Earthlings

Paris had once been the capital of France before the Great Nirvana.

During the Great Nirvana Period, monsters had occupied it.

Although Paris Base City still existed, and was still within what had once been France, it did not encompass the old Paris.

The Eiffel Tower, once a nation's symbol before the Great Nirvana, had long since been abandoned and become a gathering place for monsters.

Bang!

A yellow-and-white monster over a hundred and fifty meters tall was fighting a woman clad entirely in a black Combat Suit, with black water swirling around her. It had two rabbit ears, a body somewhat like a kangaroo's, clawlike forelimbs, and a protruding, wolfish mouth full of sharp teeth.

Inside a distant building, a team watched the battle while continually adjusting a newly manufactured A3-grade Laser Cannon.

"Councilor Vina, that monster is too fast. We can't aim at it."

A tall, thin white man on the team spoke into his Communicator.

"I'll create an opening for you." A breathless female voice came through the Communicator.

"Councilor Vina, perhaps you could ease up a little. Speaker Dongguan has already killed the Thunder Dragon Emperor and is on his way here. He's helped several Councilors kill their King-level Monsters along the way. Besides, you've already worked with us to kill three King-level Monsters. You've completed your assignment," the white man said.

Most Councilors had only killed one King Level so far, while their team had killed three. That was thanks to Councilor Vina.

In truth, the other Councilors were not incapable of killing more King Level Monsters with a Laser Cannon's assistance. For safety's sake, however, they only authorized a shot when the opportunity was good enough.

Ultimate authority over the Laser Cannon rested with the Councilor working alongside the team. After all, when risking their lives, they could not also worry about whether the Laser Cannon might hit them. They could not place absolute trust in others.

Vina was different. She had given them authorization outright, allowing them to fire whenever they found a suitable opening. Even then, she was not satisfied. She grew more aggressive, even wanting the team to fire without regard for her safety.

Naturally, the team members were unwilling. If the Councilor assigned to their team died under their Laser Cannon's fire, it would be an indelible stain on their record.

"Monster." Vina stared at the Fanged Rabbit-Rat King before her, her eyes icy.

With her son and husband dead, Vina's heart had long since filled with hatred for monsters, even after her breakthrough to the Planetary Grade.

"A Wei and Yao are both dead. What right do you have to live?" Vina threw herself into a frenzy of close combat, just as Li Yao once had.

Finally, relying on the black water's special ability and her Black God Set, Vina transformed into ropes and bound the monster tightly to the Eiffel Tower.

"Fire," Vina ordered through her Communicator.

"If we fire from this angle, you'll be in grave danger, Councilor Vina." The voice came through the Communicator.

"I said, fire! Didn't you hear me?" Vina roared.

The voice fell silent for a moment.

"I've recorded this. If that is your order, I'll fire."

"I told you to fire! Just fire when I tell you to! Didn't you understand?"

Waves of tearing pain coursed through her body. The Black God Set could not be damaged, but the human body inside it could.

Boom!

The Laser Cannon flashed, blasting open the King-level Monster's chest.

Inside the cavity in its chest, its heart was gone.

The bloodthirsty light vanished from the monster's eyes, leaving only emptiness.

The team rushed out of the building, and one War God swiftly reached the scene.

He saw her still hanging from the half-collapsed tower, gradually sliding down along the steel at its edge.

Councilor Vina stood on the ground and looked at the approaching team.

"Where's the next one?"

Her Black God Set was completely intact, but blood kept seeping from her right arm and dripping onto the ground.

"Councilor Vina, given your injuries, you should return to the base city and use Water of Life to heal. You can come back after you've recovered," the white man told her, his pupils contracting.

"Recover?" Vina's eyes were chillingly cold. "By the time I've recovered, won't all the King-level Monsters be dead?"

"Uh..." The white man hesitated. "Actually, there are still the sweeps along Australia's coast and in Antarctica. There'll still be King-level Monsters then."

Speaker Dongguan had swept his way over from the English Islands. By the time she returned from recovering in the base city, Europe's monsters would have been all but eradicated.

There was no hiding that information from Vina, so that was all he could say.

