Chapter 314

Responsible person said:

"As of now, Miss Ning has found over a thousand parallel worlds, with time spans reaching up to billions of years."

"Among them, thirty-seven have life."

"Of those thirty-seven, fifteen have formed human civilizations."

"The other twenty-two did not evolve humans; among them, ten are dominated by other kinds of mammals; seven are insect-dominated, giving rise to insect civilizations; three worlds have dinosaurs that did not go extinct, birthing dinosaur civilizations; the last two worlds even failed to evolve animals, being entirely plant-based, even forming rather alternative plant civilizations."

It is obvious that World No. 1 has not been found yet; otherwise the person in charge would have already notified Shangguan Ying.

Shangguan Ying asked: "Among the explored parallel worlds, is there none whose time lies after our era?"

The person in charge shook his head and said: "No, they are all earlier than our time; the closest to us is World No. 3, which is about twenty-five years ahead of us. Interestingly, whenever Miss Ning enters a new parallel world, she mostly encounters various 'key' moments or events."

"What does that mean?"

"For example, witnessing the asteroid impact on Earth in World No. 2, or in World No. 3 encountering her parents' car accident plunging into a river—situations like that."

While speaking, the person in charge took out video clips of the exploration operation and projected them onto the screen for Shangguan Ying to view.

This is more intuitive.

Shangguan Ying saw that in World No. 397, Ning Jinli witnessed the ancient Devonian period, the first fish crawling from swamp onto land.

In World No. 402, Ning Jinli rescued several ancient apes trapped in rock crevices, treated their wounds, and even lit a fire for them.

In World No. 453, Ning Jinli guided a group of giant butterflies trapped in dire straits to escape.

In World No. 517, Ning Jinli encountered a dinosaur clan that had evolved into humanoid forms, and she assisted the leader in difficult labor by delivering three dinosaur eggs.

In World No. 656, Ning Jinli dispelled the poisonous mist shrouding a mountain stream, letting sunlight again shine on the dying plant life at the valley floor; as she left, the plants swayed their branches toward her and even wove vines into her likeness.

……

Shangguan Ying watched and watched, unable to help feeling moved.

The person in charge added: "Sometimes Miss Ning saves certain parallel worlds, or brings them enlightenment of civilization and technology; we do not stop her, for those are other worlds and will not interfere with our historical timeline. Only… we still have not found World No. 1."

"It will be found…" Shangguan Ying said with a smile, eyes firm, "It will surely be found."

When the more than thirty video clips finished playing, the person in charge turned around and discovered Shangguan Ying slumped over the desk, asleep.

——

A little over a month later.

The three secret investigators dispatched by Huaxia Guo, finally following clues, traced and found a highly concealed suspicious spot in the R region.

It was once the most famous volcano in the R region, its peak white with snow, its base blanketed with cherry blossoms; back when it was still the R state, it attracted countless tourists from around the world.

Now it has become a desolate, lifeless wasteland.

The surviving cherry trees lie twisted and contorted in the cracks of barren stone, under a dull gray sky, like gaunt ghosts struggling to rise from the ground.

The three investigators, following the leads they had uncovered, took advantage of the night, crawled into a pile of rocks on the mountainside, found a cave only passable by creeping, and plunged in without hesitation.

Soon another four days passed.

At dawn, a few minutes before the sun appears.

In the pitch‑dark where one cannot see one's hand before one's face, an investigator struggled out of the rock pile, clutching a blood‑stained mobile phone.

When the phone screen showed a connection signal indicator, he was overjoyed, as if renewed with strength, and while sprinting he quickly sent a voice message.

At the same time, the ground near several inconspicuous spots shifted, revealing an entrance, from which dozens of fully armed black‑clad individuals poured out.

The black‑clad individuals, equipped with Night Vision Devices, quickly located the investigator's trail.

Soon they caught up with the exhausted investigator and, with a single stroke, severed both of his legs.

Intense pain pierced his heart and bones, yet the investigator uttered no cry of agony; instead he laughed, spread his arms, lay flat on his back, and gazed toward the horizon.

A black‑clad person pried open his hand, seized the phone, and only then discovered that the investigator had already successfully sent the message.

The black‑clad individuals flew into a rage and on the spot ordered that the investigator be chopped into minced meat.

The sound of blades cleaving his body rang out.

The investigator did not blink an eye, gritted his teeth, strained to widen his eyes, and only when he saw a hint of fish‑belly white on the horizon and the deep darkness was about to be dispelled did he close his eyes with a smile.

