The Spoils

The pig was dead.

As its blood continued to flow and water gushed up from underground, its frenzy gradually subsided, and its movements slowed.

The five members of Gao Zheng's team had already retreated to one side and waited when it began to go berserk.

Only Ma Tianxing had escaped this battle without injury. The other four had all sustained at least a few cuts and bruises.

Watching the pig slowly collapse to the ground, Gao Zheng said, "Tianxing, go give it the finishing blow. Cut off its head."

Ma Tianxing released the axe in his left hand, raised the one in his right, and walked toward the pig one step at a time.

When he reached its neck, he gripped the axe handle with both hands, channeled all his strength into the weapon, and brought it down from above.

The blow split open the flesh and skin of its neck, exposing the bone.

At the very end, the pig only gave a heavy grunt. It no longer had the strength to move.

It took nearly ten minutes to cut off the entire head.

Looking at it now, they felt a viciousness that they seemed not to have sensed before the battle.

The five of them looked at one another. Their gazes met, and each face held a lingering sense of triumph.

During the ten minutes they spent dealing with the monster, the other battles had also been decided. Every monster had been slain.

Gao Zheng glanced outside the Pig Farm. The other teams had yet to kill all the monsters, so he gathered the members of the other three teams together to take stock of what they had gained from the battle.

Gao Zheng sighed. "The difference between inside and outside is like the gap between heaven and earth. It's obvious these monsters have broken through to another level."

He Qishun took out a piece of cloth and wiped the bone knife in his hand as he said, "That proves our earlier decision was right. If these four monsters had charged into our other teams, the consequences would've been unthinkable."

Gao Zheng nodded. "But it also shows that we're still far from strong enough. These four happened to be just enough that we didn't have to spread our forces too thin. What will we do next time if we run into even more monsters of the same strength?"

Lin Chenxing thought back to the works he had read before. His eyes lit up, and he suggested, "Since animals have mutated into monsters, what about plants? Could they have mutated to some extent, too? Could there be rare treasures that might help us improve our physical strength quickly?"

"Also, the martial arts we practiced before only served to strengthen the body, but now they've made us far stronger than other people. Could there be more potential to unlock in these techniques? If we gathered all the martial arts manuals we'd collected, organized them, and taught them to everyone at the base, starting with the easiest and moving to the hardest, could we harness everyone's efforts to test and refine them together? Maybe we could come up with a method that would improve our physical strength as quickly as possible."

Ma Tianxing wasn't entirely convinced by Lin Chenxing's idea. "Martial arts take too long to show results. We've all trained for years to get the abilities we have now. Expecting to find a shortcut this way is wishful thinking. As for rare treasures, that might be possible, but I don't think it's likely. Humans and animals can evolve and mutate largely because of the RR Virus. Plants don't have the means to contract the RR Virus, so how could they mutate?"

Guo Qichang didn't have any particular opinion on the matter. He simply said, "I think we could give Chenxing's idea a try. There's no harm in trying. If everyone learns martial arts, things will be easier for us later, too."

Xi Qing was also a member of one of the teams. Holding a long saber, she looked impressively gallant as she said, "In my view, we should try anything that might make us stronger. After all, we humans are the ones at a disadvantage right now, not the monsters. Besides, we don't have guns or ammunition to arm ordinary people and turn them into an effective fighting force in a short time. This is the only way we can give them the ability to protect themselves."

He Jinchang, a member of another four-person team, suggested, "Why not hold a Martial Arts Tournament within the group? If we get everyone interested in martial arts, they'll take their training seriously."

Gao Zheng agreed with He Jinchang's suggestion. "We shouldn't just hold a tournament. We should also organize team competitions and form squads. In this day and age, fighting together is bound to be safer than going it alone."

After speaking, Gao Zheng glanced outside again. The other teams were already close to the gate, so he picked up the gun he had leaned to one side and said as he started walking, "All right, let's go join them. There are only a few dozen left."

At last, the raid on Chen Village Pig Farm came to an end.

After the four pigs inside the Pig Farm were transported to the base's research institute, the researchers there wished they had a few more to dissect to their hearts' content.

After studying them, the researchers reached one clear conclusion: the four pigs were vastly different from ordinary domestic and wild pigs. They even differed greatly from the most heavily mutated pig monsters outside the Pig Farm. The structures of their various tissues and the cells within them had undergone tremendous changes. No, "evolved" was a better word—and this evolution fit the term far better than the enhancement of human physical abilities did. The two groups had even developed a degree of reproductive isolation.

"Reproductive isolation" wasn't quite accurate. Ordinary pigs simply couldn't carry the offspring of these evolved pigs. If they became pregnant, the fetuses would most likely die because the mothers couldn't provide enough nutrients.

From this, the research institute proposed a theory: the creatures we had previously called monsters still belonged to the animal kingdom. They were merely somewhat different from the animals of the past.

Only animals that had broken through this boundary could truly be called monsters.

These four monsters were classified as evolved forms of two kinds of pigs.

The ones with long, metallic-sheened bristles covering their bodies and two long tusks in their mouths were called Iron-Bristled Tusked Pigs.

The other kind, with a single gray horn, was called Unicorn Wild Boars.

The materials from these two kinds of wild boar were all harvested: six tusks and one horn in total. The tusks were eventually made into two long knives and four short knives. The horn wasn't long enough, so it could only be made into a dagger.

These seven weapons would be prizes at the base's first Martial Arts Tournament.

Three would be awarded in the Individual Competition, while the other four would go to the top four teams in the team competition.

Besides that, the base's biggest gain was a group of piglets.

A Pig Farm that large was bound to have piglets, and they weren't much of a threat, so the team captured them alive and brought them back to try raising them. If successful, the base would have a steady supply of meat.

For this purpose, the base set aside a space for the piglets and assigned people to patrol it around the clock to prevent any accidents.