A simple mission? Heh, it really was a simple mission. Lu PingAn could turn around and leave right now.
The original contract was to eliminate some ordinary monsters, with an employment period of no more than two weeks and an average threat level not exceeding level ten. Lu PingAn had not understood that part, but he had heard it meant roughly a maximum of Tier Three. This clearly exceeded that now.
The contract was quite comprehensive. In a situation like this, an act of force majeure, Lu PingAn was fully entitled to refuse.
"A naturally arising royal lineage represents a newborn clan, a kingdom, even a Race Branch. We simply cannot give up."
The Hammer People—the Luca People—were clearly a relatively egalitarian race. Most of their people lacked conventional physical bodies. The "Hammer People Shells" they used were both their vessels and Prosthetic Limbs, but also their prisons and shackles.
As Energy Beings, they were free from the limits of bodily cell division and naturally possessed long lives. Yet at the same time, they lacked cellular replacement and metabolism, as well as mutation—cancerous mutation. They had also lost the high mutability and potential of flesh-and-blood bodies.
While spiritual and energy bodies remained unchanged over long periods, they often lost the possibility of rapid evolution as well. That was why they had once envied Lu PingAn. It was impossible for any member of their race to become Walker-level before the age of twenty.
But there were always exceptions. If the Luca People truly remained eternally unchanged, if their race had lost the ability to mutate, evolve, and adapt to the environment, if their entire population were identical, then it would only be a matter of time before some specific disaster wiped them out completely.
Within their race, there were always a