Lu Chi raised his steel saber high, facing the oncoming Followers, neither dodging nor evading, seemingly prepared to trade injury for injury.

"Lowly creatures… you really think trapping me will allow you to trade blows with me?" The Follower laughed maniacally, extending its five fingers towards Lu Chi's head. "Die!"

In its blood-red eyes, it seemed to already see Lu Chi's full-force strike landing on its body, followed by the shattering of the steel saber.

And after thoroughly enjoying Lu Chi's fear, it would crush his head with one claw!

The suffocating sensation rushed towards him, growing stronger, the intense gale-force winds causing his facial skin to sting as if pierced by needles.

Lu Chi narrowed his eyes.

The Follower was already two meters away!

Lu Chi suddenly glared, his eyes wide, and unleashed a saber strike!

Time seemed to stand still.

The Follower's steel-like fingers halted less than thirty centimeters from Lu Chi, unable to advance any further.

Not just its fingers, but its entire body froze.

It stood there, stunned, an expression of disbelief on its face.

A line of blood slowly appeared on its neck, initially faint, but quickly deepening in color until fresh blood gushed out like a fountain!

Thud!

The Follower's head fell straight off its body, and its body knelt powerlessly before Lu Chi, like a pile of mud!

With a single strike, Lu Chi had directly severed the head of a second-stage Evolver!

"This… how is this possible!" The Follower's head crashed to the ground, still full of vitality. It widened its eyes and roared in anger and madness, "How could your weapons possibly cut through my bones?"

The Follower couldn't understand. Given the scarcity of resources on Blue Star, it was impossible for such a sharp and tough alloy to exist!

Not long ago, the weapons used by the Pioneers could barely pierce the skin of second-stage Evolvers. They needed to use heavy hammers to pound like nails to barely penetrate their flesh and bones.

But in such a short time, why had the Pioneers' weapons improved so dramatically?

"Humans indeed do not have the materials to create such sharp weapons…" Lu Chi slowly lowered his saber, placing the tip on the Follower's brow, "But you do!"

The Follower's pupils constricted.

"This saber is called Dragon Fang… can you guess what materials it's made of? When you saw it, did you feel a sense of fear deep within your genes?" Lu Chi asked softly, slowly inserting the saber tip into the Follower's head, as easily as cutting tofu.

The Follower's consciousness began to blur. Its brain nerves were severed. In the last moments of its life, it saw a dense pattern of lines on the saber's blade, resembling… the dragon scales of the Sky Apostle!

Seconds later, the Follower's remains were chopped into mincemeat, every part of its body utterly destroyed, devoid of any life.

Lu Chi raised his head, wiped the blood from the steel saber, and quickly locked onto the location of another Follower through the headset.

The injured team members tossed a Gu grade (ancient medicine grade) fruit into their mouths, and under the double effect of self-healing, their injuries rapidly recovered.

"Let's go!"

Lu Chi gave a soft order, and twenty-nine teammates followed behind him.

In the howling wind, thirty steel sabers gleamed, the dragon scale patterns on the blades exceptionally clear.

Yes, as Lu Chi had said, these steel sabers were made of a completely different material than the ones they had used before!

After several wars, Li Tianran realized that the Pioneers' weapons were far behind when fighting the Followers, making it difficult to cause effective damage, so he had been looking for materials to manufacture new weapons.

After killing the Sky Apostle and seizing the Sky Citadel, Li Tianran discovered a large number of rare mineral alloys in the Sky Citadel's warehouse.

Soon, Li Tianran used these alloys mixed with the Sky Apostle's teeth, claws, and other hard parts to create a batch of new weapons, the Pioneers' second-generation steel saber - Dragon Fang.

But due to the urgency of time, less than three hundred Dragon Fang sabers were produced, and all were distributed to the elite of the Pioneers.

Taking a thirty-man squad as an example, only the leader, the strongest Pioneer in the thirty, was qualified to be equipped with the Dragon Fang saber.

And the team member who wielded the Dragon Fang saber was naturally the core C position (center position) in the squad. Other teammates would do their best to create a kill environment for him, and he only needed to be responsible for the most important task of killing the target!

In addition to this saber, Li Tianran also mixed the Sky Apostle's scales, dragon horns, and other parts with alloys, preparing to create some new combat uniforms, almost not letting go of any part of the Sky Apostle's body.

Great battles were raging everywhere on the Kunlun giant ship, and the Pioneer squads with Dragon Fang sabers were much easier to fight than before. They didn't need to use heavy hammers, and they could break through the defenses of second-stage Evolvers.

The war situation once began to become clear.

"Team Seven, eliminated seven Followers… currently two dead, three seriously injured, and one slightly injured!"

"Team Eight, eliminated nine Followers…"

In the command room, each team began to report the battle situation to Li Tianran.