After venting their fury, the black‑clad group swiftly turned back, entered the mountain interior, and directly reported the situation to their superior.

In a short time the situation reached a room filled with luxurious cherry‑blossom pattern decorations.

Inside, a middle‑aged man knelt on the ground wiping a long sword, while beside him several men were drinking, embracing women, and singing.

Upon hearing the report, all the men present turned pale.

The sword‑wiping middle‑aged man slashed the low table before him in one strike, his face dark, thought for a few seconds, then ordered the immediate execution of the Beast Tide operation.

A man beside him said the Beast Tide operation was not fully prepared; launching now would greatly reduce its effectiveness.

The middle‑aged man glared, shouted a few curses, saying the news had already leaked, Huaxia Guo would certainly take swift action, there was no time to wait, and the Beast Tide operation must be launched.

The others present pondered briefly, then all agreed, each producing a secret key from their waist and handing it to the middle‑aged man.

The middle‑aged man took all the keys, opened a secret door behind him, and quickly entered.

On the other side.

The high levels of Huaxia also finally learned the true situation of the R region.

Three top investigators, with their lives, uncovered the secret of the Beast Tide.

It turned out that the R region still harbored a faction of extremists seeking to restore the state, who claimed to be the legitimate imperial bloodline of R, secretly colluded with the Holy Pu Empire, and were led by the Advent Congregation.

They could evade the blockade because the Holy Pu Empire possessed transmission technology, which was even somewhat more advanced than that of Huaxia Guo.

Currently Huaxia Guo can only establish transmission portals that link the same spacetime in a few locations, with a range of only several hundred kilometers; earlier, when Ning Jinli had just awakened from a coma, she had witnessed such a portal once, and a transmission point had been set up in her family's villa.

The Holy Pu Empire, in a similar manner, established secret contact with the extremists in the R region and helped them build a base beneath the volcano.

Over roughly the past ten years, the extremists have continuously added the gene‑mutating drug supplied by the Advent Congregation into the everyday food ingredients and various bottled drinking water of the R region's residents.

The dosage remains at a level too low to be detected, but over the long term the cumulative amount is sufficient to trigger a qualitative change.

Within the R region, the one hundred million original R‑state citizens, unbeknownst to them, have become tools exploited by the extremists.

Extremists fantasize about regaining the so-called royal glory and ruling power that R Country once had; the desire to destroy Huaxia remains undying, to the point that they do not hesitate to turn all the people on their side into monsters.

Such wildly distorted thinking shocked and angered the high-level leaders of Huaxia.

"Report!" a senior officer burst into the meeting room, "The volcano in the R Region erupted, but what spewed out was not lava, but a special sound wave capable of covering the entire R Region! Our side has detected biological signals of mutated humans! Their numbers are surging!"

It turns out the extremists first caused genetic changes among the residents of the R Region through long-term drug use, then activated the mutation with this special method.

Even if they were not ready, a hasty launch of the activation might not fully mutate everyone, but even if only one-third of the approximately 100 million residents mutated, that would still be a terrifying number.

Shangguan Ying showed no hesitation, immediately ordering: "Withdraw all cruiser fleets in the waters surrounding the R Region as far away from R Island as possible, and launch long-range hydrogen bomb attacks!"

"Yes!" the officer received the order and left immediately.

Half an hour later, a long-range missile carrying a hydrogen bomb warhead lifted off from a launch base in Huaxia Guo, soaring straight into the clouds like an azure dragon.

At the same time, the number of humanoid monsters within the R Region island was growing exponentially.

Even some ordinary people who failed to mutate became targets of the monsters' attacks.

Across the entire island, everything changed in a second; in the blink of an eye, monsters ran rampant everywhere, corpses littering the fields.

Countless monsters with immense destructive power demolished city buildings, sparking fires and explosions; within half an hour, the R Region had become a hell on earth.

The monster horde surged like a tide, as if sharing a collective consciousness, flooding into the island's west side, rushing toward the ocean, and advancing toward the East Sea of Huaxia Guo.

Among them, countless humanoid mutants underwent a second mutation after entering the sea.

By devouring nearby monsters and any marine life they could catch, their bodies rapidly swelled, becoming super monsters the size of blue whales, covered in thick armor, with tentacles tens of meters long and claws.

Four minutes after the long-range missile was launched from Huaxia Guo, it reached the volcano in the R Region.

