“Argh!”


  “Stop!”


  “Zhang Wu, you are being unreasonable!”


  Ning Xin and the others hollered.

  But subsequent words were stuck in their throats when they saw what happened next. It was as if they had just been choked by a hard-boiled egg.

  From the outlook, Qin Feng appeared far thinner and weaker than Zhang Wu. But the apparently frailer Qin Feng did not draw his weapon but met Zhang Wu’s charge with a kick.

  The kick was lightning quick. It reached Zhang Wu before the ancient warrior’s fist touched Qin Feng. The powerful kick launched Zhang Wu into the air like a flying cannon.

  Boom!

  The force from the kick sent Zhang Wu flying. He glided through the air curling and was only halted by a giant tree twenty meters away.

  Crack!

  The remaining momentum of the kick was transferred to the tree and broke the tree in half.

  “Urgh!” Blood came spurting out from Zhang Wu’s mouth. Pieces of organs could be seen mixing with the blood. Qin Feng’s kick had hurt him good.

  The bystanders stood stunned and did not know how to react. The outcome was far from even their wildest imagination.

  After a weird dimension overrode their city, aptitude users had lost most of their capabilities while only a certain group benefited from such a drastic change.

  The parallel-trained ancient warriors.

  Parallel training was a painful and challenging process. Those who could undergo the training were usually very disciplined and harsh toward themselves. It was an extreme path one chose without another choice.

  High-tier martial arts and internal strength cultivation methods were rare to come by. Qin Feng was fortunate enough to regain the Absorption Ability after being reborn, but others needed to constantly look for good cultivation methods and upgrade patiently for the rest of their lives. However, there was also a particular group that showed no real talent the moment they were awakened. These unlucky ones were never going to become high-tier aptitude users. They just were not born to.

  Ancient art, like other skills, depended greatly on talent. Some simply were not shrewd enough to comprehend higher-level arts, while some were born naturally with narrower meridian and thus could not build up their internal strength. For one reason or another, they were destined to fail in reaching the next level.

  Hence, it boiled down to one final mean—parallel training. That was the only primitive cultivation method that allowed constant improvement for the uninspired ones. However, the process was extremely torturing.

  Ironically, such an agonizing effort still did not guarantee success.

  Zhang Wu was a C7-tier aptitude user, but being a bodyguard to someone more influential was the highest position that he could ever achieve. Patrolling the villa residences was part of his duty, and he had long been having second thoughts about Lin Yuting. Of course, he was aware of his status quo and thus had never revealed his intentions.

  But when his position was reversed against the aptitude users, he thought his time had come. He loosened himself from the moral shackle and showed his true colors.

  However, he had fallen as fast as he had risen. He was as high as clouds just a moment ago but was now knocked back hard down to the ground by Qin Feng.

  “It’s true. Rules are set by humans. But you are still not powerful enough to be a valid player,” Qin Feng rebuked.

  Hatred and fury flickered in Zhang Wu’s eyes. He looked straight at Qin Feng but could not muster a word to refute.

  Because he knew Qin Feng was right.

  The strong ruled. Before Qin Feng was here, he was the strongest. That was why they obeyed him in exchange for his protection.

  But with the occurrence of a stronger alpha, the rules set by Zhang Wu no longer counted.

  Zhang Wu resented that but knew his time of ruling was up.

  “I will never forget today’s humiliation.” Zhang Wu turned and ran away.

  Qin Feng did not stop him.

  Ning Xin was baffled that things had turned out this way. He could barely keep his lips together.

  Qin Feng turned to him. Ning Xin looked away instinctively due to a guilty conscience.

  No doubt, they had acquiesced on sacrificing Lin Yuting to please Zhang Wu. Now that Qin Feng had stopped the clown show and even saved Lin Yuting out of harm’s way, their lack of principle and incompetence was laid bare under the sun.

  “General Qin. We had no other choice……” Ning Xin said dejectedly.

  Qin Feng replied harshly, “I am not the one you need to explain to.”


  Ning Xin understood immediately and turned to Lin Yuting, “My dear sister, we are so sorry for not protecting you earlier. But as you are aware, we are in the middle of a crisis and we don’t know what happened to Haolin. At the very least, Zhang Wu is a dependable man here. We thought you would be in good hands.”


  Lin Yuting obviously has a strong personality. She sneered and said with a cold face, “Did I ever say I need to depend on someone else? I can live on my own just fine if you are not willing to protect me. But handing me out like an item is unacceptable. So, stop calling me your sis. What a great price I had to pay to be called that.”


  Qin Feng admired the lady’s staunch stance. He said, “Jiang Haolin left the city yesterday. He asked me to come and rescue you. Sorry for the delay. I was stalled by other matters.”


  “Glad to hear that he is okay.” Lin Yuting let down her guard. After the overlap took place, Lin Yuting did not become entirely defenseless despite losing her internal strength. She was an ancient warrior, after all. She knew a few martial arts that did not require internal force to execute, thus was able to kill the assaulting beasts and escaped with the nanny. Of course, they had Zhang Wu’s help along the way.

  She intended to thank Zhang Wu once they were safe, but what happened next completely threw her off guard.

  Ning Xin became excited after he heard Qin Feng’s narration. He did not care whether Qin Feng was still offended by how they had treated Lin Yuting.

  “General Qin, will the spatial tunnel still be opened up? Why didn’t they start the evacuation from the city center?”


  After all, the city center was where most elects were at.

  “At the beginning……” Qin Feng explained to them the difficulty of breaking out from this overlapped space. As for the spatial tunnel that opened up in the sky above the city, Qin Feng had never expected it too. He would not be too surprised if the tunnel connecting to the outside world could no longer be opened. The perimeter of the city had already been conquered by the mutated plants.

  Later, Qin Feng assured them that they would be leaving tomorrow. The trapped victims were relieved to hear that.

  Nobody wanted to stay in this terrible place for another second. This was especially true for those who had their strength sapped away by the dimension. But for now, they could only wait patiently until tomorrow arrived.

  ***

  At the same time, outside the fog, people were busy building a stairway using ancient tools. Something that could supposedly be done by a metal-type ability user in a snap of the finger now needed to be constructed carefully with bare hands.

  They were trying to build a stairway that would reach the sky.

  If they wished to transport a city’s worth of people, a metal box would not cut it.

  Thus, they had opted for the giant stairway.

  The stairway only had a basic frame without a proper base. Though there were fences on both sides, they were merely made out of thin wooden planks due to weight concerns. It might flip anytime hanging so high in midair.

  Since the stairway could not be made using any form of rune elements, they used normal alloy and hence its quality was only borderline acceptable. Nonetheless, this was the best impromptu solution they could find in one day.

  The day passed by quickly with workers bustling around the stairway. They worked painstakingly and finally welded a four-hundred-meter-high foldable stairway.