The two development squad members were still standing outside. Xu Chan hadn’t asked them to go in, so they weren’t moving. Besides, space was limited inside. If all five of them went in, they wouldn’t be able to fight to their fullest.

When they saw one of their own flying out, the first Unit One member shouted from where he stood, “Captain Wang, are you okay?!”

Captain Wang leaned against the barricade and rolled his neck. “I’m fine! I was just testing its strength! It packs a punch!”

Then, he clenched his fists. Cracking sounds came from his arms. The torn flesh started closing up and broken bones grew together. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

He was going to need some time to fully recover, so the first Unit One member flicked off the cigarette stub in his hands and said, “Let me at him.”

He then went to stand at the entrance. Instead of going straight inside, he clenched his fists and made his calf muscles bulge. Even his back muscles jutted out as he stared at the space ahead.

From where he stood, he could see Wu Qi’s humongous body through the destroyed glass wall. After accumulating power for a bit, he released scorching steam from his mouth and nose.

Even though his development squad mate was standing rather far away from him, he could sense a wave of heat rolling off of the first Unit One member. After a while, he felt tremors coming from the ground, and the place where the first Unit One member stood was blasted apart, leaving behind a huge pit.

The first Unit One member pulled his fist back and shot into the building like a cannonball. Shards from the glass wall flew everywhere, and thunderous cracks echoed around him. In an instant, he arrived in front of Wu Qi.

Then, he swung his fist down.

A shockwave blasted outward.

Just when his fist was about to land on Wu Qi’s head, a tentacle swung over like howling wind and struck him before his fist could make contact. With a loud, explosive crack, he was sent flying at the wall more than a hundred meters away. It cracked beneath him, and he bounced off and crashed on the ground.

A huge gash was left on his waist and ribs, and he could see his organs inside. A layer of skin had also been ripped off from half of his face, making him look bloody and gruesome.

But his gaze never changed. The uninjured side of his face remained filled with fighting spirit, and his bones realigned themselves with loud snaps. As his blood essence surged through his body, his injuries started healing.

He didn’t bother with the injury on his face, though. It wasn’t an important wound, and it didn’t interfere with the fighting, so he did not waste his blood essence. It would slowly heal on its own.

While the first Unit One member’s hit didn’t land, it didn’t mean that his attack was in vain.

The tentacle had exploded upon hitting him. He had also managed to inject some of his refined force into Wu Qi’s head, which caused the large active biosentient entity to sink a bit, and its domain turned chaotic for a brief second.

This was a chance for his team members.

Captain Wang moved in a flash and closed in from the back once more, while Captain Lu jumped into the air.

Both of them acted fast. One attacked from above, and the other from below. They moved from two different directions in a show of great coordination.

Even if Wu Qi could regrow another tentacle, it wouldn’t be able to do it in a flash. So far, it had used one tentacle for long-distance attacks and another for short-distance ones. The short-distance tentacle had been destroyed, while the long-distance tentacle wouldn’t be able to return to its side in time.

But at that moment, Wu Qi displayed extreme agility. It shifted around with its four legs and got its vulnerable parts out of range, while its tough parts turned to face Captain Wang and Captain Lu.

Captain Wang moved low along the ground. When he was close, he flipped his body upside down. With a push of his arms, he twisted his waist, and slammed his feet upward into one of Wu Qi’s leg joints. A dull thud came from the spot.

As for Captain Lu, he punched Wu Qi’s face. He had thought that Wu Qi wouldn’t be able to block it, but the stub of the blasted tentacle shot up, straightened, hardened, and covered the head.

When Captain Lu’s fist landed on the tentacle, he felt as if he had hit a tough piece of wood. Even though some parts of it shattered and flew apart, it was clear that Captain Lu couldn’t do a lot of damage to it. He reacted quickly and released a two-tier refined force.

There were pros and cons to hardening a tentacle. It could let Wu Qi block the attack, but it also meant that Wu Qi’s shoulder and half of its body would move due to the impact from the refined force. Its upper body tilted back.

As if Captain Wang saw this happening above him, he delivered another kick on the leg keeping Wu Qi propped up.

If the two attacks had been delivered individually, they would have dealt superficial harm to Wu Qi and wouldn’t have been of much use, but when they landed together, they were able to force Wu Qi off-center.

Captain Lu somersaulted into the air and used it to negate the impact from the hit he had just delivered. At the same time, he stomped on Wu Qi’s chest. The spot he chose was brilliant.

A loud bang rose, and the muscles there, along with a row of compound eyes blasted apart, and green liquid gushed out.