"Keep going." Vina waved dismissively. "Ever since Yao and A Wei died, killing monsters is all I have left. Even if I die, I'll drag them down with me."

After Li Yao's death, she had broken through to the Planetary Grade in the depths of her grief. But as someone who had only just broken through, she was no match for King-level Monsters. She could only kill lord-level ones.

Now, with the new Laser Cannon, any monster she held down would die under its fire. Of course she had to kill a few more.

"You aren't scared, are you?"

"Of course not. Killing monsters is every fighter's duty."

"Then let's go. Tell me, where's the next one?"

"The monsters around Paris Base City have already been cleared out. The nearest ones remaining are around Berlin Base City."

"Then let's go."

A deep-blue flying saucer carried them toward the area surrounding Berlin Base City.

"I see it."

It was a boar with two horns and a somewhat bull-like head. Its whole body was red, like burning flames, and it was snoring away in a plaza.

"You'll do." Vina descended from the fighter jet, condensed the black water into a spear, and thrust it straight at the sleeping Flame-Horned Boar King.

The boar king woke with a start, bewilderment filling its eyes. Who dared attack it?

Looking closely, it saw a woman clad entirely in black.

"Hmph!" Flames spurted from its nostrils. Furious at being woken, the boar king aimed its two long horns at the woman and charged.

Boom!

The ground shook violently.

"Fire!" Vina was locked in combat with the boar king, both of them constantly moving, yet she still ordered them to fire.

The white man felt helpless.

If she wanted them to fire, why not take a shot while the Flame-Horned Boar King was still asleep?

Why insist on engaging it in close combat first?

"Fine, the recording..."

"I know. You won't be held responsible. Just fire," Vina's voice came through.

"Do we fire?" asked a team member operating the Laser Cannon.

"Fire," the white man said helplessly.

Boom!

The shot wounded the boar king without killing it. Half its body was blasted away, but none of its vital points had been struck.

Its body turned into flames, its wounds healed, and skin grew back, though half of it was still missing.

Terrified, the boar king ran on its three remaining legs, trying to escape.

"Don't run." Vina gave chase.

A streak of white light swept past, blasting the boar king's head apart and killing it.

Everyone looked over. A man hovered in midair, surrounded by white light.

He had killed a King-level Monster with a casual strike. That ability left everyone stunned.

"Speaker Dongguan."

Dongguan looked at Vina. Since her Black God Set covered her entire body, he could not identify her. He could only tell that she was a woman.

"Your injuries are severe."

"They're nothing. I only got them killing monsters. Yao is already dead." Her Black God Set shifted, revealing her head.

"Li Yao." Speaking that name, Dongguan fell silent for a moment, then looked at the other team members and the fighter jet concealed in the distance.

"She's badly injured. Take her back to rest. The war will be over soon."

With that, Dongguan turned into white light and vanished.

He still had other monsters to clear out, and others were still fighting.

The war against the monsters lasted a month, with the fiercest fighting confined to the first ten days.

On the first day, Dongguan and Hong each killed one of the two emperors.

On the tenth day, Luo Feng killed the last King-level Monster outside Australia and the waters around Antarctica in southwestern Huaxia.

On the eleventh day, humanity launched an expedition. Everyone at Planetary Level Second Order or above set out to clear Australia and the waters around Antarctica.

Meanwhile, the other Councilors began clearing out lord-level monsters, while the remaining fighters followed behind to deal with beast-general-level and Beast Soldier Level monsters.

On the thirteenth day, all King-level Monsters vanished from Earth.

On the twenty-fifth day, with fighters leading the way, humanity emerged from the base cities and resumed clearing the ruins and rebuilding the surface.

On the thirtieth day, after confirming that the monsters no longer posed a threat, humanity gathered specimens of the remaining monster species and established nature reserves to monitor and raise them in captivity.

From then on, humanity had reclaimed the vast majority of Earth's territory.

The War God Palace.

"From this point onward, monsters no longer pose a threat to humanity. However, all humanity must remain united, because we still face dangers from the universe."

At another meeting, Hong decided to disclose some information.

"The universe?" Many people were puzzled.

