Three in the morning was when people slept the soundest.

Aside from the soft crackling of the bonfire in front of the main building, the entire base was silent.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Suddenly, a series of violent explosions erupted. Immediately after, Li Xingye’s wristband chimed. "Leader! This is bad! A group of superpower users has appeared outside the base! We’ve spotted what looks like an Eighth-Rank Fire Ability User. They’ve already started attacking our defenses!"

A slight rustling came from inside the room. Li Xingye’s voice was a little muffled. "What’s going on?"

The voice on the other end was frantic. "I don’t know either! There were sudden explosions outside, and that’s when we discovered they’d somehow slipped past our final line of defense. Luckily, your vine wall is holding them off for now, but they seem to have superpower weapons. I don’t know how long it will last."

But Li Xingye didn’t answer him. His voice softened, presumably speaking to the person beside him. "It’s nothing. I’ll go take a look. You can sleep a little longer."

With that, he ended the call.

When Li Xingye arrived at the base’s defensive line, he found that the so-called superpower users were only Fourth or Fifth Rank at best. Their flames couldn’t affect his vine wall in the slightest. It was a mystery how they had managed to get through the outer Gravity field.

When they saw Li Xingye appear atop the vine wall, not only did they not flee, they shouted, "Help! We’re not trying to attack! We were forced to run for our lives... A zombie tide is coming!"

Li Xingye frowned. "A zombie tide?"

Although his vines could extend a great distance, maintaining them constantly was a huge drain on his energy. That’s why he had people specifically in charge of reconnaissance; he only needed to maintain the vine wall.

Hearing the people below the wall, he closed his eyes to feel for himself. Sure enough, a faint tremor ran through the earth—the telltale sign of an approaching zombie tide.

However, ever since the Eighth-tier Zombie had taken over Rongcheng Center, and Li Xingye had annihilated several zombie tides, there hadn’t been one outside his base in a long time.

Some had speculated before that the zombie tides were commanded by High-level Zombies.

Now that the Eighth-tier Zombie had been killed, could a new High-level Zombie have appeared?

Despite this, Li Xingye was in no hurry to let them in.

With a wave of his hand, a swarm of vines shot out and wrapped the squad of a dozen or so people below the wall, leaving them no room to resist.

The leader of the group, a Sixth-Rank Thunder Ability User, looked at Li Xingye in terror. "Leader Li, we came here with good intentions to warn you! What is the meaning of this?"

However, when he tried to use his superpower to blast away the vines, he found his power was being completely drained.

What was even stranger was that despite all the commotion they had caused, and even after revealing the news of the impending zombie tide, not a single person from Dawn Base had appeared besides Li Xingye himself.

Was it that Li Xingye was confident enough to handle the zombie tide alone, or was it...

Staring at the expressionless Li Xingye, the Thunder Ability User’s face was filled with disbelief. "Why? Why isn’t your superpower affected at all?!"

An incredible thought suddenly flashed through his mind. "You... you knew what we were going to do all along?!"

Li Xingye had no intention of explaining. Instead, he countered with a question of his own. "How are you controlling the zombie tide?"

The man’s face stiffened, and he lowered his head in disgrace. "I don’t know what you’re talking about. We only came to warn you! You can’t just kill us. If you do, how will you explain it to all the people who want to join you?!"

Li Xingye let out a soft laugh, as if mocking the man’s naivety. "Why would I need to explain anything to them?"

If he hadn’t wanted to see what connection these people had to this mysterious zombie tide, he wouldn’t have even bothered to say this much.

*

While Li Xingye was waiting for the zombie tide to arrive, a figure slowly materialized in his room.

If Qiangzi and the others were here, they would have recognized him in an instant.

The figure slowly approached the large bed. The person lying on it was breathing evenly, without the slightest fluctuation of any superpower.

’I got her!’

A smile crept onto his lips.

But just as his hand touched the lump under the covers, the blanket flew off by itself!

The man instantly realized something was wrong and tried to retreat!

But a Gravity field instantly filled the once-quiet room!

Caught off guard, the man’s movements were hindered.

Qianqian, who had been lying in wait, was doing this for the first time. But her face showed only excitement, not a trace of nervousness.

She flicked her little hand, and a special seed canister shot toward the uninvited guest.

In mid-air, the canister burst open. Countless vines shot out, wrapped around the man, and slammed him to the ground!

This weapon, based on Li Xingye’s superpower, inherited its traits. The moment the vines coiled around the man’s body, they drained all the superpower from him.

At the same time, Qiangzi and the others finally burst in from outside.

Seeing Qianqian’s eager face, Qiangzi affectionately ruffled her hair. "Nice work."

Qianqian looked at the man cocooned on the floor and huffed. "That’s what he gets for trying to hurt Sister Wanwan!"

Qiangzi patted the back of her head. "Don’t get cocky. This was a one-time thing; it won’t happen again. You can go back now. Leave the rest to your big bro."

If Chi Wan had superpowers, Qianqian would never have been used as bait. Even with all the precautions in place, Qiangzi still worried about something going wrong.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly.

However, when Qiangzi hauled the man up from the floor and got a look at his face, genuine shock flashed across his own. "It’s you?!"

Cheng Peng and Haozi, who came in behind him, were just as stunned. "...Ding Yao?! How is that possible? Weren’t you killed by the boss ages ago?!"

Bound tightly, Ding Yao’s face was contorted with fury. The moment he saw Qiangzi and the others, he realized he had been completely played!

’This is the second time... Why is it that I’m always the one who takes the initiative, but Li Xingye is always the one who wins in the end?!’

Seeing Ding Yao’s silence, Qiangzi grabbed him by the collar and punched him!

"What kind of animal are you?! If the boss hadn’t saved you back then, you would have died in a zombie tide! Later, when you wanted to leave the base, the boss agreed. But you keep coming back, again and again! What the hell do you want?!"

Haozi kicked Ding Yao and spat. "What’s there to say to him? This animal... We must have been blind to ever call him a brother!"

Only Cheng Peng held the two angry men back. "Alright, alright. The priority right now is to find out how he ’came back from the dead’."