Yuan Ling was speechless. ’Over a hundred thousand Beastman Warriors... With that many, I’d think flattening a small, fringe planet wouldn’t be a problem. How could that not be enough?’

"When can they get here?"

"In about ten hours or so."

He had been in space for so long he couldn’t even tell day from night anymore, so he could only give a rough estimate.

"Okay." Yuan Ling went back to fiddling with the machine in front of him, his fingers flying across the controls.

...

While one side was assembling a rescue team, the other was mustering the bulk of its forces to surround Jiang Qin and her companions.

Dr. A didn’t want to drag this out any longer. He was desperate to study the superpower user.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP—Doctor, Yuan Feng is requesting a call."

"Patch him through."

Once connected, a man’s voice, completely devoid of inflection, came through the line.

"Doctor, someone just attempted to breach our database."

"Did you track them?"

As for whether the attempt was successful, Dr. A felt no need to ask. After all, Yuan Feng was no pushover.

However, he was proven wrong the very next second.

"I couldn’t track them. Their skills are on par with my own. After acquiring our location, they vanished."

Dr. A’s nonchalant expression instantly soured. "What did you say? They got our location?"

"Yes, Doctor." Yuan Feng’s tone remained as flat as ever.

"You useless piece of trash! What the hell do I keep you around for? They wanted our location, and you just let them take it?"

The humiliated and enraged doctor launched into a three-minute tirade, hurling insults at Yuan Feng.

Throughout the entire ordeal, the other end of the line remained perfectly silent, as if no one was there at all.

Hanging up in a fury, Dr. A knew he couldn’t delay any longer.

He immediately gave the order. "Release all the test subjects. Have them surround that group."

"Remember, surround and capture them alive. Not a single one of them is to die, understand?"

"Understood."

"Consolidate all the data. Pack up any machinery we can take with us and destroy the rest."

"Then prepare several ships. We need to get off this planet as soon as possible!"

Dr. A was all too aware of how many people wanted him dead.

Whatever the hacker who had found his location wanted, he knew one thing for sure: he could no longer stay here.

With that thought, he hurried to an inner chamber and wheeled out the nutrient pod containing his son.

As soon as the ship was ready, he immediately pushed the nutrient pod aboard and got it settled.

He then directed the ship to fly near Jiang Qin’s group and hover, ensuring they could make a quick getaway the moment their targets were captured.

...

Seeing the people below completely surrounded, Dr. A was finally in the mood to smile.

He had deployed over ten thousand test subjects. He refused to believe that wouldn’t be enough to capture thirty people.

He figured all he needed to do was wait in the ship for the good news.

’Soon,’ he thought. ’Very soon, my Xuanxuan will be able to wake up!’

***

Surrounded by all manner of test subjects, the group was now seething with fury.

Because they saw people!

People who had been experimented on and twisted beyond recognition.

There were males, females, and even cubs.

But they could no longer be considered living people. Not only had their bodies been twisted into monstrous forms, but their eyes had also lost all focus.

There was no human reason in the eyes of these test subjects, only a hollow numbness.

They were like a group of marionettes.

Suddenly, a small boy charged forward. His beak-like mouth opened, and he spat out a torrent of fire shaped like a dragon.

Acting on impulse, Jiang Qin manifested Xiang Liu.

The moment Xiang Liu appeared, it opened its mouth and unleashed a water dragon that not only dispersed the fiery one but also flooded the entire area.

This was floodwater, so it had a yellowish tint.

"Hiss... It’s the Nine-headed Serpent again."

"Ahh! The Nine-headed Serpent is back!"

"So powerful! Not only can it control poison, it can control water too!"

Ever since they had witnessed Xiang Liu’s divine might last time, these Federation warriors had held it in deep reverence.

It was just a shame that none of them knew Xiang Liu or where it had gone when it suddenly disappeared. They had thought they might never see it again.

They never expected it to reappear and save them once more.

They could have blocked that fire dragon, of course, but the price would have been a comrade getting burned or even killed.

After all, the best way to block that fire dragon would have been for a Beastman with a massive beast form to transform and shield everyone else.

But now, no one was injured. Lord Xiang Liu had handled it all on its own!

However, countless other monstrous test subjects were still eyeing them covetously from all sides. They couldn’t let their guard down.

In an instant, all the Beastmen transformed into their beast forms.

As the battle between the two sides began, Jiang Qin wanted to contribute as well.

After recalling Xiang Liu, whose attacks didn’t distinguish between friend and foe, she manifested another Alien Beast from the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*: the Qióngqí!

The ferocious Qióngqí charged onto the battlefield and immediately bit two enemies in half at the waist.

Worried that the Beastmen’s Riot Values would spike as they fought, she didn’t manifest a second beast.

Instead, she took out her pipa and began to play a DJ remix of the song "Tianxia."

A melody filled with heroic bravado rang out amid the slaughter, as if a wandering swordsman had strode onto the battlefield.

On one side, the ground was soaked in blood; on the other, music turned chaos into revelry.

Empowered by the music, the Beastmen’s forms suddenly tripled in size. Their eyes turned scarlet as they attacked their enemies with explosive force.

Lan Yuyan stood guard by Jiang Qin’s side, a Silver Spear in hand, as she immersed herself in the music of her instrument.

Anything that tried to get close to her was immediately impaled through the head by his Silver Spear.

Lan Yan was also protecting them.

He still fought with his usual self-destructive style, but now he wielded a new weapon: a trident, much like the one used by the sea gods of myth.

Jiang Qin had crafted it especially for him.

In the system’s crafting interface, items like this weren’t classified as weapons, but rather as costume accessories or role-playing props.

However, she had used many rare weapon materials to craft it, so the trident’s lethality was comparable to that of a divine weapon.

On the battlefield, the black-scaled Merfolk raised the trident high, then thrust it down, effortlessly piercing through the body of an Alien Beast.

He then pulled the trident out, leaving the Alien Beast to collapse to the ground in a pool of blood, its eyes wide in death.

Now armed with a weapon, Lan Yan was like a god of slaughter.

But his physical body was still a clear weakness, and Alien Beasts constantly charged at him.

Unlike last time, when he had been left battered and bloody, this time when the Alien Beasts slammed into him, an invisible shield flared to life around his body.

This stunned the charging Alien Beasts for a moment.

And in that single moment, the trident pierced through its neck.

Feeling this powerful and emerging from a battle on land unscathed for the first time, Lan Yan joyfully touched the Jade Pendant hanging from his neck.

Seeing the blood on his hand, he quickly took a handkerchief from his Space Button and wiped the Jade Pendant clean.

’This is her love token to me. I can’t let it get dirty...’