Chu Feixiong still wanted to argue. “We—”
“Enough!”
Principal Sun suddenly shouted loudly, and his voice was even louder than Demon Yan’s.
His expression instantly turned darker as well. Now, he looked like a demon and not someone harmless.
Flap! Flap! Flap! Flap! Flap! Flap! Flap! Flap!
A moment ago, his camouflage uniform had been loose, but in an instant, it became tight around his body. The cloth at his chest and armpits even tore to reveal a powerful body that shone with a metallic light.
The old principal at his twilight years grew muscle mass so rapidly it was as if someone had inflated him with gas. His body became even bigger than that of Chu Feixiong, and he turned into the fearsome Heavy Cannon who once fought in the Red Dragon Army!
“Hiss!”
When everyone saw Principal Sun’s fists, they found that they were like two hot cannonballs. Meng Chao and the other students sucked in sharp breaths, and they understood why the Heavy Cannon did not need to bring any weapons with him.
His fists were like morningstars packed full of gunpowder. Anyone by whom they brushed past would die. They would die if it just touched them!
“Dying is very easy, but if you march to your deaths without a plan and before you uncover your full potential, that isn’t courage. It’s just another form of cowardice!” Principal Sun shouted angrily.
“Dragon City is a lone army in the Other World. Everyone’s lives don’t belong to themselves, but to all the citizens and to the whole of Dragon City. It belongs to Earth’s civilization! If you want to die, you need to be qualified to do so!
“I, Sun Daxing, joined the army when I was seventeen, and I’ve been a soldier for forty years. I’ve killed nearly one thousand zombies and more than ten thousand monsters. I have hundreds of scars left on my body, and there are fragments from the monsters’ fangs embedded in my spine. I’ve already given away everything that I can to Dragon City, so I have the right to walk generously to my death.
“Chu Feixiong, how many monsters have you killed? How many scars have you obtained? What have you done for the land that nurtured you? You haven’t even grown all your hair down there, so what right do you have to die?”
His unfiltered words were finally able to intimidate Chu Feixiong and the students.
The students at the entrance fell silent. They could only hear the roars of the monsters and humans outside.
Chu Feixiong’s face turned red. He lowered his head in embarrassment. “Principal Sun, I…”
“That’s enough. Students, please stay here.” Principal Sun’s voice became gentle once more. “Please be more confident in your teachers and those of your parents’ generation. We’ll protect this city and buy time for you. Your duty is to use the time, space, and resources we bought for you to train hard and surpass us. Then… you will earn the right to walk to your death with your head held high.”
The students fell into deep thought.
Principal Sun waved his hand and led the school leaders as well as teachers out of the school entrance.
“Wait, Principal Sun!” Meng Chao suddenly jogged over.
“Meng Chao?” Principal Sun turned his head around in slight surprise.
“I was browsing through the life science forum in the deep web a few days ago, and I saw someone boasting on the monster forum. He said that he discovered an Evolved Demonic Air Ripping Eye.
“Their tentacles are very tenacious, bouncy, and possess great power. They can extend to one hundred meters, which means that they can reach the ground if they’re one hundred meters in the air, and it allows them to wrap a person and bring him into the air,” Meng Chao said quickly.
“I don’t know whether it’s true or false, but it’s better to believe it. When you fight, you must be careful of the attacks from above!”
Principal Sun stared at Meng Chao for a long time before he nodded. “I’ll remember it. Thank you, Meng Chao. Go back. Take care of your safety with the other students.”
Meng Chao released a sigh of relief and watched as Principal Sun and the teachers vanished into the depths of the fog and flames.
Suddenly, a notification popped up before his eyes.
[Heroic citizen Sun Daxing has listened to your suggestion. His chances of survival have increased. Increased contribution points by 199.]
‘Hero?’
Meng Chao was stunned. He did not expect that Principal Sun was not an elite citizen, but a heroic citizen, someone who was of an even higher level. With just a small suggestion, he gave Meng Chao 199 contribution points.
Now, he had discovered four different citizen units.
“Normal”, “Elite”, “Special”, and “Heroic”.
The others were easy to understand, but what sort of person was qualified to be declared as a hero?
Meng Chao returned to the students with a complicated expression.
When he turned his head around, he did not know whether his mind was playing tricks on him, but he felt that the flames in the direction where Principal Sun and the others went burned hotter, and the sounds of explosions there were also louder.
But no matter how noisy the explosions were, they could not hide the sounds of Principal Sun’s fists ramming into monsters. They sounded like cannonfire.
He watched in a daze for a long time before he suddenly gritted his teeth and walked forward.
“Meng Chao, where are you going?” Chu Feixiong called out to him.
“I’m not watching anymore. There’s nothing worth watching anyway. Even if we watch until our eyes bleed, we still can’t make the monsters die with our stares. We’re not Demonic Air Ripping Eyes, after all!”
Meng Chao did not turn his head around. “Principal Sun is right. I’m going to the cultivation room. I’ll… fight for the right to die with no regrets!”
Chu Feixiong was stunned. He turned his head around and cast a glance at his hometown, which was being wrecked by monsters, and he stomped his feet. “Wait for me! We’ll go together! I’ll fight you three hundred times tonight! Whoever cries out in pain is a weakling!”
“We’re going too!”
On that night, all the third year examinees of Ninth High School descended into a frenzy in the cultivation rooms.
They treated each other as monsters and beat each other up repeatedly.
The world outside fought for an entire night, and they did the exact same thing. They fought each other until they were black and blue all over. Wounds covered their bodies, but no one cried out in pain. All of them just gritted their teeth and bore with it.
