Back in the spacious bedroom.
Teng Qingshan stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, quietly gazing out at White Horse Lake.
On a whim, he had gone out to survey the surrounding area. To be honest, the results had shocked him.
"It's only July, yet there are already five Warlord Level Monsters lurking around Yangzhou City alone. How many monsters must there be around all the other cities?"
He thought of the nearly ten million square kilometers of land across China, its hundreds of prefecture-level cities, thousands of county towns, and countless villages and hamlets.
For a moment, Teng Qingshan fell silent.
Once the monsters stopped being content with slaughtering one another—
Or if Lord-level Monsters evolved intelligence on par with humans—
Then...
Teng Qingshan could picture it: under the command of Lord-level Monsters, countless Warlord Level Monsters leading vast hordes of Beast Soldiers in a charge.
If that happened,
more than ninety percent of humanity's settlements across China might cease to exist.
And the situation elsewhere in the world was much the same.
Humanity's catastrophe would truly begin!
Faced with a disaster like that,
Teng Qingshan was strong, but there was only so much he could protect.
His current maximum flight speed with Object Manipulation was indeed incredible. At full power, he could reach 1,500 meters per second.
But even at that speed, flying from China's southernmost point to its northernmost would take an hour!
An hour might not seem like much under normal circumstances.
But when monsters were rampaging,
not just every hour—even every second—would see countless humans lose their lives.
And in the end, Teng Qingshan was only one person.
There was a limit to how much territory he could protect at any given time.
"I hope the Lord-level Monsters don't appear too soon. As long as enough people practice Xingyi Fist and more of them become Martial Artists, the army's weapons should be able to deal with the vast numbers of Beast Soldiers."
In the early stages of the Great Nirvana, Teng Qingshan still had a lot of faith in the destructive power of modern weapons.
But in the middle and later stages,
when more and more Lord-level Monsters appeared—and even monsters above the Lord Level emerged—humanity's current weapons would finally become more or less useless.
Then,
it would be up to top fighters like Teng Qingshan and Hong to battle the monsters.
"I need to get stronger as soon as possible."
Teng Qingshan closed his eyes and stopped dwelling on it.
Instead, he immersed his mind in the world around him, sensing the ever-present Five Elements Energy.
The night passed quickly.
The next morning,
Teng Qingshan specially called Hong up to the third floor and took out some monster materials that he had roughly cut with Telekinesis. "I gathered these materials from some powerful mutated animals I killed while surveying the surrounding area last night. Take them and find someone to process them into weapons and armor that suit you. We'll need them later."
"Yes, Master. I'll get it done!" Hong looked at the large quantity of monster materials wrapped in animal hide. The three dark-red spikes in particular, along with the half-meter-long, razor-sharp fangs, left him stunned.
After this period of training with Genetic Origin Energy, Hong's basic punching strength had reached the Elementary Warlord Level.
But the aura emanating from the materials, as well as their hardness and sharpness, left him secretly astonished.
Even if he went all out, it was hard to say whether he could kill a monster of this strength.
After all, his weapon was nowhere near as hard as the materials in front of him.
"You're skilled with spears, Hong. Have these fangs made into spearheads. As for the shaft, use this spike for now."
Teng Qingshan pointed to one of the spikes he had removed from the head of the Fire-Scaled Trident Pig.
Each of the three spikes was more than two meters long and shaped like a spear shaft. With a little work, one could fit Tiger Mastiff Dog fangs onto them and make a spear capable of fighting Warlord Level Monsters.
"As for the rest of the materials, have them made into usable weapons too, and distribute them to Meng Lan and the others."
"No problem, Master. These materials are excellent, much better than our weapons now. They'll be ready before long," Hong said confidently.
Over the past few days, at Teng Qingshan's direction, he had also acquired a factory whose machinery could handle the job.
"Mm. Go on. Remember to keep training, and make sure the others in the sect practice diligently too. We may have to risk our lives before long."
Looking at Teng Qingshan's serious expression, Hong's heart jolted. "Yes, Master! I'll train hard!"
After Hong left, Teng Qingshan turned back to the floor-to-ceiling window and continued practicing his fist techniques in silence, facing White Horse Lake.
In the days that followed,
Teng Qingshan would often make a nighttime circuit around Yangzhou City.
He cleared out any threatening Warlord Level Monsters.
As he did so,
Teng Qingshan discovered that the monster hordes were constantly on the move.
He could clear out one group today, only for a new one to arrive two or three days later.
Good habitats mattered to monsters, too.
By then, most of the farmland around Yangzhou City had been abandoned, and people from the small county towns and villages had moved to the outskirts of the city.
The Yangzhou City authorities had also begun an emergency expansion of the city.
Judging by the drone footage,
the mutated animals roaming the hills and plains posed an enormous threat.
After mutated animals began attacking and injuring people in a series of serious incidents one or two months earlier, local authorities had started gathering residents from surrounding areas around major cities.
This made it easier to protect them as a group.
At first, some people refused to move.
But after seeing many people around them bitten to death by mutated animals, they had no choice but to leave their homes in tears and move to the outskirts of major cities, where better defenses were in place.
Thanks to the Chinese authorities' powerful ability to carry out orders,
makeshift residential areas sprang up one after another to house the ever-growing number of displaced people.
Meanwhile, large quantities of supplies were being urgently redistributed.
With so much farmland abandoned,
feeding everyone would become a major problem in the future.
Fortunately, there were strategic food reserves, along with supplies that had been stockpiled earlier. They should be enough to last a year or two.
Seeing how swiftly the authorities were responding,
Teng Qingshan felt slightly relieved.
As long as they took action, casualties could be reduced.
Still, large cities like Yangzhou were few and far between. Moving residents from many remote areas was slow and difficult, so it could only be done gradually.
After all, relocating so many people—with their families and belongings—couldn't be done quickly.
For now,
Yangzhou City seemed to be in the best overall condition.
After all, Teng Qingshan had cleared out the Warlord Level Monsters within dozens of kilometers of the city.
Even though monster hordes kept wandering into the area, the army could escort people to safety as effectively as possible.
But things were terrible elsewhere.
You couldn't really tell from the news.
But over the past few days, while patrolling at night, Teng Qingshan had occasionally flown to other places to check on the situation.
In those places,
even Teng Qingshan, who had seen countless deaths and had a heart hard as steel, couldn't help falling silent.
In remote mountainous regions,
there had always been plenty of wild animals.
Almost all the residents who hadn't been relocated in time had been devoured by monsters!
When Teng Qingshan flew over those villages, all he saw was destruction left behind by the rampaging monsters.
There wasn't a single person below!
Not even a bone had been left behind!
When he saw monsters devouring human corpses, Teng Qingshan showed no mercy. He summoned his Flying Daggers and cleared the monsters from the area.
But doing so was nothing more than venting his rage.
By the time he arrived, the people in the area had already been eaten by the monsters.
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