Chapter 197: Chapter 131: First Day’s Tally: How Many Points for 10,000 Bugs?

"This is a blatant mockery of the selection rules and an insult to our review staff!"

His words immediately drew a chorus of agreement.

"It’s absurd. How could one person possibly kill over ten thousand beetles in a single night?"

"An ordinary person would be lucky just to survive an insect tide. He’s clearly falsifying his combat record!"

The voices of doubt rose and fell, one after another.

Standing in the corner, Chan Tianhao’s pupils suddenly contracted and his heart began to pound when he heard the name Lin Ye and the unbelievable kill count.

He subconsciously started to say something, but after sizing up the situation, he forced the words back down.

Wang Lingchuan ignored the crowd’s discussion. His right fingers tapped lightly on the tabletop, his eyes deep in thought.

After a moment of contemplation, Wang Lingchuan spoke again.

His voice wasn’t loud, yet it instantly silenced the entire conference room.

"Pull up his movement trajectory for the day."

"Yes, sir!"

The major immediately complied.

On the main screen of the conference room, a massive three-dimensional topographical map of the Linchuan fallen district lit up.

A conspicuous, highlighted trajectory line began at the drop point in the southern suburbs, heading straight north and piercing directly into the Linchuan Ruins.

Then, in the core area of the Linchuan Ruins, the trajectory line abruptly stopped moving.

In its place was an ever-expanding combat hotspot, flashing with a glaring red light.

The wristwatch determines the duration of combat based on fluctuations in the wearer’s heart rate and intense electromyographic activity.

At this moment, the hotspot on the screen representing Lin Ye was no longer just a point.

As the combat duration was calculated and generated, it transformed into a terrifying ball of light that covered nearly half of the Linchuan urban area!

Beside the ball of light, a line of data was clearly displayed—

[High-Intensity Continuous Combat Duration: 12 hours, 27 minutes.]

Seeing this data, everyone in the conference room who had just been questioning Lin Ye’s record froze.

The major who had been so agitated earlier stood with his mouth agape, his expression frozen. He couldn’t utter a single word.

Twelve and a half hours!

Non-stop, high-intensity combat!

Everyone present knew exactly what this meant.

It meant that this Number 37 had actually held his ground in the very heart of the insect tide for the entire night!

This data could absolutely not be faked!

The major, whom Wang Lingchuan had called Shi, continued.

"Battalion Commander, this is where we’re having trouble."

"According to the combat hotspot trajectory map, he did indeed encounter an extremely long, high-intensity battle within the Linchuan Ruins. His position also coincides perfectly with the epicenter of this Level 1 insect tide."

"Furthermore, his vital signs are still stable, and we haven’t received any distress signals from him on our end."

"This objectively collected data all serves as corroborating evidence that the combat record he submitted might not be... entirely baseless."

These words plunged the conference room into an eerie silence once more.

Everyone was at a loss.

Over ten thousand Iron-Eating Beetles, if converted according to the selection’s point system, would result in an astronomical score.

The points for a single mutated beast were 10 and up.

So how many points would ten thousand Iron-Eating Beetles be?!

This would be enough for Lin Ye’s score to completely crush all other candidates, even far surpassing the highest records from all previous selections!

It was too outrageous.

"Battalion Commander, fellow officers, I believe there are still grounds for suspicion."

"Even if he survived the insect tide, that only proves he’s good at staying alive, or he got lucky and found a perfect hiding spot."

After a moment of silence, someone else raised a new objection.

"In a disaster of that scale, countless beetles died in the chaos. He might have just been fighting, but to say he personally killed all ten-thousand-plus of them... I think there’s no way to prove it!"

"That’s right! The data only proves he fought for a long time, it can’t confirm his kill count! Who can prove it?"

The question hit the nail on the head.

Talk is cheap.

Even if they sent a team into the Linchuan Ruins, which was now a wreck littered with insect corpses, to conduct an on-site investigation and gather evidence, it would undoubtedly be a massive undertaking, and they still might not get an accurate result.

It would be even more impossible to prove that the data Lin Ye reported was accurate.

Wang Lingchuan was lost in thought, his fingers drumming incessantly on the table, yet he hesitated to make a decision.

As the commanding officer in charge of the trial, he had to ensure fairness for the other participants, but he also didn’t want to wrongly dismiss a genuine achievement.

The situation was indeed difficult to handle.

Just as the entire conference room reached a stalemate...

A hesitant, yet incredibly clear voice, sounded from the corner.

"Um... sirs."

Chan Tianhao took a deep breath and stepped out from against the wall.

"I think... I can prove that he... probably did kill that many beetles."

In an instant, the gazes of everyone in the conference room all focused on this "outsider."

Wang Lingchuan’s sharp eyes instantly locked onto Chan Tianhao. His expression was stern, carrying an invisible sense of pressure.

"You were there? Why do you say that?"

Fine beads of sweat broke out on Chan Tianhao’s forehead.

He was well aware of his status. He was merely the leader of a civilian Martial Artist group absorbed by the military in the fallen district—an unofficial member.

In a situation like this, his words carried little weight; he had no right to interject at all.

But when he thought of the debt he owed for his brother’s rescue, and how he couldn’t offer Lin Ye anything in return, a rush of hot blood went straight to his head.

’He was putting it all on the line!’