The tank crews lost their nerve entirely.

Is he even human?!

Qi Yuan had just sent a tank flying with one swing of a sword. There was no time to think further. With a crimson flash, and one man's consciousness cut off mid-thought, his tank flipping skyward behind him.

Qi Yuan moved through the camp as though it were empty.

***

On the hill, Wen Min lowered his binoculars and blinked. Yaji's eyes went wide. Both of them were gripped by a mix of frantic anxiety and utter disbelief.

They had watched Qi Yuan walk up to the camp and stop, seemingly halted by someone. After that, the details of what happened were lost to them. There was only flash after flash of red light.

Gunfire and explosions rang one after another. A tall watchtower crashed to the ground. A steel-plated tank was hurled through the air. Fire and smoke bloomed across the camp. The whole place looked like it was under assault.

Amid the smoke, there was no sign of Qi Yuan at all.

***

Deep inside the camp, in the main hall, several pale officers were scrambling.

"What's going on?! Enemy attack?!"

"How could Yuelang have broken through? We had no warning whatsoever!"

These senior officers were the camp's real power. They'd been reviewing battle plans when the gunfire and explosions erupted out of nowhere.

The senior officer grabbed his communication device and roared, "I need an explanation!"

The voice on the other end was frantic.

—Senior Officer, enemy attack! Enemy attack! Get out! Get out now!"

The officer looked up at the sky that was emptied of aircraft and missile strikes. Neither the air defense systems nor the early warning grid had flagged any threat.

"Is it a gene soldier squad?! How many?!" he demanded.

Only a special gene soldier unit could cause this kind of chaos. Even so, such a unit's casualties would be limited—a bit of mayhem at most, and a suicide raid at worst. He took a breath. There should be nothing to panic about.

—Sir, it's not, it's not a unit. It's one person. Just one...

"One person!"

The hall went silent.

Then, the senior officer lost it. "You let one person cause such an uproar?! How useless are you?!”

Even the most formidable gene soldier wasn’t impervious to a sniper round or a tank’s crushing weight.

The officers in the room found the whole thing incomprehensible. However, before they could make sense of it, the alarm level jumped to its highest setting. It meant the entire forward defensive line had collapsed.

Impossible! There should be at least eight hundred men in there! What about the hundreds of weapons, over eighty tanks and armored vehicles, and the full complement of drones? All of them were gone? But only less than three minutes have passed since the alarms started...

Guo Tanran felt the ground shift under him. Whatever happened out there, his position was already finished.

Thus, he went outside. "Move, let's go see what's actually going on!"

The senior officer walked straight into a wave of soldiers. Not a shred of fighting spirit left in any of them. The men appeared as if they’d seen a ghost. In fact, they were screaming that exact thing.

"That thing is not human!"

"Run! It's a ghost!"

Having fought in a dozen battles, they were soldiers with ironclad wills, the kind who’d hold their ground against ten-to-one odds. And yet, what they'd faced today wasn't an enemy, it was a devil.

They had never seen a man immune to bullets, rockets, and artillery shells. As if that wasn’t enough, the same man had tossed a tank through the air with a sword and brought down a steel fortress with a single blow. They ran without a second thought.

The sight of these men shattered every expectation of the senior officers.

Guo Tanran's fury boiled over as he screamed, "An explanation! I need an explanation!"

No one answered. The communication devices were nothing but static.

As it happened, he didn't need anyone to explain. He could see the invader himself.

In the distance, building after building was falling. A young man with slightly long hair strode through the wreckage, a blood-red sword in hand. He radiated waves of light that seemed like special effects straight out of a film. A sweep of the sword, and an armored vehicle was flung into the sky. Another sweep, followed by a flash of crimson, and dozens of soldiers sheltering behind cover simply exploded.

Guo Tanran's eyes went wide. His voice came out barely above a whisper. "My god... How is this possible?"

"That thing is not human!"

The other officers were shaking, unable to accept what they were seeing. How could such a terrifying, unstoppable being exist in this world?

***

Qi Yuan's eyes were heavy with disappointment. "Weak. Far too weak."

This military camp posed less of a threat to him than a sect with a Foundation Establishment elder. All he had to do was walk forward and swing his sword a few times for every building and line of resistance to evaporate.

And these people dared to arrest my friend and act insufferably arrogant online?

Qi Yuan smiled at the enemy scattering in all directions, saying softly, "You can't run. Come, my sword."

The sword blazed. Everyone in the camp looked up. Hanging over the entire military camp was a colossal sword the size of a small mountain, radiating an endless, suffocating aura.

With a crimson flash, tanks, armored vehicles, and heavy trucks were reduced to smithereens. Drones and aircraft crumpled into ash before they could even lift off.

Qi Yuan remained as impassive as ever, his tone flat. "Kill every soldier in this camp."

These game NPCs had gotten far too arrogant. Time to wipe the slate clean.

The giant sword crashed down into the camp. Larger than the camp itself, when it struck, it was like a mushroom cloud being driven into the earth. The blood-red hemisphere of light swallowed the whole compound.

Endless crimson filled everyone’s vision. Countless lives screamed, struggled, and were extinguished. Guo Tanran and the other officers died within that sword light, their final expressions a mixture of shock and confusion.

The entire camp was reduced to rubble, with not a single soul remaining. Qi Yuan stood still with his eyes narrowed, appearing composed. His spiritual sense spread outward.

He was decisive in killing, but never indiscriminate. Every person he'd killed was an enemy. The prisoners who had been taken for experiments or otherwise were unharmed. As his spiritual sense swept through the ruins, he found over a hundred weakened civilians, locked in cells. Numerous tubes extended from their bodies, draining their blood.

Qi Yuan examined the scene, curiosity flickering in his eyes. Draining blood? Interesting...

The Wu Cult was obviously running some kind of experiment.