Chapter 337

Chapter 337: Strategic Retreat to Hope City

From the moment the two extraordinary beasts chose to devour their fallen companion, their lives entered a countdown, and their humanoid bodies were destined to wither away completely.

Even Lin Qingliu could sense the desperate, reckless aura emanating from them, but the countdown was a tricky thing to predict.

What if their bodies held out for a long time—say, a week or even a month? In that case, prolonging the confrontation would be far less advantageous than facing them head-on.

As he watched the two extraordinary beasts, their eyes blazing with fury, Lin Qingliu shrugged his shoulders and then…

Turned and ran.

Who in their right mind would face them head-on?

In Lin Qingliu’s plan, this battle was never meant to be a fight to the death. At most, it was a mutual test of strength.

But the flame giant’s abilities were truly problematic—its scorching flames were deadly to ordinary humans.

What Lin Qingliu needed was an audience, not a pile of carbonized corpses, so he had to ensure the flame giant was completely eradicated here.

Now that his goal was achieved, this place, reduced to a barren wasteland, no longer held any significance.

So why wait any longer?

His unexpected move left the two carriers of the will of the mycelium momentarily stunned. Just a second later, they gave chase, clearly unwilling to let Lin Qingliu escape so easily.

But when it came to fleeing—no, strategic retreat—Lin Qingliu, as the wielder of Fulan’s superior abilities, was naturally adept at employing various techniques.

At times, he made his body intangible, forcing the two relentless extraordinary beasts to burn themselves as they attacked. Other times, he split into three or even five identical copies, scattering in all directions, and even casually eliminated one or two developing Fourth Level Extraordinary Beasts along the way.

In short, he made his pursuers utterly exasperated.

As he calculated the time, Lin Qingliu couldn’t shake the feeling that things still weren’t entirely secure.

While moving at high speed, he glanced back at the "tail" trailing behind him and sharply turned, changing his direction and heading north.

—

The first to return to the city walls was the Shadow Master. When the city defense army soldiers saw the superpowered individuals who had set out that morning returning breathless in less than half a day, with four of them missing, anxiety washed over everyone’s faces.

What level of extraordinary beasts were out there, capable of nearly annihilating such a powerful group of superpowered individuals in less than half a day?

Despite their growing panic, everyone waited for the Shadow Master to provide answers.

The Shadow Master took a few heavy breaths, scanned the surroundings, and grabbed the highest-ranking captain in the crowd.

“What happened?”

As the captain asked, he activated his communicator to connect with the Command Center.

“An unprecedented beast tide is brewing, massive in scale, and will reach the city walls within two hours.”

Though the Command Center couldn’t see the Shadow Master’s serious expression, he did his best to suppress his usual demeanor, steadying his breath and emphasizing the word "massive" three times.

Fearing the Command Center might not take it seriously, he added,

“There’s no chance the intelligence is wrong. It was discovered by extraordinary beasts allied with us during their hunt, and ‘Sleepless’ has confirmed it. Even he couldn’t fully sense how many extraordinary beasts are out there.”

Amidst the silent hum of static, the Shadow Master received no response, and then a sharp alarm blared throughout Hope City.

As a city resembling a post-apocalyptic world, despite its many flaws, Hope City had extraordinary designs and preparations for shelter.

At this moment, even the loudspeakers above street corners, where only gangs frequented, began to emit long-overdue wails.

Moreover, knowledge about disaster prevention and alarms was a mandatory subject for all Hope City residents during their schooling.

The alarms in the outer city rang loud and high, while those in the inner city were slightly calmer.

For the people in the outer city, this long-overdue alarm meant only one thing:

Seek shelter immediately.

From a bird’s eye view, the inner and outer city of Hope City formed a simple ring.

There were no strict divisions between the directions, and naturally, no city walls to separate them.

Fear itself is contagious, so despite the extraordinary beasts attacking from the west, the evacuation alarm echoed throughout the outer city, prompting everyone to rush toward designated underground shelters.

Generally, beside every security bureau in the outer city, there stood an inconspicuous building.

These buildings were only a single low level, with alloy doors at every corner except for the load-bearing pillars.

Now, these often-overlooked structures had their doors flung wide open, revealing passages leading to underground shelter spaces.

When the alarm blared, even workers on continuous assembly lines dropped their tasks, rushing toward the nearest shelter facilities.

Simultaneously, all superpowered individuals directly under the headquarters, except for Team One, surged out. Those with relatively weaker combat abilities began maintaining the fragile security within the city, while the rest hastened toward the outer city in various ways.

All members of the city defense army commenced deployment as soon as they received the signal; weapons on the city walls moved quickly along their tracks, and squads of soldiers advanced to their assigned target locations.

The last time such a widespread evacuation alarm was sounded was around ten years ago, and many people had dulled their memories of such events. But only when this deathly sound echoed once more did they recall their past fear.

Five minutes later, the remaining four members of the Relentless Team and Fulan appeared on the horizon, with a gray-black fog looming behind them.

Had it not been for the prior warning from the Shadow Master, the overseeing department would have likely dismissed the distant gray-black fog as a mere weather change.

But with the reminder, they could vaguely begin to guess what that fog concealed.

It was an endless wave of extraordinary beasts, so immense that it even tinged the white fog far in the distance with another color.

On the barren land between the city walls and the extraordinary beast forest, the four individuals and a cat were rushing desperately.

Inside Wang Xiao, the heart rate of his three hearts had surged to levels fatal for an ordinary person.

Yet, his body reveled in this state; with more hearts, more lungs, and muscles enhanced by his abilities, he raced across the wasteland like a rally car.

At this moment, Wang Xiao had Ink Drench tucked under his left arm and Sleepless under his right, pushing his dual-powered ability to the limits.