"According to this war situation, in at most one hour… these invaders will be completely wiped out." Li Tianran closed his eyes, silently calculating his side's casualty rate, and then his gaze suddenly fell on the two miracle buildings below, "One hour later, a fight to the death."

…

Inside the T-119 defense line command room.

Li Zhi looked at the battlefield images on the satellite monitor, suddenly raised his head, and said to the generals, "I'm preparing to deploy nuclear weapons."

In the command room, the sounds of various operating instruments and the voices of staff reporting the situation were mixed together, very noisy, so Li Zhi's voice was not very clear.

Even a major general standing next to him was stunned for a moment, and then tentatively asked, as if a little unable to believe his ears, "Commander, what did you just say?"

"I said…" Li Zhi took a deep breath and said in an extremely solemn and serious tone, "I'm preparing to deploy nuclear weapons on the battlefield!"

"Although the battlefield is a little close to the defense line giant city, as long as we control the explosion yield and the deployment location, using second-generation nuclear weapons, the aftereffects of the explosion will not have much impact on the giant city, and there will be no radiation rays…"

Li Zhi explained his thoughts, and the generals in front of him looked at each other. Finally, someone raised his own question.

"Commander, now the Evolver Legion is already entangled with the beast tide, and it's a little difficult to evacuate… shouldn't we have the conditions to deploy nuclear weapons now?"

"Yes, the situation on the battlefield is very stalemate now. It will take at least two hours to withdraw the Evolver Legion…"

"We can't deploy nuclear weapons now!"

The generals were talking a lot, and the words revealed one meaning, that is, Li Zhi's idea was not feasible!

"I'm not going to withdraw the evolved troops." At this moment, Li Zhi spoke again.

The entire command room instantly became silent, and everyone was stunned, looking blankly at Li Zhi.

Clatter!

A general's water glass fell to the ground, and he asked with a trembling voice, "Commander, what… what do you mean?"

"Literal meaning." Li Zhi was very calm and said in a deep voice, "We can't withdraw the Evolver Legion. We need the Evolver Legion to entangle the Marine Apostle, so that it can't escape the battlefield, and it can't be distracted to control the giant ark."

Gulu…

Someone swallowed.

"Your meaning is… you want the Evolver Legion to be killed along with the sea beasts?" The general asked in disbelief.

"…" Li Zhi was silent for a moment, and nodded, "That's right, this is the best choice so far."

"I disagree!"

"This is absolutely impossible!"

Without any accident, as soon as Li Zhi said this, a burst of fierce opposition immediately sounded in the command room.

The generals were extremely emotional and indignant.

"Are you going to kill these warriors with your own hands? They didn't die in the hands of the enemy, but they died in the artillery fire of their own people?"

"We must not launch nuclear weapons! This is simply a thousand-year-old wonder! We will be nailed to the pillar of shame!"

"Even if we die, we can't open fire on our comrades!"

The generals' voices were excited and their faces were flushed, while some lower-level staff members looked at each other. They were not qualified to participate in this debate, so they could only lower their heads silently, but it could be seen from their eyes that they also disagreed with Li Zhi's order!

Li Zhi watched the reactions of the generals coldly, without saying a word.

A dozen seconds later, the generals stopped speaking and stared at Li Zhi.

"You don't need to look at me with this kind of eyes. If there are other options, I will definitely not use this method…" Li Zhi was very calm and scanned the generals below, "You know very well that the Evolver Legion can't stop the Marine Apostle, even if we don't deploy nuclear weapons, they will be killed by the Marine Apostle."

"And once they are completely wiped out, it is we who will face the giant beast tide and the Marine Apostle directly. We can certainly use large-scale firepower to temporarily block the opponent…"

"But what if the firepower is exhausted?"

"What if the other party uses that giant ark?"

"It's only a matter of time before the defense line is breached!"

"At that time, everyone in this giant city will die! Including you and me!"

Li Zhi's voice was very sharp, and his eyes swept across the faces of the generals, "And deploying nuclear weapons now can avoid this from happening!"

"Sacrificing an entire Evolver Legion can save the entire defense line giant city, can save the lives of 300,000 soldiers in the Northern Territory Military Region…"

"Which war doesn't involve bloodshed and sacrifice? Our ancestors once shouted 'Fire at me!' for victory… can't we do it?"

"Can't you really tell what is more important?!"

Li Zhi's words left everyone speechless.

They didn't know what to say to refute Li Zhi.

Although what Li Zhi said made sense, wasn't this… too cold?

Those were lives!

"War does require sacrifice! But our ancestors shouted 'Fire at me!' because they shouted it themselves, they took the initiative to sacrifice… but now, what we are doing is not active sacrifice, but asking others to sacrifice!" A red-faced general held his breath, looked at Li Zhi, and glared angrily: "Can this be the same?"

"If you are standing on the battlefield now, and you can say deploy nuclear missiles, I admire you!"

"But now you are standing in the command room far away from the battlefield, what qualifications do you have to say active sacrifice?"