Chapter 177: Supporting the Tube

Its wings flapped, it lunged forward quickly, and then the Bone Spur chiseled down; the series of movements was crisp and clean.

But as a Level Six Ice Demon Beast, if it were that easy to deal with, it wouldn’t be called a Level Six Fierce Beast. Its Bone Sword easily blocked the Bone Spur that Zhou Liming chiseled down; the Bone Sword was not actually shattered by the Bone Spur, which somewhat surprised Zhou Liming, but thinking that Level Six Fierce Beasts had a qualitative leap, he felt relieved.

Actually, Zhou Liming did not have to engage in a melee fight with the Ice Demon Beast, but to show off his power , he couldn’t just blast it away directly, right?

This resulted in the scene seen by the people below: a human and a beast tangled in a chaotic battle in the sky. Seeing that Zhou Liming did not fall into a disadvantage, the people who had just screamed and fled were no longer in a hurry to escape, but stopped and looked up at this rare battle.

However, for ordinary people, they could basically see very little; Zhou Liming’s speed was too fast, and their eyes could hardly keep up with the rhythm of the fight.

Even Shao Weiguo and the others were surprised; the speed of the exchange between the two sides was too fast. Zhou Liming’s combat skills were far beyond what they could compare with. But the Ice Demon Beast was a Level Six Fierce Beast after all, and its instinctive reactions were very rapid, so it was almost impossible to determine the winner in a short time. Of course, if they knew that Zhou Liming caused this on purpose, they might have vomited blood.

To be honest, the Ice Demon Beast was indeed very powerful. When Zhou Liming fought it in close combat, he always felt that its body was surrounded by a chill; the longer he stayed, the stiffer his hands and feet became.

After one strike separated them, Zhou Liming found that there was actually a thin layer of ice on his arm, and even the Bone Spur looked somewhat white. His entire arm was freezing cold, as if it were about to be frozen. What made Zhou Liming even more depressed was that during the fight with the Ice Demon Beast, its body swayed, causing Zhou Liming’s head to always think towards a certain direction.

“Damn it, going on like this isn’t a way.”

Seeing that his goal had been achieved, Zhou Liming retracted his Bone Spur, stared at the Ice Demon Beast, moved and combined his arm, and quickly aimed his cannon barrel-shaped arm at the Ice Demon Beast. With a low roar, the Death Light sprayed out from his arm. It just flashed in the sky, and the Ice Demon Beast let out a scream; its arched body had its entire upper body sliced off under the Death Light.

Below, Shao Weiguo and the others watched somewhat dumbfounded as the Ice Demon Beast, with only half its body left, fell from the sky, all of them finding it somewhat unbelievable.

“Such a difficult Level Six Fierce Beast, just finished like this?”

Many people couldn’t accept it, especially the Super Warriors. They had worked themselves to death and hadn’t even knocked off a single hair of the Ice Demon Beast, but as soon as this person made a move, he directly blasted it to pieces. The gap between the two was a bit too big, right? Even Shao Weiguo and these Level Five Super Warriors were depressed to the extreme.

But the ordinary people didn’t think so. Seeing the Ice Demon Beast die, they immediately cheered and let out bursts of wild howls.

Zhou Liming just hovered in the air, even closing his eyes, accepting the cheers that belonged to him.

※※※

The power center of Xiyang City was not the original city government, but a group of villas located in the north-central area.

The government square area had now become a distribution center; all supplies were distributed on the government square. The city’s water and electricity had been cut off for four or five months. Despite the city’s perfect water supply system, without electricity, these piles of scrap metal pipes were of no use whatsoever.

The water source for Xiyang City now was Chenghai Reservoir.

After the crisis brought by the Level Six Ice Demon Beast was resolved, the city was in a mess. In the entire eastern part of the city, a large area had become ruins. Preliminary judgment suggested that over ten thousand people had fallen under the Ice Demon Beast’s ice roar. Zhou Liming felt somewhat guilty about this number, but the higher the casualties, the more his contribution could be reflected.

The follow-up work was not for Chen Yunian and his people to do; naturally, someone would come to handle it.

At this moment, standing in the villa group in the north, as the most luxurious and ideally located building, it was the heart of the entire city’s power center. As the City Commander, Chen Yunian worked and lived here, enjoying absolute comfort. Just standing on the balcony looking at this artificial lake, anyone’s mood would improve.

As the three giants of the entire city, Chen Yunian and the others stood behind Zhou Liming, looking at this young man with complex feelings. The prestige they had built over several months was not as high as what he achieved in half an hour. Just thinking about the gap involved, no one felt good in their heart.

Zhou Liming was very calm. He seemed to have finished admiring the artificial scenery of the villa group, then turned around and said indifferently: “How have you considered it?”