Captain Wang had flipped back onto his feet and delivered a chop on another leg joint. A sharp, aggressive refined force cut into the joint and left behind a rather long gash. If it wasn’t surrounded by an exoskeleton, the leg would have been cut off.

When the first Unit One member saw this, he cheered in his heart. As long as the two maintained this advantage, once he and his squad mate joined, they could get the desired results.

Just then, a powerful mental energy spread out from Wu Qi, and a wave of dizziness assaulted the first Unit One member.

He wasn’t the only one. In a daze, he heard two loud smacks, and he saw Captain Wang and Captain Lu being sent flying.

When the two squad captains were knocked off, Xu Chan suddenly appeared at Wu Qi’s side, unaffected by the mental attack. He then threw a seemingly slow punch at Wu Qi’s stomach.

It didn’t seem to have a lot of momentum, but Wu Qi acted as if it were drunk and staggered to the side.

No damage seemed to have been dealt where Xu Chan had hit, but the next second, the biosentient entity’s back blasted apart to reveal a huge, man-sized hole. Blood, flesh, and tissue gushed out and sprayed all over the floor as Wu Qi let out a high-pitched screech from its throat and stomach cavity.

Xu Chan scowled, because an even stronger wave of mental energy came charging at him, and it became hard for him to gather up the light flashing on his fist.

While retreating, Wu Qi’s chest let out an eerie, white hue. A thick membrane quickly covered the wound, and Xu Chan could see the mutated tissue inside swiftly growing and recovering.

It was the regenerative membrane, which allowed Wu Qi to heal its wounds. It could also release high-energy substances to repair the damaged parts.

Xu Chan watched the process with a grim face. After the last round of tests, he had pretty much figured out what made this active biosentient entity special. Next...

While he was thinking about how to kill it, he heard rustling sounds from his Realm Pass.

Even though the sounds were unclear, he understood the message.

“Hold it back for at least two hours, huh?”

***

As Chen Chuan continued devouring pure essence, he felt an increasing sense of clarity. The weight seemed to have been removed, and the barrier in front of his eyes disappeared. His entire body felt light. But the more pure essence he devoured, the more he felt that he needed more.

This made sense. Martial artists with a solid foundation needed a lot of pure essence.

This wasn’t a bad thing.

Right now, the higher-ups weren’t keeping information from him. They had told him that the Fu-Mu Entity wasn’t going to propagate more than fifteen times, which meant that the propagation would end by noon the next day at the latest.

After some calculations, he found that if the next waves of pure essence had a similar amount of it, he should be able to get all that he needed.

Chen Chuan cast a glance at the video the command center had sent him. Even though it was blurry and choppy, he was a martial artist. It wasn’t hard for him to figure out what was going on between Wu Qi and the martial artists.

The ones fighting Wu Qi weren’t weak, but the active biosentient entity had great recovery abilities, which meant that it wouldn’t be easy to kill it without depleting its energy. Meanwhile, Chen Chuan didn’t need to just kill Wu Qi.

He also had to take out the existence lurking around the area.

During Wu Qi’s first mental attack, Safe Shield had caught an abnormal fluctuation.

Safe Shield’s strength did not lay in combat, but in defense, observation, and analysis. Hence, even if that abnormal fluctuation was weak, it got detected.

Safe Shield also did not ignore it by thinking that it made a misjudgment, unlike a human. Instead, it looked into it in-depth and came up with the conclusion that it wasn’t a biofield of someone of this world.

According to Safe Shield, it was likely released by an existence from the other world, which was hiding in Ferris Wheel.

Since it was close to Wu Qi, its goal was clear. It should be thinking about making the active biosentient entity its host.

Humans weren’t appropriate hosts, while active biosentient entities could let them bring out their true power. It could also withstand a massive amount of modifications that the existence was sure to desire.

If this particular existence had a high status, it could even push its host to another level of strength so that it could bring more of its power into this world.

But this wasn’t the time to expose it. That wasn’t a good idea, since then they would have to deal with an existence from another world along with an active biosentient entity. This might lead to them being unable to destroy either one, and that went against their original goal.

Safe Shield had come up with a plan to avoid that.

When the existence possessed Wu Qi but had yet to take full control of its body, they should deliver a fatal blow. This would kill two birds with one stone.

Chen Chuan had been chosen to deliver the final strike.

For that, he needed to recover his strength and reach his top condition.

He took one last look at the video before shutting his eyes and focusing on devouring pure essence.

Soon, more than an hour passed.

At that moment, he heard a voice. “Captain, we received orders. The airship is about to leave Deep End District and head to Glowing Dew District. Do you have any objections?”

Chen Chuan checked the time. It was 10:55 p.m.. “I have no objections. Let’s go.”

The airship changed directions and flew to Glowing Dew District.