The pressure of the monsters had weighed on everyone like a mountain. Now that the monsters were dealt with and the mountain had been removed, he was actually saying it was not over yet.

"Look." As Hong finished speaking, a video appeared on the screen.

In the video, two powerful fighters battled on a blazing-white planet.

"What is this?" Some were confused, while others remained silent.

"On Earth, many of us take pride in our strength: War God Level, Councilor Level, Speaker Level. But in the universe, everything from Warrior Level to War God Level is collectively known as apprentice level. Councilor Level and Speaker Level are merely Planetary Grade. Beyond that are Star Level, Universe Level, and many more levels. What you're watching is a battle between two Universe Level fighters. They're fighting on a white dwarf with three hundred million times Earth's gravity."

"We pride ourselves on our strength and rejoice at wiping out the monsters, yet we have no idea what would happen to us planetary natives if powerful beings from the universe arrived. Would we be killed? Enslaved? Our descendants might remain slaves for generation after generation, forever. We might even be exterminated without ever being allowed to have descendants."

"Speaker Hong, isn't that a little alarmist?"

"Stand up." Hong fixed his gaze on the white man, a War God from the United States.

With the monsters dead, he had grown somewhat full of himself.

"You call me alarmist, but what will we do if it really happens? Earth has so many Ancient Civilization Ruins. Among them, the three death zones-No. 1, No. 12, and No. 31 Ruins-remain inaccessible to us even now. What does that tell us? It tells us Earth made contact with the universe long ago without our knowledge. Perhaps it wasn't our generation. Perhaps it happened much earlier. Since contact occurred, they will surely find us again by following the traces of the past. We simply don't know when."

"Tell me, am I being alarmist?"

The man fell silent, as did everyone else.

They knew what Hong meant. He wanted humanity to unite rather than fight among themselves. They also knew he was right: people from the universe could arrive at any moment. But they knew just as well that, now the monsters were gone, the vast territories humanity had reclaimed would need to be developed. Under the restraint imposed by Hong and the others, there would be no infighting. In the future, however, once the existing spoils had all been divided, internal conflict would remain inevitable.

Everyone was silent, and Hong felt helpless.

He had known this would be the result. Without the monster crisis, humanity would not unite. In fact, even throughout the years since the Great Nirvana, humanity had continued fighting among themselves.

"The meeting is adjourned," Hong announced helplessly.

Everyone left one after another, returning to reality.

The representatives of the nations and base cities left first. They had never belonged to the War God Palace and had only been granted temporary access. Now that the monster crisis was over, they simply left.

Many of the War Gods formed groups of two or three and went to the lower levels of the War God Palace to socialize.

The Councilors also left one after another, leaving only a handful behind.

Ten people remained: Hong, Thunder God, Dongguan, Zhang Gui, Luo Feng, Mohanderson, Ister, Tripathi Singh, Jia Yi, and Sokolov.

Among them, Hong and Thunder God had each founded an independent organization.

Dongguan had contributed so much technology this time, and the unfathomable strength he had displayed during the war also placed him above the rest.

The strength Zhang Gui and Luo Feng had shown in this war was second only to Hong, Thunder God, and Dongguan.

The remaining five were Earth's strongest individuals apart from those first five, and each could represent one of Earth's Five Great Nations.

Moreover, they were the five heroes who had sacrificed themselves in the original story's history. Compared with the others, at least their love for Earth and humanity had been proven.

"With the monster crisis over, Earth's humans will no longer be able to maintain their unity. Even the infighting that was previously kept in check will gradually intensify. That is foreseeable. However, everyone here is among Earth's strongest. To prepare for future threats from the universe, let us make an agreement here to limit the scale of our conflicts, so disputes over interests do not develop into blood feuds."

"In the years since the Great Nirvana, the Five Great Nations have each played their part. When we make contact with the universe, Earth's humans will need to unite again. I don't want the rifts created by infighting over interests to become impossible to heal in the future. I have a feeling that humanity's contact with the universe isn't far off."

Hong spoke with great sincerity.

"All right." Everyone agreed.

But none dared guarantee how long it would last.