Forbidden Zone of the Human Race

“Liu Ruoxue, mind your position. Fang Rou, distract it! Lu Shiyu and Li Zimo, we’ll attack together!” Xiang Ning gripped his iridium sword, launching a Triple Slash and immediately approaching the tier two, one-star Boulder Boar.

Liu Ruoxue was wildly firing at the Boulder Boar from afar as it profusely bled, causing the plates on its back to fall off. While it looked like the Boulder Boar was suppressed, upon closer inspection, the bullets weren’t penetrating its skin at all!

Eyeing the attacking humans, it furiously stomped, causing the ground to tremble.

Xiang Ning dodged its charge, circling around to its side and immediately unleashing the Mountain-Splitting Slash. It wasn’t released at his full power, though, just ten percent of his strength.

Thud!

The strike left a bloody gash on its body but to his horror, it barely cut the skin and was only two to three centimeters deep. It didn’t even cause any substantial damage.

A spotlight was shone on the gap between tier one and tier two beings.

Xiang Ning had many people on his team and should be able to beat a tier two Boulder Boar without a problem, perhaps even effortlessly killing it. There were three spiritual cultivators who could control throwing knives among them, after all, and that alone was already powerful. However, they didn’t do such a thing because they would be heading to the wilderness tomorrow. They wanted to train their team chemistry and were doing their best to get their money’s worth out of this Boulder Boar.

But that also meant there was no room for error. This was no tier one beast. Though there was only a tier of difference, if it were a Night Cat or Shadowblood Hound, Xiang Ning’s team could have died.

Lei Zhongyuan, who was watching from nearby, was annoyed at their behavior.

“The kids are behaving too recklessly! They’re going out to the wilderness tomorrow, so how could they challenge a tier two beast today?!” Although he sounded like he was complaining, there was a fatherly pride in his tone that made Dong Qianyi roll his eyes.

…

The Great Blue River originated in China, flowing into Y Nation. The area was a habitat for thousands of species of water-borne beasts. In the first two years of the Great Disaster, frequent beast tides had destroyed the cities around the river one by one. The nearest city to this area was now Marsh City, though even it was three days of travel away.

Within an abandoned town by the river, there was a half-collapsed four-story building.

On the topmost floor.

“Big Brother, that’s the Great Blue River. Should we send over a drone to scout the area?” asked a young man carrying a box of about a meter cubed on his back.

“Fourth Brother will send a drone. It’s already the fourth time we’re sending scouts, and the ones we sent the first three times were strong fighters, too. I can’t believe that none of them came back with news. Instead, we’ve lost all contact! The Great Blue River is to be feared!” The man called Big Brother had three ghastly gashes on his face that must have been made by some fearsome beast.

“Second and Third Brother, keep watch.” The young man placed his box on the ground and started putting together a drone. Soon, it flew toward the Great Blue River with the young man behind the controls.

In the beginning, everything seemed normal, but when it flew directly above the river, they found something strange. A sinister black fog was swirling on the surface of the river. It didn’t look like good news.

“What the hell is that? I’ve never heard of anything like this before! Also, don’t you think the river’s level has fallen by a lot?”

“Fly lower, we’ll check it out,” said Big Brother, patting the young man’s shoulder.

However, just as the drone descended, they saw a pair of strange eyes with vertical pupils that glowed blue. Then the screen blacked out and all four men looked out toward the river, where they saw a tentacle as thick as an elephant’s trunk retracting back into the water!

Roar!!

When the tentacle returned into the river, a terrifying roar echoed out.

“This is bad, we have at least fifty tier three fearsome beasts approaching below! And one tier four!” reported Second Brother, who was the lookout.

This small team consisted of tier three fighters, with only Big Brother being in tier four. There was no possibility of making it out alive in the face of so many beasts.

“Second Brother! Third Brother! Block the stairways. Fourth Brother, shoot every beast that attempts to climb the walls! Look for a chance for us to get out of here!” They were an efficient team. After a few commands, they immediately got to work.

“What the hell is this? Why the sudden tide of tier three beasts? Even tier fours, too!” Big Brother was furious. Relative to the great beasts that attacked the cities, these were the equivalent to cannon fodder. But out in the wilderness, they could be considered small bosses—especially the tier four beast. That alone was enough to kill their entire team!

As they prepared to leave, a huge explosion came from downstairs. Second Brother stuck his head out but felt like a grenade had exploded in his brain. He stumbled and sat down, slowly bleeding from his nose and ears.

“Second Brother!” The sudden tragedy struck terror in the hearts of the rest of his teammates.

“What the hell happened?!” Third Brother quickly approached and examined Second Brother.

“We must leave here! I’ll stay and cover you!” Fourth Brother shot up, holding an anti-materiel weapon worth five million dollars. It was an assault rifle, but each bullet would be enough to kill a tier two beast or pierce through a tier three beast’s body.

“No you’re too weak. You’ll die if you stay.…”

Before they finished the conversation, they felt like a hammer had struck their heads. Ears ringing, they saw five Night Cats spring out of the collapsed section of the building. Five tier three Night Cats!

Just like wolves encountering a herd of sheep, they pounced on the young man and tore his head off.

“Fourth Brother!” Third Brother exploded and attacked with the full might of a tier three fighter, but was killed by two Night Cats.

In just five seconds, their four-man team was down to one. All that was left was their tier four leader. Everything had happened too quickly. How could they have been incapacitated so easily? If it weren’t for the mental attack from earlier, they wouldn’t have been ambushed by Night Cats this easily.

As Big Brother was about to avenge his brothers, a head with the shape of an inverted triangle slowly rose behind him and a set of bloody jaws opened wide.