Chapter 542 - 445: Breakthrough: Furiously Slay a Rank-9

As one side fell, the other rose.

Casualties among the 100,000-strong human garrison began to dwindle.

Meanwhile, the casualties among the ten thousand-plus trapped soldiers of the Alien Race Alliance Army were skyrocketing. At this rate, it would only be a matter of time before they were completely wiped out.

This made the eyes of the nearly one hundred high-tier alien leaders who had rushed in as reinforcements turn red with fury.

The brutal deaths of their comrades in the Allied Army grated on their nerves.

They grew frantic. Their attacks became fiercer as they desperately threw themselves at the gene-soldiers.

But in truth, the more frantic they became, the more thoroughly the gene-soldiers suppressed them.

Gashes began to appear all over their bodies.

The blue Electric Sabers carved deep gouges into the ice-covered ground. Blood sprayed through the air, the crimson mist growing thicker by the second.

Finally, one of the high-tier aliens collapsed.

The gene-soldier that had finished off its opponent immediately turned on another alien.

This created several two-on-one scenarios.

A Tier Eight Late Stage gene-soldier, and it was a two-on-one fight?! For some of the high-tier aliens who were only at Tier Seven, this was a catastrophe.

A moment later, a second high-tier alien fell.

And the rate at which the high-tier aliens were falling was only accelerating.

At this point, the battle between the alien army and the 100,000-strong human garrison was a complete rout. Only ten thousand alien soldiers remained, struggling desperately.

The nearly one hundred high-tier alien leaders battling the hundred-plus gene-soldiers were also on the brink of defeat.

A total rout was only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, the 200,000-strong Alien Race Alliance Army rushing to provide support was completely bogged down by Gao Neng, Fang Tangtang, and their allies, and had descended into chaotically hacking at one another.

Thus, the only front where the aliens still held an advantage was with their five Tier Nine warriors.

"How did it come to this?!" one of the Tier Nine alien Grand Marshals exclaimed, surveying the scene in utter disbelief.

’Two hundred thousand soldiers, nearly a hundred high-tier elites, and the five of us Tier Nines... A force this powerful should have been able to simply steamroll them.’

But what was the reality?

Not only had they failed to crush the humans, but they were now on the brink of annihilation.

"Was this a strategy to lure the tiger from its mountain?" another Tier Nine alien Grand Marshal wondered aloud, his eyes bloodshot as he blasted away a few humans surrounding him with a palm strike.

"No. We underestimated Gao Neng’s strength!" the Blood Grand Marshal said, looking off into the distance.

There, Gao Neng stood atop his Flying Earth Dragon, carving a path through the 200,000-strong Alien Race Alliance Army like a wolf loosed upon a flock of sheep.

And at Gao Neng’s side...

...Fang Tangtang held her cannon high.

Every shot she fired precisely eliminated an Allied Army commander.

Princes and generals fell alike.

The moment anyone tried to issue a command, Fang Tangtang’s cannon would instantly lock onto them.

With the Allied Army already descending into infighting, and their commanders being systematically obliterated...

...the 200,000-strong force was in complete disarray.

"We can’t let this go on!" the Blood Grand Marshal snarled, gritting his teeth. His two horns began to glow with a red light, a clear sign of his fury.

He was the one who had given the order for the all-out charge.

If they truly lost this battle, the consequences he would have to face would be dire.

His entire Blood Race might even be implicated.

According to the treaty of the Alien Race Alliance, if a clan made a monumental mistake, their entire race would unconditionally become a vassal to the other races.

That was an outcome he absolutely refused to accept.

"Then what should we do now?" another Tier Nine alien asked.

"King Beiliang!" The Blood Grand Marshal suddenly turned to the Tier Nine alien beside him who had remained mostly silent.

This alien was also covered in Scale Armor.

However, his armor was an icy blue color, and a peculiar energy signature emanated from his body.

"Yes," King Beiliang replied, glancing at the Blood Grand Marshal.

"Your true form is a Beiming Tuna, and you are an expert in the Mind Control Technique. In your opinion, is Gao Neng using the same technique?" the Blood Grand Marshal asked.

"There’s a ninety percent chance," King Beiliang affirmed with a nod.

"Can you break it?"

"I can."

"Good. You’ll come with me. You’ll be responsible for breaking the Mind Control Technique, and I will kill Gao Neng. As for this trash here, I’ll leave them to the three of you!" the Blood Grand Marshal decided instantly.

"Agreed." King Beiliang didn’t hesitate.

’These humans are Tier Eights, to be sure, and there’s merit in killing them,’ he thought. ’But it’s nothing compared to the greater strategic situation.’

With a plan in place,

the Blood Grand Marshal and King Beiliang instantly disengaged from the fight.

Shen Fei, Commander Dai, and the others would not let them leave so easily. The six humans immediately lunged after the Blood Grand Marshal and King Beiliang.

"Trying to run? Not a chance!" Shen Fei was the first to charge forward.

"Hmph. Ant-like humans dare to think you can stop me?!" With a flick of his wrist, the Blood Grand Marshal enveloped himself and King Beiliang in a cloud of Blood Mist.

Shen Fei struck the Blood Mist with his palm.

He was immediately sent flying backward.

Not only that, but the flesh on the left hand he had used to strike the mist was rapidly sloughing off. In an instant, half of his hand was stripped clean to the bone.