Chen Yunian and the other three looked at each other, their faces full of bitter smiles and faint anger. To be honest, when you are used to holding great power, if you are asked to give it up, is there any difference between that and killing yourself? But right now, they had to face this result which seemed to have two choices, but actually only had one choice.

“All your power remains unchanged, but I want the person you pledge loyalty to be me.” Zhou Liming’s tone was very cold. “Perhaps in your view, power has changed, but you should be clear that today’s Level Six Fierce Beast is definitely not the last one to appear here. Even higher-level Fierce Beasts may appear in the future. Do you think that with your abilities, you are confident in holding this city?”

Zhou Liming spoke full of sarcasm: “Maybe you don’t know that the seventh batch of Fierce Beasts is about to land. By then, they will be like smelling blood, turning this place into a living hell. Don’t expect the Grand Rear to come to the rescue; they can’t even take care of themselves, so it’s impossible to count on them.”

In fact, there was no need for Chen Yunian and the others to consider anything; as long as they were human, they understood what decision should be made.

What outsiders didn’t know was that it seemed like overnight, the entire Xiyang City had changed owners. On the surface, Chen Yunian still held the position of Commander, Zhang Chunyang was still the feared Law Enforcement Officer, and Shao Weiguo was still the Guardian. But everything had changed; from the three giants, they became just people serving one person.

Owning a city of hundreds of thousands of people, Zhou Liming felt very calm, and there was nothing worth being happy about.

In other words, he was somewhat like a villain who used force to seize power, using his own bigger fist than theirs to obtain the city they had painstakingly managed for several months, becoming the master of this city. For a Super Warrior, from the moment he possessed the Fierce Beast Gene, he already belonged to the realm of supermen; ordinary people were just ants in the eyes of Super Warriors.

It seemed like becoming a local ruler, but wasn’t it also a heavy responsibility?

The ruler of the city had become a manager, seemingly not much of a change. But everyone knew the difference between a ruler and a manager. At least for now, in the eyes of ordinary people, Chen Yunian was still the ruler of this city, possessing power beyond everything.

For Gui Province, a mere Xiyang City, with only one-tenth of the survivor population base, indeed couldn’t count for much. This ratio was even more pitiful when placed in the whole country. But in Zhou Liming’s view, at least Xiyang City was a starting point for him; he hadn’t thought about how to go in the future, taking one step at a time… might be the best future.

Xiyang City could not be considered an industrial city; lacking pillar enterprises, it could at best be considered a rural city. To be able to develop to this extent was considered not a small miracle. At least in many provinces, among cities in the same position as Xiyang City, few had developed to this stage.

Zhou Liming, who had never been exposed to management, suddenly found that facing the entire city, he actually didn’t know how to start.

Managing the city?

For Zhou Liming, the challenge seemed a bit high. He was only nineteen years old; if not for the transformation of the Fierce Beast Gene, he would still be like a young lad.

Actually, Zhou Liming didn’t want to develop the city, because for now, it was completely unnecessary. What development could you expect from a city with no population flow and isolated from the world? In the Fierce Beast Occupied Area, there were no supplies, no resources, no… Being able to manage the hundreds of thousands of people inside well and provide enough food was already a huge contribution.

The problem facing us now is how to face the upcoming seventh batch of Fierce Beast tide.

The landing of each batch of Fierce Beasts did not mean only Seventh Level Fierce Beasts, but would also carry some other levels of Fierce Beasts; it was just that the level of Fierce Beasts would increase with the batches. It was like a game, limited to Level Six; if you rose to Level Six, you were at the top and couldn’t go up. But once Fierce Beasts landed, it meant the level would open up one more level again. From the original Level Six cap, it became the current Seventh Stage cap.

The formation of the Beast Tide was a phenomenon that humans had not been able to figure out after half a year of research.

For example, how were they connected together? Why could different types of Fierce Beasts unite and launch attacks on human cities as if they had command? Why didn’t two kinds of Fierce Beasts that were in a food chain relationship fight each other? Why did carnivorous Fierce Beasts fight mixed with Herbivorous Fierce Beasts? All this was like an unknown, like a riddle that couldn’t be solved.

Having experienced the Beast Tide, Zhou Liming could not forget the shock at that time. Dense Fierce Beasts, fearless charges, support from long-range firepower, crazy fighting in close combat… As soon as Fierce Beasts formed a Beast Tide, they seemed to go crazy, charging regardless of everything.

It could be imagined that for Xiyang City now, the Fierce Beasts only needed one charge to smash the entire city into pieces.

Wanting to survive in the arriving seventh wave of the Beast Tide, everything in front of us is not enough, and some changes must be made.