an agonized roar.
Xiu Miluo casually tossed something. An ice-crystal-like object dropped into the sea and flew into the octopus's mouth.
The next moment the octopus convulsed violently, thrashing madly, churning the surrounding seawater into huge swells.
"Bang!"
Suddenly its whole body exploded with a roar, flesh and blood spraying everywhere. The ice crystal flew out again, a little smaller than before.
"Useless!" Seeing the octopus fail its transformation, Xiu Miluo's expression turned cold. He sped away, found the next Lord-rank beast, and repeated what he had just done.
After eight Lord-rank beasts died in succession, the ninth—a sea serpent dozens of meters long—swallowed the ice crystal, thrashed wildly for a while, and fell into a deep sleep.
"Success—the first Planetary-rank beast is about to be born!"
Xiu Miluo spread his arms and smiled. "Ignorant natives, get ready to face a terror you have no power to resist!"
Chapter 261