"GAO NENG!" Such agonizing pain would have made anyone else scream their lungs out, but Shen Fei didn’t make a single pained sound. Instead, he roared in Gao Neng’s direction.

He wanted to charge again.

However, the other three Tier Nine aliens instantly erupted with a burst of powerful energy.

This forced Shen Fei and the other five humans to fall back.

"Hahaha! Did you really think it would take all five of us to deal with ants like you? The Blood Grand Marshal and King Beiliang are gone. Now, it’s your turn to die!" The three Tier Nine aliens lunged at Shen Fei’s group.

The tides of the battle shifted.

But even so...

Shen Fei, Commander Dai, and their comrades still couldn’t gain any advantage.

The Tier Nine aliens were just that powerful!

...

Gao Neng had long anticipated that the Tier Nine aliens wouldn’t just sit by and watch their forces be annihilated, so he wasn’t particularly surprised when he heard Shen Fei’s shout.

However, he had originally expected...

...that the Tier Nine experts would come for him one by one.

Then, like the snake demon from the old *Huluwa* cartoons, he could pick them off one by one.

He called this tactic the ’Reverse-Huluwa-Saving-Grandpa Strategy’.

But now, it seemed the aliens’ intelligence was a bit higher than he’d given them credit for.

They had sent two at once.

’Two Tier Nines, huh?’ Gao Neng’s eyes narrowed.

Even with Luna and Uncle Bai protecting him, fighting two Tier Nines at once was still an immense amount of pressure.

"Gao Neng, you and Tangtang go! We’ll hold them off!" Uncle Bai said, making an instant decision as he watched the Blood Grand Marshal and King Beiliang fly toward them.

"Hold them off? You mean die off, don’t you, Uncle Bai?" Gao Neng was speechless. He hated this kind of rearguard action.

’What a load of crap... Hold them off...’

’To put it bluntly, it just means, ’You go on ahead, I’ll die for you.’’

"Gao Neng, you’ve done so well. I’m very proud," Madam Lu said, also watching their pursuers. "If you make it out alive, please take care of my daughter!"

"Madam Lu... you should be the one to take care of your own daughter," Gao Neng said, once again at a loss for words. ’What is all this? Acting like it’s our final goodbye.’

Two Tier Nine aliens.

It was definitely a pressure-filled situation.

But to think they could kill him this easily? That was just naive.

"Madam Lu, Uncle Bai, don’t you worry. It’s only two Tier Nines. I, Gao Neng, am the man who can slaughter an entire city alone!" Gao Neng straightened his back, his gaze turning sharp.

"That’s right! I, Death God Fang Tangtang, can take out a Tier Nine with a single shot!" Hearing this, Fang Tangtang immediately puffed out her small chest as well.

"So, Madam Lu, Uncle Bai, all you need to do is protect Fang Tangtang. I, Gao Neng, will furiously slay these Tier Nines and demonstrate the might of the Human Race!" Gao Neng declared, tilting his head back proudly.

"..." Luna was silent.

"..." So was Uncle Bai.

The two of them exchanged a look, their expressions complex.

Meanwhile, the image on the livestream feed was completely obscured, buried under a torrential flood of scrolling comments.

"SLAY THE TIER NINES!"

"SLAY THE TIER NINES!"

"..."

The audience watching the livestream hammered away at their keyboards in a frenzy.

In front of their television, Wu Qingjing, Fang Yuan, and the others were just beginning to recover from the shock of seeing Gao Neng hold off a 200,000-strong alien army.

"Slay the Tier Nines?!"

"What’s that kid planning to use?!"

Wu Qingjing and the others desperately wanted to believe in Gao Neng.

But the problem was, they were facing two Tier Nines—two Tier Nine *aliens*. One of them was the very being who had killed Commander Li.

Could a mere Tier Six like Gao Neng really slay them so easily?

CLANG!

Gao Neng sheathed his saber.

He said nothing more.

His eyes slowly closed.

He wasn’t closing his eyes at a time like this just for show. It was because, while fighting the 200,000-strong Allied Army, he had experienced an epiphany.

An old saying goes: Everyone walks their own path.

Those paths may differ.

But as long as you walk it with unwavering resolve...

...you will eventually reach the end!

Thus, Gao Neng’s epiphany was different from the pressure Shen Ning’Er felt when she was seeking her own breakthrough.

To put it simply, while confronting the army of 200,000, Gao Neng hadn’t felt immense pressure, nor had he faced the specter of death.

He had simply felt a surge of raw, primal spirit.

It was the spirit of the Human Race’s rise, of humanity’s roar of defiance, of an army’s counterattack.

Gao Neng’s path in this life had been very different from most. He grew up in a place that had been "abandoned."

By all rights, he should have become someone who ran with a gang, a person with a dark and twisted soul.

But in fact, he was none of those things.

He had spent his entire childhood studying diligently. He ignored the darkness around him, focused on a single wish: to study, test into a Military University, and leave the Forgotten Land.

For all those years, he had striven toward this goal, right up until the Idiot System appeared and he vaulted his way into the Eastern Capital Military Academy.

Was it a smooth journey?

Perhaps it seemed so.

But in truth, throughout this entire process, there was an issue lurking in Gao Neng’s heart that even he hadn’t noticed.

That problem was his reclusiveness!