manynovel Chapter 5: Return, Ultimate Martial Arts Academy
Chapter 5: Return, Ultimate Martial Arts Academy
"It's all over...it's really all over. Jiangnan is finished."
Inside the truck bed, a young soldier held his head in his hands, his voice trembling with sobs. His combat uniform was stained with black blood and dust, and his eyes stared blankly at the rapidly receding wilderness outside the truck.
Hong appeared behind the truck, and with a light leap, he silently landed at the rear of the speeding vehicle. He had long since discarded his tattered combat uniform, and in his place were spare clothes he had brought from the ruins. Although they were also somewhat damaged, they looked clean and neat.
"Shut up. What are you crying about? You're not dead yet."
An older-looking veteran slapped a younger soldier on the back of the head, his own eyes red and his voice hoarse as he cursed.
"If the defense line is breached, we'll retreat to the rear and regroup. As long as we're still alive, we can take back the position."
The young soldier looked up, his face streaked with tears.
"Squad leader... but that thing is no match at all... our shells are completely useless against it."
"Tanks were instantly overturned in front of it... What kind of monster is that?"
As soon as he finished speaking, several soldiers in the carriage showed expressions of fear. Having just escaped from the brink of death, they couldn't help but tremble whenever they recalled the figure of that enormous creature.
The veteran opened his mouth, but couldn't utter any words of comfort. Yes, that monster, named the Ironclad Scorpion Dragon by command, was truly terrifying. Its body, over sixty meters long, was covered in a gleaming black metallic shell, and each swing of its enormous pincers could easily cleave a building in half.
Their entire regiment, equipped with superior weaponry, couldn't even hold out for half an hour against that monster.
"It's over. Once the outer defenses of Jiangnan Base City are breached, where will tens of millions of people escape to... The entire city will be destroyed."
A soldier, clutching his rifle, muttered to himself.
"Which direction did it go?"
A cold voice suddenly rang out from the back of the carriage.
Everyone was startled and turned around abruptly, only to find that there was a person at the back of the carriage. It was a young man carrying a long, narrow object wrapped in black cloth on his back.
The veteran immediately became alert and gripped his gun tightly.
"Who are you? When did you get up here?"
Hong did not answer his question, but simply repeated it, his gaze falling on the young soldier.
"I'm asking you a question. Which way did that armored scorpion dragon go?"
His gaze was calm, yet it sent chills down one's spine. The young soldier, under his watchful eye, instinctively stammered his reply.
"After it broke through the defenses, it headed... towards the area where the third survivors were gathered... there are hundreds of thousands of people there."
"understood."
Hong responded with a faint "yes".
Before he finished speaking, his figure had already disappeared from the back of the car.
Where are they?
"It was just... just a moment ago."
The soldiers in the carriage all leaned out and looked around, but apart from the dust and the desolate road, there was no sign of the young man.
"Squad leader, am I...am I hallucinating?"
The young soldier rubbed his eyes and asked in disbelief.
The veteran stared intently in the direction where the young man had disappeared, his palms sweating as he gripped his gun. He swallowed hard and said with difficulty.
"No...it wasn't a hallucination. That person just now...he jumped. At that speed, he jumped..."
Meanwhile, on another highway leading to the Jiangnan base city, countless vehicles and people converged, fleeing in panic. Cries and car horns mingled together.
"Mommy, Mommy, look what that is!"
A little girl, held in her mother's arms, pointed to the distant sky and shouted.
Her mother looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a blurry black shadow flying at an incredible speed, skimming the ground towards the city of Jiangnan. It was so fast that the naked eye could barely catch a glimpse of it before it disappeared into the horizon in the blink of an eye.
Jiangnan Base City, formerly the Third Defense Line Command.
"Reporting to the commander. The defense line has completely collapsed. Areas C3, C4, and C7 have been completely destroyed by the Ironclad Scorpion Dragon."
"An emergency distress signal has been sent from the third survivor settlement. The Ironclad Scorpion Dragon is approaching them and is expected to arrive in ten minutes."
"The heavy artillery brigade replied that they had run out of ammunition and could not inflict effective damage on the target."
An elderly man with gray hair and a general's star on his shoulder stood before a huge electronic sand table, listening to the communications soldier's desperate reports. His once straight back now bent slightly. He looked at the huge red dot moving rapidly on the sand table, and the dense blue dots representing hundreds of thousands of lives along its path, and felt a chill run from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
"Send every single fighter jet that can fly there. Every single one."
