Chapter 17 The Real Killing Blow

In Nancheng's Ren Nan district, far from the temporary shelters, vast swathes of buildings stood in darkness and silence, a stark contrast to the intense battles raging near the distant refugee camps.

But just then, a six-story residential building abruptly tilted, as if its foundations had given way.

Immediately afterward, several more buildings in the vicinity suffered the same fate!

They leaned and collapsed at odd angles, yet strangely, there was no deafening roar of bricks and stones colliding with the ground.

"Glug, glug..."

An eerie gurgling of water echoed through the night sky. Soon, the sound became violent, and from the ground where the buildings had fallen, numerous massive holes opened, leading straight into the depths below!

Icy, murky groundwater surged madly from these holes, erupting in enormous plumes nearly ten meters high!

The underground river's waters had breached the surface!

If one could dive into the underground river along with the rushing water, they would witness a horrifying sight.

Deep within the subterranean river, nearly a hundred meters below, the usual outlets leading to lower ground were now completely blocked by a dense mass of mutated sea creatures. Their bodies twisted and overlapped, pressed tightly together, forming a grotesque barricade of flesh, both bizarre and disgusting!

This fleshy dam stopped the surging waters, preventing them from flowing through their original channels. With the deluge constantly building behind it, and the passage ahead blocked, the immense water pressure had nowhere to escape. Then, a massive hole was carved from the riverbed to the surface, and the water, as if supercharged by a pump, erupted upwards with furious force!

Thus, the underground river was forced to the surface, creating… a flood!

The raging torrents battered everything in their path, heading towards the lower-lying refugee camps in the Ren Nan district!

A sea creature, only about seven meters long, bobbed in the floodwaters. Its limbs had already undergone significant evolution, boasting powerful forelimbs and vicious teeth, but its tail remained a fish-like fin.

One could vaguely recognize something akin to a "seal."

If Professor Nan were here, he could certainly identify the species of this mutated beast based on certain characteristics.

A Weddell seal!

A species of seal adapted to living in extremely cold regions, they often hunt beneath the ice. Because they need to surface for air roughly every hour, they are adept at breaking through thick, hard ice!

Now, its abilities were massively amplified, making it easy to shatter the subterranean layers and reach the surface!

Its gaze was fixed on the distant flames, calm and cold, unlike other mutated beasts.

This was a Beast King!

What Miao Yu feared had finally happened.

Miao Yu was right. The Beast King possessed great intelligence. It had no intention of relying on the non-perfect mutated beasts to breach the human defenses through sheer numbers.

The Beast King's true battlefield was not at the refugee camps!

This was its real trump card.

After the first war on the sea, the Beast Kings realized they could not fight against humanity’s steel cannons with flesh and blood. This time, they never intended to confront humans head-on.

They were sea creatures, born of the ocean.

Water was their mother, and their weapon…

While most of Nancheng's military strength was drawn to the non-perfect mutated beasts attacking the shelters, the flood here went largely unnoticed. The raging waters swept through buildings, heading towards the distant center of fire!

…

"It seems… we're about to win!"

At Shelter 01, a soldier spoke with excitement and agitation, touching the somewhat hot trigger, watching as the originally massive tide of beasts had been reduced to corpses, with only a few of the largest ones struggling in their death throes!

"Shelter 03's beast tide cleared!"

"Shelter 05's beast tide cleared! Battle damage assessment in progress…"

One after another, reports of victory came through the communication system. Miao Yu's tightly furrowed brow slowly relaxed. It seemed tonight’s attack was coming to an end.

The result didn't seem as terrible as he imagined.

Had he overestimated the Beast Kings?

"Boom!"

As the last giant beast was struck in the head by a shell, its body heavily collapsing and crushing several buildings, the area in front of Shelter 01 became a silent mountain of corpses and blood.

"We won?" a soldier stammered.

Everyone looked at the carcasses of the monsters and the devastated urban ruins before them. Though this battle had destroyed half the city, there had been no casualties!

This was a great victory!

"We won!" The soldiers raised their weapons and cheered loudly!

Miao Yu also smiled slightly.

"Static…"

"Eagle… 06… water…"

But just then, Miao Yu's communication system crackled, and a few words came through, garbled by static. Miao Yu frowned, tapped his headset, and asked in a low voice, "Who's speaking?"

The headset crackled again for a few seconds, then a panicked, urgent voice shrieked!

"Warhawk 6 observation aircraft reporting! Sinkholes appearing in sector 0119! Massive amounts of groundwater overflowing, water level three meters at the highest point! Now flooding towards the shelter location! Estimated arrival at Shelter 08 in three minutes! Please organize the evacuation of civilians and military police within the shelters to higher buildings immediately!"

Buzz!

Miao Yu's head felt like it had been struck by a sledgehammer. His mind went blank for a moment!

Then, a line connected all the actions of the mutated beasts tonight in his mind. He realized his fears were correct: the non-perfect mutated beasts were just cannon fodder!

The Beast King's real weapon was the flood!

Miao Yu's brow twitched violently. He knew the Beast King's intelligence was high, but he didn't expect it to be this high!

In just three days since mutating, the Beast Kings had already evolved beyond the stage of "using flesh and blood as weapons," and had begun to use terrain, external forces, and other means to attack their enemies.

They could no longer be treated as advanced beasts, but as actual humans!

Their intelligence was now definitely no lower than humans, and even higher than the average person. They lacked only a comprehensive understanding of the human world. If they ever achieved that, they would no longer be just a species, but a new civilization!

But now!

Miao Yu didn't have time to think about these things!

His face turned pale as he pressed several buttons on the communication system and roared, "All shelter personnel, immediately evacuate to higher buildings! Abandon tanks, armored vehicles, and other heavy firepower! Carry light weapons and evacuate immediately! The flood is coming! Hurry, hurry, hurry!"