Chapter 198: Chapter 131: First Day’s Settlement, How Many Points for 10,000 Bugs?

"After receiving the insect tide alert yesterday, I immediately dispatched my younger brother, Chan Jiale, to lead a team into the city. They were to use megaphones to broadcast an evacuation order for all unaffiliated Martial Artists."

"But this insect tide underwent a terrifying mutation. Its scale escalated from the forecasted Level Two to the highest, Level One. There were even large numbers of beetles capable of long-distance flight!"

"The tide came too fast. My brother and his companions were trapped in the city center, and I lost all contact with them..."

"At that moment... I thought he’d been killed in action."

"But this morning, he miraculously returned alive! The four team members trapped with him also survived!"

"And the one who saved them was the candidate you’ve all been discussing—the one named Lin Ye!"

These words caused another subtle shift in the atmosphere of the conference room.

Wang Lingchuan’s eyes flashed.

"Are you saying your brother personally witnessed Lin Ye fighting within the insect tide?"

"Yes!"

Chan Tianhao’s voice rose sharply as he excitedly pulled a military-grade encrypted communicator from his uniform.

"Not only did my brother see it with his own eyes, he used his wristband’s recording function to capture some of the battle!"

The statement struck everyone like a clap of thunder.

Seeing is believing!

The biggest point of contention right now was the lack of direct evidence that Lin Ye had killed tens of thousands of beetles.

And video footage was, without a doubt, the most direct and persuasive proof they could ask for.

"Play it now!"

Wang Lingchuan ordered in a low voice, a hint of urgency beneath his tone.

"Yes, sir!"

Chan Tianhao strode forward and connected the communicator to the conference room’s main control system.

Soon, several video clips, slightly shaky but in high definition, began to play on the main screen.

The first video was filmed from a gap in a blocked subway tunnel, looking outward.

The view was filled with an endless, surging black tide of Iron-Eating Beetles!

They gnawed on the subway cars blocking the entrance, producing a grating sound that set one’s teeth on edge. Under their fearsome mandibles, the tough alloy shells crumbled like crackers.

Just watching through the screen, the overwhelming sense of despair, as if the sky itself was blotted out, made the scalps of even these battle-hardened officers tingle.

Many of them had personally experienced insect tides and knew full well how terrifying these monsters were.

But none of them had ever seen an insect tide of this scale and density before.

The scene shifted, the camera now pointing inside the subway platform.

The walls, the ceiling, the tracks...

From every direction, a dense, frenzied swarm of beetles was pouring in!

The path ahead was blocked, the way back was cut off, and enemies surrounded them on all sides.

It was a deathtrap with no escape.

"My God... They were caught by the insect tide in a place like this! It’s impossible to survive under these conditions..."

an officer exclaimed, his face pale with disbelief.

And yet, amidst this suffocating scene,

a figure abruptly appeared in the center of the frame.

One man, one spear.

Like an unshakeable black reef, he stood alone against the endless tide of insects surging from all directions.

Judging by his face and the number on his wristband, it was Lin Ye!

The next second,

a scene unfolded that no one in the conference room would ever forget—a scene that would completely overturn their understanding of the martial way.

In the video, Lin Ye’s figure became a blur of afterimages within the swarm, his long spear a streak of black lightning.

A single thrust skewered several beetles like a shish kebab.

A single sweep sliced a huge swath of beetles in half, splattering dark green ichor everywhere.

His movements were impossibly fast and perfectly precise.

Even stranger, once the ferocious and frenzied Iron-Eating Beetles came within a certain range of his body, they instantly lost all aggression, becoming as docile as lambs to the slaughter.

This wasn’t a desperate resistance.

This was a one-sided slaughter.

A collective gasp echoed through the conference room.

Everyone was stunned by the figure on the screen, who looked like a War God descended upon the mortal realm.

They watched Lin Ye weave and dodge through the endless insect tide, reaping lives with cold efficiency.

They watched the beetle corpses at his feet pile up from a thin layer into small hills.

They watched the entire underground space, once filled to the brim with the insect tide, be brutally carved into pockets of emptiness.

Time flew by as the video played in fast-forward.

A full night of bloody battle was condensed into just a few short minutes.

When the video ended, as daylight broke and the insect tide receded like an ebbing sea, leaving only carnage and that lone, upright figure...

the entire conference room fell into a deathly silence.