Shall we spar?

The Howling Wind Divine Envoy was dead, so dead that he no longer even resembled a human shape.

The divine official who had been blown apart by metal spikes earlier was in a similar state, leaving behind nothing but a pile of mangled remains. The last one, however, had a slightly better end—only slightly. He had an arm and a leg severed in mid-air, and after hitting the ground, he tried to resist, but a Marine Elite charged him at point-blank range, shattered his Storm Divine Power shield, and stabbed him to death with a flurry of blades.

After the three divine officials who wielded Storm Divine Power died, the wind quickly subsided, and the white mist dissipated just as fast.

During this brief interval, the soldiers had indeed fallen into chaos, and their fire net had been compromised. Many monsters had surged in, and over a dozen Abscess Sprayers had entered range, their sprayed pus causing casualties among the troops.

But all in all, while the damage caused by this chaos was severe, it was not fatal.

With the wind gone and the mist cleared, the soldiers regained the initiative on the battlefield. Enduring their injuries, they slaughtered all the monsters that had broken into their positions, and those Abscess Sprayers that had just fired a round or two of biochemical shells were also annihilated by machine guns and the autocannons of the Infantry Fighting Vehicles.

Although the three Storm Divine Officials were finished, the battle did not end immediately.

It was true that those monsters were, to some extent, under the command of the Storm Divine Officials, but after the officials died, the out-of-control creatures remained highly dangerous. They stayed in a berserk state, continuously pouring out of the forest and attempting to attack every living thing they could see.

But despite their continued madness, and the fact that the soldiers within the perimeter had reduced firepower due to earlier casualties, the monsters still could not break through.

The gap in firepower was not something these primitive monsters could overcome.

It was said that during a large-scale, mature Alien Tide, more advanced monsters would appear, not just limited to inferior Abscess Monsters and Sprayers.

But at the very least, Gu Hang and his men had not encountered that this time.

The various Incubation Nests in the forest were still in the stage of accumulating strength. Perhaps if given a few months to gradually hatch and devour one another, they could grow a batch of high-level monsters, which would have made the situation very troublesome.

But as it stood, the Primal Angry Owl Sect, in order to take out Gu Hang, had prematurely ripened most of the Incubation Nests in the forest. They had staged an attack that looked large in scale, but in reality, it lacked many high-level monsters, making the threat relatively average.

In fact, to some extent, the actions of the Primal Angry Owl Sect had even provided some help to Gu Hang.

A large number of Incubation Nests had been ripened early, and a massive number of monsters had gathered here, allowing them to be dealt with all at once. This reduced the workload for Gu Hang's troops when they would eventually go on to clear out the entire Xenomorph Forest.

As the battle continued, one could see that the number and density of monsters rushing out of the dense forest were dropping significantly.

Clearly, they were not truly endless. After being slaughtered in large numbers, there were not many left.

Finally, as the troops led by Yan Fangxu arrived at the scene, the entire battle essentially drew to a close.

When he learned that the Governor might have been ambushed, he could no longer sit still and wait for rescue. He took the initiative to lead his troops, slowly breaking out of the encirclement using a steady, step-by-step approach.

In his mind, it wasn't necessary to succeed in breaking out; even if he could just help draw some attention away from the Governor, that would be a good thing.

As it turned out, not long after they started moving, the number of monsters he encountered suddenly plummeted, as if they had all run off somewhere else.

He guessed that this was because the battle on the Governor's side had already begun, as he could even hear the roar of guns and artillery.

Consequently, they picked up their pace, arrived at the battlefield, and linked up with the Governor. But by this time, the battle was already in its final stages.

He could only lead the 3rd Battalion into the fray to help mop up the remaining monsters.

Soon, there wasn't a single active monster left in front of the soldiers.

Pobov stepped on an Abscess Monster that had lost its lower half and was crawling on the ground using only its hands, watching as it reached out in vain to grab him.

After a moment of contemplation, he raised his pistol and put a round into the monster's head, letting it go completely quiet.

Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned his head and saw Yan Fangxu walking over, looking exhausted.

His gaze naturally fell on the soldier's shoulder, where the fabric had been corroded away, revealing the reddened skin beneath the rags.

He grinned and said, "Yo, Captain, you look pretty miserable."

Yan Fangxu rolled his eyes in annoyance, walked up to him, and punched him in the chest: "You don't look any better yourself, limping like that."

"That's only because I came to save you."

At this, Yan Fangxu couldn't deny it, and his face darkened slightly.

Pobov, however, offered comfort: "I don't blame you. These pieces of trash, these wastes, these heretical traitors with no conscience, they just wanted to use you to ambush the Governor. It's not your fault. Our mission is to be the Governor's sword and shield. Neither of us did a great job of that today, but I'm going to try harder from now on. What about you?"

Yan Fangxu looked with some surprise at this officer who had grown up in the Waste Mine Society. Why would this guy suddenly express such sentiments?

He did not yet know that the Storm Divine Official had charged at Gu Hang earlier, directly threatening the Governor's life, nor could he know how much of an internal impact witnessing that scene had on the battalion commander.

He understood none of this, so the Captain could only rub his head and nod, taking it as an agreement.

Bidding farewell to Pobov, Yan Fangxu went to find Gu Hang.

The Governor was inside an Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

One of his old subordinates stopped him: "The Governor is resting."

"I have a report to make."

The Marine looked conflicted but still blocked his path: "But... Captain, the Governor is resting. You'd better not disturb him."

Yan Fangxu was surprised once again.

These were not soldiers recruited by Gu Hang on Nuxiao Planet, but the Marines he had brought down from the starship—his direct subordinates.

Their relationship had always been closer. To say something disrespectful, they had often complained about various things regarding the Governor in private. The soldiers were loyal to the Governor, but it was more of a loyalty born of duty and position.

But now, he truly saw the genuine respect his old subordinate held for the Governor.

A question mark slowly rose in his mind: What exactly happened just now?

It wasn't that he thought there was a problem with his subordinates having deep respect and loyalty for the Governor.

On the contrary, that was to be expected.

But that did not stop him from being curious about the reason behind these changes.

He gave up on waking Gu Hang, choosing instead to pull his old subordinate aside to carefully ask exactly what had happened during the recent battle.

After learning the situation, Yan Fangxu fell silent as well.

The Governor had been approached by cultist heretics and attacked, yet remained completely unharmed, merely feeling a bit tired; the Governor's Psionic Power spells had shown their might once again; and these old subordinates of his had undergone earth-shaking changes after a quick "special training" from the Governor...

To Yan Fangxu, this information sounded like a tall tale.

Why was he unharmed? Why did those cultists just fall out of the sky while flying perfectly fine?

All of this could only be attributed to the miraculous nature of Psionic Power.

Yan Fangxu could more or less accept the news that the Governor was a Psionic Power master. After all, it wasn't his first day knowing the Governor was a psionic, it was just that his performance had become even more magical.

Yan Fangxu tried hard to convince himself that this was no big deal.

But these elite marines who had followed him in the past could become even stronger? And in such a short amount of time? Just like how the Governor trained those ordinary people?

Yan Fangxu found it hard to accept and hard to believe, no matter how he looked at it.

He said jokingly, "So, kid, aren't you better than me now? Want to spar?"

In the past, none of the marine soldiers would have dared to accept. Captain Yan Fangxu was famously capable in a fight; sparring with him was just asking for trouble.

But now, things were different.

The soldier said with quite a bit of enthusiasm, "Sure, let's do it!"

No, wait, don't! Don't just look at the girl! How did you surpass so much in one night? The Governor is quite handsome too!