Accompanied by an earth-shaking explosion, the entire volcano instantly turned into a massive mushroom cloud; the shockwave reduced everything in its path to ashes.

Thereafter, more missiles appeared in the high altitude of the R Region, locking onto monster groups and striking them down like a violent downpour.

At the same time, the carrier fleet that had withdrawn to a safe range opened full fire on the sea surface, slaughtering the endless beast tide surging toward the East Sea.

This battle unfolded swiftly and fiercely.

At that moment, hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Huaxia East battle zone focused their efforts on dealing with the beast tide.

Most other countries were watching tensely.

But also a tiny handful of small nations neighboring Huaxia were itching to act.

Although the world basically now looks to Huaxia Guo as its leader, some still harbored ulterior motives, wanting to try to profit from the chaos.

One small nation was the first to be unable to hold back, hastily gathering its forces in secret and advancing toward the border line.

But before they even reached the border, several conventional missiles rained down from the sky, wiping out more than half of their troops on the spot, followed by a barrage of drones bombing the area clean.

Next, before their nation's high command could even mourn the lost forces, they received a stern warning from the Huaxia military: "Dare to reach out again, and your nation will be annihilated!"

In such extraordinary times, Huaxia Guo will no longer stand on ceremony with petty troublemakers.

Only by wielding thunderous means can we ensure stability in all directions.

This killing of a chicken to scare the monkeys indeed worked; the remaining few countries that had harbored thoughts but had not yet acted instantly became obedient.

When the beast tide battle had reached three hours, over half of the monsters on the R Region island had been eliminated, while Huaxia Guo's missile and drone strikes continued; warships and transport planes also began deploying tactical robot dogs to assist in clearing the remaining monster groups on the island, and since the situation had not yet required soldiers to engage personally, Huaxia Guo's military personnel had suffered no casualties so far.

By contrast, the beast tide crossing the East Sea was the most difficult to deal with.

They were more numerous, fiercer and larger, simultaneously possessing extremely strong defensive and self-healing abilities, and their sustained swimming speed even exceeded the instantaneous burst speed of the sailfish, the speed king of the ocean.

This allowed them to leave submarines and even warships behind, and they could dodge torpedoes by speed and evade missiles by diving.

Shangguan Ying issued a death order: absolutely no monster must be allowed to land.

Because once a monster lands, it will not only wreak havoc on the Huaxia East Sea coast, but the military will also be tied down and unable to launch full-scale attacks.

Then, the military dispatched a large number of fleets in the East Sea to prepare for interception, forming the first line of defense in the far‑sea zone; all coastal defense guns on the shore also readied themselves, forming the second line of defense in the near‑sea zone; at the same time, behind the coastal defense guns, hundreds of thousands of fully equipped marine corps constructed a third coastal defense line.

Other countries around the world were watching this unprecedented war, and the leaders of all nations were both terrified and secretly relieved.

What was terrifying was that the military strength and mobilization capacity of Huaxia Guo had actually reached such a terrifying degree.

What was a relief was that those tens of millions of monsters were heading for Huaxia Guo and did not run onto their own territories.

According to the known observational data, even the most ordinary human‑mutant monsters in the beast tide, needing only one or two hundred of them, could sweep across more than half of the small countries on this planet.

After all, among the more than two hundred countries and regions worldwide, the number of nations possessing fighter jets can be counted on one hand, and many medium‑ and small‑sized countries do not even have a single tank, let alone a decent modern army.

But just then, dozens of locations across the globe saw a strange beam of light appear one after another, most of them situated in the densely populated urban areas of various countries.

The beam kept widening, as if it were tearing open a gap in space.

Large numbers of passersby, out of curiosity, kept gathering to watch, even holding up their phones to take photos; moreover, various local news media organizations dispatched reporter teams to come and film and interview.

In the city center of the capital of a certain European country, the strange beam reached a width of four meters, shooting straight up from the ground into the sky; the local police tried to maintain order, but they could not stop the crowds of intensely curious people who surged forward, jostling to get a closer look at this spectacle.

Reporters from a major media conglomerate squeezed into the position closest to the beam, stood in the middle with their backs to the beam, raised their microphones, and began a live broadcast to the camera.

While they were speaking, the reporter saw their colleague, who was carrying the camera in front of them, suddenly go dumbstruck, dropping the camera to the ground; the rest of the onlookers also wore expressions of stunned terror.

The reporter frowned and turned around—