Chapter 61: Negligence

It was not only the people in the Frontline Command of Wan J City who were dumbfounded; Zhou Liming, who had been hiding on a protective barrier of the frontline, was equally dumbfounded.

All along, he had thought that he was just one of the loneliest people in this world, forever guarding the secret of his Fierce Beast Form, unable to find anyone to share it with, and having no way to share it with others, so it would remain buried deep in his heart forever. Many times, Zhou Liming had felt terrified; with the Fierce Beast Gene, was he still human?

Because of this answer, he lived in great pain. If it were not to protect the relatives beside him, he would not even know how to face life.

Yet these seventeen people before his eyes were like a ray of hope blooming before Zhou Liming. Their Fierce Beast Forms made Zhou Liming feel ecstatic after his initial shock.

“I am not alone; there are many others like me who possess the Fierce Beast Gene. I am no longer a monster, I am not a monster!” Zhou Liming became so excited that he almost wanted to roar at the sky to vent the stifled emotions he had held in his heart for the past half-month. He could hardly find words to describe his feelings at this moment.

As for how strong the combat power of these seventeen Human-shaped Fierce Beasts was, one only needed to see how they successfully stopped the tide of Fierce Beasts to know their power.

However, they were not invincible. The appearance of the Electric Spirit Beast began to bring casualties. A warrior possessing the genes of a Flying Fierce Beast was enveloped by an electric net woven by more than a dozen Electric Spirit Beasts. The high-voltage electricity of over a million volts was not something that could be defended against simply by having thick skin. Electric arcs flowed crackling over his body instantly, drying up his blood, and then he turned into a charred corpse.

The death of a team member instantly woke everyone in the X Squadron up. Here, they were not invincible; the powerful Fierce Beasts also possessed the ability to kill them.

Especially the Boneback Beast among the Fierce Beasts, its powerful defensive strength meant that even energy attacks only caused it minor injuries. One could imagine that the Boneback Beast was simply not something they could kill at their current level. The Bone Spur bone blades, which could pierce the armor of armored vehicles, had no way to pierce its skin layer.

The great tide of Fierce Beasts was only stopped for a brief moment before pushing forward again. The area the X Squadron could cover was only a small section of the Frontline, so Fierce Beasts could continue to advance from other places.

Artillery positions were scattered in all directions by the charging Fierce Beasts, and military camps were knocked down one by one, with tents trampled by the beasts. The light clusters fired by the Leaf Sac Beasts even crossed over ten kilometers to bombard the city. Flying Fierce Beasts had long been wreaking havoc in the city, destroying buildings and trampling the fleeing humans underfoot.

An injured and crazed Boneback Beast charged rumbling forward; everywhere it passed, a path was inevitably cleared by its collision.

Only then did a rumbling sound ring out. Zhou Liming, who had fallen into joy, finally remembered something, his expression changed, and he shot out of the fortification like an arrow, running frantically toward the city.

“Dean, Xiaowei, you must be safe. Damn it, how could I have forgotten them?”

Zhou Liming gritted his teeth, filled with self-blame.

He should have foreseen the result right at the beginning and taken them away. But he had not woken up to reality even after the command headquarters issued the evacuation order, still immersed in the battle between humans and Fierce Beasts. It was not until the X Squadron appeared and he discovered that they possessed the Fierce Beast Gene…

“They will be fine, they will be fine,” Zhou Liming kept comforting himself.

How fast can a human run? The fastest hundred-meter sprint in the world takes more than nine seconds. But Zhou Liming’s speed in his anxiety was as fast as lightning; because of his excessively fast running, he even kicked up a long dragon of smoke in the dirt of the fields. One Fierce Beast after another was surpassed by him, instantly left far behind.

Even Lian Ruixue looked in surprise from the sky at this person who left only a receding figure; his running speed could truly be described as terrifying.

With his Genetically Modified eyes, he could clearly see Zhou Liming’s clothing. If this were a war between nations, Lian Ruixue would have unhesitatingly shot and killed this person who did not belong to his faction. But now it was a battle against Fierce Beasts, so as long as one was human, they belonged to his own faction.

But Lian Ruixue still could not understand why a human could run so fast; it had already exceeded the scope of human ability?

Of course, Zhou Liming did not know what Lian Ruixue was thinking. He was now single-mindedly focused on rushing back to the Refugee Camp to take the Dean and the others away. He somewhat hated himself; why had he instructed the Dean and the others to wait for him to return no matter what happened when he went out? Amidst the chaos everywhere, Zhou Liming dared not imagine the situation the Dean and the others were in.

Rushing back into the city, all he saw were people fleeing in terror; in the pushing and shoving, people fell from time to time and were trampled by countless others…

On a tall building, a Flying Dragon Beast was climbing; the glass and outer walls were shattered into pieces under its claws, and cement debris kept falling down, smashing onto the crowd on the street. Screams rose and fell; anyone hit by these cement fragments, which were at least the size of a fist, would basically fall down and never have the chance to get up again.

Zhou Liming squeezed through the crowd, but no matter how hard he pushed, he could not push aside the people who had fallen into madness, and his moving speed was very slow.

“Roar!”

Impatient, Zhou Liming crouched slightly, his slightly bent legs suddenly ejected like a cannonball. When smashing toward the nearby tall building, his feet kicked against the wall; as the wall crumbled, he used this force to twist his waist violently, and his body was already ejected forward.

Moving in a Z-shape, Zhou Liming paid no attention to the screams of the people below who discovered him. “Dean, you cannot be in trouble. I will arrive very soon. Hold on, you must hold on, hold on until I return!” If not for the fear of causing misunderstanding, Zhou Liming would have wanted to enter his Fierce Beast Form to completely unleash his strength and turn it into even greater speed.

Everywhere Zhou Liming passed, every bounce point was shattered into powder under the tremendous force.

With a “screech” roar, the Flying Dragon Beast, which had just climbed to the top of the tall building, suddenly loosened its claws, and its huge body fell downward. When close to the ground, it suddenly flapped its wings, and the huge airflow overturned a dozen unlucky fugitives below. Using this huge airflow, the Flying Dragon Beast rushed up into the sky again.

It seemed to have discovered Zhou Liming moving in a Z-shape on the building wall, and it dived from the high sky, pouncing aggressively toward Zhou Liming.

Sensing the dangerous aura coming from behind, Zhou Liming unhesitatingly smashed downward toward the street below after rubbing against and cracking the wall on the fourth floor of a building.

With a “boom,” the Flying Dragon Beast grabbing at Zhou Liming failed to stop its form and directly crashed into the outer wall of the building’s fourth floor. Amidst the loud noise, it forcibly smashed a large hole; its entire huge body fell inside, and angry roars came from within.

Zhou Liming landed on the street with a “bang” in a half-crouch; the concrete street under his feet was smashed apart, with cracks spreading like a spider web.

The Flying Dragon Beast, having missed its strike, struggled in the room it had smashed into, knocking down some furniture and items. A moment later, it finally struggled out; it smashed through the remaining bricks and cement with its head, and its protruding head became hideous. Its powerful claws rubbed against the edge of the floor, then it rushed out with a “whoosh,” flapping its wings and issuing a huge dragon roar.

Once it confirmed that it had found the running Zhou Liming, it suddenly shot high into the sky. Then it retracted its wings and wrapped them around its body, constantly spinning, and dived down toward the city in a free-fall rotation.