The old man grabbed the communicator and roared.
"Use missiles. Even if they can't penetrate its armor, slow it down. At all costs."
"Commander...it's no use..."
A staff officer standing nearby was pale and his voice was trembling.
"The Air Force has just transmitted the last video footage... Our fighter jets couldn't even get within 100 meters of it. The black liquid it spews from its mouth is extremely corrosive..."
The old man slammed the communicator to the ground, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at the screen. He had spent his life in the military, experiencing countless brutal battles, but never before had he felt so powerless as he did today.
"Oh my god... what is that?"
"Look at the sky!"
Just as everyone was sinking into despair and closing their eyes to await death, a series of exclamations suddenly rang out.
Everyone involuntarily raised their heads and looked up at the sky.
A tiny black dot slowly descended from the sky, watched by everyone.
Without using any flying equipment, he hovered in mid-air, blocking the rampaging armored scorpion dragon.
It was Hong, wielding a dark, long spear.
In that instant, a powerful pressure emanated from him and spread outwards. The once noisy battlefield fell eerily silent.
Whether it was the surviving warriors on the ground, the terrified civilians in the distant settlement, or even the armored scorpion dragon, all eyes were focused on this suddenly appearing figure.
"Th-what is that...?"
In the command post, the white-haired old general stared wide-eyed at the images being transmitted back from the screen.
"It's...it's a person? He's flying? How is that possible?"
The young staff officer rubbed his eyes hard, thinking he was hallucinating due to excessive stress.
The armored scorpion dragon was clearly enraged by this tiny creature that dared to stand in its way. It stopped, its huge compound eyes flashing with a cruel light, and let out a deafening roar at Hong. It opened its blood-red maw and sprayed out a jet of black, corrosive liquid.
The black liquid, capable of instantly melting steel, was blocked by an invisible force three meters in front of him, automatically sliding to the sides without a single drop touching the hem of his clothes.
This was the realm that Hong had vaguely comprehended at the planetary level. Although he didn't know why, now was not the time to delve into it.
Hong stared at the armored scorpion dragon below, his eyes showing no emotion.
"A high-level lord-level monster has appeared."
He slowly raised the long spear wrapped in black cloth in his hand.
Just like that, through the cloth, he thrust out an ordinary-looking stab at the head of the enormous creature below.
A black light, barely visible to the naked eye, flashed past the front end of the black cloth covering the spear.
next moment.
Time seemed to stand still for a second.
"puff."
A slight sound.
A hole, about the thickness of a finger, suddenly appeared in the center of the Ironclad Scorpion Dragon's hard skull. The hole was smooth and ran from its forehead all the way to the back of its head.
Immediately afterwards, cracks spread across its entire head, centered on that small hole.
boom--
Before the eyes of tens of thousands, the head of the armored scorpion dragon exploded with a deafening roar. Red and white fragments, mixed with shell fragments, shot out in all directions.
Its massive body, propelled by inertia, lurched forward for dozens of meters before crashing to the ground, kicking up clouds of dust.
The whole world was deathly quiet.
Everyone stared blankly at the figure in the sky and the headless corpse on the ground, still convulsing, their minds completely blank.
I don't know how much time passed.
"Dead...dead?"
"That monster... just like that... died?"
"What just happened? I think I saw a black light... Was I seeing things?"
After the silence came thunderous cheers and shouts.
"We won. We won."
"We survived. We survived!"
Countless people wept with joy, embracing each other and throwing their helmets into the air, freely expressing their ecstasy. Their eyes were all fixed on the figure slowly descending from mid-air.
Hong's figure landed on the ground, right in front of the temporary command post where the white-haired general was located.
He sheathed his spear, and the invisible pressure vanished with it. He looked at the general before him, who was still in shock, his gaze sweeping over the star on the general's shoulder, and spoke calmly.
The old general composed himself, strode forward, and gave Hong Jing a standard military salute, his voice trembling slightly with excitement.
"Sir... On behalf of Jiangnan Base City and the hundreds of thousands of survivors, I thank you for saving my life. May I ask your name?"
Hong did not respond to his thanks.
He spoke to the supreme commander in an unquestionable tone.
"From today onwards, we will establish the Ultimate Martial Arts School, recruit martial artists from all over the world, protect humanity, and fight against monsters."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over all the stunned soldiers and officers present, before slowly uttering his name.
"I am the owner, Hong."