September 13, morning, sunny.
After a night of hard fighting, the previous evening's results had finally been sorted out.
Xingyan Group had lost sixteen employees in the battle. The deaths of these employees, all capable fighters, had inevitably disrupted the group's original preparations.
In addition, more than twenty employees had been seriously injured, and over fifty had suffered minor injuries.
For the time being, the group could only rely on its few capable directors to lead teams in exploring and clearing the surrounding area.
However, after this battle, the directors had gained an even firmer hold on the employees' trust.
Afterward, they counted the monster corpses at the scene: thirteen pig-like monsters, twenty-one cattle-like monsters, thirty-two dog-like monsters, twenty-seven cat-like monsters, and even eighteen bird-like monsters. Most of the birds resembled chickens or ducks and were only somewhat larger than normal. Most had died beneath the explosives.
By then, the base's perimeter wall had been rebuilt and reinforced with materials newly developed by the group. The wall could now withstand stronger impacts, and if a collision cracked it, it would spread open like a fishing net instead of collapsing outright, making it much harder for monsters to get inside.
All available staff were still working overtime to gather every bit of data they could find online. The biggest obstacle now was that the base's storage devices were nearly full. The only way to preserve the remaining material was to copy it by hand.
But events had a way of taking everyone by surprise.
On September 26, communications finally went down.
At that moment, everyone across the globe saw an enormous, elongated shadow slowly emerge from the depths of the Pacific before soaring into the sky.
Then, flashes of Thunder Light appeared one after another.
Stars shone in the daytime sky.
Humanity around the world would remember this moment for the rest of their lives.
This was the monster later known as the Thunder Dragon Emperor, making its first appearance.
Its arrival was a disaster that brought humanity on Earth even greater despair than the monsters' attacks on human settlements.
Of the satellites launched around the world, only a few farther from Earth survived. The rest were destroyed. The stars visible in broad daylight were the sight of those satellites exploding.
Communications between countries around the world were temporarily cut off.
After destroying every satellite, the Thunder Dragon Emperor seemed unsatisfied. It let out a roar like a bull's, proclaiming the birth of an emperor.
The roar echoed across the globe, and every surviving monster answered it.
At that moment, the beasts' attacks on human settlements grew even more violent.
Fortunately, Xingyan Group had survived the Beast Tide the previous night. The monsters had all retreated and turned toward other human settlements instead. This time, the group had weathered the crisis without any real harm.
Once they realized how great a threat the Thunder Dragon Emperor posed to humanity, the major powers all made the same decision: they would kill the monster at any cost.
Missile after missile came from every direction, erupting in bursts of fire against the Thunder Dragon Emperor's body.
After a thunderous bull-like roar, the smoke cleared. Its body was covered only in scrapes and patches of slight discoloration. Not a drop of blood had been drawn.
Not long afterward, another salvo of missiles struck. This time, several nuclear warheads were hidden among them.
The nuclear warheads hit the Thunder Dragon Emperor squarely. Blood began to mingle with the smoke from the explosions. At last, it was gravely wounded.
At a missile base across the ocean, everyone cheered. On the commander's orders, they launched a third salvo, this one mixed with even more nuclear warheads.
Unfortunately, the Thunder Dragon Emperor sensed the threat and immediately dove back underwater, vanishing from sight.
The bombs in that salvo did nothing but raise a spray of waves.
It would have been fortunate if things had ended there for the time being. But fate had other plans. Off the coast of America, a tentacle nearly a thousand meters long emerged from the sea and shot straight toward a base that had launched missiles earlier.
In an instant, the base was pierced through.
America immediately concentrated its fire on the tentacle, but the missiles only sent ripples across its surface. They couldn't even inflict a minor injury.
And because the attack took place within America's borders, the use of nuclear weapons was restricted. Everyone could only watch as the tentacle slowly withdrew into the sea.
Analysis of the photographs suggested that the tentacle's owner was most likely an octopus, perhaps a mutated Pacific Giant Octopus.
This was an act of revenge, a blatant act of revenge.
The attack also revealed several crucial things to humanity: the deep sea most likely contained large numbers of giant monsters, these monsters had already developed intelligence, and they were in contact with one another.
Everyone who reached this conclusion broke out in a cold sweat. Despair began to spread.
Naturally, the places most affected were coastal cities around the world. For Gao Zheng, Lin Chenxing, and the others at Xingyan Group's headquarters, deep in the continent, the news only heightened their sense of crisis. The collection of data stopped as well.
"Ah!!! My data! I was only halfway through downloading it. Why did the internet suddenly go out?"
Similar shouts and complaints could be heard everywhere.
After everyone pooled their findings, they had already gathered enough material for the base's needs. They had downloaded or copied papers from research websites, information from various encyclopedias, and videos from all sorts of video platforms.
They had saved everything they could: scientific research, medicine, general knowledge, industry, crafts, survival, and entertainment. Necessary or not, if it could be saved, they had saved it. The only things left were items that weren't all that important to the base and that they hadn't had time to collect.
Suddenly, a bear roared in the Taihang Mountains. A chorus of birds answered, followed by the flapping of wings. Silhouettes with wingspans of more than ten meters burst from the depths and shot into the sky, charging straight at the communications towers and power pylons.
The birds clamped their claws around the towers and pylons and beat their wings furiously. The ground beneath them shook with repeated, violent impacts.
It didn't take long for the nearby communications towers and power pylons to topple one after another, while the power lines snapped in succession.
Fortunately, after destroying all the facilities, the monsters immediately returned to the heart of the Taihang Mountains and didn't venture beyond the range.
But the sight of them had been seared into the minds of everyone nearby. They were even more terrified than they had been when the Thunder Dragon Emperor appeared.
The people of Xingyan Group were no exception. They could only stand there in a daze, watching the monsters rampage in every direction and praying desperately that the creatures wouldn't notice them or attack their base.
No one had the slightest inclination to think about anything else.
Before you continue