They fought for an entire night, until the Earthlings won in the end. They protected their hometown once more.
When Meng Chao walked out of the cultivation room covered in wounds, he smelled the heavy smell of gunpowder in the air, the foul stench of monsters, and the smell of human blood. It was so thick in the air that it felt as if the air had become stiff.
Even the war songs that had been playing for an entire night gained a grave tone.
The aftermath of a war was always great.
Since a large number of monsters invaded their land, it meant that they gained a large amount of fat and protein. It also meant that all sorts of rare materials and crystals appeared.
Countless warriors had also gained experience with every drop of blood they shed in the midst of the flames. They grew by leaps and bounds.
Many normal people brought out their full potential during the fierce fights and became superhumans.
Many low-grade superhumans shattered the shackles of their genes during moments of life and death and reached new heights.
Even so, Dragon City was filled with sorrow.
It was the most devastating fight Dragon City had encountered over the past decade.
“Based on initial estimations, dozens of superhumans, hundreds of Red Dragon Army soldiers, and thousands of citizens were lost during the monster invasion yesterday. The monsters also destroyed nearly one hundred buildings. We’ve suffered hundreds of millions in loss.
“The seventh commando squad of Soaring Tiger, the Red Dragon Army’s air commandos, were the first to notice the intruders. To buy time, they gathered three armored airships and launched a charge at a dozen Demonic Air Ripping Eyes. They fought until the last soldier perished.
“Four-star superhuman Eagle Saber Meng Ao tried to protect the scattered crowd by himself and fought against a monster hoard formed by hundreds of Desert Wolves. He killed more than one hundred and eighty Desert Wolves, and he is heavily injured. His future in cultivation is bleak.
“The Survival Committee and Supernatural Tower have worked together to release an announcement. They will reward all the heroes who took part in the war this time. Aside from compensating the families of those who sacrificed their lives, they will also treat Eagle Saber Meng Ao and the other heavily wounded superhumans without caring about the price. They will try to retain their possibility to continue cultivating!”
Communications were restored, and the broadcast started sending out somber messages one after another. When the students heard them, they did not even have the appetite to eat.
There were only millions of people in Dragon City, and they had lost thousands this time. The number of casualties was devastating.
Meng Chao was the only one who continued shoving food down his throat as he forced himself to replenish his energy.
He knew that the ambush this time was just the prelude to the Monster War becoming more dangerous in every aspect.
The youths of his generation were familiar with a Monster War where Earthlings trampled on tiny monsters. Soon, this familiarity would be shattered.
And he had to do something before all of that happened.
Meng Chao got on a public bus that sent him back home.
All sorts of monster carcasses were piled up into mountains around the city. They were rotting swiftly.
If they were left alone, they could cause a pandemic.
All schools, enterprises, and public institutions were issued a holiday for the day. Everyone fought hard to sweep through the battlefield to harvest resources so that their hometown would be as bright as the sun once more.
The third year examinees were worried about their families, and they stated that they wanted to go back to see them.
Principal Sun came back after fighting for an entire night while covered in blood. He did not stop them.
Monster carcasses were everywhere in the streets, along with the marks left behind as they had melted or clawed up everything in their paths. There were also bullet holes along with obstacles formed by the remains of shattered war trucks.
The public bus had its bumper strengthened. Its tyres were also changed to those full of spikes, so they looked like solid off-road tyres used to travel on snow. They continuously went over the monster carcasses while letting out loud creaks.
The youngsters in the bus were mostly quiet and in a daze. They stared at the skyscrapers outside. They were wrapped around by mutated vines of all sorts of colors, and it looked as if this human city had become one with the forest of the Other World.
They could not understand how their familiar hometown had become like this.
The middle-aged people and the elderly were much calmer. The older they were, the calmer they acted.
They had experienced Dragon City transmigrating to this place and an age of lacking resources, zombies running rampant among them, ruffians dominating their streets, fog descending on them, and monsters attacking their city. There was nothing that could intimidate the elderly people with their wrinkle-filled faces and heads full of white hair.
“Look, the children are so scared. You lot, you’ve been living too comfortably over the past ten years. Twenty to thirty years ago, this was nothing.”
“That’s right. When I was young, I had to work during the day, and when I got off work, I had to kill random monsters in passing. I even had to pick up my kid from kindergarten. Sometimes, as I held my kid, I had to swing my saber and kill a few more monsters. I also had to cut off their tongues and ears so that I could turn them into dishes for my husband. Tsk, that’s what I call a Monster War!”
“Come, sisters, shall we sing a song for the children of the current era?”
The elderly giggled and sang.
They did not need to sing excited war songs to stir up their passion like the youngsters.
They sang small tunes that were mild, and all of them praised the scenery of their hometown.
Some of them were even pop songs they remembered from Earth.
It was as if no matter how hideous the monsters were and how terrifying the Other World was, it could not stop the elderly from admiring the beautiful scenery outside and search for a burning love.
Before, the youngsters did not like the elderly flaunting their seniority.
But on that day, the children listened seriously.
Even Meng Chao sang along with the elderly. When he got off the bus, he finally felt a little lighter at heart.
The night before, Blessed Heavenly Garden was not the main battlefield. Even so, the number of monsters that came to them was still way higher than what they had faced during the invasion of the Ghost-eyed Golden Winged Flame Beetle.
Fortunately, they were all normal monsters. Aside from shell-type monsters, there were also a lot of Demonic Halberd Pigs and Iron Armored Rhinoceroses. It allowed the residents to earn a lot of money.
When Meng Chao walked into the region, he was just in time to see his father leading the residents to cut up the monsters.